We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kunal Khorana a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kunal Khorana, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.

I don’t know if this innovative but it something I did during the pandemic that no one did. I had to open my Diesel Barbershop Franchise location in the middle of the pandemic. So I had to find a way of building a relationship with my customers during an era of social distancing and give an added perk. So after every week I called every new customer, introduced myself as the owner, ask them how their experience was. If it was great, then we just talk get to know each other and now they know the owner. I tell them, “this is my personal number, call me if there’s ever an issue. I’ll handle it personally.” If it was a bad experience, I apologize and tell them “try us one more time and I’ll cover the cost.” We turned around a good amount of customers that we would have lost off one bad experience. A lot of people loved that I called them and said “I’m definitely coming back.” I felt in the pandemic especially but really any time, this is important. It’s the extra mile to separate yourself.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Well I got into business by lack of options & necessity. Although soon I realized I was always a business man even as a kid. I used to sell burnt dvds and cds, a lot of young kids may not even know what that is, but bootlegs basically. I sold them in school and the hospital when I ended up on dialysis with kidney failure, which is why doing business ended up as a lack of options. No one was going to hire me. I have had 2 kidney transplant, lost both to reoccurrence of disease. I was handicapped for life from a drug scandal, and have had over 30 surgeries and my heart has stopped twice. So when the drug scandal happened, we took the company ti court and eventually they settled. They low balled the heck out of me I feel because I live in TX and we have a damaged cap. I would have received less if I took it to trial. So together me and my father partnered up and used the settlement as my half of our real estate business. My father passed in 2020 due to cancer, 3 months after I opened a dream for both of us, my barbershop. Our first business with a location and employees, not contractors. So during the pandemic, I had to deal with opening my first brick & mortar business in July mid pandemic, then losing my father and business partner, at the same time figuring out his half of the business which was taxes and accounting…..what a nightmare! Not only then continue to run the real estate business and the barbershop, alone while on dialysis in a wheelchair, and a few months later I develop my greatest fear of the last 10 years, it’s called calciphylaxis extremely deadly and painful. It’s a potential side effect of kidney failure, so as I’m running the shop I am having toes amputated due to this disease and then returning to the shop the next day. Until eventually In early 2022, I to amputate above the knee and decided to bring in a l other Houston franchisee as a partner to run the day to day. I still own my share in the shop, I just didn’t want to run the day to day without my father. It didn’t feel fun anymore and I do business for money but also fun. I am know pursuing other creative ventures because I have been told, my time on this earth due to calciphylaxis is limited. Although I have been told this numerous time throughout my life, this is very serious. So I started my clothing line Immortal Men, because I have always loved fashion. I used to paint shoes and clean shoes as well to make money in school. I also got back on YouTube,to my channel “All For The Culture”with 13,000 subs from my time interviewing rappers in 2017. I will now do documentary style content. I also opened my recording studio in 2021 with my friend and business partner, who is a music producer. It’s called AFTC Studios. I have also thrown 4 concerts in Houston, booking some top names in Hip Hop. I don’t know if I Answered the question fully, but definitely I am most proud of doing all that regardless of my circumstance & health.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I struggled with this when I first opened my barbershop, as it was my first time with everyday employees. One night I was hanging out with friends, and my best friend Neel Desai, who is my younger brother but got into business way before me and is another mentor in business. He started speaking about employees and how to get the best out of your team. As soon as I followed his way, I immediately saw a change and growth. So much change that when I gave up the day to day operations to my new partner, my employees begged me to stay and didn’t want to work for someone else. So what’s the advice? It was “your business doesn’t run without your employees, your employees have to believe in the business to sell it, so they are most important. They need to be valued and feel valued. You have to care about their issues inside and outside of the business .There’s no customers in a barbershop without barbers, so they are most important. So you need to care about their lives and their family so that they can then care for the business and you. It cannot be fake though, you have to really care. I started asking my employees everyday about their day so far and really listen. Not just fly by conversations, really caring about their lives and problems. Like for example. One day it was Saturday, and we were already short staffed and one of my barbers wasn’t showing and we had a lot of people waiting, I was having to turn walk ins away. She came in late and visibly you could see she just cried and cried hard. So I slowed her down told her, “take a minute customers can wait an extra minute or two.” I sat with her and spoke to her, come to find out it was her husbands bday, who just passed away last year from Covid. Plus she’s also having issues with his family now. A nightmare for any person to deal with. Now if I had been upset at her for being late or just acted like I didn’t see her crying so she went straight to servicing customers, it helps my business in the short term, but could hurt it in the long run. This way she saw I value her, her life and her problems, because we all have problems & bad days. As well as my other employees seeing how I handled it. It built up morale and a team bond. You have to show genuine care in your employees, they are first. Without them, the business doesn’t run.

Have you ever had to pivot?

So a time I had to pivot was a story I already told y’all about but I will go deeper and also talk about the pivot. I opened my first real business with employees mid pandemic. My father and business partner then dies 3 months later. So already sales are down, projections are all messed up, and over budget. I had to grieve, be there for my family & mother, figure out my dads part of the business, taxes and accounting, run the shop while everyone’s short staffed. Then staffing became even harder after the full lockdown around the country was over. I had to raise pay when sales are tremendously down. A few months later I developed calciphylaxis, a very deadly and painful potential side effect of kidney failure. It stops blood flow so then wounds that won’t heal are formed and develop a painful black layer on top. You have to start amputating. I had to amputate a toe on Monday and be back at the shop by Tuesday. This went on until 3 toes were gone and the doctor said, “you have to amputate half the foot, if that doesn’t show signs of healing in two days, we have amputate above the knee. You will be in the hospital for about a month or most likely 1 1/2 months including rehab. So I then said to myself “ok I don’t think I can run this day to day, no telling what my state will be after an amputation like that. Plus if I only got max 10 years left if Iam lucky, I want do other things. I don’t want to do this forever, but I already sunk real money into this. And because of the pandemic and being a new shop in a new area, we had not reach profitability yet. We weren’t far, at all but it wasn’t profitable yet. So the amount I could sell it for outright would be Pennie’s on the dollar and I would basically lose all the money I invested. “So I pivoted and brought in a partner who owns other Diesel Barbershops. I negotiated a deal for him to run the day to day and fund the business. So I eliminate any further cost or risk on my end but still kept enough ownership to make back my investment and more over time.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.immortalmenclothing.com
• Instagram: KunalAFTC
• Youtube: Www.YouTube.com/AllForTheCultureShow