Interview With Ralph Chiti, CEO of Kobra Capital Investments

After graduating from Imperial College London, Ralph Chiti started a number of small businesses before starting a career in Investment Banking, Oil Trading and Oil Brokering. After co-founding an app, Chiti was introduced to the tech startup industry and began working at Google.

Since then, Chiti started his own Investment Management firm, Kobra Capital Investments, focusing on equities and real estate investments.

 

To get in touch with Ralph for enquiries, opportunities, investments, mentorship prospects and more: DM Ralph on Instagram here.

 

What Got You To Where You Are Today?

 

I grew up in London and I was always pushed down the business and economics route by my father, a business owner. So, I was always going to go into entrepreneurship and that was because of him, even though when I was 13 I loved singing and acting. Those were the subjects that I did the best in at school.

My father pushed me more into doing maths and economics and I went to Imperial College in London, where I did business and then worked for two or three years at the UBS Investment Bank. 

But I absolutely hated the city. I hated finance, and working for the investment banks, I just felt horrible going to work every day. So, on the side, I tried to build a tech startup and with a partner of mine, we raised $50,000 and built a product called Brisk.

Brisk was an iPhone app that amalgamated information from Instagram and Twitter to show you what you could take a brisk walk to in your area. However, it ended up failing.

A year later, I got a phone call from Google and they said they liked my LinkedIn profile. I always kept my LinkedIn up-to-date, it’s a big tip for your readers. You never know who is going to come across you. They called me and said, “we like your profile, because we’re looking for someone who understands business and sales, who is also into technology.”

After seven rounds of interviews, the job was in Dublin, which meant that I would have to move. I didn’t have money at the time, I had £500 pounds in my bank account and there was nothing else to it. So, I had no choice but to take the job.

 

What Did The Next Few Years Look Like After That First Step Into Work?

 

I worked for Google for two years, which completely opened my mind to what the world really needs – that was my real opening into tech. I absolutely loved the two years working for Google, but how we were looked after and the lifestyle that I led was completely opposite to working in the city.

At that point, my partner and I left Google and opened our own digital marketing agency. The initial focus was insurance and online casinos, only because we noticed that those companies seemed to spend the most on Google ads.

We ran that for two years, and it was very successful. After that, we went our separate ways and I went into finance. Now, I run an investment fund and have been for the last five or six years. I invest mainly in technology stocks back into tech, so I have amalgamated my tech life and my business life, spawned it into one and have now become a tech investor.

My most recent project is a Bitcoin quantitative algorithmic trading system, which automatically trades Bitcoin when given the maths and the patterns that we’ve programmed it to do.

 

Your Journey Is One People May Consider ‘Less-Traditional;’ How Has That Been Beneficial To You?

 

The advantage of it was my ability and propensity to take risks. Had I just joined Google straight after university, had a nice safe job at a big company, I probably would have stayed for 10 years and stuck with it. I’m not sure I would have left Google because the journey was a bunch of failed businesses.

I was trying to start all sorts of businesses, all completely high-risk. All those failures taught me that it doesn’t matter if you fail, you just have to keep going and so that propensity to take risks never really died down. 

 

 

How Do You Believe A Person’s Environment Impacts Their Professional Journey?

 

It’s everything along that journey because your environment is so much more powerful than your willpower. If you are a fantastic singer, but everyone around you is telling you that you should buy crypto and learn about that, then you’re going to think, “oh yeah, maybe they’re right. I should just buy crypto and singing is not going to be for me.” So your environment is going to completely shape you.

When you grow up in London and you see all these men with pointy shoes and suits walking into the office and you’re going to Imperial, you may think you want to work for Goldman Sachs or a hedgehog. But you don’t. It’s completely not suited to you. It’s absolutely not what you should be doing. You’re only doing this because you’ve been programmed to do this.

Your environment is everything. The reason why I recently moved to America is because it encourages entrepreneurship, and they make you believe that your dreams can come true.

 

 

Do You Think Coming From Somewhere Like London Sharpens You A Bit More, As People Are Considered A Bit Harsher When They Come From a City Like London?

 

It definitely makes a difference when you are born and raised in London, because you’re around a lot of wealthy, influential people so of course you are sharper. They are much less forgiving for your mistakes, and ‘silly’ business ideas or concepts. 

If you come up with some ridiculous business plan and you’re pitching it to a bunch of London investors, I do assume they will be harsher compared to investors in Norfolk who might be a bit more primitive. So it is an edge to grow up in London, and I’m proud of that. 

 

How Important Is It To Gain An Education About More Than Just The Basics When You’re Young?

 

I’m very jealous of this new generation growing up now with YouTube and the Internet. Now, you can learn about anything so what we are taught doesn’t matter so much in modern day because I believe that I was taught nothing at school.

It was fun and games. They taught me how to read and write, but nothing else. University taught me nothing like the business case studies of real-life situations. It was all theory, and never actually helped me in the real world.

What did help me was visualising the kids at school meeting their families, understanding what their families did and being pushed in the environment of starting your own business was encouraged, and you had to make the money.

Today’s kids are way ahead of their time. You’ve got 13, 17 year olds making millions, it’s really rare. The bar has completely changed.

 

How Do You Think The City Or Country That You Are In Will Impact Your Ultimate Success?

 

I have mixed emotions on this, the older I get. I think when you are young, you want to be in inspirational, motivational environments. You’ll think, if I work hard, I will drive a Ferrari like that guy is driving because you see a bunch of nice cars.

You see a bunch of beautiful homes and of course, you want to compete at that high level. However, as time has gone by, I value the balance between the two. I think the balance is key for humans, you need to have a mix of inspiration, yet also a kind of calming factor that you’re doing okay and not at the bottom of the ladder in an environment, but also not necessarily at the top. 

It makes me feel that I don’t need to keep competing and I can take a breather, I can sleep well, things are going well, I can afford certain things in certain places. That balance has kept me satisfied and content.

The environment is such an important key for your contentment in life and now as I get older, I value good-quality experiences and my peace of mind instead of making more and more money.

 

What Would You Say Is The Biggest Difference Between a 9 to 5 And Entrepreneurship?

 

My brain never switches off and that’s not a good thing. People say, “wow, you’re so ambitious, you work so hard.” But no, you want to switch your brain off. When I worked at all the companies that I worked at, I couldn’t wait to walk out of the door and drop everything until the next day at 9am.

I don’t advise entrepreneurship for everyone. Some people are made to work the 9-5 and will live a peaceful, content life and they don’t need to make millions of dollars. There are very different ways to live this life, and I think that satisfaction and contentment are the most important factors.

But it’s the ability to switch off after 5pm that would be the main difference. I’ve done both at a high level, thankfully. I’m grateful for that. But ultimately, that’s the difference. I cannot switch my brain off and that is extremely frustrating. It probably is the reason why I am where I am. I can’t watch anything on TV. As soon as I put something on, I feel that I’m wasting time, I could be building my business.

The key to life is mastering yourself and really understanding who you are and what you offer to this world. If you like your job and you like your team, stick to that, and then in the evenings, if you want to start a business, use the hour or two in the evenings or on weekends to develop yourself further to do that.

 

 

What Does Networking Mean To You?

 

My belief is quality over quantity. I don’t want to know what I can do with a thousand people, I’d rather know it with two really good people and have a chat with them. The best way to build yourself into somebody in this world is to build yourself in solitude, especially now in the modern world in this kind of gig economy.

I don’t value networking as much as I used to, you can waste a lot of time networking with pointless conversations with no real direction so it makes a lot more sense to go to conferences of things in your industry because your networking will be more directed.

My advice is to master yourself, understand what you like doing and what you bring to the table, then go and network with people who are of a similar mindset in a similar industry. That way, you can dig deep into that industry and become more of a key figure.

 

How Important Would You Say Your Personal Brand Is?

 

I think it’s absolutely essential to build your personal brand, no matter what industry you’re in. That is your marketing tool. You should be building a personal brand on whatever platform you feel comfortable posting on regularly. There are so many different mediums that you can utilise online, whether you prefer writing or being on video.

It doesn’t matter what people think and what they’re going to say about you, put yourself out there and I guarantee eventually you will find people that will be interested in your way of life.

 

What Would You Say Is The Best Decision You Have Ever Made?

 

It was that I decided to be authentic to myself and be completely who I am. That was a decision I made very recently over the past year and saying, “this is who I am, I can’t escape it, so let me start developing these things I’m interested in and just putting myself out there.”

 

What Is One ‘Hack’ That You’ve Learnt Over The Years? 

 

If I knew at 16, 17, what I know now, I should have stuck to one path and developed myself along that path and tried to become an industry leader in that field. That would have taken me a lot further than trying to be a Jack of all trades but a master of none.

So try to master something because now in today’s day and age, people will come to you because you are an industry leader for that specific role or that specific knowledge. 

 

What’s Next For You?

 

What’s next for me is to further develop my Bitcoin investment fund, and raise capital so I can take my investments to the next level and make bigger moves and risks. 

I continue to post on YouTube every single day on my male self-improvement content. It’s a community for men to improve their lives in every aspect, mainly finance, fitness and dating. So many young men are really struggling in today’s dating world and I feel like I want to give back to society, so I’d like to develop that community, start monetising it and sort of take people on retreats. That way, I can be with them face-to-face and give them some sort of guidance and be a mentor to younger men. 

Then the third pillar, which I’ll never be able to get comfortable with if I don’t pursue it, is to start playing DJ gigs. I’m a house music DJ so I would like to be able to play different gigs around the world. It’s my creative hobby so I want to further develop that.

To get in touch with Ralph for enquiries, opportunities, investments, mentorship prospects and more: DM Ralph on Instagram here.