I have a hidden strength. I\u2019ve never been uncomfortable in social situations. So, when I walked up to Sandeep Todi in 1998 at Pragati Maidan, I was smiling to myself. It was a warm winter morning and I knew what was coming but I relished the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHi Sandeep, remember me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sandeep looked back at me blankly. He couldn\u2019t place me but I looked familiar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSorry, who are you?\u201d he asked, squinting at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All right, about six months before this conversation, I met Sandeep at an interview. I was trying to get a job at a company, called Batchmate, which was trying to build an early version of Facebook. Sandeep was a product manager and I had been shortlisted as an early employee. Sandeep was one person on a four-person interview panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me set the stage for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were seated in a banquet hall of an upmarket hotel in Delhi. The hall had been stripped of all furniture. All it had were five chairs and a table. Four chairs were placed together on one side of the table and another chair for the candidate on the other. The room echoed when you walked from the door to the table, there was no place to hide. It was as intimidating and sepia-tinted as it sounds. I don\u2019t remember much from the interview. Except Sandeep. He asked me a simple question. \u201cHow would you encourage people to shop online?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Again, this is 1997. A time when noisy modem handshakes symbolized excitement, email forwards were a novelty and Flipkart was not even an idea in Sachin or Binny Bansal\u2019s mind. I stumbled through my answer but it impressed Sandeep into saying, yes, you\u2019re in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t take the job. The company headquarters were in Calcutta and I loved Delhi NCR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou interviewed me a few months ago,\u201d I told Sandeep as he tried to set up his stall trying to get people interested in the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRight, why didn\u2019t you join?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I shrugged and tried to explain but Sandeep had lost interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few years later, I was working at Nasscom and Sandeep emailed me. He didn\u2019t recognize me this time either. But on reminding, he was warmer and treated me more like a peer than an indecisive young man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our relationship has blossomed since then. Sandeep is a very unique individual. Just like me, he excuses himself from the limelight and fights to stay in the background. An executor by nature, Sandeep\u2019s biggest strength is his commitment to a task. When we\u2019re trying to curate a large event, despite the time difference (Sandeep now lives in Canada), he\u2019s first on the call and last to leave. It doesn\u2019t matter whether it is 1 AM or 6 AM, if there\u2019s a call and he\u2019s needed, he\u2019s on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve seen Sandeep the product manager evolve into Sandeep the entrepreneur and while he has changed, there\u2019s one thing that hasn\u2019t: his single-minded focus on execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But while these are strengths that are more common, Sandeep\u2019s superpower is the unrivalled ability to analyze a problem while being empathetic to people. Or as I like to call him the empathetic problem solver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many people claim to be empathetic but very few know how to use empathy in their lives to truly pay it forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sandeep is an active listener, picking up clues not just from your problem statement but also your body language. He reads between the lines and starts to formulate answers based on the input. He will further drill into a problem by asking questions that will often make you question your own beliefs, but he does that in the hope that he can deduce a creative solution. All of this while being compassionate and open-minded so that he leaves room for you to adapt his solution in your unique way. This isn\u2019t to say that Sandeep avoids difficult answers. He\u2019s as prepared to take difficult, seemingly unpopular decisions in the face of a challenge if that\u2019s the only way out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But most importantly he\u2019s patient. I\u2019ve never seen Sandeep give up on something or someone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am glad he hasn\u2019t given up on our friendship and his commitment to SaaSBoomi. I am happy I walked up to him on that summer morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n