TMTL: Trail Blazer Interview with Manoj Menon

Surbhi (00:00)
Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of The Making of a Thought Leader podcast.

An ace telecoms analyst, the managing partner of a leading research and consulting company, and a thought leader shifts his career tracks to become an entrepreneur. Today's guest on the Making of Thought Leader Podcast is Manoj Menon.

Manoj brings with him a stellar experience in the corporate world and also amazing amount of information about building his own company and sharing experiences from what he is learning on the go. Today's conversation is definitely power-packed. So let's get straight in.

Hey, Manoj, it is so wonderful to have you on the Making of a Thought leader podcast. It is absolutely my pleasure. And thank you for coming on.

Manoj Menon (01:07)

Thank you very much Surbhi. Such a delight and pleasure to have this opportunity to talk to you and connect with you as well after such a long time. 

Surbhi Dedhia (01:16)

Yes, that's wonderful.

So Manoj on this podcast. I invite entrepreneurs and business owners who come and share a little bit more about building thought leadership. So,  let's start by introducing yourself and,  tell the audience a little bit about what's your journey been as an entrepreneur? 

Manoj Menon (01:36)

Excellent. Thank you. You know, I think, calling yourself as a thought leader is not right. I think people should call you a thought leader. So that's the first correction. I don't want to call myself to be a thought leader, but then I was very fortunate. I started my career in India, just after engineering. And we were doing an MBA. One of my colleagues, his name is Navroz Moritawalla and he's still a good friend of mine. So he saw a small classifieds advertisement in The Times of India, you see those advertisements, which are just about three or four lines. And in that advertisement was American MNC looking for some freelance researchers. So he went and applied and he put six of our names because six of us in our MBA college, happened to be working on some project together.

You know, we got called for the meeting and we went to a five star hotel. We had never stepped into a five star hotel and we met Sailesh Dave who was responsible for setting up Frost & Sullivan in India. And he interviewed us and he said, okay, take the small project. You know, I think he gave us rupees 15,000 for a very, very small project.

And we were six of us. That's how my engagement with Frost & Sullivan began. Then we did the second project, the third project, and he said, Hey, why don't few of you all continue to work for us. We joined myself, Kavan Mukhtyar, Santoshi Kittur and there's a fourth person Yashwant Nadkarni. Four of us joined.

We were the initial founding members of Frost and Sullivan India. We were 23 years old. And we had an incredible learning experience. Sailesh then, he sent me to Singapore, I worked on a few projects. He said, did you want to stay back there longer? I said, okay, let me stay for a couple of years. One thing led to another.

We had such an incredible journey. Singapore was established. After about two years, Aroop, who is the global president of Frost & Sullivan. I remember we flew down to Malaysia and there was another gentleman by the name of Amarjeet Sahota and I'd never flown to Malaysia before. And in my mind, Malaysia is somewhere between India and Singapore.

I still remember this so cleanly and vividly, we landed at the KLIA airport. And this is I think in 1999 or early 2000 and we are completely overawed by the scale and the magnitude of KLIA. And then we take a taxi into the city. The ride into the city was incredible. I had never seen such amazing road infrastructure in my whole life.

Surbhi Dedhia (04:17)

Yeah but this is after you went to Singapore. So between Singapore and Malaysia, also the infrastructure and the scale you were amazed with? 

Manoj Menon (04:27)

Because Singapore is a small country, so it's easy to build an infrastructure. But to have about a 60 kilometers stretch of highway so beautifully done. I couldn't comprehend it. Yeah. And I had been to the U S for a few visits but the roads in Malaysia are still among the best in the world. Right. So we had that trip. We paused somewhere for lunch. After the lunch, the bill was something like 40 ringgit. We just couldn't believe it that it could be so economical and of value. And that's when Frost and Sullivan decided to open up our office in Malaysia.

It was such a game-changing moment for the company, because now for that $1 of investment, we could have three people in Malaysia as compared to an additional one in Singapore, and that paved the way for growth for Frost & Sullivan, in all of Asia. So that's how after Malaysia we set up Australia then Korea, then Thailand and, Indonesia.

It was such an incredible journey of learning. Yeah, I must say biggest plus point about Frost & Sullivan was they didn't have too much capital. We were just making profits pouring it back. There was never any profits repatriated. One of the key strengths of Frost & Sullivan is they made you feel as if you owned the company. Many people here thought, I owned Frost & Sullivan, I did not own anything. I was mere employee.

It was a great journey of learning. I'm so privileged to have had the opportunity to spend 22 years with them learning and growing the business. 

Surbhi Dedhia (06:05)

It flowed through, down to the employees as well, like from top management to the employees that the culture thread of owning what you do was so evident. Then for the audience here who don't know, I was a part of frost and Sullivan as well for a considerable amount of my career journey and from a very small role as a public relations to corporate communications to events and it just grew  tremendously, and the same thread of owning it, owning what you are, the function that you're doing, or the contribution that you're making to the company was very vivid in, I think I worked in a couple of offices and it was across you're right.

Manoj Menon (06:43)

Yeah. We must give a lot of credit to Aroop. He always came and he said, okay, what next can you do? There was never anything that he said no. And we did so many unique things. We first started up the awards banquet.

Right. The first awards banquet was a luncheon and then it became a dinner. And then that set the stage. We did Frost the trail, which was something that I, I think so many people were so passionate about. I guess the names are countless. That really brought us together to build something exciting that we could contribute back.

And the number of such new initiatives that we did and for a company which self-funded itself. Yeah. I thought that was really remarkable and I think that's a great business model for many people to look at. And that's what I'm currently doing as well. Get people very young. Empower them, give them the opportunity to do what they want, guide them, support them, and then they will do the rest, you know?

Yeah. So I'm hoping to recreate in a better way using digital tools.

Surbhi Dedhia (07:53)

And this is at Twimbit and what does Twimbit stand for?

Manoj Menon  (07:56)

So we were looking for an exciting, innovative, different name. While it was research bend, we didn't want Manoj or one of my co-founder Ashish and we have a third co-founder Aman. We didn't want a name, which was Aman, Ashish and company.

We wanted a young name. And so we kept looking. In my mind all the, while it is really at the intersection of technology and knowledge and innovation. Yeah. So that was it. So I did engage somebody in a media agency and he came up with this name. So he said TWIMBIT and you know, TWIMBIT it basically stands for The World Is Moved By Ideas and Technology.

Yeah. So it's an acronym for the world is moved by ideas and technologies. Uh, it was very difficult in the beginning when we first said, oh my God. Timbit, Twimbut., part of it was because we ourselves didn't have the confidence in saying the name correctly, but now I think it comes so naturally. I think I'm so proud of the name.

I think our team loves it too. Yeah it has evolved.

Surbhi Dedhia

Yeah. I think that the name itself is the vision and the mission. Can you share with the audience what's the mission of Twimbit? 

Manoj Menon

So it is a journey. We knew that we have to innovate. We have to, it started with saying, how do I blend the research and the intersection of industries and careers?

Yeah. That's how the conversation started. And what we did was I knew industries, well, telecom and healthcare, and I had it worked with clients across. Yeah. And my co-founder Ashish. I was looking for someone who understood careers. Well, that means who understood human beings, you know, and Frost and Gartner and all these companies, so much of the search is produced, but so little of that research was actually consumed by people. How do we change that? How do we, you know, why is it that. A teenager can spend eight hours a day on Instagram, but when it comes to reading research, we fall asleep and we don't read it.

So many companies commission, lots of consulting studies, but they don't act on it. Right. So initial thinking was how do we take content and make it very persona-driven. So that the consumption of content can improve. So even if I'm writing a telecom content, if the HR person is reading it, you should see what is relevant for a month, from an HR perspective.

Right. And what is relevant for a finance perspective. So we wanted to, that's how we started. Right. And we first built it out as it's a long journey and it's hard to even start developing content like that. So we were looking and we were stumbled. We actually struggled for the first four or five months.

We didn't even know what to do. Then somewhere in February of 2019 is let's say the first major statement we made is, okay. Let's bring joy in the consumption of research. Because ultimately we can make people happy. If people can enjoy it, then maybe we will discover the search better. So that led us to developing our platform.

So we developed the platform and then people started coming on the platform and they love the visual appeal of the research. So that was the Wave one of our product where we developed Twimbit content, made it available. It's a mobile friendly, you can flip the content, you can interact. And we were beginning to see some success from it.

Then we went and said, okay, investors give us some money. We want to scale this up. Right. As we went to the investor. Uh, we had some very bad meetings. We went with lofty ambitions and aspirations and want to raise some money, I think the first criticism we got, we advanced in a few rounds, but then we got some real good feedback and criticism.

They said, what are your building is, is not platform driven. What you're building will take ages to become a big business because how much content can Twimbit create? How many analysts will you hire? And by the time you do all of this, it will take for perpetuity. You got to go and reimagine your business. And that's, that's happened in February of this year.

So that forced us to go back to the drawing board and said reimagined Twimbit. So what we then came up with is what we are supremely excited, and we think we are very close to that magical moment of Twimbit beginning to find its full true purpose and calling. So Twimbit is now a platform for the discovery and consumption of research.

Okay. So we have built a platform where all the capabilities that I talked about in terms of bringing joy to the consumption of research is available to creators like you Surbhi. So you can come to Twimbit.com, you can create a full content page. It has got all the capabilities of personalization, interaction feeds, et cetera, at zero cost. As a content creator, you can come and create research content and make it available and discoverable through out platform.

Manoj Menon (13:40)
We also enable companies and brands to do it. Yeah. So when a company wants to come and run a specific campaign, they can leverage the full benefit of our platform to do it. And currently we have about 10 brands who have started using it. And we're beginning to see some of that. We think the biggest opportunity is there are at least a hundred thousand plus small research farms, all of them who have great content, but they struggle to distribute the content or have a great platform to distribute it.

So we make other software as a service available.  Okay. So today Twimbit is now a marketplace that helps with the consumption and creation of research. We want to be the gateway to the consumption of research for the world. 

Surbhi Dedhia (14:31)

Wow. Sounds super exciting. And when you said that the marketplace, it completely changes the perception and the going back to those days of research being born.

Already, I think the content that I have seen from him, the interactivity be it banking and finance or telecoms, it was always something that it seemed relevant to me as well. Like, you know, you want to understand what's happening. And with it being a marketplace I think it's definitely a game changer.

Manoj Menon

Yeah. Hopefully I think the key is in executing it and helping creators do well on the platform, Our success will come when creators find value. When they can use the full feature functionality of the platform to build communities, right? They can co-create because the way research is done today is done in isolation. Oh I feel maybe the banking industry needs this report on digital banking.

Let me go and make a report and I publish it. And then we hope that the customer will consume it. Why should it be like that? Why can't the customer be involved right throughout the journey. Right from defining what is the research to be produced and being involved as you are producing the research, giving you inputs to shape the research to it is produced and then giving feedback to help improve it. So what we've done is we've taken the entire research journey and we want to digitize it. And through that process and hands over on creation and consumption of the search. 

Surbhi Dedhia (16:02)

I see. Well, sounds really interesting, but at the same time, I'm just thinking, isn't it too much on you from, from a leader perspective, you lead the company, you said you've hired really young people. How are you shaping it all? 

Manoj Menon (16:17)

We knew that the answer lies in technology. The key is to bring together people and I think one, I've got two great co-founders, we are adding a few more co-founders to the team. People who have spent some time with the business, who have learned about the business.

So we think, they are equally picking up important attributes of business so we will embrace them also as co-founders and as they come on board, I think it's a shared responsibility now. I think the best ideas come from the younger people and majority of the team doesn't have a background on research. They're addressing everything with a very open mind.

We do make a lot of mistakes and I think the biggest opportunity is to get the youth, to take charge, give them the indication of the business problem we are looking at solving, but I think it is truly them who are pushing the boundaries of what the technology can do, what the business model can be. And we have merely facilitators there.

Surbhi Dedhia (17:19)

Manoj having known you for so long, I want to sidetrack a little bit here and talk about those days when you used to be constantly on media, BBC, CNBC, CNN, and also the newspapers, international newspapers would come to you to ask you about different technology trends. And there were opportunities that we have had to write articles and editorials features in magazines as well.

So when you have certain expertise in an industry, a lot of times it stays with you. And in this time and age, I'm encouraging people to come out and talk about it, but you, it, it started quite organically. But now as you are heading Twimbit, how are you, how are you maintaining all that? 

Manoj Menon (18:09)

It's not one individual who does it, right.

It's always a team. So fortunately there is a team of people who are researching on the subject, who is discussing on the subject. And together we put out that content. So because I have history of career of 24- 25 years in the industry, my noise gets amplified a little bit more, or there are great colleagues of mine who are also putting out the content.

And I benefit from that content as well. So I think it's a team effort which works together to research a particular place, debate about it and build on it. Essentially, for us researchers, it comes very naturally what we do. It may not come naturally to people who are working in an industry of practicing in a telecom or it or banking.

So there are three things that we do, right. One is we read a lot about what we are passionate about. So if I'm from telecoms and I'm reading about it a lot more. Two, I'm surrounded by experts in telecom. So I am constantly talking with people in the telecom industry on a regular basis, picking their brains, asking them questions, clarifying my doubts, provocating them.

And third one is I'm talking about what I've learned in one and two. all the time. Because I talk about it, I get challenged more. I learn more. So I think these are the three steps. I think it comes very naturally to somebody who's in research, but people who are not in research, maybe they don't follow this as closely.

They may be doing it subconsciously. They may be doing a little bit of one, but not of the third, but you know, the goal is to do almost equal proportion of all the trees so that you can get the best mileage out of it.

Surbhi Dedhia (19:56)

And it’s a cycle. You keep doing, keep doing.

Manoj Menon (19:59)

Keep doing it. The good point, as you said, keep doing it. Like if you go back into one of the best pieces at Frost, one of the most well-known pieces of research was the mega trends project. It was done in 2008 was the first one. After that we released 10 versions of it every year. Right. So you can imagine by the 10th time we did it, it became so much better. So you got to repeat it. I think maybe the point that you mentioned is critical.

Maybe that is a fourth element. You go for the people repeating it again and again. Yeah. 

Surbhi Dedhia (20:33)

Consistency. Yes, absolutely. And that is so critical over a period of time because with the technology and how much you have shifted, like being a leader in an MNC and now moving into as an entrepreneur, I think that is a third element to your career.

And that is the keynote speaking. Would you like to talk about it that a little bit? 

Manoj Menon (20:58)
Yeah. I always enjoyed public speaking from when I was a kid. I remember. One of the first times I spoke was in school in eight standard and the speech was about terrorism. And I got to the second price. I cannot forget it.

And I still remember the ending of the speech. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Those moments helped shaped me and I always took every opportunity to speak. I must say I was also lucky that I took up a public speaking course. Yeah. I think so. Maybe, you know, that training is also important, at least in the formative years. So it helps you as well. So after I left Frost, I took a short break and I said, okay, let me try and do public speaking and see if I can build scale with it.

I realized, you know, it will be just me as a speaker. It will be too limited. I wanted to do something bigger, something that I could impact more. And that's how that gave way to building a platform where we can give hundreds and thousands of thought leaders of platform to amplify their ideas of or vision of the future.

Surbhi Dedhia (22:15)

Like, isn't it going back to this thought of your audience. You may not have everybody as a data set that this is my audience and from what you are saying, you are really looking forward to connecting with your community that you have built consistently. And when you were a speaker, you were speaking about business and innovation and the impact and collapsing of the industry, all that, you know, it's not that you don't do keynote speaking now. It is in a different way, but what you were building towards, you said, Hey, you know, this is only me as a speaker. I want to impact many more. And how can I go back? So this is like knowing who, your audiences, your community, your tribe, and giving it back. Yeah. Yeah. 

Manoj Menon (23:00)

The idea was also that how do we use technology to amplify the message?

Right? Because if you, as a speaker means you are limited by you showing up and speaking all the time. We are in a digital world. Right. And how can we go beyond just that 30 minutes, 40 minutes of speaking? How do we use the content to help create sustained conversations to drive an outcome? The thing that we are very focused in Twimbit is yes, we want to be the place where you come and discover and consume research.

But we also want that research to drive outcomes. Why do you consume the search? You'll consume anything. Why do you consume a speech. Why don't you can do a LinkedIn or anything because you want to achieve an outcome. The outcome can be improved sales, a better investment decision, a better decision to launch a new product or service.

So how can we enable that? Okay. And we want to enable that on an ongoing basis rather than just say, come hit and run away. So I think that that's partly the reason why a platform and a technology should be embedded to help build this better.

Surbhi Dedhia (24:14)

I just love what you said. You want to create sustainable conversations with an outcome.

I'm going to write that down. 

Manoj Menon (24:22)

Yeah, I think it's a great point to pick it up and write about it. Yeah. We want to help create sustainable conversations because 95% of all consulting projects and research projects are very exciting for people to do, but they stay as PowerPoint documents in somebody's computer.

It doesn't get acted on. It gets acted on or leave. You know, people pick it up, they do something. Can they make a better decision with it. Right. 

Surbhi Dedhia (24;54)

It brings me to the point of, you know, launching those awards. I remember this entire community of industries that used to gather at a platform. We doing the research.

We communicating to them that look, you are doing this. In a particular segment of that industry and then their marketing teams are running with it saying that, look, we are doing this better. And this is what the research is. It was so powerful. 

Manoj Menon (25:17)

I think. So it was such a brilliant idea and just shows you can start something small you can evolve it. As human beings, we all look for recognition. Yeah. And we want to reaffirm that what we are doing is right. Companies want to look at it. Business leaders want to look at it and the awards fit in that purpose very well. Yes. And as a decision-maker sometimes when I want to invest in somebody who I know is vetted, somebody has vetted them.

So I think you're right. It is a very, very, I think there's a strong human need for recognition, for reaffirmation. Right, which I think can be also, can be addressed. So what leaders can do is they can recognize others because if you are an influencer then you recognise others and that’s a great way to contribute. 

Surbhi Dedhia (26:08)

Absolutely. Manoj that brings me to this part of what would you advise fellow entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who are probably starting, innovative startups, bringing out products, solving real life problems for businesses. What would you advise them? 

Manoj Menon (26:24)

I'm so happy that I ended up starting up Twimbit because I had stopped listening when I was at least in the last three years, four years in Frost, because you got into such a position of power and strength that you were not listening to customers.

You were not listening to employees. You are not listening to the competition. You were so confident that you are not listening intently. You are not listening to peers and others giving you personal feedback as well. And I think that's why the learning stopped. What I think Twimbit has done is it does really brought me to ground zero because I'm starting from zero I have to listen to everybody. Even the smallest of customer is giving something valuable. And it is humbling and we are learning. And I think I realized so many mistakes that I was making, so many things I was not doing. So we may have a great idea, but what makes the idea better? What enhances it is if we are keenly listening to what the ecosystem around us is telling us.

And if we are picking that up and integrating that. You may not be able to do it overnight. Sometimes it is difficult. You've got to digest it. And it manifests itself after six months that I think is what makes entrepreneurs successful because a lot of us fail as well. I thought entrepreneurship is easy and it was really exciting for a lot of people.

Oh I want to be a start-up, I want to do this. I want to warn them. It is not that easy. I knew everything about PNLs, and cash and cost and everything. But it does 10 times harder than that. So please do not just go in there and think that entrepreneurship is easy. Second, listen and third. I think the biggest for being a thought leader is that building that community together because they are the ones who give you the idea, they help you refine the idea.

They help you add velocity to your idea. I can post something on LinkedIn, but if my community doesn't engage with me, share with me amplify, it ahs got no meaning and purpose. Right. So we got to take them with us. So maybe those are a few things that I can possibly share so far. 

Surbhi Dedhia (28:56)

You're right. Like it is so much harder, you know, people think, oh, entrepreneurship will be easier because it is at my bill and my style of doing things.

It is so much harder. You are very lonely Yeah, and that loneliness can be debunked completely with the community. Got it. Super, super. This has been so invaluable. Tell me some more about the resources that you often refer to, to build your own knowledge, to build your own style of communicating, engaging with your audience.

Manoj Menon (29:26)

There are some common resources, the World Economic Forum shares some really good content pieces. Many a time as the researchers or as analysts, we get too focused on the minutiae, the smaller things, but how the smaller thing impacts the bigger picture is what helps people understand the context to relate to it a lot better.

And I got exposed to the World Economic Forum, maybe about four or five years ago. I attended some of their sessions. And I thought that helped me put context into what I was doing in to the larger issues the world was facing. Right. So I think the sources like them are a very interesting perspective. They try to bring the not-for-profit the government, the private sector all together.

So that's a good source of content, a good source of intelligence and information. They share a fair bit of it openly and publicly. So in addition to the regular things like Harvard business review and the McKinsey quarterlies, et cetera. So I think that provides one level of knowledge. The second thing I have noticed is while knowledge in one industry and you go deep in it is interesting. The biggest value comes from a completely unrelated industry. And how do you bring that and apply it to your industry? So I used to do almost zero work in banking industry. Ever since we started Twimbit, we have been doing a lot of work in banking and the reason we are able to do it is because, you know, I have a strong technology background and the future of banking is about disruptive innovation. It's about everything that the technology industry has done. So suddenly we are able to bring in a fresh perspective to that industry. So I think picking up an adjacent industry, looking at another industry, seeing what is there from that industry that can bring, I think it's, again, a very refreshing mechanism to add a new dimension. 

Then the third area and the final area, obviously for me, I'm super passionate about sports and love for sports and the lessons from sports, because the way people run in sporting teams is exceptional. Uh, some of the best practices are there of how to build a great team, how to plan, how, you know, I think the coaches in some of the football clubs in the world I'm a big fan of Liverpool club, have the toughest job.. Can you imagine week after week, they're held accountable, have to face the press, man, more than any CEO. What happened in the last game? Why did you lose? Every week they got to do it. And every week they have to defend their team. I think so many lessons can be drawn from there.

So I think picking up from different facets. Integrating, it gives you a fresh perspective. Otherwise you're the same, you're following the same as everybody else. So that is the mix I have created maybe for somebody else. They may mix music and something else. Everybody should mix their own concoction so that you bring your own unique Surbhi flavour to it.

Yeah. 

Surbhi Dedhia (32:55)

Fantastic. Is there any favorite book or podcast that you follow? 

Manoj Menon

Um, somebody gifted me this book, I've still not managed to fully read it. I think it is one of the most powerful book ever written. It is a book written by Napoleon hill. It is called Think and Grow Rich. That book is not easy to read. Take your time to read.

And I just read, you need to read it again. Yeah, but it's just, the title, you know, Think and Grow Rich, you know? So just by Thinking you can grow Rich. So he's got all the secrets to that in the book. So I think it's a, it's a fascinating book. 

Surbhi Dedhia (33:40)

Yeah. It's a phenomenonal book.

It is one of those milestone books that everybody should.

Fantastic. This was such a wonderful conversation, so valuable for me at least. And I'm sure the audience will love listening to you from where you were, who you are and what you're building. It's a phenomenal, um, journey. Since I've known you for so long, it gives me immense pride to see how it is going to be in the future.

So thank you for coming here. 

Manoj Menon

Hope so Surbhi, let's see, I think this is just the beginning and just as it is a beginning for you in your, uh, endeavor, I think what you're doing is commendable. Bring people together, let them learb and it's, this will get better and better and better. And hopefully we get a chance to come back and do this once again some time soon.
 
 Surbhi (34:31)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Wonderful. Thank you, so much.

Manoj (34:34)

Thank you Surbhi.