IAM2272 – CEO Focuses on Using Technology to Tackle Counterfeit Products

00:00 - 00:30

Padmakumar Nair: So it started off as an academic project and when I saw this data around, you know, the people dying and the kind of loss that is happening, I thought, you know, why is this happening? And I wanted to really solve that problem. So I left my 20 years of corporate life and moved into the startup world. And I really wanted to solve, make an impact to this world. That's how InnoVenture was formed. The whole idea of InnoVenture is, how do you use technology to solve day-to-day problems of life?

00:31 - 00:57

Intro: Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.

00:59 - 01:06

Gresham Harkless: Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Patty. Patty, excited to have you on the show.

01:07 - 01:11

Padmakumar Nair: Thank you, Gresh. Thank you for giving me this opportunity, excited as you

01:11 - 01:40

Gresham Harkless: are. Yeah, absolutely. I'm definitely excited because Patty's doing so many awesome things. And of course, before we jumped into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Patty so I can hear about some of those awesome things. And Patty is the co-founder and CEO of Innoventure, a global tech startup with multiple IPs and the anti-counterfeit. Patty is an alum of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and he brings with him over 18 years of leadership experience across the globe. And 1 of the things I read before we were preparing for this is that

01:40 - 02:09

Gresham Harkless: Patty wrote a post and he was saying the global counterfeit products market is surged to be a $2 trillion economy, which is incredible. And 1 of the things that was mentioned is that every individual sector has been significantly compromised by the rise of advanced counterfeit practices affecting a brand's revenue and reputation. So I'm super excited to kind of get a little bit more insight into this and what he's been doing. So Patty, are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?

02:10 - 02:11

Padmakumar Nair: Yeah, all excited.

02:11 - 02:17

Gresham Harkless: Awesome. Well, let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off, let's rewind the clock here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

02:19 - 02:21

Padmakumar Nair: Sorry, how is the?

02:21 - 02:24

Gresham Harkless: Hear a little bit more about your story. We'd like to get started.

02:24 - 02:58

Padmakumar Nair: Yeah, okay. So, you know, we started this company in 2018. I was actually doing my executive MBA at MIT. So it actually started off as an academic project. We were asked to find a real life issue. How do you solve that? So the issue that was picked up was counterfeit problems. Just to give you the gravity of this problem, we've been talking for 2 minutes now, 1 kid would have died in Africa during this period because of fake anti-malarial drug. And mind you, malaria is a curable disease. Still, people are dying because there is no real

02:58 - 03:32

Padmakumar Nair: anti-controphic solution for that. So it started off as an academic project. And when I saw this data around, you know, the people dying and the kind of loss that is happening, I thought, you know, why is this happening? And I wanted to really solve that problem. So I left my 20 years of corporate life and moved into the startup world. And also MIT really made me think what am I doing with my life? And I saw all the kids in MIT already with startups. So I also wanted to do something. And I really wanted to solve,

03:32 - 04:08

Padmakumar Nair: make an impact to this world. That's how InnoVenture was formed. The whole idea of InnoVenture is how do you use technology to solve day to day problems of life? And there are a lot of such problems that we need to address. And that's how the first problem that we picked up was counterfeit. So now coming to 2024, we are working with a lot of brands globally, doing pretty well, working with a lot of big brands, helping them solve their counterfeit issues. Our technology is there on more than 10 billion units worldwide and touching more than 100

04:08 - 04:15

Padmakumar Nair: million households. And yeah, that's about us. I mean you can ask me anything more. Yeah,

04:16 - 04:44

Gresham Harkless: I appreciate you sharing that. I love that you kind of focus your academic opportunities on real life issues. I think so many times we can forget like at the heart of like entrepreneurship and business is actually problem solving, being able to kind of figure out how to solve those issues. But I wanted to drill down more and hear a little bit more about counterfeiting. Like I read the number, you know, 2000000000000 dollar economy, which is ridiculous. Like how big that is. I would love to hear a little bit more on that, the economy, that economy, and

04:44 - 04:46

Gresham Harkless: also how you are solving that problem.

04:48 - 05:27

Padmakumar Nair: See, there is not any product that is not impacted by counterfeit. Almost every product that we talk to, they have some issue or the other, but it's a different thing how they're addressing it. Some brands are trying to solve it quietly by themselves. Majority of the brands don't communicate to the consumers. You and me as laymen, we cannot figure out whether it is genuine or fake. I'll give you my personal experience. When my daughter was born in Dubai, I bought a reasonably good body lotion for her and she developed rashes all over her body. And we

05:27 - 06:03

Padmakumar Nair: thought she is allergic to body lotion and we stopped using it. My sister came from she lives in California. She came down to Dubai and she brought the same lotion and she applied it on my daughter and she was fine. So that's when I thought you know maybe based on location, these products are different and then I happened to meet a gentleman from the same organization and I was explaining to him this problem that my eye freeze then he was telling me Patty, sorry, you ended up buying a fake product. So that is my first exposure

06:03 - 06:31

Padmakumar Nair: to any product can be counterfeited. Till that time, I was always under the impression that it is only with these big brands and expensive products that you have got. But today when we are working with this industry, I can tell you from all the way from toilet cleaners to salt To diamonds you have got to fit Wow, that's and we are already working with all these segments also That's why I'm confidently saying all the way from a toilet cleaner to salt to diamond you have counterfeit

06:32 - 07:04

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, that's that's crazy because I think whenever I hear the word counterfeit, I'm automatically thinking of, like you said, jewelry. You're thinking of dollar bill. You're not thinking of all of these different ways that counterfeiting can turn into that business. And so would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? It could be for yourself individually, the business or a combination of both, but is it that ability to not just create something that solves a problem, but understand, I guess understand deeply that problem, building something that's fully customer-centric that you have

07:04 - 07:11

Gresham Harkless: had those conversations. You understand what those pain points are and you've developed something. Do you feel like that's part of what sets you apart and makes you unique?

07:12 - 07:45

Padmakumar Nair: No, I think in terms of product, I would say design thinking or the customer-centric development is something that helped us in building a technology which actually consumers, we never hear and know from customers. Most of the places when we go there like, wow, this is what we were looking for. So that is 1 area. But as a startup to grow, it doesn't end with the product alone. It's a team that you've built. It's the investors that you have. It's your strategic decisions that you take. It's a whole lot of things that actually makes a startup successful.

07:45 - 08:22

Padmakumar Nair: And I can say we are not still a successful startup, but we are just closing our series 8 round now. But yeah, it's a journey with a lot of other parameters also involved. Product is 1 thing, then you have to work with strategy, everything has its own role to play. I just to give you an example there was a time when we were so overwhelmed with customer response that we started taking everything and then we realized that we don't have time to build our technology. We are always running behind customer demands. And at some point, I

08:22 - 08:47

Padmakumar Nair: had to take a decision that we need to have some control over what we take. We cannot die of indigestion. I'm okay to die of starvation, but I don't want to die of indigestion. That's a big lesson for a startup. From that day, we decided, no, we will limit ourselves, what we will do, and That helped us actually survive longer.

08:47 - 08:58

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, that makes sense. I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. This could be like an Apple Book or a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:59 - 09:43

Padmakumar Nair: I personally feel that you can never work with the best of the lot to build an organization. You will have different, different kind of people with some strength and a lot of weakness also on their side. So as a leader, how do you make the best out of all their positives, ignoring their weaknesses? And how can I cover that weakness with someone else's strength? And you know, the biggest thing that I look for is, how can I make 1 plus 1 equal to 3, not 2? Having that knowledge that that 1 itself is having a lot

09:43 - 09:51

Padmakumar Nair: of negatives in there. Each of us come with a lot of negatives. Still, how do we make 1 plus 1 equal to 3 is the biggest challenge for us.

09:51 - 10:05

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, that's such a huge thing. And do you think that would be like your CEO nugget, which is a little bit more, I call it, word of wisdom or piece of advice, something you might tell your younger business elf if you were to hop into a time machine or your favorite client, is it to leverage that idea of like that sounding board?

10:06 - 10:37

Padmakumar Nair: Yeah, definitely. I think 2 things I would strongly advocate in a startup is you should be ready to die of starvation, but never die of indigestion. Second, you should have a sounding board who is ready to, who is not going to judge you and just listen to whatever you are saying and give you some honest feedback. I'm fortunate enough to have these 2. I have that extra added benefit of hiring someone like Amad as the chairman, which is a huge plus.

10:38 - 11:06

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, absolutely. I think those end up being such a huge thing because I think when you realize that a lot of times the people that are most successful are successful because they've created that environment that's around them, whether it be a sounding board, having mentors or people that are chairman that they can lean on ends up being like such a huge thing. But I wanted to drill down a little bit more on that starvation. Is that, When you reference that, do you mean like the power of focusing, like laser focusing on a problem?

11:06 - 11:44

Padmakumar Nair: Yeah, instead of having too many, even if it is just 1 customer, solve that customer's problem very clean. Instead of taking up 10 things, so as a startup you will think, oh, I have only 1 customer, should I focus on 1 or 10? And most probably, every startup will go after 10. And that actually makes it indigestion and we are not able to focus on 1 problem and fix that clearly. Instead, we do half-baked solution here, half-baked there. And at the end of the day, we have 10 customers who are not fully satisfied. Instead, if you

11:44 - 11:50

Padmakumar Nair: focus on that 1 customer, make it repeatable, And that gives you a longer validity.

11:52 - 12:20

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And it almost seems like counter to everything you read. It's like, okay, if I have 2 different products that I launch, 1 has, like you said, 10 clients, 1 has 1 client, more than likely, you're like, okay, let's lean in on the 10. But I guess you're saying that because if you really laser focus, you can solve that problem after you solve that problem. If you're able to create, I guess, more of a scalable solution, then you can start to solve that problem for 10 and then 100, then 1, 000,

12:20 - 12:23

Gresham Harkless: and then millions. That's the way I lean on that.

12:24 - 12:25

Padmakumar Nair: Exactly.

12:25 - 12:42

Gresham Harkless: Yeah. Perfect. I love that. 1 of the things I wanted to ask you more about with the sounding board. Like how have you seen if you weren't in kind of the situation to be able to hire people have who were great people or how do people find that sounding board and people that they can lean on?

12:43 - 13:23

Padmakumar Nair: Hi, actually, I was lucky to have someone. He's actually when I first started my career, he was HR head of that company. When I left my last organization, there also he was HR head there. So, later he is now with us as 1 of the board of directors and also he's managing. He's a CHR also. Because I have that long term relationship right from my career beginning to the end, I mean, till my end of corporate life to the startup journey. I know him for a longer period. But yeah, I think sounding board is someone that

13:23 - 13:38

Padmakumar Nair: you should have some long-term relationship and you know that how that person is actually, it's not someone who is just critical and who just want to give some advice for the sake of giving advice. You want someone who is saying, we'll take it and tell you what is good for you.

13:39 - 13:54

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, that ends up being such a huge thing to kind of lean on that. I appreciate so much in talking about that relationship piece. So now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition, what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Patty, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:56 - 14:36

Padmakumar Nair: Personally, I think in a startup journey, you have, I categorize it as nail, scale and sale. I think that is something that MIT talks about. At the nail phase, you're somehow nailing the problem. And at that time, a CEO is not chief executive officer, chief everything officer, you have to do everything to actually do that. The scale phase is when you have to be a little more into, you are getting specialized people at each other role and they are there to do so now the role of CEO changes from doing everything to let them do but

14:36 - 15:00

Padmakumar Nair: give them the direction to actually take it to the next level and the sale phase is it's become more strategic and you know you're talking long term and you know managing investors and so many other things and it becomes a totally different ball game. But yeah, I think my journey so far is going from chief of chief everything officer to now someone who is guiding the team to take it to the next level.

15:00 - 15:18

Gresham Harkless: Nice, I absolutely love that nail scale and sale. Well, Patty truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. What I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get a hold of you, find about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

15:20 - 16:08

Padmakumar Nair: Yeah, I think I'm happy I'm connected. I'm there on LinkedIn, Insta, and the former Twitter, which is X also. I mean, anyone wants to follow me? I mean, I keep talking about all the good things that happens. But as a company, our aim is to actually take it to the next level, now bring in all the AI capabilities and take it to a level where a complete seamless AI-based anti-corrosion solution which can be implemented and which can become the standard across the globe. Hopefully, we will have more interactions in future where I'll be able to talk

16:08 - 16:10

Padmakumar Nair: more about what we have achieved at that time.

16:11 - 16:21

Gresham Harkless: Yeah, absolutely. And of course, we'll have the links and information below too as well so that everybody can follow up with Patty and his team find about all the awesome things that you're working on and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:21 - 16:22

Padmakumar Nair: Thank you.

16:22 - 16:51

Intro: Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. IMCEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blues16media.com. This has been the IMCEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.