Arta Finance CEO shares his no. 1 tip for aspiring entrepreneurs

Given the ups and downs of the startup journey, the biggest “superpower” that entrepreneurs can have is the ability to ground themselves, said Caesar Sengupta, co-founder and CEO of fintech startup Arta Finance.

“There’s so much noise in the world,” Sengupta told CNBC Make It. The entrepreneurial path can be highly volatile, and founders will be pulled in many different directions, so being able to filter out what’s important from all of the noise is key, he added.

His no. 1 strategy for this is simple: “start meditating.”

“I wish three years back, somebody had sat me down and said: ‘Dude, like everything else [will] be fine. Just sit yourself down and meditate … know when to tune out,” he said.

Prior to co-founding the fintech startup in 2021, the 49-year-old spent about 15 years at Google where he led major projects such as Google Pay and the company’s “Next Billion Users” initiative.

It was at that big tech company where Sengupta met his co-founders and some of his first angel investors, including the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai.

To date, Arta Finance has raised over $92 million and is backed by prominent investors such as Sequoia Capital India and Ribbit Capital.

There is a massive shift you experience going from working in a big company to building a startup, says Sengupta. Not only can you lose all sense of work-life balance, but risk also takes on an entirely new meaning.

In a big company, risk is more contained. At a startup, “you’re just much more fragile,” said Sengupta.

“If you ask any entrepreneur who’s been in a large company, it’s a pretty scary leap late in your life. I would say there are days where you feel … 100%, and there are days where you’re like: ‘Oh my God, what did I just do?’ But I think that’s what I love about it,” he added.

Additionally, in a startup environment, it is really easy to get completely drawn in, “to the detriment of yourself, your family, your health [and] your mental health,” said Sengupta. “But ultimately, it’s about how [you] confront the ups and downs of life.”

That’s why it’s important to take care of your mental and physical health, he said. On a daily basis, he tries to allocate five to ten minutes a night to sitting alone and meditating.

He also uses exercise as a way to meditate. “I realized [that] cycling, for me, is not just physical exercise, but it’s one of the only times where no one can reach me … So forcing myself to be on that thing for an hour or two just makes me meditate,” he said.

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