Flourishing Edge Podcast with Ashish Kothari

Flourishing Wellbeing – How Small and Medium Businesses Can Turn Their Size Into Strength and Flourish with Sri Kaza

Oct 7, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Sri Kaza, an entrepreneur and former McKinsey consultant, reveals how small and medium businesses (SMBs) can thrive by embracing their underdog status. He introduces the three Underdog Principles: Positioning, Proximity, and Purpose, explaining how these can differentiate SMBs from larger corporations. Sri shares inspiring real-world examples, such as a community bookstore adapting during COVID, and highlights how AI can amplify the strengths of SMBs. Discover practical strategies that empower small business founders to play their own game and succeed.

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INSIGHT

Differentiate By Being Uniquely Important

Small businesses win by being distinct, not by copying big firms' scale plays.
Positioning means being uniquely important to a specific set of customers so they miss you if you disappear.

INSIGHT

Proximity Beats Pure Data

Proximity gives small firms real-time understanding of customer needs that data alone misses.
That closeness makes them more adaptable and better at anticipating subtle customer changes.

INSIGHT

Purpose Unlocks Resilience And Support

Purpose sustains founders through existential challenges and rallies stakeholders in crises.
When community and partners believe in your purpose, they trade short-term rights for long-term collaboration.

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Small and medium businesses make up nearly half of all employment and GDP, yet they often struggle to compete against the scale, brand power, and resources of large corporations. Too often, the advice given to them is to “play bigger”—but that’s a losing battle. What if the real advantage lies in embracing their underdog status?

In this episode of the Happiness Squad Podcast, Ashish Kothari sits down with Sri Kaza, Advisory Board at Markaaz and author of the upcoming book UNCONVENTION: A Small Business Strategy Guide, to explore how SMBs can thrive by leaning into what makes them different: positioning, proximity, and purpose. They discuss why small doesn’t mean weak, and how founders can unlock resilience, loyalty, and growth by playing their own game.

Sri Kaza is an entrepreneur, investor, and former McKinsey consultant with a career spanning engineering, consulting, finance, and startups. He has helped scale visionary companies like Viking Cruises, co-founded ForwardLine to provide innovative financing for small businesses, and worked closely with entrepreneurs across industries to unlock growth.

Ashish and Sri unpack inspiring stories, actionable insights, and practical strategies that will change the way you think about leading and growing a small to medium business. Tune in to discover how to turn your size into your greatest strength.

Things you will learn in this episode:

• The three Underdog Principles—Positioning, Proximity, and Purpose—and how to apply them

• Why focusing on your core customers builds resilience during crises

• How closeness to employees and community becomes a competitive edge

• How AI can serve as a growth engine for SMBs rather than just a cost-cutting tool

• Practical ways to stay grounded as a founder and align every decision with purpose

If you want to discover how small and medium businesses can outcompete giants and make flourishing their competitive edge, this conversation is one you won’t want to miss.

✅Resources:

• How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit by Alex Edmans: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/10/01/how-great-companies-deliver-both-purpose-and-profit/

✅Books:

• Unconvention: A Small Business Strategy Guide by Sri Kaza: https://a.co/d/aYYfD8w

• The Experimentation Machine by Jeff Bussgang: https://experimentationmachine.com/

• Hardwired for happiness by Ashish Kothari: https://happinesssquad.com/hardwired-for-happiness/