Giri Devanur Of reAlpha: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO
Tags: Real Estate Investment, Rental Property, Airbnb, Realpha

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I have been an entrepreneur in spirit for a long time. I studied in a high school in remote India. There I was running a newspaper route with my brother. I realized that early on, I wanted to be an entrepreneur and run my own businesses. Then when I was 15 , I saw the first computer and immediately I knew I wanted to be in the computer industry. I did my bachelor of engineering in computer science. After that, I took my first flight ever in life straight to LA with only a few dollars in my pocket and started my entrepreneurial journey in the US!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Launching reAlpha has been an unbelievable journey. I never thought 8000+ investors would want to invest in our company within 6 weeks of launching our campaign! The amount of real interest in what we were doing has been so interesting and impressive to me.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I wanted to name my first company as Oasis tech. When I asked the printer to print a business card, he printed it as Oasys. I didn’t have time to correct it and hence kept the company name as Oasys itself. From that experience, I realized that building a successful company is all about details and everything must be reviewed. Read everything at least twice.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There have been too many people who have helped me. My family, mentors, and friends as well as colleagues have relentlessly helped me become good at business and life in general.

I could write a book on how lucky I have been.

As you know, the United States is currently facing a very important self-reckoning about race, diversity, equality and inclusion. This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have a diverse executive team?

I think America is one of the greatest places on earth. It allows people to dream big and achieve great things. Look at Obama, Serena Williams or any other sport, music or multiple other avenues of life. In technology, you will see companies such as Microsoft, Google and Twitter naming Indians as CEOs.

Of course, I think we can keep doing better, and there have been some aspects which can change. At reAlpha, we are bringing in the best and brightest from all corners of the world, we do not limit ourselves geographically. We celebrate cultural inclusion and respect diversity. We have worked hard to create a culture which transcends time changes, remote meetings and locations on the map.

As a business leader, can you please share a few steps we must take to truly create an inclusive, representative, and equitable society? Kindly share a story or example for each.

We are building a community in reAlpha. We want people to be able to create wealth even when they don’t have a lot of money or connections to begin with. We are working hard to make 99% of Americans who don’t have $1000 even for medical emergencies to create wealth for themselves. We also look to hire diverse partners as we expand all over the country and the world.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?

I think our most important job as an executive is empowering our talent to be the best versions of themselves. It’s never a one-person job. Hiring a team which is better than themselves is the core of what a leader must do. Then they should get out of the way.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive. Can you explain what you mean?

CEOs are normal people. They eat the same type of food, sleep at the same times, enjoy the same games or movies. They laugh, cry and go through the same emotions as anyone else. But in times of crisis, they are expected to show resilience and courage to show the teams and to lead in tough situations.

What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?

I knew being a CEO would be hard work, but I don’t think I realized how rewarding, and inspiring it could be. I get to learn something new every day and work to solve real problems. I have been a CEO of multiple companies. In my previous companies, it was more B2B. reAlpha is a community driven organization and focused on the direct consumer, so it’s a totally new experience.

Do you think everyone is cut out to be an executive? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?

No one is a “born leader”. People from different situations or backgrounds can emerge as leaders. Whoever aspires to be a leader, or an executive must do two important things. 1. Read diverse subjects 2. Travel and meet a variety of people.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help create a fantastic work culture? Can you share a story or an example?

Every company is different. Leaders should allow their employees to discover and define what the company culture is. Also, no culture is stagnant. It keeps changing and evolving. What was right ten years back is irrelevant today. Ten years from now, what is cool as culture may become useless. Leaders have to be able to keep their finger on the pulse and listen to the needs of their employees.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Creating first jobs. I believe in giving the first job breaks and taking chances on younger people. That’s how we can build future leaders.

Fantastic. Here is the primary question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Hiring is hard — one good professional is equal to 100 average professionals. Every successful business is built by its people. Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I’ve always made “hiring the best people” one of my top goals. Raising $10M is easier than $10k. The first step is always the hardest. RegA+, which is the capital raise method we are using, is still a new concept for a lot of investors. My team has been working effortlessly to educate the market on Reg A+ funding and crowdfunding. Now, we have more than 8,000 investors from all over the world to believe and invest with us. Speaking of RegA+, you can check out this deep fake video we made of Elon Musk to help educate investors on the concept. Technology changes every hour. We have witnessed great changes in technology in the past few years that are changing the world. It is so important to stay on top of how these developments impact your industry, or you could end up dead in the water. Marketing is so critical — can make or break a company. Whatever business or service you have, you need to tell a great story to your customers before their attention slips away. Culture can eat strategy for breakfast. If employees are not passionate about the company culture or vision, they will fail to agree and execute the strategic plans.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Helping people to build wealth. Most people don’t know how to build wealth. And without wealth, they worry and lose health! This is one of the problems that reAlpha is hoping to solve. By creating real estate investing opportunities to regular investors through Reg A+ funding, reAlpha can help the 99% of Americans invest in their first real estate property.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

This quote is from a 2000-year-old book called ArthaShastra written by Chanakya. (Think of him as Sun Zhu of India). He’s considered as the greatest strategist in India.

Sanskrit original:

Kimartham karishyami, Kim pratiphalam ,aham saphalyam prapnomi?

English transaction:

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions — Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them

Elon Musk. He’s changing the world in so many different ways. To the moon and Mars. I’d love to have a conversation with him about these gigantic projects and all humanity is capable of.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.