An entrepreneur’s tale

As we celebrate the 10th year of Luminix, a few people have asked me to share my story and how I managed to build and grow a stable and sustainable company without any outside help or capital. It strikes me as odd that I never sat down to put words to my story. For someone who believes in the need for stories and myths, it is kind of odd to leave their own story unspoken. I think I know why now.

Whilst I am known for speaking my mind, I have never been a terribly good self-promoter. In fact, I turned down a couple of interviews about my personal journey before because I am a staunch believer in actions and results speaking for themselves. Nevertheless, it is time for me to share this story and journey with the world. I am extremely proud of the products we built, our customer service, and our growing reputation. It is even more meaningful in these times — when businesses are finding it hard to survive — let alone grow. And a good story is a good story and sometimes it just writes itself when the timing is right. So, grab a cup of coffee and come along on a journey (well, an abridged one anyway because the unabridged one spans over 20 eventful years). I hope you find it useful. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any specific questions or feedback.

Chapter 1: The Unconnected Dot

I remember that night. I remember it very vividly. It was different from another night that felt most significant up until that point in my life. But the intensity of thoughts and feelings felt the same. I shall tell you about the other night in a little bit. For now, let us go back to that night 22 years ago. As the world around me fell asleep, my mind kept me awake. I could hear the electricity generated by my own neurons above the sounds of the night on the farm. A farm, for that matter nature, is never truly quiet. I heard the moonlight from the waxing quarter moon drip through the coconut fronds casting everything in silent, silvery shadows. The parrot family that found us and stayed with us for over 15 years was still settling in for the night in their nest in the guava tree. I heard the chicks squabble over the best place to sleep in. The 2-week-old calf was chasing the flies away with his head, making the bell around his neck sing in unsteady rhythms. The scent of cool December air wafted in and whispered something mysterious that made my sister pull her blanket tightly over her head.

What was keeping me awake was the anticipation of change. It would be pretty remarkable change. Here I was, a farmer’s daughter, who grew up with very little, who has never been on an airplane in her life, and whose generation was the first to go to college to make something of themselves. I am about to fly across the oceans to a land I only saw in my mind’s eye. I felt ready and excited for the adventure. The funny thing was I did not see myself as I truly was. If I did, that night would have terrified me. In reality, I was an unconnected dot. Not only unconnected but slightly misshapen too. My parents were from a remote village, they were not even high school graduates. We had no money. No connections. I did not go to elite colleges. So, I should have really felt like an outsider that I was. Instead, I felt like a point in Pointland. Like a world and a universe within. This tendency of not defining myself in ways the world may define me … it may explain a few things about me.

Instead of seeing myself as an unconnected dot, I saw myself as a daughter of immense fortune. The daughter and granddaughter of people grounded in and bound to the land they cared for. People with integrity, kindness and boundless generosity of spirit. People who treated their struggles as part of their duty and of existence. People who lived life with graceful dignity and a stoic sense. My dad once told me a story about his great grandfather, who owned a pair of oxen (in those days a pair of oxen was a huge asset). How he would till everybody’s land for free before he tilled his own as the rainy season arrived. That story about selflessness and love for community made a deep impression on me and guides me even today. “How did I make someone else’s life a little better?” is a true measure of success and the mark of a well lived life. Armed with nothing but my intelligence and a strong grounded sense of purpose instilled in me by my ancestors, I would arrive in this wonderful land.

I often times wonder about this little magic of self-sufficiency. If only we can synthesize that into a molecule! Without this metaphorical molecule in my genetic makeup, this night would have terrified me! The magic, alas, only worked for me. My mom would later tell me that she saw my dad sit up every night for many months afterward worrying about the daughter that flew over the oceans with nothing but a mere 500 dollars to her name that he managed to borrow. How the roles have flipped compared to the other night! But we shall come back to the other night in a little while.

Chapter 2: The cool … no, make that “very cold” frontier

So, part of my problem with my own story telling is that I am someone who often dwells in the immensity of the big picture. My friends and colleagues often hear me use the phrase, “in the grand scheme of things”. This sense of the big picture helps me live life meaningfully, deal with stress and be kind to my team. I can’t help but be awed by the grand scale of the Universe, the insignificance of our beings. At the same time, I marvel at the sheer chance that a collection of molecules came together to make me, help me perceive and relate to this world. Once you have acquired this worldview, you feel silly to think of your story as unique or even special. So be assured that I am writing this with that sense of humbleness. Compared to what generations of immigrants have lived through, my story is trivial, and my success is only meaningful in the context of my individual story.

But back to the land of dreams! I heard people say, ‘America is not a place, it is an idea and an ideal’, and I have always loved this characterization. Growing up, I was a certified bookworm. My family tells me stories of how I was lost in a book and messed up all kinds of domestic chores that were given to me. But we don’t need to talk about that now. Books, especially books written by American authors, held a special place in my heart. I knew I was going to go to this place and experience the true meaning of freedom. Later in life I would come to realize that true freedom exists in our own minds. It is not found in a place or granted by another person. We discover it if we dare to journey into our own minds. But I did not know that yet. So, there I was on December 29th, 1998. I finally arrived in the metaphor of a place I always longed for.

Sometimes life reminds you that happiness and misery are two states of the same mind but at other times, there are real physical aspects to it. For several reasons I would not go into here, I landed in Michigan in the midst of a severe winter storm and all I had were tropical clothes and sandals. Walking to work in the cafeteria at 6:00 a.m. with two layers of socks and sandals taught me some valuable life lessons, especially empathy. That first morning I had to take shelter in the entrance way of a dorm on the way. It felt like I was breathing a different kind of air than the hot, dusty air of the farm. I felt like I was breathing in ice and solidifying within, and my lungs felt raw. Not to mention my fingers and toes! How I survived for the next couple of months until I had a pair of real shoes and a proper winter jacket is a testament to human will power.

By this time, I also spent 300 out of my 500 dollars flying from Louisiana where I first arrived, to Michigan. I still remember the kind friend who lent me a couple of hundred dollars because he was concerned about how little I had and realized I probably would not be able to rent a room. Oh, what a world it would be to live in without the kindness of human hearts! I paid him back a lot later when I could afford it. Thank you, Manish.

The two and half years I spent at Western Michigan University studying Computer Science are truly marked by the people I met there. Meeting students from all over the world, learning about their cultures and of course discovering how the logic of well written code just made intuitive sense. One particular person really stands out and I wish she were alive now to read this. Suzanne Moorian was the administrative secretary of the Computer Science department. She had a raunchy sense of humor and a giant heart. She used to bring amazing cakes she baked to share and would laugh uproariously when I used a word that was perfectly innocent but meant something very inappropriate in American colloquial language. She not only would laugh but explain why she was laughing. Thus, she was my first cultural guide here in America. For every immigrant, there are equal if not greater number of Americans helping them, welcoming them and integrating them into the fabric that makes this country exceptional.

In my case, it was Sue, Seinfeld, and The Simpsons. And more importantly standup comedians. I have huge respect for comedians and their sharp sense of scrutiny that examines the dark corners of our society and our egos. And then making light of it all, they make our society and us better. Also, they make excellent cultural guides to immigrants. They explain the quirks of the zeitgeist in bite sized, hilarious pieces.

Chapter 3: The honing of a nerd

It was April 2001 when I graduated from Western Michigan University. It was the worst job market for a computer science grad. The dotcom bubble already burst at that point. It took me a while and a few interviews before landing a job with Sun Microsystems. By this time, the company lost most of its luster but the culture they built was still thriving. It was a job with the SPARC compiler team. Seth Leigh, if you are still around, here is to your contribution to my career. I still remember you interviewing me and being so open with me in your feedback about how impressed you were with my knowledge of ELF binaries and compiler optimizations.

I have learned so much more about compilers in this job and moved over to work with the Solaris kernel support team. I was lucky to be part of these teams because the experience set me up with the best technical background I could ask for. After a few years, I moved again over to the compiler performance team. This is where I met the best boss who later became one of my best friends along with his lovely wife. A few words about Joel in a little bit.

Let me share an anecdote about doing this kind of system level work and how rewarding it felt when I discovered something. Those of you who are not very technical, feel free to skip this paragraph. :-) One of our team’s responsibilities was running the SPEC CPU benchmarks and analyzing whether the Sun compilers were generating the best optimized binary code for the SPARC architecture. Based on these findings, we would make suggestions to the compiler team on improving optimization. This involved understanding the hardware, kernel, memory and HAT layers intimately. My favorite story involves the process virtual address space. I was running one of the benchmarks called 429.mcf and I noticed that when I used the large page compilation flag, the benchmark ran 32 times slower. The opposite of what I expected. So, I rolled up my sleeves (of my blouse), used DTrace (best tool invented by Solaris kernel team) and started instrumenting the kernel. It turns out the benchmark was traversing an array backwards and the last prefetch instruction the compiler generated was trying to access a hole in the virtual address space. Since I am using large pages, the kernel had to map various segments with these large page size boundaries. This caused a software kernel trap as opposed to handling this in the hardware. As you can imagine, this is a pretty expensive operation compared to handling a fault like this in hardware. When I discovered it, documented it, and submitted an improvement suggestion, it felt like a huge achievement. At the end of the day, this is why computer nerds do what we do. Our brains are designed to solve problems like this, and we derive pleasure from being put to good use. Sun Microsystems definitely provided a fundamental technical structure which lent me credibility. Even today, when I am having conversations with customers and they hear me articulate a solution to their problem, they trust my knowledge and guidance.

As promised, a few words about Joel Williamson. He is a good human being and he makes this world a better place by being just who he is. He was that kind of manager who promoted you twice in the same year because he clearly could see you were being compensated way less than your contributions deserve. The best thing was you did not even have to ask for the promotion. This is what good managers do. They recognize talent and they foster growth. In return, they earn the trust and devotion of talented employees. The manger then shines above all of their peers in terms of team performance. Very simple formula but how seldom do we see this happen? I learnt these lessons and try to pay it forward.

Also, Sun Microsystems had a great mentorship program. The program connected me with senior leaders and let me explore my strengths and weaknesses and made me reflect where I truly wanted to be in my career. Thank you to Juan Carlos Soto (who is still an amazing friend and mentor), Hal Stern, and Jud Cooley. I always think of my conversations with them and how they helped me.

Chapter 4: The restlessness transpires

The desert wind trembled in wisps of chill. I felt a delicate shiver of thrill down my spine. In front of me lay the immense desert. An ocean of sand grains twinkling in the twilight. Each, a tiny prism reflecting the entirety of the Universe. A sad full moon rose over the steely horizon. I heard a smooth rustle. Was it the silky slither of deadly poison? A frosty forbidding silence seemingly ruled this dominion. A majestic falcon flew across the skies. Its wings made the adobe around the moon flutter. Someone afar sang a ballad so beautiful, it hurt. In a tongue so ancient and so fragile. A theme of intimacy and intrigue; a tale of strangers. Of intertwined heartstrings and mysterious desires. And of the pain that transpires through moonlit mirages. And somewhere else, in the shadow of another dune, another danced a mad dance to the tune of a raging fire. My heart started to beat, move to the rhythms. Rhythms that were hypnotic, melancholic, and powerful … at once all consuming.

Sometimes we can’t capture or remember the magic of moments but sometimes we can. The magic is surreal and transient. If you don’t hang on to it with your entire being, it will dissolve as quickly as it transpired. My moment that woke me up and made me introspect happened in the desert. No, it was not the Burning Man festival. I have never been there. I am referring to a night spent in the Arabian desert listening to the Bedouins sing. My sister and her husband lived in Dubai then. I visited with them for a few days on my way to India and they took me on a desert safari. We drove through the dunes and arrived at a camp for a dinner and a performance. Sometimes we just need an extra-ordinary evening like that to stir the depths of our soul and make us ask the right questions. I did not come back as the same person from that night.

I had been thinking for a year before this evening about how I was going to grow and explore my full potential in a work environment. I also happened to witness a bad leader and how they can be so detrimental to the people they lead. I don’t have to share stories about him here but suffice it to say I certainly learned lessons on how not to manage people. It also motivated me to find avenues for growth and leadership opportunities outside of the traditional job tracks.

Chapter 5: The journey of building the company

I talked about this on a few panel discussions before. The entrepreneur path is not for the faint of heart. I do not say this in the cliched sense where they make the entrepreneur the fearless, lone warrior fighting against all odds. This is a myth we have created and perpetuated so much that we have inadvertently created a myth about that myth. It drives ill-prepared people to embark on this journey only to experience utter misery and existential dread. So, I mean it in that existential sense for the individual choosing this path. Let me share some of my experience. I am hoping it will help people who truly want to build something from scratch to prepare for it.

First, let us accept a few things. Silicon Valley is not about entrepreneurs. It is about capital, and how an unlimited supply can be used to create winners. Most entrepreneurs are busy playing the game to be in that pool of winners, backed by capital. And a lot of technologies and companies can’t be built without capital. This is why individuals with the right networks and connections end up building these types of companies. You just know people that know people and that is how the world works. A world full of connected dots. In fact at very large scales it works the same way. The Universe itself is formed because a few strands of matter started clumping together after the Big Bang. It is a natural phenomenon. So, know that this is the framework you are operating within. My advice to the true entrepreneur is to look within. Can you build your idea or your product without any outside help? If so, do it that way. That is the real definition of an entrepreneur. Putting everything on the line and risking it.

Second, expect to fail. And fail miserably. Do you still want to pursue this idea? This is where my pessimist side came in handy. Engage your pessimist side and think about what failure looks like. Most of us tend to only focus on the best possible positive outcome. It is a good thing because that possibility keeps us striving forward. But if you want to persist, you need to know the worst possible negative outcome too. As most of us already know, the only thing other than time and luck that ultimately leads to success is persistence. So, embrace and employ that inner pessimist. Process the worst possible outcome and see if you can accept it. Would it be worth spending a significant portion of your life on this venture if the outcome were this bad? Would you still learn and grow in the process? Let us say it would take 10 years for the company to get somewhere meaningful and even then you end up having to restart and reinvent yourself. Would you still do it? For me, the answer was a resounding YES! I am all about living life fully and realizing my true potential and what other way to realize this than pursuing a difficult path?

Third, expect your personal finances to deplete to the point of non-existence. This is especially true if you are bootstrapping the company and have no other avenue of income. For example, at the point of starting the company, I was recently divorced and, in the process lost a lot of money on a house we sold which was bought at peak market. I could not count on a partner to be the stable provider or my family to be a fallback cushion. I also did not draw any salary for almost 3 years. At which point, my bank balance was near zero. Thank goodness for friends! One of my friends (Emily) said to me, you can move in with us and we will feed you. This is the best of what America has to offer. A lot of my close female friends are this wonderful and generous. Our families are from different corners of earth, but we find the best in each other and together we uphold the spirit of America — that generous, welcoming beacon!

Fourth, understand the true gravity of being responsible for other people and their payroll. This has been the greatest responsibility of my life. I felt entirely responsible for people who came onboard and for the right reasons. (By the way talk to me about how I recruit if you are interested. I tell everyone to expect failure of the company and present the option to work with a healthy team. In other words, I do the opposite of selling the dream. I sell the failure and ask them if they still want to be part of the journey). I would worry about their children, their mortgage payments, health insurance, and all the other expenses. That was really what kept me awake at night for years on end. The fear of putting their financial security in danger and failing them and their faith in me. Please think about this fully before you execute the idea. This is not something you want to treat lightly.

Fifth, do not take advice from anyone other than someone who built their own company from the ground-up. Even then, listen, but understand that no two companies share the same journey.

Sixth, be wary of companies that make money off of you and your desire. Not much to be said here except that.

Seventh, and this is the most important one. Understand and accept that you are but another human being. This goes back to the sense of insignificance we should all share. My belief is that we will have peace on Earth when we truly understand and grasp this concept. Have you ever looked up at the sky on a pitch-black night? Growing up, I did that every night on the farm. There was very little light pollution back then, which made the sky look enormous and endless. It felt so close too, like you could reach up and pick that favorite star of yours. Pick a handful of stars, hang them at the end of grass blades and watch the wind blow on them gently. Delightful grassy light waves would twinkle like the midday reflections on the ocean. The beauty of a child’s imagination when their brain is not filled with digital images.

During the summer nights, we would sleep outside on our cots. The mirages of the hot day would turn into beautiful wisps of pleasant breeze. When everything else was straining to hang on to life, the Arabian jasmines bloomed. Oh how they bloomed! It is like they traveled every winter to the most exotic corners of the earth to gather the best smells to concoct a perfume and release it on summer nights to stir the depths of your soul. Given this deep magic and mystery, I always carried a sense of admiration for everything around me including people. Every human is a wonderful collection of qualities, memories, stories, and the stories of their ancestors. Each of us is trying to be our best. And the best we can do to build harmony is to recognize just that. You are not any more special than any of the other 7 billion human beings on this Earth with their own wonderful stories. So, treat everyone including your team members, customers, and partners with this respect. At least you could look back on this legacy as your true success!

Chapter 6: The joy of building the company

I want to start by saying it is hard to recognize and appreciate joy when you are dealing with a lot of stress day in day out, but it is absolutely instrumental to do so in order to keep the journey going. So here are the most rewarding things along the way that kept me motivated.

First team members. You work so closely with them and spend so much time with them. This experience could make you hate them or love them. My advice is to keep choosing the love option. You also can’t underestimate the power of choosing the right people for this early team. Fortunately, we are a team of kind, considerate people who truly care about what we deliver to the customer. We have become a family through this process and these bonds will last through our lifetimes.

Team building. As we grew the team, it has always been a priority for us to recruit team members for their attitude. Even if we had really bad days, coming together as a team and figuring out how to address them has been a great reward. We have also been a distributed team across North America from the very beginning and it is amazing that we have managed to build such a cohesive culture. One of the key things that really worked for us was our annual company vacation. It started out as a day outing to the wine country in 2012 and over the years we chose various interesting locations for the team to spend a full week together. Santa Barbara, the North Shore of O’ahu, Costa Rica, Belize, India, and The Bahamas have seen us all come together, get to know each other and truly enjoy each other’s company. What this informal setting does is to highlight our unique personalities and our senses of humor. These outings established a trust amongst each other and made the communication over virtual spaces much more enjoyable and cooperative.

The first customer. I can’t even begin to explain the joy you experience when you hold that first contract in your hands. In our case, we were about 15 months from inception when the very first customer signed a 3-year deal that was worth 100K in total contract value. This proved to us quickly two things. What we were building was needed in the market place and customers would buy from a small company when they saw value. These customers are true pioneers too. To trust a product and the team behind it and to take a chance. Without these customers, startups and small companies will never get a foothold in the market place. I will forever remember our first customer and will always respond kindly to other small companies.

Customer satisfaction. This has been of utmost importance to us as a company. We don’t simply sign a contract and leave the customers to figure it out for themselves. We have always treated customer requests and projects as a guiding force to our product roadmap and it truly paid us off in very rewarding ways. A lot of our customers are happy and willing to be references for other customers.

Providing a critical solution. Without revealing too many details, our products have played critical roles in closing deals and making customers happy for the big partner companies. This is the best satisfaction you could derive from your work. We have built a solution that is crucial to other businesses. There is no better definition of a product’s success.

What works for us as a team? We recently asked for feedback from our team why they think we all work so well together as a team and also a company. Here are some of the salient points from that feedback.

· We take pride in our accomplishments and responsibilities

· Our core operating principle is “empathy towards the end user”

· There is an inherent trust among team members. This avoids micro management

· We have an experienced and mature team

· We have a realistic and knowledgeable sales team

· Support team feels heard and customer issues are resolved fast

· Excellent communication at all levels

· No A-holes on the team

· And most importantly, a shared sense of humor!

Chapter 0: How it all began (The story of the other night I promised to tell)

I remember that night. I remember it very vividly. It was a summer night. I think I turned 12 years old that year. Summer on the farm can be quite brutal. Temperatures sometimes got up to 100 degrees. That day had been a real scorcher as I remember it. My dad’s youngest brother was staying with us that summer. My grandmother sent Uncle Ram to stay with his brother and learn some useful farming practices. As the late afternoon Sun turned blood orange, I swept the front yard, so my sister could spray cool water on the ground. This practice helped cool the air as it blew down hot from the hilltops in the west. I remember watching little rivulets of red dust swirling in the air as I swept. It was an omen of what is to come that night. The farm soil is a deep rusty red, and it has a special hold on my heart. The emerald green of the crops over this deep red soil, it shimmers with a passion, with a sheen from the sweat and blood of the farmers. India is a land of bright colors and dark contrasts. Don’t expect to understand this land and its people easily. It will take a whole book to explain its seemingly dualistic but ethereally non-dualistic nature.

These hot days often created great dirt devils in the empty fields. Nothing would grow in this season as land dried up and broke into brittle pieces. So, the dirt devils did beautiful dances across the lands like whirling dervishes. My sisters and I often watched them with a fascination as we remembered old folk tales of witches on their brooms at the center of them. Sometimes, these dirt devils did not have little witches on comically evil errands. They carried monsters intent on destroying things with a sinister non-purpose. They did this … because they can. One of those blew that night. We were all sitting on the porch and eating dinner. We could hear the wind howling. Like it was giving us a warning in secret tongues. The hot wind blew down from hilltops and there was a counter current that blew upwards from the rapidly cooling earth. It was like two awesome forces of the Universe throwing themselves against each other. We could hear them gathering strength entangled in the devilish dance. Then in what seemed like a sub-second timeframe, a monstrous gale blew, and the roof of the house simply flew off. It happened fast but I remember little details like how the clamps holding the roof were creaking for a little while before going “pop!”. And the next thing I remember is hearing the asbestos sheets breaking all over the place like someone shattered a bunch of old earthen pots.

If this event happened in any other year, it would not have been as remarkable. This was a tough year for the farm and for our family. The cotton crop failed miserably because of the invasion of a mysterious new pest and landed my dad in a whole lot of debt. My mom had an infection in her small intestine that almost killed her, and to top it off, the rains failed that year. This felt like the last straw and my worst fears bubbled up to the top. We had been reading about farmer suicides all across the state. Crops and rains failed and buying super-expensive hybrid seeds that promised huge yields did not live up to that promise. All of it landed a lot of farmers in debt. In a traditional society that treated debt as a shameful obligation, this caused a huge disruption. Farmers were killing themselves because they were embarrassed that they would not be able to pay these debts back and their families faced shame because of it.

So that night, I was watching my dad. I was searching intently for any kind of emotion or sign. I love my dad. In fact, we all love my dad. His three daughters and his wife. He is one of the best human beings on this Earth. He has a quiet strength about him. I have never seen him feel the need to raise his voice and take over any situation. He is quiet and present. Someone you can always count on. He supported all of his daughters with an unshakable faith and devotion. It is an invaluable gift to all of us. So, you can probably imagine the dread I felt of losing him that night. We all slept outside in our cots and I stayed up watching him sitting up, rocking gently in a chair. Rocking and thinking. I stayed up for hours watching but not letting him know I was awake. I was convinced nothing would happen if I did not fall sleep and kept watch over him. Finally, sleep overtook my determination. I fell asleep as dawn was gently breaking over the horizon. A couple of hours passed, and I woke up startled out of a dream. I panicked for a few seconds until I spotted my dad filling the cattle trough with water. And he looked over to where we were and said to us “Wake up girls! Look at how high up the Sun is in the sky!” and I felt a sense of relief that is hard to explain.

I just sat there taking it all in. His face, the warm morning sun, my sisters sleeping next to me and the solidness of my dad’s soul. I have seen a man arrive at what would be the end of his rope, yet, he managed to wake up the next day and continue with his duties. Duties to his family, the farm, the animals, and the Universe. I have never talked to him about this particular incident but later in life I asked him what his philosophy was, and he said it was simple. “As long as I am here, I need to fulfill my duties and be good and generous to people around me. This I do, without expectation of reward or punishment because it gives me a sense of fulfillment. This is the way of life for me. And this is how I find God.”

This incident is what basically shaped me. I know I can survive whatever challenges life presents in my path. Not only survive but thrive, savor and even help others. I am convinced of this and I live my life this way. The company is an embodiment of this principle. After all, it is made in my image. Our team, our products, and our service, they all reflect this principle. We do what we do because we know we are helping ourselves and others.