My guest today is Amit Patel who is the founder of Experience Haus, a digital skills training provider and consultancy. In this episode, we discuss the following: - Amit Patel's interests during childhood - Why Amit Patel encourages his kids to get a college degree and not drop out - Why Amit Patel left the banking world and moved to London - How Amit Patel got involved with teaching UX Design - What Amit Patel learned from teaching design to 1,000+ folks - How Amit Patel bootstrapped Experience Haus - When Amit Patel got the signal to go all in on Experience Haus - Amit Patel's advice to balance financial needs and side project/hustle - Why Amit Patel decided to make a brand bigger than him with Experience Haus - Amit Patel shares behind the scenes of building Experience Haus in the early years - Success Stories from Experience Haus - Why Amit Patel sold Experience Haus to Matter of Form - Importance of realizing your strengths - Amit Patel's advice for design entrepreneurs For show notes, guest bio, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show
Amit Patel is a Toronto-born product designer/manager, now living in London, United Kingdom. He is the founder and currently Creative Director of Experience Haus, a digital skills training provider and consultancy. He has worked in product management and product design roles across many industries and in various sizes of companies, from startups (in sectors such as media, fin-tech and healthcare) to industry leading companies. He has taught and designed courses covering UX Design, Product Design, Product Management, Design Thinking, Design in Social Innovation, Rapid Prototyping, and Entrepreneurship.
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Jayneil Dalal: Today's guest is the amazing Amit Patel who is a Toronto-born product designer, manager now living in London, United Kingdom. He is the founder and currently creative director of Experience Haus, a digital skills training provider and consultancy. He has worked in product management and product design roles across many industries and in various size of companies from startups to leading industry companies. He has taught and designed courses covering UX Design, Product Design, Product Management, Design Thinking, Design and Social Innovation, Rapid Prototyping, Entrepreneurship. Wow! That's amazing.
With that being said, Amit, welcome to the show, man. So, excited to be chatting with you.
Amit Patel: Yeah. No, thanks for having me. Super excited to be chatting with you today.
Jayneil: Yeah. And are you keeping up with all the soccer going on given that you're based in the heart right now in London?
Amit: I do follow it. I’m not so rigorous in following every single weekend and watching every single weekend but I do like to know what's going on. A lot of my cousins here are really into it. So, I can't avoid it yeah. I personally like the Champions League. So, when it gets into like the Europe state, all of Europe competition, that's what I personally like watching. And I have season tickets for Manchester United actually.
Jayneil: Oh damn!
Amit: So, I have two seasons, I guess. So, if you ever come over this way and you want to go see Manchester United, whenever they allow the fans back to the stadium, then we can definitely go.
Jayneil: I’m going to take you on that, man, because I’ve never been to a stadium there. So, I just want to like experience that atmosphere there.
Amit: Oh, definitely. So, next time you come. Have you been to London before?
Jayneil: No.
Amit: Okay. So, you got to come to London. And then Manchester is about a two-hour train ride and we can go to a game. I mean, I don't know when they're going to allow fans but I’ve had them for about 12 or 13 years now, the season tickets, and if there's really big Champions League games, I’ll go to those.
Jayneil: Wow! Man, I’m just blown away. This is like insane. So, you were born in Canada but then you moved to London. So, walk me through the early childhood days. Were you always into design or what was your interest when you were in high school?
Amit: So, in high school, interestingly enough … So, just stepping back, I was born in Toronto. When we were younger, my sister and I, we actually lived in London. So, I was between ages of four and seven living here in London. My parents had a business that didn't work out. So, we went back to Canada and then I lived the rest of my childhood there and I loved it. I loved growing up in Canada. And my interests were, yeah, I remember being very interested in design and architecture but my main interests in high school were sports. I just loved playing sports. I loved basketball. I got really into basketball. And then when it came to trying to figure out what to study in university, I wasn't really sure. I kind of took a safe bet. I studied math. So, I have a degree in math but my interests during university really started to peak around design and industrial design, architecture. And that's when I started to kind of learn more about code and the aesthetics behind a good design. And so, I think, it was really around university when I really, really got into it.
Jayneil: I absolutely suck at math. And when I mean math, I mean like the calculus and all that kind of stuff. I can do the basic arithmetic and calculation like that.
Amit: I don't remember any of it now. So, my degree is a Bachelor of Mathematics in Computer Mathematics. So, there's a lot of coding, a lot of stats, a lot of algebra, a lot of calculus, a lot of stuff. I don't remember any of it now but when I look back at it, I know there's a lot of talk now, people are always talking is university worth it, do you need a degree. I would never say no to my own children. I would say go get that degree because I think you learn a lot about yourself more so than what you're actually studying and I think that's why university is worth it.
Jayneil: It's kind of like more about discovering yourself like who you're as a person and things that you don't like or things that you want to do.
Amit: Exactly.
Jayneil: And the biggest thing I think is also the social interaction. I have good friendship with so many people that I formed during college especially. So, I think if everything just goes online, then I think we as human beings are going to be really introverted or just like really bad at forming relationships.
Amit: Absolutely. I think one of the things I’ve done in the last couple of months is I reconnected with my former university flat mate. So, we shared apartments. And he studied engineering. He's now a teacher in Ottawa where he went to university and I lost contact with him for like 10 or 12 years. And then through Instagram and through LinkedIn, through shared connections I was able to get his phone number and we connected. It was like we never kind of stopped talking to each other. We just connected. We have zoom calls every week. We just chat about life, chat about work, how we're sharing ideas of how he can help the students that he's teaching. He's doing a lot of teaching around code and programming and stuff. And I think those are the things that I take away. Even if it's a handful of people that I stay in touch with, I really remember those years very fondly. And like you said, it was those years that, yes, I studied a degree that I don't really use and helped me get a job, no doubt, but it was that time that it really helped me figure out what I wanted to do and what I really enjoyed.
Jayneil: Wow! So, what happened after that? You graduated from college in mathematics. Did you just end up taking a job in that field or what did you end up doing?
Amit: So, during the summers, I think, two of the summers while I was in university, I worked in downtown Toronto for a bank. So, it was like basically a subsidiary of the bank and I was working on a special project around the government savings bonds. And, basically, in my last year of university, I was offered the opportunity to interview for a couple of roles with that bank and managed to get a job before even my final exams were done. So, as soon as my final exams were done from university, I went straight back to Toronto and started working. And, honestly, I didn't like it. The first couple weeks I was like “Oh man, I don't like this.” I was doing a lot of systems analysis type work and they were using kind of these old IBM servers, very old architecture to host all the banking platforms but I was predominantly focused on supporting teams that were in the Caribbean. This was around May. I started in May and then I wasn't really enjoying it but it was also the summer. So, Toronto summers are nice. I know you probably know about that. So, all my friends were around. I’d go to work, I’d come home, we'd play basketball, we'd just chill. And then in October, I remember being called into the general manager's office and he was like “Hey, how would you like to travel and go to Trinidad next week or in a couple of weeks’ time for this project we're working on?” And I’m like “Yeah, okay. Why not?” And so, that started about a year's worth of traveling in the Caribbean where I basically got to live like two months, I think, in Trinidad, six weeks in Jamaica, three or four months in Puerto Rico and basically going around to all the branches in these countries and installing new servers and more importantly a new user interface that was taking over of these green screen terminals that were being used back then for banking. And so, a new interface had been designed in Toronto. So, I was going into the branches, helped training up the staff, getting feedback, sending it back to Toronto, telling them what changes had to be made, etc., informing them of like feedback and just going to each of the branches around those different countries. And I was about 23 and I was able to do that. And so, that was an amazing experience and I met some really, really amazing people who really showed me around those countries and showed me a great time. And then at the end of that project, I really had this major travel book and I was like I just want to go somewhere. There was a bit of fear in me that I was like “I’m coming back to Toronto now. I’m working for this bank.” There was a bit of fear in me. And I didn't really speak to anybody about it but I could see myself doing the same thing for like the next 10 years like going to work at the bank and coming home and not seeing any kind of growth because it was an easy life, easy pattern to fall into. And I was like “I want to go somewhere and work for a couple years and then come back to Toronto. I know I want to settle in Toronto.” So, I started looking for a job in the US. So, I was looking in Boston, in New York and then I was looking in London because I have a lot of family here and I got a job in London and that was it. I moved over and I’ve been here 16 years now. And I thought I would go back after two years but I never went back. So, 16 years later I’m still in London.
Jayneil: I don't know, maybe it's in the car that you have here. You have to give me a tour to one of the stadiums. That's why it's holding up.
Amit: Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe they knew that I had to wait for you.
Jayneil: Wow! So, I kind of resonated with that feeling because I’ve worked in big companies and I had the same feeling. We called it like a lifer there where the person just comes in, does the same thing and a certain point, it just becomes this process of being this glorified watchman, you just come in, do your routine, make a patrol and go back and clock in, clock out, collect the paycheck and then you're off. So, I’ve had that feeling just like you were talking about you're like “Oh my God! Is this what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my time?”
Amit: And it's happened to me a couple of times in my career and no doubt happens to a lot of people but it comes down to are you actually going to do something about it or not. And some of the people that I worked with at the bank then are still there.
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Amit: And that's fine. That's what they want to do. That's totally fine. I couldn't do that, personally. I did look at other jobs within the bank that I wanted to go to but they weren't the right fit or whatever. And so, coming to London helped me really kind of … Well, I came to London, I got a job and the first couple years it was amazing because I also got to explore and travel Europe so much in my free time and, like I said, it's just kind of led to one thing after another and you start meeting people. And then, I think, importantly, you're 24, 25, you're starting to build up your business network and your connections.
Jayneil: Oh yeah!
Amit: And so, my entire professional business network is here now. So, it's very hard to walk away.
Jayneil: So, you moved to London. From that point on, how did you get involved in teaching?
Amit: Yeah, for the first 10 years or so, I was working in construction and public infrastructure projects and then I worked on a major public infrastructure project here called Crossrail for five years. And that essentially is a project. So, everyone has kind of a shelf life, you want to say, like everyone has a point where your service is no longer required. So, I then ended up kind of taking some time off and really studying my own design and really saying “I want to go into this properly full time” and then started looking for new roles and I said “I don't want to go back into the corporate world.” So, I’m going to go work in a startup.” So, I found a startup that was around four or five people and it was a media player that they were building that would allow you to create a customizable embeddable player on any website that could bring together YouTube and SoundCloud and various different platforms all into one player. I became product manager there but I also thought “Well, I kind of want to give this a year and to see what happens next.” And then during that time, I was asked to come and guest lecture at General Assembly. So, I was doing some guest teaching there. And eventually one thing led to another where I eventually was given my own in-person UX class. Although the first step I was teaching was Product Management but I actually preferred teaching the UX class. So, I started teaching UX there. And then eventually they were like “Do you want to come and work as a designer in residence on our full-time programs?” And that led to kind of teaching for about a year full-time on their UX programs there. So, that's how I got into teaching. I never really had a background in it although when I look back at a lot of the stuff I had been doing in my corporate career, I was you know looking after new software releases, being a user champion, you're delivering training on software. So, you kind of are building up how to educate people on software. This is now just you're teaching them a framework or a process. So, I think the ability to lead a class or to teach a concept I’d been picking up along the way anyways.
Jayneil: Wow! And then how many students did you end up teaching in like one-year timeframe?
Amit: Well, in about the two years that I was teaching there including like workshops, bootcamps, courses, maybe close to a thousand.
Jayneil: Damn! Thousand students!
Amit: Maybe I would say like a thousand students maybe, yeah.
Jayneil: Wow!
Amit: So, teaching bootcamps every month, teaching various part-time courses, teaching immersive programs. I would probably say it probably hit a thousand.
Jayneil: And what are some of the takeaways for you as a teacher from teaching a thousand students? Did you learn something about like your own teaching style and things that stood out to you?
Amit: I think it's interesting when you look at the formats of the course where you have to bring in more direct instruction and trying to get through people through a short period of time, where if it's a longer course, you become more of a coach or a mentor and it's not only just the methods and tools but you're coaching them through energy levels, you're coaching them through how to think about the bigger picture and how there's going to be a bit of a struggle at the beginning of the design process and how it's going to all make sense eventually. And a lot of people are taking these programs. They're not cheap. They're expensive. There's a lot of pressure on them because they need to get a job afterwards. So, you do become more of a coach or a mentor. And I think, to be honest, you gain a great deal of empathy. Then you've kind of seen people coming from all walks of life, all different backgrounds, all with a common goal of just getting design education and you kind of have to learn how to work with them to help them reach their goal.
Jayneil: I couldn't agree more. I was having a call with a student last night and usually most of my calls would be like “Okay, let's talk about design” but lately what I found is I’m transitioning personally into more of this like coach role. So, yeah, we talk about design but there's always something underlying. So, the student had the first week on their job and they're nervous about it and suddenly the conversation from design went to me telling her about my own experience working remotely first time in my life and how that experience went. And so, it became this thing about completely different non-design related stuff. And I think it's this kind of stuff that I really like about long-term programs where we talk about the soft skills, not just like the theory. So, you're teaching for two years. You've taught 1000 students. At what point do you get that itch, that bug that “Okay, maybe there's something more here. Maybe I should just do it my way.”
Amit: So, like I said, I love all of my time teaching and working with students. These become people that you maintain friendships with some of them afterwards. You kind of want to see them. I do. I have regular messages from a lot of my former students and a lot of them are still very much in contact with me, which is awesome, or you follow them on LinkedIn, you see what they're doing now. And there was an opportunity to help. At one stage, I think GA were expanding to Toronto and I think I spoke to you about this last week that there was an opportunity to potentially help open one there with them. And that kind of just, for whatever reasons, it did happen but it didn't allow me to kind of get involved. And that was fine. And then I just kind of thought “Well, look, I feel like there is an opportunity here. I’ve built up my own brand now. I know what I’m very confident at doing. I feel like I could go off and do this on my own and I also want to combine it with my own consulting.” So, there was an opportunity to go back into the kind of corporate world on a contract. So, so that came up to work on another public infrastructure project which is, I think, stalled at the moment because of what's going on with COVID and budgets etc. So, there's a really cool opportunity to go and work on a project there. And it took a couple of months to line that up but then I started thinking “Well, there's an opportunity to do my own thing and to build my own school, to build my own training school with my own courses, etc.” And it's a bit of a blur now, I can't even remember all the different steps that I went through to get it going but I recognized that there was an opportunity there and I thought “Well, I’m going to step away now and build my own brand and do my own thing” and I just went for it. And so, I think, first course has started April 2017.
Jayneil: Wow! And then are you still doing that consulting project on the side as like your income while you do this on the side so that's what's keeping the lights on?
Amit: What I did was I did the consulting gig on and off for about a year. And the way the contract was, was like I was doing three or four days a week and the other day, I would spend on building Experience Haus which is obviously the name of my own thing and the new school. So, the income from that contract was ultimately paying my bills, paying for my family upkeep, etc. And then I had Experience Haus starting to go. So, the first year, I think, we ran three or four part-time courses in that year with various one-day workshops etc. but it was all sustained because of this contract. So, that was kind of the experimentation phase.
Jayneil: Yeah, so like “If it doesn't work out, I’m just going to continue this contract and go back.”
Amit: Yeah, if it doesn't work out for … I kind of wanted to give it the first six months to see if it doesn't work out, that's fine, but luckily it did and I just kept going.
Jayneil: So, a pivotal moment here, Amit, that I see is you told yourself that “I’m going to dedicate six months” to basically working on this contract that is flexible, lets you build on your school which is Experience Haus. In that time, you might have had other opportunities come to the door, other contracts, other full-time offers. Did you have to consciously say no to them so that you can focus on Experience Haus?
Amit: In the type of work that we do, we always have kind of opportunities, freelance work and there was a little bit of stuff that I did just in between kind of waiting for my contract to kick in. There's always going to be opportunities for freelance work or little gigs to pop in and out for you to get involved in but I think once Experience Haus started and once the contract was in place and everything was going like that, I couldn't have those two things became my focus. If there was an opportunity for me to fit other things in along the way, then I’d probably try and squeeze it in. That year we had our daughter. So, we were, obviously, starting to think about kind of money. When I was working at that startup, that wasn't the issue because I kind of wanted to work in something new. So, the financial concerns weren't as much. All of a sudden, you kind of have to think about those things. So, wherever you can fit stuff in, you're kind of doing it but the main goal is to make sure that you fulfill that contract properly and that you are focusing on making sure that you are testing and validating Experience Haus as a proposition properly in those six months. And then after those six months is when the limited company was formed to say “Okay, now we know that we can actually build this properly.”
Jayneil: The direct reason why I’m asking you this is, I think I told you that I left my previous job at AT&T full time on June 20th and then now I just teach from Monday to Thursday and then Friday is like my day. Just like you were building Experience Haus, Friday is my day where I’m trying to grow the podcast and write blogs. So, there is like a similar potential full-time opportunity that's come through the door and my fear is that if I try to squeeze that in and other things, I just don't want this this design MBA dream that I’m trying to focus on go away. So, I’m just trying to think from your perspective, how did you make sure that even though you're trying to squeeze all these things in that one has to do, money, family, how did you make sure that you never lost sight that “Hey, the main goal beyond all this is to build Experience Haus?”
Amit: That’s a really good question and obviously a massive challenge as you start to kind of decide where to focus your time and where you want to focus your growth. And, for me, I decided if those other things came in even if they were small pieces of work and nothing large but if they were small pieces of work, the way I decided if I was going to take it on was if I could see that somehow me doing that piece of work was going to bring me some kind of benefit later on as in it's going to bring me a new network or it's going to be potentially something I can create a long-lasting relationship with that person or a team that I might be able to benefit from on in the future. It's not that you're being selfish. You're just trying to think “Well, I have a greater goal here building something which essentially is a community and I need to make sure that everything I do now is based on that community.” So, I think you're doing bits and pieces, yes, there's a financial cause, b) because it's interesting work. So, if it wasn't interesting work, you're probably going to say no or recommend somebody else to it or that there's an opportunity to benefit from the network that you're going to gain or exposure that you're going to gain by doing that piece of work as well. So, I still to this date base all of my kind of little pieces of consulting or whatever I do and I still am helping various people with starting their own businesses at the moment and I’ll have a think about is there a kind of a longer-term gain here now rather than just a short-term payoff.
Jayneil: Fair point. Wow! That is so helpful, man, now that I try to put it in that framework. So, after the first year and the second year of experience … Oh, actually, before we get into that, why did you decide to name it Experience Haus and try to make it a brand that's bigger than you, not just like “Amit’s Design School.”
Amit: I’ve never been hugely into my own personal brand. It's something that I’m actually kind of interested in now because now I feel like there's more of a basis to base the whole brand on but I never really felt like I wanted to just do it about my name. I kind of wanted to have it as something that could have stood for itself and just becomes … In my mind, it's a scale thing. I think it was something where I think if you've got this name that people recognize, it's bigger than one person and it becomes a name that people aspire to. Look, General Assembly, yes, I left them, yes, I worked there, yes, I left them to build my own thing but you learned a lot from what they've done and what they've set up. It's a phenomenal business that scaled very well around the world and I appreciated everyone that I was working with. I just kind of wanted to do things in my own direction but I kind of looked at that and said “Well, actually, I want to do something similar.” And I don't want to base it on my own name because even though that could work, maybe it's an ego thing, maybe it's whatever, if people have a name that people already recognize, I don't think I did. So, I felt like I can use my current network to build Experience Haus but that will be what it will be. It will be Experience Haus. And maybe I’ll go and do something else in the future and Experience Haus can continue to run. The other thing is that I never really set up Experience Haus to become my full-time and the only thing that I work on. My idea is I would like to be involved in other businesses, other entities, other consulting etc. And so, if I’m leveraging the whole thing around my own name, then I’m always essentially going to be there, I’m always going to be needed to pull on as a resource etc. but ultimately one day I may just be a figurehead or step away from Experiences House, I don't know, but it can continue to evolve and continue to run on its own legs with a fantastic team.
Jayneil: That makes complete sense. I think that's probably the reason why you came on the show. Instead of me saying Jayneil’s MBA, it’s jay design MBA.
Amit: Well, look the thing is, is that once you've got something like this like your podcast and it's going to be like you've got plans for courses, a brand, a podcast everything but ultimately through that, I get to know you, I get to know you as the person and then the relationship becomes with you but what attracts me to … I don't even know how we connected. I know it was just like four or five weeks ago but it's the brand that initially hooked me in to reaching out or to connecting with you. And now, we'll have that relationship. And I kind of see the same thing with Experience Haus. And we're seeing it now where people are coming to us that we know, they're coming to us through word of mouth or “Hey, you should check out this company” and then once they do join, then we build that personal and nurture that relationship with that student. So, that's kind of was the thinking around it but, to be honest, I never really think about it too much, I never really overthink about it too much. I’m kind of like “This is the name we're going to go with it” and I just don't want it to be under my own name.
Jayneil: So, you're running Experience Haus. It has been year one. What happens year two?
Amit: Year one is basically we run, I think, three or four part-time courses. We're filling them up. So, we only take eight people per class. And that was something that I kind of wanted to have small classes as well as kind of my takeaways from what I was doing previously into kind of this new approach. So, the first year we're selling out courses. We have our first design conference which is a success. Our students are all working on real briefs, so real startup challenges as well. So, yeah, things are going okay. Year two, we start getting a couple of feelers for corporate workshops, okay? So, that starts to happen. So, we get to work with a couple of really well-known brands here in the UK or in London and then I started running workshops in Dubai with the university out there. So, once a month we’d be going out to Dubai and running these kinds of workshops for people that are interested in applying to the university and kind of local Dubai residents, doing a bit of judging on some panels and some student competitions out there, generally having a bit of fun. This is kind of like really not pre-family, my daughter's very young but still I had the time to kind of go and do this. And, yeah, it kind of just continued to grow. And I think one thing that really helped us grow as a name, and, again, it was very small still at that stage, was we were running these design conferences. Now, one of my issues with design conferences, and I’ve been to a couple, I haven't been to a huge amount of them, but the ones that I did go to were like very expensive and luckily someone paid for me to go and I went and I felt like, yeah, some speakers were great, some speakers were average some, speakers were like the same speakers that you're seeing everywhere, the networking isn't as great as you think because people are coming in their own teams and sticking to each other.
Jayneil: Yes.
Amit: It's a day out, good food but you're like “It wasn't really worth it.” So, again, with Experience Haus, I wanted to keep the courses affordable so that design education was accessible to as many people as possible. So, I thought “Well, instead of going out to these design conferences that largely have been a waste of time, a waste of money, why not bring everyone to me? So, why don't we do our own Experience Haus conference and we get some really good speakers who are working on some really great stuff at some really great brands to get together and we charge a nominal fee which anyone largely could hopefully afford.” So, what we ended up doing is we have like 60 or 70 people on a very intimate gathering on a Saturday at full day, eight speakers doing 20-minute to half-an-hour talks, talking about anything related to design. It could be Experience Design, Service Design, challenges, how to create a portfolio, whatever it was. And you grab lunch for everyone, you get some drinks in at the end and you get great networking. And we started to see university students, we saw charities buy tickets because they now had access to something which they didn't have before. And those things really helped with building out the name of Experience Haus. And I remember one of the design conferences, we were looking for a venue and a good friend of mine, Pritesh, who runs at the same time that I started Experience Haus, he started a recruitment company. So, we started collaborating quite a bit. So, he would come and speak to all of our students about career opportunities and out of their portfolio and he was able to put me in touch, we both went to see Ustwo. So, have you heard of Ustwo, the design agency? I think they're London-based and San Fran based, I think, and they have a fantastic studio here in Shoreditch in London. And they opened up the entire studio on a Saturday and said “You can have this studio for free to host your next design conference.”
Jayneil: Damn!
Amit: Yeah. And we had a speaker named Tim from Ustwo who did an amazing talk on the autonomous vehicle. So, he was basically our sponsor from the company. I look back at that one design conference. I think we got 10 or 11 students off the back of that one conference sign up to our part-time courses. I then at that same design conference met Anant who eventually became business partner in Experience Haus. I think I look back at that one conference that really was kind of the trigger for year two. So, yeah, we just kept going, it kept growing, it kept going and that was year two.
Jayneil: So, at this point, you're running this entire Experience Haus operation, you're having to do a lot of things, meaning maybe figuring out like “Okay, we need to sign a lease for this new place to expand.” You got to look into those kinds of real estate paperwork. You have to think about the student experience. You're doing all these things. You're stretched thin. Did it come to your mind at some point like “Oh my God, I love just the course design, the student interaction but I’m having to do all these other things. Oh my God! I wish somebody could take care of that.”
Amit: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, when you start any of your own businesses, you have to do everything. You're the salesperson. You're the marketing person. You're the head of product. You're everything. You're the chief creative officer, head of operations. You have to purchase things, you have to unpack things, you have to ship things, everything. So, yeah, we're building the website, doing the digital marketing and we didn't have huge amount of resource, we didn't have a huge team, we used freelancers or friends to help me out with certain things but really my core expertise, I would say, would be writing the programs, writing the courses and networking and then kind of the coaching and the mentoring of the students, so I was still doing a lot of the teaching, and then trying to convince people to come on the courses and why we're a better solution or a better choice than other places and still kind of relying very much on my own network and other people's network. I think at this stage we had a couple of other people teaching as well. And, obviously, by year two, you're thinking “Actually, there is a business here. There is something that could grow out of this.” And so, interestingly enough, at that time, because of this kind of going back to teaching even at GA and through students that I had been working with, people had gone on to now done the courses or learned with me and now are starting to go and work at various companies around the world. So, I had a couple of students going to work in Dubai and one of our very first students from Experience Haus Product Design course is now senior UX designer or what they call IX at IBM, senior IX designer, product designer at IBM Dubai. And then I had another student of mine who was working as a UX designer in Dubai. So, when I was going out there, I was still networking with them, I was hanging out with them, we'd hang out by the pool, we’d go for drinks, food, etc. And over time, I started building out a network there. So, I was also not only going to run workshops but having meetings, networking and maximizing those three or four-day trips. And one thing led to another where I was offered the opportunity to interview for a job at a bank out there. There was a merger going on between a couple of banks. And so, there was this new bank that had been formed like “We need someone to come and lead all of our experience design” and I was like “Well, I kind of love Experience Haus. I love building this business” but also I really kind of fell in love a little bit with the Dubai lifestyle, just kind of the peacefulness of it and kind of the safety element and I thought “Hey, this would be a great family move as well,” financially it was great. So, I was like “Let me go through the interview process.” And eventually through seven rounds of interviews, I landed the job. I was in Dubai. The bank picked me up. They drove me out to Abu Dhabi. We had like a half-an-hour chat. They offered me the job. I said “Yeah, I want to do it but I only want to come for two years and I need to figure out what I do with Experience Haus” and things like that. So, that is what led to Experience Haus eventually joining the Matter of Form Group through conversation with us like I built this school. I think, at that time, they had been Matter of Form, Anant and Fred were the CEO and the COO, I think, of Matter Of Form, through conversations. I really liked their energy. I really liked what they had done with their own company. They had been exploring education as well as another business area. I had Experience Haus and it just seemed a natural fit to merge with them and that's what happened in kind of the end of year two was that Experience Haus then started thinking about scale and thinking about the support it would need in terms of “Okay, I no longer have to think about marketing. I no longer have to think about all these things.” Well, eventually, I won't have to think about them. Initially, I will have to but eventually I won't have to. And I think that's, again, where you look at stages of the business that again is a crucial bit. So, first one was the design conference at Ustwo. The second one was joining the Matter Of Form Group.
Jayneil: So, basically, it seems like your way of raising venture capital but in this case, they're acquiring you so then they can give you the resources like Matter Of Form, they can provide you like the marketing people, they can provide you the people that can help find these new leases to open up new centers and you don't have to worry about. You can just focus on what you like, which is designing the courses and the experience.
Amit: Yeah. So, what ended up happening was we all agreed … This was the summer of 2018, so about a year and a half, it's probably like middle of year two. And so, what ended up happening was I accepted the job in Dubai, we all fell apart like last minute because of some visa or security check, we never found out what it was. And at this stage, I’ve already said “I’m going to partner Experience Haus with Matter Of Form” but then the plans had been that I would still stay involved say like a day a week remotely, potentially using the Dubai region as a way of networking as well for future growth but then when everything fell apart, I kind of just thought “Well, this is my opportunity now. With a bit more backing now, I can really focus on just getting things more in place and a bit more experimentation and growing” and feeling like I can actually focus on this properly now because I have a better support team and better thinkers as well, some really bright thinkers to help me as well. And so, eventually, I said no to Dubai, it just didn't work out for whatever reason, which in hindsight I’m glad didn't happen because I think for my wife and daughter it would have been very difficult, I didn't really take that into consideration that much and just went full time on Experience Haus. And it's allowed me to now a really enjoyable job which is working on my own business.
Jayneil: So, essentially, you could say got a job at the company you started in a way through the acquihire.
Amit: It's funny how these things work out. I got to design in a weird way. The job that I always wanted to have, I ended up getting the job that I want at my own business and not only doing day to day and I really enjoy but I have a vested interest in the growth of the business as well. And now, that's allowed me to now really focus more on my own personal brand as well. And I never had a plan. A lot of people start businesses with some kind of plan, one-year, two-year, three-year plan, five-year plan. I never really started with any of that. I kind of just went with what my gut was telling me and what I felt like and sometimes you might think back “Maybe I shouldn’t have made that decision. Maybe I should have done something differently there” but at the end of the day, right now, I think we're working on something that we all enjoy, we all see huge amount of value in, we love going to work. I never wake up thinking “I don't want to work on this.” And I’m surrounded by people, and our Experience Haus team is fantastic, and then you've got the Matter Of Form Group support team which is a bonus, which is some amazing thinkers that I’ve learned so much from them as well. And like I said, I don't see Experience Haus being my only thing. I eventually want to have other things that I’m doing and that is what has taught me so much. Just being part of this kind of journey over the last couple of years has taught me so much about how I can apply it to other things.
Jayneil: And I think the best part I see is that now that you've got a family, you being able to work at the company you just started, it's kind of like in your own terms and you don't have to like clock into a traditional nine to five. You can decide like “Oh, I’m going to take this day off today” or “Today, I’m just going to work from this time to this time” on things that you like. I think that's really understated like being able to work the way you want on your schedule and most importantly on things that you like.
Amit: Absolutely. And I think that flexibility, and I talk to my mom a lot about that, or my in-laws, I talk a lot about that flexibility because it's something that I really need, I think people sometimes are … You talk to people all the time that are better thinking at night or are early morning risers. And so, why aren't we basing the work around those times? Why does everything have to happen during the 9 to 5 hours? So, I find myself working quite well between like say the morning until like 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And then I’ll kind of like get more into a bit more family time, especially in the late afternoon or early evening where it's almost impossible to do any work but then once everyone goes to sleep, 9:00, 9:30 to like 1 to 2 o'clock in the morning, I’m back doing bits and pieces. Again, I know that it's a bit different because of the COVID situation, we're all working from home and the flexibility of kind of knowing that I’m always going to be putting in my time and my hours and fully invested in helping this business grow and supported by the people who recognize that, it's been amazing to get to that. And I feel much more relaxed which is why I can do stuff like this right now because I was doing work earlier this morning and ultimately working on things that I am best suited to work on as well.
Jayneil: And then how did you negotiate this acquihire with the Matter Of Form founders? Did you guys even talk about like how you're going to work, what time you're going to work, what you're going to focus on or was it just like a candid conversation between two people?
Amit: Yeah. So, initially, obviously, I was not going to be around and I was going to be in Dubai. We have like a founders' agreement or shareholders’ agreement or something. We have some kind of agreement that was in place that was put in and we were all happy with it and kind of had plans for the next two years of what we were trying to achieve. And then, obviously, I started working on things full time and it was a bit about “Let's go back and experiment and really figure out our core value proposition, really start to kind of focus on what we're really good at, where we can start to experiment more and grow and really focus more on corporate training as well,” which is what I spend a lot of my time on now. And then, I think, there was also a view that my strength is not day-to-day operations. I love learning all of those things. Especially on Marketing I’ve learned a lot in the last year and a half around those things but that is what ultimately led to us hiring a managing director to help look over those things like the long-term strategy, the value proposition, kind of the creative strategy around the marketing and allowing me to more focus on the creative role. So, it's kind of odd, maybe a bit sentimental but going back maybe 15 years ago or 20 years ago, I think, a lot of people who are in the creative fields one day want to have their own agency. They want to one day have their own studio. And I did. I always wanted to have a little design … I always did little bits of freelance work along the way and I always had this vision like “Oh, well, it's under this arm of this design studio that I have that's a design studio of one and I will ultimately be the creative director of this design studio.” And what's ended up happening is ultimately I’ve become the creative director of my own company. And when they asked me about “What role, what kind of title do you want to have?”, I said “Honestly, I just want to be creative director of Experience Haus. That's all I want.” That's what ended up happening. So, now, yes, I’m the founder. I don't like to use that too much but, ultimately, my role is the creative director of Experience Haus.
Jayneil: That is so deep, man. I think it takes a lot of wisdom to realize that “Oh, I just want to focus on the creative side of things but I appreciate the marketing and the things I needed to build a business.” So, I guess, what advice would you give to other agency founders or potential ones that want to start agencies or design schools in terms of they like the idea of doing something which is the creative side of things like building the course, building the material but they don't necessarily like the whole like “Oh, I got to scale this. I got to market this. I got to do the business development.” What wisdom would you impart to them?
Amit: There's always going to be, I think, especially in the first couple of years where you're trying to figure out what you want to do, what your plans are, you're trying to grow a business, obviously you're trying to get some revenue coming in and things like that and you're going to have to wear many, many hats as you kind of build that out, right? And my advice would be, yes, you're going to have to do at the beginning, there's no doubt that you're going to have to do all of that but eventually kind of think about what's going to make you the happiest and think about kind of what is going to ultimately allow you to focus on and ultimately put your skills into play so that you could be the best asset that you can for this team. Now, if I look back at some of the learnings that I got from people and the conversations I had from people, I think a couple of things were like don't be afraid of partnerships, look at why try and build everything on your own when you can have partners that can help you kind of fulfill your ambitions and your goals. I think a lot of people don't want to let go of things. A lot of people don't want to let go of their ideas. I’m very much willing to let go of my ideas and to let other people kind of help me build them out. If I didn't do that, Experience Haus wouldn't be where it is now. We work with some amazing brands, amazing organizations that I would only dream of being able to work with many years ago and I can talk about those in a little bit. I’m sometimes guilty of this. I try and chase a lot of things. I try and chase a lot of different opportunities even if there's one conversation. I’ll put a lot of invested effort into those opportunities. And that has worked in some cases and massively failed in other cases. So, I think, focusing on some of these opportunities that you really feel are going to give you a long-term gain rather than just a short-term gain. And I think that's with any business is that you can't do everything, you can't chase everything but if you are going to chase those, chase those things that are going to give you the greater long-term gains for your business as well but I think if I look back, maybe the two key findings are sometimes people need you more than you need them and the second thing is don't be afraid of partnering or collaborating to help you achieve your goals. Don't try and kind of keep everything so much towards yourself. And I feel like I’ve listened and done that quite well.
Jayneil: Absolutely. And I really, really resonate and I was just writing down that quote you said – “You can't chase everything. Chase the things in life that gave you the long-term gains.” I think that was very deep for me. And to me, it seems like you agreed to this acquisition or this acquihire because the Matter Of Form executives and founders saw the value in this and they did not just say “Hey, you're going to sell this to us and then we're going to do whatever we want with it.” It was your baby. It is still your baby and you wanted to have a say in it. So, they wanted you involved in there where they would come to you and then discuss like “Oh, we're making this huge change in strategy with Experience Haus. What do you think?” Would you have still sold? I know now, obviously, you sold. Would you still have sold if they said that “Okay, you're not going to have any say in this matter after you give us the property rights and everything of Experience Haus?”
Amit: It's a tough one because, I think, at that point when the conversation started happening, obviously, my mind was focused on this move to Dubai but I don't know if I would have. I think what I liked about in our agreement was that it was very clear that they weren't going to change the strategy. Yes, there's new revenue streams. That's always going to happen, right? You need new revenue streams. That means new ideas, new offerings, etc. There's a much clearer longer-term strategy for the business in terms of growth and plans. They're not going to go and change the name. They're not going to change us into a completely different business. If they are, then I have a seat at the table and I’m part of that conversation.
Jayneil: Wow!
Amit: And that's all that I can ask for. That's all I want. That's all I can ask for but the great thing is now there's a team that is going to help this thing grow and I get to work with a fantastic team. And, like I said, I will no doubt do other things and do my own consulting or whatever along the way and that I would not stop because I kind of crave that but I’m not so precious on Experience Haus saying “It has to be done my way or else,” no.
Jayneil: It can basically scale on its own. Even when you step back, it's still scaling.
Amit: Yeah.
Jayneil: That's amazing. And how can designers or agency people that have potential acquisition offered and they want your feedback or they just want to get in touch with you in any way or form, how can they contact you or where can they follow you?
Amit: Yeah. I’m pretty active on Twitter myself. So, @AmitPatelUK. You'll probably flash this up on the screen or something. And obviously Experience Haus. So, it's ExperienceHaus.com. And we’re on Twitter. We're on LinkedIn. I would probably say following us on LinkedIn is great. Our website, it's got all of our different courses, workshops. Obviously, we're doing a lot of stuff online now as well. So, I think following me on Twitter, my website as well AmitPatel.ca which I’m starting to build out more of as well because again really talking about that personal branding. So, yeah, just the standard social media. Instagram for Experience Haus as well. I think it's The Experience Haus on Instagram is the best way of kind of following and seeing what we're doing. One thing that I’m super, super excited about is we have been doing a lot of work over the last two years or a year and a half or so with the World Food Program. And the World Food Program collaborates with a lot of great organizations like The Gates Foundation, a team of them came to visit us at Experience Haus, or the UN Population Fund, they have the HQ in New York or Humanitarian Grand Challenges. And we support a lot of these organizations that send teams on innovation bootcamps through the World Food Program. And what we've just gotten is we've got 12 of our design alumni actually supporting eight teams from around the world who are tackling maternal health challenges by building apps and different solutions for smartphones etc. around the world and it's so exciting to have our students working on these kinds of things. And, again, going back to my early vision of Experience Haus, I wanted everyone to be studying and having access to design education but also working on real-life challenges. So, all of our students work on real briefs, real startups from here in the UK, sometimes they're abroad but I think it's been a great example of that this week where we've been able to connect 12 of our design alumni to help us on this corporate work where we're now supporting eight teams going through these innovation bootcamps and helping them design and build prototypes that are eventually going to be used in Mozambique, Bangladesh, Egypt, Nicaragua. It's amazing to have that kind of opportunity to have people work with us on those projects. So, super pumped with that. I think we'll be doing more of a promotion on social media next week but, again, that's been a vision for like the last two to three years of mine to have those kinds of opportunities come to fruition. And like I said, collaborating with the right people and thinking about kind of like a World Food Program where you think long term, the gain of that network and working with those kinds of organizations will pay off in the future and that's a great example of something like that.
Jayneil: Wow! Thank you so much, man, for sharing your vision and mission and also your wisdom on the show. Thank you so much, man.
Amit: No problem. Thanks for having me and good luck with everything.
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