Chair

People don’t realize they are regarded or respected for their chair/seat or job role. Once they are out, they will be part of the ether. The new person occupying their position will reap the same love, respect, and eye candy.

I have been in this industry for the last seven years. I have seen energetic folks making it to the top with their identity and hard work. They realized early on to be genuinely loved and respected, not because of their chair.

I have also seen many funds closing, and partners leaving and disappearing overnight. Some looking for jobs and not getting them because they forgot to treat others like humans.

media

I started my career with a media company. After 2014 and the BJP government, the definition changed to GODI media. It was all about praising the ruling government.

The current parliamentary election results are out, and we have a formidable opposition.

Will the 3ed pillar of democracy come back to its root instead of sucking to the government? We are a thriving democracy, and the opposition should have been equally treated.

I hope with this mandate, the media comes back to reality.

Commandments of good advertising

I am halfway through “Confessions of an Advertising Man
Book by David Ogilvy”, where the advertising guru talks about his journey, organization, team, and customers. I liked the part where he speaks about his commandments in advertising.

Commandments of good advertising:

  1. What you say is more important than how you say it.
  2. If your campaign is not built around a great idea it will flop.
  3. Give the facts
  4. You cannot bore people into buying.
  5. If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops pulling,
  6. Never write an advertisement that you would not like your family to read.
  7. Be well mannered and don’t be a clown.
  8. Make your advertisement contemporary.
  9. The committee can criticize advertising but they cannot write it.
  10. The image and the brand
  11. Don’t be a copycat

resource

My 7+ years of startup journey have taught me a few things. Hiring is the core. Finding people to assemble an Avengers team is what will keep things moving. With limited resources and things falling apart, having responsible team members makes things easier.

A well-defined process will be on my list after. But unless we have a team of responsible people with a well-defined process, there is no way of succeeding.

It is not age or number of years of work experience for owning responsibility but a collective vision. For a collective vision, everyone has to believe in the cause.

What has worked for me is aligning incentives for all in the team and pushing everyone to act like a leader, not just a resource.

Karm

Bhagavad Gita, stoicism, and Buddha say the same thing: Live in the moment and don’t worry about the result. Give the best of what you have in it. I have lived by it.

I know many people who waste life dwelling through astrology, sun signs, moon signs, birth charts, numerology, and other various Eastern beliefs. Instead of doing real hard work, they waste time blaming their fate & life.

Be wary of such people. They will do everything to trap you with their dogmas. They are like viruses.

Focus on Dharam and Karm, and leave rest to the almighty.

Quest

We humans are like onions. Every layer has its journey. In every phase, we run after a different quest: schooling, job, sweetheart, and wealth. Some of us relax, rest, and live a life now. Most others run for this quest.

Our life has ended up running against a treasure hunt. Our previous generation made this running track.

A few prefer not running, and society calls them a misfit.

As a mere mortal, you have to find your quest. It has to be in your unique way.

Control

As a founder, you are aiming for perfection.
It does not mean hand-holding and owning every responsibility.
You have to hire owners within your organization.
Otherwise, you will end up being the bottleneck, and it will slow down everything.

A founder’s job is to find able executioners, not become a control freak and put a nose into every decision-making process.
If you want the organization to outlive you: find responsible and able leaders. You have to nurture them, give them control to make mistakes and learn from them.

Everyone

In the early days of building your company, it is you alone and your belief in the product, market, idea, and execution. 

As the journey progresses, you realize there are many stakeholders. 

In short, you have a village to work with and for their success. 

You will not succeed if you are aiming for your good only. 

Everyone who is part of your company and in the journey of building the startup should benefit. 

We had some of our customers who switched from one fund to another. A few got jobs with our reference.  

There are a few instances where family offices reached out to us for reference checks on partners of funds.

price

One of the rules of negotiation is having real expectations of price. Because of our ongoing conversations, we forget to focus on the core. We start building castles and rope in for the journey together. 

When the conversation about price comes, we end up accepting the offer. The sunk cost and all the socializing and projection as a team we have done all this while. It takes a front seat.  

Many seasoned negotiators do this to win deals on their terms. They will keep making you run around and again. They will observe you, identify your desperation, and play their cards. In most cases, they win because we are naive and they are seasoned. 

Malgudi days

I am watching Malgudi days again. It brings back childhood memories: from school to cricket matches to getting pampered by my grandmom.  

Some of its episodes remind me of my village and summer holidays. Sometimes in life, it feels great to see the progress and advancement. While growing up, school holidays were about eating mangoes, spending time with Grandmom, and bathing in boarding pumps in fields or nearby ponds.

I get a similar feeling reading Ruskin Bond or Satyajit Ray.

Our country is so huge that every village and its everyday ongoing activities are no less than a book or Malgudi days equivalent in it.