Sharmin Ali: Startup journey, founder mental health, and personal resilience

Welcome to another founder wisdom bud. We have Charmin Ali with us today. Charmin is a trix entrepreneur, an angel investor uh fortune 40 under 40, a keynote speaker. She created 10,000 plus jobs and had eight figure exit. She raised $200 million. She's a geni leader. So, lot to talk about uh today. Charmin welcome to the podcast. Tell us a bit more about yourself.

Thank you so much for having me. am so glad that I'm getting to chat with you here. Super excited and I love what you're doing. Congratulations. Um, hi everyone. I'm Charmin and um, as Charles mentioned, yes, I'm a serial entrepreneur, uh, bestselling author of three books. The third one's coming out now. And, um, built and sold three companies and I love everything everything startups related and founder related.

And I love helping people. um originally from India, came to the US first in 2010 when I had a job offer from Google. But on the day of joining Google, I said no to them and ended up joining a startup. To which my very nerdy Asian parents were like, who says no to Google? And I was like, well, I do. No regret. Um and ever since it's just been startups.

Um so worked in this company in Chicago and um raised it uh to $300 million plus in err and then decided to start my own companies and yeah built and sold three companies so far and now looking at starting my fourth. That is a bit about me. Yes, that's crazy. Yeah, let's talk about that childhood or teenage years of uh yours. Why were you built that way?

Why are you the way you are today? Uh, oh my god, this is this is such an exciting question. In full transparency, I've had a very difficult childhood actually. Um, not financially. Financially, I think I've been pretty privileged. My parents are pretty well off, but emotionally so. And the reason being that you know at the tender age of um 10 I first witnessed a very deadly flood in you know in in the part of India where I was living.

Then at 11 we witnessed an earthquake which was at almost about 7.2 Rita scale. Our building collapsed and we ended up living in a rehabilitation camp for the next three months. It really grounded me, taught me a lot about community, about the power of empathy and things like that. Um but unfortunately at 12 um I witnessed a very gruesome genocide where I've seen a lot of murder and bloodshed between two ethnic communities in India and we were one of them of course and uh um that really taught me so much about humanity about life as a result of which I think I've become hyper empathic and I realized that um you have to give first in order to really get anything back from the universe.

So, um these were some of the things that life taught me that you know when you've seen death twice so closely um you start valuing life even more. You know when life gives you a second chance you take it but if it gives you a third you might as well do justice with it. So yeah. And when did you find entrepreneurship? when you did you take like all that pentup energy of your your childhood and witnessing that and sort of transitioned into building and creating stuff, right?

So you know um I always kind of knew that I would love to do something on my own but um so when I was in this first company after saying no to Google um you know actually it was it was there where the whole idea of entrepreneurship kind of solidified and you know I knew that this is what I meant to you know that this is what I meant to do. So, uh I was I was doing sales there and stuff and you know the the core team was essentially um so impactful in shaping my career and you know they kind of just made me feel and realize the fact that I'm meant to be um you know doing sales meant to be storytelling meant to be um you know and I mean in fact the founder one day

very jokingly told me that Charbin you're so good at getting people to empty their pockets at you and I was back in a good way I hope. But uh that kind of sort of you know um helped me understand that okay why am I working 16 hours even on weekends for someone else you know I was like I might as well do it for myself. So, um, and also, you know, when you're 26, 27, life is like, okay, bring it on.

Let's see. You don't have any responsibilities, no kids, and, um, I don't have any responsibilities, thankfully, towards my family because they're pretty well off. So, I was like, okay, it's just me. I'm going to look after myself. Let's go all in. Let's roll up our sleeves and let's see what what life has in store. So, I'm a huge movie buff. I loved content.

the first startup went into that direction which was you know a Netflix-l like platform for Indian vernacular languages. So just went all in and um I must thank the first company where I worked at this startup the core team they really helped me in shaping uh you know my abilities towards selling towards storytelling and they were like by hook or by crook you have to get this.

So um and the most important lesson that I learned about myself was that I do not crack under pressure. I didn't know this. I just I just realized that while working at this company and turns out that is all you need in order to run a startup. And why don't you crack under pressure? I think that's like a top characteristic in the the most productive and successful CEOs out there.

Have you pondered as per why you can take so much? Do you have a filtering mechanism, a recovery mechanism of some kind? This is this is a great question, Charles. You know, uh I have been doing therapy for I think the last 20 plus years of my life. I have a full-time therapist. I mean, yes, the person has changed, but I've had a full-time therapist.

I've been diagnosed with clinical depression. I've taken tranquilizers. I've had three years of insomnia after that genocide experience. Um, and I've spoken about these things very openly, you know. So, I had the same question to my therapist. Why do I not crack under pressure? This is taking a toll on me. I want to give up, but I just don't like what is wrong with me?

Is something wrong? So, that's when she kind of made me understand this thing about myself that, you know, when you've seen so much in your um, you know, formative years of your life, right? when you've seen so much then your brain's automatically gotten prone and accustomed to performing under stress you know so there is nothing more stressful than death when you've seen death so closely twice I've also suffered a cardiac arrest at the age of 32 33 almost you know so that was the third time so my my doctor was like how old are you again like 33 and you

just suffered a minor cardiac arrest, you know, you could have died. And you know, you won't believe it, Charles, but my response was, "How minor?" You know, and he's like, "What is she nuts? Who who is she?" Like, dude, you've just created, you know, a record in my so so 30 years of his cardiac experience. He's like, "I've never had a patient suffer a cardiac arrest of 33.

You need help." And you know so that's when I realized that I just don't stop you know that and and and that is because that is because of of of the formative years in my life that you know I'd seen so much pressure back then it's like okay bring it on let's see I'll figure it out whatever it has I've survived then I'll survive now I think and also because of that whole grooming from within that you know um life how much can you try to you me.

How much can you try to kill me? I am going to rise up from the ashes like a phoenix and get back at you. So yeah, bring it on. So just yeah. Yeah. Asian parents, successful parents. Uh that's also there. Traumatic events. You have like all the the VC investable check boxes that is if you don't die, right? Like you're good investment if you don't die.

Um, I have the saying, you know, like um I I can't like cry and break these floodgates, you know, like I've re realized that about me. Every time there's like something sad and I need to like process emotion, it's like it's if it's about to come out, but there's something that's holding it, you know, because I' I went through tough myself. I think I impose most of it on myself.

So quite different different background for you from you. And I think uh yeah, psychotherapist is great. Yeah, I have a psycho G psychotherapist GPT nowadays and it helps me pretty much every day to to get through micro traumas and so forth. Let me ask you this. I see uh India in your profile. I think it was up until 2016 that you were selling to Indian customers, right?

When did you make the move to the US started selling to US customers and and why did you do that? Yeah, so you know actually um I came to the US um I'm in New York now. I I came to the US in 2010 first and then like 2014ish is is when I kind of moved back to India to you know start my own thing. Um and then 2018 was when I again moved back to the US.

I was in San Jose for for a long time uh building my second company and that's when you know like the this this whole learning that um if you are a tech founder um for you to get credence as a tech founder and for any company to actually be credible enough and to you know get get the customers right um America is the place that you have to be in like it or not but this is the country which actually gives you um access to capital for R&D you know I mean they are they are not risk averse they are very riskrone and they support founders very founder friendly um and this is where all the customers are you know so um that learning kind of happened and so in 2018 is when I moved

back and yes I've been here ever since the land of the free um yeah and and it's free yes exactly It's quite interesting also that you traveled the world, right? I've been a digital nomad for five, six years. I traveled the world with my wife all that time building businesses at the same time. What did you learn from traveling so much? I see we did uh both Machu Picchu here.

What culture what cultural immersions did you had and what insights has you have you got out of this as an entrepreneur? So, you know, I love traveling. I love people. I love mingling with different cultures. I love food. I'm a huge foodie. Anyone who tells me to go on a crash diet to lose weight, I'm like, "You should be non-existent. Don't tell me to crash diet.

I can work out, but no crash diets. I need to eat food. I've been to like 75 countries around the globe, um, including Peru. Yes, beautiful. Um, you know, I'm I'm a huge history buff. I I love different kinds of, you know, food and drinks that they have. And I think it's really important for us to, you know, know their stories and share our stories because only when that cultural interaction happens, only then do our perspectives about the world grow.

And the biggest learning that I've had from traveling so much is that, you know, us human beings, we're always stuck with the slightest of problems. Oh my god, money. Oh my god, my husband or my relationship, my kids, you know, but when you step out, when you go into the world, that's when you realize that your problems are so insignificant as compared to what is happening out there.

You know, your whole perception of life completely changes and that's been my biggest biggest learning that you know everyone should be traveling in their 20s. Just go travel, do all of the Europe backpacking, South America, Africa, wherever the hell that you want to. Just go meet people, learn so much, and grow and become a better human being. Yeah, fully agree.

Yeah, if universities still have one piece of usefulness, it's the student exchange programs. So if you're in uni then yeah you haven't quit yet like I would recommend to take advantage of the student exchange program to me was in Hong Kong back then and after that I was uh I was gone you know like it was like off to the off to the world the world is is my playground and that really changed my life my perceptions by the way

if you love food you'll love Wajaka Mexico where I am right now is like the mecca of of Mexican food and I'll be there soon I'll see you yes I'll I have an ATV for you. We'll get them out. It's pretty fun here. Uh, yeah, it's super cool. And one thing that's been quite gamechanging as a nomad as of late or someone that um travels is Chad GPT. I'm pretty obsessed with AI.

So are you. You basically have your AirPods, right? And you you have the voice API in your ears and you're like, "Hey, I'm I'm at that street in this city. What happened there?" You know, like tell me about the history. Tell me what I should look for. Tell tell me what I should observe. what are the differences between this city and my city, right? And you have a guided tour in your ear, your own personal guided tour, and you learn tons that way.

I found that was that was a huge hack. Absolutely. I do this all the time. Chanziki class $20 per month. I'm like, I am going to just use it for everything, you know? Like I actually just take pictures from the street and I'm like, what's this? Can you help me understand what this is? or like at a at a historic place or something. What is this pillar?

Why does it look like that? And it gives me the full shebang and life's so good, right? And if you don't understand language, it can even like if you have an AirPod can hear people and you can ask them, okay, what they did what they did just said. I mean, you need 5G connections, right? Because uh else it won't uh won't be a super nice experience, but that's a huge hack.

I want to talk about mental health and safe uh that you started not so long ago. So you mentioned your battle with depression, insomnia and all of that. Why did you started safe seven months ago I believe? Yeah. Yeah. So um you know the the biggest problem is that so I was um getting out of you know some some form of depression that I was going through in my personal life.

And um turns out that I'm not the only one. uh there are many of us entrepreneurs who have similar journeys, challenges with personal relationships or you know professionally anything and unfortunately I was like isn't there something which is just dedicated to entrepreneurs you know there's something for women who are in their postpartum there's something for you know um couples there's something for like multiple other aspects of you know life and I was like why isn't there anything for entrepreneurs and that's where I was like Okay.

Um, the chances of an entrepreneur committing suicide is double that of anybody else, you know. So, I was like, "Oh my god, we need the most amount of help." So, there has to be something dedicated um, you know, like some sort of a course or, you know, resources available to actually help us navigate the whole stress of entrepreneurship because it's it's miserable.

It's ruthless. It's it's it's it's a very difficult thing to be an entrepreneur. I mean, and I have huge respect for anyone who decides to quit the comfort of a nineto-five and decides to start something of their own. It it it needs huge amount of guts. But parallelly, you also need someone to sort of you know help you guide through that whole journey because it is very lonely.

So that is where the whole thing came to me because I had suffered a cardiac arrest stress induced completely. I didn't know how to navigate it. I was like, I don't want another person to go through the same thing that I've been through. Hence, let's do something. So, um, a couple of friends, um, all postexit founders who are confused what to do in life and don't know how to give back, you're like, okay, let's try to build something together and um, you know, see how we can give back our 1%, our two cents to um, our community of entrepreneurs.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I saw PDF and your provided. That's why I reached out. Uh I have a friend that I need to refer you to. Uh he's a health coach and I'm pretty sure uh you'd be a good fit with him to make sure the cardiac stuff doesn't happen. He has a a very touching story that is directly related to that. His name is Arian Moindra. Shout out to to that guy.

I'll put you in touch with him. You'll see there's a direct fit there. Um with the mental health stuff. Yeah, 100% true. I think at the CEO and the founder uh strat of things, I think that the challenge is loneliness, right? We're like so alone. We're we're fighting a war against like 10,000, right? It's an impossible war and we're we're still surviving and trying some of us.

But uh sometimes, right, when the the circumstances are just not playing for us there, there might we might be hit with like one, two, three, four, five bad dominoes and then like starts to explode, right? it's everything's going wrong and yeah that's when uh depression may kick in that's when heart attacks may kick in and I think community is a good um solution for that I have my masterminds myself at level 96.com it's called it hasn't uh caught fire yet but I think we've had a couple of great masterminds and I develop great friends out of this so just sometimes a one-time

group and you know in which we can share share our L's and her her wins is huge as well so what have have you seen and and CEOs and founders on your side when what kind of impact did you had yet on the the mental health side of things? So you know um actually um I think the postexit founder group because you also mentioned that has been phenomenal. Um you know there are about 3,700 of us globally.

Um and of course Barack and Schlommo the two wonderful people who actually started it. Right. So I've I've had conversations with all of them and I've been I think I've spoken very closely with about hundred of us now because I just joined like two months ago. um they've all had such um you know such mind-numbing mind-boggling stories of mental health problems you know and the kind of things that they've done is like oh my god there's so many of us like so first of all it's um you know it's it's a relief to know that you're not alone right that there are more people who are going through similar journeys or have been

through similar things right um and you Second thing is that um like someone's probably gone through a divorce or a bad breakup or let's say company didn't work or you know I mean founders co-founders have fired by these investors. Yeah. or you know problems with investors or something or the other or health issues or whatever it is, right? But um but the one thing is that you know they're all still trying to get back and do something.

these people they don't give up you know so theness the pursuit of always trying to give back and create more jobs you know this is this is insanity it's insanity but this insanity is basically the true spirit of entrepreneurship which needs to be celebrated you know so I'm like if we can all come together build a forum where we can help each other out n you know

navigate the stresses that we are all facing in some way or the other I I think um that's very powerful. Yes. Yes. Hell yeah. We are the backbone of this economy, right? Like land of the free behind you. I would have like something like uh we founders build the world, right? Like we are in charge of building the world. We are in charge of making jobs happen which is also why like AI is gonna wreck sh it up I believe and we're gonna talk about that.

But I just like one quick parenthesis. I have a friend um Juan Bangl's his name. He's a exco of beatlon, a pretty successful guy and he organizes these um these Iawaska retreats, right? Like for entrepreneurs. I tried it last time. I tried. Yeah, I'm not surprised. You spent time in Peru. You're an entrepreneur like your type. But I also did it in in Cusco in Cusco.

Peru. Um and yes, I think this guy what he does is is very inspiring. It's a bunch of CEOs, founders, execs, and they they retreat, you know, it's a private retreat and all that. And uh that how's it been for you? How's been your your ayat trip? Oh my goodness, you know. Um so first of all, I did the five-day trek from Cusco to Machu, you know. Oh my goodness.

I mean, it was so hard. It was so hard, you know. I was I was Yes. You know, also because um it's it's it's at a very high altitude, so there's very less oxygen and stuff. So they were like, "Keep chewing on the cacao leaves and stuff." And I had cocaine leaves. Yeah, they're good. I have cocaine teas here. You know, because if if you're in Peru, they want you to obviously do that because I mean it's it's nature.

It it makes it's an adaptogen. It's helps with oxygen absorbation, energy, etc., etc. Adaptogen. Yes. Absolutely. So you know we were we were all doing that and we were like okay we have to get you know we have to get going and suddenly we got to this one like a tiny settlement somewhere and you know there were these shamanic healers right and u one lady she comes up to our sort of battalion and she's like you know I think you guys should totally

try this and I was like what is she talking about I do understand Spanish but she had a very different um you know accent. So I was like, "Okay, what is she talking about?" And then the guide sort of told us that um do you want to do the thing? And you know, I was actually going through a very tough time in my personal life back then. I was like, "Oh my goodness." Okay, let's see.

Fine. Let's let's try it. Let's break the gate open. Oh my goodness. Yes. You know, I did the whole thing. And then after that we got to you know um the peak of the Machu mountain and oh my goodness everything was orange for me in my head. Okay. But I actually could experience the Machita mountain talking to me. You know it was like you need to let go.

You need to surrender yourself to the universe. you know, you need to just let your hands just just open your arms and make room for the universe to, you know, just give you more because if you keep your hands closed, you're not going to let go and neither are you going to get anything more. So, just open them, you know, open your hands and see what the universe has in store.

Make room for the universe to give you more. And I actually felt that dialogue, you know, it sounds insane, but I was like, "Oh my goodness, the thing that that she did, and I'm so eternally grateful to, you know, this shamanic healer for for actually helping us through that whole thing." And it's not like we drank the whole thing in one go. No, we were like, you know, going through it in bits and she's like, "Okay, how are you feeling now?

Do you want to sleep? Do you want to go drink something? Do you want to have food? Whatever." Right? It was it was very nicely done and um for anyone who wants to try Ahawaska guys please do it at least once in your life. It is it is transformational transcendental you will be in a separate universe altogether and the mental growth oh my god amazing best to fully agree yeah just like a prefaith also like is not something that is supposed to be nice al also if you have a nice trip it's it's cool but aya is meant to clean you and yeah in my case it was like vomiting and

all of that and at first that that was it and then yeah there was sort of like me on a on a cloud sort of and thinking was very an analytical um so I think people need to go in these with a a cleansed mindset you know it's not something that's going to be nice but yes you're going to feel way better after so yeah thank you Tally for showing up today where can people find out more about you so um my personal website is charminali.com simple firstname lastname.com or you can reach me on LinkedIn in and uh yes, I'd love to chat.

I'd love to get to know people and love to add my two cents to the universe in any which way I can. So I was Charmin.