Manoj Swarup
Appearances
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
In India, every day, 26,650 people dying every day. Over a month, that's 800,000 people. 800,000 people, how do we get to every household? And not only that, in the past several years, 50 years, you've lost about five family members each. But we're trying to get everybody on board so that the next generations don't have to suffer.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
It is something that you want to be remembered. Once again, the same thing that you say is remembered for. And what have you left behind? What have you done for the entire world? As I wanted to leave my mom's legacy, because I want the love to be remembered. I want her to be remembered by next generation. And that's what legacy means to me over and over.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
Hey, get up from the move your bum bum. That's what I would say. And that's what I tell my daughter as well. You know, you've got only one life. And if you want to be successful or you want to leave a legacy, just go ahead and do it. Chances of failure are always there. There's no businessman out there who hasn't failed. Everybody's failed three, four, five times before they can be successful.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
So don't worry about failures. If you will worry about failures, you'll never be successful. Love it.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
That's L-Y-F-T-I-N-D-E-X dot com. You go in there, put in your first name, put in your last name, put in your email address, pay seven pounds or nine dollars. Once you've done that, put in the details of the deceased family member. Whatever you have, whatever's available to you, put that in. Once that comes back to us, we will verify those details.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
Once those details are verified, you'll receive an email stating that this has gone live. Once that's gone live, you can start looking at it. Not only that, you can take that link and send it out to family members or friends, and they can come back and write stories about these. Oh, that's cool. And those are the last words for these people. If you realize one thing, we have funerals every day.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
people come to the funerals and they say something unique something different yeah yeah but those don't get documented or a card that yes and then they never get documented once they don't get documented we've lost amazing stories and legacies are lost like that yeah love it well there you have it everyone you can help leave legacies write legacies all for less than a slice of a pizza so
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
My name is Manoj Swaroop. I'm the founder and CEO of Life Index. Now, Life Index is something we do as we preserve details and stories of deceased family members. We're the only platform in the world which does this. And this is across 195 nations.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
So I lost my mother four years ago to COVID and cancer. And that's where I started pondering upon, what do we do? Now she's gone. She's done so much for me for 40 years. What am I giving her in return? Taking care of her while she was going through the cancer and COVID? I thought it wasn't enough. So I came back and I said, let's put up a statue in a town where she grew up.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
And I said, but then over a period of time, generations will pass by. Will they ever know or will they ever get to know our story? We scraped the idea. And I said, let's put up a bench and let's put up a bench in the UK in a park. But then you have a name out there. How many people really read that name? So I said, no, we're not doing that. Then I thought, let's do something very unique.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
You see the rich and famous kings and the queens and the president and prime ministers, they're always remembered even after they die. Bethany can find information. I wanted to make sure that my mom's details are remaining forever so that my next generations can get to know of them. It was not about the world. It was more about my next generations.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
So I just wanted to make sure that my mom's remembered.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
So the entire thing was more about getting the platform up and running. So I threw a very basic thing to begin with. I made it on my own. Once I got that up and running, then I went out to people talking to them about it. Once they got on board, I realized there's a lot of market for it. And then we thought we had a lot of people come back and said, try doing it on social media.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
But we realized one thing. Nobody's out there in social media looking for death. So we start talking to people. Every individual I've been around, I travel a lot. At every airport, I must have spoken to 30 people every time. And I've had people come back and say, I want to sign up. I've gone to another country and people say, yes, I love the idea. People come back.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
That's where we got more people coming on board because of touching lives, because of talking to people.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
So I think life for everyone is a little different. For me, it was a lot different as well. I grew up across the world in 36 different countries. I went to school every year in a different country. And it was fascinating because I never had any friends. The only friends that I had were my two brothers and my dad and mom. Because you move in every year. So from there, but landed in New York.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
I made my first software at the age of 18 and sold it off for $75,000. Just being a sophomore college student, I knew nothing about C++, but went into an organization, made that software. And that's where I realized, no, I've got that neck. My dad wanted me to get into more of IT or get into being a doctor because both my brothers are doctors. I said, no, I can't.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
I think I'm okay with blood, but it was never about, I don't want to earn. I want to make something different. And that's where I started my journey. I've done all kinds of jobs. I've worked with hotels. I've worked with being a salesman. I've trained people across the world in different countries. And then eventually started about, I had a restaurant as well back in India.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
So I had that, sold it off, and I said, fine, what do I want to do next? Made a dating app, didn't work, shelved it, and I said, fine, what now? And when my mom went away, this is when Life Index really happened. And yes, we did have those little failures when people would come back and say, no, it won't work. I said, why would it not work? You've got Facebook. Facebook worked.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
This person who spoke about Facebook, he went from college to college talking to people. And that's how it worked. And today people don't have to talk. They don't even have to empathize. People come on. Yeah, you create a snowball effect.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
And that's where we are in the same stages that we are talking about Life Index to individuals, to people, and people are using the platform because they realize the importance of what they've lost and what are they going to lose in the next 30, 40 years.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
Because we've got some people coming in the sales because we're recruiting people. So as of today, our requirement is roughly about 100,000 people that we need to recruit on board. Wow. We're recruiting people all across the world. And right now, our motive is by the end of this year, we need to have at least 100,000 just in Asia. Wow.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
You know how many people die in just one part of the world in India every day? 26,650 people dying every day. Over a month, that's 800,000 people. Yeah. 800,000 people, how do we get to every household? And not only that, in the past several years, 50 years, you've lost about five family members each. But we're trying to get everybody on board so that the next generations don't have to suffer.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
They don't have to say, you know what, who my ancestors were, who my great-grandparents were.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
One thing that we've got rid of is usernames and passwords. And that's one thing if you look at any platform is suffering today is because of usernames and passwords. Because I can go and create an email. I can create another one. I can create an account. And what happens? I have scams happening. I've got stealing of data and things like that.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
We said, what do we do so different that people don't have to suffer with that? We said, let's get rid of usernames and passwords. Now, you just go in, put in your first name, put in your last name, put in your email address. The form opens up. Once you've made the payment of seven pounds or nine dollars, the form opens up. You fill the details in the form.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
Once those details are filled, they come back to us. They're in the back end. Now, we go back and check. Now, anything before 1980s, because everybody wasn't provided with a debt certificate. Anything before that, we will take a word of mouth and say, okay, fine, we'll work with this. Anything after 1990s, we will not go ahead and do that. Why? Because these are recent debts.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
And most of the countries have started issuing debt certificates, so we know where to go and check. Once that has been verified, then these profiles go live. And they provide like their pro bio, whatever they, you know. So these people who come onto a platform, they provide those details because there's no where we can go out there and look for those. There's nothing out there. Yeah.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
We can. However, being a very personal thing, being a very emotional thing, we don't want to integrate AI. And we don't want another AI talking about your parents or about your great-grandparents. So it would be more the son or the daughter's writing it for the grandparents. The parents, the grandparents, whoever. I'll tell you my own story. My grandmother's still alive.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
So I went back to her and I spoke to her. So we found out details about my great-grandfather. Yeah, it's great. So if somebody who's older in the family is still alive, you can at least get about two generations out there. Yeah, that's great. But if you lose them... Which means you've lost two generations automatically.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
I think there's failure, there's success everywhere. When I go around the world taking awards, that's one of the biggest things that I'm achieving today is getting those awards. Maybe the other businesses that I open, when you go out there and you create something which is already running, the competition is very high.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
However, when you come up with something very unique, like Life Index, which is very unique and nobody else is doing it, you've got to market for it. I would suggest people that, you know, don't come up with the same thing. Somebody who's done it in America, somebody's doing it back in China, so on and so on. You're repeating the same thing, but to a different country.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
Come up with something more unique. I'm sure there are loads of ideas out there. And that's what I talk to people and tell them, let's create something different, something unique.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
Well, I want to be remembered as somebody who made sure that everybody's legacy is left behind. Yeah. I want to be known as, you know, I've been known in the circle. I am somebody who smiles the minute you come across and I want to leave that smile. I wanted that smile to infect other people. Yeah. Rather than anything else.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
I think one thing comes back to me is don't give up. And one thing that you need to do is if you've got something, if you have an idea, go and work on it. Don't think about it. A lot of people that I meet every day, they procrastinate. They keep thinking, can I do it? Do I want to do it? Stop doing that. Jump into it.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
As they say, if you want to learn how to swim, if you can stand on the shore and keep thinking, I'm going to throw my arms like this, I'm going to throw my legs like this, it's not going to work. Get into the water. There are two ways only. Either you'll die, you'll survive. If you survive, you're a survivor. If you die, which means you were never meant to be here.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
One thing that I do is if something comes to my head, I don't wait another minute. I just sit down and start working on it. Every other business idea would just come to me. Let's go back to the restaurant. Now, India has only seen smallest pizzas. I said, you know, what do I want to do so unique that would be different? And I thought of it, and I started doing it the next day.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
I got my own ovens and everything. Where India was eating the largest pizza was 14 inches. My smallest pizza was 14 inches, and my largest pizza was 21 inches. They're real American.
The Living Your Legacy Podcast
Manoj Swarup on Turning Memory Into a Movement with Life Index
That's where I made the difference, and that's where I knocked the market, and people were buying it off.