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 …
Category Archives: startups
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. …
cause
It becomes critical to hire a team that aligns with the cause.The first ten members shape the organization. Hire a mercenary who can go at any length for organizational success. The team has to have the hunger and belief to win. You can’t get a dozen dead souls to compete in a high-energy execution battle. …
Straight
One of the jobs a founder should is straightening things up. The journey of any organization depends on its team. If you are incapable of talking to the team honestly, giving feedback, or taking criticism, don’t run a startup. A successful team and a failing company are distinguished in execution and leadership needs to straighten …
Cons
Every con artist comes with an expiry date. In the initial days, people love them for their magnificent talking skills and fresh perspective on every subject. This adds to their confidence, so they continue doing their puppetry until people start getting bored. The media loves these con artists because of their TRP and bytes. We …
importance
As a founder building a company, one of the most important things I have learned is “what I don’t want.” We spent thousands of hours meeting individuals who were never our customers. It was more for persona mapping. There are times when you will feel like giving up. There are days when you would feel …
Vision
As a founder, it becomes necessary to show the long-term vision of the enterprise to the members. Like an evangelical priest, a founder must discuss a long-term roadmap. A young team should know what they are getting into. In some scenarios, it will work for all in others, not for a few. The long-term vision …
Army
A startup team is like building an army. It has defined must-have virtues and must-not-have vices as the first level of filtration, something we, as founders, tend to forget because of building fast and fundraising. In the short run, this gets us funding or a product, but as the company grows, it bites us on …
symphony
Building a startup is no less than raising a child. It requires a lot of effort and dedication. Also, like a child, a startup requires every stakeholder’s hard work to make it progressive. In the current era, every part of the organization is dependent. A product requires distribution, quality, and moat to excel. It cannot …
relationship
What I dislike about our startup ecosystem is people trying hard to please others. Building a startup takes courage. It is painful and requires an unlimited grind. It is not for the faint-hearted or people for glitters. With all the money in the bank and your IVY league degree, you can still fuck up. We …