In this episode of The Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, your host Scott MacMillan sits down with Sandeep Chennakeshu, technologist, business builder, and author of "Your Company is Your Castle: Proven Methods for Building a Resilient Business." In this interview, Sandeep shares his remarkable journey from India to North America, highlighting his extensive career in transforming multinational businesses. "Your Company is Your Castle" serves as a guide for first-time business leaders and entrepreneurs, offering a comprehensive framework based on Sandeep's experiences, with a goal to share Sandeep’s vast knowledge and make connections that help others navigate the complex world of business.
GUEST BIO
Over the past 35 years Sandeep has transformed multinational businesses and led teams that developed and launched pioneering products we use every day - cellphones, wireless technologies, software for cars and semiconductor chips. Today, he is the COO of a disruptive start-up that produces imaging radar chips and software for cars. He is a fellow of the IEEE and a named inventor on 180 patents.
CONNECT WITH SANDEEP
Website: sandeepchennakeshu.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sandeep-chennakeshu-351187111/
CONNECT WITH SCOTT
Scott on LinkedIn (@scottmacmillan): linkedin.com/in/scottmacmillan/
Scott on Instagram (@scottamacmillan): instagram.com/scottamacmillan/
Scott on Twitter (@scottamacmillan): twitter.com/scottamacmillan/
Scott on Medium (@scottamacmillan): scottamacmillan.medium.com
Episode Transcript
Please note: The transcript is produced by a third-party company from an audio recording and may include transcription errors.
Scott MacMillan
You're listening to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast.
Announcer
Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author podcast, the podcast that brings you practical strategies for building authority and growing your business. And now, here's your host, Scott MacMillan.
Scott
My guest today is Sandeep Chennakeshu. Sandeep is a technologist, business builder, and author of Your Company is Your Castle, Proven Methods for Building a Resilient Business. Sandeep and I were introduced a while back by a mutual friend, and we've enjoyed many wonderful conversations since then about business, books, and publishing in general.
Over the past 35 years, Sandeep has transformed multinational businesses and led teams that developed and launched pioneering products that we all use every day. Cell phones, wireless technologies, software for cars, and semiconductor chips. Today, Sandeep is the COO of a disruptive startup that produces imaging radar chips and software for cars. He is a fellow of the IEEE and a named inventor on 180 patents. All of this makes him a fascinating person to speak with, and I'm excited for all of you to have the chance to learn from him the way that I have.
Sandy, thank you so much for joining us on the Entrepreneur to Author podcast.
Sandeep Chennakeshu
Thanks Scott, it's a privilege.
Scott
To start, I'd love if you could share a little bit about you and your professional journey for our audience, because it really is a unique, I think, experience that a lot of people would really be interested in hearing more about.
Sandeep
Yeah, you know, I was born in India and I came to North America 41 years ago. I'm kind of an old fella. You can see from all the gray hair. I am actually just turned 65. So I'm looking forward to all the discounts. But it's about a month ago anyway. But you know, I've been really lucky in life and very fortunate.
Scott
Happy birthday
Sandeep
You know started with having phenomenal parents who encouraged me to do anything. They put no pressure on me to study or do anything I had a lot of mathematics that led to engineering and I went on to do a business degree and then I got tired of saying I said I wanted to go back and do engineering So I came I got a fellowship to Canada in Canada to study and did my masters And while I was doing my masters, I fell in love with cell phones. It was in 1983 84
No, no cell phones. They were backpacks at that time. And I said, I want to do a PhD in this area. And I came to America to do a PhD. Well, fortunately, that's when cell phones started to take off and everyone wanted to hire me. So I got a great job at GE. I led a research team, which was bought out by Ericsson. 11 years later, I became their CTO. Then I became the CTO of Sony Ericsson. And...
had an opportunity to design the first multimedia smartphones. We're sent to Sweden to actually build them in a company. Finished that, came back, joined a semiconductor company in Austin that was sold to private equity for over 17 billion. And then I decided I'll take a little break and say, hey, why not go and do some consulting? Do something completely and test yourself. Like to do something completely different without a big staff and things like that.
And I had five fascinating years. I had five multinational clients and was completely booked and busy and had a lot of fun. And the last company I consulted for was Blackberry. And then they said, hey, why don't you become an employee and run five of their smaller divisions? And that was a lot of fun for, you know, four years. And when I finished that, I basically said, you know, let me take all my experiences and write a book.
And when I finished writing the book, I was consulting also for this startup and they said, hey, help us scale. You seem to have the knowledge. So kind of I went from a big company to consulting and consulting to now a small company. And it's been a fascinating journey over the last, you know, 35, 40 years.
Scott
Yeah, yeah. And all of that experience, you know, really is something that a lot of people never have the opportunity to present that in an organized way and share that with a larger audience. And you mentioned your book, Your Company is Your Castle. It's an incredible compendium of all of those things that you've learned and put into place throughout your career. Could you share a little bit more about the book?
Who is it written for and what's your goal for your reader?
Sandeep
Yeah, you know, I got promoted very early to be a general manager of a business at Ericsson. It's a phone business. And I think they promoted me because they thought I was technically astute and operationally savvy. At least somebody thought so. But I was frankly clueless about business. Right? And I made a lot of mistakes. And I've said this often. But every...
you know, stumbling block became a stepping stone for success. So I learned a lot and I said, you know, I said, why don't I write a book for people like me who are first-time leaders who are running businesses or entrepreneurs who want to run a business about how to basically navigate all aspects of a business and not have to go through the mistakes I made.
And so that was the audience. And I tried to put a framework based on my experiences, both my successes and my failures. So they're interwoven and basically structured the book about all aspects of a business that a leader needs to know about, at least be familiar with. And then also have some recipes that they could use and improve upon to run their businesses.
Scott
Wonderful. And you know, as somebody that I remember early in my career, what was kind of in a similar boat to you where, you know, I was being promoted based on technical expertise and really had no understanding of the business side of how things operated. And so to have a resource like that would have been incredibly valuable for me. And I know it will be for a lot of people as well. And as a bit of a history buff, I love the castle metaphor that you've integrated into your book and how well it holds up when talking about a company.
Sandeep
Thank you.
Scott
If you would, I wonder if you could share some of the key elements of that Castle framework in whatever detail you're comfortable with doing and why you think it's such a helpful way to think about business.
Sandeep
For years, actually, I was describing everything I described in the book using the infographic of a house. And somebody told me, the first group of people I tried to collaborate with in writing the book said, hey, why don't you get a stronger metaphor? And then a little later, my agent and some of my editors also said, hey, Sandeep, maybe a castle would be a better idea.
It's got all the elements that you have in the house is just the most sturdy representation. And hey, medieval castles have withstood invaders and nature's elements for over 500 years. And a company has to withstand competitors and macroeconomic factors, which is the analogy for invaders and the elements. So why don't you do that? And so I said, that's a great, great metaphor.
or an extended metaphor. And so I started saying, okay, you know, all businesses need to start by having a good business model. That's the location of the castle. It's got to be strategic. Okay. The second thing is you need a solid foundation. You, if you don't have a foundation, you can't build a big castle. How do you build a really good foundation? And the foundation of the business is cash. If you can't generate cash, you can't build a big business.
Then on top of that foundation, you need to basically build a perimeter wall that surrounds the castle. And in the business, that's the strategy. You need it to encompass everything in the business. And then, you know, strategy, when strategy clashes with a company's culture, culture always wins. Okay, strategy is what you want to get done.
Culture determines what you actually get done. So what is culture? Culture is the keep. The strategy encompasses the keep. It was called donjon or keep. That's where everyone, the nobility lived. It housed the provisions, the armory, et cetera. If the keep fell, the castle fell. Similarly in a company, if a culture falls, the company won't exist. But you know, the strategy itself,
Sandeep
is very vulnerable because you have this big perimeter wall and if it's unguarded people can scale it, enemies can scale it, enemies can tunnel under it. So you want to intersperse the castle with towers. I mean the strategy with the perimeter wall with towers which house guards. Well there are four towers in my example. The first is product creation. How do you create winning
They are your most powerful weapons. The second tower is, how do you deliver these products at the right cost, at the right quality, at the right time? And the third is sales channels. They are your channels of sustenance or pipes of sustenance, because without good sales channels, how are you going to sell your products and get revenue? And the last tower is, or it's really the main tower.
And that is execution. How do you bring all this together to execute? And then finally, you need to be protected against the elements, like when it rains and snows and you have a lot of sunshine, et cetera. And that's the roof on the castle. And what does the roof represent? It represents stakeholder confidence. And who are your stakeholders? It's your investors, it's your customers.
and your employees. Investors give you money to do good things. And without customers, you cannot continue to do good things. And employees help you do those good things. So, you know, you've got to be able to get their confidence. So all of these eight odd elements that I've put together really defines a business or a castle. And that is why there is a very strong analogy.
Scott
Wonderful. As a former management consultant, I'm a sucker for a good framework. So I really, really appreciate that. And you talked a little bit about, you know, the writing process and how things evolved from where you started with, right, with the house analogy, and then moving to more of a metaphor around the castle. Can you talk a little bit more about your writing process? How did you find writing? I know, I know you write quite a bit or you did write quite a bit even before writing the book. How did you find it?
Sandeep
Yeah
Scott
going from more short form article writing to writing a long form book.
Sandeep
Yeah, you know, it was a really interesting experience because I actually logged the hours I spent. And it took me, the whole process from start to end till the book got published was about three years. And I must have spent at least 600 hours of research and about 2000 hours of writing. And what I found was
The first version I wrote rather quickly because there were all these ideas and I could write it very quickly. But I sent it out for review and I sent it to people, not just to friends, but also to people who didn't know me, who had an interest in management. And they all told me the contents. I sent it to you, Scott, if you remember. And everyone told me the content is very good, but it was, they gave me some pretty harsh feedback.
Scott
That's right, I remember, yeah.
Sandeep
and said, you know, you need to basically make it simpler. You need to have more examples. You can't have only technology examples. You have to have examples from all different walks of life. And so it took a number of iterations. You know, initially when I got feedback, I was crushed and I was not happy. And I just went for long walks and runs. I got over it. And then you basically say, you know, actually they're right.
and they are the ones who are reading the book, not you. So you better do something different. So I did this multiple times, and I actually spent a fair amount of money sending it to editors, and said, you know, I'll pay you, read it, and give me feedback. And I remember one pretty famous editor, he actually told me,
He said, Sandeep, you know, these type of books, I just throw them in the trash can. I said, wow. I said, how about you just read it? You're getting paid anyway. So he read it and he said, wow, this is really good. So he came back and said, it's really good. And he gave me 14 pages of single space comments. I said, wow, then you really read the book. And they were not substantive comments, it was more stylistic. You know, changing passive voice to active voice and things like that.
Scott
Hahaha
Sandeep
So, and then I basically engaged two fact checkers. I said everything in the book has to be fact checked. Okay, and then I basically actually got legal reviews done. Not from an independent law firm, plus every company I'd worked at, I sent it to their legal counsel to say, hey, you okay with this? That I haven't basically done anything wrong. And once I got all my endorsements and approvals.
Then I decided, okay, it's time to go to my publisher and say, and my agent and say, I'm done.
Scott
So it was a really exhaustive process. I love how you talked about the iteration, because I think a lot of people, particularly when they're writing their first book, once they get through that first initial draft, they feel like their work is done, right? And they can kind of hand it over and move on to other things. So I'm really happy that you talked about all of the iteration that took place and how that made the book better. What about publishing? What was perhaps surprising?
exciting, frustrating about the publishing process once the writing piece was done.
Sandeep
But before I answer that Scott, you know, going back to the previous question, the litmus test for me was to send the book to five or six pretty famous people who wouldn't lend their names to endorse my book and say, what would they say and would they really endorse it? Cause they don't have to. And they did. And you could see at the back cover the endorsements.
Scott
Mm-hmm.
Sandeep
They actually took time to read it and comment on it and express exactly how they felt. And that was really the check mark to say, okay, go publish. So, yeah, sorry. So you were asking about the publishing process.
Scott
That's a good litmus test.
Scott
Mm-hmm.
Sandeep
Yeah, you know, there's a couple of things I learned along the way that was kind of interesting that if you're not in a fairly significant position where you have a lot of visibility or you don't have a platform, a social media platform with a lot of followers, it is pretty tough to get a publisher, a regular conventional publisher.
It doesn't matter what the quality of the book is. You know, they're looking for some way to have a marketing launch with you on a pedestal. And of course that gives opportunities to several independent publishers, hybrid publishers and others. But I was fortunate that I actually met my publisher. It's called Fed Books. They're in Austin. They published over 55 bestsellers. And the...
owner of the business, Esther Fedorkovic, she basically read it and she said, look, this is dynamite, I'd love to do this. And then we got started. And what I did is I didn't, of course, take that at face value. And I went to a number of others and they said the same thing. And so basically I came down it, down selected it to three, pretty good.
editors and publishers and I said, okay, I'll go with Esther. And so, but it was a tough journey because I didn't realize what I didn't know. And that how the publishing business, you know, is that if you don't build your network, and I never spent time over 35 years trying to do that. You know, I find it a little odd to promote myself. So it's just a difficult, difficult thing. And so, hey.
But I'm really happy that it got published and it's got great reviews. And if you go to Amazon, people are actually taking time to write these reviews. It's not like one line, it's like paragraphs. So I'm happy. I just wanted it to be, it was not for any personal aggrandizement, but it was mainly for sharing knowledge.
Scott
Could you expand on that a little bit, just in terms of what your goals are for the book? We talked a little bit about what your goals are for your reader, in terms of teaching the lessons that you were hard won by you through experience. But what are your personal goals for your book, and how are you using the book to support those goals?
Sandeep
It may sound a little corny, but in a sense that I really wanted to share knowledge and make connections so I can help more companies and people. I've been fortunate to do well in life. And so the important thing is that what can I do to give back? Because all my life, as I said, I've been really fortunate that somebody took a special interest in me.
I would never know why because I don't know what I had to offer, but like I told someone, I've never ever sent out a resume for a job. I always got picked for a job and I sent the resume after they gave me the job because they had to have it in their HR records. But people have always been very gracious to me and helped me. And so I think it's, I'd like to basically give back.
Scott
Hahaha
That's wonderful. And I really think you have with this book. There's so much there for people to learn from, and it's going to make life a lot easier for those who are early in their career. For those who have considered writing a book, we've got a lot of people listening who have considered writing a book, but for whatever reason haven't done that yet. Do you have any advice that you would share for getting them past that hump of not actually writing?
Sandeep
Well, I think the first thing is, you know, it's always difficult because, you know, everyone including me, I wouldn't say everyone, but a lot of people including me are worried, like, you know, will it be well received? You know, what's the effort needed? And my suggestion is, look, if you have a good idea and you want to share it, go ahead. You'll never know until you try. You know, and but the only thing is...
actually spend the time. If you want to write a good book or a book that will have some impact, it takes time. You can't do it in a hurry and you have to be ready to get the harshest criticism and a lot of rejection. Many famous authors have been rejected a lot of times. I was recently at a conference and you know this book called Chicken Soup of the Soul.
Scott
I know it, yes. It's a whole series, yeah.
Sandeep
Is that what it is? I think it's... Yeah, yeah. So I met the author of that book, and he said that he was rejected 142 times. I was just like, wow. And you got a famous book. And so I think, don't worry, because I think a lot of people, when they look at books, they really may not even understand what you've written.
Scott
Yes.
Sandeep
Okay, they're looking to see purely economically, can they make it work for them? It's not a judgment of you. It's really their bet. And so I think if you have a good idea and you have the passion and you have the time and you're willing to invest the time, go ahead because it's a journey that I would, it's actually cathartic. You know, one of the things I found in writing my book is that...
I wanted to talk also about my failures. And talking about your failures is hard because you've got to admit that you screwed up. And you may have impacted a lot of people. You know, it kind of in a way, it's good. You just search and you say, you know, let's do this. And I am so happy I did it because it also made me reflect on what I could have done better.
Scott
So important, so important. And that catharsis, that personal journey, I've heard that from a lot of authors, that it was part of the journey that they didn't expect. They had certain objectives and goals for writing their book. They didn't realize how much they were gonna personally grow and learn from the experience themselves. Thank you for sharing that. What's the best way that people can learn more about your book and about you and potentially get in touch if they wanna reach out?
Sandeep
Yeah, so, you know, the one social network or professional network I'm on is LinkedIn. On my page, you can get in touch with me through LinkedIn using just typing my name and if you go to the contact section, you'll see my email address. So I'm available through email too. And depending on what we want to talk about, you know,
A lot of people reach out and say, hey, can we have a call with you? Usually I'm available on weekends. Weekdays I'm jammed from 5.30 to 8.30 in the evening, but 5.30 in the morning at least, so with calls and other things. But I'm happy to help. The other way is to go to my website to learn more about me. It's www.sandeepchenakeshu.com.
Scott
Hmm
Sandeep
And then, you know, my book is available on Amazon in three forms, it's on Kindle. And thanks to you, Scott, there's an audio book and there is a hard cover. And, you know, I'm also available to come and speak to people and share my knowledge. I get invited to a fair number of conferences and podcasts but the easiest way to contact me is through my email or through LinkedIn.
Scott
Okay, well we'll add those links into the show notes so that it's easy for people to access. Sandeep, I've really enjoyed our conversation and of course the many conversations that we had early on and throughout your authorship journey. You've been so generous in sharing your accumulated wisdom within the pages of your book. And as you mentioned, I think it's particularly important to our audience given that everybody listening to this enjoys listening to content, that Your Company is Your Castle is available in audiobook format. So...
be sure to get a copy wherever you get your audio books. Sandy, thank you again for being here.
Sandeep
Thanks Scott, it's been a pleasure as always.
Scott
As we wrap up this episode of Entrepreneur to Author, remember this. Now is the time. Time to write, time to publish, and time to grow. I'm Scott McMillan. Until next time.
