Buidl Crypto Podcast
Podcast about Crypto builders from around the world.
Buidl Crypto Podcast
Hunger, Humility, Smartness: The Entrepreneur's Trinity
Vikram's journey from health crisis to blockchain pioneer offers a masterclass in resilient entrepreneurship. After being bedridden with spondylitis in 2004, he launched what would become India's largest blockchain consulting firm out of necessity, not grand ambition. Today, that decision has evolved into a 700-person operation transforming how we think about blockchain implementation across industries.
The conversation reveals Vikram's entrepreneurial philosophy centered on three critical factors: hunger (which must come intrinsically), humility, and smartness. Coming from modest beginnings and losing his father at 12, Vikram chose not to attend college to avoid burdening his mother—instead combining self-taught skills in design, technology, and content to forge his unique path.
Beyond building products, Vikram's vision extends to transforming his home base of Mohali into "the blockchain capital of India," creating educational pathways for local talent to thrive in this emerging technology. His perspective on leadership—"It's not like you are employing team members; first you are employed to them"—reveals why his approach has succeeded where others have faltered in the volatile blockchain space.
the factors which are responsible for your success, and all these three areas you need to, like, sharpen your skill set like one is hunger, one is humility and one is smartness. And out of all these three, the hunger is the most difficult one, because we can't put hunger in any until unless it is not intrinsic.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Welcome to Biddle Crypto Builder Space and today with me, I have a very inspiring personality. I have a very inspiring personality. His name is Vikram and he's the CEO of NTR Solutions.
Speaker 1:Welcome, Vikram. Thanks, Tarun, for having me here.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much and hello to everyone. Great Thanks for being on the show, vikram. I've been trying to get you for the longest time, so I'm glad that you're finally on this show. So, vikram, from our online conversations, you know I've noticed when you've spoken to me in the conferences and to other folks, you speak with very deep, authentic sense of a mission and you know, my guess is, underneath that there is a deep personal inspiration that is hidden and I cannot help but asking you what is that that inspires you?
Speaker 1:Okay so, tarun, like as you know, my journey, right so, but I feel that you know you are always the product of your circumstances, right? So the first, you know 20 odd years, like in the environment you are raised into, the, the situations you kind of inherit, because nobody decide for themselves in which kind of family you are going to born in. So so it is very kind of like you know, but natural, that like, for example, if you happens to born in a family where you are short of resources, or if you happen to born in a family, which is, which have abundant resources, so what in both the scenario, what, what differs is, like you know, in the first scenario, a kind of like inherit hunger gets built into you, right, hunger to you know kind of succeed, and and when you have everything around you like, then most of the time it gets very difficult, like you know, to kind of you know, uh, create that motivations you know like to achieve the higher things. For example, even if you guys are like, like we all know, like when we have given everything to our kids today, right, we are able to give them fulfill their needs, like up to the age of seven or eight, we run out of the option what to give to them in their next, on their next birthday. So what I'm trying to say? Right, that our kids are so blessed that they get everything you know by the age of seven or ten, right, whatever is possible in the world. That's the kind of facility then.
Speaker 1:Then, where that hunger will come from, when they haven't faced any challenge in their life, so that the challenges are the original uh, I would say uh, the the kind of uh, uh, the reasons why hunger gets created, right, and I also believe, like, because there are three factors which are responsible for your uh success and all these three areas you need to like, sharpen, sharpen your skill set Like. One is hunger, one is humility and one is smartness. Right, and out of all these three, the hunger is the most difficult one, because we can't put hunger in anyone until and unless it is not intrinsic. So that's what I believe, and I have always got inspiration from my mother and kind of, and also my environment, and so always try to do you know something. You know where I can create or be the role model for others.
Speaker 1:You know the people who get so many things at a very early on but need motivation to make it large. I would rather say right. So that's what we want to achieve from our region to create a successfully out of our region. We are based in mohalle and we are the largest blockchain company, so why to create a successfully out of that region which can inspire people, that if we were able to do it, then you have more means and more kind of like resources to do it even better. So that's what I want to create and that's what inspires me.
Speaker 2:Inspiring to listen to. Actually, vikram, like the three things you mentioned hunger, then intelligence, and that you mentioned, which is a byproduct of your environment, then humbleness, which is very important, which is lacking in a lot of entrepreneurs these days.
Speaker 1:Humility it is humility, Hunger, humility and smartness.
Speaker 2:Yes, hunger, humility and smartness, and those combination of those three is very critical to succeed in any space, and you mentioned it very correctly and I believe that you know this space needs a little bit of humbleness. For sure, we have plenty of intelligence and also needs a lot of hunger, as you mentioned. So thanks for putting that in a very good perspective and I honestly most of the speakers I've interviewed this is one of the things that stands out Like those three things are fundamental to succeed in any space, let alone this particular space. Okay, with that note, moving on, vikram, why do you care about crypto? Why do you care about crypto? And you know, if I may ask further, what are the things that made you care about, you know and have sort of passion in this space? And could you relate that to say, your childhood experience to now, somehow Like or maybe recent, you know, when you kind of got into crypto?
Speaker 1:Right. So we entered into cryptos like somewhere around 2016, 17 and 2017 was the year of my I would say like the first milestone in my entrepreneur success story. I would call it a little success story. Uh, because we got into our own infrastructure. We bought a building where we shifted, uh, with a team of like 75 team members, and at that time, I was kind of, you know, thinking that what should be my should be my next growth driver, and crypto was making a lot of noise at that point of time, and I was working without a cto as well. But since I could understand the technology and was a reader, so I started reading about it, and the moment I get to know about why crypto was invented, I was completely sold out.
Speaker 1:And I would mention I would like to mention over here that there were three things uh, people in the west used to lose their hard-earned money even I was listening to a book today as well like, and go to know, the author was bankrupt just because of a bank went down, right, so no fault of him. And people used to lose their hard-earned money just because of a bank went down right, so no fault of him. And people used to lose their hard-earned money just because of some kind of like uh, you know, some of the mistakes the people are making at the banking level, like the, at their c-level positions, right, and 2008-9 crisis, everybody knows, like labor crisis, why it happened. Then, second, um, like cross border, sending payments to cross borders, like internationally, was a nightmare. Like uh, if you remember it used to say, like, if you want to uh, you know, send money to uk, it's better to take a plane and, you know, deliver it physically rather than going through the banking channel.
Speaker 1:And third was, you know, financial inclusion, because it was very hard after that, you know the, it is very still it is very hard for, like banking, uh, uh, different companies or different banks to set up a branch in, uh, you know, remote areas just for to cater to 20 or 30 odd customers, right, so so first, like, people wanted to have something in their control, so that which is beyond the control of the uh, the traditional banking system, so that they can they don't let anybody else be the reason to lose their hard-earned money and, you know, go go bankrupt as well.
Speaker 1:And financial inclusion and the uh, cross-border uh, remittance. That was the reason. So I was completely sold out on that reason and and we started building exchange platform, thinking that, uh, you know, when we can envision a paperless world, only this kind of platform will be required. So let's build, you know, finacle of crypto world. You know, finacle is a banking platform from infosys. So so that's how we started our journey in this domain and I would say we evolved with this space, like from exchanges to the holders, to the defi lending going protocols, to nft marketplaces to give me a solution to metafi solution, all these things we are doing as of now.
Speaker 2:Vikram Vikramji, could you tell me about you know your life story, just you know how you got to this point.
Speaker 1:Okay, so see, I always say that, like entrepreneurship came to me more of a circumstantial startup because it was in 2004,.
Speaker 1:I was bedridden for two months. I had spondylitis. I was not able to work anywhere, so I had only one option to start off my own, so that I could work as per my availability or my kind of like limitations, right? So that's how I started and the initial years were quite clean. Three to four years, it was just for me, like you know, an alternative to earning my livelihood, and it was in 2009 when I gathered the courage to have five people team and one month backup in my pocket to sustain and but, by the grace of god, that was the day and fast forward. Today, 14 years, we are close to 700 team member under one roof, which makes us india's largest blockchain consulting firm. So that's how I started.
Speaker 1:And if you even go back, like you know, I again say like I never went to a college, not because I, like this study didn't interested me, but again I I kind of I lost my father when I was 12 and it was my conscious goal not to be burden on my mother uh, so that I uh don't uh, so, so I didn't, uh, you know, opted for college or maybe, uh, university education. So I took my own responsibility after my full-time education up to plus two and then went on to do pgd in computer application of my own and also pgd in journalism as well. So so I'm a product of, I'm blend of three things actually. So I started my career from design. Then I went on to do pgd in computer application technical and also journalism, which is of content. So design, content and technology are kind of like in my dna this is a amazing journey that you had.
Speaker 2:in spite of all the curves that life throws at you, all the difficulties life throws at you, you kept on going and kept on coming on top all the time. And this is amazing me to crypto. So I believe you got in early during the bitcoin era in the crypto sphere, or was already thinking on those directions about development in that area so, uh, we started our crypto journey, I would say around 2016 17, because 2017 marked the year of my first entrepreneur success story.
Speaker 1:We got into our own infrastructure and earlier we were operating from a rented accommodation and we used to be like we were 75 people team at that point of time. And then I was thinking that, how, what will be my next growth driver? And crypto was making a lot of noise and when I dwell deeper into it, you know I was completely sold out. Sold out. That why crypto was invented. Three reason again. So, uh, one, uh, people used to lose their heart and money just because of the uh banks going bankrupt, and in the west especially.
Speaker 1:Second, uh, it was very hard for people to, you know, send money abroad. They used to be uh they. A lot of questions used to be asked uh from them and we usually uh used to joke around that if you want to send money to uk, it's better to take a plane and you don't deliver it physically. That that's how the banking uh system used to be in the earlier days. And last but not least, it was very hard for banks to set up a branch in remote areas just to cater 50-odd customers. So financial inclusion was a challenge, and crypto sold all these you know challenges and was the answer from the people, like, who used to lose their money to the rudimentary, I would say, like the systems you know, so that they could have something they could count on and also, like you know, have full control on their assets.
Speaker 1:So, uh, and we uh started, you know, building a exchange platform, thinking that when we can envision a paperless world, only this kind of platform will be required. So let's, let's, let's, build a finacle of crypto world, so that that's kind of, like, you know, the goal we gave to ourselves, because and the good thing happened that we evolved with this space. We are starting with exchanges to wallets, to defile and ignoring protocols, to nft marketplaces, to gaming, face solution and metaverse, which is our current focus. So that's how we evolved with this space and I'm like today, fast forward, 14 odd years, like we are the largest consulting blockchain consulting company out of India, close to 700 team members under one roof.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. And so, if I get it correctly before, say, the crypto kind of achieved some sort of mainstream in 2013, and when Bitcoin was coming up, you had your own development firm, which you were still growing, that business opportunity with crypto, which the field was wide open, right, you mentioned all the problems with remittances. That's one of the biggest problems actually still remained in crypto, right? Even people who are in Southeast Asia and abroad, like we send money to our loved ones and stuff, and so that's a huge market, that's a huge problem area that's waiting to be solved, and so you very daringly jumped into this new ecosystem and never looked back. And here you are with, I believe, as you mentioned, one of the biggest blockchain development and consulting firms, if I'm not mistaken. So that's quite an achievement. Awesome, awesome arc, awesome, awesome Mark, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm gonna switch gears and I've actually had a list of questions here. Let me see. So I'm gonna ask you when I when I was talking to you, it seems like you guys are working on several of very interesting problems in crypto and several of them you have some solutions, which is in the local market, where, where you're based out of, and then it's also going international. Could you talk a little bit more about that?
Speaker 1:so, uh, in blockchain we are covering all the aspects, you know, whether it is a b2c or b2b or b2g or b2e, and that's the kind of goals we have given to ourself actually, um, like for another one and a half years or two years, close to two years to create success stories in all those areas, because we want to be the number one brand in blockchain space, most trusted brand globally and and we feel that it's not a designation it will only it can only be achieved once we create an impact, holistic impact, in all these four areas, whether it is a business customer, business to business, business to government and business to education.
Speaker 1:So in pursuit of that, we are kind of in the B2C area. We are building a digital wallet which is quite near to completion and all set to go, and what we are trying to achieve over here is to reduce the barrier to entry in this space and how we can ensure a web 2.0 experience in a web 3.0 application. One of the other reason is like because sometimes you know external factors are responsible for the success of your startup, for example, in india, if you look at paytm, the success behind paytm was, you know the reason behind paytm success was to the demonetization right.
Speaker 1:So we also feel like, when you know, regulatory environments will get clear and that then on the, how many wallets will be required in this world. Just try to imagine that. So that's one area. In the second area, we are trying to address infrastructure problem for blockchain projects and that is also going very good and very soon we will be releasing its version two and that two for the public.
Speaker 1:Uh, in third area, we have identified that you know, in the e-government, especially in india, there is a huge problem uh in question paper leak, for example, like whenever government jobs, uh recruitment exams happens. So most of the time you might have had heard that, you know, question paper gets leaked. We generally say that it's a people problem, but it's not people's problem. It is like systems problem, because we are still sticking to like web 2.0 systems and we feel that you know blockchain can solve this problem very smartly. So we have already built a product and deployed and tested it, like with the health department, punjab for on a couple of occasions where we have created a history, that first time in the history of india, a question paper was designed in a trustless fashion. When I say trustless, I mean to say like without any human intervention and printed in a real-time environment, again, like you know, on the day of examination, just one hour before all the question paper were printed. So what we have done? We have solved this problem through blockchain, by using public, private key infrastructure and making sure that no power in the world can hack this solution. So that's our answer, or that's our work in this field, which is going to create a very big impact once rolled out on a state level or national level.
Speaker 1:Fourth and last but not least is our education division. So, if you look at our journey, 95% of our resources run to blockchain after joining us, because, operating out of tier 2 city, you can't get the talent for niche technologies very easily, so you have to have learned how to make your own bread. So that we understood, actually very early on, and we had set up a lnd division which was responsible for training. You know all these resources and now we have a spin of this division in a separate company under the name and style of entireares BlockTech, where we aim to train students from local colleges and how we can make Mohali as the blockchain capital of India and India to the world in the long run. So that's our vision.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic to hear.
Speaker 2:You know Mohali is, for folks who don't know, is also close to my hometown, original hometown in India, and traditionally it's not been a tech hub or somewhat of a tech hub, not like Bangalore.
Speaker 2:But with your efforts it seems like this could be something very substantial for the growing crypto community and for the growing blockchain community, not just in India but worldwide. And coming back to the solution, vikram, the paper, the solution to the leaking of the paper mark sheet and you know it's a big, huge problem in India, a massive problem. The scale, I think, is billions of people that are residents of India and most of it is younger population. There is always, you know, in the news, there is always this thing happening and there's a lot of government money that gets diluted into solving this problem. You know, having a fix for this problem in itself is huge. Any thoughts on such a solution? Since you've demonstrated that in the field it works and it's kind of almost there a foolproof method, do you think that solution could be ported to, say, other countries with kind of similar educational structure?
Speaker 1:I would love to know your thoughts on that yes, definitely, because, uh, once we released it, we got inquiries from even pakistan, bangladesh, these kind of southeast asian countries, and this problem is a quite widespread, I would say, in the asian countries and, uh, where corruption is at a very kind of a high level. So, yes, this can be deployed in any country which is facing such issues.
Speaker 2:So you've been in crypto space for quite a while and what, according to you? There are certain things in crypto that have changed drastically, say, from a year or two years. I would say one that strikes me especially in the US is not in technology perspective, but Bitcoin getting ETF status. But apart from that, technology wise, what has changed in these past several years since you started, and what has remained the same?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I would say the promise and what has remained the same? Okay, so I I would say the the promise of the technology remains the same. What has changed? That we are getting very closer to solving the problem of interpretability and also the uh scalability. Like a lot of blockchains, solutions are coming which are trying to, and a lot of I would say like, to a lot extent they are they have been able to solve these two bigger issues the scalability and interpretability. So these things are getting sold and we are getting near to a kind of a time where we would see adoption of blockchain not only in the financial system, but also across the different verticals.
Speaker 1:And again, as I said, like the one thing remains the same is the promise of technology, that this technology has the power, because we always believe in the power of technology.
Speaker 1:We, whether the bitcoin or any other party cryptocurrency will we make? It will be able to make it through the government regulation, but one thing they will be able to achieve they will force the government to come up with their own cbdcs and fast forward. We this is what we said like in 2070, right, and fast forward now, you know, uh, five odd years. Like, uh, five to seven odd years, we feel, uh, we once again claim that, till the time these cbdcs not able to provide the features of a cryptocurrency, it will take a lot of time for them to succeed. So the promise of technology remains the same and things have started moving in a positive direction and many companies in the world are doing fantastic work. Many companies in the world are doing fantastic work, even in India. If you look at the government side as well, the government is very proactive in adopting technology, especially on the healthcare side. You see the DigiLocker, these kind of applications, all being powered by blockchain.
Speaker 1:So, that's my thoughts actually.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Thanks for that. How do you attract talent or builders since it's a builder specific podcast, you know developers who are chain agnostic. In case, because you deal with all different sort of environments, all different chains, what does it take to keep and build with those? Keep that talent growing, nurturing I think you mentioned initially. If you could elaborate more on that?
Speaker 1:Right, right. So see, if you see most of the companies in our domain go hiring, kind of like a top students working or coming out of the top universities and colleges, and it is the, you know the, the students which are left behind or maybe don't get any placement. So so what do we believe? That you know? Skills can all, can always be taught.
Speaker 1:I'm like it's not like that if you don't know something and you will not be able to do thing as long as you have the right attitude. And how do we define attitude? Attitude is your ability to embrace challenges without losing the enthusiasm, and we always look at a positive attitude. If you are carrying a positive attitude, you are the person you are fit for our system. I would rather say right. So we believe that you know it is we who are more responsible for your success with our system. So we just look at for the right attitude, people carrying right attitude, and invest our time and energy in training them up to a level where they they are able to deliver value to our customer projects. So that's how we do. I'm like we take responsibility inside, inside, outside that's what we called it. So we take our own responsibility to uh, you know, uh create the talent that is amazing.
Speaker 2:I have not heard that take and it's a very interesting take. In the day and age of fast attrition rates in tech sector, I mean that is a very promising kind of vision coming from top of the company, where you want to nurture talent. You know, as you mentioned, it's the man that drives the machine, not the other way around, and so that is very refreshing to hear that in the industry where folks who have the talent you know, due to some circumstances they were not able to get the level of education they wanted, but they still have that drive and you specifically, you guys specifically look for that. I mean that is very unique to your organization, I must say. So hats off.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Okay, vikram, you know this is kind of a now my tradition in my podcast, and what I do is I asked my current guest in my podcast, and what I do is I asked my current guest something they would like to say to the guests they haven't seen, which will be in my next episode. And it could be an entrepreneur, some builders, that, the lessons they have learned in the space, if you want to communicate something regarding that, so what would you like to say to them?
Speaker 1:Very great question. So I believe what I have learned in my entrepreneur journey you need a very specific set of skills actually to be an entrepreneur, because, again, it is not a designation. Being owner of the company puts even bigger responsibilities on your shoulders. It is not like you are employing 600, 700 team members. It is like you know, first you are employed to them and then they are your employees this is how I look at it, and money should always be the byproduct of the valuation.
Speaker 1:Again, this is everybody you know, every, I would say, entrepreneur believes that. And there are some key qualities of an entrepreneur, like you know. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to be kind of like, proactive, must have initiatives, shouldn't be dependent on, you know, the external factors, or maybe your friends or maybe family, to motivate you to take some actions. Then you must have, like you know, the heart of entrepreneur, like it's not like only kind of like. You shouldn't be after a fixed income, like, as you say, like having the heart of an entrepreneur but not the stomach doesn't, you know, make you entrepreneur. And then you also need, you know, like, be able to how to you know, unite people under one single vision which is again very important how to kind of initiate collaborative efforts.
Speaker 1:You know from the team and make sure that we are moving in one single direction as a team, and you should also be resilient as well, you know being defeated is a temporary condition but, giving up is a permanent. That's what I have learned from the great authors that never said I kind of attitude right. So resilience is very important in entrepreneurship and last but not least is the vision side of it you know.
Speaker 1:So vision, is when you can see something which other can't see. You know, if you can make some uh sense out of something which others feel like is a very, uh, contemporary or maybe normal thing, and that is what differs you right from the rest of crowd. So, passing on the baton to maybe the next speaker, I would say so we can talk about the qualities of entrepreneurship and how they can make their venture successful. What are those factors?
Speaker 2:I would say they need to answer you know, find the answer on them very well put, uh, very well put, vikram. And I have to ask this so where can builders, folks who are interested in what you guys are doing, where can they reach out? How can they reach out? How can they find you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so sure. So our website is ntsolutionscom A, as in Apple and as in North T-I-E-R-S-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-S dot com, and the same name applies to all the social media accounts as well. Or maybe you can simply search NTS Solutions Mohali, and you will find a lot of stuff on the web as well. Or maybe you can simply search NTS Solutions Mohali and you will find a lot of stuff you know on the web as well, but yeah, our website is the best way to kind of refer more and know more about us.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming on the show. It was such a pleasure talking to you. I learned a lot, a lot of refreshing takes on a lot of things in life and in crypto space. I would love to have you in the show sometimes in the future. Wish you all the best for your endeavors. Bye for now.
Speaker 1:Thanks, saran, thanks for having me here, Thanks to all of your listeners and have a good day. No-transcript.
