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10 Nov

Ep. 75 – Kumar Arora – Serial Entrepreneur and Angel Investor

“For me, as a creator, I was always wanting to just create things in general. It could be anything from an article on the internet to a video game to sunglasses. I always wanted to just make something for myself.

Kumar Arora – Serial Entrepreneur/Angel Investor; Going the Less Traditional Route; LeBron James & Cleveland Hustles; Generational gaps in entrepreneurship.

Segment 1: (Length :04:00) – General Updates; Introduction to Kumar Arora and his journey as an entrepreneur; The need to pursue something different; CNBC & Cleveland Hustles; Backing Old City Soda.

Kumar’s finer points:

For me, I feel like, at an early age, I was learning a lot of different hobbies beyond your typical things from school and sports and whatnot, and a lot of those early pieces helped shape where I am today, now.

“Honestly, I feel like, for myself, I got lucky in some ways, because my dad was a scientist. My mom is an artist, so I grew up in the lab with my dad, learning science experiments and pursuing science.”

“At the same time, my mom’s showing me the other side of the brain, which is more of the art side of things.”

“For me, there are so many different things I could say, but my early beginnings was strictly just the thirst of knowledge and wanting to, say, pursue robotics team in high school, learned DNA research when I was a senior in high school, to programming video games when I was 16.”

I just always had this thirst of knowledge, but I always wanted to pursue something and see if I can just create something for myself. That, for me, was the stepping stones of an entrepreneur, really.

“With CNBC right now, they’ve been looking to pursue different programming beyond just Shark Tank and your standard business shows. They wanted to create business reality on things that just help give you more insight in different demographics and regions of the country.”

“Cleveland Hustles represents the Midwest, the hard workers, the guys who want to just build a business in their backyard, and that’s what we want to encourage. That’s exactly who I am. I’m the kind of guy that loves my city. I’m from Cleveland originally, so fit the theme.”

I'm actually the youngest investor on CNBC at this moment. I'm also a minority. You don't see a lot of Indian guys on television. I'm also the first Indian American on television as an investor.

“These are a lot of great competitor advantages, if we’re talking business here, and why I’m a good fit for the show as well, with the whole show, of being Cleveland and rooting for the same thing that I believe in.”

“I also had the chance to actually work with Lebron in 2012, so they kind of already knew who I was. During casting and whatnot, they could see that I’ve got the charm. Plus, I’ve got the knowledge and the history of Cleveland within me. It really worked out perfectly. It couldn’t have been any perfect, that I was part of this project.”

“Similar to the Shark Tank, where you have your investors and you have your different pitches, we get to go a little bit beyond that. Instead of you finding out how much they made, you get to find out how much they made, plus what happens now. What do you do with the money? Do you fail? Do you cry? Do you laugh? Do you succeed? You get to see that, almost in a storyline format.”

“Episode 1 through 4 is each investor taking care of their business, kind of like The Voice, and then after that, from 5, 6, 7, 8, you get to see a storyline of how they navigate the business world, how we revitalize the community, how do we impact job growth, and how do we change our overall Cleveland ecosystem.”

I actually backed a handcrafted soda company. It's called Old City Soda, and these guys are amazing. They've created a soda brand that's made in Cleveland, which has never really been done before. It's completely organic, handcrafted, no artificial colors, no artificial flavors. They literally hand cut fruit, throw it into the machinery, and get it carbonized. It's almost like drinking sparkling juice.

“What I fell in love with is that they have not done any marketing or any major branding or any social media or anything to bring them in this day in age. They’ve just been doing it strictly through word of mouth.”

“I fell in love with that idea, 2 cousins working together, building a family business, and they want to take it national. It worked perfect for my portfolio and everything I do.”

I love the idea of doing things differently, going up against big-time industries, changing the industry itself, and obviously doing something for your hometown. That's important to me too.

Segment 2: (Length :08:00) – Talking with Kumar Arora; Generational gaps in careers and entrepreneurship

Kumar’s finer points:

“In my case, growing up with my dad wanting me to be a doctor and pursuing medicine and having a heavy focus on science, I always had to pick a major. I always had to tell them what job I wanted to do. I always had to tell them what classes I wanted to take.”

For me, as a creator, I was always wanting to just create things in general. It could be anything from an article on the internet to a video game to sunglasses. I always wanted to just make something for myself, but unfortunately, in the '90s, in the 2000s, there were no classes for that.

“There wasn’t anything called entrepreneurship in school yet, because they didn’t even understand that that’s a viable direction for kids to take.”

“That goes to show the generational gap that we have, is because our parents and people before us created the school systems. They created the structure for us to learn what we needed to learn now, to then go out in the real world and either get a job or make something.”

“I realized that post grad, when I was 22. I graduated during the recession. It was 2008. I couldn’t find a job, for the life of me. Mind you, I wasn’t necessarily looking for one because I luckily was able to start business in college, but at the same time, I did go to interviews. I did want to take the traditional route because that’s what I’ve been told and brainwashed for the last 20-some years.”

“We grew up never hearing the word entrepreneurship in high school or in middle school. It was never even part of our usual studies. Then you get to college, and maybe you hear it here and there, but that wasn’t a dedicated major, only until more recently.”

I think that's the interesting thing to think about, is that we're in this big gap here, following our forefathers' structure and what they've told us, but we're now unleashing out to the wild and realizing and having these visions, and this is where your podcast comes in, great resources online because we're all recognizing now's the chance that we can make something ourselves.

“I think that the educational system will slowly start to shift because, as we get older, we are going to probably have some sort of say on how we want our kids to learn. I don’t have children yet, but I don’t necessarily think, and almost believe, that they should follow the same format of school that I did.”

“We’re going to want to put our kids into either a similar program or something that might get them to learn, instead of being told to take a test. I think that’s a big change that we might start to see in the next 15 to 25 years from now.”

Segment 3: (Length :10:00) – The ability to start anything you want; The changing landscape of entrepreneurship.

Kumar’s finer points:

In my case, my parents probably don't realize this, but they crafted me into entrepreneurship because they wanted me to program on my own.

“They wanted me to take apart computers. They wanted me to go to the lab. They wanted me to just experience those things and learn them and just be by myself and figure them out. In doing so, I became the person who can live in my bat cave and just come up with whatever I feel like, at this point.”

“I want that for my kids, and I want that for other kids, that they can just say, ‘You know what, mom and dad? I don’t know if I want to be a lawyer. I think I can work on this, and I can create this. At the same time, maybe I can run my own law firm.'”

“They have abilities to be open to thinking about it. They’re not just picking a major and throwing on the handcuffs.”

Right now, even though we see entrepreneurship as the hit thing to be doing right now, and it's kind of a trend, it's not necessarily because it was always sort of a trend.

“We’ve seen this growing up, when everybody wants to be a DJ, or everybody wants to be a designer of some sort, or everybody wants to be in a specific field of study. Tech was a big time. Everybody wanted to create their own app at some point. It’s not that much different.”

“Now everybody is more so saying, ‘I want to be an entrepreneur, and I’m just going to do some of this from within, not follow just a trend from the external world.'”

Someone's out there, and they're not sure if they want to be an entrepreneur, and they see the glamorized side of things. They might like the lifestyle, but they're not totally sure. Ask yourself why you're really getting into it.

“Do you hate your job that much, and you know you have something from within that you can bring? Do you think that you have done enough market research that you can launch a specific product that’s different from everybody else? Ask yourself what are your competitor advantages on what you have versus the rest of the world, because you can start anything, whether it’s a hair salon or a photography studio, which is entrepreneurship.”

“You just have to ask yourself what makes you a little different from everybody else to make it into this world. There’s a lot of different factors, but it really has to do with what you have from within and what do you bring to the table.”

“Whether you’re in fashion and you’re trying to launch a product, you’ve got to get a product to market, and you have your own way of doing it.”

Segment 4: (Length :03:00) – Hustler Thought of the Day:

There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don't put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself. - LeBron James

GENERAL NOTES:

Kumar Arora – Serial Entrepreneur & Angel Investor

  • Kumar is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor behind many notable startups and brands. Some of his ventures include ilthy, Black Rose Marketing, and more.
  • Consistently pushing the envelope on design and innovation, much of his work centers on the idea of creating novel products and household brands. His concentration lies in a variety of industries including fashion, tech, nano-science, entertainment, marketing, and design.
  • With a plethora of skill sets, Kumar has taken his vision and expertise to lead the way with strategic investments and growth opportunities with his parent company, Aroridex Ltd. Aroridex provides resources, investment, consulting services to assist early-stage to mid-sized businesses. Collectively to date, Aroridex assets and ventures have yielded over $30 million across industries with annual sales over $8 million per year.
  • Kumar also serves as a consultant and advisor for a range of industries. He boasts an impressive roster of clients ranging from Fortune 500s, startups, to celebrities and athletes. Currently, he is paving the way with his newest project, Rogue Eyewear, using experimental materials combined with bold designs for a new perspective in a stagnant industry.
  • Kumar recently released a reality series called “Cleveland Hustles”, which was executive produced by Lebron James.

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Matt Gottesman

Matt Gottesman is a global digital strategist and technology advisor, creator and editor-in-chief of Hustle & Deal Flow™ - an online magazine dedicated to the world's entrepreneurs, creators and makers, a Social Media Influencer and a consultant on New Media and go-to-market strategies for investments in digital marketing, technology, websites, mobile applications, eCommerce, social media and content.

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