Adam Torres and Ashutosh Kumar explore Expert DOJO.
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Show Notes:
Expert Dojo is using the “DAO” method to fuel its global expansion. In this episode, Adam Torres and Ashutosh Kumar, Head of Strategy and Global Expansion at Expert Dojo, explore Expert DOJO and how it’s creating a thriving community of entrepreneurs.
About Ashutosh Kumar
With over five years of experience as an entrepreneur and a background in information technology, management, and finance, Ashutosh have developed a strong foundation in the world of business. His upbringing in a family involved in the construction and real estate industries ignited my passion for entrepreneurship. He finished my undergraduate degree in Information Technology in India before relocating to the United States to pursue a graduate degree in Management & Finance.
About Expert Dojo
Since 2018, Expert Dojo has invested in over 260 startups to accelerate their growth.
They typically invest in pre-seed and seed stage startups that have a product, a go to market strategy and a potential for high growth. Most of Their startups are minority and female founded technology companies. However, we remain industry agnostic and invest in founders from all over the world and from diverse backgrounds.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, today I have Ashutosh Kumar on the line, and he’s head of Strategy and Global Expansion over at Expert Dojo.
Ash, welcome to the show. Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me here. All right. So excited to get into Expert Dojo and also the DAO method. But before we do all of that, we’ll start this episode the way we start them all with our Mission Matters Minute. So Ash, at Mission Matters, our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts.
So that’s what we do. Ash, what mission matters to you? Well as a venture capitalist our mission is to add enough value to the whole startup ecosystem and help entrepreneurs to find the growth, you know, funnel and growth loop. And that’s why we have been investing. Actually, let me tell you a little bit about expert dozer, which maybe, you know, follow up question.
If you ask me, I’ll, I’ll tell you. Walk you through what it is, but when you talk about just the mission, our mission is to, you know, help entrepreneurs all around the world to get enough value from investment with investment and with the growth support. it’s a great mission and one that I resonate with in terms of wanting to, one of the reasons why we built our platform, because we wanted to support entrepreneurs and the entrepreneur community.
Where did that start for you? Like when was this, is this your first foray in supporting an entrepreneurial community? Or like, have you been an entrepreneur in the past yourself as well? Like, tell me a little bit more. So I’m originally from India and I was always wanted to be an entrepreneur when I was like growing up So I went for engineering school in India for computer science But I started building my companies right after from my first main year and then I built one company failed Tried another one failed again, but then after my undergrad I launched my own company.
It was a cement e commerce platform I read it for three years Then it was a great track in more than 20 people, team member. And then before exiting that I moved you know, after exiting that I moved to the U S so I was an entrepreneur myself. So I know how hard it is to, it’s a solo journey. It’s a lonely journey being an entrepreneur.
If you are a solo founder, you know, so I know the pain of this whole entrepreneurial ecosystem. And then when I moved to the U S for my. From a management degree. And while during my graduation, I was connecting all the dots. What would be my next thought, you know, and being an entrepreneur, you might connect with the story that you always get bombarded with a lot of ideas that, okay, I’m going to do that.
I’m going to do that. I was wondering what I should do next. When I connected all the dots, I think, okay, if I have enough idea and I was an entrepreneur myself, I know this whole ecosystem, you know, the market, what should I do next? And when I connected the dot, it leads to other venture capital and, you know, being the investment side of the the river.
And then here I am, like I started with expert dozo. I thought, okay, How I can support and enough, you know, add enough value to the whole startup ecosystem is like being on the other side of the table and then help the entrepreneur with funding. Plus with my experience with my network, I can also get them going in in, in, in their journey as well.
Hmm. What do you like about working with entrepreneurs or CEOs or that, that founder type because we’re, I mean I’ll speak for myself. We’re a difficult bunch. Like there’s easier things to do. Like, what do you like working about that with that bunch? You know, the only thing which I personally like about myself being an entrepreneur and the other entrepreneur is like the fire in your belly.
Fire in your belly. It’s like it’s always burning. It And the way we hustle, like, you know, I don’t give a shit about nine to five, but I’m like watching at the same time, don’t have a work life balance habit, but in the beginning, I think you should just get going, you know, and I love that kind of a hustle.
And when I see other entrepreneur hustling, I was like, okay, I see myself in the entrepreneur. And then I was like, okay, good. This is something that drives me, you know, every day in the morning when I wake up. So having that, you know, that concept and what you said, so we, especially as entrepreneurs, we have a ton of ideas you know, there’s more ideas than money.
There’s more ideas than time. Right. How did you know that expert dojo was going to be like a significant part of your life? How did you know, like, you know, this is the idea I want to go for, and this is what I want to do. Like, was there a moment, was it a buildup, like how did it happen for you? Yeah, for sure.
So during my grad school in Boston, I was like be a part of an entrepreneur club in the school. I was also the part of a member of a, you know, like, venture capital group of the school. And then somehow I landed on expert website. And then I connected with Brian, who is a founder and managing partner.
I sent them like a couple of deals. And then when I was like about to graduate, I said like, Hey I’m done with my grad. Like I’m looking to, you know, kind of get into the venture capital domain and, you know, and this whole investment side of the, table. And then I, Brian said, okay, why not?
You come to California and then, you know, like let’s talk. And then, then we started and then. It went off from there, like this is something that I love doing, you know, like kind of like adding value to the SQL system and stuff like that. And my, my thought process aligned absolutely with the Expedozo philosophy and Brian’s philosophy.
And then we just started and get going. So it’s been a year, about to be a year, but yeah, I’m loving it. And then, you know, So every single day, you know, my responsibility is to kind of like build the whole strategic decision around, you know, the organization and whether it’s investment or the program or running the team, you know, like every single thing.
So, you know, I’m kind of like a guy who puts his finger into multiple pie at the same time. You can call it like a, you know, a jack of all trades, but master of none. But, those are like, they have already invested in more than like, not there. Like, typically we have invested in more than 280 companies around the world.
Right. So investment is our bread and butter, but at the same time, we just drink gold every single day. We work very closely with the founder and then help them with all everything related to growth. That’s why I say, okay, here is the learning curve, which I can improve every single day. This is the place I want to be.
And they are small. And that’s why I thought of, okay, since the team is small, I have enough opportunity to kind of like add use value. And that’s how I decided to, okay, let’s move on with extra dozens of any other form. What do you think kind of separates expert dojo for maybe some of the other venture capitalists or just maybe some of the other firms, like what are some of those things you mentioned, you know, tight knit team, I got that part, but is there working with founders?
Like, tell me a little bit more, , even just about expert dojo in general. Sure. So let me tell you a little bit about the background in general. It’s Brian started a couple of years back, like five years back. So expert dojo has an accelerator and then we have the venture capital model together.
And, you know, So the basic differentiating a factor, if you consider as compared to any other VC firm is like other VC firm, I would not say like they are VC firm who are like definitely doing amazing jobs. So but in general talking about our differentiating factor, we never reject any founder, you know, if even they apply for the investment, we ask them, Hey, if you’re not ready for the investment, we’ll add you to our growth program and then get our free person training and stuff like that.
And once you’re ready, reapply that. So none of the founders ever get rejected from Expedozo even they apply for the investment. And then we pick them from our growth community. Once they are ready for the investment. And then we, again, and we asked them to, okay, let’s talk again. You know, this is the right time.
So this is one factor. The main thing, what we do, once you go through our deal pipeline and then close the investment, once we put our money into your firm and you, and you’re a startup, then you and the whole Expedozo team will work. each other, you know, and then we help our founders to kind of like get as much as you know, kind of support from our side as possible.
And then, so our thesis is kind of unique as compared to any other venture capitalists and accelerators in the world. So we put 50K right? And we don’t even ask founder to, Hey, you need to take 50K. At 3. 5%, if you just need 25K, get 25K and give us 75 percent equity in return, but the maximum you need to take 50K and exceed 3.
5%. And then we will work very closely with you and we’ll get, you know, take you from level one to level 10 to level 100 in the next three years down the line. And then we ask you to give us kind of like a, You know, we, we do the following investment up to a million dollars at the undercap valuation, you know, because we have supported enough to our founder and, and, you know, that the, the whole thesis stands out really well so far, since we have invested in 280 companies around the world and out of 281 people that are based out in the U S and they’re all spread across from Africa to India to Singapore, where not, you know, so this is all our expertise, but this year, you know, We have a great plan.
We are going one step down in the funnel. We decided, okay, there are so many entrepreneurs who are not ready for the investment, how we can add enough value to them in their life as well in their journey too. So we are going one step down in the funnel, even though we have been kind of like kind of a global investor already, but this year we are opening up our chapters.
You know, and across different parts of the world. And then we’re going to have like local prisons as well at the same time so that we can have like our local entrepreneurs will get leverage of all the expert dozer expertise that we have in place. Wow. And so talk to me a little bit more about the like that expansion plan and also the DAO method.
Yeah, consider DAO is like, it’s a funny word actually, you know, Brian and we were talking the other day, because this year the whole crypto industry is like coming up again, the whole blockchain sector, right? So we’re thinking, oh, yeah, and everybody’s listening to this, because who knows when they are?
This is March 2nd. 12th, 2024, just let you know that everybody’s talking about it again. And so go ahead. I just wanted to tee that up. Exactly. Last year was all about general AI, like AI, blah, blah, blah. But this year the whole crypto and blockchain is coming up. So mark the date. You know, if you’re listening after a hundred years down the line, this podcast, this is the time you’re talking about crypto and blockchain again.
Yeah. So we were coming back to the point Brian and I was talking about like, okay, how we should roll out our chapters. And there are a lot of, you know, kind of emerging managers and the fund, which are dying right now because the market is really, you know, not up to the mark, even though they cannot be able to raise a second point or there are wannabe VC.
There are a lot of people who wanted to be a venture capitalist in the future, but they want to know, you know, like how to build the credibility and how to add enough value in this whole ecosystem. So we came up with the idea of, okay, why not? We can roll out of a chapter using the Dow method kind of.
Decentralized autonomous organization so that they will run our chapter director will run a chapter kind of like completely in as an autonomous buddy and then add, you know, like, all the enough value that we have created at Expedosio and replicate the same kind of model locally. So we have already, like, spoken with more than 50 folks around the world and locked on 20 chapters, you know, the chapter will be kind of like.
One step down the funnel, which I talked about it earlier, where a founder can apply to be part of the chapter. And then you know, it’s going to be kind of like our chapter director will get some equity and stuff like that. And then they’re going to, they’re going to get enough training videos from our chapter director, which we have built centrally.
And then kind of mastermind AMA on weekly basis and all the support books and discounts and mentorship access. We’ll do a demo day for our community access and our community access and stuff like that. And there’ll be like a demo day at the end of the quarter at the end of the cohort. And that’s how the whole chapter will work.
And then we’ll pick the best data from our chapters and we’ll put them into our accelerator model that we have here California. And then they will go through the investment pipeline. And if things work well, we’ll do the follow on investment up to a million dollars. So this is the whole. Go to kind of market plan for the global domination for expert.
Wow, that’s amazing. And what you’re also doing, and what I, what I’m a fan of when it comes to the DOO method in general is that you’re also like extending your community and just others that are, you are helping that, and also you’re doing that from the education standpoint. Like I, I, I agree with you that’s very unique.
Like the fact that you provide education and other things and tools. I don’t, I haven’t seen off the top of my head. I haven’t seen any other VCs doing that. Like, no, we can’t, you don’t admit our, you know, they may say no very nicely, right? But they’re not necessarily providing resources after like, hey, it’s like, it’s like, that’s, that’s quite a thank you.
So now when you think about the idea and this concept of DAO and what you’re, and bringing on all of these chapters, Like your company, you’re creating this ecosystem in this community and you’re really building trust because ultimately as those companies do become, you know, more more in line with your investment thesis, now you already have maybe some of that established trust in line so that now they’re the, those founders and, you know, and everybody, it’s kind of already working, so to speak.
And it’s almost like you’re just taking the relationship to the next stage, if you will, and that there goes the marriage, right? Cause now you’re committing at least with capital, right? Absolutely. Because you know what, Adam, you never know when any startup or founder kind of like pick up and then kind of dominate the whole market.
So it’s all about like building a relationship and trust and you hit the nail actually. And for your kind information, I would love to know that the course that we have providing for free to every student. Person around the world. The first course is called building authentic trust. It’s just a coincident.
Then I did my prep work. No, that was luck for everybody listening. There you go. No, I didn’t know that, but it makes sense though. It doesn’t shock me. Yeah. So it’s all about trust and relationship in this whole ecosystem. You know, if I cut the long story short. Yeah. Like what are some of the things you look for in, companies that you’re going to be investing in, whether it’s industry, company size, founder, I mean, what, like what’s the, some of the formula, so to speak into what, what goes into, into deploying capital?
Sure. So we are early stage, pre seed and seed stage investment firm. What we really look for is like the founder. You know, it’s capable enough, like to kind of like get the SID, go ahead. So it’s kind of a founder market fit. And then they have like a little bit traction, which is good. And then in general talking about the sector, we are a sector agnostic firm, but we don’t.
Get deeper dive into kind of like a space tech or hardware or hard tech where like, we didn’t need kind of like a cap, which is capital intensive market. So we don’t touch them, but in general, we are sickly agnostic. We have a lot of companies from fintech. We have a lot of countries from, you know, like CPG and all this domain as well.
So consider it as a kind of sickly agnostic fund, but little bit of traction. And then if the founder is capable enough to get the, you know, so running which is enough for us. But in general we believe in like a couple of like. Pillars from our side, whether if you’re growing at 200%, you know, you’re on your basis and stuff like that, which is comes, which comes after the investment technically.
So, in general, you can consider just like 2, 3 factor that we look for just to scan the startup, whether the right fit or not, like the founder, the market size and what industry they are into. That’s great. I like it. I like the motto. I like what you’re doing. I like how you’re doing it. The you mentioned already having invested in, you know, over 200 companies.
Like, , what does that look like? And you don’t have to say any specific company if you don’t want to, but is that, like, does that veer on one type of one type of industry versus another? Or is it kind of truly agnostic like you’re mentioned? I’m just curious. It’s very agnostic, but we have like a lot of AI based companies as well.
And our, you know, top performing companies is like, I can name them. Like they are matchbook AI. They are like, there wasn’t company in India, like sorry, Indian origin founder, but they’re based out in Singapore. So they are making a rollups for the blockchain network, you know? So we consider it like more the company name is Jeev and they are, what they are doing is like, they’re You know, kind of a soppy fire for the blockchain network.
So I’ll not get deeper dive into it, but then to name a couple of few was like, we have companies from e sports to, you know, like blockchain to AI, whatnot, and a lot of FinTech company, like in Africa, we have invested heavily in, and I would. Two best performing companies like Klasa, Akiba, they’re building kind of like whole kind of payment gateway system for African diaspora who are based out in the U.
S. to transfer money to Africa at one dollar. So they are returning back. Dollar to African people, you know, so this kind of like the mission and purposeful driven company that we need to look for, you know, if you, if I think I can send in one line. Yeah, how do people get involved with the local chapters?
Like, tell me a little bit more about that. Well, there are multiple ways that you can get involved in the local chapters. Let’s talk about the founder. 1st, if you’re an early phase founder, and then you think you need kind of like, some of the educational support or kind of guidance before you start your fundraise.
Then you are more than welcome to be part of the chapter. If you are a kind of like a people or a student or maybe like you’re working full time somewhere else and want to do some, you know, venture capital stuff, like, as a kind of a scout and, you know, make some money in the side hustle thing, you can be our venture growth lead.
And work very closely with our chapter director. And let me talk about the person who is running the, so as a chapter director for our local chapter, the usual persona that we usually look for. And the, the, the, the chapter director that we have locked down already, there are some another X VCs or one of the VCs or an active angel investor.
Who the person is kind of like a. Influence in the local area. So if you are an influencer in the local area, if you want to be a VC and we’ll launch a stuff, you know, your own fund someday and do your homework before that, like building your credibility in local market, then you’re more than welcome to be the chapter director and you will run the whole.
The startup founder will work very closely with you. You will have a couple of winter growth lead to support your initiative in the local area, and you will get the whole support from our central team sitting here in California and all across the world, you know, so this is how you can involve in a chapter.
And then if you perform really well in the cohort with our educational stuff. Then, you know, it’s kind of the limit. A chapter director will vouch for you, and then we’ll get you into our investment pipeline, and then you’ll be the part of our portfolio company as an accelerator, and then, you know, you’ll be working very closely with our whole Expendosa team here.
It’s a great story. one that I’m happy to bring to my audience, Ash. I think it’s a, again, there’s just layers of win wins that you’re creating here, you’re creating a community, obviously you’re creating opportunity through, you know, funding companies, but even companies that don’t, that aren’t quite ready yet for funding you’re providing education.
I mean, there’s just, it just checks a lot of boxes off. For me personally, for a , company that, you know, that claims to be mission driven and that’s, Doing a lot of extra things to help that they maybe don’t necessarily even have to like providing education. Right. So I think it’s just, it’s just a great story and one that I’m happy to bring to my audience.
That being said, Ash if somebody is listening to this and they want to follow up and keep the conversation going and learn more, how do they do that? Well, they can go for ExpertDojo, Google search ExpertDojo, or if they want to reach out to me personally, feel free to write me an email at ash at expertdojo.
com, A S H, at expertdojo. com and find me on LinkedIn, I’m happy to have the conversation, I’m very much responsive over the email, so, you know yeah, that way you can, you know, learn more about us, about me, and then we can have the conversation going. Wonderful. And for everybody that’s listening to this, we’ll put, you know, those links and all that good stuff in the show notes.
So you can just click on the link and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t hit that subscribe button yet, I don’t know what you’re waiting for. Here’s your personal invitation. Hit that subscribe button. And if you’re a long term listener and haven’t left a review yet, Hey, we sure would appreciate one.
So, you know, take a minute or two, definitely drop that review for us on Apple podcast. And Ash, Hey. Look forward to continuing to watch this journey unfold and to see you expand globally. And Hey, you’re, you’re had a strategy and global expansion. So I have no doubt what’s going to happen next over at Expert Dojo.
Wishing you much more continued success. And thanks again for coming on. Adam. Thanks. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me here. It was really nice talking to you and being on your podcast channel. Thanks everybody for listening.