It was 5-6 months back when Karthik had recommended the list of autobiographies. Shoe Dog was one of the recommendations besides a dozen others. Sometimes we need encouragement and autobiographies like these help. It resulted in me reading Shoe Dog.
I enjoyed every page of the book; It was like a script out of a founder’s life mixed with happiness, pain, fuckups, and shit. I will recommend everyone reading it. I will not spell the entire story. 🙂
Some learning’s:
- Every day is a Near-death experience in the early days. One of the other things will fuck up. Be it creditors, banks, or suppliers.
- Support of believers and mentors help in going a long way. They can be friends, customers, and people who have seen you grow in the journey.
- Running a company in the early days is grunt work for you and the team. If your or team’s family are non-cooperative, get ready for a shitstorm.
- Success and failure in the early days exclusively depend on the team. You have to work like a small family where David is up against Goliath.
- Cash is needed, and a founder has to be creative in generating the same to feed their and the team’s family.
- A culture of independence, transparency, and freedom is the only way to succeed in the long term.
- There is no checklist of success. One has to keep trying, failing, and learning from past mistakes. One has to reinvent from the crisis.
- The organization has to grow from the inside. You cannot bring a fat gorilla from outside to run a zoo. There has to be a clear path within the organization for team members and early believers who have been through the entire cycle. As the company grows, they should as well.
- One has to be in the right place at the right time. It’s essential with our sweat, hard work, and pain. Our luck has a role to play in our life.