Sachin Dev Duggal Engineer AI is a London-born serial entrepreneur who has experience of building businesses in the UK, US and India. Currently CEO and founder of Engineer.ai, he has also previously founded companies such as Nivio and Shoto.
Q.What was the most valuable piece of career advice that you received?
A. Just recently, I learned about the realities of rapidly scaling a company. When you go from 10 people to 200 people, you go from having an answer, to having the process to have the answer, to having the people that know the process to having an answer. Now, when you go through that double quick, you have zero time to acclimatise to that shift and that's challenging. Because when you, as the co-founder, know it so well that the process and the answer is all in one split second, it gets frustrating why problems don't get solved in bigger teams as quickly. It is also why young companies work so much faster...because the process and the answer there is the same thing. But to scale up is to grow through this process.
Q. What was the worst piece of business advice that you received?
A. I can think of two actually, and both contradict each other. One was - grow at any cost. The second was - when you're growing, keep cutting costs. I think the truth is that you can do either well if you make a choice. You can either optimise or you can scale. And if you choose to do both, then you'll have to alternate between optimising and scaling and play it by ear.
Q. What advice would you give to someone starting their career in tech?
A. I can give you three candid facts about the tech business that will save a starter a lot of shocks. Firstly, unlike other businesses, tech companies have a very different pace. So, you have to look at each problem with a very different velocity in mind. Secondly, the entry cost is very high. You have to build a prototype, get the MVP ready and then have the final product in order to rope customers in. It's not like a trading business where you can manufacture small batches of shampoo at the back of your garden and sell it on a Facebook page. So, specialise like hell. Thirdly, as you grow, you'll need to hire expertise that will create processes to help solve problems. At some point, and I haven't quite put a number to it yet, to be successful, you will have to stop solving problems yourself and delegate. But having said that, as someone in a leadership position, you are always prepared to look at everything in the macro and then suddenly go down straight to toilet seat detail when time calls.
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