Founders are the soul of any startup, said repeatedly. There is no denying this. But what happens when a founder has limited vision? We have seen this with McDonald’s or Starbucks; the original owners moved away. It ended up becoming a super successful enterprise with a visionary. In the end, it is about a leader, …
Category Archives: startups
winning
Enterprise sales are about winning people and their trust. At the same time, one cannot make everyone happy. We have many sales closed because stakeholders believed in us and, we delivered our promise with time. In numerous instances, our believers switched organizations and got us there as well. We closed multiple sales just by delighting …
Era
Are we living our life or outsourcing ourselves to the commons? How things have worked in the past or a defined spectrum for commons. In sales, potential customers talk about our competitors. They won’t get fired buying it like IBM. Are we living our life or outsourcing ourselves to the commons? How things have worked …
Powerful
The book ‘Powerful” by Patty McCord talks about hiring and the overall culture at Netflix. Patty was an early recruiter there and these days consults startups by teaching how and what to hire. If you have read No Rule Rules by Reed Hastings, I don’t think you need to read this book. Building an initial …
David
As early-stage startup founders, we are always like David’s in the battle with many Goliaths. A laughing stock, underdog, and with few believers. A very few crazy heads, after all, side with the ship sailing against the tide. Founders have a huge responsibility to go after existing players, win trust from engineers, customers, and everyone around …
journey
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 …
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 …