Rohaan Khan – Founder of Orange Trail, Shares His Success Story

Kevin Harrington
Hi, I’m Kevin Harrington, an original shark from the hit television show Shark Tank. and you’re listening to the underdog podcast

Pamela Bardhi
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the underdog podcast.today I have an incredible guest here with me Rohan. How are you, my friend?

Rohaan Khan
I’m very well. Thanks for having me. That’s a pleasure.

Pamela Bardhi
Thank you so much for being here all the way live from Dubai, we’ve got quite a time difference. That’s commitment, right?

Rohaan Khan
You’re just waking up.

Pamela Bardhi
Oh, my goodness, that’s literally it’s hilarious. like the different time zones and everything. I’m just grateful for you to be here. I’m so excited to hear your story of you and having a very interesting background. and very interesting business and how you’ve built and scaled all that you’ve done. So super excited to get into it. And I’m going to start with my first question because I want to know where all this magic stemmed from. what inspired you on your journey to where you are today, my friend?

Rohaan Khan
Yeah, so it’s multiple touchpoints multiple failures. But I think where it really started was back, I went down the traditional route, as do many people. You go to high school, you go to college. and you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna get a nice paying job that’s stable. And funnily enough, my line of work was in psychology. So I specialised with a master’s in psychology. But halfway through my master’s I realised. do I really want to sit in a room listening to eight different people’s problems every day for the rest of my life.

And I had just an epiphany like, this is not really for me. So I just typed into Google one day, how to make money online. I watched a couple of videos on YouTube. And my first business was actually ecommerce and dropshipping. So I was, you know, I would set up a store. And I would like say, find some products like maybe festival wear clothing. because I was living in the Netherlands at the time and festivals were huge. Everyone was going to raves parties.

So I was like, I like festivals, people like festivals, I can sell to those people. So I found a bunch of clothes, that will be like glow in the dark. and like light up bands and everything, the store completely failed. Like I didn’t make any money off it. But it did ignite an idea in my mind where I was like, okay. there is a possibility with non traditional methods of money making careers. From there, it’s kind of just snowballed. The third one took off. And it was just scaling scaling.

Until two years ago, I had a brand that scale to multiple, seven figures, and I sold it to a VC. From there, I just had a bunch of time bunch of money. And I figured, I want to do something. that’s going to make an impact and solve pain point in the industry. And that’s fast forward to today, the result is orange Trail. which solves one of the biggest pain points in the advertising industry that’s so common.

that I’m sure every single person who has tried to run an ad at some stage has gotten banned. And often you don’t even realise when you get banned, why you’re getting banned. So we plug that solution. We resolve that by having high-level access to representatives at each platforms. And we basically help advertisers to run their ads. Which stability do what you do best run your ads scale will handle the rest.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s incredible run that I love, though, that you started with festivals and glow in the dark clothes. That is a larious Oh my god. Let’s reel it back a little bit, though. So where where were you born? Where do you grew up?

Rohaan Khan
Yeah. So I had quite a journey. I was born in Pakistan. When I was around six, I moved to Ireland. My family is Ireland. Now we’re pretty much based and you might hear some of the Irish accent coming through. And from there, I just moved to the Netherlands to disaster. Then I went on a bit of a rampage actually. I have travelled to 35 countries lived in Bali for four years. And now I’m in Bulgaria, between Bulgaria and Dubai.

Pamela Bardhi
That is so awesome. Oh my goodness. And so growing up like who are what was your biggest influence?

Rohaan Khan
Oh, that’s a good question. I was always very sporting. So to be in sports, highly competitive, I never thought I would go down as well. That was my biggest aspiration. I would look at how discipline they are, you know how hard working they are. Like, I think the importance of hard work. And I think in part it was on duty. my parents because you know, growing up in a strict household, you have to apply yourself. especially in academia, you’re either a doctor or a lawyer or failure.

And I didn’t want to be the latter. So obviously you just do what you can. But what’s funny is that I just never really liked studying. I never liked academics. You know, it’s possibly due to my ADHD brain. I just couldn’t sit down and study it just didn’t interest me. So as always sports or games, but funnily enough. I guess someone let me run multiple companies that are in multiple seven figures.

Pamela Bardhi
That is so awesome. Oh my goodness. And what did you want to be as a kid? Like, you mentioned that you were kind of always into the sport. you were like, What was your dream?

Rohaan Khan
The dream was because like in Ireland and UK. there’s a lot of traditional growth towards academies. where you can level up to become a professional football player. And you know, the Premier League is like the mecca of football over there. where you can become a professional football player. and you’re set for life, as long as you don’t get injured. So that was the goal. Now, I did have slight realisations as I got. 16 17 you’re like, wow, it’s not happening yet.

I’m not scouted, I haven’t been given a contract. So then your reality kicks in, you’re like, maybe this is not gonna work. Let me find a contingency plan. So you always have to settle after. for me, settling was the traditional path of you know, I’ll get a job. And then five, but funnily enough, I did a U turn on that. And I didn’t want to settle just for that. I thought I was meant for more. I guess I was right.

Pamela Bardhi
I love that. Well, I hit like, doctor, was it? Doctor lawyer failure? Awesome. If so true, though. foreign parents are really they get to you man that. they’re like, it’s either this or that? And then it’s like, well, no. because look at how you created multiple seven figure businesses not being either one of those.

Rohaan Khan
Yeah, I mean, listen, the resistance you face? And I’m sure because you are Albanian. you would understand the resistance you face from a foreign parent, not understanding your industry. not understanding what the heck are you even doing? It’s crazy. They’re like, No, it’s not gonna work. It’s a Scam. what is that? All of the excuses out of the book. But then you’re like, calm down, let me show you.

And of course, it’s nice when you can send your mom a nice transfer of funds. saying, Look, don’t worry, you’re covered. Being able to take care of your siblings and your family. because that’s my why, at the end of the day. you find your why then you find out how. so my wife was always my family, being the eldest. And then it was just about figuring out how am I going to provide for them?

Pamela Bardhi
I absolutely love that, Ron. I mean, it’s a whole nother thing when you are dealing with foreign parents. and like a foreign culture and all of that. So it was like you said, you’re like, they’re very distrusting. So they like don’t understand a lot of things. because a lot of new concepts and it’s not really their fault. because this day and age, the way that businesses evolving technology. like on a daily like a concept like dropshipping. like they would never understand.

They’d be like, No, you need a store. And somebody has to come and come to that store. And otherwise, it’s the scale, right? Like, what do you mean, you can just not. so it’s really interesting how technology has played such a huge role and business and all of that. I mean, we’ll definitely dive into that. But, regarding education, and kind of like your life path in your life journey. As you were moving through these countries. what were some of the biggest lessons that you learned throughout the process?

Rohaan Khan
My thoughts on education system are a little bit surprising to most. as someone who has a master’s degree. I actually do think a lot of the disciplines and courses out there are scams. And let me clarify, before you bite my head off, let me explain what I mean. You will see a lot of graduates who have had x degree and up in y field working, totally unrelated. Okay, the institutions and colleges. they over promise and under deliver on the job prospects.

For example, I’ll give you my case. And many of my friends cases where they’re quite similar. it’s I was in a master’s degree in psychology, good grades, everything was good. Yet, nobody wanted to hire me. And especially in the discipline of psychology. I just couldn’t land the job I was trying to target. So what did I have to do? I had to settle for sales, wearing three piece suits to work. you know, getting on calls, calling CEOs and had to settle.

Graduating out of college. Well, most people, I would say, The exceptions are disciplines like medicine, law, you know, engineering. there’s no other way you can really go. So what I think is yes, on one side, they overpromise under deliver. However, obtaining that degree takes a lot of work. And you need to be an independent thinker. You need to be able to meet deadlines. you have to be a self starter work hard. because in high school, they tell you what to do. in primary school, they tell you what to do.

In college, nobody tells you what to do. You have to organise yourself, you have to do everything yourself. So it does teach you the skills at the very least. which are you know, everything I just mentioned. I did learn to meet my own deadlines, take initiative, critically and independently think. and that really hand in hand tied in with my entrepreneurial life.

because if I didn’t have all that and I was always relying on something. or someone holding my hand well Entrepreneurship is the total opposite. You really have to create your own path. So I think the education system can give you the skills necessary to succeed in life. But I wouldn’t necessarily say that that piece of paper is the deciding factor. I’ve hired many of my I’ve hired probably over 4050 employees in my life full time.

And a lot of them, they don’t actually have degrees. I look for character, I look for their tenacity. how motivated they are, how sharp and critical they are in their thinking. And actually, are they self-starters? Because I don’t want to hold their hand either.

We have a great work culture in our company where we tell them. Listen, get the results, I don’t care how you do it, I don’t care how long it takes you. If it takes you half the time it takes someone else you can go home early. So like that’s in a nutshell. what I would say about the college education system gives you great skills. but at the same time can be misleading.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. And I love that you’ve incorporated it a much newer mindset. Because before it was like, Oh, what is what do you look like on paper? And then you realise like, those people on paper may not perform to what you want them to write? So looking for character and how so those are things that you can’t teach. You know, you either got it or you don’t. Right, yeah.

And so sometimes, like people who don’t have the educational background. have that and there’ll be your best employees ever. So I love that. I love that. And what were some of your biggest life obstacles. leading up until this point, and it could be business, it could be personal. how did you come out of that?

Rohaan Khan
Well, finances were always an issue. Like, I wouldn’t say we grew up in poverty, but we grew up quite poor. like we didn’t really have too much to spend my biggest support in my life has been my mom. to the point where I didn’t even have enough money. or family didn’t to go and do my master. In the Netherlands, she had to sell her belongings and jewellery. and that’s the sacrifice that you know, will always stay with me.

I’ve rewarded back tenfold. And I will continue to do so. So you know, finances were always one. And people see now like the lifestyle you live 35 countries. you’re at the f1 in Monaco, and they don’t see what went into that behind the scenes. they just look at your highlights. that’s what social media is, you know, it’s your highlights.

but they don’t see that 90% of behind the scenes. So finances for one for sure. The second is imposter imposter syndrome. And this is a really, I would say people don’t talk about this enough imposter syndrome. has really affected me all my life, especially in the entrepreneurial journey. And maybe it sounds like you might have some experience with that. So yeah,

Pamela Bardhi
absolutely. When you’re asking yourself, like, how is it possible for me to do this. when I don’t have this experience? And like who am I to, you know, tell somebody what to do. You know, I get you and you’re kind of like fighting with yourself. And it’s like, no, but I know I have the hustle and the tenacity to do it. But it’s like, you’re literally like, it’s like angel and devil on both sides, right of your shoulders.

And you’re like arguing with yourself. That’s how I describe it. How about you? Well, what’s been your experience of that? Because yes, you’re absolutely right, this is not talked about enough. And every entrepreneur goes through it. whether they want to admit it or not, especially in the beginning.

Rohaan Khan
Exactly. And then for anyone listening out there who is not going through something similar. the kind of aha moment came through my girlfriend who is really into psychology and NLP. she has a great perspective on life and things. And she said, that’s the last thing you should be facing. Yes, you face it. But you need to tell yourself, yes, you deserve this. You work hard for it. Everything you have is a result of everything you’ve been working for.

Because the imposter syndrome comes in the form of like. do I deserve this? Like, am I really the right person to be leading? And absolutely you are entrepreneurial journey is very lonely. And it’s, you know, there’s a lot of pitfalls and everything and you start questioning yourself. but you need to always reaffirm in your mind and have a bulletproof mindset that yes. you do deserve it.

Yes, you can do the job. Because if doubt creeps in doubt, really kills dreams. And this is very dangerous. So for everyone listening out there, that’s normal. everyone goes through it even you know, the highest level of entrepreneurs. but you just have to keep telling yourself, I totally deserve this. I am in the right place. And you know, I can do this because if you don’t that doubt will eat you from inside.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. it’s so true. Especially in the beginning and the entrepreneurial journey or when we’re facing challenges. We’re just like, Ah, man, my really cut for this. so it’s like that mental game is really huge and understanding that really every entrepreneur goes through that. and finds our own way to kind of cope with it. and the way that I kind of dealt with it was pretty much like listen and expert was always wants to be a beginner.

So you can’t you don’t want to start off becoming an expert. Even the experts are still learning. so kind of understanding that you’re an accepting I think that you’re a work in progress. I think that was one of my toughest things was being a perfectionist. that I am very hard for me to accept failure sometimes.

And so like, that was something that I had to work through. And understand that potentially, well, this could be a pivot to my business or this. you know, staying open minded like that really helped grow everything. It’s like, well, that taught you that you’re not so good at this. But it also taught you that you’re very good at this. So kind of using it as an indicator.

Rohaan Khan
Everything happens for a reason, it’s all connected. And it can be aha moments in your life too. And you just get it in the most surprising way

Pamela Bardhi
totally. And when you started that first drop shipping business. I love that you did that. It’s like what you see on all of these, like Instagram, like advertisements. Like make six figures in six months online dropshipping. we create the whole system for you. So in starting that you mentioned that was almost labelled like a failure. I say it in parentheses, because I know it led you to your next endeavour. So walk me through that. how did you know it was time to just like, you’re like, Okay, this isn’t working? And how like, how did you pivot to the next one.

Rohaan Khan
picture this, you are a broke college student barely able to afford your rent. and you don’t have much money even just for like, going out. or you know, food, and any savings you have you’re putting into your online store. So obviously, I set up the website, I did everything. I didn’t have a single staff because I just couldn’t afford to pay them. I had to be, you know, the sales, the marketing, legal finance, I had to do everything. So you set it up. And then you start to run ads now, paid social Facebook ads, Google ads, Instagram ads. they can be very powerful if you know how to do them.

But if you don’t know how to do them, right, they can also be very costly. So you know, the initial phase was just a process of trying ads. And you don’t know if they’re optimised or not. the targeting the creatives, it’s very hard to get a ride on the first goal. So the kind of differentiating factor was, I would take some images from the internet. which wouldn’t be that optimised, they wouldn’t be on a model, they would just be on a blank canvas.

And of course, who would click on an ad like that, who would buy that. So it was more so that perhaps if I had better marketing and better know how. which I do now, it could have made it work, but it failed. And from there, when I say failure, it’s not a matter of like, I didn’t get any sales. I did, but it was just not profitable. You know, I was either breakeven or negative return on adspend.

So it showed me two things, first of all, sales, which means that this works. the model actually works, you can get sales online, you just set up a website, find a supplier, you run some ads. so then it was more so okay, I need to optimise and find the right products, feeding the right audience. And in the last six years, I’ve had probably over 10 million in sales from ecommerce. And one thing I’ve learned is the problem-solving products are always the ones that convert best. especially at top of funnel traffic.

What that means is cold audiences for the first time they see an ad. because there’s different there’s multiple times of types of ad. you can get an ad, that’s an impulse buy, you know that you don’t really need it. but you’re like, Oh, that’d be nice, let me get it. But then you have a problem solving ad where it’s like, it really hits home. I have that problem, I need the solution.

So if you’re selling a solution to somebody in essence, it’s helping their life. it’s improving their life in some way, they’re more likely to purchase that the current business I have. it’s solving a huge problem in the industry. So for anyone listening out there. no matter what kind of business you have out there. try to think about what problems exist in your industry, in your sector in your business. and see what solutions are currently being offered for it.

And can you improve on those solutions? Is there something that’s not being offered. so the product line that I eventually got to was sleep there. look at let’s look at the target market of sleep who sleeps in the world. everybody, specifically, within sleep, what kind of issues arise while people have neck pain. and they know they have a lot of issues with a posture.

So I started to sell these memory foam pillows that had a very beautiful unique arch. that would really aid sleeping, you know, huge pain point mass market audience. And the product was really cool as well. And we use very clever marketing as well. The combination of those three, and perfect timing. when I say perfect time and this is when COVID hit this brand. I scaled up to 3 million everyone’s sleeping at home everyone’s on their laptops and phones purchasing.

So it was like perfect offer perfect audience perfect timing, all three congruent, managed to scale that business considerably. So you know, you might have a good offer, you might have good marketing. but maybe it’s not the right time. Or you might have you know, perfect timing, but you just don’t have the right marketing. you really need congruence and that’s why it’s good to audit every step of your funnel. and look at where are you going wrong. You really need to audit every stage.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. You’ve dropped some gems there. I mean, because you scaled it from zero to 3 million and you mentioned a few things. that you Have the right product, the right offer, and the right timing, which is incredible. So the failures that you learned from are the lessons I should say they’re never failures. the first business was that it wasn’t really unnecessary product. You now morphed into something that was more problem solving. which is these memory foam pillows, Festivals are optional. Sleep is not,

Rohaan Khan
I’m sure there’s a lot of impulse purchase products out there that will do really well. And they do especially on tick tock you log in so I’m not neglecting that they do work. And people make a lot of money from them. I’m just talking about when you are running an ad for the first time someone sees it for the first time.

Because what is a social media platform is people’s time with their friends or family. they’re scrolling their feed, they’re looking at people they know. or sometimes the people they like, and you’re interrupting their day with an ad. So you better make it worth their time and they must be entertaining and must keep their attention. And they must offer some kind of value in some way.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. And so from your first business, essentially, you were able to kind of morphant. Like, I love that you use that strategy in terms of like making sure it was the right time. the right product, right offer that kind of thing. And for anybody who’s looking at online sales. because this is like the market when you try to research stuff like this, it’s like, it takes half a century. So that’s a problem right there.

So when it comes to e commerce, like what have been some valuable lessons. that you learned there regarding strategy and like, buying, basically. like why do people buy, what motivates them, like the psychology kind of behind it. just some of the biggest gems that you’ve learned that could help somebody. who’s got an online product right now that’s maybe struggling? Or they’re trying to figure out ads or what have you?

Rohaan Khan
Yeah, so there’s different areas that you could optimise for. So on the creative side, let’s talk about creative marketing. you can have the worst product in the world. But if you have great marketing, you can make it work. so I would argue marketing is probably the most important part of it. I mean, look at what happened with fire festiva. that was what a shame that was, but they had great marketing, they sold it as Pablo Escobar is Island, you know.

So I would say that you really need to consider the personas that you are targeting. for example, you have a product that’s asleep. Hello, yeah, look at what personas are out there. Well, it would be people who have neck and back pain that will be persona one. you might have women, females only that will be more interested in beauty. and they care about beauty and long sleep and sleeping wel. because on average, according to studies, women sleep longer than men or need longer.

And then you have the others who are maybe sports orientated or really into fitness and health. And that can be both male and female. So you need to separate into different personas take any product you have, and look at who am I selling this to. then according to each persona, you need to try different types of creatives. whether that be an image or video does not matter, you need to have first of all. the storyboarding of the personas that under each persona.

think about what kind of copy do I write to this persona. when it’s a sports man, someone who’s interested in health. you could say something along the lines of optimise your sleep for a better functioning day. whereas if it’s someone else with postures be like, get rid of back pain forever with this. so like, you need to tailor your copy your message according to each persona. And then tie in with that if you really want to go laser deep for each persona. try to get a model or a person in the video that fits that persona.

You know, whether that be an elderly person who might be a little bit frail. or someone who’s young female hoods really into their beauty with lip sell puffed up. so that’s on the marketing side. from the marketing, because that’s at the top of the funnel, that’s where you acquire the customer. then, okay, they’re in the funnel either on the website. So your website really needs to have a branded feel. Think of how you would approach a website that you wanted to buy something from.
would you really buy from a website that kind of had a suspicious kind of shady buy? You wouldn’t, it wasn’t optimised, you wouldn’t buy from that.

To think about would you buy from your website. that’s how you really need to think and look for the biggest brands out there. look at how they’ve designed their colour palette, or their design their images. their product descriptions, you know, their trust badges, have a look at the top website. try to replicate and put your own twist on it and give it a branded feel.

And on the website itself, you need to be upselling and cross selling products. Why? Because usually the first point of contact the first product to buy. like you’d be lucky to make profits on that it’s usually on the back end. that you make more from cross selling other products. So whatever the first product is, have, make sure you have you know optimised upsells. you know when they add to cart, just have a pop up of another product or bundles. because you want to get your average order value higher.

The revenue per customer should be high enough. where it gives you enough margin with your cost of goods and shipping and your product marketing. So just like The CRO like conversion rate optimisation is so important. And then on the other end your logistics. So you really need to make sure that you have the product at the best rate. And with the right logistics setup, if you do not customers. you’re going to be waiting a long time, your brand credibility, your reviews, everything will go down. like I said, there’s multiple phases.

And each funnel the top of funnel is obviously the marketing. that’s where you pull in the lead, then there on the website. and make sure you have solid SMS email back end setup. because a lot of people are going to see the product and click away. But it’s your job to make sure you have the right back end setup. where you can take them back from the email and SMS and convert them into a purchaser. So yeah, like my gems would be any commerce. really take care of your marketing, take care of your bottom line.

And that means increase your ARV or cross sell and upsell. So that means take care of your website. And on the logistics side use, you know suppliers that are kind of at the end not resellers. because what resellers do is they’ll take it from another supplier from another factory. they put their own margin on top every time and you’re getting the product very, very expensive. compared to what the the actual cost might be.

So really do your due diligence. find a supplier who actually is going to be the one that’s going to be working directly with the factory. So the final point is on the factory side of things. really make sure that you are dealing with end providers and not reselling agents. because you might be just paying unnecessary fees. And this is only for E commerce. By the way, Sony for you know products, physical products, really make sure you do your due diligence. find a sourcing agent, pay them per hour to find the direct factory for you.

And you know, don’t work with resellers, because he might just be paying unnecessary margin. because each reseller apart from another reseller. another margin on top and you’re you’re at the top here of paying like a premium. And you could save all of this. I see it time and time again, you know if anyone is out there listening. they really need some good sourcing agents. from my past when I was drop shipping in the past and I had a brand.I have some good sourcing agents feel free to reach out and I can make an intro.

Pamela Bardhi
I love that. Ron, thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, this stuff is all super key. because ecommerce can be highly profitable, or you could fall flat on your face. Because you don’t know all these nitty gritty details, right, that could really elevate your business. Like even that piece about the resellers. I mean, for somebody who’s new, they don’t probably don’t even realise. they’re like, oh, yeah, this person is taking care of me. And then next thing you know, you’re looking at it. you’re like, Oh, crap, I’m throwing out all this money.

Rohaan Khan
Disclaimer, most of the people you see on Alibaba aspects are Aliexpress are resellers. So just don’t work with them. That’s you’re paying a premium,

Pamela Bardhi
right and go to the end supplier, you were saying that’s really the key. They’re the actual manufacturer. which are sometimes a little bit harder, to get a hold of, but worth it obviously, margin wise. That’s fantastic. And like, Ron, I’m so interested to know how did you transition. from this the seven multiple seven figure memory pillow into the business that you’re doing now? I mean, I see, you’ve probably found that there was a problem in that. you were willing to solve it when it came to advertising and whatnot. So love to hear that transition of how you and Eric got into business into your current venture?

Rohaan Khan
Yeah, so again, it was a great question. When I sold that brand, I had a bunch of time, and not really anything to do. And funnily enough you make an exit, you get a nice chunk of money, you have time. I actually felt for those six, seven months, probably one of the worst in my life. because I was just lack of focus, lack no direction I, I felt unfulfilled. And it was actually a poor period in my life, I have to say, I didn’t really enjoy.

At that time, I kind of felt maybe even slightly, you know, anxious and depressed, like, what do I do? While I was advertising for that brand. I realised how big the problem of advertising bands was. And it happens to everybody, even if you’re selling pillows, because it was happening to me. that’s when I realised that this is such a widespread problem. Very little information out there about it, and login no matter do their best they are. of course trying their best to, to solve issues with advertiser compliance.

But sometimes it’s just too many advertisers and just not enough support. especially with the recent layoffs that happened. So in these cases, there is no other choice than to just provide support from another agency. And so in this case, what we did was we got agreements in place. where you know, ASBs from pretty much all the major advertising platforms, Facebook, Google, tik, Tok, Snapchat, Twitter, Bing. so it’s like 360, all of the advertising platforms. and we help to bridge that gap where there’s the lack of support.

Our agency does that we have 24 Five support. So Monday to Friday, 24 hours a day, you can get support in Slack. our account managers around the world. We provide all To our specific high level agency ad accounts. which don’t get banned as easily, they have unlimited spend limits. they have a direct line of access to reps.

And all of this is packaged in a way where you run your ads. you do what you do as normal will just provide the maintenance. And we just take a very small fee, we just take a monthly fee of 500 bucks. just a small percentage of ad spend. But the peace of mind knowing that you don’t get ba. it’s really useful the advertisers need, again, a pain point, I saw a solution. I was like, Okay, let’s do this. That’s

Pamela Bardhi
incredible. And, thank you so much for sharing that regarding, you know, before you started and kind of like what happens. Because the entrepreneurial dream is to build something exit for a ridiculous amount of money. And then all of a sudden, you’re supposed to find happiness and rainbows after the fact. I can resonate with you the same that when I hit my first net seven figure year, in real estate. it was almost like the worst because it’s like, well, what now?

Like, okay, I did all of that net, like, what’s next and that whole fulfilment piece. So I find it interesting that you went through the same thing as I did. And it’s amazing that you were able to kind of go down this route. and channel your energy into something so beautiful.

startup, something new, and how did you go about kind of finding and choosing your business partner? Because I think this is something that is not talked about enough in entrepreneurship as well. It’s like, oh, yeah, there’s this idea. And it sounds great. but like, what goes into all that and having the right business partner, and a venture with you.

Rohaan Khan
So I mean, I actually downloaded an app called Tinder, and I just started searching. I was living in Bali at the time, and we know, there was some entrepreneurial nights that we would have. we’d have a poker night, we’d have like, you know, movie night or whatever. And one of those nights, like a couple of the guys came. they were from Europe, and area was from Bulgaria, and a couple guys from Poland.

And they were really cool, guys, we just had like a nice meeting. they actually needed a place to stay because they were just moved into Bali. And they didn’t have a villa yet. funnily enough, I had three spare rooms, in my villa was a huge mansion. during COVID, all the prices were slashed down, like crazy. I negotiate it was a multimillion-dollar villa, and I negotiated the price down to just $3,000 per month. Wow. So I got a good offer.

And I had the space and we had like a games room, huge Olympic sized pool, everything was great. So they moved in with me, and we kind of just were vibing. he was running his own agency, I was running my own, like, businesses. And I think the eureka moment happened after so my brand, I was still living with him. kind of thought that the idea and I was thinking like, Okay, I like the way he works.

He’s a very hard worker, he’s reliable, because nowadays, it’s very hard to find reliable people I have to say. then you just look for a character, you look for humility, you look for who is this person. where, what’s his goals, and we aligned on multiple brands. And because of that I have to say, I chose him as my business partner very well.

because we wouldn’t be able to do this without each other, I think it’s been a crazy journey. And all of this in a year and a half. imagine like a year and a half 400 clients, 30 full time staff. And I think it is more so like, if you have one person pulling in one direction. you can get so far you have two people with great capacity all pulling in the same direction. you’re going a lot further.

So you know, for people listening out there only choose a business partner. if you see their added value, you know, it is not doesn’t make sense for two people. and good at marketing to go into a business together. Now you need someone who might be good job marketing. another one who is good at operations, they need to have contrasting roles. but also complementing each other beautifully.

Pamela Bardhi
Yes, absolutely. And you mentioned 400 clients, and the year and a half and 40 staff, 3030 30 staff. That’s incredible. And that’s like the number one question that entrepreneurs ask. how do you scale at that degree? Right? Like, what were some of the lessons you learned in scaling so quickly and maintaining that. because you can scale quickly, but maintaining it is another thing.

Rohaan Khan
So there’s definitely a lot of fires, and you have to be mentally resilient to face face to fire. so to speak, one of the challenges of scaling too quickly was indeed finding the right talent. You know, what we learned is, it doesn’t make sense to look on the freelancing kind of websites out there. You pay for a freelancer, you’re gonna get a freelancer, they’ll tell you, they’re working for you.

But at the end of the day, they’re waiting for probably a few other companies. their attention is divided, their focus is divided and therefore they’re not an A player. we focus on only a player so we we found some strategies to find. even like with headhunters to just find the right talent. We’re only exclusively working for us really smart.

And also remember I have my second psychology background. in which master thesis was on the hiring decisions, personnel selection. we have a very good like, system where we took the lead on the hiring. but I also helped with the systemization of how we are going to select them. There’s multiple rounds, the initial is an unstructured interview. then it goes into a work sample test. And then usually it ends with the final round structured interview.

And from there, you kind of have a good gauge of who does things. Well if you send them work sample testing, near 48 hours. this is ended after three days. Well, that’s already disqualification because we can’t rely on that. So you look for these multiple factors which you assess. Another issue with scaling is when you don’t have the right, SOPs and optimised systems in place. what can happen is it just takes a lot more time to do stuff that should be done faster.

So part of that is really diagnosing and looking at every flow. from the moment someone books the call, and joining our Slack, to then contract pay start services. you need to look at how can I minimise that as fast as possible? Any business we know whatever business you’re in, really look at what is unnecessary. what could be sped up? And then lastly, it’s also like at this scale, I’m doing it this fast. you always get burned as well, in the process. We’ve had clients run away on big bills, we had six figures in damages.

What Would Rohaan Older Self Tell His Younger Self

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. I mean, business always has its things regardless. Like it’s always has its lessons. I love that I love that. But I love that you were able to take it and grow it from that space. by finding the pain point in the industry and finding then a business partner that complements you. where you guys can succeed and go further faster.

Because oftentimes, we’re like entrepreneurs, sometimes we’re like, we get prideful and egotistical. There’s no I can do it all. It’s like, you’re gonna go further faster by having somebody by your side. So I think that’s super, super key. And, Rohaan, this is my favourite question. When this can be business or personal, whatever comes to you. but what would your older self tell your younger self based on what you know now, or?

Rohaan Khan
Okay, that’s deep, I would tell my younger self, to trust the process. Be patient, be close to your family, always. Because you never know what can happen. Life is short. And one of the biggest piece of advice I would give is just continue to work hard. because I’m quite religious. And I think God rewards hard work, he will give you opportunities.

But you need to work hard, because if the opportunity presents, and you don’t work out, you don’t capture it. You don’t pick up the ball and run someone else. Well, so the importance of hard work is It’s crucial. And just be mindful and kind and loving to others. You know, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know them or you do. Yeah, love is the answer. As they say, you know, it’s the highest frequency in the universe. And I think, you know, love is the answer love yourself. but also emit positive love into the world.

Pamela Bardhi
I absolutely love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. And in your world, what’s happening in the next few months? Like what’s new in your realm? I know you mentioned you were doing a little bit of travelling and kind of back and forth. So what’s up for the next couple months in your world?

Rohaan Khan
Yeah, we’re actually going through a very critical period of our agency right now. we’re restructuring reassessing a lot of things. So you know, it’s game time for us right now. I’m not actually travelling too much aside from when I need to. We have a conference coming up next month in Barcelona. So if anyone’s going to be at the affiliate World Conference in Barcelona. you know, come comes in help.

Come say hello to the orange flow team. We have a booth there. We have some goodies, we can take care of you. But aside from that, it’s just business as usual, have big dreams, big ambitions. And they Yeah, like I said, hard work is required, they won’t achieve themselves. So for now, just kind of keep the head downtown. But I think once things stabilise as a founder, you want to optimise. to the point where you kind of step back, and that would be the end goal.

You know, I’m the CEO of the company. But ultimately, you want to optimise and offload and delegate a lot of things. So you know, we’re not quite there yet. I have to say, still working 1012 hours a day. but you know, when that time comes, I can take a little bit of a breather, I guess.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. I love that role. And I absolutely love that my friend. I love your journey. I love where you started and kind of how you’ve grown now. and kind of what you’re evolving into and what’s coming next in your world. I’m excited to see how everything shakes out. I’m sure you’ll probably have an exit in like a year or two.

and you’ll come up with another brand that’s going to be absolutely incredible and crush it as well. super grateful for all the gems you dropped here today. So many valuable lessons for E commerce, business life, everything. So thank you so so much. Now you’ve got to let everyone know where to find you and your awesomeness.

Rohaan Khan
Sure, but it’s been a pleasure. By the way. Pamela, thank you very much for having me. Our website is orange.io if you connect with me on facebook, instagram name would be Rohan Khan. that’s Rohaan and Khan no relation to gangers by the way I checked, so nothing there.

Pamela Bardhi
I love it. Rohaan, thank you so much for being here today, my friend. I’m sure everyone will connect with you. Thank you so much for dropping those links and appreciate you coming on today. I loved hearing your story, my friend.

Rohaan Khan
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Pamela Bardhi
Thank you. So that’s it for today’s episode of underdog. catch us next week, always dropping on Thursdays. And remember, if you’re interested in real estate or want to learn how to create more money and magic in your life. check out meet with pamela.com and let’s chat sending you so so much love