Manpreet Singh – Photo: Washington Business Journal
By Asia Samachar | Malaysia |
Here’s a piece of advice for entrepreneurs. Get out of the office when you and the team start feeling burned out and use it as an opportunity to have fun and form deeper relationships.
That is the biggest lesson picked up by a Sikh chief investment officer (CIO) over the years when dabbling in entrepreneurship and corporate work.
“No one ever does their best work while stressed out and there have been many times where a once seemingly impossible problem was solved immediately once we revisited it with a fresh mind,” Manpreet Singh, the CIO at Maryland-based private equity firm Singh Capital Partners, told Asia Samachar.
Manpreet, an entrepreneur, founder and investor, has been playing in the space of entrepreneurship since high school when he and his brother floated a social networking start-up called Desi Vibes.
When asked what is his advise to Sikh youth venturing into entrepreneurship today, he said: “Take any opportunity you can get to get your foot in the door. I got my first job by cold calling Eugene Profit and offered to work for his fund for free while in high school. I eventually became the first full time employee and helped grow the fund’s AUM from US$20 million to over US$2 billion before attending Wharton for grad school.”
Impressive, indeed.
Recently, Manpreet was awarded the Diversity in Business Awards by the Washington Business Journal. The award, now into its 15th year, sets out to honor outstanding business leaders of color in Greater Washington for their entrepreneurial drive, creativity and success.
At Singh Capital Partners, founded in 2018, Manpreet manages investments for more than a dozen families and has hundreds of limited partnerships with which it’s co-invested.
Over the past decade, the Silver Spring native has invested in companies like Uber, Spotify, Impossible Foods, Postmates and Robinhood. Singh Capital Partners manages investments for more than a dozen families and has hundreds of limited partnerships with which it’s co-invested, according to a report at the newspaper.
Manpreet was president and co-founder of TalkLocal, Inc. TalkLocal has raised US$4 million in venture funding and has delivered over 4 million calls nationwide, according to his profile at his LinkedIn page.
He is also the chief financial officer of Founder SPAC with CEO Osman Ahmed of KCK Group and executive chairman Hassan Ahmed, who sold his company, Affirmed Network, to Microsoft Corp. in 2020, according to the newspaper paper.
In December 2021, Founder SPAC, a special purpose acquisition company or so-called blank-check company, inked a deal to merge with Rubicon Technologies LLC, a smart waste and recycling software and tech company based in Lexington, Kentucky, to take the latter brand public on the New York Stock Exchange. The transaction, slated to close in the second quarter of this year, is expected to generate Us$432 million in gross proceeds.
His philanthropic activities include his roles as a director of the LaKan Foundation, a charter member of TiE-DC, and a member of Summit Series since 2009.
Manpreet received his MBA from the Wharton School of Business in Entrepreneurship, Finance, and Real Estate. He also holds a B.S. in Finance with a citation in Entrepreneurship from the University of Maryland, College Park.
In the interview with the Washington Business Journal, Manpreet was asked how he sets boundaries between work and the rest of your life.
He says: “I try to get everything I need to get done between the hours of 9 to 6 or 9 to 5. I realize I’m doing a lot less dinner meetings. A lot of that has gone away, post-having kids. When I ran my company, I was working seven days a week and in the office every day. That now obviously doesn’t happen. Weekends, I have a lot more time to play with the kids. And I’ve become very efficient with naptimes — during naptime, I get a lot done.”
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