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 …
Category Archives: startups
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 …
little things
Founders life is different from media or news channels fundraising announcements. 90% of startups fail. No one cares about those founders. The founder’s life is about dealing with rejections gracefully.A teammate will fight and leave.A customer demo will go haywire.An investor will tell you all the wrong things you are building. It is like fighting …
doing
There is so much fluff, showmanship, and thought leadership around entrepreneurship. For me, it has been for one reason: finding people like working, spending time with, money is the by-product. Are we growing every day individually along with team and organization? Our life is limited. Every breath of ours, we are getting closer to death. …
fear
The more I have ventured into sales, the more I have realized it is about eliminating customer’s fear. In enterprise sales, there is one decision-maker who cuts the cheque but multiple stakeholders. So adopting something new, taking a decision is a tedious process and comes with lots of responsibility. The sales cycle is longer as …
mirage
I have been part of multiple funded startups. As a stakeholder, we are chasing a mirage: An investor bets on growth for the future. A founder sells his equity at a premium showing the total addressable market and disruption. On most occasions, this does not work out and, the company shuts its doors. An investor …