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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
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Title:       The CEO Improving Healthcare Access for 70 Million+ Americans - Sufian Chowdhury | The 021 Podcast
Channel:     Algorizin (https://www.youtube.com/@Algorizin)
Video URL:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7vZt2GtGIs
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In America's healthcare industry, there's almost half a trillion dollars worth of fraud. What's very
difficult to do in America is it's not necessarily bribery because it's a chain of lobbyists. It
circumvents bribery, but it's indirect in many ways and it's embedded in the institution. You
basically are fighting this giant. I remember there would be times where we just like lay a bed
sheet like in the kitchen floor and just sleep there. The bottom does not scare us. Stop talking
about yourself. Nobody cares about you. Get that in through your head. What if I get hit by a bus
tomorrow? I've spent my day today. My last day on Earth working. If I lost everything tomorrow, I'll
be fine. I'll go I'll go drive Uber. I don't care. Yeah. Welcome to 0ero to1. I'm your host Sam
Hussein. I'm an immigrant founder. I bootstrap my company to seven figures while creating a
community of 220,000 members. Currently, I run a hedge fund for immigrants. I started this podcast
to share 0ero to1 stories of people who started with nothing but created something meaningful and
impactful despite the odds. Today's guest is Sufyan Churri, founder and CEO of Kinetic, a platform
that powers digital infrastructure for non-emergency medical transportation across the US. Till date
they have raised more than 32 million to build a nationwide network. Sufyan and Kinetic aim to make
medical ride access possible for every patient. Without further ado, let's dive in. How are you,
Sufyan? I'm good. I'm tired. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot for making the time. Of course. I
remember meeting you first almost like a month ago um in this Bangladeshi uh NRB tech conference. I
don't know what exactly. Yeah, that is acronyms are hard to remember, but it was uh I think um a lot
of Bangladeshi business leaders coming together um to just what what's cool about it, I think a lot
of folks there are people in the Bangladeshi community that are doing creative stuff that's not your
traditional engineering or you know your doctor physician route right there. I think um there's a
new generation of um you know uh Bangladeshies that are going after entrepreneurship and uh
traditional businesses in America that that we consider tra traditional businesses here that uh are
you know you don't see amongst immigrant families. So that's pretty cool and it was good that show
uh the panel. It was good to see how many others are uh pursuing startups and tech where
historically that's not been really a focus of ours you know as a people. Yeah, I I agree. So that
it was really nice for me to know that wow there are like so many people who I didn't know that are
doing so many cool stuff and I'm glad that I can dive in deeper today to your story. Um so what I
understood like top line I mean correct me if I'm wrong is that you have been in this healthcare
space with kinetic for almost a decade right raised $32 million right u but there's this one problem
uh that still keeps you up at night and I want to understand the acronym which is ne right uh why is
it still bothering you after working for a decade on this topic and what is still keeping you
motivated? Yeah. So, um so th those of us that are at home and don't know what NMT stands for, it's
non-emergency medical transportation and there's a very good chance that you know our parents or our
grandparents are utilizing this service and it's basically your insurance if you're on Medicaid. a
Medicaid. The way the insurance marketplace is divided in America, it's you have Medicaid, which is
government sponsored and that necess that doesn't, you know, it's really based on your income
threshold. So, if you're below a certain income threshold, the government subsidizes your insurance
for you, your health healthcare uh insurance uh payments. Um, and then there's Medicare, which is,
uh, if you're above the age of 65, it doesn't matter how wealthy or how poor you may be, um, you
qualify for that. And then there's commercial insurance, which are folks like us who work and then
have to pay into and subscribe to those insurance. So Medicaid and Medicare are uh are governed on a
federal level by CMS, which is known as Center for Medicaid Medicare Services. Mhm. Um anyway, long
story short, this NMT program, non-emergency medical transportation program, impacts about 70
million Americans every year. Uh there are roughly 250 million trips a year that take place. And
these are trips to your, you know, dialysis centers or, you know, methadone clinics or if you, you
know, if you have chronic illnesses, let's say cancer, what have you, and you need to go to, uh,
your treatments, then, uh, your insurance, if you're on Medicaid, they, uh, they subsidize the the
transportation to and from your medical appointment. So, that's what non-emergency medical
transportation is. What's keeping me up at night with this is the fact that even after a decade of
working on this, it seems like we're we're just merely scratching the surface of what we can really
do with this. Um, you know, it's in Bangladesh, you kind of pre you never appreciate that, but you
kind of know what you're getting into in the world of business when um there's there's open bribery,
right? We we know this. Yeah. What's very difficult to do in America is it's not necessarily bribery
because it's a chain of lobbyists who influence law which then uh kind of favors you. So it it's a
it circumvents bribery but it's indirect in many ways, right? Um, but there's a lot of backroom
deals that take place and it's embedded in the institution. In America's healthcare industry,
there's, you know, o over, you know, almost half a trillion dollars worth of fraud, waste, or abuse
of this, you know, healthcare marketplace. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Right. Right. Uh, I don't
know what Bangladesh's GDP is. So, if it's like a few, I think maybe two or three trillion dollars.
Just think about it just in healthcare alone, you know, a quarter of our GDP is considered to be
wasted or or fraudulent activity in America's healthcare industry alone. M um so that keeps me up at
night knowing that what we're doing is really to make it very easy for folks who are on uh Medicaid,
which is primarily folks like us or our parents who've come to this country um and they depend on
government uh uh programs and social welfare programs, but they're they don't know that this program
exists, right? and we could get into why they don't know and all the things that happen behind the
scenes that you get to learn. Uh because when when I got into this um you know everybody glorifies
being in America. Everybody thinks uh American businesses are the beacon of all businesses, right?
Mhm. But you don't necessarily realize the level of corruption and shady practices that are embedded
in a lot of these institutions. And I think that keeps me up at night because what we're doing is is
really for people to uh to do something as simple as getting to a medical appointment. But again, a
lot of uh institutional behaviors prevent you from uh implementing your services that that are
needed by tens of millions of people. Yeah. Very interesting point on the bribery. Yeah. Um uh
because I moved to the US 16 years ago. Yeah. And I thought that US doesn't have any of these
corruption but I realized that in US the corruption is just in a different scale. Yeah, it's it's
hidden. It's it's hidden and the and the scale is considerably larger. Yeah. But it's a
orchestration of corruption, but it's so fascinating to see the difference. Yeah, I guess it's like,
you know, you you want to say corruption, but it's also just like the way that they um cover it up
is very creative, right? That's why it it we cannot maybe label it corruption, but it is technically
not fair. It's not ethical, right? It's not corruption, but it's neither is it ethical. Yeah. Yeah.
Um some Yeah. Yeah. So I I can see that you basically are fighting this giant behemoth, right? Yes.
Yes. Um but you have been doing this for like a decade. So have you I guess my main question is that
what is the one single factor if you could change that would expedite the process much more? Mhm.
like what is the main uh you know like if you're playing a game you're like doing a final boss
you're fighting a final boss what is the weak point of this behemoth well is it in terms of from my
perspective building the company or just healthcare in general like what needs to change for the
healthare industry both I mean your company is the weapon against this uh yeah so a lot of things
right I think what you realize um Actually, President Obama said it best in an interview where he
said his whole life he wanted to sit in these rooms with influential people, right? He always
wondered what it felt like. Uh he admired people of great influence and he'd sit he said and then
when I'd sit down amongst them, I realized they didn't know much. These people that I admired, when
I sat amongst them, I realized they didn't know much. And that um that that statement couldn't be
any more true because um I think a lot of people that are making decisions, they don't understand
the nuances of markets like this. So a lot of a lot of decision makers who have the power to
implement something like our our product, they don't understand it or they don't care to understand
it, right? They they'll have to understand in a very different way. You have to educate the market.
you have to sponsor political campaigns for you to get their attention and then all of us, you know,
so there's a lot of different it's not very clear-cut and I wish more people were in position of
power who actually live through the pain of somebody on Medicaid who then cared for it to make those
changes. A lot of people who do grow up like this aren't fortunate enough to get out of it and the
other ones that do end up doing a lot of advocacy work, right? very few people go on to become
incredibly powerful in that domain who care deeply about it who don't let the money get in the way
of doing good for people and so very you just don't have a lot of that so that's from an
institutional perspective from my perspective the of building a company the biggest challenge of
building a company once you find product market fit which in the world of tech it's you know the
reality is People glorify raising capital, right? That's not a great thing. You raise capital
because you can't generate revenues, right? So, it's not a it's not necessarily a thing to be
glorified, but it can be justified in the early days if it's a a big enough project. So, you raise
capital uh so that you could uh build your company once you find product market fit. The most
challenging part about a company is finding the right people to build with. M it is incredibly
difficult. What happens is a lot of people promise you the world. Very few few people deliver on
that promise, right? So one of the biggest challenges of scaling a company. So you already have
external stuff going on is building a strong enough unit internally that can combat all these um
external um events that are taking place. that honestly are the main reasons why you go down, right?
External threats and then the internal team's not ready to take on external threat. That's why most
companies just go out of business, right? And so it's it's combination of both. You building the
right team is very difficult and it took me almost a decade to get that right and then weathering
the external storms for us building kinetic. We went through co where you know we we when we started
our company as a revenue cycle management platform taxi companies would use our system to bill
insurance companies. So we got paid for every insurance that they built through our system. So it
was on a transactional basis right during co 70% of the rides dissipated. That means 70% of our
potential market was eliminated. There's no market anymore. Nobody's going to buy your software
because they're not transporting anybody uh to their doctor's appointments because if you didn't
have CO, you know, related symptoms, you're not going into a hospital, right? So, our business by,
you know, co who would have thought CO something like CO takes place once every hundred years that
debilitize and destabilizes the entire economies that happens once in a century. That happened while
we were trying to build a company. There's no way to predict something like that. that almost took
us out. And then when we pivoted and and rebuilt our business, then we had you know um Silicon
Valley bank crash which then changed fundamentally the way venture funds invested in in early stage
ventures. Mhm. So that impacted our ability to raise capital and almost killed our business. Mhm.
And then you had the Trump administration come in and and they clamped down on um on Medicaid
programs throughout the country and that led to executives within the Medicaid health plans to not
uh bet on innovative tools anymore. So every 2 or 3 years you face these existential cris crisis
that will almost wipe you out. And if you don't have a good unit to uh stick by one another and
continue to build your business will go out, right? And so that happens a lot. So it's a combination
of factors where you have how the way this institution and this industry is built versus the way you
build your company uh leads to companies not surviving. And thankfully, you know, we're still here a
decade later after all this. It makes you stronger. Yeah. No, no. Good. I mean, good job on sticking
to it. And I had no choice, brother. uh um very interesting uh insights. I I feel like I mean I am
not from this space so I'm learning from you. Um very interesting analogy with the immigration space
that externally the problem set is that people who are really passionate about it are not
necessarily in the position of power to be able to fix it. Right. So there is a disparity as you
said that there are a lot of people who has the power to fix it but they are not empathetic towards
this problem. So similar issue happens in immigration because only few people goes through
immigration who has not gone through immigration they don't know they're not empathetic to solve
this problem because okay we don't understand this problem. So this is very interesting and also the
second thing you said was that for these kind of problems it's the finding an evangel like a team
which is evangelizing with you for a long time that is a very strong uh like difficult fit but I I
think like I guess like how did you find your current team like more stable like what are the best
recruitment pathways you have followed I I think um so many every stage you kind of learn um new
methods of hiring in the very early stages you just need doers right you just need people who are
going to come in and just do the job you don't care about scaling you don't care about what somebody
when it was a team of five or team of 10 what you say and do will get you fired when it's a team of
100 or 200 people right So the makeup of that that team is different and what happens a really good
uh book it's uh called Peter principle right and what happens is that it basically says you either
reach a threshold in your career where you outgrow the company or the out company outgrows you and
you kind of building a company for 10 years you see this principle come to life definitely you see a
lot of people step up and and rise to that occasion or you'll see some people outgrow and go build
their own companies or you'll see the company outgrow them and leave them behind. Absolutely. I mean
even as a founder you have to do that like the company might outgrow you sometimes if you 100%. And
I and I think for me that and a lot of people are tied to this like as a founder of the company
initially you might own majority of this business right and I think a lot of people conflate this um
to being that it's not like a local grocery shop you own for 10 years. M when you bring in investors
when you bring in external interests into this business what happens is you naturally go from hey I
own 100% of this to ultimately becoming an employee of this business right so for me 10 years into
it I am pro even as the CEO of the company you're you're the most critical employee in the business
right at the end of the day you might be the founder but by law and under your contract you're an
employee of the same business that you once founded agreed right so I now have to adhere to the same
rules that all my employees have to do. So now all of a sudden you go from founder to being an
employee. It's a very uncomfortable place to be. Now as a founder you have certain privileges. Mhm.
Right. That a four hire CEO might not have right you're you are you have institutional knowledge you
have domain expertise. You kind of know where everything is you because you've built it from
scratch. Um, so there's a level of power that you'll always have over the business, but that's not
to say that the business won't outgrow you because even I look at it at the way that I close deals,
it's not scalable, right? I build relationships years in advance. Mhm. And knowing that, you know,
I'm going to go to Idaho today, not because there's a deal to close here today, but in four years
there's a new, you know, RFP, which is a request for proposal. M that's how we could go into that.
That's how um people bid on projects with the government or health plans. You go through that
process. Now I might see an RFP coming up in 4 years, but I'll start building relationships
tomorrow. And then I'll take them out to dinner, coffee, whatever it is, and become really good um
you know, sounding board or advocates for their cause or go to their political campaigns well in
advance. Mhm. So that when that RFP comes in, they know my name, they know my company, and they'll
advocate for that from their end, right? That's my way of doing sales. That's the only way I know
how to do sales, right? And I don't consider it sales as much as I consider it relationship
building. I don't do it because I get a commission. I do it because the equity of this business
grows substantially. Whereas to for it to scale, you need people who get commissioned for these
things, right? Their interest is the commission. They don't care if the equity grows because they
have no equity in the business. Yeah. So, at some point, the business needs more of those folks. At
some point, a business needs a CEO who's going to wear a suit and tie and go to Congress for a
hearing. Yeah. Right. Um, so you got you've got to know like where your strengths are. Now, can I
pivot to being that? 100%. Will I hate it? 100%. That's not who I am. So knowing who who you are,
where you're comfortable and where you bring the greatest value, right? So for me, if there's ever a
day where I feel like I'm not the best CEO for this company, I owe it to my shareholders. I owe it
to my employees, and I owe it to the industry to step down and bring a new leader who could take it
from 10 to 100 or 100 to, you know, 1,000, whatever it is. So just knowing your place within the
business and also having flexibility to always coming in and helping the business when it's um when
it needs help. So yeah, just being self-aware on when to step down or you know when to hire and what
your role is is also important. Agreed. U I'm glad that Yeah. I mean yeah this is always a difficult
thing for founders. There is this uh missionary versus mercenary right uh thing. So it seems like
you are a missionary in this game but sometimes you need mercenaries who are 100% and having that
awareness u did you always have this awareness like when we when you started this company did you
realize that this kind of comp like I don't think anybody thinks 10 years ahead impossible yeah you
know you just like you come in every day and you for me the way I built this company is I I know I
have an unhealthy obsession with building great stuff. And um that that's what's gotten me here,
right? And I you know, Elizabeth is here and she'll attest to this. If it's next week's problem, I
am not addressing that today because today I have 10 problems to solve for. I don't care about next
week. What if I get hit by a bus tomorrow? I've spent my day today. My last day on earth working. I
don't care. That's great. Right. So if you take that approach, if every day address the problems in
front of you and focus on that knowing very well, obviously you need to have the wherewithal of like
the problems that come beyond this but not solving for it. Just let that marinate in your
subconscious address your problems today. 10 years later you'll be like yeah like you'll have built
something incredible. M so I don't think you think 10 years ahead to be like oh in 10 years I'm
going to fight for my job. What's going to happen is the reverse is going to happen where you're
bored where your investors and your employees are not going to want you to step down. So if you work
really hard and show up every day it's going to be the other way around where nobody wants you to
leave, right? Because they know of the value the value that you bring to the table. So if you do
that you don't need to fight for your job, right? You're going to be a beloved figure in the
organization. If you do it the other way where you're planning to do that and you spend most of your
time planning to keep you're going to lose your job. Nobody's going to like you. I love that
approach. Show up every day. I mean that's why you are a founder and executor. Um I wanted to know a
little bit more on the uh on how what started this. So like you grew up in Queens. Yeah. Yeah. From
Jamaica, Queens. Jamaica Queens. Um so my father came in the 70s um late '7s. Mhm. Uh actually he
founded one of the first masids in in Queens. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Derus Salam. Okay. All right.
Um he he's a very pious man and very hardworking. My father used to work seven days a week. Um 16
hours a day, right? And um we grew up in in the '9s. It was I have five sisters, another seven of
us. And it was literally a um one-bedroom apartment in Jamaica. Mhm. And I remember there would be
times where we just like lay a bed sheet like in the kitchen floor and just sleep there. Our people
don't care, right? It's so funny. Fast forward 30 years later, I have this penthouse in Bickl that I
never stayed at and it was empty and it was massive. And I look back at the days where we had
nothing and my my life was more fulfilled than when you have a lot and then it's empty, right? It
just it's the irony of life. But anyway, going back to that, right? You're there. Um we struggled a
lot, right? We were on Medicaid. My father worked. It's very traditional Bang Bangladeshi story,
right? Where um what kind of work did your father do? So he started off as did everything in the
same from pizza delivery to ultimately owning a restaurant later on where he um wor his success paid
off. Um and but but those 10 years I remember in the '90s it was tough. It was very tough. Um and
yeah it was just you know you just make me I I remember I was thinking about it the other day. I
think it was five or six and our neighbors came. They were also Bangladeshi. Yeah. They come,
there's a wedding and I was a 5-year-old kid, right? Um, and they came and they were like, "Oh, why
didn't you go to the wedding?" And my my first response without even knowing, and this is something
I don't rec recollective my mom telling me this was my first response was, "Hey, um, oh, I didn't
have clothes, so I didn't go." Right? And you think about that and it's like my my mom recalling
those stories, looking at what, you know, how much I've achieved now. It's sad, you know, you you
really just didn't have much. And to come from that, and I know one of the things we'll probably
talk about is what drives you, right? Mhm. I mean, we already come from the very bottom. The bottom
does not scare us. Yeah. You get me? We're If I lost everything tomorrow, I'll be fine. I'll go I'll
go drive Uber. I don't care. Yeah. You know, so I think that mindset is built within us. Mhm. Um
yeah. So yeah, it's it's been tough. You you grow up like that, you see the world from a very
different lens. Um so when you get here and you're working here and now you're in a position of
power, you never lose perspective. It always takes you back to that, right? So you kind of see the
world from a very different prison than those who didn't go through that that level of pain growing
up. No, that's amazing. I think you have such a good foundation because of that hardship. Uh and I
mean me too but like anyone who has gone through that kind of layer that yeah like you can lose
everything next day and still be okay and that gives you a certain type of courage that okay I can
do yeah because you don't care about about risk. My father took the greatest risk by coming to a
different country. Mhm. You know so it would be um a disservice to him. Yeah. If I didn't take even
bigger risk. Agreed. Um what what what motivated you to to take this particular risk meaning uh like
how did you get into this space healthcare like well I was doing consulting um right after college
and um I learned a lot and I did it for about 15 months and I quit my job abruptly like um I just
couldn't do it. I I couldn't do the 9 to5. I couldn't wear a suit every day anymore, you know. It
was just not my thing. Right. So, um, how long were you in the corporate world? Like 18 months, I
think. Okay. Yeah. It was the beginning of your career. It was 18 months too long. But I did learn
stuff there. Yeah. Yeah. That had nothing to do with why I ended up here. It was serendipitous. Like
life is random. And no experience is bad because somehow someway they're all this everything is
interconnected. and what what I learned when I was doing dishes at my dad's restaurant to what I
learned what I when I was doing consulting every single thing applied to me as as a leader of this
business right so um it teaches you humility it teaches you technical skills different things
whatever it all culminates to uh helping you do whatever it is that you're doing now um it was
random in the sense that I was working on like three or four different projects to see what takes
off. And one of the projects was this um I basically started with a friend of mine calling me and
saying, "Hey, can you come to my office? I need help with the database." And I go to his office and
it's this massive Excel sheet. Elizabeth has heard the story at least one billion times and she
could probably repeat it and say it better than me. But so uh I uh go to massive Excel sheet. I'm
like, "Hey, what's this?" He's like, "Well, um, I track receivables on this Excel sheet and I need
to put it into a database where I could do analytics on it." And I was like, "Okay, but what exactly
do you do?" He goes, "Well, I transport people to and from their medical appointment, and afterwards
I have to build their insurance companies, and I I work with seven or eight different insurance
companies, and each of them have a different um uh way of billing." And and that that was really
where I was like in my previous exper experience as a consultant that I hated. uh we used and I had
to learn everything about revenue cycle management platforms and how it worked. So I asked him, "Why
don't you use a RCM, a revenue cycle management platform?" And he goes, "What's that?" And that's
when I was like, "Huh, this is interesting." Um, one thing leads to another. I get deeply involved
in his business. I start driving for him. I start billing. I start doing call center work.
Everything he I just want to learn. He was actually fed up with my obsession with his business,
which is funny, but that's for another day. 18 months later, me and my two co-founders, um, we end
up building the nation's first revenue cycle management platform for the non-emergency medical
transportation industry. And then from that point on, it's building, listening to the market,
iterating, pivoting, iterating, pivoting, and then ultimately a decade later, you'll have built
something that's worthwhile. So, yeah. So you had a little bit like you got bored of this corporate
world and then you just wanted to help. Yeah. You just help wanted to help this person. Yeah.
Actually at first it was funny because kinetic I'm a very lazy guy, right? Lazy meaning like I'll
work hard but like lazy for a particular things. For example, if you told me, hey man, go like make
me coffee. Like not the way you made me coffee. That was a lazy way. Yeah, that was a lazy like
that's you know if you came to my house I'd make this. But if I had to make you like actual coffee,
I'd just be like, "Hey, let's just order Starbucks," right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can understand. I'm
also lazy. Similar way, but you know, like very Yeah. So, for me, it's just like like I was in 2015,
I got stuck in a parking lot. Mhm. I'm not sure if a lot of people know the story, but like the name
of Kinetics. So, um parking lot and it was in Regal Park, right? I think the Century 21. Yeah. Yeah.
and the turnstyle thing broke. There's a line to get out. It was about an hour's wait. So, you get
to the front of the line, the turnstyle's broken, and they're like on a clipboard taking notes.
Like, I'm like, "What's this for?" They take your number and then we'll call you back for your uh
credit card information to charge you. I'm like, "This doesn't make any sense. You really think
anybody's going to ask her when she leave this to give your credit card information to you?" And so
whatever is like useless people standing here to create jobs for themselves, right? Or somebody said
just do this, right? It's like this weird thing just to show that, hey, I'm working. I was like, we
need to automate this entire parking thing where there's no human sitting there. If something's
broken, let people go. Yeah. And so I went on this crazy six-month journey to learn everything about
parking and the history of parking. And the greatest country that has figured out parking is New
Zealand, by the way. Anyway, but I learned so much about parking. Um, one thing leads to another. I
get into tra like congestion, street congestions and like weird stuff, right? Anyway, I then decided
to figure out how to find parking on the streets of busy cities, right? And what I wanted to do is
put sensors on the bikes of like Postmates at that time, which was a new company. Now it's big. And
I was like, if I put sensors as the bikes cyclists are going, you could detect open open spots and
then direct it to like ways and create parking like, hey, here's parking. Anyway, that that led to
like um figuring out street congestion and I wanted to call that company kinetic, right? So
basically it was going to feed data into like ways about street congestion and it make ways smarter
but it also find parking etc. And I called it kinetic because it's called energy of motion and so
that was the rationale behind calling it kinetic. I thought I was very creative by putting another K
at the end. Yeah. So called it kinetic. Um and I kept it that name. And now I was looking for
vehicles that were moving on the street cuz one of my uh investors said, "Go find a bunch of
pilots." And that's when I reached out to my friend who had the taxi company. I was like, "Hey, I
want can I put my sensor on your vehicles to capture traffic information?" He's like, "Sure, but you
need to build me a database next exchange." That's when I went to his office. God stood through
this. So random. So random. And then I was like, "Huh, 6 months later, I'm like, I'm going to drop
all the other things. I'm going to keep the name and I'm going to make this kinetic." So that that
was really the evolution of the name and how I even went to my friend. Yeah, that's Yeah, that's so
random that how the pivot happened. Like he just dropped it because for me, I was what I was trying
to do is something that was very complex and direct to consumer and his was like a practical product
that the market needed and I had enough market knowledge to build that out and so naturally chose to
just drop it. And that's it's very important to not be married to your ideas. And when the market
tells you it needs one thing, doesn't matter how you got to that market. Mhm. Drop the other things
and choose the market that's willing to pay you. Very, very important lesson. Like always, just let
it go. Don't be married to your ideas. Your ideas suck. Yes. Yes. I mean, ideas are good to start,
but that just let it go. Once you find something that works, let the other things go. That that's
like the simplest way to build a great company. you're saying a little bit about like so this is
like very interesting for me to hear the like pivots like main pivots like pivot stories so that is
already kind of like a pivot like a market pivot the name state um you said like covid happened
there was one moment when you were almost at the brink of collapse so yeah there were three distinct
times where we were on the brink of collapse and one of those moments were during co where Um, I got
very fortunate where we were supposed to not raise a lot of money. Mhm. I was supposed to raise I
think $5 million and my that got that round got overs subscribed and I ended up raising $12 million
and that saved the company because it was impossible to raise money during co the pivots with this
is recognizing what the market needs and having the gumption to go forward with it even when the
market today isn't ready for it. Right? And so one a critical juncture was during COVID where ride
volumes dissipated. There is no market. So I'd call all these taxi companies to say, "Hey, do you
want to buy my billing platform?" And they'd say, "No, we have we barely have any rides. Why are you
selling this product? We don't have any money." Um, and so that's when we went back to the drawing
board and we said, "Look, the best time to raise is now because we let's go raise capital and let's
change fundamentally what we're trying to build because the product we've built right now won't have
a market for the next two years. It doesn't make sense to sit here for 2 years or drastically change
the product. I feel I felt that the NMT marketplace was underserved and did not have proper
technology." M so that's when we were like let's build even more products on top of what we did. Uh
there were gaps in the product we we had built not necessarily um because of what we built but
because of our dependencies on other technologies and so there was opportunity to reduce and
alleviate those dependencies. So we were going to vertically go up upstream and build other product
lines. So and our initial product was for transport companies. Then we decided to build products for
brokerages in this market and for health plans. Those are the other stakeholders. So we started
deciding uh designing scheduling products. So we used a lot of our funds from that round of 10 12
million to completely re-engineer our product to build this endto-end stack that would then allow
health plans to work directly with us, make them our clients and bring this program inhouse. So, we
went from these small mom and pop shop pro uh companies that were paying us 30 cents a ride to
building an entire tech stack that we were able to go to health plans to then pay us $5 a ride. So,
we were able to 50x each transactional price by investing in deeper tech. And so, we made that was
more of a strategic bet than it was a pivot. Um because ultim initially when we were building we
were just going to do an RCM starting with transportation and then get into other ancillary markets
like home health and teleaalth. We were going to make RCM the company that we ultimately built. But
during revenue cycle management platform the the same product we built for the transport companies
to bill insuranceances. There are dozens of markets that we could take the same product to and
automate billing. Right? we could have been incredibly successful with that and there's a great deal
of demand there. Um, but we decided to stay within the NMT ver vertical and build products for more
stakeholders within this market because nobody was addressing it. But there were so many other
companies with RCMs for other verticals. This was still green field for us. And so we decided that
that was really the indicator to double down on this. And so we ended up building this tech stack
that then led to you know just major growth for the business. Once the markets um kind of normalized
uh and got back to precoid numbers we started seeing our business take off significantly. It was a
bet that we made even when we had nothing. I think the craziest was in terms of going out of almost
going out of business was um when Silicon Valley Bank crashed. We we were putting together um a $40
to $50 million round um and SVB crashed February 2023 cuz we were worried that our uh we used to do
banks with another region bank. When SVB crashed, we were doing business with another regional bank
that worked with SVB and they froze their assets for a little bit and we're like can we even get
payroll deployed at that? It was just the frenzy was unreal. Yeah, but the cascading effect it had
on on the entire venture e uh world was unreal. It fundamentally shifted the way VCs invested for
for a small period of time. Now they've gone back to their glory days investing in anything that
says AI. But for that period they became very smart with how they deployed capital and they only
invested in their portfolio companies and even some of them let their successful portfolio companies
die because they wanted to bet on other ones within their port. So, it was chaotic times. You
weren't going to raise money. And we had $6,000 left. And I had in the bank and I had $850,000
payroll. So, and I had 10 days to raise it. And for 14-month period, we had um you know uh cash for
about two weeks to last the business, but I was going around the country, which GJ will show you the
flight tracker uh raising capital every single day. My job at that point was to keep the company
alive because my company they were building great product. Once the product was going to be built,
we were going to able we were going to be able to deploy it into the market. So yeah, chaotic times.
The craziest ever was when we had, you know, $6,000 left in the bank with $850,000 payroll coming up
in 10 days. We have never missed payroll. So um yeah, it was very intense that Yeah. Every day you
you think to yourself, why did I do this? Yes. You know, u this is not for the faint of heart. Um
this is I don't even know who it's for, honestly. I think if you just chose it, you got to you just
got to live with it. And this is it. This is but I think in those days where you have to the
resiliency that's needed and uh the tenacity that's needed and the grit that's needed what I I just
went back to my childhood days you know to know what we come from and where we come from and coming
from nothing made me realize well I I I'm I'm okay with having nothing and that gave you the
gumption to keep going. because it's okay if you lost it all but you have to give it everything
you've got and that's what I did and uh thankfully uh it favored us and we were able to bounce back.
want to dig more into this period of like so um you had like very little time this 6,000 left uh how
did you get out of that like yeah so so the way I build relationships with investors in a very
authentic way I never reach out to them when I need money I reach out to them when I'm in their town
I reach out to them when they're in my town I reach out to them during holidays I've become very
close friends with a lot of my investors I treat their money like it's mine. Um I actually respect
their money more than I I respect my own money at EJ Wood Test. I remember um I flew to Michigan.
One of my greatest mentors and largest investor I I go to his office and he invites 10 or so other
mega investors at Kinetic 500 to a million dollar investments that they've made uh as individuals.
That's a lot for individuals to drop a million or two two million into a company. Sat there and I
said, "You guys put 27 million into this business already." And I need 3 million to get to
profitability. And I and basically sat there and it was awkward silence. And then I was like, "Look
guys, I'm not going in. I'm I can't I literally can't leave. I'm just going to sit here." Yeah. I
remember that day after 4 hours or 5 hours I walked out with 1.7 million, you know, and it wasn't
because I randomly went in front of a stranger and said, "Give me money or I'm not going to leave.
They're probably going to call the cops on you." What I I know these investors for years and years
and years and they know how hard I worked and I'm forever grateful for the network of investors that
I have. Um, and they've come through over and over again for me. And I think it's because they've
seen how much I've reciprocated uh their investment with my own time and effort. M I'm just getting
to know you but one of the things I'm already observing that you are incredibly probably naturally
talented on building solid relationships with humans which is reflecting in uh relationships with
your business partners your investors like you are good in building trust like you genuinely are
building these human connections and these are not selfish like oh I need your help or something
these are like actual human relationships and I think that is I don't know if you noticed it but
that is everywhere when you are telling your stories in investors in customers like all it's a very
relation you're a very relationship driven person and I would say like that is one of the reasons
for your success appreciate that and that I think that is true right I think um a lot of people are
very transactional thinkers and one thing that I always advise my team especially my management
executive team is do not think uh transactionally always think strategically uh always give before
asking for anything. Um and I I learned that from my mother. My mom used to give away my sneakers
all the time. And I used to collect sneakers in high school and she didn't even realize that she was
giving these collector items away, you know, and um I've learned to just, you know, accept my mother
for who she is, this wonderful woman. But and my sisters uh they're incredibly giving people and uh
what I learned from all this is just give as much as you can because the universe keeps keeps score
of it and uh in your deepest darkest moments people come and show up for you and I think that's just
how the world and the universe works and so big big fan of giving first without asking for anything
and I will tell you a quick story here when I was 19 I was in Seattle building this company uh
called Lethi and I had a mentor of mine at that time and she freaked me out with how much she was
giving me, you know, like she was giving me like it was un unreal the amount of connections and
resources and uh she'd pay for everything and I was like what does she want from me? You know, I was
like hey I'm gonna say her name. Um why are you giving me all this? like no offense um because you
know it's it's awkward. And then she goes um well this is how we make the world better. And I said
what do you mean? And she goes look I'm going to give endlessly to you. Uh one day you'll be in my
position where you'll have achieved so much and you'll have young kids come to you and they're going
to ask you hey um why are you doing this? and I want you to tell them u I'm doing this so that one
day you'll be in my shoes and you'll give back to younger people who need it. And she goes this is
how we're going to make the world a better place. And this woman woman was so earnest in her views
of life. And it fundamentally changed the way I looked at giving cuz I never looked at it something
you know that hey you don't owe it to me to make me whole. You owe it to me to give back to someone
else to make me feel whole. is phenomenal for me to be able to be around something like that. There
there are times in life where people come into your life and fundamentally change your perception on
stuff. M a lot of people especially I tell you this especially immigrants or minority communities
they're not as trusting of others because again a lot of things against them right lot why are you
doing this for me right um if we could overcome that and realize there are people who genuinely give
I think you could come this mental blocker we could overcome but anyway giving thank you for
noticing that I know for sure people question why I go out of my way to show up to like an event for
20 minutes if it's somebody who has done me a favor or somebody that I think really needs and I do
it or I'll make time no matter how busy I am for a entrepreneur who's just trying to get started
even after that event I think there were a dozen meetings that took place in my office um no matter
how busy I may be it's this is just different you know this is just your contribution back to
society that's a tax you must pay as a leader I think I I I hope more more people take that on cuz
those kids will come back and they'll help you one day or they'll help somebody else. Incredible
message and I'm like it's so amazing on like this lady coming to your life and changing your
perspective for good. Yeah, like an angel forever. Um and I I do agree with you that immigrants do
have like a huge mental block on this thing. U because I'm like a full hardcore like first
generation immigrant. when I moved here uh um I had a friend's friends friend like very far far away
person who was in Houston also not going to mention names so he let me stay in his house and like he
treated me as like I just dropped from the airport I'm like I stayed with in his house for like 2
weeks he was feeding me he was giving me like showing me all the Texas like cool stuff I'm like dude
why are you doing so much what do you want from I'm like I feel so indebted and like it feels is
fishy and he said like no see I'm like it's fine like just pay it forward when you have just pay it
forward I for the first time I heard this concept of pay it forward and it doesn't have to be
towards it doesn't exist in our uhist in our country either and I I wish more of us did our country
needs that in Bangladesh we need people to think like that that hey I will do something for you um
you don't have to give that back to me give that back to someone else right um I I I think it would
make Bangladesh a better we have great people there but I don't know there there's a lot that we got
to fix there. Yeah. Yeah. And one of it is that mindset of giving forward and expecting nothing
back. It seems like you already have bunch of people who you met in different ways who have mentored
you in different uh uh modalities like do you think mentorship is important or like do you have any
advice on people how should they find mentors? Yeah. Yeah. they they live everywhere. And I think um
you know um my ethics professor was one of my greatest mentors and he's the reason why Connecticut
has such a great culture, right? He let me I grew up in a very conservative Muslim household, but
taking ethics and world religion allowed me to see the world through very different prism. I got to
learn and respect all religions, all people of all walks of life. That was critical to building a
culture that appreciates people of all from all walks of life. Mhm. So, you know what I realize that
a lot of people don't do? They underestimate others who might not have the wealth to show for, might
not have the fancy things we're all attracted to. But there are so many hidden gems in terms of
people who have failed for so many different reasons or have given up. Um, my mentor who it was so
crazy his company went public. Mhm. Um, and that crashed during the 2007 bubble. And he went from
like being skyhigh to having nothing. Became my economics professor, right? And I randomly got into
the school because I didn't apply anywhere else. And it was my first semester meeting him, and he
was one of the most brilliant minds I've ever met. But most people would say, "Well, you've had a
failed venture. Why would I listen to you?" Mhm. But he he didn't fail from his own accord. He
failed because of external circumstances. He became the greatest human to ever walk into my life.
Right? I I saw beyond his success or failure. I saw him for what he brought to the table. He knew a
lot more than I could ever know at that time in my life. And once you find somebody who has these
like gems of information, try to spend as much time as forget what they have today, right? They have
a lot of knowledge and what I got to um appreciate over time is genuine conversations with human.
You could find hidden gems in almost any human because they've experienced a different thing in your
in their life. Most humans, they're rich in in their experiences. They don't really speak about it,
right? A lot of people went through a lot of pain. A lot of people went through a lot of learnings.
There there so many hidden gems in nursing homes and people who were dying to tell their story. So
just get to love talking and listening to other people's stories instead of constantly trying to go
with your own ulterior motive. Just be a genuine listener and you'll find hidden gems in every
conversation and then you'll get tied to them. And what happens is when you ask them these questions
to get to know them, they fall in love with you and they then want to help you. It it it's this
incredible symbiotic thing that goes on. You've got to want to listen and show respect. M I there
are a lot of people that are above the age of 80 people don't respect in the business world. Go find
somebody who ran a company that's in their 80s that nobody's listening to but they're dying to tell
their story. They will they know people. They will tell they will oh man like I could go on for how
important it is to meet people that people that are a bit older, right? And they're no longer
getting the respect they deserve. Why? Because the market wants a bunch of 30, 40, 50 year olds,
right? They don't want the 70-year-old businessman or women. Go find them. They have hidden gems.
They have a massive network and they'll open it up to you if you genuinely listen to them. That's
how I built it, man. Yeah. one and I mean somehow I'm I'm like maybe part two conversation very
curious on understanding how you like is it from your mom or your dad like you have some un good
fundamentals on in yourself uh like good mental models which are very easy to say uh but very
difficult to do it if someone has not grown in like you seem to be a person who is naturally
empathetic and all the good things you're saying like listening first and genuinely listening. Um,
actually one thing I just realized now is that maybe one good advice that maybe I should start
interviewing more older people in my podcast like what it really they they have so much knowledge to
spare and very few people who want to listen to them and I think you'd get so many hidden gems from
their success and from their failures. I feel like you are someone who is um like good intuitive
like doesn't have ego or like has their ego in check. I think you you have some somewhere I read
that you warn founders about ego-driven growth. Mhm. Is there any I guess like how do you navigate
as a founder to stay humble and stay like you while building this massive company and moving fast
and being in this competitive world because it it's you're not running a you're not running a
religious institution you're running a VC backed company right so how do you balance this I I think
um ego is a very good thing if you could harness it right it's a very good thing Because the ego is
what wants make what drives you to become great. So ego is not necessarily a bad thing if you could
learn to harness it. Harnessing it is the most difficult thing in the world and naturally it will
come out. But it's a demanding job and you must demand you know the highest quality of work from all
those around you and that comes from you wanting to be the best and you wanting to be the best comes
from your ego. Um so it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's if you use your ego to demand people
listen to you. If you use your ego to make others feel bad about themselves, right? If you use your
ego to glorify yourself, those are the things that lead to really bad practices and and just bad
businesses in general. So, just being careful with that caring. Don't don't get too caught up in how
what people think about you. If you're a good human who does more good than not, most people will
appreciate you and what you've done for society. So don't get too caught up in how you're perceived
and who car. Forget all that. Every day wake up and work really hard and create something special.
Treat people with a tremendous amount of respect. And if they disrespect you, let them go. Do not
keep them around. Right? So the the reality is like everybody if if somebody who robs banks is a
friend of yours, they're a reflection of what you're willing to accept in your life, right? They're
a reflection of you, right? But if you don't have any thieves in your knowing thieves in your
circle, that means that you refuse to let that be a reflection of you. So keeping that in mind,
right? Surrounding yourself with good intentioned humans. A lot of times great relationships and
great friendships end because of miscommunication has nothing to do with anything else. But again
constantly telling yourself that you are not good enough you know um I think that that helps drive
you in a way whether it's true or not that's secondary but it keeps you in check in the sense that
you haven't accomplished anything right and um I think sometimes you'll look back and you're like
wow I can't believe I made it this far you know but with that mindset of saying like you you you're
just not um good enough there's a really good book from good to great where it talks about the CEO
of UPS who started off at as at an entry- level job and what drove him to become the CEO of UPS was
that mindset of hey I'm not good enough I'm not good enough I'm not good enough and every day you
wake up and you work so hard and next thing you know 10 years later you are great enough to be
become a leader so that mindset you can't so a lot of people like oh look at me look at what I did
and you know you just stop talking about yourself do enough good that the world around you praises
you. So you never have to say a word about what you do. Yeah. You know, and keep that in mind. So
you'll know you made it when others talk about you in a very good way, in a glowing way. Stop
talking about yourself. Nobody cares about you. Get that in through your head. And then you'll
become a decent founder. Even then, you won't be great. Have that in your mind. There's nothing
great about you. Just keep working hard. Um that mindset helps a lot. Incredible. We can keep going.
I want to switch the gear slowly more more towards the end. Um let's do a quick rapid fire question.
I'm going to ask you like some questions and you just pick one like no elaboration needed. Uh so
rapid fire. Ready? All right. Queens or Manhattan? Queens. Uh coffee or tea? Coffee. Uh build fast
or build right? Build fast. Founder gut or customer data? Founder gut. Founder gut. Okay. V uh big
vision first or real problem first? Real problem. Uh product before fundraising or fundraising
before product? Product before fundraising. Okay. Dog or cat? Dog. Podcasts or physical books? Uh,
physical books. No offense. Okay. Um, Arley Bard or Night Owl? Night Owl. Oh, sweet. Me, too. All
right. Um, we're coming very close to the end. Um, I guess, um, imagine 5 years from now, uh, as a
member using Kinetic. U, what would you hope that that person feels in that moment? And what would
you want your team to remember on why that matters? Mhm. I want uh you know over the last decade I
have fallen deeply in love with America because of how special a country it is. When you go to the
most rural parts of America, these are people who struggle. These are people who don't have family.
These are people who can't get to their medical appointments. Um, and I want five years from now,
anybody in any part of this country to be able to whip out their phone, request a medical ride, and
get it instantly. And there, you know, there's so many stories I could share with you about how
important this is. Uh, there are a lot of people who die because they don't have access to care or
access to transportation in America. Um, there are a lot of people who struggle. there a lot of
people are waiting in a waiting room uh in some ER because they don't have access to transportation
and they have to wait 3 hours or 4 hours. So yeah, in 5 years from now I hope that every American
has access to just transportation to get to their medical appointment. I want um our team to realize
that we u impacted the lives of almost 70 million Americans by building this great company. That' be
it. Amazing man. such such an incred uh incredible and inspiring mission. I'm looking forward to
having you like way more many times during this journey. Um I have a very small gift for you u which
is basically just a water bottle. Thanks. If you can open it and see what it says. Uh let's see.
Yeah. Uh I was uh Yeah. U Thanks man. Yeah. It just Oh, I love this. Yeah. I mean you're not you're
not fully an immigrant. This is beautiful. Yeah. It has for immigrants, but yeah, I love it. Thanks,
man. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot for coming. This is great. Yeah. And one day you're going to be
bigger than Diary of a CEO. Yeah, that's that's the goal. That's the I mean I mean Yeah, we're not
competing. We're giving it forward as you say. But yeah, thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it. This was
fun. Yeah, I'm really