Disruptive Business Education | Manoj Fernando

About Manoj Fernando

Interview Transcript:

Alan
Welcome back. I’m here today with Manoj Fernando, he is the founder and CEO of think to me as Silicon Valley education company. Manoj welcome to today’s show. Thank you. So I’m gonna give me some of the your background, how did you get to where you are today?

Manoj
You know, when I first came to the United States, this was a long time ago. And I basically came here and I My undergrad was initially in Computer Information Systems. Subsequently, I ended up doing a master’s in telecommunication. And I wanted to kind of be become this technic technology geek, for example, that was kind of my goal in terms of the technology a long time ago, which was emerging. But subsequently, as I kind of went along the path, I got the opportunity to go out, not on the programming side, but on the networking side, and basically start doing things around networks, which was just emerging, going back to the days of when Windows first came out. So Subsequently, I got the opportunity to go to Europe, to the UK. And for this company that I worked for, they gave me the chance to go out there and help build out a technical team, in your opinion in the UK for in the back. This was back in 94. So subsequently, when I went out there, the the opportunity to work with so many European companies and build out the various teams from training to System Engineering, from a sales perspective to support desk kind of gave me that opportunity to go well, there’s a lot more to being on the geeky side, as opposed to doing the various components in the industry itself. So that kind of led to this opportunity where eventually, I kind of got a little bit of an expertise in professional services and building out various components within a given software company that led to this opportunity where I got the chance to work in the UK for a couple of years. And also the opportunity to travel around Europe, working with various companies in terms of building out the technical support desk, their professional services teams, and a lot of practices around customer relationship management software. With that, as an independent consultant doing that in Europe, I subsequently got the chance to come back to the company that I used to work for and take over systems engineering role in Asia Pacific. So I had basically seen all of Europe, worked in several countries in Europe, and then wanted to go out and see okay, let’s see what Asia Pacific has to offer. And with that, I joined the company, the company was called Mosaic, I joined them back as the manager of system engineering and had the opportunity to travel around Asia, in Asia Pacific into in different countries. That kind of led to the idea around the role eventually evolved into taking over sales. So then I had the opportunity to kind of get a feel and the taste for sales in in the Asia Pacific market working very countries like Japan, Korea, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, subsequently the company was acquired by Lucent, which kind of then with the acquisition of loosened it is Do I go out and get another job? Or do I go out and do something else at that time, this whole idea of the.com was kind of starting to was brewing and with associated mining, we worked in the same company, I got this opportunity to basically go out and for the first time do a project in offshore development. So this is back in 1999. That was the first time this the the concept of offshore, offshore development was evolving. So we ended up getting a project ended up building a team out in India, my partner moved back to India. And we started working on various projects here in the US specially during the.com phase

Alan
So it was a 99 he then came into the US.

Manoj
I was in the US you were in the EU I was in the US and I just stayed here and he moved back to India. Okay, so we I used to get all the projects here and send it back to him. They used to do all the engineering and send it back to us. Okay, interestingly enough, at that time, there was only one internet connection between the India and the US. So it was a bit of a painful process to get things going back and forth.

Alan
So currently your CEO think to me, what is think to me?

Manoj
Think to me, the the actual meaning of Tommy actually means rich. That’s the Japanese word for Tommy that means rich. And what thing to me basically evolved around was that as I kind of went through the process of various startup companies over the years, the mistakes that I learned are the mistakes that I made over and over again with in various capacities, from putting a team together from fundraising to to selling to clients to for signing big deals too, moving along along this path, these are all the little, little little mistakes that you learned along the way and how you corrected them. So subsequently, the way thing to me came about was I got the opportunity to teach last year in an Executive MBA Program. And in that program, it kind of made me realize when I did that class, there is a lot more that the students can gain in terms of what kind of goes on in the valley.

Alan
I’m visiting here today with Manoj Fernando. He is the CEO and founder of think to me, it’s a company that’s focused on Silicon Valley education and helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their business Manoj, we need to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to get into the nuts and bolts of what think to me does. And I also want to talk to you about this, what is the think to me mafia, we’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back and visiting here today with Manoj Fernando, he is a CEO and founder a think to me it’s Silicon Valley education company, Manoj what inspired you to form think to me,

Manoj
You know, when I, when I went when I got the opportunity to teach last year in a in an Executive MBA Program. And what was interesting is, when I had to put the whole curriculum together to teach this class, I was a little hesitant as to what I could do with the class because he I was teaching a several students who have a background in management and various experiences with companies. But then when I decided to kind of say, Okay, I’m gonna take, basically a Silicon Valley approach to the idea and kind of bring out ideas from Silicon Valley, and kind of talk to the class about that. And the feedback from the class was incredibly positive. So that kind of made me lead to the idea is, is there an opportunity here for me to go out and spread some of the practices the magic and mystique of Silicon Valley. And that kind of led me to this idea is okay, let me go out and investigate this education market, because obviously, I had no, very much idea about what was going on in the market. And what was mind boggling to me was when I started investigating the market, and looked at the debt, the problems, you find President Obama right now on a bus all over the place, basically talking about the got problems, the system, we got to cut costs, we got to get better quality. And you kind of looked at all this issue, and I go, you know, there is an opportunity here, to go out and do something in the space that brings affordable education, not to a select few people, but basically everybody and the opportunity and the chance to explore or to export a Silicon Valley education around the United States, as well as the globe, and basically give you give people the magic and the opportunity to learn and the magic and the mystique of Silicon Valley, from a business and technology standpoint, to both improve their personal lives, their professional lives, and do some good for mankind.

Alan
You know, there’s a one of the authors on disruptive education is Clayton Christensen. Did you ever come across his thought process?

Manoj
You know, you know what, what was really fascinating is that when I was looking on this idea, and I kept going, you know, should I do this? Or should I not? I’ve been through five startups before, you know, I had an interesting experiences in all those five startups. And then I happen to meet who now is my co founder and chief educator. He sent me an article one late night about Clayton Christensen, on it was on disruptive education. I’m not kidding. But I read that article that Clayton Christensen wrote, and he talked about the problems in the education system, and that something needs to happen relative to education being disrupted, which is a very common term in the valley. And that is literally that article 1130 In the night is what put put me over the edge to go out and form the company and try and make a difference in the education space.

Alan
What is disruptive thinking?

Manoj
So what disruptive thinking what we’re, what we’re looking with that is we want to give you the opportunity to think literally in a different way. Right? And one of the things that actually went in a class that we covered yesterday was looking at, you don’t need to go out and revel take an idea and revolutionize the world and having to get people to think like you do or create a new product, there is an existing business process that you can look at and go, well I can improve on that particular process. And a good example of that is probably Steve Jobs and the the iPhone, it all started by taking the mp3 player and moving into an iPod and the rest is history. Right? So it’s looking at what’s out there. And being able to look at a business process you may have the experience and the background in that particular process, right? And you can look at it and go, How can I make this better? That little thing can basically lead to what we would call disruptive thinking.

Alan
I’m visiting here today with Manjo Fernando is the founder and CEO of think to me it’s a Silicon Valley education company, helping inspiring entrepreneurs to understand how to get to the next level. Manoj we need to take a quick break. When we come back. I’m going to get into this question on you explaining exactly what the think to me mafia is. We’ll be right back after these messages.

Alan
Welcome back. I’m visiting today with Manoj Fernando he is the CEO and founder of think to me, it’s a company that focused on Silicon Valley education for aspiring entrepreneurs and basically soup to nuts of how do you get your company launched, how to get it funded, the do’s and the don’ts. And you’re doing this all online on an educational platform? Manoj we talked about various things of disruptive thinking, we talked about what inspired you to create thing to me, but there’s one thing when I go to your website, I read this, think to me mafia. Wow. And they you got my attention? What exactly is that?

Manoj
You know, the one thing when we look at this concept of a mafia, right, obviously, it’s, it’s in a very good sense, right. But the idea behind that is, if you are a part of our program, if you come through our classes, if you’re a part of our program, you basically become a part of our community, and a part of our network. And the idea behind, quote, unquote, the mafia concept is, we want to make sure that we will help you in any way possible to make your dreams become a reality. And that is not only with us doing it, but making sure that the people in the room with you, who will support you, or might become a co founder might be that missing link that you’re looking for. The whole idea is to not let you say you taken the class and you walked away. Now, we want to keep you engaged literally throughout your entire process, to make sure that as a community, they all come together and help you from a from a bigger picture standpoint, even if you want to do as we expand globally, if you want to do something in in Asia, if you want to do something in Africa, it doesn’t matter where you want to go, we want to then again, give you that opportunity to work with the community. So the power of the networks, if you look at Stanford, Harvard and stuff, it’s basically in the alumni networks, right? So we want to build literally a similar type of community, that gives people that opportunity to become a part of this mafia, that help each other and go out and do good things in the world.

Alan
You know, it’s, I think that so eloquently explained, a lot of people that are in the business world, they, they start out, they got an idea, they’re often they’re running it, they fail to recognize the ability to engage people around them, it takes more than one to really create the company. And in order to go beyond that, it takes a high level of trust. So I think in essence, what it all boils down to is what to think to mafia think think to me mafia is representing is creating a high level of trust within your your network or loyalty in order to help your peers get to the next level.

Manoj
Yeah, just to add one point, you know, there’s a same I don’t know who said this, but they basically say, your net, your net work, is your net worth there. Yeah.

Alan
The business environment is constantly evolving. What challenges do entrepreneurs face today?

Manoj
You know, a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, everybody’s inspired with ideas, right? But when you when you have an idea and you want to move forward with it, right? Most people generally tend to think that, okay, I got an idea. I’m going to write a little bit of code, right. Take the product out, I’m going to get funded. magic happens. All right, I really I mean, in all my years of experience, that’s probably point 5%, or point zero 5%. When something like that happens, typically in entrepreneurship, it’s a journey, you may write that first program, you need to need to know what kind of entity form your team becomes absolutely critical. Your culture that you build within the team is absolutely critical. When you go out, and you take money from anybody, whether it’s an angel, whether it’s a venture capitalist, or anything like that, your life changes.

Alan
So what’s, what’s your opinion on this, I hear, I hear different opinions. But But shouldn’t should an entrepreneur immediately run out to get the money?

Manoj
Whenever I mean, that’s what all entrepreneurs want to do, when I mean, it’s like, okay, when you’re financing the day, you get that venture financing, you’re on top of the world, because you made it, you got the money, the one thing that you don’t realize is, you’re no longer in control of your idea and your destiny. Right. And that is something a lot of entrepreneurs learn the hard way. Right. So our goal in providing this education is to basically help you guide you along that process saying, Look, here, these are the things that you need to think about. If you take 10 million, you got to have a big exit, if you take 2 million, you can have a small exit, and it all boils down to percentages, you could own 1% of a $500 million company, or you could own 10% of a 15 million $50 million company. So these are the type of things and these are the lessons that I learned during my whole startups, the various startups that I have done. And the whole idea is we want to give that entrepreneur that opportunity to say, these are the steps that happened along the way. And there’s one other thing in the valley or in the startup world, one of the things that you figure out all the time is several companies never go the route of the original idea. They always call it that calling it the pivot. Right. So we actually even intend teaching a class on navigating the pivot.

Alan
The how do you how do you recommend an individual transition from an employee IE, to an entrepreneur,

Manoj
Typically an employee, right? If you take a look at his, one of the things from an entrepreneurship is, people have the fear, they may have the passion and the desire to go out and make a difference. But very often, they might get laid off. And they might go into, Okay, it’s time for me to do something different. But a lot of people have the fear of that regular paycheck coming in being stuck in a job behind the desk or doing something that’s kind of boring, but don’t have the guts to go out and do something, right. So to an extent, you know, you you, you can see there’s a lot of inspiring codes, there’s so many things, but it’s making that step, that first step to go out and take a chance. So even with the classes that we teach the first round of classes, which is the entrepreneurs playbook, that the people in the class are all thinking about ideas. And what we are basically doing is, here’s something to think about, here’s how you go ahead and do it. You can skip 40% of the mistakes that you might make. And it’s a way of pushing them forward to make their dreams a reality.

Alan
So what do you suggest, from a perspective of the entrepreneur person do to pursue their passions?

Manoj
The in terms of pursuing, you know, a lot of people whether it’s a social cause, whether it’s to make the next 100 million dollars, whatever the idea that you may have, right, taking that first step is the hardest thing that you would ever do.

Alan
Manoj we’re running short on time here and you have a lot of good content, right? It’s Silicon Valley, half the venture capital in the world. The venture money in the world is right here. A lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, I want to hold you on for another segment. Are you open to that? Absolutely. Okay, we’ll be right back after these messages I’m visiting today with Manjo Fernando, the founder and CEO of think to me

Alan
Welcome back, I’m with Manoj Fernando. He is the founder and CEO of think to me, it’s a Silicon Valley education company that is in existence to help the aspiring entrepreneur. You know Manoj it says 65% of the jobs five years from now on Technology is not even invented today. And also, the fact that 50% of the venture money in the world is right here in Silicon Valley gives a lot of justification for your existence. We’re in the hotbed of innovation right here. So when you’re, when you’re out there doing think, to me, you’re basically, and as your website outlines, your, your teaching classes on how the entrepreneur gets to the next level, but with the World Wide Web today, your students can be anywhere. So What experiences have you had in terms of, you know, looking out there and into forecasts in the vision of your company? Who are you trying to reach?

Manoj
You know, so our goal from a company standard from a company standpoint, personally, I have a passion for education, I even teach K through 12 map, it’s just more on a volunteer basis, I help kids, right, there’s just a passion for education. So one of the things that you kind of take a look at is if you take a look at the US alone, right? If you’re 18 years old, or whether you’re 70 years old, you’re in that spectrum of you’re coming out of coming out of high school, or whether you have years of experience in a particular job, right? The idea is, can we give the education out to this entire group of people or reach out to them? Right, and to give them the opportunity to go out and learn and potentially make one of their dreams a reality, right? Typically, what you see today, in the in the US, or here is the entrepreneurship is kind of with a select group of people, it’s the young kids that really want to go out and do it. But there are the experience people too, or there may be aspiring entrepreneurs from high school. And there are various models, for example, Peter Thiel has come out in his thinking saying, quit college, come to my program, and you know, go out and build something different, right? So the whole idea behind this is we want to give anybody or literally everybody the opportunity to learn. The second part to this is, why not take the education, the magic and the mystique of the valley here and exported, why not take this education to Asia, to be working with various countries? Why not take it to Africa, Africa has a has a huge success in an application called M PESA. Right, that is inspired the company to go out and create entrepreneurs, yes, the money’s in the valley. But at the same time, you’re starting to see incubators and accelerators pop up in various companies, where funds from the valley are being pushed out to these various organizations. And at the same time, even in Africa, in Kenya, specifically, where m PESA came out from, you’re starting to see the local people with money, the ones who can basically manage tourism and stuff like that, to basically go out and say, there is an opportunity, there is something that we can do to make our country better. And we can aspire these entrepreneurs to come out with new ideas and new technologies. So you are starting to see people who ordinarily wouldn’t even think of funding these opportunities, are starting to put money and cannot take that venture capital concept of the idea from the valley and start pushing it out to their communities to kind of bring about the next generation of ideas and business processes that would help change and revolutionize their countries and their world as well from that.

Alan
When when a person’s looking in the ink to me think to me, how do they how do they get in contact with the organization?

Manoj
I mean, there are so many ways to get a hold of us, you know, we’re just literally in some ways, a startup as well. Right? So there is they can contact us through the website, we have the Twitter feeds, we have the Facebook pages, you know, any of the typical social media ways you can reach reach out to us. But at the same time, we also establishing lots of partnerships with various organizations. And that is something being able to reach out to those communities typically that I would say literally underserved in terms of entrepreneurship and the opportunity to do it. So we are working with various organizations to go out and do something like that.

Alan
We’re not just thank you for joining today’s show. And it’s a lot of good thoughts and think to me best selecting your business.

Manoj
Thank you very much.

Alan
Join us again next week on am 12 20k Do W right here on American Dreams.

 

 

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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

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