As a founder, you have the authority to run the ship as its captain. All other sailors and crew members are at your disposal. The ship has to sail, land, and operate. The crew may change for various reasons, but you must ensure that the engine is always running, the crew is performing at its …
Category Archives: startups
smart
As a founder of a startup, you have ventured into an uncharted territory with a 99% chance of failure. With a co-founder, team, luck, a cash reserve, and finding an early PMF, you can circumvent it. The journey is unknown, and you have to be positive, sailing against all odds. As the company grows, your …
moat
Time and again, in sales calls, people ask us what our moat is. We have been running taghash.io for the last 8 years, and we never thought in terms of standard startup metrics or company formation. For us, it has always been about solving customers’ pain points and getting paid for it. In crude terms, …
Optimism
One of the key challenges that most of us founders face is being an eternal optimist. Building a startup is no less than building a life and family. It requires lots of optimism. The everyday grunt to keep stakeholders happy is not easy. It’s like the world is crashing on you. Your family life is at a crossroads. …
Urgency
The last 4 weeks have been supercrazy for me. It feels like I’m back in my college days, hacking around, setting up Linux machines, and playing with various distros. The only thing that has changed now is the emergence of LLM and the mainstream adoption of AI. As a founder of a startup, one of …
owners
Many leaders are scared of passing their batons to their subordinates. One reason could be that they are scared of seeing them fail, which could affect the morale of the entire team. Another reason could be that they are control freaks. One thing I have learned about building a startup is that it is a …
Alpha
I sell software for a living to the venture capital sector. I meet many people regularly. Many of the successful firms seeking alpha returns have kept relationships above all. A few founder friends reach out for background checks about the organization from which they are seeking funding. My advice: go to the ones who will …
Maturity
A founder’s life juggles between insanity. What can save is having a responsible team. For that to happen, culture should embed maturity as a virtue. As a leader, if you do not ask questions and make people take responsibility, you will get nothing in output. A founder cannot run around like a headless chicken in …
Stand
You have to hold your ground and stand tall. Look at the trees: they have withstood all the weather. A founder’s persona comes with chaos, and multitasking is the default. Things will fall apart, employees will leave, competitors will creep in, and customers will leave. In these times, one has to follow the mantra of …
communicate
As a founder, you have to sell. It is not to your customer but to every stakeholder including your team. You cannot expect them to understand everything from inception, nor will they read your mission, and vision statements stuck on the company’s wall. You have to act, show, and lead it all from the front. …