OYP Episode 31: Rishi Nayyar

Rishi Nayyar, Co-Founder and CEO of PocketHealth, tell us about the importance of staying true to your criteria as you make decisions in your career, the critical difference between specialization and passion, and how early and clear goal communication helps foster a strong organizational growth culture.

Interview

 Peter Szczerba - Welcome back to the Own Your Potential Podcast, where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe about how they've taken control of their career growth, and lessons on how you can too. Hi, I'm Peter Szczerba, and today I'm extremely excited to be talking to Rishi Nayyar, who's the co founder and CEO of PocketHealth. Rishi, really happy to have you on the podcast today excited to have this conversation. Why don't we just jump right in? Can you kick us off by just walking us through your career journey up until this point?

Rishi Nayyar - For sure, and Peter, thanks for having me. Yeah, I mean, it's been it's been quite a ride, I would still consider myself relatively early in my career, though, maybe there's a little bit of a cognitive dissonance there. But if I think back, you know, the best place to start is really when I, I went to university, my idea was, I wanted to make an impact in business. I wanted to work somewhere prestigious, I wanted to work somewhere that was difficult to get into. I wanted to work somewhere where I was compensated Well, that was very surface level. But as a high school student, I hope I can be forgiven for sort of having a simplistic view on on what I wanted out of my career. So when I got to the University of Western Ontario, and then then my, in my third year when I began studies at their business school, the Richard Ivey School of Business, I kind of took a look around, talk to some people, and it seemed like, okay, investment banking was the place to be hardest job made the most money. You're, you're helping these large companies, you're advising them on mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, debt equity, all these sexy words, but I didn't fully understand that, but sounded cool. And everyone wanted those jobs. So I thought, you know what, that's what I want everyone will ever ever wanted, I want it too. So I worked hard, got a job in the summer at at Citi group in Toronto, in banking there, had a great time, they gave me an offer back, I joined after I graduated back at Citi group, as an analyst in the financial institutions group. So I was bottom of the totem pole, and really just helping these very large insurance companies, banks, asset managers like pension funds, advising them on a wide variety of things from debt, debt, equity markets, mostly. And then also, you know, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, selling selling up pieces of their business, just supporting the senior bankers in that process and supporting our clients that process. After a couple of years, I had realized that banking is not quite for me, I felt that my, my learning was starting to slow down. The money was great. I actually was in a, in a group at Citi group where I actually had a quite a good work life balance. So my ratio was actually perfect. I had this sneaking suspicion, though, that this was great for when I was much later in my career. But to stall, in my learning, in my not even I wouldn't even mid 20 then install in my learning in my early 20s, just because my pay to work ratio was extremely high, seemed very short sighted. So that was sort of a transition point to what do I do next? I explored a bunch of different options. I started very traditional. What do you do after banking, typically, private equity, if you just Google what happens after investment, and the answer is private equity. So I went into I went into that exploration process, did a bunch of interviews, never made it through, I felt that I was a very high performer, but just something was not clicking in that interview process with a bunch of, let's say, very, very prestigious firms. You know, I was a bit at a loss and then I, I sort of discovered startups, and at the same time, began having those conversations about entrepreneurship. With my older brother. My older brother Harsh, who is in he's an engineer, brilliant person. He did his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. Then he went to Stanford for his master's. And then he had a, while he was working at a start up there, he was playing tennis and he hurt his ankle. So he hurt his ankle, they send him for an MRI and an X ray. And they handed him two CDs. CD ROMs. And you can believe that this is like 2013 and adding them these two CD ROMs. And that's sort of the story of, you know, that's the jumping off point to where I am today. And, you know, the rest is that, you know, we started PocketHealth, trying to solve this problem of how do medical imaging records get to where they're supposed to go to. And, you know, he was able to make the leap of faith. Because of that one small problem that he experienced, a bunch of other things slowly helped me build up faith, I, you know, with him there, in my background, I could actually do something that was very, very nontraditional and scary at the time, which was not go into a steady job, but actually just not earn any money for many, many years. But with the potential of building something that I owned, and made a difference.

Peter Szczerba - It's an experience that I think more and more people have had, especially as you kind of mentioned, it's something that's a little bit more commonplace than maybe it used to be a decade ago, at least here in the Canadian market, especially but, you know, I guess I'm curious, as you were making that decision, Rishi, you know, to make take that leap of faith, you are evaluating the opportunity at hand and kind of the cost benefit equation, but you know, was it difficult for you to leave behind some of the criteria that you chose your initial job through, because you talked about prestige, pay difficulty to attain right the position that you wanted, and you had those early on? Leaving that entire mindset behind? Was that difficult, as you transitioned into into something totally different?

Rishi Nayyar - It's a really good question. It wasn't for me, because I know how my mind works, I changed. I changed how I thought about it, and I made it fit my criteria. So I can explain that a bit better. My logic was that I still care about these things. I care about compensation, I care about making an impact, I care about prestige and safety, downside protection is very important. My logic was that there's many forms in which I can receive that. You you work on a startup, and if there's some moderate success, and the things don't work out, in the end, there is there is admiration and prestige, you can go and then work at another company, or you can go and apply for an MBA program with a great experience there. So again, these were not part of my plans. I did, I did expect that us that we would succeed, I felt that this is a burning problem is that just really needed to be solved. And it was really impacting so many patients and their families. And when I looked at the Harsh's skill set and my skill set, I'm like, we're the perfect combination on this. So I felt that we would succeed, but I framed my downside protection the way that I knew my mind worked, so I slotted it into the right places. That was deliberate. But I again, I know myself, I knew that I couldn't make the leap unless Ay, ay ay ay ay, basically, it was easier to form the opportunity to my rubric than to change my rubric. Which is maybe a weird way to say it. But but that's what I did effectively and purposefully. And then it just made sense to me. And then I was able to go in with both feet. I didn't have to do a side hustle. I didn't have to, like always have one foot out looking for jobs on the side. I was able to say, Okay, great. The next couple of years, we're just working on solving this problem. And that's all I'm doing.

Peter Szczerba - I think that's really critical. I think that's something to you know, that I think holds back a lot of people who explore this opportunity to, you know, start something on their own business and idea, whatever the case is, is that the ability to dive in headfirst and commit completely. And I know that there are a lot of factors from a life stage or scenario standpoint that impact whether or not you can do that. But the fact that you did, I think it's probably a large reason why you ended up being in the successful position you are today, you know, at the helm of a successful and fledging startup. And I'm curious, though, did it help make that leap of faith, especially as you described, interviewing for that private equity, kind of post investment banking career, and maybe not having a ton of success? Did that help facilitate some of the reevaluation the reframing of the rubric that eventually helped make you make that decision?

Rishi Nayyar - Yeah, definitely. And that's a common trend, even as we build up our company, that when doors close to you, even if you wanted those doors at the beginning to be open it it makes your decision about your next steps so much easier, right? So it's a it's a blessing in disguise and that way that, you know, a lot of people say that, oh, a door closes, another one opens. That's definitely part of the benefit of that door closing. Another thing is that you don't really have a choice about the next door to take. So it clarifies your thinking. You don't have to be so worried. Did you make the right choice. So I was able to step into this knowing that you know, like what was my I wasn't going to Then become a private equity superstar. Of course, I had options, I could have done a bunch of other things. But a lot of really viable options I had already explored, I wouldn't say exhausted, they were not exhausted, but they were already sufficiently explored, then that took away a lot of, you know, potential anxiety or potential FOMO, if you want to phrase it like that, and even in PocketHealth, we've had a lot of opportunities that we missed. And then when I think back, the story writes itself, that they pushed us into another direction, that was just amazing. And and we would have never made that decision unless we were forced to, and then we did. And it ended up being, you know, a massive business line or a really clever take on the business model or building this product that that we wouldn't have had to build. So So I find that business mirrored life in that way, certainly.

Peter Szczerba - Very cool. And, you know, you mentioned earlier a little bit about the fact that you struggled with complacency and maybe not having the same amount of opportunities to learn or the same pace of learning in your previous role. And once you transitioned into this pursuit of starting your own company, obviously, there's an enormous amount of learning that you were undertaking, you know, a million miles a minute, I'm sure. But I'm curious is, was the learning that you were doing while you're starting and growing this company over the last number of years? Was it always synonymous with what the company was, was kind of evolving towards? Or have you found ways to detach some of the learning from exactly what you're doing within PocketHealth, and maybe it's, you're still able to find space for learning that is just out of passion area, let's say? Or is it all the same thing now?

Rishi Nayyar - Yeah, I mean, I can I can be honest, there's, there's not really time for that. When you're, I don't want to say it for all businesses add add pocket health for myself, and I can probably speak for my co founder as well. Your business is your passion. So like, right pursuit of other things, and learning in other areas isn't really an option. But I mean, that sounds sad. It's not sad. You also don't want it to be your I'm not pining for a hobby or, or I want to work on my business. It's fun. It's awesome. There's, it's exhilarating. There's no better thrill than building something. And then people buying it. And after they buy it, they're saying, Wow, this changed my life. Right, I was really sick. And this helped me or it helped my family helped my mom and helped my dad. So you just, it's, it's addictive, you want to just keep pushing and pushing and doing it. So I've learned so much like, I never thought I could, like the amount of grown personally, obviously, professionally, but in this period of time, as I never I didn't think it was possible. I've never gone through a learning experience like that throughout, obviously, formal education, and then my, my first work years, but it's all related to the business. And it was all dictated at what did, what did my business in the next six months need me to learn? And that's what I learned.

Peter Szczerba - In previous careers, or more traditional corporate careers, growth is associated with progression, right? It's about climbing the ladder, it's about the next title, right? Or the next notch on the belt. But you go into the space that you're in where you start the company, you found that you're in a CEO and executive leadership position. It's not about that anymore. Your your growth, kind of it's, you know, it's what you've learned, which you just kind of described, but it's also the growth of the organization. Did you as you transitioned into that, was there was that a difficult mindset transition to make? Because you know, you come out of a very traditional corporate ladder type of environment into something that's totally different. We're at the top of it. Is it more difficult to wrap your head around growth and progression in this way? Or is it maybe even more natural now that this is tied to the business?

Rishi Nayyar - I would say it's much easier, like because you're getting direct signals at work. And I think this is common to perhaps maybe a lot of people listening, you have a lot of anxiety about are, am I doing well or not? And you think you did a good job, something you actually didn't, or you think you kind of were lazy this one week, and then at the end of the week, your boss says, Hey, great job. And you're like, oh, okay, that's okay. I guess you didn't notice. So there seems to be a little bit of a broken telephone between your work because the bigger company you work in, the more your work is diluted. So, you know, you do something and it helps someone in some sometimes abstract away. And then you know, at the performance review, you find out you're doing well and then maybe once every year or once every two years. You'll get a salary bump or then maybe once every three years you get you'll get a promotion. Obviously adjust those intervals to each company and how star a performer someone is, but I think that the concept holds. Now you compare that to a startup, you're getting like constant feedback that things are working or not working. Which is really, it's really cool. You, you, you look at one week, how much money did we make you look at the next week? Or you look at one week, how many patients? Did my did my company help or not help? Or, you know, are we getting angry calls? Are we getting Thank you happy calls, you're, it's really obvious if things are going well. And that's to everybody in my company, I think as long as you're in a high growth environment, and the company is relatively small, like under a couple of 100 people, everyone knows, like, how things are going, and whether things are going well or not, whether you're helping the customer or not. So it's having that clarity is is awesome. And I think people who come from corporate environments into PocketHealth, really appreciate that, that you always know where you stand. And you always know if the team is moving in the right direction. It's like, it's like sports, almost like you know, the record. And you know that what you're trying to win the championship. And yeah, you want your own stats up, right? You care, you care about your own stats in that game, but you really care if you won that game. Even if you didn't help that much, or if you helped a lot, you just want the team to win. So it's a lot, I personally found it a lot easier to, to feel satisfied about my progression and know that or not, or know whether or not there is progression. It's just so much easier.

Peter Szczerba - I mean, it seems almost too logical. And I personally am extremely happy that you you were the first one to make a sports metaphor because I love looping them in.

Rishi Nayyar - Yes, you can. Yeah, I know, you, Peter, you play a lot more sports than I do. And I know you, you're much more athletic than I am.

Peter Szczerba - I do appreciate because I'm gonna circle back to it at the end of this conversation, because I think there's a there's an interesting tie back to that. But I also think the metaphor is really fitting. And similarly, you know, to sports, though, usually, if you're playing a sport, like let's say professionally, it's your passion area, right, because you're dedicating your whole life to it in the same way that if you're embarking on starting a company, and it's it's a dive in headfirst, two feet in type of decision as you made. I guess my question is to you, if that's the case, does it have to be in your passion area in order for it to be successful, in your opinion? Because there's a lot of motivating factors to starting a company?

Rishi Nayyar - Yeah, I'll answer that in a really specific way. Because I think a lot of people get confused with they get confused, having a background in something or experience in something, or having a passion for solving that problem. So So when Harsha and I started talking, we did not have a background in healthcare at all. But that helped us we we have a passion for solving this problem. Because it's intellectually curious. And it's really, really impactful to people. So we felt that that's the perfect intersection, that we can solve it, it's really interesting to solve. And when we solve it, it makes people's lives so much better. We're not, you know, there's a lot of other companies that we could have started, we chose one in healthcare, because we were passionate about the impact that we could make. But what a lot of people say they view passion and specialization, like, Hey, I have a background healthcare, that must mean I'm passionate about it. So I can I can work against you, we came into this industry with fresh eyes from a patient's perspective, not a doctor's perspective. And that allowed us to build a system that, that so many, so many patients and their families have, have really used and got a lot of benefit from because it's kind of it works, how they would want it to work, not how a doctor imagined that the patient would want it to work and is there in the healthcare, there's a really, really big difference between those two things. So, so yeah, I mean, I think that you need to be passionate about solving that problem. But you don't have to necessarily understand the full scope of the industry you're going into or, or anything along those lines, like you, you just need, you want to you need to have to play the game. Like you need to enjoy playing the game and, and have a passion for that. And, and, like if you don't like winning and by winning the the analogy is like solving a problem for XYZ user group in a way that no one else is doing. That's let's let's say that's the definition of winning in this example, if you don't enjoy that, what's going to like when things get so so bad? Which it will in a startup like what's going to let you keep going? Nothing. You have really yet nothing so but if you're like no, no, no, I want to keep winning, or in my scenario. No, no, no, no, no, I know we can solve this problem. Patients are gonna get access to their records, no more CD burning, I want them to get access, I want them to understand what's going on in their bodies, I want them to be able to get the care they need, I'll just push through, I want to solve this problem. I'm passionate about that. That makes it much easier to just power through really tough times.

Peter Szczerba - I think what's really interesting about that is, you know, obviously, for anyone mulling over the idea of potentially going on on their own starting a company, that is a piece of advice from somebody successful and doing so, I think is really important. But I think there's an enormous parallel to people who are still in more traditional corporate jobs, I find, you know, a lot of the time when people evaluate making a jump, or making a lateral move, or pivoting into a different industry or anything like that, some of the motivators often are totally detached from the idea of passion or interest area, or, you know, the desire make impact. And when that I think space is not factored into the decision at all, it's difficult, maybe sometimes to continue to find the happiness you're hoping for, or even the kind of the pace of growth that you're hoping for. And so I think it's really interesting that you describe that.

Rishi Nayyar - And one thing, I can just kind of one thing I see over and over again, you know, someone will say, Oh, I love XYZ industry, I love entertainment, for example. So then they'll go and work as a, as an accountant in a job that just happens to be at like a film production company. Right, something along those lines. So but you know, it's it's very, you know, you should you need to be thinking about what role are you doing on a daily basis, because that is what's going to inspire you. And that's where your passion comes from. You can't just be generically passionate about doing accounting, just because the people around you happen to be like a director or film actor or something like that. So I think a lot of people, when they, they're passionate about something, but then they they, they maybe forget that you have to you have to think about that with respect to the actual role, itself. Are you passionate about that? And that's what you need to optimize for? Not necessarily the environment that it's happening in?

Peter Szczerba - Yeah, I think I completely agree with that sentiment. Absolutely. I want to pivot a little bit though, in and kind of dive into how your role or how you're, you know, kind of your focus area when it comes to kind of owning your potential growth and stuff like that has changed, because you know, you're in a CEO role, your executive leadership, you're overseeing a company that's growing, very quick rate, I think I last remember you saying that you're looking by the end of 2021, to have, nearly 100, or more than 100 employees. You know, you're no longer worried about, like you mentioned your own kind of growth in the traditional way. But you are now worried about the growth and opportunity and culture of growth and learning for, you know, a substantial number of people who you hope are high performers. Since you're you know, every hire you make right now, the objective, is there a high impact one? So what is how is your perspective on that change? What is the type of culture you're trying to cultivate at PocketHealth as it comes to professional development and growth? I'd love to hear how that has shaped up.

Rishi Nayyar - Yeah, I mean, it starts off with definitely, and this is not a unique thought. But there's a really, really big difference between like an A plus performer, and even in A performer, like, like miles and miles of difference. So you want to you want to hire a plus people, which we do, and then you want to retain them and help them grow. I find like a good hack to helping people grow is just early communication about what their goals are. Because, look, you're still running a business. So you need to find an intersection between a business need and a career desire by someone. So and that business need that career, desire doesn't change that much. In a startup a business need can change very quickly, and it's often unpredictable. So So imagine one thing, static, hey, I want to learn about product development. I'm, I'm, I'm kind of on the IT side right now. But I take some development classes, and I want to I want to become a junior engineer one day. This is a made up example. But but very illustrative of the type of things that pop up constantly. If you kind of learn that at the last minute, it's not that helpful. And that employee already has probably had maybe a year of growing in the wrong direction. But imagine, imagine, you know that and then you can pay for some of their, their, their their coding boot camps. And then finally, when we kind of hit a big implementation, and we're like, Look, we got to staff up our engineering team. We can say, Well, look, Peter has been looking for this shot for a long time. Let's get him in at the junior role there and transitioning away from IT, for example. So it obviously is it's a win win, and that's what it should be. And it all started from just asking Really, really early? Hey, Peter, What's your goal? Like, what were you trying to get to not saying I'll get you there immediately, you know, I need to make sure that that people are performing on working on tasks that the business needs. But the sooner I know that, then when those intersections come up, you can just snap on them. And then be really public about it, make sure everyone knows that you're doing it. So people know that you walk the walk, that you are thinking about that, that you do promote internally, that the first choice is always someone internal, who has a career desire to move into a different direction. So you make that public, you congratulate and inspires others, to then be vocal about their own career goals, because they know they're being listened to.

Peter Szczerba - That's interesting, because, well, first, what I really like, what you've done is just how simple you've made, because it really is about identifying and aligning work to those goals as early as possible to make sure you're on the right path from the get go. But I also love the way you've articulated and I haven't, you know, across 20, something of these conversations now is winning, as well, as many that you know, are off the record, not necessarily on a podcast. I've never heard anyone articulate it as the intersection of business needs and career desire. And I think that's really poignant. And really describes the crux of this issue well, especially when you're doing it from a leadership perspective, because I think it's one thing for the individual to try and find that, but they can't do it on their own. And they need to know that they're supported in finding that by leadership. So. So I think that's really important, the way that you've described that. And obviously, the culture you're cultivating at PocketHealth, if you establish that, the next piece that I found really great about what you described this, this idea of demonstrating by walking the walk or demonstrating through example, if you show through, you know, a handful of employees, that this is how things are done, and they advocate for that to others. And then there's just this growing culture of, if I speak up about what I want, it's going to be listened to an actioned against, I think that's where you get you really, you know, hit it on the money and create a successful culture.

Rishi Nayyar - Yeah, and it's really important because there is this, the general advice is that your company doesn't care about you, you know, they would fire you without thinking you shouldn't trust them. Never trust HR, never trust leadership. It's the you know, you can't, you can't trust your company. And things are different at the startup, it is like a family. Culture and making sure that people feel safe is really critical. So you kind of have to over demonstrate that you are that because you're fighting against public perception or the default, which would be Hey, don't don't trust your boss. So we we need to go out of our way. And it's very difficult when you're remote, but we need to go out of our way to be like, no, but we do care. It's not an HR line in our employee manual to sound good. It's we actually really do care. And we care. I mean, it's not a charity, we care because it makes business sense. Of course, we care because I want the best people working on solving this problem for for my patients. So so it's obviously it's a it comes full circle at that point. But but it's just about it feels a little unnatural to sort of over communicating that way. But but it's it's critical.

Peter Szczerba - Yeah, I agree. I agree. So I want to bring us a little bit back to you know, you were the one who put us down the path of sports metaphors. But and I don't I like to pick and choose my spots with these conversations when I actually asked this question, but since we talked about sports already, and I think you know, the headspace you have to be in to embark on starting your own company, I think ultimately, there has to be some cognizance of the type of legacy you're gonna leave. And that's something that's big in sports about leaving a legacy. So Rishi, I'm curious, do you actively think about what you want your legacy to be? Or how you want to be remembered in regards to what you've done in built with pocketHealth? Is that something that you think about? Does it help shape? How you steer the direction of this business at all?

Rishi Nayyar - Yeah, definitely. I think the biggest piece of it is the ethics of it. I want to be remembered for for just the helping lead along along with my co founder, a business that acted ethically, it's really critical. It's not about the money for us, we need to make sure that people are happy with what we're doing. When we fail, and we definitely do fail. Someone doesn't get their records or the some message isn't clear on the platform, and it's a miscommunication. It really impacts us. And part of the reason is that we we we care about our reputations, we work really hard. We try our best but we're always trying to improve. That helps guide a lot of what we do, because there's decisions that are right for the patient. It's decisions that are right for the business, you pick one set, again, where those intersect There's decisions that are right for the business and not right for the patient. And if you don't have this driving force, the second bottom line, you know, first thing, financial bottom line, think think you reputational bottom line, maybe you would make some of those decisions. And that would be the wrong choice. Though it might show up nicely in the year end report in a couple of years, you know, it's not the right decision for you personally, and for the business. So my co founder and I, I mean, we're brothers, we're very, very closely aligned, in terms of our values. We care about being able to show our faces to our family and be proud of what we're doing. We care about being able to hop on a podcast and be proud of the company, and the impact we make and not be shy about it or, or, you know, explain away things and things like that. So it might sound obvious, but I think that a lot of people don't consciously think about it. And we really do, we really do consciously think about that reputation. And that, for us, that's the biggest legacy piece that we just want. We want to be remembered as, look, they built this company that really just fundamentally changed how care was delivered to patients. And in a way that put the patient at the center of everything. And it just everyone says they're doing that no one's actually doing that. We feel like we're actually walking the walk, I need that to stay the reputation of both myself and my co founder. And, you know, we're not growing faster or making more money is pales in comparison to that. Especially because I believe that in the long run, you do grow faster and make more money. If you keep your reputation professionally, and personally intact.

Peter Szczerba - Absolutely, I you know, even whether it's it was my own nonprofit, or whether it was with my own corporate career, the idea of of impact First, the rest will follow. And I think it aligns perfectly to what you just described. And I think that that sentiment, transcends the industry transcends the role or the job, you know, or even jobs altogether and just other aspects of your life. So I think that, you know, as I've observed and watched your company from the outside kind of grow and find success over the years, I don't doubt that this is at the center of why it has. Rishi, this has been a really great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for your time, and I hope that we can have another one like this not too long from now.

Rishi Nayyar - Definitely. Thanks for having me on.