relationships

What works in sales is relationships, my little learning in the journey of taghash. Many young professionals forget this fact. They see it in numbers and succumb to the pressure.

People buy from people they like. People believe in originality. When in sales, solving customers’ pain should be supreme. You have to have a level of empathy.

I have closed some sales over 2+ years of initial intractions. It happened when the team realized a real need. For me, they were not just leads but people, humans like us, who helped me with ideas and product advice.

Even now & Krishna looks back at the past and remembers those days when some folks who did not buy our product gave us valuable feedback, and some connected us to their friends who ended up as our customers.

We get time-to-time calls and WhatsApp check-ins from folks who were in the VC industry but now moved on. Some of them have become good friends.

Any relationship built just on the transaction is temporary. We have to be a giver.

Business is secondary, but relationship is primary. Build lasting relationships in life. 🤩

They

Our fear of “they” stops us from doing the invincible.
Most of us are tamed and fearful.
Social conditioning is so prevalent that any decision in life ends up keeping others in the center.
In most cases, nothing moves because of the village’s approval.

The baggage of others ends up burdening us.
I have met with a dozen elderly over the last few years, and many regretting about life and just living like a robot.
Their creativity and hobby had no room in their life path.

We look for others for feedback and advice without speaking to ourselves, without talking through our inner selves, and asking what we want. We carry the world within us, but we have forgotten to listen to it. We have got into a rat race defined by them.

control

The curiosity of a toddler guarantees they are breakfree. You tell them not to touch the lamp, and they will burn their fingers touching it. They are like water and wind. Flowing in their own rhythm, not used to any boundary.

Some parents kill that curious bit from their inception. They try to educate and bring discipline early on. The barrage carries them to their death by eliminating their curiosity.

Love is the same. When you are into someone, it is not about controlling them. It’s more about being with them, seeing them succeed, and cheering from behind. Life depends on trust, belief, respect, and empathy. Why should not the same virtues drive love?

one

The power of one is magnificent.

1/You need one yes out of all no’s to find the love of your life.
2/You need one friend willing to quit his full-time gig and work with you in the garage to build something big.
3/You need one idea to keep leading your life to eternity.
4/You need one lead investor willing to commit, and the flock of rest will join.
5/You need one customer willing to pay for your broken, semi-working product to kickstart your startup.

We are all scared. We are all simple people. We are risk averse. Anything out of the ordinary means No.

Death

Death is the reality of life. Yet we are scared of it. We keep planning for the future. We continue finding reasons for postponing all we want to achieve.

What is the incentive for mountaineer climbing the event when they know they are walking on their death trial? They accept death and live their life now in resting a life living moment to moment.

Delulu

Delulu or delutional is one core element in enterprenurship. Otherwise, we are all happy working 9-5 living in a work-life balance.

Entrepreneurship is not for everyone because because it sucks every part of you. It makes you think beyond the rest. That is how Tesla, Amazon, Google, Apple, and many other companies are. built.

It is good to be Delulu and stick to the ideas till execution.

bottleneck

A founder’s job is to eliminate bottlenecks on all fronts. The organization works on its own. Many founders take things too personally and get into I will do it all myself. They end up being power centers or control freaks. When in real they should be a leader watching things from afar.

A successful organization requires freedom for its team. A team differentiates a successful organization. A leader has to hold them on all fronts, empower them, and see them progressing.

In short, a founder should be the chief bottleneck officer.

visualize

Last week, I was listening to Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book spoke about visualizing a better life. It made me think for a while. The more I delved into I realized how important it is to imagine a better life.

When we imagine, our subconscious mind pokes us into reality to work and achieve it. However, to most, this will sound ridiculous. Deep thinking will make you realize that visualizing happiness and a better life gives us purpose. Our default gets into the mode of thinking better.

Our monkey mind is built over the century and is pessimistic by default because of the fight-flight we humans have gone through the century. The power of visualization gives us the will to live a better life. It cements us to believe in a better life.

pehchaan

Hum dhund rahe hai khud ko khud mae.
Hum dhund rahe hai khuhd ko unme.
Hum dhund rahe hai khud ko sabme.

Ek pehchaan hai jiske talaash zindgi bhar ke rehte hai.
Ek pehchaan khud ki khud se karne ki har pal khwaish rehte hai.
Ek pehchaan banane ki unse khud ke liye aisa tamanna rehte hai.

Hum khud mae is kadar kho zate hai ke mano dub gaye hai ek samandar mae. Aise dube hue hai ke pehchaan se bhatak se gaye ho, aise khoye hue hai ki zindgi ke taal dur hote dikhaye de rahe hai.

noise

Building a startup requires focus. The world we live in has all the ingredients for distraction. It is easy to get lost at events and announcements. It is easy to get lost in replying to unwanted calls and emails.

What keeps most successful ones going is taming this noise. A sense of understanding to mute unwanted chores.

A startup has a team, the pain it’s solving, and customers who are paying. We have to focus on these before anything else. Everything else is noise.