As a founder, life is no different than running a ship in uncharted territory. The help of team members makes the journey meaningful. Outsiders with no skin in the game have too many opinions. It can be social media experts or journalists, media houses. They see the effort or outcome from a biased and blurry …
Category Archives: startups
Grinding it out
I remember Karthik suggesting a dozen autobiographies last year and, Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, was one of them. Since I had seen the movie on Netflix, so skipped reading it. Last week I was bedridden due to cough/cold, that is when I picked up few books, this was one of them. Ray Kroc is a legendary …
responsible
A broken team blames individuals for failures but garners appreciation together. As a leader, what is right? Finding a scapegoat to offload failures or creating a culture where everyone is radically honest with ownership and acceptance: be it success or failure. In the end, the belief: we are all in it together, whatever keeps the …
us
Working in an organization where I, Me, and You come before Us can be painful for everyone. In a way, everyone has a sword and is fighting battle among each other. Instead of working together, we are all fighting to prove ourselves corrected. An organization is about working together and solving pain points for stakeholders. …
culture
What is culture for any organization? I am asking it because, with my limited knowledge, it distinguishes between a winner and a loser. Most importantly, it’s learned by doing and, leaders need to lead it. It is an ever-evolving process. With growth-driven entrepreneurship, hiring gets uttermost importance next to fundraising. The team has become a …
Privilege
I have been interacting with founder friends regularly. Most of them are working hard to sail on their journey. Some of them are seasoned and, some are out in the fundraising market. Their observation says privilege has switched sides. I am not sure if it is permanent or temporary. An incident a founder shared a …
route
A founder’s life is a roller coaster ride, someday painful while another with happy surprises. There is no end to it. One has to be or act like a router between customers, team, and other stakeholders. In the end, a founder is responsible for the journey of the rocketship. They decide and take the route …
Journey
Running a startup is like a movie; it has multiple phases. I was told by Ajay Gore; while we were talking. I have been troubling him on/off regularly for advice. It was him and Sidu who kicked me to start aroundstartups podcasts. There are multiple instances in your journey when you will get tempted to go out of your organization’s …
sourcing
In this hyper-funded era of the startup ecosystem, the dynamics of building startups have changed. In most instances, a founder has more leverage than an investor. The positive side of this is that now every fund has to fight for a deal. Those were the days when you get a cheque from a marquee investor …
Sticker
The sticker of our Alma Mater or who we worked for takes us somewhere. The ills of it are that we end up living in a herd with tunnel vision. In the end, execution matters, how we treat others matters, how we see ourselves matters. These stickers can become a burden on us if we …