In The Thick of It

I've always made very calculated risks, but

sometimes maybe they were too safe.

And so this last year, year and

a half, as the confidence has grown,

my tolerance, risk tolerance has also grown.

Welcome to In the Thick of It.

I'm your host, Scott Hollrah.

On today's episode, you'll hear from Ashish

Patel, CEO and founder of Simpat Tech.

During our conversation, Ashish reflects on his

upbringing as an immigrant in Maryland, his

love for travel, and how those experiences

shaped his entrepreneurial ambitions.

He also discusses his transition into the world

of consulting and the pivotal moment when he

decided to start his own company.

He shares some of the most interesting projects

his company has worked on, what it's like

operating a nearshore model with part of his

team in Mexico and part in the US.

And the importance of networking with

other founders in the process.

Thanks so much for making time.

Thank you, Scott.

So just tell us a little bit about yourself.

We're here in lovely Austin, Texas. Great place.

How long you been here?

Yeah, I moved to Austin, Texas, in

2009 for a company called National Instruments.

Quickly realized that corporate was not for me, so

I moved on to a smaller consulting company, and

after that realized that I could do this, potentially

do it better, and started my own thing. Awesome.

Okay, so you've been in Austin since nine. Correct.

It's changed just a little bit,

quite a bit in that time.

What's the biggest change that you've seen?

I think the biggest change, obviously, this has grown like

crazy, but what it also has done is brought in

people from all over the country and brought in kind

of their own flair to actually, some people don't like

what they call Austin, like the original OG.

Austin changing, but I actually have enjoyed it, kind

of seeing it grow and change and add a

little bit more cultural mix to it.

What's your favorite thing about living in Austin?

People?

I grew up on the East Coast in Maryland, which

is a little bit more busier and not as friendly.

Maybe not as friendly.

That's not the right word.

People aren't as open to engaging conversations.

And coming to Austin, you

really get that personal touch.

When we move know, the neighbors come and see you

and talk to you, just being in a line, and

people are open having conversation, and I really enjoy that.

People really try to help each other out here.

You got that Texas hospitality. Exactly.

Texas originally Tejas, which means well, another part

of know is it's a little bit more

laid back than the East Coast.

It's a nice mix between the west and the east.

You kind of get the best of both.

People still want to get stuff done, but they're

not on your case about it all the time. Yeah.

All right, so let's just talk a

little bit about kind of growing up.

What was life like for you.

So you grew up in Maryland? Yeah. Where? In Maryland.

Yeah, I grew up in Maryland.

The suburb of DC.

So huge political influence there.

A lot of defense contractors.

In fact, my dad worked for a defense contractor,

but really the story kind of goes beyond that,

so kind of we're first immigrants to the US.

So I was born in the UK.

My parents were actually born in Kenya, and so

my great grandparents moved from India to Kenya.

This was all a British colony to

create a better life for themselves.

And my mom's side actually

started their entrepreneurial journey there.

They were big suppliers for the and then, you know,

to kind of further their education, my parents moved to

the UK again, all British colonies, so they could do

that pretty easily, were able to get an education.

They got married there, had me, and then my

dad wanted a better life for the family and

took that journey to the US on his own.

No family here, no friends, and that's how I

got here and was able to start my journey.

And so for know, what I've reflected over those past

year is I'm just grateful for all these different things

that have happened and my relatives have done to get

to where I'm at now, to have this opportunity.

That's awesome.

How old were you when you moved from the UK? I was four.

Okay, so real young. Yeah, real young.

Do you have distinct memories from living in the UK?

Not many, but I do remember we're not very well off

in the UK, so we were two families living in a

couple bedroom house and we all helped each other.

But I do remember getting picked up by

my uncle and taking the double decker bus.

That's the one memory I have

getting picked up from school. Wow. Okay.

So you've got family roots in the

US, the UK, India and Kenya, correct? Yeah.

Have you been back to the other places?

Yeah, I have been back to all of my I'm

pretty distant to India in terms of my family, but

I have family in Kenya, family in the UK.

We usually go every couple of years, but with COVID

we're going to go back for the first time next. Yeah.

Traveling has been a part of my

life since very young, and it continued.

I spent a year before I moved to Austin, I

spent a year traveling the world with a backpack.

Honestly, that was probably out of all my education,

that was the biggest education that I had.

When you're trying to figure out how you're

going to survive off $10 a day in

Southeast Asia, you figure it out.

Wow, I'm not that brave.

Good for you.

So where all did you go on that trip?

There was 40 countries, actually. Countries? Yeah.

You wore out your passport?

Yeah, it was towards the end of it. Yeah.

I started in Asia after I graduated undergrad.

I spent six months in Australia

before I started grad school.

I had a kind of little break.

I graduated in December.

I loved traveling, and I had a

buddy that want to do this.

So that was, like, my first experience of

what does it really look like to be

abroad and kind of live off a backpack?

And I got the bug, and I was like, I want to

do this, but I want to see more of the world.

I knew that once I got into the real world, there

was never going to be an opportunity to do that.

And so I got a job with National

Instruments, and I said, give me the furthest

start date that you can give me.

And I kind of jacked up.

I told him, give me as much

as I can on the signing bonus.

I took a little bit of a pay cut, and I was like,

all right, this is what I got to go around the world.

So, yeah, I got a backpack and landed in Japan

and then kind of just started working my way around.

Made it through.

Went to Southeast Asia, then to Africa.

South Africa, and then into Europe.

Actually went to India, too.

But, yeah, I saw a mean it was an amazing experience.

Met some amazing people, got to see

some really amazing parts of the world.

And you did it for a whole year? For a whole year, yeah.

They let you defer your start date by a did.

Well, what happened?

I mean, there was some caveats to it,

so I was part of a leadership program.

They have dedicated start dates already planned out for the rest

of the year, and I just picked the last one.

But what was interesting is I was sitting in Thailand

on the beach that sounds so on a hat. So sorry. No.

And I'm watching the news, and that's

when the crash happened in 2008. Oh, my gosh.

So I'm sitting there.

I'm like, I'm in Thailand, and I don't even know

if I have a job when I get back.

But I refused to contact the company because I

was like, I am moving to Austin, Texas.

I don't care if I don't have a job.

I'm going to get in a car when I

get home, and I'm driving to Austin, Texas.

And luckily, on the drive there, I got an email

saying, these are the details for your start date.

But it turned out that was the last group

before they canceled the rest of the groups.

So it worked out well.

Golly, I mean, man, hey, your offer has been rescinded.

Yeah, that would have been rough, right?

So they also gave you money

up front with your signing bonus. Correct.

So you're traveling on their dime,

and, man, you're a great negotiator.

I may call you to help me work out a deal.

Work out a deal.

You want to go on a sabbatical

I'm actually doing that next summer. Oh, very cool.

Yeah.

All right, so 40 countries.

I know everybody, I'm sure, asks you this.

Pick one, what was your favorite spot?

Yeah, South Africa by far.

You didn't hesitate on no.

Yeah, I get that it's South African Japan, but if I

have to choose one, it has to be South Africa.

Just the culture there, the food, the wine is amazing.

You have beaches, mountains right there.

And then I spent time I don't know how

much you know about South Africa, but apartheid just

ended within last 40 years, 30 years.

So you get to see a lot of that culture.

So I would spend time I would take

a bike and go into these townships.

So that's where they moved all of the blacks

into these townships, and they created their own culture

and community there and got to spend time there

with them and help play soccer with the kids.

And I really kind of bonded with a

lot of folks down there and then just

the other side of a really cool country.

So that was my favorite.

I've heard that it's a beautiful place

and the dollar goes very far.

I definitely would love to go check that out.

I recommend it.

All right, so let's talk a

little bit about your education. Sure.

Growing up, do you go to private school? Public school?

Yeah, public school.

The schools that we were in, the county

that we were is a suburb of DC.

So a lot of politicians.

So the school system was amazing.

But the beauty of that school system is it was diverse.

I think it was a 50%

minority school, but very high performing.

So I was challenged very specifically in high school.

Right.

Just with my culture, that education was high

priority, but then I was also not the

best, and it was humbling to see that.

And also motivating as well. Yeah.

Were your parents hard on you academically?

I wouldn't say hard because I

was always did well at school.

They just made sure it was a priority.

All right, so college.

Yeah, I went to Virginia Tech.

I don't tell a lot of people this, but Virginia was

my first choice, but didn't get into Virginia, and so went

to Virginia Tech, and then yeah, I knew I wanted to

do computer science when I was my senior in high school.

My dad was a software engineer for a defense contractor,

and so computers had been around me pretty early.

I had the OG, Apple, two C, and my

dad's friends were teaching me how to program it.

It's something that was natural to me, and so

I continued down that path, went to Virginia Tech,

wasn't super challenged early, but maybe towards the end

I was challenged a little bit more.

But I really loved learning, and I knew I

wanted to continue that, so I did an extra

semester, partly to do an extra season of football.

I didn't tell my parents that.

What year would that have been?

That was 2005.

So they made it to the national championship

the year before I got there in 99.

But they still had some great years right after.

Was that in the Michael Vick era? It was, yeah.

Plus and then his brother

Marcus Vick, too, came through.

Did you ever see him around campus? Yeah, I did.

I'd see him in the cafeteria.

I wasn't on the track team, but I knew some

of the athletes and they knew him pretty okay.

All right.

So undergrad Virginia Tech yeah. Then I took.

Graduated in December, got into Virginia

Tech and University of Florida. Yeah.

So I had six months before I started at Florida.

My parents were pushing me to get an

internship, but I went to Australia instead, so

I put that computer science to good use.

I was making fish and chips on the beach.

So worked about three months on the beach,

lived in a house with, like, eight other

people, and then spent three months traveling up

the coast and then came home, started school

and went to Florida for information systems degree.

Okay.

Man, you've lived a heck of a life.

What was your first job? Oh, ever? Yeah.

Something that was important to me is freedom.

And to have freedom, you needed money.

So basically at the earliest that you

could work is officially where I was

in Maryland was, I think, around 15.

And so I became a lifeguard.

So I'd been a swimmer all my life, so

sports were a big part of my growing up.

I think I was a very active kid,

so my parents just threw me into everything.

And swimming, I took to swimming pretty well, and so

I became a lifeguard and started making I think it

was like 555 or something in an hour.

But back then, you're 15, you

think you're rolling in it right.

I bagged groceries at a grocery store.

We lived in Minnesota at the time, and I made 3.14.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, I was 14 when I started. Wow.

550 sounds great.

I think it was minimum wage at

the time, but you can't complain.

You're with your friends at the pool

and your other friends come visit you,

and you still have to be responsible.

So it was a good balance.

Being a teenager and getting to work on or

by water is not a bad gig at all.

No, I being here in Austin, lived here for a

few years in my late teens, and I had the

greatest job ever, working out on Lake Travis.

Oh, very cool.

Driving boats and being on the dock.

And I had the best hand I've ever had in my time.

Yeah, I spent a summer actually at the beach.

But being a beach guard as well,

that's going to be a whole different.

I mean, a pool is one thing, but the ocean, yeah.

It's more a military style, like, you

have Hierarchies and sergeants and all that.

So it was a good experience as well to

kind of learn, understand how that organization is run.

Like a military style.

Yeah, for sure.

All right, well, let's kind of get into your company.

Sure.

So maybe before we go there, how

did you get into your business?

What were the kind of things that led up to it?

Yeah, so I've always had entrepreneurial ambitions.

I didn't have the confidence to take that leap.

I think that's for a lot of reasons, being

an immigrant, a lot of cultural conflict growing up.

And so you always feel like you don't belong,

and you're trying to figure out how to belong,

and so you're just struggling with that.

So once you feel like you do belong, then

you're like, all right, I want some more.

Where can I take this?

And so that's what I used as a jumping

off point, is like, I felt like I've assimilated,

I did the job, I got the job.

I wasn't happy with it, but spent so much

energy to get to where I'm at now.

I want to just continue pushing.

And so after I joined another consulting company for a

couple of years, it was my first consulting gig.

So that's where I learned they were

really good at what they did.

And so after I learned what they were doing,

how the right way to run a consulting company?

I was able to move up pretty quickly.

I had an opportunity, a jumping off

opportunity to work with an existing client.

And the CEO, the company CEO, he

was supportive in me doing this.

And I think looking back at it,

I'm very appreciative of that, because you're

in the consulting, it's pretty cutthroat.

You're not as very

collaborative across other companies.

You can guard your territory.

And so I was very fortunate where he let me,

supported me, and actually mentored me to do that.

So it was just me being a software developer for this

client on my own, started my own company, and then figuring

out one person, how do I want to grow this?

So that was the jumping off point with just one

client, me being a software developer, and then at night

figuring out kind of brainstorming how to grow it.

It's awesome.

All right, so what year did you start your firm? 2015.

Okay.

Same year I started mine.

And I guess tell our listeners what you do.

Yeah, so we create high performing

teams to solve complex business problems.

And that's pretty general, but for

us, we're in the people business.

Becoming from a software developer, I truly

understand what it means to put together

a really high performing team.

And that's really what sets us apart, is we create high

performing teams and we work in the B to B space. Okay.

For confidentiality reasons, don't need to name

the customer, but what are the types

of organizations that you all work with. Yeah.

So where we really shine, we're across the board.

When you start a company, you say yes to

everything, but we're finally trying to create identity.

I don't come from a marketing sales background, so

we're a little late to the game on that.

But really where we shine is in that small

to medium business where they're really growing fast and

their It demands just can't meet up with the

pace that their business is growing.

And so we come in with that

technical leadership and expertise to really help

their It systems support their growth.

And are there any specific industries that you

all have found a lot of success in,

or is it really just all over?

We're pretty industry agnostic.

We have a little bit more focus on state

and local government and manufacturing, but we were looking

at that kind of the pie earlier this year,

and it's no more than 20% in one industry. Interesting.

And you talk about solving complex business problems.

Are there a handful of real specific problems that

you all find yourself solving over and over?

Yeah, and I think there's probably some crossover

with some of the work you do.

There is integrations.

I mean, that's an area there a

lot of people struggle with and fail.

I wouldn't say it's the only area that we are excel

in, but it is one area that we have found ourselves

to be to excel in, because it is complex.

You're working with many different specs.

You have to think about how to

scale these integrations and what makes sense

for the company to maintain moving forward.

So that's one area that we have done well in.

What's been the most interesting

project that y'all have done?

I would say the most interesting

was we built a jail system.

So yes. Okay.

For Tarrant County, we built a jail

system in collaboration with our client.

It's basically the system that runs the entire jail.

And I didn't realize what it meant to build a

jail system or to what it meant to run.

It's basically a small city.

You're running a small city.

There's laundry.

You have to think about meals, you have to

think about medical, all types of things, and you

have to incorporate that into one system.

So like people and facilities management exactly.

Kind of thing. Yes.

And are you doing, like,

controls that unlock this door?

Not at that level, but we do have to

know where every single person is at any moment.

There's some integrations into RFID technology to

make sure that their locations are being

updated as they're moving through the system.

That sounds like a massive, massive project.

It was a big project.

It was about four years. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

And I got to believe that there's ongoing

needs that they have, and there's probably a

long backlog to keep adding stuff. Yes.

What's interesting is they came off of a

mainframe and so crazy to think 2021 people

are on Mainframes blows me away. Yeah.

I worked for a large bank early, early in my

career, and even in the early two thousand s, the

fact that there were things that I had to use

a Dos prompt for blew me away. Right. Yeah.

The challenges there is there's so many things

you can make a huge difference on.

You have to really pick the few areas that are

going to have the biggest bang for their buck because

also the other side is we're working with people that

have been on Mainframe for years, 20 years potentially.

And so you also can't change too much.

And so, yeah, you're right.

Let's just get off the mainframe step, phase

one and then phase two, let's really transform. Yeah.

Wow.

Let's go back to kind of starting the business.

You were married at the time?

Yeah, married and since crazy is that we just had our

first son and he was only three months old, and that

would be the worst time, you'd think, to start a company.

But it was actually a huge motivation, right.

Like, you have a kid and you're

like, I'm ready to really do something

different and create some type of legacy.

And so it was a motivation.

And then the other side is just having an

incredibly supportive wife that was like, Go for it,

I'll cover you and you start now.

You don't think about health care and all that stuff.

She said, I'll cover you on my side

and let's see where we can take it.

What kind of work does your wife do?

She was a technical writer. Okay. Yeah.

So what was that moment, that spark that you were like,

this is it, I know what I'm going to do.

I've got the clear vision, I'm

going to go start something.

So I always had it on the back of my

mind I just need a launching point again, I didn't

have the confidence just to do It envious of those

folks that just take that leap without having something there,

I had a client ready to go.

We were profitable on day one, so when that

opportunity came, it wasn't as much of like, if

I should do it, but it's can I.

And so having that very difficult conversation with your

employer saying, hey, I want to go off and

work with a client, was probably one of the

first hurdles of becoming an entrepreneur.

Like having difficult conversations.

I think that is one of the you don't

learn that skill set and so it's just practice.

And so I did that and then got the, okay, we

worked out some of the details on how that looked, but

then once I was on my own, I just realized I

was in full control of the potential that I had to

take this to where it could be.

And I love that freedom.

And then from there it's like no one teaches

you how to start a business and grow it.

Luckily, I don't know if you're familiar

with the organization called EO Entrepreneurs Organization.

Luckily I was introduced that very early,

maybe three or four months in.

And they have a program called Accelerator.

It's basically like the JV team for EO.

So anyone that's under a million dollars or a

million and a half dollars, that's where you start.

And they basically start introducing you all the tools to

get you to their whole goal is to graduate into.

So, you know, I was able to take these

tools and implement them very early on in the

company versus a lot of these other folks that

were coming into Accelerator had to go and re

engineer their entire company to apply these tools.

So being able to do that early on, I

think was a big benefit on being able to

grow in a much more efficient way.

And did you get into EO or the Accelerator?

Was that like something you did right out of the gate

or was it something you waited a couple of years to? No.

Right, I mean, that's the reason I think we

were able to be so successful early on, is

I did it within four or five months.

I've been a part of kind of a similar

type organization called Convene and I don't think people

understand the importance and the impact that having a

group of people around you that are going through

the same kinds of things and the lessons learned

and the way that you can sharpen and help

one another be better just by sharing your experience.

And even if in your group you're in

different industries doing different things, there's still so

many things that can be learned from 100%.

So I assume you had kind of like a peer group there.

Did you also have like, a mentor?

Yeah, we had a mentor.

So kind of the format is you meet as your

small group, you meet with as a mentor, and then

you meet as a whole, like a larger group.

And that's more of content kind of learning type

of a learning day where they bring in a

speaker and they're picking a specific topic.

Ken, I think that's so critical and for anybody listening,

if you're not a part of a peer group of

some sort, you need to go find one.

And if you don't have a

mentor or multiple mentors, find somebody.

Whether it's a formal mentorship or an informal mentorship, I

know it's been a key to my business's growth.

Yeah, and it's 100% a key to our growth as well.

Jumping backward for just a second.

So you said your wife was

really supportive and I'll carry you.

What was that first conversation like?

Hey honey, here's what I want to do.

How did she respond?

What I love about my wife is she probably was

more into taking on that risk than I was. Right.

So she was the one pushing me to let's go for it.

And for her, she's a visionary, so she wasn't thinking like,

I was like, what does our health care look like?

What if this client goes away?

Then how am I going to find another job?

She was thinking, what the positives of, like,

what if we can grow this thing?

And what does this look like

for our family in five years?

And having that balance is, I

think, very key in a partnership. Yeah.

You had a newborn three month old at the time.

I think that is a testimony of the fact that

there's never a good time to take a big risk.

Whether it's starting a business or something

else, there's just never a good time.

And if it's something that you feel called to

do, you just kind of have to do it.

And it's worked out really well for you.

Yeah, and I also agree with that.

And I get a little frustrated sometimes because on Hindsight

Is 2020, I have friends that want to take that

risk, but are hesitant, and they're like, Well, I just

need to wait for this to happen, or, I just

need a little bit more stability here.

And I'm really trying to convince them,

you just got to go for it.

You have a great mindset to be successful.

I'm 100% confident that you can do this.

But it's one of those things that if you can't get

there yourself, it's hard to tell someone to get there.

So, yeah, I agree with you.

All right, so day one, you start.

Is it just you?

Did you have a couple of

people that you were working with?

Did you have a group of contractors that you

were yeah, day one, it was just me.

I was doing everything and then trying

to strategize how to grow it.

And so with that client, I found

opportunities to bring in some more people.

So I brought in a contractor after about eight months.

And then so we were at three people.

Maybe after two years, I think we got it

all the way to five after three years.

And I don't know if you want me to fast forward.

We basically just had that one,

two clients at that point.

But really, I realized that my limitation

was the people side of things.

Coming from software engineering, I didn't realize that

I was actually pretty good at sales.

I've never done sales before, but sales

is just a conversation in building trust.

And so I was able to do that pretty quickly

by being able to switch my hats, getting on a

call, and I could talk to the CTO, or talk

to the CEO, or talk to the CFO and have

converse positive, constructive conversations with them.

And so opportunities were coming.

But what I didn't want to do is just

put anyone that I could find that made sense

into these roles to work with these clients. I had.

That pride as a software engineer that I

wanted whatever that we were building to be

the best that it could be.

And so finding top quality people was a challenge.

And so about in 2017, I met my business partner.

Not met, but kind of

reconnected with my business partner.

We had worked at that previous company

or that I left together, and he

had started their Monterey office in Mexico.

And so he had gone through that journey

of starting an office, finding people, and he

was a software engineer himself, and he had

started a company on his own down there.

And we're like, all right, I'll find some great

opportunities, and it sounds like you have great talent.

Let's figure out how we can

solve some of these complex problems.

And we started down that path,

and it was going really well.

And through that process, we were always discussing

what a business partnership could potentially look like.

But I was actually really nervous because all

I heard over and over again through my

forum and through other business owners, that I

knew that partnerships ended poorly.

And so I was really nervous about that.

And so what I loved about the way we did

it was we basically went into an engagement phase, right?

So I would find the work, and basically, Eduardo,

my business partner, was helping me fulfill those jobs.

And we did it for a year, and

we realized that this partnership looks really positive.

I think that this could work.

We were fully aligned in kind of our

vision, culturally, family values, what motivated us.

And finally, we kind of just said, let's do it.

And we became business partners.

And that's really what sparked that rapid growth after that,

because now we could kind of not hesitate for me

to say yes to opportunities, knowing that he was part

of this thing that we're trying to grow, and he

was able to find amazing talent and amazing people.

And at this point, we're about 70 folks

now, 60 out of our Monterey office. Wow.

Does your business partner live in Monterey?

He does live in Monterey, yeah. Okay.

And that's the critical piece to this working,

is when we started the company, or when

actually Eduardo joined as a partner, the concept

of nearshore didn't really exist.

And so we're kind of part of the frontier,

creating that space and then mean that's everyone knows

what the term nearshore is now Latin America and

all the big companies are going there.

They understand that there is great talent down there.

And so we were early to the game, and

now it's been validated, and so we've kind of

still be able to ride that wave.

It's really interesting.

Mexico is definitely not the first place I think

of when I think of top notch technical talent.

But more and more, I was talking with another

business owner recently who's opened a center in Costa

Rica, and you're hearing of lots of south and

Central American countries becoming these big hubs for tech.

And, you know, the beauty of Monterey

is it has, I think, the third

best technical university in Latin America.

And so you create that center hub of talent

and knowledge and kind of businesses tend to gravitate

towards that, and smart people tend to gravitate towards

that city from a logistical and legal and tax.

You've got entities now in the

US and in Mexico, correct?

Has that created complications or difficulties for y'all,

or has it actually been pretty easy?

You know, it's actually been smoother than I thought it

would have been, mainly because Eduard was managing most of,

you know, obviously I get the rundown on how that's

going, and we actually just created our Mexico entity before

we were using the PEO to run it, and so

now we're actually formalizing that entity.

And yeah, there's some hurdles you have to get through.

One thing is the time it

takes to actually create an entity.

I think I created Simpat Tech in the US in

less than two weeks, and I don't even think I

had a lawyer at the time, but down there, I

think we're six months took six months.

And the only reason we were able to get it across

the finish line is because we knew the right person.

So there are challenges, but the key, again, is

having someone boots on the ground there that has

a key interest in us being successful.

So going into starting the business, were there

any fears that you had, and did any

of them actually come to pass?

Oh, yeah, tons of fears.

I mean, probably the biggest one, and I think this

is very common with entrepreneurs, is a fear of know.

Again, I grew up without a lot of confidence

because I was trying to simulate from a cultural

standpoint, had to learn basically what it meant to

be to grow up in the US.

And so I was starting probably a little bit

of handicapped, so I didn't have that confidence.

And then just starting a business.

For me, it was always thinking

about the worst case scenario.

My head would always go there.

It's like, what if all these ten things

happened at once and I basically wouldn't have

a house and be on the street, right.

And I don't know, looking back at it's so silly,

but I think a lot of people are like that.

I'll validate that eight years in, I still have

those oh, my gosh, worst case scenario, I'm going

to lose my house kinds of sleepless nights. Yeah.

Now I think I still have some

of that too, but not nearly.

I mean, my head doesn't

go there automatically right away.

A lot of that is just experience.

You go through seven years of this and you

realize that every year your company is growing.

And you had some challenges, but you overcame

them, and there are honestly opportunities to grow

and so I'm in a lot better place.

And I think that once you get past that,

what it helps with is taking going a little

bit riskier on some of these decision making.

I've always made very calculated risks, but

sometimes maybe they were too safe.

And so this last year, year and

a half, as the confidence has grown,

my tolerance, risk tolerance has also grown.

Have you had any Pivots along the way?

Are things pretty square with what you started out?

Yeah, I mean, the biggest

Pivot was really embracing nearshore.

That wasn't really part of my initial vision. Actually.

I was a little hesitant to that just

because the actual software development, the quality, the

customer success was so important to me that

I didn't have much experience working in Latin

America, and I didn't know what that meant.

And so when that opportunity came,

I was hesitant about it.

But knowing that I had Eduardo managing and making

sure he was aligned with what I wanted out

of this, it actually worked out really well.

So that's been the biggest Pivot for the company.

What has been the biggest surprise in this journey?

Probably the biggest surprise is I didn't realize how

much I enjoy the people side of the business. Right.

So initially, our vision was transforming

organizations through high quality software.

But then probably about three years ago,

I wanted to add people, transforming people.

And as we continued down the journey, what I

really became passionate about was transforming our people, creating

these opportunities, having these people come into our company

a couple of years out of college, and all

of a sudden, they're amazing consultants.

Transforming organizations was a very cool

thing to be a part of.

My favorite story is there was a

person that was bagging groceries at HEB,

but Eduardo saw something special in him.

We supported him on taking some classes

while he was bagging, and he's running

our quality assurance program at the company. Right.

Just being able to transform people's lives.

And I think that's the part that

I'm surprised that I have really embraced

and is really what's motivating me now.

Over the last several years, I've had a whole lot

of pinch me moments, like, is this really happening?

And probably about a year and a half, two years

ago, we had a standing Monday morning meeting with a

whole company, and we just made a few hires.

And I look around the room, and

at the time, there were 14 people.

And it struck me there are 14 families

that put food on their table that pay

their mortgage because of this business.

And there's something really rewarding about that.

And we've grown.

We're not huge.

We're 24 people now.

There's 24 families.

And when I think about the number of

people, there's three kids in this family, five

kids in that family, two kids.

There's 100 plus people that are sustained. Yeah.

You're impacting in a positive way. Exactly. Very cool.

Yeah, it's been really rewarding.

All right, so what do you enjoy most about the job?

You may have already touched on it.

Yeah, I think that is definitely the transforming people

is what I enjoy the most about it.

And then being in the driver's seat for that.

We have biweekly town halls right.

And being able to sit there and it's crazy.

When we started the company, it was

a zoom call with three people. Right.

And now you get on these zoom calls

and it's 50, 60 people on there, and

they're all open ears and listening to you.

And I think giving them a sense of

purpose, I didn't realize how far that goes.

Kind of one vision, one purpose bigger than

just waking up in the morning and kind

of fixing a really annoying bug. Right.

That's probably not going to get

you excited in the morning.

But giving our folks a bigger purpose

about transforming organizations, creating an amazing organization

ourselves and just reinforcing it is something

that I've really enjoyed.

Let's maybe flip the question around.

What do you enjoy the least?

Again, I don't come from

a sales or marketing background.

I'm trying to figure out, I mean, I'm

surprised how we've made it so far.

We've been growing probably on average 50%, and

it's all organically, and so it shows that

we are really good at what we do.

And we just started working on sales and marketing

probably about a year and a half ago.

And that's been a challenge to kind of

gain that, figure out how to do that.

Especially in a services industry, there's

no one formula that just works.

You kind of have to have an approach

where you try a lot of things. You have to have a lot of

experiments going on at the same time.

And I'm not a patient person, so I

just want to get to like, all right,

this is the formula, let's just execute.

And so that's been tough for me to be patient and

have these failures and use those failures to learn and to

slowly get to where we need to get to.

Well, if you do figure out that know, we won't

share it with the world, but you'll send it, well,

you're in great hands with Melissa here, that's for sure.

You mentioned being impatient, and I think that

that is a common thread throughout successful entrepreneurs.

There is this natural impatience.

I'm very much the same.

All right, well, is there anything that you look back

and go, man, I would have done that differently?

There's a couple of things.

So one, I think I would have gone back and

been a lot more risk tolerant, just going back to

the fear of failure and not taking calculated risks, but

they're probably a little bit too calculated.

And then the second is going back to what

I just mentioned is really thinking about sales and

marketing early, earlier on in the process, what I've

realized is it's great to grow organically, but you

have no control over your destiny.

It's basically you have to have a revolving door.

And whoever shows up, your strategy is say yes.

And that doesn't create an identity.

For you to create an identity, you have to set

it and test it and then pivot as you figure

out what makes you unique in the market.

And that just takes time.

It's not something that like I said, it's not something

there's a formula, you know, after a couple of days,

this is where and so we're in that process now.

I wish we had done that earlier.

When you have that success early

on, it's just an afterthought.

People keep telling you that that's something you

need to be doing and you're like, why

we're doing so well, we're growing.

And then you realize that you're working with people that

you don't want to ideally work with, but you want

to figure out how to work with the ones that

you do want to work with, and you don't have

a good strategy to get there.

It's kind of humbling when people have been

telling you for years and years, you need

to do this, you need to do this.

I got it better than you think.

You know everything right? And then you wake up one day

and you go, oh, they were right.

There's a gentleman that's kind of in our industry.

And years and years ago, he gave me some advice.

And this past summer, about a week before a conference

that I knew I was going to see him at,

I realized, oh, we've actually started doing the thing that

he told me to do five years ago.

And it's just made a difference.

It's been huge. Yeah.

So I think he felt some vindication is not the

right word, but he liked hearing that he was right.

And the other thing is, being in these organizations for

me is I want to hear whatever it is multiple

times from different sources before I'll go down that path.

But you have to put yourself in

places where you can hear those things.

And so being around other business leaders, other peers, it

doesn't even have to be in the same industry.

Really forces you to rethink how you're

doing things, the challenges that you're facing,

the solutions that you're creating.

And so again, I can't recommend more

surrounding yourself around those types of people.

Are there any books you've read?

Are there any speakers that you've heard?

Are there any conferences that you've been

to that have been transformative or instrumental?

What's interesting is I haven't been a book person.

That's actually something that I just picked up in

the last again, going back to the sales thing.

So I realized that we had to

create a real formal sales organization.

And to me, when I'm a type of person, if

I'm going to go down this path, I'm going to

figure out all the tools that I need and I

started reading for the first time since basically college.

So I've been reading for the

last, let's say four months.

And I'm really frustrated with myself that

I hadn't been doing it earlier.

So I don't have a wealth of

knowledge around books that have been transformational

in terms of know, not really.

I don't know if you're familiar with

Sam Harris, it's more of a podcast.

Something that has really a thing that's been transformational,

not a person is mindfulness for got into.

I started just by meditating because my running coach so

I'm an avid runner and said use this as a

tool to prepare yourself for workouts and races.

And I realized that it had just as

bit of an impact in my business.

I was carrying all these stresses and challenges

to me at home and in bed and

waking up with them, and it wasn't healthy.

And it also was a block to be

able to focus and grow the company.

And I realized that it was an amazing tool for that.

And so I kind of went down that

path further in utilizing other tools around mindfulness.

And Sam Harris is a big mindfulness

person and been listening to his podcast

to help promote that outside of work.

In fact, I had your LinkedIn profile pulled

up and I love your banner picture.

All right, so you're an avid runner. Yeah.

What's going on in that picture?

Yeah, so that's from last year.

I ran a marathon in Sacramento and it was my best time.

It was a 2:29:00, which is about

a 5:40 per mile average pace. Good for you.

That's unbelievable.

If you ever see me running, run

faster because there's something fierce coming.

That's awesome.

How did you get into running?

So again, it's really going back to my childhood.

So my dad actually started running just in random

races and I would throw myself in the one

K, the kids k and started winning those.

So I was like, oh, I'm not too bad at this.

Started running in high school

in cross country and track. Really enjoyed it.

In college, I actually switched to triathlons.

No big deal, just switched to triathlons.

Well, because I swam and then I just picked

up biking and I actually liked biking too.

But what I realized is when you want

to start a family, that triathlons is a

little bit too much time commitment, especially at

the level I wanted to keep compete at.

So I picked the one I was best at and

stayed with it, which was running and got a great

coach and wanted to focus on the marathon.

It was actually my best event and yeah,

just stay dedicated and it goes again around

creating a group around you that pushes you.

So I have an amazing training group in town.

Some of these guys are actually one just

qualified for the Olympic trials in the marathon. Right.

Just having that level.

You think that I'm fast, but

these guys are like next level.

So surrounding yourself with people that are going

to motivate you and push you is key.

Are there any lessons you have learned from running

that you've applied to business or vice versa? Sure.

I think that there's a huge crossover

between being an athlete and sports and

being an entrepreneur and running a business.

And I think that's a key part of my success.

Being competitive early on, understanding kind of that

correlation between hard work, dedication and success.

And it just is a complete crossover to what

it takes to create a business and be successful.

Right, so learning that early and

having that experience was very important.

So I know there's a lot

of great entrepreneurs that are athletes.

I think that's probably the biggest takeaway that

crossover is between the dedication, hard work and

knowing that's required to be successful.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of that.

Two of our top performers in our organization are former

college athletes and there's something about the discipline, there's something

about the team mindset that just makes you an excellent

member of a team in a work.

Yeah, and I think beyond that, the other

part of it too is especially in endurance

athletes is being able to suffer. Right.

So being able to put your mind in a place

where you can suffer a little bit, knowing that it's

going to pay off at the end, you definitely have

to have a long term mindset, not instant.

Right, all right, well, kind of winding things down.

What piece of advice would you give to

somebody who is thinking about starting a business?

Yeah, I thought about that a little bit earlier

today and I think actually I know what that

advice would be is find the shortcuts. Right.

Find the people that will give you those

shortcuts that will tell you their failures so

that you don't make those same failures.

Surround yourself with people that have been successful

as well as people that may have not

been successful and ask a lot of questions.

And ultimately I think the more you can get your

ego out of the way, the more you can take

those learnings and apply them to your business.

And I'm fortunate in that my ego is pretty low.

So I've been able to do that pretty

early on and continue to do that.

My goal for this year was to have at least one

lunch a week with someone that I can learn and just

ask questions and then I write those down and review them

at the end of the week and figure out what are

those things that I can apply to my business.

And so just having that, being able to apply that to

the business without having the ego saying that maybe they're wrong

or I have the better way of doing it is my

advice is find those people and use them. I love it.

What's next for the organization?

Yeah, so it's interesting, we've grown to a point where we

can't scale with what got us to where we're at now.

And you hear a lot about these different points

in a business where you really have to pivot

the way that you're running the organization, thinking about

the organization to take it to that next level.

And if you're not able to do

that, you're going to basically be stagnant.

And if you're okay with that, that's fine for us.

We're not okay with that.

We feel like we've built this

great foundation of amazing people. Really?

That's been our success. Right. It's our people.

So how can we use that?

And we owe it to our people to

create a better organization with better clients that

truly appreciate the value we're bringing.

And so that's really the next challenge, is how do we

rebuild our company to take us to that next level?

That was Ashish Patel, CEO and founder of Simpat Tech.

To learn more, visit simpattech.com.

Also, be sure to follow Ashish on LinkedIn, where

he posts frequently about topics ranging from what it's

like to be a family man and a CEO

to his insights on the tech industry and what

it's like running a high performing organization.

If you or a founder you know, would like

to be a guest on In the Thick of It,

email us at intro@founderstory.us.