Indus Khaitan: Tips on How to Lead a Virtual Company

Jan 3, 2023

27:00

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Episode notes

Indus Khaitan is the founder of Quolum, an On Deck Scale company funded by Sequoia and Nexus. He founded Bitzer Mobile that was created on the heels of the ‘08 recession, and exited, in what was Oracle’s first acquisition in mobile. He led growth at Chargebee where revenue grew 3X. In his free time, he flies a single-engine Cessna 172 over the bay area.

In this episode, Dean Newlund and Indus Khaitan discuss:

Culture is communication
Documentation is part of being connected
Change has to come from above
Affirming people with acknowledgment

Key Takeaways:

Culture is communication. Both synchronous and asynchronous communication maintains that feeling of being connected with each other. Through that feeling of being always on, it will feel like you’re always communicating.
There are few face-to-face meetings happening nowadays in the virtual workplace, something that will keep people connected besides communication is documentation. When a problem presents itself, it has to be clearly documented.
Change has to come from the person at the top. The leader has to set an example for everybody. If the leader is ever lax on a certain procedure, the organization's members will stop taking it seriously.
Whenever you receive a message, acknowledge it. Reply to it, even if just to say that you don’t have a definitive response to the message yet or that you don’t understand the message at the moment. Affirm people so that they’ll be encouraged to keep communicating.

"When you see a written communication, acknowledge it. bring those small pieces of, I would say micro dopamine hits to the person who's trying to communicate because that acknowledgment makes [them] feel ‘oh, I'm being heard.’" — Indus Khaitan

See Dean’s TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I

Connect with Indus Khaitan:

Website: https://quolum.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaitan

Connect with Dean:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkw

Website: https://www.mfileadership.com/

The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/deannewlund

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/

Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.com