Harsh Garg is a busy man. By day, he is vice president of strategy and mergers and acquisitions at Ralliant, a publicly listed industrial technology company headquartered in North Carolina, where he figures out where to invest capital and how to grow the business.
In parallel, he is co-founder of Golchi, the travel-bottle start-up that raised more than $400,000 from 5,000 backers on Kickstarter.
In his spare time, he’s a strategic mentor at Founder Mode Bootcamp, a 12-week accelerator programme helping youngsters aged 13 to 20 to launch and fund companies.
The Delhi-born engineer spent 12 years in the US before relocating to Dubai with his family in December 2024. Today, he earns around Dh2.5 million ($680,000) a year across his corporate salary and a diversified portfolio of US equities, bonds, gold and real estate investments.
How did money feature in your childhood?
I was born into a middle-class family, so money was always highly valued. My parents instilled a great level of discipline in my sister and me in terms of how you value money, how you use it to unlock convenience in life – but more than that, how you actually use it to upgrade yourself, upskill yourself and continuously evolve.
We never felt that we were squeezed, but we never felt opulent either.
But things have changed, with the power of education and skill-building. Money has always been, and I think it'll always be, based on a value system, an important equation in our life. We never felt that we were squeezed, but we never felt opulent either.
But things have changed, with the power of education and skill-building. Money has always been, and I think it'll always be, based on a value system, an important equation in our life.
What was your first job? What did you earn?
I am a civil engineer by training. I went to the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur – IIT Kanpur – and my first job out of college was designing bridges and highways. I did that for six months.
That first job gave me a cash flow I had never seen in my life before. I was earning close to $500 a month back in the day. It was in India, so at that age, when you’re in your early 20s, that meant a lot.
Did you face any early financial challenges?
I won't say we had any sort of hardship but, given financial resources were limited, we learnt very early in life how to stay within our means and how to optimise – where to spend and how to save money.
We learnt the art of getting the maximum value out of money at a very early stage. And one realisation I had is that money will come and go, but the skills you develop, the personality you develop, will stay with you for the rest of your life and will keep unlocking your earning potential. That's actually part of what drives Founder Mode Bootcamp. We want to give teenagers the opportunity to learn a new trade, upgrade themselves, upskill themselves and launch new, innovative ideas in the market.
How do you earn money now?
I had a very early realisation that I wanted to be operating at a more strategic front – figuring out how to grow a business, how I add scale, how I take a business to the next level. That's what took me to my MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
I now have my regular corporate income, which is one of the most stable and healthy cash flows we have. And we have diversified investments – stocks, bonds, gold and some passive real estate – a mix designed both for long-term wealth creation and near-term cash flow generation.
The idea is that even if we decide down the road that we want to pull the plug on the job and completely immerse into entrepreneurship, we have a safety net of regular cash flow to sustain us while we break through something. The boot camp is pre-revenue at this stage, so it's not yet contributing to that picture.
Would you describe yourself as a spender or a saver?
My wife would have a very different opinion but at least what I believe is I'm somewhere in the middle. Given what I shared about money being a very important part of my early childhood, I do tend to save for future needs – retirement, the kids' education, things that require a significant amount of investment. But I also believe in investments that give me my time back, that give me convenience, that help me upgrade and upskill.
What has been your best investment?
I would answer that on two fronts. The money we have invested in the US equity market – it has been a recurring investment and, given the way the US equity market has appreciated, it has given me a very strong, risk-adjusted return.
On a more personal front, last year we got a Louis Vuitton bag for my wife. It made her really happy and I'm really proud of that.
What financial advice would you give your younger self?
Three things. One, money should never be the driver – it should always be an outcome. The driver should be what really unlocks your passion, what you want to pursue. Get really good at something and money will be an obvious outcome.
Two, always be passionate about doing something of your own. Even if you don't think of that as a long-term plan, I think everybody should try entrepreneurship once in life to actually make an informed decision.
And three, we never know when we might actually have a rainy day, so always save for your worst possible day.
What luxuries matter to you?
I'm at a stage in my life where a lot of the materialistic pleasures are already taken care of. But experiences do matter. Spending time with the family, taking them to new experiences, making sure the kids have access to new places, going on holiday together – things that help me explore the world across new dimensions.
