Entrepreneurship

There are 19 posts filed in Entrepreneurship (this is page 3 of 4).

Startups – The how and why to fighting and winning against stronger opponents?

I was never among the physically stronger kids during my childhood. And since fist-fights among kids are not uncommon, I had to devise other ways to tackle my opponents rather than relying on only my physical strengths. At times you get beaten up, but since you know you can’t overpower someone you start hitting the areas where they might be most vulnerable. Sometime you just wait and pass time while your opponent gets tired before you take your shot.

Starting and running a start-up is also the same, in many ways. Being matched up against competitors many times your size and weight, and that too in a market which is not always ‘fair‘, to put it gently. But as in my childhood, being placed against a bigger opponent can have its benefits too. You learn persistence and resourcefulness irrespective of your current situation. These challenges are what makes a startup interesting, and those who drive the thrill out of overcoming these challenges are the right people for a startup.

Why would anyone do that?
You can ask that why would anyone want to fight against a tougher and stronger opponent? Why would anyone want to do something where the chances of success are only minimal? Yes, it doesn’t make sense. This ‘WHY‘ is very difficult to explain in words, but those who do it know the answer somewhere inside. Maybe it is the same reason people cheer the underdog team when they win against a stronger opposition in sports? Maybe it is the same reason that we draw hope from those who fight against the norms for something they truly believe in? Despite of all the fears and challenges. Despite of the very minimal chance of success.

Coming back to entrepreneurship, maybe it is just in some people’s blood (as they say entrepreneurs are born and not made). But whatever it is, the likes of Steve Jobs, Lance Armstrong, Bill Gates and Anna Hazare felt it and at many different times, each one of us have also felt it. When we believe in something for which we are ready to put a lot at stake, we all become entrepreneurs in a way. Whether it is fighting for a cause, running a business, or expanding the boundaries of human performance!!

How would anyone do that?
– Perseverance and Resilience
When you win against a stronger opponent, you become more confident and fearless. But when you lose, you start working on your weaknesses and try to make use of the resources you have. You very well know you can’t afford and have all the resources your competitors have, so you try to make the best out of what you have. And by doing so, you develop such a wonderful skill which even your big competitors doesn’t have – the ability to survive tough times with resilience.

Mark Twain said it very rightly so

Mark Twain said it very rightly so

– Iterate
In the startup world, as George Patton said “A good plan today is better than the perfect plan tomorrow”, it is very important to act on incomplete information and in a world where uncertainty looms large. If you are doing something worthwhile, then you have to constantly go into uncharted territory, try new ideas, fail, then start again, and then fail again. And so on. As you have to expand yourself so much and step out of your comfort zone in doing so, you also have a steep learning curve.

– Use your ego, but with feet on the ground
Ego is not always bad. Doing a startup is basically believing in yourself when no-one else does, and when even you have your doubts. It is about the confidence that “I can do it, I will do it, even if I don’t have the resources or skills to do it“. It takes a man with ego to go up and stand against the world. But at the same time, you need to stay realistic and know your limitations. A healthy ego is not only required but also necessary to constantly expand yourself and to keep fighting every day, even after facing many defeats. A healthy ego doesn’t stop you from getting back up knowing you might get beaten again.

– Getting things done, despite of a hundred things which need your attention
Startups aren’t for everyone. In a startup you always have thousands of things to do, and you don’t have anybody to delegate to. You will have to do all kinds of things which are normally reserved for ‘other‘ people in a normal job. In short, there are no boundaries of work. You might be planning, designing, coding, doing marketing and sales calls, all in a day. What becomes most important in a startup is to get a task done, irrespective of whether it is above or below your pay scale, irrespective of whether you have done it before or not, irrespective of whether you know how to do it or not. If a client is visiting and your office is a mess, the first person who picks a broom to clean up is the best fit for that startup.

In the end, I think it is the fighting that matters and not the winning. It is the daily grind you go through which is the most important part, even more than actually beating a stronger opponent. As it has been told by many great leaders – “The journey is more important than the destination”. I will end with a quote by Marian Wright Edelman –
“You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.”

The Most Important Thing in a Startup – Avoiding Distractions

From whatever little experience I have with my own startup and working with a few others, I can say that the most important, and difficult task in any startup is to maintain focus and avoiding distractions. Nothing kills startups like distractions. Distractions may be a side project you start doing for some extra cash, or a new idea which suddenly pops in your mind and you want to have a shot at it.

Do One Thing

If a startup can do one thing, and do it as good as nobody else can do it, your job is half done. Doing more than one thing is fine in big companies because firstly, they have the resources to spend, and secondly, they can afford a little distraction. But a startup can’t. So do one thing at a time, and do it fantabulously well.

Can you focus on what is REALLY important?

Can you focus on what is REALLY important?

Innovate

Startups are often credited with innovation, but it is very critical to innovate in the main focus area of your business. If you are working on creating a product, and somebody comes up with a great innovative idea to market it, you have to say NO to it (for now) and continue focussing and innovating in your most important task, which is developing the product. Because once you have your hands and head in two different areas, you might end up with two half-baked implementations instead of one great one.

About Marketing and Sales

Marketing and sales are no doubt important. But while creating the product, you have to make sure you build a great product first. If you have only limited resources, it is better to have a great product first and a sales team second, than to have a sales team ready to sell a half-baked product. Many people talk about social media marketing on websites like facebook and twitter. My advice to them is that people are already talking in social media. Give them a reason to talk about your product by making the product exceptional. Nothing else is required.

The crux of the matter is that time is your most important asset in a startup. And since you will always be busy and occupied with the startup, when you agree to do things which are a little different from your focus area, you are sowing the seeds for trouble. Maybe in the short term the new idea looks promising, but in the long term your main focus area will end up suffering.

This is what Twitter co-founder Ev Williams has to say –

“After my first company died, I did an inventory of the projects I had worked on in the last year. There were something like 30 projects that I had started on and not finished. My total weakness was focusing on things.”

Now, the distractions I am talking about does not include the time off you take as a break to recharge your batteries. So if take time out to practice guitar in the evening, or watch a movie, or read a book, by all means do that. Leisure time is very much important so that you give your best in your work time.

Three Years in Bangalore – The joy, pain and where it leads?

18 Oct 2008, that was the day I landed in this beautiful garden city Bangalore as a 25 year old full with enthusiasm and energy to make it big. Now, three years hence, I can say it is exactly the same state I found myself in. Buzzing with energy, pumping in 14-16 hour days and excited about a lot of ideas sprouting in my head. Now I won’t say that it has been all rosy in these last three years, as there was a brief period of being lost, where I hardly was able to put in 6 hours a day, and I was either angry, frustrated, irritated or just tired all day along. But I am glad that this phase happened, and gladder that it is over now 🙂

SaleRaja – The Joy and Pains of Entrepreneurship

The first year in Bangalore was full of experiencing what entrepreneurship is all about. There were good days, and there were not so good days. Technical discussions, night long marathon coding sessions, sales calls, and a lot of manual and boring repetitive tasks used to fill up my day. The Bangalore weather was the perfect catalyst for all this. Going to events, meeting the founders of other startups, partnering with a lots of people for different tasks and lots of brainstorming sessions made this period one of the most memorable of my life. I started SaleRaja.com as I felt working with InfoEdge that it was not too difficult to earn money ‘for ourselves‘. SaleRaja taught me it was not so easy either 😉 Nothing could be more humbling than that, and the lessons from SaleRaja makes me what I am today. 15 months in Bangalore, and I had to make one of my toughest decisions to let go of SaleRaja, which might also be one of the wisest. For the whole SaleRaja journey, I can say that I started SaleRaja for earning money and getting rich. It didn’t make me any richer (in financial terms) but it ended my hunger for money and pushed me towards a journey for more meaningful things, and that was a big breakthrough.

New city, New games

New city, New games

Exploring New Territories

Once the burden of SaleRaja was no more, I felt really free and light compared to the heavy feeling of burden which I felt earlier. I started meeting a lot of people from the startup ecosystem in Bangalore, also had time to catch with a lot of friends in Bangalore whom I rarely met during the times of SaleRaja. I got interested in looking for new ideas for business, and saw a few very interesting ideas by entrepreneurs. I joined Yahoo during this time, and apart from work, started volunteering to teach school kids as part of a Yahoo! initiative. This step was path breaking as it helped me discover a new side of myself and opened up a lot of new doors. Not to forget are the many long rides I did on my bike which literally meant exploring new territories.

The Joy of Starting New Initiatives

Around the end of 2010, I decided it was time to do something (again). Well, once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. I love starting new initiatives, and this time I decided to do something non-commercial, and something which was not related to internet and coding in any way. I took up a waste management initiative, organized an anti-corruption walk, and later started Pick a Fight. This journey, which still continues, got me in contact with some amazing people from the non-technical world, and it was an eye opening and view expanding experience.

Every city has its own language, customs and festivals

Every city has its own language, customs and festivals

The Future – I can sense some change soon

It has been almost two years since I gave up on SaleRaja, and I am really eager to get back to the game again. Although I am involved in the initiatives mentioned above, I am always excited by new business opportunities. In a way I can feel the winds of change coming towards me soon. I am not sure how long before I start something again, or whether I will start myself or join an already existing startup, or what idea it would be? But I am very sure that I am ready for it again now based on my learnings in the last two years. But this time I will not hurry up into it like last time (not repeating the mistakes) and do proper due diligence before jumping again (making new mistakes).

8 More Lessons from SaleRaja and other start-ups I have been associated with

Recently I wrote about some of the important lessons I learned after working with SaleRaja and other startups. I was pondering over this article and I realized I can think of many more points which I can write about. So below are 8 more lessons which I came up after reflecting on those days spend building some amazing products with SaleRaja, InfoEdge and Jivox.

8. Spend wisely

As a startup your balance sheet will be in the red in the first few years as you build the infrastructure, teams and systems for the future. Hence it is very important to monitor and control what you spend and for what purpose. Even if you have secured funding, you never know which way the economy turns in the future. The point is to always have cash in the bank to act as a cushion in tough times.

9. Networking

Big corporations are people independent, i.e. , they never depend heavily on any one or a few people for their business to survive. It is because of this that they can hire in big numbers, and even fire people easily in hard times. In startups though, the commitment to the company by employees is very important. Similarly, each employee is very critical to the company and it can’t afford losing an employee as it might impact their business. Due to this, the hiring in startups (at least the initial hirings) normally happen through networking and personal contacts as trust in the employee – employer relationship is very critical for startups. And networking is not only useful in hiring but in other business aspects too.

Beginning is Half Done

Beginning is Half Done

10. Have Fun Along the Way

I have always believed in the idea that if we love what we do, it is not work but more like play. And while doing different tasks during a typical day, it is very important to have fun and not get too serious. A team of people working who smile and have fun with each other in a casual atmosphere will always have more productivity. So in your team, play some games, pull somebody’s leg, take out time for discussions other than work, or whatever, but don’t miss to have FUN. This might be an exaggeration, but see what happened during a night out in my first job.

11. Do everything – customer service to sales to coding

As a co-founder or starting member of a startup, you should try to do everything to get a pulse of the whole business. That would mean doing coding with your engineers, being involved with your marketing team, going out on sales calls with your sales team and also hearing customer complaints and feedback. This will keep you well informed of what is happening in the whole ecosystem around your business and will help you make better decisions.

12. Do your Business Ethically

It is important to follow both the legal and ethical laws of the land where you operate your business. Being ethical will help you in fostering a long term relationship with your customers. Any success that is attained without the foundation of ethics is bound to be short lived, as lies and scams tend to come out sooner or later. The primary objective of business is not just to maximize profits, but it is also to be a responsible citizen in a just society and working in a way that benefits all its stakeholders.

13. Make Mistakes, but Don’t Repeat

It is only human to make mistakes, and as you start a new business, you will also make few. But the important lesson here is to not keep repeating them. We must take enough risks for our business to grow, but also be wise enough to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. We just need to make ‘new and better‘ mistakes going into the future. As for me, I am really glad for the mistakes I have made.

14. Mature with Time, but Don’t Grow up..

As our business grows and we reap success, we grow more mature and this maturity starts reflecting in our daily lives as well as our business decisions. But as a startup, it is very important not to loose what makes you special in the first place. It is always good to be a little crazy, keep having fun along the way and not get too serious. It is ok to risk, and it is ok to fail.

15. Don’t accept Failure as an Option

One of the most important word you have to stop listening when starting something new is ‘NO‘. So no matter what, in the face of a NOs, keep on finding new ways of achieving the objective, but never give up. Try out a lot of things, and go with the things that work. When things are not going well, take a break, do something which inspires you, but after that, get back to it with relentless persistence. Remember, failure is not an option.

7 Lessons from SaleRaja and other start-ups I have been associated with

When I joined my first job, work was on full swing to launch 99acres.com . I was part of the team which did all the technical work and the site was launched one month after I joined. Thereafter, I launched Sukip.com in Jan 2007 and Saleraja.com in Aug 2007. After moving to Bangalore, I worked with Jivox.com for 18 months. Recently I started PickaFight.in, this time as a non-profit initiative. In all these endeavors over the last six years, I got a good exposure to starting up and scaling up websites, both from a technical, product and business point of view.

There have been many lessons along the way, most of them learned the hard way. Here are seven important points I would like to share with one and all who might be interested in starting a web based business. Update – Here are eight more lessons which I wrote as a follow up article 🙂

1. Passion in what you are doing

Always do what you are passionate about. If you are starting a new website based business, it will keep you awake at nights and make you work on weekends. So it is very important that it is something you are really excited about.

2. Prioritize

In my first job, my boss gave me a valuable lesson, “In a startup, you will always have thousand things to do but not the resources to do all of them. The key is to prioritize among them and then keep your focus on doing the selected tasks to the best”. I have never forgotten this. You will always have more than your plate can hold. So prioritize, prioritize and prioritize.

Working in a startup can be totally fun and 'not like' work

Working in a startup can be totally fun and 'not like' work

3. Release regularly

We launched sukip.com after 6 months of development, and then SaleRaja.com was launched after just 11 days of coding. Release early, release often is the idea. Rather than planning and building a Taj Mahal after months or years of work, start with a basic model and then make changes based on market feedback. Because the customer is the best judge of your product. Period.

4. Understand technology driving your product

As a founder, you might not do all the coding for your product, but it is very important to understand the technology behind it. By doing so, you will be better prepared to perform your job when you step in the shoes of your sales guy or the product manager. In short, it will allow you to make better business decisions.

5. Work like a family

Starting a company is like raising a baby, and hence it is very important the atmosphere is very cordial and like a family. People need to trust each other, care for each other and treat the work as their baby. This family like work culture could be the difference between success and failure later on.

6. Hire people smarter than you or who fill your gaps

You might be smart, talented and hard working, but nobody can know or do everything. Hence it becomes very important to hire people smarter or more talented than you are, or who are talented in the areas where you have a skill gap. Many times people don’t do this for personal and ego reasons, but this is a valuable lesson which I have learned the hard way.

7. Work with people who share your value system

Although your work might not require you to deal with your moral and ethical values very often, it is better to work with people who share your value system. In times of crises, or in times of extreme excitement and growth, these value systems can sometimes prevent us from making big mistakes. At the same time, a difference in the value system can cause rift between the team as both parties might consider their beliefs as right and blame the other party for not understanding.