I had an interview scheduled with a successful founder last day. I have revived aroundstartups podcast and mostly talking to founders. What was supposed to be a pre-interview conversation went on for an hour. We later realized it was an interview, not a coffee conversation. It was more like two listening and learning from someone …
Category Archives: startups
Growth
One matric which I consider for growth is how people in my team are growing and how they are maturing and getting ready to fill in our shoe. We had a good discussion with one of our early hires, the feedback we received as a founder was an eye-opener. I see growth as my team …
The Impressionists
I was watching the documentary and got to learn about: The Impressionists. A half a dozen of misfits going against odds and creating a new style of painting. Most of them were poor and; not part of the existing elite and, selling their artwork via Salon was not an option. The Impressionists came up with …
communication
With a group of great people when you are on the journey of building something, communication can make or break the ship. The other aspect is the expectation mismatch. If the product team is not explaining correctly to dev leads about customer’s pain and the sales team are not indicated on realistic feature releases. It …
culture
As the company grows, we get lost in many activities that take away focus from culture. We hire in a flock with people of various backgrounds and expectations. We forgo our principle because we need a 10X engineer or high flying sales folk. The side effect of this is people who were with you from …
Alibaba’s world!
I spent time reading the book title: Alibaba’s world, written by an early employee, ex-pat. The scale at which Alibaba operates is phenomenal. Its contribution to China’s economy is noteworthy. What fascinated me most about Alibaba is connecting the villages, small-time creators sell goods while staying and working at their remote hometown. The work and …
fast
We are living in a fast-paced world. New-age companies like tinder, Amazon, Slack, Uber has it in their DNA. Pace is the mantra for Gig-economy. At the same time, delivery agents and warehouse workers are turning into slaves. Build fast and break things are the new age startup, growth strategy. Hire and fire are the …
team
Can you match the salary of your team member with what your well-funded competitor has offered him? Some people move for better pastures and, you cannot stop them. Change and moving on is a continuous journey of our life. We have build capitalism, our society on money and most follow it. On the contrary, what …
Lipstick
I have been getting advice from people who are successful in selling or marketing. The problem with me is that I am not a believer in either. I apply the JTBD approach to sales. It is popular in product development. I have written about “Jobs to be done” earlier in detail. Pillers of Jobs to …
method
I keep reading tweets and hearing from others about how to build successful startups. The thing is most of these are someone’s experience or playbook from some university professors bestseller. These are unique and, 9/10 times will not fit with your journey. One sentence we keep repeating ourselves among us is: nobody should die in …