Up and down. Hot and cold. Right-brain and left-brain. These are all incompatible opposites, right? Not to Nikki Barua, Co-Founder & CEO of innovation agency BeyondCurious.
BeyondCurious creates mobile experiences and works with huge brands from Lexus to GoPro, using cutting-edge technology solutions to help companies scale quickly, dominate their markets, and innovate faster.
Their creative methods are designed to keep clients on the leading edge and unlock limitless potential within each organization. “The marketing world has been shifting,” Barua shared with the Startup Grind OC audience. “Typically, you build a product and spend a lot of money marketing it…influencing consumers. But the pace of disruption has never been this high; you can no longer afford to go slow. You need products that market themselves. A great product is the best marketing you can do.” This laser-focused approach has taken her clients to the next level and brought her company numerous accolades, such as their most recent “Boutique Agency of the Year” award from thinkLA.
The idea for BeyondCurious arose after a personal event occurred in Barua’s life, triggered a period of introspection. During this reflection, she made a life-changing discovery: her purpose was to empower and unlock people’s potential. Barua knew that she had always been passionate about technology because of its “incredible power to democratize information and level the playing field,” and she strongly believed that “Purpose + Passion = Profound Impact.”
The gears in her mind turned, and BeyondCurious was born as a way to combine her purpose and passions. “BeyondCurious is very different from anything else I’ve done in the past,” she says. “This time, it was all about making a difference.” You can even see it in the way she tells her story; it’s apparent that Barua has poured her entire self into BeyondCurious. The genuine passion she exudes has shaped her company’s culture and attracted amazingly talented people.
One of these such people is her co-founder Vishal Agarwal. As business partners, the two are complementary, yet vastly different. Her co-founder is analytical and data-driven, whereas Barua is creative and right brained. But Barua says that “as different as we are in our skillets, we are exactly identical in our values,” which she explains is the most crucial element to share. She advised that entrepreneurs look for alignment in terms of decision making, treating people, and values, because these are the core principles that will shape the business.
In her talk with Startup Grind OC, Barua told a story about her company that really hit home to the audience. Around two years into the business, the company grew so much that they essentially burned through all the cash they had. Of course, this was an incredibly stressful time for Barua. But check this out: her team’s reaction was to not get paid until the problems were sorted out, to stay positive and to build it back up. This is incredible; it shows that since Barua invested so enthusiastically and so genuinely in her team, they were willing to invest in her.
Barua believes that “the best business you can build is not a business but a movement, and a movement is all about people.” As such, Barua is passionate about creating a vibrant company culture—starting a movement within BeyondCurious—and her leadership style reflects this. She talks highly of her employees, saying that “they give the ‘why,’ which matters so much more than the ‘what’ or the ‘how.’” In her opinion, hiring for talent is crucial, because having people who are intrinsically drawn towards your cause can completely change the game. I think her whole leadership philosophy can be summarized as the following: "Happy and empowered people do great things.”
Don’t worry; just because you’re not hiring doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the power of people! The most common problems that entrepreneurs face are finding customers and investors. Barua’s solution? Don’t shy away from sharing your ideas. “If it just took an idea, there would be 7 billion entrepreneurs. It takes so much more than that!” she exclaimed.
On top of this, Barua brings up the point that “the best investor you can ever find for your business is your customer. So instead of chasing everyone, develop your concept, share it, and get people excited for your product,” she states. “Figure out what they’re willing to pay for it, and once you have paying customers, you don’t need investors.” This is such a great way of ensuring your energy is focused inward, where it’s most needed. Investors will naturally be more drawn to an idea with proven customers than an idea trying to prove that it can have customers. Or, as Barua points out, you won’t need them to survive, but you can leverage them to scale your business.
At the end, Barua shared the one secret behind entrepreneurial success: dream, dream bigger, and never stop dreaming. “Dreaming is something that we all have a license to do. You don’t have to tell everyone about [your dreams], and yet we censor ourselves,” she says. What’s so special about a dream? Dreams create ideas, and an idea is “the most powerful thing in the world, the most scalable thing in the world.” It was pretty impactful to hear that looking back, Barua would not have changed one about her story except that she wishes her dreams had been bigger.
So to all the aspiring Startup Grind entrepreneurs out there, if there’s one change you can make today, it’s to dream more and dream bigger! If you let your dreams guide you to your passions, the sky’s the limit. What was your favorite part of Nikki Barua’s story? Share in the comments below