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What Challenges Do Entrepreneurs Face?
Komal Choong • 2023-07-05
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to Simple Questions Podcast. This is your host, Dylan Carnahan. The question for this episode is, what challenges do entrepreneurs face? You'll learn in this episode, the process of raising capital, adapting to challenges, and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Our guest is an entrepreneur, former SpaceX engineer and the founder of Zohr, which is a mobile tire shop. I introduce to you Komal Choong. You know, after speaking with someone, this is a habit of mine where I'll go through, and especially if it's a very notable conversation, I'll go through and I'll write notes afterwards, just to kind of retain that information. So this is gonna be very scary. It's not like we have a courtroom stenographer over here or anything. But I will say Komal, on 3-5-2021, you and I talked, and I had written some notes about our discussion. And I think this is a good place to begin this podcast. And here's a quote from my notes. This is heavily paraphrased, I would assume. Seeing people that are autonomous makes you want to become like them. Komal's parents worked for themselves, therefore Komal didn't want to work for someone else. And quote from my notes here. So I think that's kind of a good pull through. So I just want to ask, can you tell us a little bit more about your background?
Komal Choong:Yeah, yeah, for sure. So that quote, yeah, that's like pretty much like my entire childhood. And, you know, going into adulthood, like summarize basically, because all we ever saw was our dad working at our restaurant. We would go and help him as we grew up. That's like basically all we knew, right? And one thing that my dad always used to repeat to me, to us was that, you know, son, like if you want to get wealthy one day, you're going to have to own things. You're not going to be able to work for someone and get wealthy. And, you know, to be honest, I never even really had this desire or urge to really get wealthy. But I knew deep down that there was something more to it than just attaining wealth. Well, I think this lifestyle of freedom and, you know, just kind of owning what you build and then bringing value to people's lives, whether it's your employees, whether it's your customers, and just doing that really, really well, I think that in itself is a way to live a very fulfilling and righteous life. So from a very, very early age, I kind of knew that that's where I wanted to go. And there was a time in my college career where I kind of decided that, you know, I would go and get a job after finishing university, but my ultimate objective was to build a business of my own. And that was, I think, after my first internship. But yeah, that's kind of where things began.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, and I know I had read it. I always do a little bit of research, right? You got to just do a little bit, right? And I read an interesting article put out in December about you and your family and kind of how your father had opened up his restaurant. I'll say it's like a really, really good read, and I'll make sure to include that in the show notes. Yeah, so you have this in mind. You kind of have your roadmap kind of imprinted on you fairly early on, right? I'm going to own something. I'm going to create something. You know, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go work for someone, but I'm going to, you know, with the ideal of creating something in mind. So how, you know, you have kind of a buzzword on the resume, which is that you worked at SpaceX. So can you kind of explain what you learned from working at that internship and at companies prior to kind of going on your own?
Komal Choong:Yeah, SpaceX was a really interesting experience. It actually, the relationship with SpaceX began during my college days. They would recruit very heavily from the Formula SAE design team group. So if you are very active in that organization, it's basically a collegiate competition where we design and build race cars and compete with them across the country and even internationally. But anyway, SpaceX used to recruit exclusively from this organization because those students had learned skills that were very valuable to SpaceX. But I decided to apply to SpaceX probably a few weeks after, maybe, yeah, a few weeks after graduating. And I graduated in December of 2013, so I was very, very behind in the whole trying to find a job race because it just wasn't a priority for me, right? I was trying to take it easy and figure out, like, what do I do? But one day I just decided, hey, like, you know, we've received interest from SpaceX in the past, like, why don't I just apply for a position? And I heard back within a week and then I had a job offer to begin work probably a month later. So it was all very, very quick, you know, moved out to Los Angeles, got started and kind of hit the ground running. And my team there was also all Formula SAE alums from, you know, all the major universities in the US. And yeah, it was a very, very different environment from what I was imagining or what I had been used to through a past internship. Very, very fast-paced, very chaotic, very large organization. It wasn't small by any means at that time. You know, there was over 4,000 employees. With pretty much everyone being in engineering or manufacturing. But yeah, it was a lot of work. Very, very taxing. And I think that's a common complaint of past employees of SpaceX, is that you just get burnt out at some point. But I think from just the overall experience point of view, there's really nothing quite like SpaceX from a professional work environment, just because there's nothing else. There's no other organization really working to solve the problems that SpaceX is solving. You walk through the office, and there's a wall mural of Mars being half terraformed. And it's like, whoa, some of the folks at SpaceX actually think that they're going to be able to do that. So the dreams are so big, the vision is so big, it's so much bigger than yourself that you just feel so compelled to spend your time there. And you spend ridiculous amounts of time. It's not like an eight to five. No, you're working 12-hour shifts five to six days a week.
Dylan Carnahan:That's a lot. That is an interesting environment. The goal, and then you have that culture surrounding that of we need to get there, right? We're grinding to get there.
Komal Choong:And imagine just like everyone is single-minded, everyone has the same mindset, right? So even if you were super lazy and laid back, you would not be that way, or you would not last very long at SpaceX.
Dylan Carnahan:Interesting. Now, how did that portion of your story conclude?
Komal Choong:So, you know, I was there for a short stint. While I was there, one of my roommates, I believe he had a friend who had started a startup and then received investment from Tim Draper. He's a billionaire, a venture capitalist out of the Bay Area. And this startup founder also went through Tim Draper's like a university, like an entrepreneurship university. It's not like an official university. It was more of like a couple month long program that you attend. But anyways, I learned about this through my roommate, and I was so intrigued by it. And I connected with his friend, and I was like, wow, this seems like a really interesting next step from what I'm doing right now. I just didn't see myself at SpaceX long term because it didn't align with my long term vision. I just thought, why should I spend my time and energy building for somebody else's dream when I could be spending this time of my life building my own and learning from those? And I was only 22, 23 at that time, so very, very early on in my career. So basically I decided, and I think SpaceX also, my team and my manager agreed that, hey, maybe you shouldn't continue on with this internship onto a full time role. So it was kind of mutually decided that I basically left after a few months, moved up to the Bay Area, started this entrepreneurship program during the summer of 2014, and then that's where my entrepreneurship journey really began. And I started to get exposure to all sorts of things related to entrepreneurship.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that's... I mean, you go back to that vision, right? It's really easy to lose that, right? It's really easy to lose that... I don't want to get too gooey here, but almost like that internal agreement you've made with yourself, right? You're like, hey, I'm going to go work somewhere, but I'm going to build my own thing, right? And then you get kind of all that external stimuli, and you go, oh, wait. I think at one point I was going to start something on my own, you know? You forget about that. It like atrophies.
Komal Choong:The world doesn't want you to start things. In fact, everything is designed in a way to kind of pull you and distract you away from your dreams. So it's very, very important that you start building just a really strong relationship with yourself and growing yourself. I think I had decided very early on that, you know, I'm going to invest all my time and money into myself during my 20s. And that was just something that I was willing to do at that time. But, you know, now I'm 32, and I think it's kind of shown its effect on me over the years. But, you know, the thing is, society doesn't necessarily design entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs really have to fight for what they want. And I think my family, that's helped me tremendously without their backing and their support and just their example. I probably wouldn't be doing the things I'm doing today.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, well said. I mean, a support system goes a long, long way, right? And especially kind of a map, if you will, right? You were already imprinted with that, you know, desire for autonomy. You know, after you go through this training, if you will, you know, you obviously went ahead and did something on your own. So can you explain, you know, what inspired you to start that business and what challenges did you face getting that off the ground?
Komal Choong:Yeah, good question. So the business that we've built to date called Zohr was started after a couple of failed attempts at starting a new business. And that began like right after this Draper University program. That was just an environment to kind of launch and test ideas and figure out what type of problem is worth working on. And it took me probably a good part of a year to really find an idea that had stuck in my mind that I really felt strongly about, that I felt like there needed to be a solution for. And it also helped to have proof of concepts already on the market in other geographies. Which is what fueled the confidence to be able to start something like Zohr. But anyways, my brother and I, he was in, I think, like just starting college at that time. But a few years prior to all of this, we had been buying and selling car parts, buying and selling cars. A lot of times we'd find ourselves at all sorts of repair shops, dealerships, trying to get these cars that we were buying and trying to get them ready to resell, getting those cars fixed, getting a tire replaced, getting a wheel replaced, whatever it might be to get this vehicle reconditioned. We tried all different types of businesses, and we always felt like there was something missing from that experience. We always felt that this was a very, very subpar experience that needed to be elevated. And every subpar experience kind of forced us to ask the same question, which is, you know, like, why can't these services come directly to me? Like, if groceries can be delivered, if I can order a cab with a push of a button, then why can't I do the same for tires or any other automotive service? So that was like the basic question that we asked ourselves. And when we couldn't find an answer to that, and then we also started to do our research in the market and find other people who had sort of answered this question in their own way, we decided, hey, like, it's still early on. This is a market that we're passionate about. This is a problem that we're passionate about solving. You know, why don't we do something about it? And my brother and I agreed. We built our first service truck and we started operating, I think, October of 2015. And then, you know, since then, you know, we've been kind of off to the races. But, you know, we've faced pretty much every challenge you could probably imagine starting a new business. And because this was our first attempt at not just launching a business, but operating it, and we knew nothing about doing any of that, everything, every little event was a learning lesson. Every little small mistake was an opportunity to learn something that we didn't know. And, you know, pile on top of that, we're building a completely new type of business that doesn't even exist in our area. You can imagine the sort of uncertainty that that creates and what you have to kind of do to create solutions.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, and I'm like, that's one of the things that I've experienced too, is like, when you introduce a new concept, it's very hard for people to grasp, like there has to be a tangible way for them to feel it out, right? You're like, conceptually, yeah, we order an Uber, and it comes to us and all that. And then when you describe it using words, inevitably it falls on deaf ears, for lack of a better term, a lot of times.
Komal Choong:Yeah, communication is critical in any business, both internally and externally, out into the world, so that they understand what you do. Thankfully, we were a very, very tangible business. We have actual people who work for us. We have these service trucks that perform certain types of services to fix your vehicle. We had that going for ourselves, but it was still not easy because we don't have a physical store, right? People still have to find us. They have to hear about us. Imagine you're an early adopter of our service, and you get your tires replaced in your driveway. Now you want to go and tell 10 of your friends. It has to be something like the messaging has to be super clear and easy for them to be able to communicate and share this with their friends and family. But I think early on we learned from our mentors, from different friends and family members who have other businesses that having very clear and concise messaging is essential to launching a new business. The more simple you can make it, the better.
Dylan Carnahan:Absolutely. I always think of it as a fictitious scenario. You're trying to describe to your significant other what to get from Wal-Mart. You're trying to describe it. You're like, well, it's a thing that... If you have this long Discord, 253 words to get across what you're trying to say, that's a tough conversation, and that means that conversation is probably not going to happen, right?
Komal Choong:Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:So I'm curious, you know, you mentioned a couple of challenges there, but, you know, I want to hear about some additional challenges that you face, such as maybe the pandemic or, you know, an economic downturn.
Komal Choong:Yeah, so the interesting thing is the tire industry is relatively resistant to economic downturns. The pandemic was something that was very, very shocking because it affected consumer behavior around driving. When the number of miles driven drop, like they did in like March or April of 2020, you see huge effects to how people buy tires. Now, eventually things will normalize. That was what we were thinking, right? Was that eventually people have to like return back to normal. Like this can't continue to go on forever. But we just didn't know how long that would take. The uncertainty there was really, really troubling. And yeah, it took us a long time. Like we were just very, very confused and didn't know what to do at that time. And I think everyone sort of felt that way. It wasn't just us. But that was a very, very uncertain time that we had to kind of get through and build our strategy around. So like the big thing that we did, and I think a lot of other businesses in our space did at that time was shift their focus from consumers to businesses. Because what was happening was, you know, the only vehicles on the road were commercial business vehicles, fleets. So, but that was a short-lived, I mean, that's still a big part of our business today. But consumers have come back like we had expected them to. But, you know, just getting through that, like, I would say 12 to 18 month period after those shutdowns, that was a very, very challenging time for the business. I think other times when we were trying to grow our service business and then also build out engineering solutions to run this business, that created a lot of challenges financially, which is why we needed to go out and raise money from, you know, a variety of different types of investors. I think that's kind of the name of the game. Like, we basically were building, like, you know, multiple businesses all at once, if you could imagine that. Not only are we delivering services for all these different types of customers, but we're also building out these bespoke solutions to operate our business at the quality levels that we wanted to run it at. We couldn't see ourselves doing this business injustice and operating using inadequate tools and software.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, so there's, you're having to develop that, right? That's even more cumbersome.
Komal Choong:Yeah, so like, and to do that with very, very limited resources can be very, very challenging. But I think it really forced us to kind of think outside the box and come up with solutions that we had never even thought would be possible for our business. You know, like think about like having a, and I think the pandemic really helped with this was like the whole work from home culture. Like all of a sudden, like you didn't have to have people in the office. Your workforce could be global, right? Like, you know, we had engineers and designers all across the world. We started to hire a customer support team that was offshores. You know, like all the typical rules of how you do business kind of went out the door with the pandemic, and it created a lot of opportunity for us to sort of generate these ideas for running our business more efficiently, in a more innovative way. And yeah, those are still working for us even to this day.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, it's interesting, right, that how constraints can enable growth, right? And you have also this very turbulent, you know, catastrophic event. You have a global pandemic, and that kind of this through this turbulence kind of throws some things up in the air, right? And it kind of changes behavior, you know, whether that be your consumers, which you're kind of hurting a little bit, you have to do some pivoting to kind of look at businesses, or just the simple fact, hey, we can hop on a Zoom call, right? We don't need to have that office or whatever the case may be. So there's a lot of things that that changed.
Komal Choong:Absolutely. I mean, I think consumer behavior has sort of gone back to normal when it comes to tires. So while people were forced to buy things online during the pandemic, now it's no longer a constraint that people face. But yeah, I do completely agree. Tough times create opportunities to grow and learn and to innovate. Without constraints, I don't think that a lot of these innovative things or products or services that we use today would exist without constraints. It wouldn't allow you to focus on the problem, right? And when you really, really focus deeply on something, that's when you actually come up with novel solutions, which is what we've done so far. And, you know, taking the business forward, we're basically enabling other businesses to do what we've done. So running the service business of Zohr has only been approving grounds for the solutions that we've developed and the engineering and the thought that's gone into the back end of the business that sort of powers it. So that's where we see that there is a potential for us to kind of see our vision completely through, which is, you know, how do we change the tire replacement experience for millions of Americans? We originally thought that we could do this all ourselves using our own service vans, our own employees, but we see a greater opportunity enabling others to do that, to offer a more innovative service to their customers, to stand up new businesses around mobile service.
Dylan Carnahan:Can you elaborate a little on maybe the decision and honestly emotional roller coaster, that process of pivoting as well as getting new insights and trying to figure out how to apply those? Because I feel like people are resistant to change, even the best of us that embrace it, we want to keep what we have, right? We don't want to lose it, right? So all these pivots are like, hey, we think we could fulfill our vision in a little bit of a different way. Can you elaborate on that thought process and how that feels internally?
Komal Choong:Yeah, well, startups are just a massive roller coaster in terms of emotions. At least for an early stage or first time founder, it's just crazy, right? But after accumulating a lot of experience, I think we've learned that change is the only constant in a startup's life cycle. If you're resistant to change, you might as well fail now and give up because things are going to change. The world is going to force you to change. And if you don't change with it, then you're going to potentially die. That's just the reality of how things work. But I think what experience has taught us even more is related to the idea of emotion and emotional connection to your business, you have to learn to disconnect emotionally from it, which is so tough. It's like, you know, this business is your baby. Like, it's all you know, it's all you've created. You own it from every aspect of your life, right? Your time, your emotions, like your sweat, blood and tears go into this thing that you've created. But to be able to emotionally detach from it, you begin to think about things a lot more objectively. You begin to hear advice and listen to advice from your board members, from your advisors, whomever it might be, with a different set of ears, right? You begin to process it differently. So we've been very fortunate. We assembled a small group of advisors for the business. We have a very well-educated and experienced board of folks who have experience in the automotive industry, who also have invested their times into other automotive startups. So they kind of share those experiences with us as well, to expedite learnings, you could say. But I don't think any decision that you make in a startup is an easy one. Even when you do emotionally disconnect, it's still not easy to lay off your team, for example. It's not easy to shut down what you think, at one time thought was your entire business, and to focus on something completely different. Like none of those are very easy decisions to make, but you still have to make them, because you have to sort of look beyond the horizon at the vision that you're building towards. And if you can feel strongly enough about that vision, then everything that comes in between that vision that's past the horizon and where you're at today, is sort of like you shouldn't let that get in the way. You should just continue to keep your focus on that vision and work towards it and build towards it.
Dylan Carnahan:Well said. I think there's a psychological effect that the longer you spend time on something, the more you see yourself in it. And boy, oh boy, that certainly gets in the way of objectivity, right? Especially if you also have the added pressure of maybe the stakes of those decisions you're making and the pace that are occurring because of the change in the internal and external environment. It's very difficult. One of the things that you kind of mentioned in there was some of the counsel that you have on some of these matters. And man, you know, how do you find people that you can trust? Or how do you even gauge that in some manner? And then you're going to have your guard up, especially even higher, because you have so much ownership and stake and time and something. So can you talk a little bit about that process?
Komal Choong:Yeah, I think it begins with a certain type of mindset that you must embody. And I think it's this value of humility. If you can embody that value, then you can learn a ton of valuable knowledge and wisdom from others. And I think that's one thing that my brother and I, we both sort of, kind of, I mean, I guess we just kind of embodied it from our family values, but it really showed its effect as we started to have conversations with early, early investors. And we never really went to them by asking for money initially. It was more so like, hey, like, let's just meet up and talk over coffee, you know, and, you know, let's share what we're building, like why we're building it, and just kind of keep an ongoing dialogue. That ongoing dialogue in that relationship that you begin to build and those tips that you begin to learn from those investors is what enables you to one day be able to raise money from them. And that's what we did early, early on. We developed relationships, and when we were ready to raise that money was readily available for us. And then from there, one good relationship led to an introduction to another relationship, to another relationship. And then one thing, you know, it just keeps on going as far as you want it to go. So that's how we basically ended up in Techstars, which is a global accelerator program. We were introduced to the managing director of our program. And from there, through that program, that was sort of an accelerator to not just take the business to the next step, but like to accelerate our networking. For us to meet so many more investors, to meet so many more advisors, potential customers, partners, you know, you name it. And, you know, I think you must not resist these opportunities to connect with folks, because you never know where a conversation might lead or who a person might know, right? So we really began to place emphasis on relationships, on building these connections, on learning from people as much as we can. And then I think one thing that we learned very, very early on in Techstars, it's kind of a motto within Techstars, is to give first. You know, if you want to connect with anyone, like even cold call somebody or cold email someone, like think about what you're giving to that person.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
Komal Choong:You know, what are you offering that person? If you can offer them something or, you know, some sort of value, they're going to be a lot more open to connecting with you and offering you their advice. And sometimes, you know, it's just, you know, you can give them a couple hundred bucks for an hour of their time or something, you know? Like sometimes it is transactional, but a lot of times it doesn't need to be. And it isn't because the startup world is, you'd be surprised how much people want to help each other because they have received help from somebody else. So there is this idea in this community that you kind of pass it on. You help those who need help whenever you can because somebody's helped you that same way along your journey.
Dylan Carnahan:Well said. That couldn't be more true. I know my personal experiences based upon how you and I met. I remember this is a testimonial, if you will, startling newspaper, I'm looking at the blog post they put every year of top 10 startups in Kansas City. And I just cold called the two to three companies that were still around from each year. I went back five years, and that's how Komal and I first met was through an interaction like that. And I think I reached out to, I think, I don't know what the stat is. I reached out to like 15 people. I think I got like seven responses, and I met with like five people just by doing that, which is crazy. And I think I got at least two job offers alone off of just doing that, which is crazy. Like to think about. And I think that, as you said, as someone who's cold calling people for the podcast, oh my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, figure out how to write an email, please, or do a text message. You can listen to the episode we did with former hostage negotiator in Black Swan, group negotiator Sandy Hine, but there's a big thing I always say about you versus I, right? So when you're like, messages someone like, I would really like to meet you. I think it's really cool. You know, you have to have a value proposition. You know, start out with them, read it from their perspective. This little tip from how to win friends and influence people, you know. Hey, Komal, you have a really interesting story, your work at Zohr, you know. Make it about them. That's who you're talking to. Know your target audience. It's pretty easy when you're sending an email, right? It's to Komal, it's to Dylan, whoever you're sending it to. Show that value. It's highly effective. It's worked in my whole brief tenure on this planet, and you're hearing it again from Komal. Couldn't have, I'm really glad you brought that up. Something we haven't talked about. It's been alluded to a couple times, and this kind of podcast about entrepreneurship and business. So I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact, can you explain, what's the process for getting investment for a startup company, as general as possible?
Komal Choong:Great question. I wish it was as simple of an answer as the question is. Because fundraising is most often not a very straightforward process. It's very, very challenging. It's the worst thing that a founder has to do, because not only, I mean, not only is the process brutal, but it's also just, like you're selling a piece of your company, right? Like as an entrepreneur, like you shouldn't want to sell a piece of your company, you know, like that's at least my perspective. If you can run your company profitably, you should do that and you should grow it that way. Raising money is always something that should be looked at as an option, but it should never be people's focus. And I feel like, you know, over the last five to 10 years, there's been so much money available to founders that they really ignore, you know, basic business practices and go and raise money initially without considering the alternative, which I've known a lot of other founders who have raised very little money and then, you know, they find a way to make their business profitable and then they continue to grow it profitably. But, you know, I think in terms of raising money, like let's say you've decided that you want to raise money. I think you need to, obviously you need to know your business inside and out, but you need to be able to explain it in layman's terms, like very, very simple. Like, let's just imagine like you're developing some highly, highly technical, like, you know, like, you know, very simple, artificial intelligence company, I don't know, whatever it might be. Like, how do you explain that in one line to someone who knows nothing about your industry? I think that is absolutely critical, and being able to focus on the big picture. Like, where do you see this business going? If you can explain the big picture to someone, you're more than likely to get a... And you have, like, supporting traction around your business, like, you're growing, you're profitable, whatever it might be, whatever the metric is that you track, then, you know, you're more than likely to get a meeting with an investor. But I think even more important than that is building those relationships. You have to get your foot in the door somehow, right? And the best way to get in front of an investor is to start building a network. This network might include founders like myself. It could include other friends, family. Like, it could be through a lot of different ways, but you described a very, very easy way to do it, which is just cold call different people and see who you can connect with. And maybe you've maintained a relationship with those five people that you met with, even to this date. And those people could probably introduce you to five investors each. Now, that is an entire pipeline there, just from a basic outreach that you did years ago. Right? So I think it all comes down to the narrative that you tell about your business and do it in a clear and concise manner. And then it's all about the network that you build probably before you have to raise. That's the best way to do it.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, it's probably going to be a little bit difficult to get funds from someone. Again, if you're self-absorbed, you go, Komal, I want money from you.
Komal Choong:Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:And it's probably not the most effective way to go about it. And I'll also say-
Komal Choong:It doesn't usually work that way.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. A friend of the show, comedian David Naster, he always says when telling jokes, God, he's going to be mad at me. Simplest to understand terms, something that affects. Simplest to understand. Easiest to understand, excuse me. That's how you tell a joke. Again, you've highlighted a couple of things, networking and communication, right? Really big, really big. Whether you're communicating about your product or service, whether you're communicating to a perspective person that you'd like to get to know better, all of that revolves around how you communicate and in a certain extent market your product, service and yourself.
Komal Choong:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you nailed it. That's pretty much it. And then, you know, fundraising is a process that consumes a lot of time, a lot of energy. There's a lot of ups and downs. So just be ready to face those battles because it's not going to be easy. For some founders, it can be easy if you have all your ducks in a row, but I would say chances are you probably don't because startups don't work that way. But yeah, especially like as a first-time founder or someone who is raising money for the first time.
Dylan Carnahan:I want to get back to you and your journey, kind of move away from some of the concepts that you've kind of had to work through and get exposed to. What do you enjoy most about being an entrepreneur and what keeps you motivated and inspired?
Komal Choong:That's a really good question. I think it's the ability to solve problems and to build solutions. I think that's the most rewarding thing for me, at least. I've always been a very product focused individual. More recently, I've kind of like summed up my purpose in life. And this can be all encompassing, including business. But it's that I want to build solutions that enhance the human experience. That's the simplest way that I could explain why I do what I do. Not what I do, but why I do what I do. And it's related to Zohr. We wanted to improve people's lives by having one less unpleasant experience at a tire store. Let's just say that. With our restaurant, it's maybe that people can go to this restaurant and enjoy an incredible meal, which if you read any of our family's restaurant reviews, you'll just see people raving about it. So I can see that being part of it as well. My future goals are to potentially build something that helps society from a nonprofit point of view. So when it comes to that, that falls directly in line with enhancing the human experience, making life more enjoyable for others, maybe allowing other people to discover what their life's purpose is as well, because a lot of people are in the dark, unfortunately, in this day and age, with social media and all this other information just clouding their minds that they can't even see through for themselves, like see the path that they need to go down. So I think for me, that's really that one-liner that I shared earlier, that's really what drives me to continue on the path that we're on, whether it's building this business or another business. I just simply won't waste my time on anything or anyone that doesn't allow me to achieve that goal that I mentioned. So I think anyone needs to have some sort of a one-liner that they can follow as their guiding light, kind of like their North Star. And if they have that, just like the vision that you're building towards with your business, you need something to guide you in life, too. Let's just say your business doesn't exist tomorrow or something else happens. You have to be able to still continue walking forward. And the earlier you find that, the better off I think you would be.
Dylan Carnahan:Absolutely.
Komal Choong:You do.
Dylan Carnahan:You need that North Star. You need that purpose. You need that rationale, because you're going to get beat up a little bit, right?
Komal Choong:Oh, the world will totally beat you up.
Dylan Carnahan:Yes. And if you're doing it for those vanity metrics, oh boy, when you're not getting them, you're going to be down bad. You're going to be real down bad. You're not getting those views. You're not getting that money. Whatever that vanity metric is, that doesn't reaffirm. Whatever. You're going to have to have some internal levers, right? And as you're saying, again, kind of communicate with yourself. Get yourself in line and then figure out what aligns with that, and you'll have a far easier time going forward.
Komal Choong:I think I've heard this from countless individuals, and I think it's even true within my own experience. But the most critical thing that you need to do as a founder to scale a business is to first work on yourself and scale yourself. Without that, you're not going to make progress at the same rates that you think you can. Yeah, it's absolutely essential part of the journey. So read more books, connect with more like-minded people, have great conversations with them. That's what I think this entrepreneurial journey is all about. That's the only way you can actually create meaningful change in this world.
Dylan Carnahan:I think that was a really good one. I'm going to throw this at you, though. I thought that was some good stuff there, but I'm going to throw this at you anyway, Komal. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs who are just starting out? Anything different? I feel like that was pretty good.
Komal Choong:Yeah, I feel like I've covered most things. There's not anything that comes to mind. This is something I feel a lot of entrepreneurs don't embody this value, and it's very, very simple. It's taught to us as little children, but it's the value of patience. This journey is not going to be easy. If anyone thinks it's going to be easy, you're widely mistaken. So yeah, embodying patience and really understanding where you come from, I think that's the name of the game. If you're not patient with the results and you don't put in enough effort, you're going to probably not see your vision through. It takes time to build businesses and to see results. And sometimes it's just not your time. So you have to decide whether it's a problem worth working on. And if it is a problem that's worth working on, then you need to wait. You need to be patient. I recently read this quote, and it says, you know, within yourself, make patience the bow. It's using this metaphor of a bow and arrow. So it's saying, hey, within yourself, make patience the bow, make patience the bow string, and make patience the arrow, and you will never miss the target. So, you know, it really, like, if you really embody that value truly, then you'll never miss. You just have to be patient. And I think a lot of things in this world have become so, like, instant gratification, like, oh, my gosh, my friend just made a million bucks in this deal or whatever, like, or they just bought this car or they bought this house or this happened, that happened. Like, you need to, like, disconnect from that and to really connect with yourself and to build this resilience, this patience within yourself. Because building a business is all just patience and persistence. That's all it is.
Dylan Carnahan:I got one last question for you, Komal, just a little sneak peek, maybe anything you're willing to share on this. But what are some of the biggest challenges you're currently facing at Zohr and how are you tackling them?
Komal Choong:When you're running such a highly complex ground operation, managing it without the adequate head count can be very, very tough. So things get overlooked, things fall through the cracks. And clean up takes a lot longer than creating the mess does, right? You can create a mess tomorrow, but it can take you a year to clean it up. So I think that's been probably one of the biggest struggles that we've faced in the last year after the pandemic. You know, it's been a process, but just having very, very disciplined approach, setting, like breaking your schedule up so that you're spending time tackling the problems and blocking and tackling, blocking and tackling constantly. Like that's how you make progress. So it's just been a constant battle basically to get things moving. But again, back to that patience and persistence, if you just continue doing this, you're eventually going to reach your goal or your end desired state. So yeah, that's kind of what we've been working on with the current business. Obviously, you know, our strategy has shifted more towards solutions. So that creates its own set of challenges, which again, we're taking the same approach. You know, just taking it one day at a time, one problem at a time, putting all of our focus towards it and then waiting for the solutions to kind of take into effect.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. Komal, how can people find out more about you and the work you're doing at Zohr?
Komal Choong:So I generally stay pretty quiet, but you can find me on LinkedIn. You can also find me by email. It's just my first name at zohr.com. Yeah, you know, if there's any founders that need someone to talk to, need advice, need any help whatsoever, I'm very accessible, even though I may kind of stay away from the limelight. But yeah, you can also find me on LinkedIn. I generally prefer LinkedIn or email for anyone reaching out and connecting.
Dylan Carnahan:Awesome. Komal, thank you for sharing your knowledge and time today. In every interaction that we've had, you've always been very down-to-earth and super empathetic. So I really appreciate your kind of candid manner that you approach life. And just for transparency, being able to have a founder interact with me when I was 22, trying to figure out what the heck to do, that greatly helped my confidence. And not only that, but some of the things that you helped me with at that time were incredibly important. So I just want to thank you for that.
Komal Choong:Not a problem. I'm happy to be a resource for you and for anyone else. I think again, like I said earlier, I hope that whoever I help passes it on to help somebody else. So that would make me, like myself, feel like I've kind of accomplished what I'm trying to accomplish by helping someone.
Dylan Carnahan:That wraps up our conversation with Komal. We talked about patience, the importance of networking, and finding advisors that you can trust. Go to this episode's show notes to see any resources Komal mentioned during our episode. And lastly, subscribe to the Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening, and remember to keep asking questions.