Gurasis: 0:19

So on this podcast, we have celebrated the inspiring stories of many first generation of immigrants who are making remarkable strides in their fields, blending cultural heritage with fresh perspectives that enrich Canada's diverse landscape. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce someone who is recognized as Canada's top youth entrepreneur of the year 2023 by Leaders of Innovators. He's the co-founder of Avview, a multimedia translation, dubbing and content distribution company, helping creators expand and monetize international audiences. He has even worked closely with famous YouTuber Logan Paul. His journey is fueled by an unwavering self-belief and determination. Drawing inspiration from the mindset of top athletes, he knows that mental strength often outweighs technical skills. His perseverance and trust in his decisions have been key to his success. Please welcome Akshay Maharaj.

Akshay: 1:15

Thank you so much. Really excited to be here today and hopefully get in some really interesting topics and talk about the journey and where we are today and a little bit more about who I am behind the scenes of a view.

Gurasis: 1:27

Absolutely very, very excited to have you on the show, akshay. I'm looking forward to this conversation because just seeing that, how old you are and the work that I've been doing, I was pretty inspired and I feel like many of the listeners will be extremely inspired. But just by the, by the shared work that you have done and even the trajectory that you have followed throughout your life, so very, very excited to get into all that. Thank you?

Akshay: 1:47

Yeah, I mean, it's been a really interesting journey, right. I mean this entire path started for me in this idea of high school. And so you know, when I was 16, 17 years old, I had no idea what the future had for me other than this path of formal education and potentially going to this route of sciences med school and whatever comes after the fact of that, but obviously a bit of a curveball, to say the least.

Gurasis: 2:16

Absolutely. We'll get more deep into that, but before that. So this episode is part of my season two of the podcast and I'm trying to turn up the fun factor a little bit, because why not? So I'm going to start with some fun questions. Tell me what's your go-to breakfast.

Akshay: 2:34

Oh, this is a tough one. I might get some flack on this. I'm not much of a breakfast eater in general, I normally have a double shot espresso with a little bit of milk, but today, actually this morning, I had a maple walnut bread with this organic Nutella. You can say it's like the organic hazelnut chocolate spread. It's really really good, really tasty, and it tastes like there's no artificial sweeteners nothing in it. Maybe that might become my new go-to breakfast.

Gurasis: 3:08

Well, sounds amazing. I think I'll definitely give it a try. Okay, so the next is share a favorite song or a dialogue or a movie and tell us why it's significant to you too.

Akshay: 3:28

So there was a point in my life back in university second year university where myself and my housemate used to challenge each other to work out. Just that's, it's very simple. Just, we have to work out once a day and we had a calendar we had posted on our wall. Every day we'd work out, we cross off this little box and at the end of our workouts we try to push each other as much as possible to really really go as hard as we can to get the best benefits, not only stressing out our body but also pushing our mind, because that's something that we want to train. And at the very end of our workout, there was three songs that we always, always played, and one song in particular was from the movie Fast and furious, uh, and it was when they were out in the pacific islands, yeah, and it was called coming home and the way it starts is just so moving.

Akshay: 4:17

I mean, you have the, the instruments that come in, then you have the actual musician that starts singing. And what triggered this motivation for me was I thought back to my heritage during this, because of my family being brought up in the Pacific Islands, it felt like I was not doing this on my own, but I had the force of everyone with me to push myself even that extra mile. And even to this day, when I go and play hockey or I have a big meeting coming up or I have something where I need to push myself, I will throw on that song and instantly, instantly, I will feel just rush of motivation, inspiration, just to get back at it.

Gurasis: 4:53

Wow, I love that story. You know. I'm sure like we all have this one song or something that hits you at some time, whether it maybe it could be like a good moment or a sad moment at times as well, and like pulled you out from that you know grief or sadness, so I love that. Thank you for sharing that.

Akshay: 5:10

Music has always been such a big factor of my life and even recently I fell in love with this one trombone player from. He used to play at a college out in the US. Player from he used to play at a college out in the US. And the way they play, the passion, the motivation, the pride they have, oh it's unbelievable and I'm such a big, big, big fan of that. Hank Bilal is his name. He's a phenomenal, phenomenal trombone player.

Gurasis: 5:39

So if you had to teach like one phrase or something in your mother tongue I'm not sure like what would I say your mother tongue would be what would you teach us and what does it mean?

Akshay: 5:52

Oh, this is horrible for me. This is absolutely horrible because and one thing funny enough as I go through this entire journey, I am upset at my parents, more so upset at myself, because I was never willing to really pick up my mother tongues, from both my mom's side and my dad's side, which in the past, I was so embarrassed of it. So why are you speaking to me in Hindi? Why are you speaking to me in Gujarati? Speak to me in English? What's going on here? But now, as I get older, I'm realizing what the heck was I thinking. I wish I knew this, I wish I knew the languages better, I wish I understood them better. I'm at a phase where I can understand most, but when it comes to speaking, I am horrible, beyond horrible. So that's something that hopefully, next time we have a conversation, I can give you something, I can teach you something that's in my mother tongue, but for now, unfortunately, I am so out when it comes to that.

Gurasis: 6:50

Okay, but I'm still gonna put you on the spot once again. There must be something you know, some word that comes naturally to you or something that comes very often in conversations at home could be, or maybe a name of a dish, probably.

Akshay: 7:05

Oh goodness, okay, so, okay, this that I will tell. Okay. So there is this one Fijian dish that my grandma would make and she'll make it really just for me, because I seem to be the only one in my family that seems to like it a lot. It's called Roro, roro and Roro. You eat it with bath, you see it with rice, and it's this Fijian plant. It's similar to spinach Similar, but not exactly and they soak it, they boil it and they mix it down with coconut milk and they add spice to that and it's this like soupy, uh, milky, spinachy uh dish that you can eat with really anything. And it is literally my every any type of holiday festival. If my mom ever says, okay, I want to make something more traditional, what do you want? I'm like, okay, please make more, because I love that dish and even right now, thinking about it, I start craving it, maybe in my head.

Gurasis: 8:09

Trying to get my mom to make something awesome. So it's called Roro, right, roro, yeah, that's correct. So if you could teleport back to a particular place, you know where would you go and what would you do.

Akshay: 8:21

I think if I had to go back and I was actually reflecting on this not too long ago I would love to go back to India when I visited there in 2010. And the reason why I would love to go back is because when I went there, I never really appreciated the culture and, being someone that has Indian heritage, I was so scared.

Akshay: 8:45

I was this kid who visited this new country that had no idea what the really, what the languages were. I was so skeptical of the food. I was so tucked away here where I live, where when I explored I just this first mindset was just defensive Okay, put up my blockersers, not try to entertain a bunch of stuff.

Akshay: 9:06

Try to become more western while, I was there, rather than experiencing the culture for itself. And so I would absolutely love to go back and and you might say, okay, actually, why don't you go back now? The reason why I want to go back then is because I was with my family, and I was, in particular, with my grandfather before he passed, and to be with him in that moment and understand that experience and take in the culture, take in the religion, understand my roots, my heritage, even better would be something I would do in a heartbeat to give me the opportunity to do that, and I would love to revisit that moment wow, I think it's also because when you were in your teenage, you become sort of like a rebellious and you just want to embrace canada and the place you have grown up in.

Gurasis: 9:50

And what is this india? Why they don't know language. I think that's why you sort of never appreciated it back then, right, 100.

Akshay: 9:57

I mean you. Yeah, I grew up in this neighborhood where, at the time uh, you know it it was majority Caucasian individuals and a lot of farmland, and I played hockey, I was playing soccer and everyone my peer group was all Caucasian and I never had this mix of South Asian in my life outside of seeing my family and my relatives on Sundays and whatnot, but this was a big gap of my life that now, as I reflect back, I was missing In the moment you don't even realize.

Akshay: 10:31

And so I feel like, 100%, you're right. I mean, you have this idea of oh, this is weird, right, this is weird, strange, this is different. And I think back, I kick myself, I'm like why was I thinking like that? I need to appreciate, embrace this.

Gurasis: 10:45

Yeah, I think this would be a great segue to talk about. Talk more about your childhood and your formative years. Tell us a little bit more about that and also when your parents moved.

Akshay: 10:54

Yeah for sure. So I'll start with more of my parents' story. My mom was born and brought up here in Canada, but her parents had moved from India before they were in state of Gujarat to Canada in the 60s and then my dad came here to Canada in the 70s and so they both had most of their life grown up here. I mean the fact that my dad came from he came from Fiji at the time and he was only 10 years old when he came to Canada. So you know a lot of his life was here.

Akshay: 11:30

And when my brother and I were born, you know we lived in Brampton for a short period of time then. We being very white neighborhood, really at its core at the time. It was something that you know we had to really try to fit in, I guess you could say, and so all my extracurricular activities, my school, was full of me trying to fit in a little bit more and not trying to fit this mold of what the traditional culturals and Indian paths were, and a lot of those were in ways forgotten in public. But we still maintained a sense of cultural identity at home and traditions at home and my parents brought us up in this more of a Hindu spiritual household more than anything, and that's something that you know I definitely really appreciate, more today than I did back then?

Gurasis: 12:27

What about the celebrating Indian festivals? Or were there any enough Indian families or friends that you were visiting?

Akshay: 12:35

So our family group, we maintained quite small, quite tight-knit, I would say. We did celebrate all the major festivals, be it Navratri, diwali, everything you name it. We were doing something for it. That's something that my mom and dad always maintained in our life. Even to this day, we make sure that all these traditions are still being taken care of, and I understand and appreciate why we're doing certain things today, you know.

Akshay: 13:06

An example is I just bought a car recently and the first thing I did after driving off the lot, you go to a temple and you get a blast. Exactly, you did all the, all, the all the puja there. And you know, I think that that, to me, having that sense of tradition, was very important and as I continue to grow up and, you know, as I continue to live, it's something that I want to hold dearly to and something that I value a lot more, I would say, today than appreciative, than in the past.

Gurasis: 13:40

What I'm going to ask is something like I think I already know the answer, but was there any specific role models in your family, or maybe the community, who inspired you during your upbringing?

Akshay: 13:49

It's always been a running saying in my family that my grandfather has been a very big part of the success that we have here as a family. First off, when I grew up he was this stern, big and he was the chief of police at Fiji. So he was a big, big guy and he was very tough, but he had such a gentle soul and he just cared about everyone else so so well and he really valued everyone's opinions, thoughts. He was very meticulous. He didn't say much but when he did speak he was very precise with what he said. He valued education. It was a big, big part of his life.

Akshay: 14:27

And so, you know, I look back at some of the things I've done in the past and every time I had a big milestone or achieved something in school or in extracurriculars, you know he would be the first person I would call and say you know, this is what happened, this is what's going on, and so definitely that was a big milestone, a big, big individual in my life. And then, you know, as I began to get a little bit older and I started to really look up to my brother quite substantially and the path that he's taken and the way he deals with conflict in particular, was something that I strive to do as well, and so I'd say these are the two major, major, major role models in my life that I look up to a lot.

Gurasis: 15:12

And how would you say, like your parents' values and expectations, you know, somehow shaped your educational and career choices?

Akshay: 15:22

I by no means am I the perfect mold for what my parents maybe had set out. I would say my brother is probably a better mold of that. But you know, ever since I was young, they've always expected the most out of both my brother and I, whether it's extracurriculars, whether it's academics. The expectation of you get 100% the expectation of.

Akshay: 15:51

We will give you all the resources, we will take away any challenges so you can focus on what's most important, so you can thrive in school and therefore thrive in life. Thrive in school and therefore thrive in life. And so appreciative of something and so grateful for some of the opportunities that they had provided me when I was younger, because it gave me an opportunity to work on myself and also work on what was important at that time, whether it be academics or extracurriculars. Fast forward, you know, a few years post high school. You know that's when definitely some conflict arise. When I went up and took the first biggest decision of my life was going in for business outside of this world of sciences, and that was obviously something that I had support in at its core. But also I knew deep down that this was a path that had a lot of ambiguity, had a lot of doubt, because it's something that no one in our family had ever pursued this side of business we're very direct of.

Akshay: 16:51

You go to science or you go to university for a degree. Then you set yourself up for a more of a formal degree afterwards, whether it's. Md or PhD or master's in some sort, and then you go wherever, whatever right. It's a very clear cut path.

Gurasis: 17:06

It's like what you decided, so to say.

Akshay: 17:10

Exactly exactly. And so taking this more of an unconventional path, you know, was a bit of a challenge at first, but then, you know, moving forward into some of the decisions and then also taking more of a reduced course load and nearly I mean I haven't dropped out of school, but close to was definitely a lot of tough discussion, a lot of you know, understanding of you know here's what I see myself doing and here's the impact I have, and I'm sure we'll get into that later on the line. But but yeah, I mean definitely tough, but nonetheless they believed in me and some of my biggest supporters today are my parents.

Gurasis: 17:49

Definitely. You know, uh, I had somebody on the podcast. I think she was my third guest, so she was originally a Vietnamese. Like her family background was Vietnamese, but she was born in Russia and whenever she would go to school she would say that I was kind of torn between two worlds of outside being a Russian and then coming back being a Vietnamese. Did you at any point have that during your childhood, or maybe like high school time?

Akshay: 18:17

To be honest, I don't believe. So. I feel like, you know, my identity growing up was always this idea of you know I am a Canadian. In a way it was always kind of masked with thoughts and I feel like that was brought on by twofold, Like one being the peer group I surrounded myself with all had that core identification, had that core identification, but then too, I think, given the extracurricular activities and just the things I surrounded myself outside of, just peers were also just wrapped around this thread of Canadian identity, and you know, I look back at that.

Akshay: 18:55

it's something that you know. Has that really impacted my life? I don't know. I think at my core I still believe, you know, that I have this feeling of, you know, gujarati side from my mom and this Fijian side of my dad, and that's something that I will never leave and so I'm very proud of having. But I think, you know, as I look forward to pursuing my life, and maybe this side of Fijian, this side of Gujarati, will come out more and more, maybe based off who I surround myself in the future. But again, I think right now it's so wrapped and intertwined with this Canadian feeling that you know, it's something that I'm always so open, right. I mean, if my life turns in a way where I want to, you know, explore more of this cultural side, I am so excited for that and I'm so eager.

Gurasis: 19:49

I'm so excited and ready for you know you do talk about, like um, saying that you had the canadian identity, but if you see that canada in general is also pretty diverse, right and does a country like canada which is so diverse, has that had any influence of your worldview in any way?

Akshay: 20:00

uh, yes and no, right for sure, I think. I think we're seeing a rise of immigrants, whether it's from India, whether it's from China, whether it's from all around the world, coming to Canada and I feel like I love that, I love seeing it, I think there's a sense of diversity that is coming here and that's something I always appreciate towards the Canadian ecosystem. I don't know, and I think this is mainly because of where I'm located geographically, literally, geographically is. You know, I'm just not exposed to so many of them, right? I think if I was living more closer to the GTA and I was living in pockets of the GTA where I was embodied with the food and the more of the cultural side and the religious centers and the people, 100%, I feel like I would be more, more, you know, impacted by that.

Akshay: 20:52

But I think right now, just given how segmented I am from those communities, it it really doesn't impact me as much as maybe I thought it would. To be honest. I mean, look at, I mean, ancaster is, as I mentioned, right, majority Caucasian and even when I go and play hockey, it's a handful, maybe one or two ethnic individuals right in the entire league, and so, you know, you definitely appreciate seeing them. I know I have a bond with them, but at the same time, it's so one-offs. Unless, you know, I commute downtown and then, of course, I have the team there that is full of ethnic individuals, which I love.

Gurasis: 21:36

So now, akshay, I would like to pivot towards your transition from science to business. You know, transition from science to business. You know, and if I'm not wrong, you were in med school working in your neuroscience lab doing rna research and alzheimer's research and all that stuff, you know. Then, when your co-founder, you know, garnett, introduced this business idea to you and I also heard the story that where, uh, you were in your, I believe, english lecture and a teacher asked you, you told her that you're feeling pretty lost and she asked you to go for a walk, and then you came back and decided to go for it. Right, tell me, like, what happened in that walk and how did that help you make your decision?

Akshay: 22:17

So the whole neuroscience side. I wasn't even in any university at the time, I was actually in high school doing that. So it was in my grade 11 and grade 12 year in particular summer I was working at McMaster University and part of the neuroscience and lab and I was doing RNA research there. Really, really amazing experience working with master's students, phd students, undergraduate students and that really, you know, furthered my love for science. Actually being in that wet lab and when I was making this decision applying to universities, I was caught up in this idea of I have this science comfortability right, that's my comfort zone, I can fall back on it, I understand it, I know I can do it. I know what my path is going to be like.

Akshay: 23:07

But then I have this feeling of business and at the time, web Transit International was picking up, we were making money, we were making six figures as high school kids and I was like this is great, this is awesome, this is so much fun. Why can't I do this for the rest of my life? And that that was also this feeling. I was sitting in in an english class and it was during my ib english class and it was near, right near the end of the of the year, during, uh, april, april time, and we had, uh, you know, already written our ib exam.

Akshay: 23:38

So we're just there, we're just, really just present in the class and my teacher, dan Sheeler he was one of the wisest guys you know, very direct, very to the point, very literate guy. And I told him, mr Sheeler, I'm really caught up in this loop of do I go down the science side or do I go down the business side? And he's like what do you want to do? I'm like I don't know. I have all these opportunities. I have so much to go down this path of this path, this path. And he literally told me he's like okay, actually leave the class, go for a walk and come back. When you come back, I want you to have a better understanding as to the directions you want to take towards this. I said, okay, sure, as a high school kid, I'm like you want to take.

Akshay: 24:22

You know, let me go for a walk, I'll go for a walk and the high school I went to has big, big land, all these soccer fields, maybe like 10, eight soccer fields, massive, massive land. Yeah, I went for a little walk. As I was going for a walk, I was thinking in my mind and it's interesting because I look back at that conversation I had with myself and how I was thinking about all the alternatives, thinking about the different directions I wanted to take, thinking about the plans I wanted to do. I wasn't a huge risk taker, right. I mean, my entire life was very comfortable. Everything I needed was, for the most part, provided. It was a very comfortable life, and it was at that point of time I realized what's going to differentiate me today than anyone else is being able to take on this risk and being comfortable with taking on risk, whether that's risk in sciences, whether that's risk in businesses. And as I came back around and went back to the class, I told them I want to pursue something that has risk, because if I feel like I can push myself through that challenge, through those hurdles, I will come out a better person than when I came in. And I think his answer to that was just okay, right, like he, he didn't. I mean he doesn't care, right For him. It's it's like you need to figure this out on your own. I will help you, but at the end of the day it's a decision, absolutely.

Akshay: 25:55

And after that I had, you know, pushed my application to Queens. Pushed my application to Queens. It was my one business school I had applied to and gone into. The rest of it were all sciences. And even during my IB exams, when I was writing it, my parents went to Queens, toured the business school. I hadn't even gone to the campus, I had no idea. I played a hockey tournament in Kingston in the past. That's all I knew. It was a hockey, a smallston, in the past, and that that's all I knew. Was this like it was a hockey, small town, whatever it is. And, um, you know, with that last little push, I said to myself okay, let's, let's do this, let's just try, let's try it out, let's push myself to to get there and let's see what happens.

Gurasis: 26:37

And the rest is history right yeah, and you know I've also heard you talking about making decisions in that particular time. Somehow, at that moment, you had this ideologies of keeping doing things for the sake of pleasing people. You have talked about that also, I've heard you. So at that moment, what happened? What was that? You know, euphoria moment. You were like, ok, I'm not going to care about all these things anymore, I'm going to do what I want.

Akshay: 27:07

What happened there yeah, I mean, this is something that I live by today is this idea of you have to sometimes be a little selfish, and I feel like we're in this world where the nice people can sometimes be taken advantage of really quickly, really, really quickly, whether it's taking advantage of really quickly, really, really quickly, whether it's taking advantage of time, resources, financially taking advantage of and I felt like I was living my entire life to just impress this idea of what I could become Parents.

Akshay: 27:43

You know how, how great would it be for them to go to an event saying, oh yeah, both my kids are doctors, physicians. It's great, right. It's like, as I ego has a pride, you have that feeling of, yeah, doctors, right, and and and. Then you have this push of society. Okay, you know, you made it, you're, you're, you're a physician, you're a doctor, you're, you're at the top of the game. You push through what everyone said you couldn't and you went through all these eight, nine, ten years of school and I was sick of it. I told myself, what am I going to keep doing? Am I going to keep living through the lens of other people?

Gurasis: 28:22

Am I going to start making my?

Akshay: 28:23

own decisions and start living the path that I want to live and that honestly resonated so well within me, where, from that moment onwards, I started to understand that there's only one person in this world that can make these decisions, and it's myself. I'm happy to take in all the information, happy to listen, give me the advice, give me the resources, give me whatever I need, but at the end of the day, I have to deal with the consequences of those actions that I make, and in the past I didn't have consequences because everything was so straightforward, my life was so linear, it was so easy to make decisions you go to school, you come home, you go to extracurriculars, you study, you eat, you go back to sleep. It's so linear when, if I realize that, if I actually want to disrupt something in this world, I want to create change, I want to do something impactful, I need to make my own decisions towards that.

Akshay: 29:16

So that was a mentality and I started to really really understand that during my second year of university, after coming off of a really challenging first year, a very, very tough first year, I realized I had to substantially turn my life around in some way and start understanding who is.

Gurasis: 29:36

Who is the person in here and who did I want to be no, I love that and I'm so glad you did that and I really hope somehow it inspires our listeners also, because I think I've talked about this actually so many times on the podcast. You know, in the 60, 70 conversations that especially the people from the Asian heritage right, the common denominator is this that doing things, keeping in mind the social ramification of things, you know, and all those people who have actually not cared anymore, are the ones who are actually, you know, making mark right now. You know, just look at yourself right now. You know, and for me also I'm my father, I think I have never, I didn't even try the three generation old business.

Gurasis: 30:18

I completely gave it away. I said I'm gonna do something of my own. I packed my bag six years ago and I just came to canada. I was like I'm to do something of my own. I packed my bag six years ago and I just came to Canada. I was like I'm going to do something of my own. It's not that I hated the business, I just felt like maybe the way it was being run from past so many years, that's not the way I want to do it and that's not exactly something I don't see myself doing. I want to do something of my own. That was the decision. It was hard, obviously, to convince parents and just like you said that, oh, our child is a doctor, he's a physician in a society, in a group setting. You are saying the same was in my case, because everybody from my maternal side is a doctor, all of them are dentists, and they wanted me to kind of get into the same thing. I said, no, I'm not going to get into that, so Can I get into the same?

Akshay: 31:07

thing. I said, no, I'm not going to get into that. So I totally, totally understand what you mentioned. That's right. I mean the pressure is really, really tough towards it. And I mean I think back to some of the discussions of, you know, not pursuing law school, which was that was a big push. Okay, go down this law school path, go down this professional degree path.

Akshay: 31:23

And I don't blame my parents. In fact I feel like I would be in the same position as my parents if I had a kid, because it's security at the end of the day. Right, it's security. You have these degrees. These degrees open up doors. Those doors open up for some kind of financial security at the end of the day and whatever it might be, and I don't blame them at all for that. I think I think what they did makes a lot of sense. But at the same time, you know, I and I have this saying where, like you know, if I had to bet all the chips in the world on someone, I'd bet them on myself, because I believe that much in my ability to figure it out, even if I don't have all the information, I will just figure it out right, and you can say that, everyone can say that, but actually believing it enough, telling yourself that, enough to actually do it, is something different.

Gurasis: 32:14

Yeah, that's, that's, that's what differentiates yeah, definitely, going from that point of a a like thinking about and then actually doing and taking that leap and going to the B is a huge jump right and it takes guts and and a lot of, I would say, like criticism also. You know, and just like you said, our parents are not wrong. You know, they are kind of thinking about our security and obviously they didn't know any better. And I think I always say that we should really stop blaming our parents and, like you said, if we would be in their place we would do the same thing, because that's so much secure path.

Akshay: 32:46

Exactly, I mean, they're so used to you. Go to undergrad, you get your. You get this path, this path, this path. You're done. Good, done, okay good. Start your life right. But oh, I can't start my life now.

Gurasis: 33:04

I don't. This is my life also. Also, getting this exposure to internet had definitely opened so many avenues to explore. Right, and maybe that's something which wasn't back then and didn't know any better. You know now there's so much to do, when at some I always say this also like it would be so hard for our parents to even imagine something like this would exist, like 20, 30 years down the line.

Akshay: 33:21

You know, having this, having this, everything's like a one click distance we're creating jobs for, or we're training students rather for jobs that haven't been created yet, right, I mean? And when that's the case, those more traditional paths are now really quickly dissipating. Right, I mean? We're not seeing the need for certain things that we had to study for five years for get a professional degree, for Gone Vanished, because now we have the technology to do that automatically. And it creates this idea of we've seen this transition over the last 20 years. What's the next 20 years?

Gurasis: 34:04

what's the next exactly?

Gurasis: 34:06

that to me is so exciting so let's just talk more about you know of you, and obviously starting from uh web translators international, you know the name. Tell me a bit inception about the whole idea. And also I think I think I think I read some somewhere you bootstrapped for four years right, sending those cold DMs and not getting enough responses. Also, talk to me about the initial years, because obviously not getting any response, you know nothing at all. Did you at any point question that? Oh my God, what have I myself gotten to? You know, yeah, yeah, totally.

Akshay: 34:48

The journey of a view in this case WTI, web Transit International was a bit of an unconventional one, given how early we started the company Myself, my co-founder, garnet, who lives actually just a few houses down from me. Garnet and I grew up together since kindergarten and so we've always had this bond with everything we did. We always competed. In school he played high level hockey AAA. Growing up, I played AA. Growing up, we were always competed in like academics, always tried to be as good as each other and push each other as much as possible.

Akshay: 35:19

And you know it came to me with this idea of you know you spend so much time in high school as most high school students did at that time, watching YouTube videos. Right, I mean, there was no TikTok, there was Vine had just kind of finished and we had kind of we're a little bit young to get on the whole Vine fan page and you know we had watched our favorite content creators people like Roman Atwood, whose entire message was smile more. People like Jesse Wellens, and I loved his cinematography. Casey Neistat was coming up at the time and I loved his cinematography. Casey Neistat was coming up at the time and you know we're watching this content and he came to me and said actually, what if we translated this content and globalized it a little bit? I said, okay, yeah, let's do it.

Akshay: 36:01

Sure why not? Right, let's give it a. What do I have to lose? Right? It's either I work on this or I go work at a golf course or work some kind of other job in the summer to make some money for university. So I said, ok, let's try this out. So, without any business knowledge at the time, I was a science kid. He was going down high school business. So, take high school business, whatever it is, you learn basic finance and accounting and some marketing, whatever. And we had created this couple emails, couple dms. We started firing it off to our favorite content creators. Nothing, no response, nothing like okay, this is interesting. Why aren't they replying to us? We're gonna give them more money. This, this is a no brainer.

Akshay: 36:49

You know, fast forward. A couple months later we find out about this program called DECA and it's a business program for high school students where you can compete against other high school students. In return, you can win in Ontario and this idea of going international and it's this whole thing around business. And I said to myself and garnett said, why don't we try this and we can actually apply some of the learnings of our business to this and maybe we can make it to california for internationals? And we said, okay, let's, let's, let's do it's, try it out.

Akshay: 37:28

So we started following this 30-page business plan outline because we wanted to take on the 30-page business report which we had written. We're in a 30-page business plan and as we were writing it, we started reaching out in different ways to understand what it is to cold message. We started to understand what it is to look professional, understand how to build a simple landing page. Things like this Went on. Wix created a very simple landing page. Looked like some kind of consulting service, because it's all of these guys in suits and ties and it looks so weird. But we started launching that and within six months of our first message we got a reply back from a creator named Logan, Paul and Logan said to us sounds really cool, cool, I'd love to hop on a call. Okay, I'll pause there. I mean, we're two 16 year old kids starting this company and we just hear back from at the time which was one of the biggest vine creators, hasn't even just started transition to youtube. Uh, wants to hop on a call? I was was baffled. I mean, like, watch your content, Logan, I'm a big fan. Like this is awesome, Like absolutely let's hop on a call.

Akshay: 38:35

So a couple days roll around and I was sitting in my room, which is just my bedroom, which is across the hall here, and I had this IKEA desk with this big white glass on it to protect the wood, and I had these markers here, similar to these dry erase markers like this, and all over my desk I wrote everything about the business and everything about Logan the prices we can offer, the discounts we can offer, the value we can add to him, his recent videos, what he talked about in his recent videos, what he likes to do in his video, everything all over my desk and I use this as like my notes. Logan calls me. It's about 8, 9 pm our time. Talk to Logan. Logan. This is what we can do for you. This is what we have in store. After 30 minutes, he says I want to try this. Okay, how do we get this thing going? And um, the rest is history.

Akshay: 39:33

With logan, we did three free videos for him in spanish and in portuguese, and we um, we started expanding that to five languages and since 2017, we have translated every single one of his daily posts. So quite a bit of content. So if you actually go on his YouTube channel any of the videos from 2017, random one you click on the little CC closed caption button and you'll see they appear in three to five languages, depending on how far back you go. And that created this snowball effect, and you know it was.

Akshay: 40:10

At that moment, Garnet and I realized okay, maybe we're onto something, Maybe we're onto something. And you know, we were these two high school students that were clearing six figures a year in revenue and we were very happy with how things were running. And I was in the back of my class sending out emails on the phone with like managers of content creators while I should be learning. You know, functions and whatever you learn in high school math, you know it's funny to look back at it, you know, because it feels such a lifetime ago. But that was only, you know, a few years ago.

Gurasis: 40:41

Wow, I'm totally in awe. Like I told you in the starting, you know I'm so, so inspired by you guys. You know both of you when you were in gardener. I would love to have the opportunity to speak with him as well, but tell me, like, after how many dms did logan actually respond?

Akshay: 40:58

you guys back? So we learned a few things. Uh, number one is there's this idea of hyper personalization, and it's interesting because before all these ai tools, before all these AI tools, before all these mass email tools, every email was so particular. When you got an email, it was with a purpose of because I want to send it to you Couldn't do all these mass email stuff, and so we sent Logan two hyper, hyper personalized emails. That's it, just two emails with what we do, how we can benefit him, how much it costs.

Akshay: 41:34

I think it was like it was long. It was like five paragraphs because we didn't know the full like format of it. It was long. We're kids, and the first one that we followed up I think it was like a week or two later he replied to that follow-up.

Akshay: 41:48

And it was a similar vibe when we messaged all the other content creators, people like FouseyTube right, who recently blew up and now he's off and I hope he gets better, but he was one of our next customers and we had people like yes Theory, mark Rober, techsmart. These are all the creators that we had worked with and it all started with this hyper, hyper, hyper personalized email. When I say hyper, I mean in literally the first paragraph, we talk about how we appreciate their content from the side of a fan, and we told them we're here because we care about your content, we want to see you thrive in international markets, and that's still something that we do today. You know, sure, we have the email sequences, but before we set up any sequences, we make sure that they're hyper-personalized to everyone we reach out to, because it's reach out with the girls.

Gurasis: 42:36

That's a great takeaway. You know hyper-personalizing things. I think that's what has worked for you guys, but, like you just said, you guys were just high school kids. Did that boost your ego in any way?

Akshay: 42:47

uh, at the time I mean you know it definitely it was great walking around the high school halls knowing we have this and and everyone. I mean such a small community we lived in so everyone knew what we're building. Everyone knew kind of what we're doing.

Akshay: 42:58

we were known as, like the deca kids and high school and whatnot, uh, and so definitely, you know, no complaints around that, but uh, you know, as we began to transition into university, you know that's when a lot of imposter syndromes start to settle in and that's when I realized that I'm a small fish in a massive pond. And even to this day, when I think about successes and the highs we have and the revenue we're generating, and then I look at some of the other companies that are thriving in this Canadian ecosystem ecosystem or in the international ecosystem, I'm like I have so much more work to do right, like I am so small in comparison to what we could potentially be, and again, it's a driving factor.

Akshay: 43:41

But at the same time, you know, I, in a couple or a month from now, I'm going to be speaking at the collision conference here in toronto 40000 attendees, alongside a content creator that has 8 million subscribers on YouTube, and you know I think about the position I'll be in at that time. It's like, you know, what did I do to deserve to be here, right? What value can I add? And you start questioning yourself, you start doubting yourself a little bit, right? You have some of the biggest founders, ceos, sitting on those stages and then it's me, right? And so, you know, you have that self-belief of you know you got there, but that's the same time, you know, something I've always struggled with is this imposter syndrome of do I deserve to be here, right? Have I earned my spot here? I don't pull in 100 million dollars in revenue like these other companies, so what value can I start thinking about that, right?

Gurasis: 44:27

which can lead to a very down, very bad downward spiral yeah yeah yeah, actually I was about to ask you about the imposter syndrome, but you already mentioned it's, uh, it's something that a lot of founders you know unfortunately have to deal with so actually, can you like walk us quickly through someone who is listening to this, who would like to like work with you guys or collaborate with you guys? How?

Akshay: 44:51

does that work for sure. So I mean, we're always open to a few different opportunities that we're consistently hiring for. Uh, so, number one, we just launched our entire qa portal, which I am so excited about. This and a lot of the abuse services initially, are all AI backed. So we have trained very specific tailored models for each one of our content creators to ensure their lingo, their jargon, their rhetoric is all translated accurately. But at the same time, we believe that translations are only as good as they are accurate. If you provide inaccurate translations, the context of that content completely changes.

Akshay: 45:30

Yeah, exactly. And so, and the reason why I think we're able to get so many amazing customers is because we put the extra mile in with quality control. And so if you're a listener and you understand a particular language, or you're bilingual or trilingual or your mother tongue is a different language, please do reach out to us, because we are always opening up individuals who want to review content. Your job probably the coolest job you ever have in your life you watch youtube videos, you read a transcript and you and we have an entire system built out where all you have to do is highlight certain errors, correct it and you get paid. And there's that. There's even ones for editing, a super simple editing tool that you have access to as well. And then also, on the other side is if you're based in a different country, based in a different region you're listening to this as well. We're always looking for global distributors, so people in different markets whether that's in India, south America, europe, wherever, it doesn't matter People who understand that market extremely well, people who consume their that market extremely well, people who consume their local content really well. We're looking to bring on more of those advisors onto the team to help us understand those local markets, the advertisers, the creators, the brand partners, whatever it might be, and so those are two of the biggest opportunities that we want to have thousands of people on our team doing this, thousands of people on our team doing this, because I believe and this was something that not to digress too much away from this topic I learned so quickly in this entire journey was when you have a company, you have the opportunity for economic change.

Akshay: 47:05

When we started, when we were high school students, we had employees all around the world. We had 70 translators that we were paying monthly. Wow, I was going to Food Basics with my brother to use Western Union to wire transfer money all around the world I wasn't even old enough to put it under my brother's name and I received a message from one of our translators and he was in the Gaza area and at the time, even today, a lot of struggle, a lot of war, a lot of tough times happening in that area, and one thing that Garnett and I focused in on we wanted to hire students. We wanted to help students, help them, help their family, help them transition out of those areas, move out of those areas, and he messaged me. He said actually, look, I'm having a lot of tough time with uh you know, with the war happening here. Is there other ways I can receive payment? I go to western union say how can I get this payment to them?

Akshay: 48:00

western union says we're no longer sending money to this area of the world okay I then have to email this kid who I was paying, he was supporting us, he was helping us and say to him look, unfortunately I can't, I can't have you part of our team anymore.

Akshay: 48:18

And even thinking about it, I get so emotional because of how difficult that conversation was. And receiving an email back from him saying look gosh, I'll pay for, I'll work for even cheaper, I'll work for literally close, for literally close, I'm like, look, it's not the problem. The problem is I literally cannot send you money, right, I cannot pay you for your work and I'm not going to have you work for free. And it was such a difficult time and I realized at that moment that we're not just helping one individual, we're helping a family, we're're helping community, we're helping everyone that he was providing money to. And it was such a tough part of my life, going through that little hurdle that taught me a lot about the value we have for our employees and how we have to treat our employees with such kindness, respect and realize that they're working for us for a reason and it's something that we cater towards them to this day, wow.

Gurasis: 49:12

I think all these experiences really educates you to build an ecosystem that is correct for people to work in right Exactly.

Akshay: 49:21

I mean you have to make an environment where people want to work, or you have to make an environment where people feel like they have accountability, ownership towards it. There's this really amazing framework. It's called the octalysis framework. Octalysis framework super cool name, octalysis framework and it's eight points to gamify a platform. Okay, well, now you might ask me actually what the heck does gamify a platform and employees have to do? When you make the employee experience slightly gamified with ownership, accountability, customization, they feel like they're a part of the core team, and so something that I always do every single time I talk to employees, it's like how can I tie one of these Octalysis framework pieces into this conversation to feel like they're no different than I am, they're no different than Garnet? We're all the same, we're all building towards a greater goal, and that has helped a lot.

Gurasis: 50:20

No, I love. That Sounds incredible. If any of our listeners would like to work with Akshay, I'll put the links to that in the show notes.

Akshay: 50:28

Awesome. Yeah, I always, always love to have anyone reach out.

Gurasis: 50:34

So, akshay, before we get into the final segment, I just have one thing I want to talk about, which I absolutely loved while speaking with you last time, which was about the mindset right, and you were telling me that if everything today goes wrong, I will put all my chips in the world on myself to rebound and figure it out.

Gurasis: 50:51

I have so much belief in myself and my abilities and I have, kind of this movie, set a kind of mindset nothing will be able to put me down other than myself, and I love that. I want to talk more about that and also this influence that you know um kamar uzman, the number one ma fighter, has had on you, where you mentioned the quote. You know the reason I am the best fighter because my mind is stronger than everyone else. I would love for you to decode that for us, because I feel like some, because most of my listeners are immigrants, you know, who are trying to navigate a life as an individual in this new world. I would love for you to tell them how this mindset has helped you grow in your life.

Akshay: 51:32

I love this conversation. This is literally my favorite thing to talk about ever, and so you know, I'll kind of give you a bit of a backstory towards why I started having this mindset change and transition into how I have applied that to my life today. As I mentioned earlier in this conversation, my first year of university was a very tough year, and so you know, as a quick notes towards that, number one is I completely underestimated the transition from science to business. I never expected. You know, you hear, business school is super easy. In essence it's it. It is easier, I will say then, than the world of sciences, but it is a transition in the way you learn, how you learn, how you consume knowledge that I was not prepared for at all. I was not prepared for that. I didn't do extremely well in some of those first-year courses that I had expected to myself being a very high achiever in high school, being around other high achievers. I felt very low at points. And then buckle this on top of not taking care of myself from a physical standpoint, from a mental standpoint not sleeping well, not eating well everything that I had structure in my life fell apart, everything, and this doubled down when my grandfather passed away in that summer of my first year, which caused me a lot of grief.

Akshay: 52:54

Throughout that period of time, and as I got ready for my second year of university, I realized one thing no one else will change my life other than myself. I can't go back to watch a David Goggins video a hundred times because David Goggins is next to me telling me in my low points to get myself up and to go solve this problem. I had to find that within myself. I had to, and so, without any idea of self-motivation, self-inspiration, any of this stuff, I just asked myself okay, how do I take the smallest step, the smallest step to become a better person? What's the smallest thing I can do? So I found this idea of these 30 day challenges.

Akshay: 53:39

30 day challenges, 30 days, I put. I give myself a challenge. At the end of 30 days. That challenge becomes a habitual routine in my life. So the first challenge I had what's the easiest thing you can do? Every morning? You make your bed. Guess what? That was the first challenge I made for myself Every morning, I will make my bed. Okay, super, super easy. I loved it, turned into a habit. Second challenge I started taking cold showers.

Akshay: 54:07

Third challenge meditation. So on and so forth, and I started becoming obsessed with this mindset of improving myself incrementally, day by day. Because even if I had the worst day I could possibly I didn't do well in a class, or I got a grade back that I didn't appreciate, or I had an argument with a classmate, or my favorite team lost Anything can go wrong but I still achieved those two small goals I had set out to myself making my bed, taking a cold shower, meditating. And so I started seeing this incremental change. I started feeling better. I started feeling I had a more structure in my life.

Akshay: 54:44

I started feeling like I was able to achieve the small, small goals. During that time I started to really double down on the world of MMA and I started training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I had done high-level karate in the past, competing all around Southern Ontario, and I started coming back to that tie of my life. And Kamaru Usman at the time was the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world in the welterweight division, lapping everyone in the division, defeating everyone, not even really losing a round, and after one of his toughest fights he said grab the mic off joe rogan. So the reason why I'm the best in the world is because my mind is stronger my mind is

Akshay: 55:21

stronger. He may not have been the most skilled fighter, he may not have been the strongest fighter, but his mind was stronger than everyone else. He wouldn't let anything penetrate his mind. And I don't know why that resonated so well within me, where everything I do whether it's an investor meeting, whether it's a customer call, whether it's going to play hockey I just have this mindset, this obsession with I can be the best, I could possibly be right, I can do the best I possibly can. I can strive towards that greatness. And it's so easy.

Akshay: 55:56

It is so, so easy for someone to listen to this and say, actually, you have it all figured out right, you've achieved it, you've done. You build your company, you've done whatever it is you need to do. It wasn't like this, right. Everyone starts from a place, whether it's a dark place, whether it's a good place, whether it's a great place, everyone has a starting point. And I encourage every listener that's listening to this. It doesn't matter how low you think you are at, there's always an improvement, but you have to be willing to make that improvement, absolutely yes, you have to be willing to make that improvement. And as soon as I told myself, akshay, you have to make this improvement. I realized that and I started this transformation, this journey towards self-improvement, this journey towards obsessing with this idea of mindset, obsessing with no challenge, is big enough for me to take on myself, and that's a characteristic that I am so proud of, something I am so grateful that I've developed and learned, and I continue to to push on this.

Gurasis: 57:04

Wow, absolutely, absolutely love this uh mindset that you have aks, and I would love to like echo this one thing that you said which will matter in the long run is something which you said making sure, doing that small habits, doing that small changes because, like you just said, it starts from something dark place, good place, bad place, wherever the stage of life you are at and also, the same time, instilling that will in you to be able to change your life. Because, let's face it, nobody's gonna come and say, actually get up from the bed and walk, go out and work out, and nobody's gonna come to me. I go to see, come on, get up and reach out to akshay and ask him if you would like to a podcast. Nobody's coming. I have to do it myself.

Gurasis: 57:48

You know, and I I I cannot like stress enough on this that how inspiring a figure you are actually to people. You know, you don't know this, and I'm not just saying for the sake of saying is because I swear I can't fake it. I am that person. I'm so like straightforward. You know, the friends who know me, they know me like I'm pretty straightforward. I'm genuinely saying when I was so, if I want to confess something to you before this recording yesterday, when I was sort of like researching and preparing, I was kind of intimidated by a whole journey. Also, I was like I don't know how it's going to be. Should I just continue this recording or maybe I should not, right? So this is actually testimony to the fact that it is very inspiring and I really, really hope that listeners learn from this and create that shift in their life.

Akshay: 58:32

Yeah, I appreciate it and look at the end of the day, everyone's people right At the end of the day. And you know it's funny because I was going through this is a bit of a side story going through my Y Combinator interviews from my previous startup and we were building something that created our economy.

Akshay: 58:52

And in the room we enter there's six yc partners and the main partner was michael siebel, who was the co-founder of twitch. Uh, formerly I was justin tv and he was one of the main directors of yc as well. The intimidation factor of entering that zoom room for 15 minutes, knowing that the person we are trying to convince our crater economy startup platform is to the co-founder of Twitch, one of the most successful streaming platforms in the world, I kind of what it brought to my mind was like nothing will ever be as stressful as that moment ever in my life, ever, no questions asked. And I relate back to that feeling where people ask me actually why aren't you stressed about this? Why aren't you worried about it? I'm like nothing will ever be as difficult as that hurdle I had to overcome. Nothing will be as difficult as feeling the lowest point of my life and overcoming those barriers. Nothing.

Akshay: 59:49

And you use that momentum in all the small wins you have on the day-to-day. You use that momentum in all the small goals you achieve on the day-to-day. And I tell you that because it's so easy to look down on yourself at times. So easy to look down like where am I in my life? Am I actually doing something? Then you look at, reflect like, okay, we've made small steps towards it, made small steps towards that goal. So something that I want to share with all the listeners.

Gurasis: 1:00:18

Love that, love that, love this conversation. Thank you for sharing all this. Love that, love that, love this conversation. Thank you for sharing all this. So, before we get into the final segment, this one quick segment I have added in this season. It's called know your host, where I let my guests ask me any question they might have yeah, I love this part.

Akshay: 1:00:38

Okay, so I guess the first question I have for you is you've talked to so many people I mean, you've had such phenomenal conversations from so many different walks of life that you've had conversations with what would you say is like the biggest takeaway that you've applied from a conversation into your own life? And I would love to hear a reflection on one of the experiences with one of your guests.

Gurasis: 1:01:03

Absolutely. I can tell you that the one thing, the common factor between most of my conversations, that I, after each conversation, when I talk to myself and I reflect on that because I do that sometimes I think there's this one person I was speaking to who was also part of the season two. Her name is Mushtaq and she's from Afghanistan. She was part of the war zone. She's just mere 18 and she has she's making waves right now. She's doing so much stuff, you know, starting her own code, green Afghanistan, trying to educate women from all around the world and everything. Just listening to her story, where she has come from, what she's doing right now, I think I would say that I have become more grateful for my own life, because coming from those situations and even having that will and desire to continue to help people and continue to have that positivity in herself, to collect herself together and continue to get on this path, just at the age of 18, is something which is super inspiring for me and I think in general, I would say, from these conversations I have realized, like I just said, I have learned to count my blessings a little bit more.

Gurasis: 1:02:15

It's very easy to get caught up into all the negativity that surrounds us, the criticism, the hate that sometimes comes your way, you know, and if I talk about the fact of being an immigrant, you know I've been a turban and sometimes I've been certain rooms where I can see those eyes are staring at me, those side eyes, and weird reactions and rude responses, and I don't blame them if it works for you, whatever, but it's not something that I could perceive very casually before, but now I genuinely don't care anymore, you know.

Gurasis: 1:02:44

So I would say these conversations have made me more stronger and it has allowed me to believe in myself and my abilities a little bit more. I always say this I feel like when I came to Canada six years ago, I had this certain sort of spark, and I think I lost that spark maybe in the past three, four years, you know, but I would say, like the moment I started the podcast, started having this conversation, that spark came back and I love that and I think I'll continue to be this way and you know, I think obviously even this conversation has allowed me to continue to believe in myself a bit more and this mindset thing that you talked about. That is my takeaway from this episode.

Akshay: 1:03:23

I love that. I think, being grateful for the positions that we're in is beyond important, right.

Akshay: 1:03:32

I mean look at where the world is and in some, in some regions, and the war that's happening, that's happening and and you know to be grateful to be in a place where I have a roof over my head, I am in a beautiful house, I'm in a room and I'm able to share this message, and taking that in a way of of positive impact rather than negative impact, for sure, yeah, I guess the other I mean. Last last thing I'd love to learn from you as well is throughout your experience of running this podcast, have you looked up to any other podcast hosts or any other podcasts in general that you're like? I love the way this is structured. I love the way that they interact with their guests. I love the way they ask questions, because I feel like every podcast has this sense of identity tied back to it, and I'd love to see if you took in any inspiration from some of the other podcasts that are out there, absolutely.

Gurasis: 1:04:27

I mean, I think I was a heavy consumer of podcasts, akshay, since like 2014,. To be honest with you, when I was even back in India, I would listen to so many podcasts. But I would say my podcasting listener journey sort of started as somebody who would listen to mostly Bollywood related podcasts. That was completely different. But I feel like then I evolved into sort of like, you know, self-help and maybe the crime and the comedy and obviously the educational and spiritual and all those. I think I've transitioned into all that. But there are so many people who have inspired me into all that. But there are so many people who have inspired me. But there's a few people I think I really which really like educated me. I would say to.

Gurasis: 1:05:07

To start this podcast was somebody like Pat Flynn. You know he has this smart passive income podcast. I absolutely love that. I'm not sure if you know him. He's amazing. You know I love that podcast.

Gurasis: 1:05:17

You know a lot, lots, some great nuggets you can get from each episode. And then, uh, obviously like human man labs. You know that's amazing. And then joe rogan obviously was there, and then I also like how even jay shetty sort of structures his episodes.

Gurasis: 1:05:32

Sometimes some of those questions are really, really intriguing and kind of like it like forces you to kind of look within and question few things you know. So I like that and uh, and then like some comedy podcasts also which I listen to and you wouldn't believe I've actually taken a few of those inspirations from those conversations also because because me as a person, I'm not that serious, I'm such a like enthusiastic and like a chubby person and I can't be extremely serious all the time. It was also one of my um, uh feedbacks from the people who end up knowing me, who were listeners before. Then they end up became friends and they were like where is this fun? Good seas, why this? We couldn't see this on the first season. That's why I'm trying to take that entertainment route on my this season, right? So, yeah, these are some of the names I could think of.

Akshay: 1:06:18

Yeah, I love it. I really appreciate I have to listen to more podcasts I I've been getting into a little bit. The hoverman podcast is one that I, uh huberman the one that this one I've been listening a little bit with, and uh the occasional joe rogan one, especially if he's has a guest. I love that. Yeah, but I'm so excited about uh listening to more of your podcasts and I listened to a few before our conversation today and such amazing guests you've had, so I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of the guests.

Gurasis: 1:06:50

I appreciate that. Thank you for listening. Okay, all right, so now we're in the final segment. Actually, I call it beneath the accent because we are knowing each other beneath the accent and I'm gonna have a couple of questions. You can answer them in one word or a sentence, or however you feel like. The idea is just don't more about you. So the first question is are you an early bird or a night owl?

Akshay: 1:07:14

this is. This is a tough one because I I feel like I have such a structure on my mornings and evenings, but if I had to pick, I would say probably more early bird than the night owl, to be honest, yeah, okay.

Gurasis: 1:07:34

Definitely more early bird, a word that describes you best Optimist.

Akshay: 1:07:39

I'm such an optimist. I will always try to see the good in something, even if it's the worst thing ever. I will try to see the good in it. And that has come back to harm me at times, but for the most part I love being an optimist. I think if you're a founder, you have to have a glass half full mentality, or else this process will be very challenging very, very relatable.

Gurasis: 1:08:04

I can say that okay, what's your go-to comfort food apart from ro-ro?

Akshay: 1:08:11

so this has been something that, yeah, yeah, this has been something that I've been loving to make lately. Um, so I love cooking in general. Um, I love it. I love trying out new recipes, trying new foods, but it's a super, super, super simple dish that has five ingredients, four ingredients.

Akshay: 1:08:30

It's pasta either fresh pasta or just regular pasta. You thinly slice garlic and with olive oil, you put garlic and chili and then that's it, and then you put all your pasta. You put the pasta in with the garlic and chili and then that's it, and then you put all your pasta. You put the pasta in with the garlic and chili oil and then you top it off with a ton of parsley and lemon. And it is so simple. But the flavors because it's so simple, it's only a few ingredients are so bright and it is such an amazing dish, especially before any big game or anything going on. I will have that because it just brings me like peace, it just like calms me down, it's like, okay, this is like my comfort. I love it. I can eat that every day if I had to. Super simple, super easy.

Gurasis: 1:09:16

Love that I know what I have to cook tonight. Thank you for that.

Akshay: 1:09:20

Yeah, give it a try.

Gurasis: 1:09:23

You will absolutely love it. So what's your favorite childhood memory?

Akshay: 1:09:26

favorite childhood memory, you know, I think I think it has to be some of the experiences I had with my like grandparents growing up, um, in particular with our like family events. Every sunday we would be together, we'd spend a lot of time together and just the commute to Brampton being with them, either playing pool in their house, or my grandfather taking me to hockey games, hockey tournaments all around the US, those are experiences I will cherish for the rest of my life and those are parts of my life that I appreciate so much and, you know, makes me miss them all the time. Right, it's that you know those moments.

Gurasis: 1:10:07

Do you have any hidden talents?

Akshay: 1:10:10

I can solve the Rubik's Cube. That's one thing I picked up during the pandemic. I'm not very fast at it, but something fun that keeps my mind occupied. When I'm just like watching a show or something, I'll just start fiddling around with it, okay.

Gurasis: 1:10:31

What's the best piece of advice someone ever gave you?

Akshay: 1:10:35

So this was something that my brother told me when I was in the mix of writing my IB exams and I was so hard on myself that I was just I couldn't even get myself to study because I was just. I felt like so sick to my stomach thinking about how much work I had to do and how behind I felt, and I just felt like I wasn't good enough to do well on these exams. For context, my brother is a smartest guy. I know he won every academic award. He's just a genius when it comes to that. He came into my room and he sat next to me. He said look, you are no less than 100%. You are no less than 100%. And I took a permanent marker which maybe I shouldn't have, but whatever and wrote it all over my room, on my mirror, on my desk not on any walls, like things you can still get rid of, but every morning when I wake up I see that quote you are no less than 100%, and that has been on my mirror since 2016, 2017.

Akshay: 1:11:35

And so every morning, I realize I can do 100% of anything I put my mind to. I can achieve 100% of anything I put my mind to. I can achieve 100% of anything I put my mind to. There's no reason why I can't, and that fuels me every single day.

Gurasis: 1:11:50

You are no less than 100% Love. That Okay. If you could be any creature in the world, what would it be?

Akshay: 1:11:55

It's a good one. I feel like I would probably be a lion Lion and this ties back to my last name of Maharaj, which is the king of the jungle, and and it has that has a ferociousness to it, but it also has that care for its family it takes care of its family.

Akshay: 1:12:13

It's there. It's there to provide, it's there to protect and it's there to lead has the ambition that main it represents so much. And to me, that's sometimes how I feel. Whenever I get into a tough place, I think about okay, well, how would the lion do it? It wouldn't just back down and leave. It would attack, it would figure it out, it would provide. And that's something that I try to live by.

Gurasis: 1:12:38

Very, very interesting, Cam. Who's your go-to person when you feel stuck?

Akshay: 1:12:45

You know it's a good question because there's so many different go-to people based off of the struggle. I am in right, if it's something in business that you know, I'll go to one of our lead mentors, advisors, and he always been able to help us a lot Ivan Yuen. He was one of the founders of Wattpad and he's such a great individual. But when it comes to like personal stuff, when it comes to just direction is lost, I go to my brother. I think he understands me best. He's someone I can go to. You know, if I don't know, if I just don't understand it. It's not like he even understands the whole business world either, but he'll provide rationale or just help me understand my thoughts towards it, and that's someone that sparingly, if I have these problems.

Gurasis: 1:13:35

I hit him up. So what's the most expensive thing you own?

Akshay: 1:13:40

The knowledge in my mind, that's the most expensive thing I own. Are you kidding me? No, uh, I would say most expensive thing, I I mean probably my car. I'll be honest, that's probably the biggest purchase I've made recently. I did I bought a, uh, an x3m, uh, so bmw x3m 2024, so that's that's probably the the biggest purchase. But uh, um, I mean outside of that, you know, I think, um, I think it's such a cop-out answer, but I have to say you know the mentality I have. You know it's taken time to do that, it's taking resources, uh, and I feel like that is something that costs the most and what's the most expensive thing you would like to own.

Akshay: 1:14:26

I don't know if this is another cop-out answer, but you know, I think you cannot put a price on the pride and the ability to retire both of my parents comfortably. To retire both of my parents comfortably, and whatever that cost might be. That is the most expensive, even if it's $100,000, it doesn't matter to me because the happiness that that will bring me will not be content of anything else in this world that I can buy myself materialistically. So that is, in whatever way, the most expensive thing I want to provide.

Gurasis: 1:15:04

I want to be able to and the best answer award goes to actually I think they they know that too, which is why they support everything. I love that answer. All right. So what's that one canadian tradition that you have adopted wholeheartedly and what's one from your home country that you have introduced to Canadians?

Akshay: 1:15:25

I think the one that I've adopted, as probably more than some Canadians, is my love for hockey. You know I've played hockey since I was four years old. Started skating when I was three years old, played competitively all throughout my life, even sponsored a hockey team that I play on On Monday I played three years old played competitively all throughout my life even sponsored a hockey team that I play on a Monday.

Akshay: 1:15:45

I played three times a week, four times a week, even in some weeks, and so that is something that I embody and I love, love, love, love the game of hockey just as much as I love MMA.

Akshay: 1:15:56

In terms of things that I have provided, and I'd say this is something that I've gotten my co-founder on, and Garnet grew up in more of a Caucasian household where wasn't necessarily really exposed to a lot of different cultures and foods, and so one thing that I've gotten him into is the love for vegetarian food as a vegetarian growing up culturally, because there's no meat, a lot of different spices, a lot of different vegetables, the ways of eating vegetables that we never even thought, and cooking processes and everything around that and something that I like to share with anyone I meet that has never really experienced the traditional Indian style food or Fijian style food or even ethnic food in general is let's bond over a dish, let's bond over something when it comes to food. Let me show you that it's not this curry smelly thing that the stereotype is around.

Akshay: 1:16:51

No, let me show you how delicious this can be, and that's something that I love. Maybe that's a lot of. My passion for cooking is to do that, taking different spins on Canadian dishes and adding, like, an ethnic flair to it, but I would say that's something that I continuously love to give back to the Canadian culture is that love for food, love that, if you could have any superpower, actually, what would it be?

Akshay: 1:17:19

Read people's minds. I think for twofold. One is you, I'm. I'm an overthinker. I really am. I tend to overthink so much and unless it's clearly said to me, I will start thinking about a hundred different scenarios and ideas and whatever it might be. You know, if I can read someone's mind, I know exactly what they're thinking, if I can make a decision on that. The second thing is I think it would be really cool to understand the perspective and the mindset of some of the wealthiest people in the world.

Akshay: 1:17:50

Understand the mindset of some of the biggest athletes in the world. How do they compete in their game? What's going through their mind the second they enter the octagon? What goes through their mind as they hop onto the ice, as they enter the basketball court? Whatever it their mind the second they enter the octagon? What goes through their mind as they hop onto the ice, as they enter the basketball court? Whatever it might be, it'll be so amazing to just be upset again. I'm so obsessed with that mindset. To be able to read that mind will be unbelievable and what's your favorite canadian slang or phrase?

Akshay: 1:18:17

a, a, I say a all the time. Uh, I maybe it's because I am surrounded by a bunch of say A all the time. Maybe it's because I am surrounded by a bunch of hockey guys all the time. It would be interesting to see if I said it during this conversation, because I wouldn't be surprised if I hadn't. A is probably the one phrase I have adopted. Can you use it in a sentence, the one phrase I have adopted. Can you use it in a sentence? So if someone says, someone says how's it going, I'm like hey, hey, it's going all right. Or, you know, I feel like it's sometimes just a filler word at the end of sentences. If you say something at the end of an A, I think there's different ways to navigate it. But even at home I catch myself sometimes even saying to my mom like hey, what are you gonna do? Right, like it's just, it's become part of my vocabulary funny enough.

Gurasis: 1:19:14

okay and finally, how would you describe canada in one word or a sentence?

Akshay: 1:19:22

And you know I am beyond grateful to have grown up in an environment here where opportunity is available. And you know I've done a lot of travels to the US and there's opportunity there. But I feel like in Canada the opportunity for immigrants is here, especially recently. What I've been exposed to from a startup perspective the funding, the grants, opportunities for startup founders is phenomenal and I can with confidence say that I would not be in the same position I am today if it wasn't for the support of those around me and the Canadian ecosystem that has helped me thrive to where I am today.

Gurasis: 1:20:03

And if you could leave me with one piece of advice, what would it be?

Akshay: 1:20:06

around me in the Canadian ecosystem that has helped me thrive to where I am today. And if you could leave me with one piece of advice, what would it be? I think you're on such a phenomenal path when it comes to this podcast and everything you're doing outside of this podcast. One thing I say to you, one thing I say to anyone that's aspiring to do something and continue to do something, is dream bigger, dream bigger, dream bigger. That's it. Like that consistent mantra is always chanting in my head of dream bigger, believe bigger. Right? What's the biggest dream guest you can potentially have and how do we get that for you, right? Dream that big.

Akshay: 1:20:40

And when we were starting this company in high school, the biggest customer Logan Paul dream bigger. Okay, who's next? Right? That's. One thing I'll say is I love the journey you're on right now and I'm so, so, so excited to see your name and headlines saying this podcast has interviewed the biggest people in the world and I cannot wait to see that, and so I am like excited about that. But I want you to continue to dream big, dream bigger.

Gurasis: 1:21:05

I love that. Thank you for saying that, and how would you describe your experience of being on this podcast today?

Akshay: 1:21:11

Amazing. I've been on maybe four podcasts now and this has been one that I love because I've been able just so relatable talking to you about the heritage, the growing up as a South Asian. You know the transition I mean. A lot of the podcasts and I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've been on have been so focused on the business and the growing the business. This has been a different spin to it.

Akshay: 1:21:32

which has been really cool and something that I really haven't talked about publicly at all ever is is the upbringing and my family side and some of the beliefs and values and my mindset. Where it was really neat sharing this information and hopefully I've been able to help some of the viewers.

Gurasis: 1:21:53

A hundred percent and thank you. Thank you, akshay, for all your kind words and I think I'm going to definitely sleep on your advice of dreaming bigger. I think I'm going to have some cold emails to send tonight. I'm going to definitely sleep on your advice of dreaming bigger. I think I'm going to have some cold emails to send tonight. I'm going to do that, but definitely it was a pleasure having you, akshay, absolutely love talking to you and I look forward to have you not only the next season, all my coming seasons. I would love to unfold more about your journey and the things that I've achieved. Thank you so much for being on the podcast and adding value to my listeners and to me. Thank you.

Akshay: 1:22:25

Thank you so much.