Hi. This is Paul Zolizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have 1 request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, that helps more people learn how to have a positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. And today, I am thrilled, like really thrilled to introduce you to Satyam Vayas.

And our topic is how to grow a climate organization 10 x in 5 years. Satyam is the founder and CEO of Arthon and Climate Asia. Arthon is An organization with a bold vision to transform the social impact sector in India and Asia, and Climate Asia provides people with the opportunity for impactful world climate careers and the latest insights on what is happening in the sector. They have over 50,000 professionals in their network, and they've listed 5,000 plus jobs in the past year or

work. I'm very excited to be here today, Paul. Thank you for giving me this fabulous opportunity to talk to you.

You're doing fabulous work, and big shout out to my brother, Craig Zellizer, who introduced us. Thank you, Craig. And remind our listeners, we love it when you send in your ideas. So, anyway, here's a real life example. Dig down to Craig. If you don't know Craig, he has an awesome podcast himself called social change career podcast. So thanks, Greg. So

Yeah. Is

that yeah.

Thanks, Greg. Thanks, Greg, for me too. Work That's our call on connection. Yes.

Tell us a little bit about we're gonna get into these 2 awesome impact organizations that you're the founder of and what they do and how you grow them so wonderfully. But before we do that, what would somebody wanna know you and a little bit about your backstory before we get into what you've actually created.

Thank you, Paul. Work. So the backstory takes me back to 2005. I was sitting in a campus in university and heard someone saying they're looking for volunteer to go to a state called Kashmir in India where you can see the Himalayas. I I got excited as a young person thinking I get an opportunity to go to Kashmir and explore the countryside without realizing what it really means. And then the next thing the person tells me is going to there is an earthquake there, and you need to we are looking for volunteers to go for relief work. Work So I signed up and went through a journey, tighten our truck loaded with relief material for 3 day, ended up in a remote village in Kashmir. Work And then I was told that your host will greet you.

You will stay with the family. They will serve you food, take care of you, and you do the work work as they need. So as soon as I got off the bat, I thought smiling young gentlemen who looked at me with very, very promising faith work that I've come here to help all the way from Delhi and took me to his house where he said, what do you I was super hungry. He said, what do you want? I said, work Can you serve me? Like, anything you have, I'm hungry. I want to eat. And then he and his mother, they decided to put a plate in front of me and of some food, and I was in college. I quickly started eating. Then suddenly it struck me that they're not eating.

I asked them why you're not eating. They said because they only have 1 utensil to serve. And that just one instance changed my entire life because I could never come across people who are so selfless that in this kind of adversity, they could still serve a guest who's a young person from an urban city supposedly going to help them. So that's just 1 instance in my life. I mean, I was never designing to work, never thought about working in social impact, or I had no clue what that meant. But at that point in time, something changed inside me permanently, and I knew that I need to do something about it. Did not know how, But the journey would unfold, but that's how it started. And it still makes me very emotional thinking about that instance because, you know, Just how fabulous people are.

And when crisis happens, there's so many people from all walks of life who come out and help you, and the way they make you feel remains with you for rest of your life.

What a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that with us. Work. So this kinda changed the trajectory of what you wanted to do with your life, and you started thinking, hey, I wanna be of service. I wanna help people. What did it look like in the early iterations of trying to create a career of social impact?

Oh, it's like a lot of chaos in the beginning.

Because you I'm laughing because that's such an honest answer.

You're a young person trying to find your footing in the system. Your parents expect you to have a job, make a living, you become an activist, and you start working, You start advocating for social that that all the right to believe in. So I think I I, I spent 2 years of my life After that instance, volunteering for different causes, and it took me to different parts of the country working a different social issue. It exposed me to the real country, I would say. Like, I stay in India. Lot of people have different notions around India, Especially in the current 2023 version, but it's still a country where almost 700, 800,000,000 people are considered poor. You will see that in front of your eyes. There's a stark difference between how things are happening growth wise and the world persona and how worst still people are.

So I spend the 1st 2 year dabbling with different what she calls it. Trying to figure out what do I really believe in. But one day, another instance happened where my parents called me and said, hey. We are not going to give you I think they used to send me around work $80 per month. So they said we are not going to send you those $80, and I think I was making my first salary was work in today's currency $20 a month. So that 18/20 combination really worked in my favor to have a $20 job, which I could have not afford to have. With that instance, I was, like, I need to find a job. I still need to do this work.

I believe in social causes, But probably this number of 100 doll $20 have to change towards $200. I started with that very simple very simple aspiration

work

I need to go and find my footing. And I ended up working for one of the largest NGOs in the country called Pratham, Which again changed my life by exposing me to the challenges of quality of education in rural India took me to many, many states in India and thought of invite the values that stand for right now very, very strongly, which is to practice authentic leadership. But, enough and more instances of people being authentic, saying what they really believe in, doing what they believe in, And building it out in their team. I'll stop there. So, I mean, largely, the journey I'm summarizing work From that instance of Kashmir to 2012, which is 7 years of my life. Work. It shaped me a lot. The my 1st thought of proper job really gave me the foundation on which I stand very, very strongly.

Right?

And then somewhere along the way, Sayum, you decided to get into the climate space. Tell us a little bit about how did you come into the climate space, And how did you decide to, like, focus in on careers and professional opportunities in the climate space?

So I think before I jump into climate, there's there's a background story to stumbled upon social impact career, And this is how it happened, where in around 2015, I was working for a not for profit teaching 21st century entrepreneurial to adolescent children in in government schools in India. Certainly, this is not for profit received fabulous grant from IKEA Foundation. It came out a big, big, like, you know, happiness factor along with the surprise that now we need to expand from a team of 50 people to 2 50. Work And I was a chief operator of it though. So I like, while everyone was celebrating, I was like, oh my god. Oh, yeah. How the hell are we going to grow from from x to 5 x in less than 3 months and deliver, Like, without losing the quality of the of the project. And so I started scouting for, like, a human capital venture specifically focusing in the social sector in India.

And I came across few of them, but I I realized most of them are catering to what we call leadership hiring. The people are hiding CEOs, executive director, but no one is actually looking at entire human capital spectrum, work which is, you know, from where you start your journey and how do you grow. So while I was still in this job, work I struggled and failed and got up and failed, but managed to get 200 and something people in the system in the next few months, work which required ads in the newspaper, calling up everyone you know, asking for references, giving Incentives to people who are in your system to bring 5 other people like them. So with all of this, when when finally I managed to find these people, work. It also struck me at that point of time that there is no one else who's doing it in this country, and I stumbled upon a problem statement work That there need to be an organization that can cater to the to the human capital need for the social sector organization work End to end and not just look at it in terms of leadership hiring. And that's how my 1st venture, Erudson, was born work in 2016. Fast forward, in the last 5, 6 years, Artan has now worked with over 1500 Incredible not for profit solving for the talent issues, and, and it's growing on a year on year basis. One thing I'm very proud of with, Arsen, is Arsen has almost 98% retention of institutions we work with, which means that you touch someone and you sort of get continue working with them here on here because the problem of human capital changes, it evolved, But remain in some manner or the other.

So that's our time. And in 20 twenty. I started thinking about, like the world, I've been hearing a lot about climate, on the climate space and what's happening with everything around climate. The emission, the global warming, it has impacted. I'd say New Delhi air pollution, work Like, you know, the endless ways to analyze climate. I questioned myself, what can I do? And In that questioning, I realized that my core lies in catering to the needs of institutions to help them find stellar work talent or any work engineer approaches and help people find jobs in the climate space. So with these 2 approaches, I decided to set up now a global not for profit climate Asia to adjust the climate tallying gap in the Asian market, which has just started in the last one, one and a half years, but that's the journey of climate Asia. So before even I get into climate, You're the background of starting a human cap capital venture that is, I would say, somewhat successful work in the context of where I am, and that led to our our confidence of saying, if we can do this well in for the larger ecosystem of social impact, Then we should be able to do this well even for green job, and that's the path we are on right now.

Beautiful. So talk to us. I love that focus on work payment. Even that you have that statistic that you're asking that question, you told us, Sayam, about 98% attainment. And this is one of my big things when I work with clients individually or in small groups. It's a lot easier if you can build a business on keeping the clients you have happy so that they wanna stay around and tell their colleagues that they should hire you, that it is to go out and get strangers to hire you over and over and over again. I see you shaking your head. Right? Listeners, you can't see it, but there's, like, some vigorous head nodding going on right now.

Talk to us a little bit about, a, why is retainment important? And, b, how do you get to 98 percent retainment because I think a lot of our listeners would have an easier journey as social entrepreneurs if they could have similar high rates of work routine in the ventures that they're doing.

Yeah. That's a that's a great point, and I think that's the reason why I also mentioned it, work It's not easy to have. So even when we started, we were told, continue retaining 50, 60% of your existing partners, but try to add 30, 40% more as an equation. And somehow, I always thought that what is it that you become in someone's life that they come to you for everything they need. What value do you add to someone or an institution in this case that they will remember you? And, you know, we take human capital very lightly, but one matrix of success for human capital. The 1st person that goes you to a partner not for profit or social impact organization should solve for the problems they have not been able to solve In the past, this most authentic and intelligent manner. So what we really cared for is solving for what work Not for profit is facing. And just to add more layers to it, a not for profit always struggles with with, work.

You know, they don't not for profit will never have salaries to pay, higher salaries to pay pay compared to the corporate sector, will not have enough systems and processes in place, work for the larger ecosystem I'm talking, making that statement. So if you're able to sort of put yourself work the seat of the executive director, the CEO you are talking to. And you can really understand what kind of complex system issues they are facing when it comes to org building. And then you ask them these fundamental questions that you might have an aspiration to hire 10 people. Tell us who are the 2, 3 people you need right now who will make your life better than your institution's mission better, and thus you start talking. And that they also realize that they're not talking to someone who is here to do anything transactional. But you are talking to someone who wants to be a partner To promote the mission. So we put the mission first.

We really get inspired actually out of these 1500 not for profit. The first 200 was a not for profit that inspired me and my partners as individuals in our life. So we went to them, and we said, you know, we love the work you do. Work What can we do do for you? I remember our 1st client who signed us up signed us up just because who we are, Not because we had a background in solving for human capital challenges, but said that, you know, someone has to bet take a bet on you guys, And we think we we would like to be that 1st person to take a bite. So here is the list of 30 people you can hire for us, come back to us in the next 2 months. And we failed. I think we could not even hire 3 out of those, but someone gave us that opportunity to start. And that's what I would like to emphasize that in life, you need to start somewhere.

Solving for that problem in a real manner is work how many business plans we work, how many strategy documents we go through, how many podcasts and books we read, listen to. Ultimately, you need to get out, get your hand dirty, get turned down, being told by someone you cannot do it, work And still be positive the next day. It's probably the most fundamental an entrepreneur needs to have to survive on a day to day basis. Talking about 98% retention, it happened because we always treated our our clients as partner. And he said no matter what, you can count on. So anytime you are facing any challenges in any kind of crisis, you know who you need to call, And we have delivered day in and day out on that commit, which makes us stand out as someone who are not just looking for a standard work Business relationship, but someone who's deeply motivated by the mission of the organization, our partner's organization.

Yeah. Beautiful. I love that so much that successful social entrepreneurship so often is an iterative process, work, and the 1st iteration you launch is almost never the more polished, profitable, running out, you know, with very little friction version of it. Usually, the beginning's kinda messy. And if it's not messy, congratulations, but you're, like, in, what? Is it 5%, Right? 95 or is it 99 or 99.9999999%. It's gonna be a messy iterative process, and I love that you're normalizing it. So thank you so much for that. That's awesome.

So listeners, we'll put a link to Arthon in the show notes. Go check it out. And The basic idea here is that you built your muscles of of running an organization that's thinking about human capital in the impact space there. 1500 clients, 98% retainments. You know? What is it? Is it 10 years old now? How how old is it now?

We we started we registered in 2016, but we started operating in 2018. So that's 20. That's exact 5 years.

Work 5 year. Okay. Great. So 5 years and to get to those numbers. So you you know something about pretty fast growth. Right? So So you know the human capital space from Artan, and you know the, like, fast growth through building these strong relationship. And then you said, okay. We're gonna go right into the climate space and bring that awareness of how human capital is such a pain point both you you started with the people who were the employers in Arthon, but then you said, what in the climate space, you saw another opportunity, and that was the longing for people who want to work in the climate space.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah. That's correct.

Yeah. So tell us about that. What was your thinking? Why go to that side of the equation in the climate space when you had so much experience working with employers in your 1st start up.

Work I think I get an itch every, I would say, 5 years. Or rather, I get an itch when I see that work I've created something that is stable enough that I'm not required anymore beyond being a sounding board to bring people back to the value systems and philosophies of why we started and what direction we need to take. So with that in mind, I think Climate 1 happened. As I said, I want to do something in Climate 2 now. Like, what can I do? Where do I bring my skills and my working style work to create something in climate, and I would like actually, by bringing more people to work in climate. And not that we did not fail with climate. I think we failed incredibly well in year 1. We launched a fellowship to bring more people to work in climate space from non climate background.

Did not do well on that fellowship. A lot of young people took a bet on us thinking that since we understand careers very well and we have know how of the social In backspace, we'll do well in the climate space. But, no, most of the climate organizations were not interested in engaging with us because we are nontechnical folk, work And we were not speaking the climate language. So our fellowship did not go well in the beginning, work. But very quickly, we also went back to the drawing board and we said, do we need to design another fellowship that employs or helps few 100 young people to find opportunities? Or do we actually wear a more system chain lens and become an active participant in existing fellowship by adjusting the problems they are facing and expanding it or designing it. I'll come to this more in the latter part, but I think work With climate, we are very clear about 2 things. We want to get more and more people to work in the climate domain no matter what strategy we use in Asia. Work And second thing we want to do is we wanted organizations to also have better system processes and effectiveness to attract and retain this talent, work Because talent is always cat 22.

You can you can have a incredible person looking for a job, ends up being in slightly toxic impact of negative. And then you are like, hey. Firework. This is not aligned. It's not going to work. Work. So we are like, you know, transformation needs to happen on both sides of the spectrum. So with this dual mission of building capacity of work institution and helping people find opportunities in the green domain.

Work. We started climate yeah. And something some fundamental principles were the same. Let's go out. Let's Let's figure out what problems we can solve. Let's build something quickly. Let's fail incredibly well as fast as possible. Don't take things close to your heart.

Work Failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, and then get up, get up, get up. And then one day, you will be successful, or probably that still will be failure on a different time. Oh, with those fundamental principles, we're like, we need to do something fast and different because the world we live in is going down drastically. Yeah. And if we don't treat every job as a green job in the future, work. We will not have this beautiful planet. So how do you inspire people to work in this domain? And and it's not easy. Right? I'm just we question this every day.

While we are trying to create model, We have a platform where people can look for green opportunities. We are helping organizations by putting them in a accelerator so that they can become better and bigger because we know the organizations need to grow to attract more talent. So if you want to have more and more people to work in the We need to also have more and more demand for those people in the space, which is not currently the case theory in practice. At least the the the world I'm sitting in in the Asian country.

Beautiful. Work I've I've heard it called fail forward that, like, fail and fail and fail and fail quickly and try not to take it personally and then work adjust and move from there. I love that thinking, and I've heard it called fail forward. So thanks for sharing that with us. So let's do this. In a moment, I wanna come back and hear specifics of what Climate organizations themselves. I wanna unpack that. Before we do that, I just wanna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor.

Are you facing 1 or more important decisions in your impact business? And you'd like an experienced thought partner to develop a plan about how to proceed in the complex times we're living. But you don't feel the need for an extended coaching or consulting contract that's gonna cost you many 1,000 of dollars. Worst. You're looking for an affordable, targeted, and time efficient type of support. Work. Through paulzollizer.com, I offer a strategy session package. These packages are ideal for entrepreneurs who are facing 1 to 3 immediate decisions, like how to increase your positive impact, fine tune your marketing strategies to get more results for less effort, launch a new product or service successfully, work. We'll refine your pricing structure so it's both inclusive and provides you with a great quality of life.

You can find out more by clicking below, work, and thank you so much for listening to this podcast. So welcome back, everybody. I am honored to be here with Satyam Bias, and we are talking about Climate Asia. And right before the break, I promised we'd get back and get into the nuts and bolts. The way we like to joke, Satya, is In the 2nd part of the show, we put on our social entrepreneur glasses, and we go, like, deeper into, like, what does the thing look like? Right? How is it built? How does it work? What are the revenue streams? So that's what we wanna dive into now. So as I was saying before the break, I hear there's kind of at least 2 buckets of where you're providing services and tied to your revenue streams. 1 is to job seekers themselves, and 1 is to organizations in the climate space. Tell us a little bit about how those 2 different sides of the coin work at Climate Asia.

Thank you, Paul, for picking that up. I think work. I love how you articulate it really well. The 2 different sides of the coin. The one side of the coin is if if you are looking for opportunities in the green space, you can come to our platform, You can subscribe, and you would get green jobs in your inbox on a regular basis. At this point of time, we haven't launched work the revenue scheme around this work because we want to build a community. And, also, we know that our bigger goal is bring the people who are not from our climate space into the climate space, which means they might not get a match immediately. So it's part of work On the thing is of what we call building the field.

So we are building the field because they they didn't appear right now. So they and sometimes, you know, we also think that, are we too early to the party? Because no one has arrived here yet, and and we are trying to promote something which does not exist at the scale we want it to exist. But having said that, our aspiration is that as the industry would mature, as the market would pick up, These people will be able to find opportunities while we are exposing them to the climate universe. And as a precursor to jobs, they also fellowship. We are helping our we are helping our customers to get access to different fellowship in India and outside India so that they can taking short term bets on climate career. I'm calling you short term bets because before you decide to leave your job and say, I'm going to work in green finance. You get an opportunity to test out what a green finance is. So for example, fellowship focusing on climate finance, A fellowship focusing on climate com.

A fellowship. We are a partner with a fellowship that focuses on putting professionals in the corporates, focusing on the sustainability side of thing. Work We are basically become design partner for 2 different fellowship from a systems plan because we realize We will be able to grow faster and deeper by being involved with many other work We were designing the fabulous fellowship and running it versus trying to create one of our own. Yep. And that insight came from our 1st experiment of designing our own fellowship. Work So we very quickly went to the drawing board and said, hey. We work with 21 young people, but what it would take for us to convert this number 21 to 20,000? And we're like, actually, it's not going to happen in the next 10 year. Then we said, what it would take for us to work with 100 other partners work who are then working with 200 other young people.

They said probably in the next 2 year. They said, okay. Let's pick up the 2nd model then. Yep. Because our work End goal is very clear. We want more and more people to work in this space. The mediums can be different. And the reason I'm taking this example is that sometimes work Why we are building something? We look at things in a linear map.

We think x leads to 2 x leads to 3 x leads to 5. But sometime the next can lead to a 10 x, and you can jump all the remaining steps by actually adding value work to the people and stating that why your approach might be different from the approach the world would have thought about. Yes. And that's where the work production pieces. So one side of the spectrum, this is what we have. So we have a platform for job seekers. We are design partner in majority of the fellowship. And the second thing, which is still in the making and we ran a pilot very recently, it's for designed for organization, social impact organization, work Who might directly or indirectly will be working in the climate domain, but they want to scale up.

Work This accelerator is designed to take organization from x to y. But for us, the real mission is, You might be a not for profit working with small scale farmers. We care about your reach increasing from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000,000, work And we know that reach will only increase once your institutional infrastructure will increase, your funding will increase, your people function will be much better, and that it requires a mammoth investment of we're taking an off from stage 1 to stage 2 or stage 2 to stage 3. Work. And we thought that this accelerator would be one of those thing which will bring institution, put them together in a cohort, work Take them through a journey, a highted journey for 6 month with, like, pretty much, like, annual maintenance contract with every augment work anywhere. Now you're part of the system. Your problems will evolve. We'll also evolve in support services.

And so that's on the organization side, the work we are doing. Yeah. And the model we have in terms of revenue for this is it's sponsored. Some some of these cohort were sponsored, And we would look at part monetization from the social impact organization. So it would remain subsidized at least in the 1st 3 years till the time we don't reach a proof of concept where we can say, when you come to us, this is how x become biweekly. Yep. And this is how the journey looks like. So I would say as a young venture, we are on a path to design this accelerator, and we are looking for support, all forms of support.

People who are designed explorators, we want to work with them, people who can want to support something like Listen to global south. We want that kind of financial support. We want to be live in India, Kenya, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal by the end of 2025. So it's not going to be easy to be live in 5 countries. But I think As a group of individuals involved in designing this, we like to aim high. Yeah. And we know what we want to achieve as an Android site, Which is we are helping the society get much better.

Beautiful. So much you just said there, Sayam. I mean, like, that could be a graduate level the whole graduate level program, let alone. I was gonna say a course. I'm like, no. No. No. That's a PhD program right there.

One of the things that I really love that you said and and, you know, in the impact investing world, there's a frame called patient capital. Work, right, that when you're trying to build something that's not fitting well in the modern streams of what the economy values. Sometimes you can expect 10 x in 5 years or less. Sometimes, you know, or 10 x in the next year. Whereas if it was like, I don't know, the next Facebook or whatever. People know what a social media platform is, and you come up with one that's Got some different bells and whistles and say, sure. Here's my money. I'm gonna get 10 of it.

What I hear is a patient entrepreneur mind, of patient social entrepreneur, and and I'll give some examples. And tell me if this feels not true, if I'm telling a story that doesn't resonate with you. But I hear, like these 3 buckets. Right? There's the buckets of the bringing in quality people to the climate conversation who work aren't yet working in the climate space. Right? Really good human capital. And, eventually, there'll be a revenue stream there, but you're making the informed decision not to charge for that right now to make sure you have the attention and the relationships with really good and smart, caring, dedicated values based people. Right? So that's like and and that will eventually become a revenue stream. But right now, it's like we need these people around.

We don't wanna put up a barrier that would prevent somebody who's like, I'd like to be over there, but I'm not in that space right now, and I don't know how feasible it is for me. So you took away that friction and said, just come on in. We want you here. You're important, so just come on in, and you took down any paywall at least at this point. And, again, I see you shaking your head. I think that you're saying, yeah, that feels right. Right?

You're right. Yes.

And eventually, that'll be a revenue stream. But right now, it's a it's a human capital asset that the whole brand benefits from from making that choice. Right? And that's an example of patient entrepreneurship with the understanding if and when you decide to turn that into a revenue stream, You're gonna provide a lot of value, and you're building on the relationships you already have as opposed to not knowing where those smart people who are gonna fill these roles are. You already got thousands of them who you're building relationships with at scale. Is is that fair to say?

You're right. You're right.

And then you've got this started with the fellowship model and and other people's resources. Right? Like, sometimes in the Impact Investing world, there's whatever pool of capital you have, work, but most people wanna have that I know in the impact investing world, people wanna have impact at scale that goes beyond the capital that they have available to Whether that capital's $1,000,000 or $100,000,000, we look at the world as, like, $1,000,000,000. It's it's a mess. And even if we have a relatively large pool of capital. The needs are bigger than what we can dip into in our own capital pool. Right? So you're saying, work. Let's go provide a lot of value to people who've raised resources, but maybe could use some help getting their fellowships to serve the most people, do the best good, and really accelerate their impact rather than playing with the relatively small pool of monies and resources you have to launch your own fellowship program. Is is that fair to say?

Work You're a handed person. Right? And I will just connect this this point with the first one. Once you have access to quality people work And on the supply side, on the demand side, you have institutions which are looking for more and more people to come and join their fellowship. You're still making you are doing the matchmaking between the 2.

Exactly.

You are doing justice to the 2 because, the whole aspect is You have access to the demand and supply. Yeah. And that's how most of the human capital model work.

You're you're brokering deals, right, between the supply and demand in terms, and very few people think at scale in this space in in my experience. Right? And I love that model. I I that's such a creative, and I just love that you're thinking that way. And I this isn't about me, but I think similarly as part of the reason I do podcast, it gets we need in the conversation to leverage people all over the world. Yesterday, I was talking about introducing somebody in Afghanistan who's doing work. A group in Afghanistan to a group in Uganda because the group in Uganda is further, and they just don't know each other, but it's so obvious that an incredible part and I know them both because I'm a podcast host. Right? So that's part of the reason I do this is to form the relationships of people who've done things at scale so that when somebody else comes along and says, I'm gonna do something like this, and then they don't know that there's somebody who's got something up and running. This organization has several dozen employees full time, impact organization, profitable, doing great, growing quickly.

And this organization that I talked to yesterday has a concept, but they don't have the real world experience. Right? And I can broker those relationships because I tend to stay in touch with very different scenario, but some very similar kinds of thinking. So I'm just highlighting, I love your thinking, and I think this goes to that. If I'm gonna go out on a limb here, Sayang, this is part of that 10 x in 5 years. Right? That that taking that relationship approach and brokering deals as opposed to trying to grow your own capital, your own business in more of a bubble or more siloed. It's very hard to get those returns in the impact space. Am I stealing your thunder here? Is this the magic sauce that I just released?

This is this is the magic This is the magic sauce. And sometimes we always, we use this term internally defining work The ecosystem or networks, and I always do the word a word. We have to become network of the networks. And that's where what exactly what you are talking about is, like, you know, how you become an aggregator or off aggregator. So It's not about becoming an Amazon. It's become it's about becoming an Amazon for Amazon. Yep. And that that's where your Your scalability, cost effectiveness, you reaching many more people happens much faster.

And I think, fundamentally, for me, that's what entrepreneurs social entrepreneurship was all about, should be about, which is What do you do in the most resource and sustained manner and get some maximum out of it? Now, obviously, in a very commercial for profit manner, people would look at it in terms of margin. For us, this is not margin. This is more impact, and this is more about, like, you know, how we are getting access to our unit economics, Apply the same principle of efficiency, but when the buck come back to the ecosystem, you want to put it back in the company to grow it faster. And that's where I think, like, I I would be very, very satisfied if in the next few years, we are able to help a 1000000 plus people work in the country we'll be in. That's not going to happen on our own. We are incredibly clear about that.

Beautiful. So you're you're stealing, a question that's gonna come down in just a moment about where you're going in the next 3 to 5 years. But hold Just for a second because I wanna get a sense of alright. So there's the human capital, and we talked about making that frictionless by making it free at this point. Then there's a designing the fellowship or or being a design partner, sorry, with fellowship type early state. Like, what's the scale of that? In the past, let's say, in the past year, 2023, how many organizations you worked within the fellowship realm and being a design partner.

So we we have worked with your organizations in terms of number, we are still looking at less than 10, but we have worked with some of the most prominent one. Yeah. And it took us a while to really convert. So I think here the I would put it like this. It might take us another year or 2 to really go from a number less than 10 to 100 partner. Yeah. But there are only 100 partners around the world, around the globe. So once you actually work with 100 institutions who are designing fellowships around the world, You're pretty much covered the entire

You're working with 98% again. That's your favorite number, isn't it?

There's nothing left. Work When we scan then I can give you the stat for it. When we scan the fellowship universe, we came across work 70 prominent fellowship, which have been running, creating an impact. So I'm not talking about a new one being born every day or every week. I'm talking about the ones with the track record of at least 2 batches out there doing work, being proud of that, filling it up. That number is somewhere around 70, and we are going to hit 10% of that 70 soon in the next 2 months. Yeah. Work And we're also signing them up as design partners for the next few years.

Another key thing I would like to state here is we generally go for long term partnership. Work. When when institutions work with us and they come for a 1 year partnership, we say, let's talk about 3 years. Let's not talk about financial for 3 years. You might have visibility of financials for next 1 year. But let's say in principle, if you have the fund and if we deliver, work. This contract will have an amendment, and we'll continue working for 3 years. Beautiful.

And that actually gives you a sort of I mean, I call 3 years as pretty much like phase one. So you are largely capturing phase one of relationship. Then comes the phase 2, which is year 4 to year 6. Then comes the final phase, which is year 7 to year 10. But once you have delivered in the phase one with any kind of relationship, leadership. People would like to stick around with you. Yeah. And that brings me to back to authentic leadership.

Deliver on what you say, work And, yeah, don't stop doing that ever in life, and people will come back to you again and again. They might not have the resources to work with you on a annual basis, But in a 5 year horizon, you will see them coming to advertise back.

Yeah. That that same retainment is just such a strength of yours, and you're leaning into it in various ways. I just it's, like, so obvious that's a strength of yours. Yeah. So let's talk about that last bucket. So there's the fellowship and then there's the the jobs. Like, somebody's like full time. I this isn't a fellowship.

This is like, I need a world class person in the climate in Asia, and I heard Climate Asia might be able to help. Tell us what you do in that bucket.

Work Great point, Paul. So, I mean, we're so even I I will just quickly touch fellowship once again because I forgot to mention that When we are design partners, we get paid. We get paid for designing. We get paid for the role we are playing. So there is a revenue stream that has been activated from the 2nd bucket Automatically, while we are not charging the job seekers right now, but the employers are ping ping us Because that's where they get the the value add. That's and coming to the coming to the 3rd part, which is where Any institution looking for talent in the climate space, particularly not for profits Our social enterprises in Asia would know us as someone who work sort of a holistic solution. To give you an example, we went and scanned the social impact space climate social impact space in Indonesia, And we interviewed approximately 30 organizations. So we got a sort of a pulse of the space.

Right? Not the entire space, but the pulse of it. That give us data around, you know, what key skills are missing, what people are aspiring for, what are these people are giving, what they want to give. Now with that When other institutions come to us and say, hey. I'm looking for someone to work for a not for profit in Indonesia. We would say, we really know What are the gaps and what are the challenges? Because we spend 1 year doing our background research because we wanted to work in that country. Work And I'm giving you a live case of entering the market. So we spend 1 year understanding the space, Talking to leaders, sitting remotely, spending time analyzing data, and now we are using that data to also position ourself as someone who understands the macroeconomics well. Yeah.

So why? Because we know the macroeconomics, we'll be able to help you not only find the right talent in that space, we'll be able to tell you, are you paying well? Are you offering competitive value? Are you actually giving any additional perks like the other do in the space? That's where the value addition services or the value you add beyond doing 1 transaction of employment work Really work policy. Yeah. So any institution, not for profit, looking for any kind of talent work and reach out to ClimateAsia and say, help us find this talent in this geography. What we do is we report. We understand the role. Our team will go back, analyze our database, also analyze that do we have a then have we done something similar in any other part of the world? Is it how difficult is it going to be? How will it going to be? Go back to an institution with a commitment. We would be able to work Deliver far on this in the next 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks timeline depending upon the complexities of the scenario or the scale of the scenario, And we deliver. So another important point I'm trying to make here is we only take up things where we can deliver.

Work no. Nice. And that requires thinking, reflecting, doing number crunching, work And not just saying we can do it. Because if you have not worked in a particular domain or a particular country or a particular sector within the impact sector, you might not be able to deliver. But we live in a world, thanks to all the platforms we have, thanks to LinkedIn, thanks to other social networking platforms we have, that you have access to the wide world, millions of people working in this space. One connection away, one message away. All you need to do is let go of your apprehension, ego, whatever is limiting you to ask whatever. Like, I said, work I I must say that close friend, Craig, our common friend, and say I need help if you caught in this span.

But it came from a definition of I'm asking for help. Oh. K. I need help. So so that's where the the third model is where If you are looking for our incredible talent to help you solve for your climate challenges as an organization, you can reach out to us. Beautiful. And work Another value add there is if we can't do it, we will definitely tell you who else can do it for you. Yeah.

So I hear still find a solution.

I I hear 2 other strategies. I, one is I would call market research. You've spent a year going deep. Right? Like, let's say, use that example of Indonesia. So you get to know this very precise, like, climate work in you mentioned 5 countries earlier, but used Indonesia as an example. So you know that market, and you can give feedback about, you know, what salaries and benefits and perks. And if somebody's a little off from other climate spaces, and that's contributing to them having a hard time hiring. You can say, hey.

We know this market. Your salary is low or the salary is pretty good, but most of your other organizations that are looking to hire people in this space, they get much better perks than you, and so that's part of the reason you're really struggling here. Can we do something about that? And that'll reduce the friction. It'd be easier to hire somebody. So market research is 1. And the second one I heard you say is you're really attentive to looking for the conditions, knowing the conditions to succeed. So when you say yes to working with somebody you've I don't know if you use the word vetted. That's the word that comes to mind.

You've thought about what success takes given their goals. If their goals are a little off, again, you might be able to help them resculpt their goals that would fit working with you. Or if you're just not the right fit. You know the other players in the space, and you can say, hey. We're not the right ones to help you with this particular need, but let me introduce you to. And you know a lot of those other players, you can make that personalized introduction. So those are 2 other strategies that I heard you mentioned there that I just wanna highlight. Does that sound about right?

Handed person. Right? Cool. I think that my second strategy aligns well with that we all are navigating complex systems and issues, and no single organization can solve for it. While you might be competing with 10 other organizations in the same space, remember that end of the day, when it comes to human capital, when it comes to Helping someone get a climate job, you are saving the planet. So you start putting the mission much, much, much bigger than any you have ever learned in any school or, like

100%. When I work with my social entrepreneur clients, I say, let's sit down and talk. And when we're talking, they're considering hire they're they wanna hire somebody. And I say when we talk, first of all, this is confidential, but second of all, I'm listening for what you need and what's gonna help your mission. I don't assume I'm it. I know a lot of people in the impact space, and if somebody I know is a better fit for your needs. Then my job is introduce you, not to try to get you to work with me. Right? That would be very shortsighted for Given where the world is at, that would not be a wise choice.

Yeah. That I share those value. Wow. We could go on all day, and you're You're a busy humans. I am and so have our listeners. So as we start to come, we'll we'll put links. Certainly, go check out Climate Asia and Go check out our thon. We'll put links to all the resources we mentioned, Satyam, so we can send people to your site.

If work There was something that you were hoping we were gonna get to today, and we haven't touched on it yet in terms of the great work you're doing at Climate Asia, or there's something you wanna leave our listeners with, a reminder, there's a strategy we haven't talked about yet that's really helpful as we start to say goodbye. What would that be?

Wow. That's a heavy question. So I guess, work In the last decade, I've learned that everything we do sort of manifest or start from our own personal transformation and mental model. So for example, a lot of things I'm talking about comes from a growth mindset, and growth assigned with a very strong value you are creating for the society. Work And I think every time you have a growth mindset, you face enough challenges where you need to shed your old skin work And rework and take some very bold decision, which most of us don't want to do. Probably not on a regular basis. That's fine. I think one of the biggest thing has for me has been, How do you navigate these transformative journeys and challenges with a lot of grace, with a lot of maturity, and a lot of acceptance and respect for things happening around you.

And keeping in mind that the people you work with work are your biggest asset? As a social entrepreneur, I mean, I know I am I run human capital venture from I'm always talking about people. Well, I think I would not exist if I would not have fabulous partners who are mission oriented delivering 24 by 7, 365 days. Work In that 98% retention, I forgot to mention retention rate is 98% to what happened, and the same is happening at ClimateAsia. So we have to systematically get young people to apply for job outside our space because we add add so much value in their life that they don't want to go. Work But there is a world out there, and you need to see that world. Then we have to create learning and development structures to incentivize them to move on. Work But yeah. So I would I would I would like to say focus on yourself.

Transformations are not easy. Work Be authentic. Focus on intrinsic motivation. What drives you, you know makes you excited, and you will deliver. Work Don't do anything where you are not intrinsically motivated because over time it's puzzles out. Entrepreneurship is a marathon which goes on in decade. It's not years and month. So till the time you can that you are growing year on year, 10% is great.

Not everyone needs to be a unicorn. Not everything needs to happen overnight. The world is not going to change. Work. But what you create, you should be proud of yourself. And every job in the future will be a climate job, so work Get yourself up here. Start thinking of things you can do to make this planet a better place than what we have inherited so that you can be proud of yourself. And if you have a future generation, that would blow up your other work we have done for them.

It's high time we all act and save this planet. Actually, it's high time 50 years ago, but work. It's now like there's no choice law.

Thank you so much for the work you do, and thank you so much for being on the show today.

Thank you, Paul. Thank you. It has been incredible, experience talking to you today. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

My honor. So listeners, let's do what we do here as a community. Obviously, this is incredible work. Tell your brands both in the climate space, but I think this message of these strategies that Satyam has shared with us, these are messages we can take into any impact space. Right? Work. I love that last point about a growth mindset, and I agree with you. The world is on fire, literally. So we need to be bold, work, and we need to be centered, and we need to be inventing new ways of being, not just new technologies.

So I love that last point. Work Now it's something that transfers in any impact space as does retainment, as does thinking in a network way as opposed to a siloed way. So please work. I do wanna remind you it happened today. Thanks again, Craig. We love listeners suggested topics and guests. Tell me who you wanna learn from. Right.

It's an incredible opportunity that I can oftentimes reach out to almost anybody, and they'll say yes, and it's free. Right? So who do we wanna learn from and share your ideas about incredible impact brands that are doing things at scale, and let's learn together. So send your ideas. You can go to the Awarepreneurs website, and on our contact page, it has 3 simple guidelines tell us who we should be interviewing. Finally, I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.