EPISODE #116
SATYA TIWARI
Curiosity, Mistakes, and Thinking in Decades
When Satya Tiwari talks about growing Surya, he doesn’t lean on flashy growth metrics or overnight wins. Instead, he goes back to the values his father taught him early on. “Integrity, hard work, listen to your customers and think in the long term. Not just a year or two, think in decades."
Host Jon Pertchik sat down with Tiwari to explore that philosophy and the company’s evolution from a single rug business in India, built by Tiwari’s father, to a multi-brand home furnishings player with Surya, Global Views and Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. This is more than a growth story. It’s a people story, driven by his deep understanding and appreciation of the customer.
Tiwari’s father taught him that lesson early on. In 1986, before outsourcing and international operations were common, he moved the rug business into the U.S. market. Not because it was an easy choice, but because that’s where his customers were. “He always thought in terms of decades,” Satya says. “Not quarters.”
When Satya joined Surya in 2004, he did something unexpected for a second-generation leader: he surrendered the idea that he had control. “I have thousands of bosses,” he says. “My customers are my bosses.” His ability to listen to the consumer became a competitive advantage. Whether it was taking orders as small as one rug when others demanded $5,000 minimums or encouraging retailers to buy samples instead of hoarding inventory, Tiwari learned that flexibility and understanding mattered.
Tiwari came into the design world from engineering and finance, and he didn’t know what “mid-century modern” meant when he started. So he asked a lot of questions. Curiosity, he argues, isn’t simply nice-to-have. It's imperative to your business. “Assumption is death,” he says. “If you assume, you decline.” That mindset helped Surya adapt to changing customer preferences and pivot when needed, including going deeper with interior designers long before it became an industry focus.
That curiosity also shaped Surya’s bold moves into upholstery and customized solutions with Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. When the brand entered bankruptcy, many saw risk, but Tiwari saw opportunity. This was a chance to bring a beloved American-made product to designers in a new way, with service and customization at the center.
Looking forward, he is still thinking in decades. He wants designers to see Surya in every room they design, not because of volume, but because of value: reliability, creativity, and partnership.
His advice? Don’t dream too small, don’t fear experimentation and always keep pushing forward. Because in business, and in life, lasting success doesn’t come from quick wins. It comes from playing the long game.
Jon Pertchik:
Hey, everybody, I'm Jon Pertchik. Welcome back to another episode of Scale Up Stories. In this series, we step out of the showrooms and into the boardrooms, speaking with CEOs, founders and business leaders who shape the design, furniture, and lifestyle industries. In this episode, I sit down with Satya Tiwari, CEO and owner of Surya Inc. Satya's story is a classic rugs to riches story. It started with his father's business in India as a small company in a small village focusing on just rugs. That business grew, and when Satya came along and started growing it and running it, he became an acquisition machine and has achieved an incredible level of success. It has grown into a multi-hundred million-dollar company serving designers across the globe.
One of my favorite perspectives from Satya, and I'll never forget this, is how he characterizes growing business and what it takes to grow business. And he ties small droplets of water that accumulate to add up to an ocean, and we all can break down big, scary challenges into their little parts. And ultimately, if you take one step and put one foot in front of the other, you can create an ocean. And that's exactly what Satya has done. Let's dive in. Well, hey Satya, this is one of the studs of the industry right now. These guys have been growing and buying companies, and I'm super psyched to connect.
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah. Jon, thank you for inviting me. I really appreciate this opportunity to tell our story.
Jon Pertchik:
We've got to know each other a little bit. I'm so psyched to have you here. Let's start, we can work backwards. Where is the company collectively right now? What's the vision? Just give us a little insight into kind of where you are and where you're heading.
Satya Tiwari:
So, Surya today, Surya Inc. has three brands, Mitchell Gold, Bob Williams, Global Views and Surya. And our whole objective is similar to and more how do we service our client being part of as many of their projects and as many of their lines in their project. And we believe in bringing great design, great service for a wide variety of customer base.
Jon Pertchik:
One of the things I saw in your background, again, your customers is your boss. Maybe speak to that a little bit. Where'd that come from in you? How'd you develop that view? Where does that come from in you as a person?
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, I think when I joined the family business in 2004, small business, there was always a stereotype, "Hey, you're boss's son or your boss, you can do whatever." And I always said, "No, I have thousands of bosses." My customers, they tell me every day when I do something great or when I don't do something right. So, I feel like that has been a guiding principle for us.
Jon Pertchik:
And do you think you get that from your father? Is it something from both your parents? Is it just something within you as a person? I mean, I certainly share that philosophy, and not everyone develops that self-awareness, there's other things that can distract one. I mean, that's the pure truth at the end of the day, your customers are the ones you need to make happy. If you make them happy, you're happy and your business is happy. Where do you think that comes from in you?
Satya Tiwari:
I don't know, but I would say definitely family. I mean, I've seen my dad built a great business on integrity, listening to his customers and anticipating where they need to be. For example, my dad started in India in a small village. Then he was selling to department stores in U.S., then he realized that he has to be in U.S., so he opened the U.S. office in 1986. Most companies in India, I'm not talking about rug business, even technology or consulting, until '91 very few companies from India came to U.S. He did this in 1986. So, this idea about how do we get ahead of our customer's need? How do we get more relevant to our needs? So, maybe it's just ingrained. I don't think it was just me personally.
Jon Pertchik:
It sounds like, I mean, knowing that your dad did that and did that bold move to get closer to his customers, I'm curious, how was he so bold to come here in '86 when people weren't really doing it?
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, I mean, he's a true entrepreneur. And I feel like his thing was very simple, integrity, hard work, listening to your customers and think long-term, not think about a year or two year, think about decades. And just the long-term values. I feel like that's something that when I was growing up, he always reminded me that all the things that he's doing that's all great, but instilled in me the value of hard work, value of education, value of being on your own versus just relying on what I have. So, I feel like just when you get real courage, when you're grounded by some strong pillars of values, and I feel like that's something that made him unique and gave me a lot of courage to take big moves as well.
Jon Pertchik:
I'm sure that relates a little bit to your having the courage to have some of the acquisitions you've gone after, et cetera.
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, I mean, he came to U.S. to support the department stores all over the country. You had brands like Thalhimers, Riches, Burdines, Jordan Marsh, but that was the decline of also department stores, especially in furniture and rugs. So, not only had a high cost of capital, your biggest and only customer base is also declining. I think that's when the pivot was, how do we sell to the future customers, not just rely on the past customers. That's another learning that I've had from my dad. You got to find the next customer if your existing customer ... Or how consumers shop. I mean, back in the days, people went to department stores to buy rugs. Now, probably later he saw that people are going to furniture stores, and home improvement stores were coming around at that time. So, he realized that customers that he has been serving, that's where not the end consumers are shopping the product we are selling, so how do we find new channels of growth?
And he worked with few importers, but when we are here already, those importers saw us as competition. So obviously, there's a little tension there. It was full of challenges, and my dad never lived here. He came back and forth. So, my uncle, he brought my youngest uncle there to kind of be here. I moved to U.S. in '89. We lived in a joint family. So I stayed with my uncle. I did my sixth grade in Jersey City. I went to a school there.
So, I feel like he had a lot of challenges, but one thing he always believed in, which is a good learning for me, once you've taken a step, just keep going. You're going to have deterrence, you're going to second-guess yourself. But I felt like he said, "Hey, we made a move to be here, we're going to be here." Because a lot of people would tell him that, "Hey, you wasted all your money, you should go back to India." But he already had taken the step and he said, "Hey, I'm going to make it work. It may take years or decades, but eventually it's going to work." I think that helped him.
Jon Pertchik:
I love that, because I've often thought too, so often people overthink, whether it's the strategy, how to plan for something. You do want to be thoughtful, you do want to be strategic, you do want to be careful, but at the end of the day you've got to jump in the pool. And once you get in, that's what determines success, because you can't anticipate all the variables that are going to come your way. So, that's pretty amazing. So, there was a time that, as I understand it, the IHFC had their signs that said, "No designers." Today, that's arguably the most desirable. All buyers are desirable and important, but the design community has really, really, really changed in terms of their importance. Maybe speak to some of that shifting and how similar it's to what your dad faced and what you learned there?
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, that's a great question. When I joined Surya in 2004, a good chunk of revenue was coming from traditional rug stores. Luckily I came to High Point for the first time in 2004 and I realized that we should be selling to furniture stores. Designers were there, but not in a way that's today. But very early on in the furniture store journey I realized, it's the designers who are making the furniture stores great if they're design driven. So, we have gone through many evolution. I mean, I'll tell you a funny story. The first showroom I had was in Show Place. We had two rug rack. I mean, it was temporary and we had some good designs, but we're just getting started. And everyone come in, "What's your minimum?" I said, "I'll sell you one," because most rug companies, you have to buy $5,000 or $10,000 or $2,000.
Jon Pertchik:
Anything over zero.
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, it's, "I'll take one." And then as we start bringing, there were only three of us, we didn't have salespeople. Customer will write their own order. Because there's only three of us, and if you have five customers. And they'll always tell someone, Hey, this is a great fine, the value, easy to operate. So, there's a famous Indian saying, "The ocean is made of droplets of water." Sometime, we want buckets, but each drop adds up. So, very early on we realized that we want to sell the customer that they want to buy, versus force something. We also start discouraging our customer to buy big inventory. Be agile. You don't know what you're buying. I don't know what will work in your market. Try swatches, try samples. Just listening to customers and really adapting to their needs from working capital to, I always tell our customer, "Don't worry about the product. Worry about driving people into your stores. Or get more projects in your design firms and we will help you with the product."
This is listening and adopting. And an earlier theme, you said, I'm a firm believer. I used to watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The crowd is always right. When you listen to thousands of designers or thousands of customers, you may be right in some ways, but when you have many data point, your vantage point changes. So I feel like I have changed my thinking after talking to my customers on many instances. So having the, which I love about this industry, we're not relying on one person's or two people's feedback. We have very vocal set of customers who are willing to tell us what we need to do better. So that has been always a source of knowledge for me.
Jon Pertchik:
So, what else? Anything else? So you come to the states here in high school in Jersey City. What was life like then? Were you working for your dad during that period of time? Were you working your tail off? Were you still figuring things out at that point of your life? Where were you at that point?
Satya Tiwari:
So in a family business, it's like a farm. Everyone pitches in. So on weekends or some days on weekdays, my uncle had a retail store that used to be open on Thursday night. So I used to go there on weekends. I used to help out. I mean we used to, back then the rugs used to come in big bale. We have eight, nine rugs folded, or three, four rugs. You have to open it, you have to re-roll it. So I used to work a lot. Now that was when I joined the business in 2004. I already had a good understanding of the business because of my early days. So on weekends I used to make, I used to go to, there was a printing shop in New York. You didn't have Kinko's back then. Used to make a one-page flyer and we had three rugs.
I mean, you didn't have the variety of product as we do today. And I bought this book called Chain Store Guide. It's a big book, and I used to mail 100 letters a weekend to say, Hey, how do I get more customers out? So, all the things that I did with my dad and my uncle, how do we get customers? How do we upsell? How do we, if someone is not ordering before ... CRM came later. If someone is not ordering, pick up the phone and call them. Don't just wait for the order. So all those little things kind of helped me. So I was working in the business, but I wanted to be academically strong. I wanted to go to a good college. So I knew I wanted to have my own path growing up. I didn't want to go to family business. I wanted to help.
Quite frankly, I went to Midwest, not in the east coast because if I was in the East coast I would come here to help more often. So I wanted to be further away. So yeah, I was helping the family business I was busy with, I realized my guidance counselor told me that, "If you want to go to good school, you can't just be academically strong, you got to be all rounded." I'm like, 'What does that mean? You got to be in sports," and I never played football and certain sports you can't adapt later. So, I felt like I can run. I joined Cross Country outdoor track. So I was very involved in, I was in yearbook, I became editor in chief.
My catalog that I developed at Surya was because I did a yearbook and I'm like, if I can do yearbook, then why can't I, you? When I joined, most people had like T-ring binder and they did that because you can add it and subtract it. What they didn't realize, people took it out, never went there. So your product offering is less. I'm like, I want a yearbook type of catalog, fixed catalog. And we printed 15,000. I think all those learnings came to me and helped me in my business. I feel like when I say I started in 2004, I had a great head start than many people from day one.
Jon Pertchik:
I love that yearbook reference. Something else I had seen in your background, or somewhere I encountered in preparing to get together. Curiosity is a trait that you sort of talk about. Maybe share a little bit for folks of the importance of curiosity and why you see it as something that really matters?
Satya Tiwari:
I think when I joined the business, if you see a lot of entrepreneurs in our industry, either they're product person or designer. So I came from the finance background. I did engineering, electrical, computer engineering-
Jon Pertchik:
An investment bank for a little bit too.
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, so I was a DLJ. I did that. When I came to this business, I had no idea what arts and craft was versus mid-century modern. So, I realized I had a lot of handicaps from day one, so I had to learn everything. So the only way to learn is ask question. That has become my trait. No one is subject matter expert. Things are changing fast.
You just got to be curious. You got to challenge your own thinking, push yourself. That has always been, there's a great expression I read a long time ago that when something like curiosity is, life assumption is death. When you assume things you're going to decline, you're going to go backward. So curious, that's something I tell our salespeople, I tell our designers, I tell our vendors and the customers, we should always be thinking, because humans by definition, we are lazy. The brave ones got out of the cave and they got killed. Our ancestors stayed in the cave. That's what we hear. So how do we keep pushing? Our natural instinct is to, hey, let's take it easy. So I feel like curiosity kind of pushes you, makes you rethink about the assumption that we all tend to make naturally.
Jon Pertchik:
It means you're also a life learner. You're constantly trying to develop and deeply share that philosophy. Another one I saw that I've seen you quoted, and I really embrace this too, and I'm curious to hear you talk about a little bit, is no one's penalized for mistakes, because mistakes are mess-ups, right? So wow, you messed up. There's got to be a consequence. Talk about why that's not the case.
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, if you think about our industry, we bring products hoping someone will like it. So, we get humble, we bring 100 new product a week, we don't know which one will sell. So for us, life is experimentation. It's not even a mistake. You got to try 10 things and you reiterate, you try and you reiterate. Now there's certain mistakes you want to learn from. With Mitchell Gold, we are getting into white glove delivery. We want to make sure the product gets there. So if the carrier is not right, you got to change it. But I do feel like how do make sure we value experimentation? If you don't try it, you're not going to get anywhere. If we just keep doing what we know, then we're not going to push the envelope. From my engineering background, which was always about experimentation, you try a hundred things and one will work.
So, I always like to try new things. I try to push our people to try new things that be a design. We brought bigger sizes, we brought shapes that we thought doesn't look right and it became our bestseller. So, we always felt like you're going to try it. And mistakes have led to more successes for us. And sometime when a buyer or we make a mistake, we only sell them. This is going to turn out to be a best-seller, and a lot of time it does. So, mistakes always helps you try new things.
Jon Pertchik:
Engineer failure into the system. And what I mean by that is we don't literally intend to fail, but it all starts with taking some modest risk, sometimes failing and going ahead. So that's another philosophy I really share with you.
Satya Tiwari:
We have to embrace failure and knowing what not to do is a learning as well. And you got to try many things to get there.
Jon Pertchik:
Life is not just about knowing what to do more often, it's learning what not to do-
Satya Tiwari:
Not to do.
Jon Pertchik:
And adapting off of that. Well, shifting for a second, going back to some of the acquisitions, you started to talk a little bit about Mitchell Gold and the White Glove. Tell us about some of the challenges and opportunities there.
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, so Mitchell Gold, I got to know the brand about 15 years ago, and as a customer, I bought one of their sofa. And first thing I realized, and I went to all the retailers, there's something about the product and the look and the fit was comfortable, stylish, but something that you want to sit in versus just look at. And I start selling them product. And interesting story, they already had a rug partner, so they won't take me as a vendor. And then I said, I can sell you Rug Pad. So that's how I started. I started selling them. Rug Pad said I'll take anything. And Rug Pad usually is the number one skew at any store. So I got the number one skew without even getting into the business. I just love the brand, the aesthetics. And over the years, this was ... So by the time I got involved in this transaction, the bankruptcy, all the stores were shut.
People have lost money. So, it was a lot of chaos. What I really wanted to do was going deeper with designers and we do rugs, we do custom rugs. We can cut a rug to any size in our factory in Georgia. So I just always felt like furniture, although we tell people start with the rugs, everyone starts with the furniture. So I felt like if I can find a way to have customer poultry, I'll be in their mind, and then all the other things would follow. But we also knew that it'll be challenging, right? Factory has been shut. There's no customer because they did retail, and they had some OEMs, they worked with folks like RH and others. They had shifted their production. So we knew the journey was going to be long again. So we knew from day one, this is going to be three-year, not three-month, five-month project.
And then we also knew that this is a whole new business. It's within our world of home. But understanding form, understanding. So luckily Mitchell is very much involved and he's, I've never met someone as passionate like him and my dad about product. It's not about selling something, it's about giving a product that you'll enjoy and you will enjoy 10 years from now. It's a brand that very valued, high quality made in America. And when I think of Made in America, it's not like we bring product from India, from Turkey, from Egypt. There's certain things we can do here and when it's customization. So, most of the Mitchell Gold product can select 300 plus fabrics. You can send your own fabrics. I got to learn the words like COM, customer-owned material, COL, customer-owned leather.
So, it's something that it's really getting us ahead of a customer that we weren't getting there before. So it is been a great journey. I'm going back to our previous point, curiosity, sometimes doing the same thing, you get stale. So this brings a whole new set of learning and challenges. But customers are really rewarding us. Now, we have over 5,000 customers who have opened an account with Mitchell Gold, over five 100s have ordered from us multiple times. So just getting in the right direction. But I'm really excited about this.
Jon Pertchik:
That's awesome. Stepping back, maybe talk about the segmentation of now your offerings and maybe where you see yourself going over the next five or 10 years?
Satya Tiwari:
Great question. When I wake up every day, and for the last 21 years, the idea is how do I get to the consumer? So, when I graduated college, I went to Ikea in Elizabeth ... Near Newark, New Jersey, you didn't have Wayfarers of the world. So at that time I wanted to buy what they call a disposable furniture. I was not buying stuff that I'll have it forever. So very early days I've realized that we have customers who are just coming into the market. They value different things. Then we also have customers who are living in nice homes. They want something that can last long. They believe in quality. So Surya, we shaped from very early days. We want to be good, better, best. We want to have very accessible price point and we want to be as luxury as possible. Now initially we start in the middle.
First goal was how do I get the rugs, now today we sell rugs to from as value as you can get to, as high end as you can get. Now, the same philosophy we want to apply now, each brand is a little different. So Surya, we have repositioned now as better best. We launched a brand last year called Livabliss that's more approachable value brand and value brand doesn't mean that it's not high design. Now, same abstract. We have in $10,000 rug and same abstract we have in a hundred dollars rugs. So we are not cheapening the experience. It's like you don't want to buy an heirloom product, you want to buy something that you can enjoy for the next 3, 4, 5 years. So, we have now Livabliss is our approachable value brand, and then Surya is better best.
Now Surya, we want to convert into a lifestyle brand. We have furniture, we have accessories, rug obviously we have a lot of that. Global Views we bought. It's more of a decorative accent brand. And decorative accent doesn't mean just tabletop. They have nice occasional table, they have a nice chair. So it's like a statement. And Mitchell Gold obviously said domestic. Now, if you go to Mitchell Gold showroom, the upholstery is domestic, the case goods coming from Asia, the rugs are from Surya, and accessories are from global views. I feel like each brand has a position, but collectively I think they kind of help our customer solve their design needs.
Jon Pertchik:
That's really interesting. I love that you like to talk about the long game. So, let's say 10 years or so, five to 10 years, what would you like to see at that point?
Satya Tiwari:
When a designer gets a project, I want to be an every line item, but I want to earn it. I want to give her service, I want to give her variety. Designers want reliability. Price is secondary. Obviously, you have to be priced right. But being there, be reliable, be on time. And also, give them unique ideas all the time. If I see myself 10 years, and before I answer that question in 2004 when I walked around I said, Hey, I want to be complete home. I want to be like row furniture is very hot. At that time I want to be a complete home with furniture, not today. I see I want to be a complete home from wallpaper to fabrics to furniture, good, better, best, and by the good, better, best.
One thing I learned from designers, designers in the same house in one room, they want something more economical and the other room, they want it to be a statement piece. So, this idea that designers don't buy value brand is not right. We have seen our designers are buying our value brand when they're doing staging. We drive our rental cars different than our own cars. So, when you have staging, you don't want to put the premium product-
Jon Pertchik:
Love the rental car.
Satya Tiwari:
Yes, I think 10 years from now, hopefully we can have more product offering that are designer focus. Hopefully we can bring value that it's not their value, meaning service, in stock. I mean those are the little things that have made us valuable to our customer base. And that has been a secret to our growth.
Jon Pertchik:
And thinking about getting to where you are now and then looking ahead, I know I have a chance to meet your wife who's the chief marketing officer. Who was the team that you kind of rely on to get from here to what you just described, these other offerings to kind of fill out that mosaic of offering to designers and ultimately to consumers?
Satya Tiwari:
Great question. And that's always been, from day one building the team and getting the right talent is always the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge. I mean you need someone that can believe in your vision is willing to put the work for success. So my wife you met, I mean she's one of the smartest caring person I know, and we have a beautiful family together. She heads our marketing. So, she has been ... She went to Kellogg Business School. So, she's really helped me push the envelope on many areas. Our CFO, Cesar, who I met at DLJ, he was part of their merchant banking, and he's doing a lot of strategic stuff for us. We have a great COO that we joined at Surya Day one. I met him in New York. He was looking for a job, he didn't find anything. I said, "Hey, I'm taking this big bet going to Georgia, why don't you join? If nothing else, you have a job, and if you don't like it, you can always move on." He's been with us. He made a quick departure for a few years. He came right back.
Our head of product. I mean, he's originally from Turkey. He was one of my early customers, and then he kept giving me all the criticism of my product. I said, "It's easy to criticize, come join me, help me fix it." And then he did. And we've been working together. So I feel like I have a great leadership team. And also, I mean from YPO and EO, I feel like I have a great advisor set out there. I like to read a lot, curiosity, reading, learning about things and really going deeper and questioning. And so I feel like I've been blessed with, and even in the industry, I mean, yesterday I had a Hall of Fame leadership dinner from Ron and Todd Warnick, from Paul Toms, from Hooker. He's retired now.
I feel like this industry doesn't get the right reputation. It's very friendly. In finance, it's very cutthroat. There's so many industries. I feel like I've been blessed with, even in this industry now I'm getting into furniture and all that. So maybe my doors are getting closed. Not everyone is as open. I was more like a rough person. But I feel like this industry has been a great from learning. I have a good leadership team. The job is not done. What's the next, I used to be the young guy, now I'm getting to my late forties. So now how do I build the next layer and the next layer. And the biggest problem that we all business have, how do you build the next generation that has the same passion, curiosity, the grit, being able to listen to a customer. We don't want to build the team where, hey, we are the expert, we are big, so you got to listen to us versus so how do we bring the same humility, which is the challenging part.
Jon Pertchik:
One thing I read somewhere, and I'm curious if this is a true story, part of your interest in reading came from where you got your first paycheck.
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah. So yeah, that's actually-
Jon Pertchik:
Let me share that story.
Satya Tiwari:
It's such a cool story. Yeah, I mean when I went to Harvard Summer School, when I was in high school, I needed to make some income at, Harvard Square was not inexpensive, food was expensive. Me and another friend of mine, I don't even know his name now. So, we start working for this professor, and he was moving his house. So I thought it would be an easy job. I mean, yeah, I'll pack some boxes. He hired me through an agency. Day two, I arranged, I said, Hey, you pay me less, a dollar less and pay me directly. So I kind of cut the middleman there. So I was working with him directly. So I told him, Hey, I'm going to make more you save. And we both win. But he had thousands of books in his attic. There's so many books out there.
I think when I saw all those books and his love for the books, that got me excited about just reading. And in college, in engineering you don't get to read a lot of books, but luckily I went to a school that wanted it to be broad-minded. So I went to Northwestern undergrad where you had to take many liberal arts college. So I think reading is something that I'm trying to instill in my kids now. And I think my wife and I have done a good job of getting them exposed to books and they have become good readers. This is something that it's been a game changer for me and for my family.
Jon Pertchik:
So I'm really curious, again, back to this theme of what made you who you are. You talked a little bit about your dad and how you sort of looked up to him. And if you can remember back, as a little kid in India before coming here, anybody who stood out in those younger years that you sort of either looked up to as a mentor or someone other than your dad?
Satya Tiwari:
I think my grandmother, I hung out more with my grandmother than my mom and my dad. So they were always doing something. So I think my grandmother was one of the most efficient, productive. How will you do more with less? This idea about today? Any job. I mean, people have too many layers, too many processes, too many reports. I just felt like I learned from my grandmother in how you do more with less and how do you preserve everything? I have her picture in my office. That's the biggest picture.
And whenever I'm either shaken by something or bad day, when I look at her, I get so much courage, because what she did then, I mean I can't even fathom the courage she had in India's very, even till this day is very patriarchal society and she was in a small village with nothing how she raised, and she instilled that my dad gets to a good education. So I feel like she's been a big role model and also learned that you can have so much happiness in simplicity. Money doesn't buy happiness, money doesn't buy luxury money may buy some material stuff. So I mean those are some of my fondest days of my life.
Jon Pertchik:
That's amazing. Thanks for sharing that. Knowing the world has shifted, I'm going to fast-forward until now. Designers are what really is such a critical part of the business. As we talked about a little bit earlier, what did you learn from that time that maybe relates to pursuing designers in an increasing way? How can you relate those experiences to today?
Satya Tiwari:
Great question. I think the design segment is very fragmented, so it's a lot easier. Everyone can name top 10 E-tailers, top 10 furniture store. Design is such a fragmented, so I feel like in the early days, all the fragmentation that I saw helped me understand the design business and also know that this takes a while. A lot of companies, they want to sell to designer, they try it, they don't get immediate results and they walk backwards. Then they go start selling to top-one hundred furniture store. I feel like I was able to see that this is a very fragmented market. You got to have many hooks, many influencers, so we know we're part of ASID, we are part of ISD.
Social media is a big play. Now, how do you get your message out to thousands of designers out there? So I think this fragmentation of the industry that I saw earlier in the independent stores, I think designers are no different. Now, designers are more agile. So another story I'll tell you, in 2008, the great recession we actually grew, and the reason being we had more designers in our competition and they were agile. They were doing projects all over the country. They were not, most stores were hijacked to the consumers that they were in their limited square mileage. I feel like knowing this is a long term, it takes a while and it's not one easy thing that will get you there. So, I think those things came together.
Jon Pertchik:
I mean, if I had to give you a middle name, it would be long game. It seems you really get sort of the long game perspective on everything you do. It sounds like you're really thoughtful and not just looking for immediate gratification, which is really interesting, because that's come up a few times today. One last thing, I'm curious, anything you'd want to share as kind of a business leader who's been really successful outpacing others, growing through acquisitions, really thoughtful about how you improve different parts of the business and playing the long game, which sounds like you learned starting with your dad. What else would you share with somebody either whether it's a young designer, a young retailer, a young person on the vendor manufacturing side, trying to get to another level. What advice would you give them?
Satya Tiwari:
Yeah, first I said no dream is too tall. I mean, go for it. I mean, you may not get there, but at least you'll try. So I feel like one of the things from very early days, I knew I could do a lot more than I'm capable of. I just got to keep at it. I feel like a lot of people give up too early or get complacent too early. So my biggest advice is keep pushing. As long as you have energy, I mean just keep pushing. I mean that has what gotten me here. Most people build a business to sell it. I'm building a business for forever. So when you do forever, then you don't have a upper limit. Sky is the limit. Just keep pushing. I would say and be authentic, be it's okay to acknowledge a mistake. I mean, I'd rather call my customer with a bad news early than try to blame it on some other external factor and just kind of avoid it.
And I think because you're going to learn together. So be authentic. Don't dream too small. I feel like there's a saying, I say internally and now it's beyond rugs. So it takes the same energy for a weaver to make a bad rug and a great rug. Let's not take shortcut. Let's think of everyone goes to one to 90, very few go from 90 to 100. Let's keep pushing. My advice would be, "Don't think too small, think big, and be a role model for others." So in the early days at Surya, I used to say, "Hey, we are not Google, we're not Microsoft. If we can do something in an industry that people think it's so behind, there's no innovation. If we can make a good example, imagine how many role models we'll create and how many entrepreneurs will create." Not everyone can code. So, I feel like any business, non-sexy business is a business that you can really take long. You just got to be disciplined and be long-term focused.
Jon Pertchik:
Well, that's awesome. Set your sights high, be persistent, be authentic. Well, Satya Tiwari, CEO of Surya, thank you so much for being here. I feel like I've gotten know you so much better. I really felt like you were a friend in the short while I've been in this industry. I really value your perspective, really have tremendous respect for you, and thank you so much for being here today.
Satya Tiwari:
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share about Surya and myself. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Jon Pertchik:
One of the key takeaways from Satya is, curiosity leads to discomfort or being uncomfortable. And uncomfortable is what creates the circumstance for growth, and Satya has lived that. It reminds me of one of my favorite sayings that, "Moss doesn't grow in a rolling stone." You've got to be moving. You've got to stay curious. You've got to be looking around corners. You've got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And if you're willing to do that, you can achieve great success like Satya has.
Maybe it bears repeating. Curiosity is life, assumption is death. When you're busy making assumptions, you slip into decline. When you stay curious, you inevitably grow. Maybe by simply understanding that the ocean is made of droplets of water, or maybe he's just really good at asking questions, but he's still experimenting, still thinking in decades because what he's found is that's how you build for forever. It doesn't happen overnight. Thanks for listening to Scale Up Stories, part of the Market Makers podcast. I'm Jon Pertchik and I'll see you next time.
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