Commitment

Getting early adopters makes the product development process easy.
We started onboarding only a few early adopters on a module basis.
It saved a lot of our time and money.

We had a customer waiting to consume it. Some early adopters also paid us because they were keen to solve their pain points.

Everyone has free time to give advice, but a few use the product. So be very mindful of whose advice you are building the product.

We had a few instances where we asked the organization if they co-build and pay in advance. We onboarded a few and left many for any future advice.

As a founder in the early days of building a startup, you are very vulnerable, and everyone will take you for a ride. Be mindful of where to put the limited time you have in your hand. Everyone around will sweet talk and offer you a shit load of advice.

Take advice from those who are committed to your journey, not those who spin any ideas that come to their mind at an instance and are not willing to put skin in the game.

Rejections

We take rejections too seriously. We end up being sad or angry. Instead, all we need is to keep building.

Everything takes time: building a product, a startup, or a stable relationship.

Rejection is others’ opinion about you, your product but not the truth. Not everyone needs a product, appreciates an innovation, or commits.

So keep building, delighting, and find a few who wants to be part of the journey, work with them, build for them and build a life with them.

nature

We are living in a fast-paced mechanized world. Most of us living in metros are high on dopamine and are ultra-competitive. We are working hard to own every worldly pleasure apart from being the best in whatever we do.

I am no one to say good or bad things about it. What I do feel is that we should spend some time in nature and get rejuvenated.

Our life is too short and in this fast-paced world owning something and being someone should not result in missing out on what mother nature has to offer us.

opportunities

We have to make the best of the opportunities given to us. No one gets everything in life, but some make a rainbow out of it while others die complaining.

We compare ourselves with someone having more than us in wealth or glitter. As a result, we get depressed or get into FOMO. We forget to make the best use of what we have and chase an imaginary unicorn. We get tired, burnt out with time, and start disliking our existence.

Our allocated time on this planet is limited, and all the money or glitters will not change it.

suffering

How much of our suffering is the byproduct of our attachment and ego? We suffer from bodily and mental ailments, some of which come as a defect by birth, and we can not do much about it.

But what about the ego and anger; does it not make us worst and hamper ourselves. Does it not infuse rage and increase blood pressure causing many ailments? We despise the success of others and become miserable over the luck of others.

We get attached to living beings or materials and get into melancholy when they are not with us. Money, wealth, or companionship: all of it is temporary. We have no control over it. Still, like a headless chicken, we run around making it work our way.

We are the sum of our thoughts. Our world is in our consciousness. Everything else should be secondary and whatever we get is a reward. The never-ending race of possession is making us animals.

Answers

We go out and seek answers.
We seek comfort in the advice of others.
We visit peers, dargah, and shrines.

What answers are we looking? Do we even know what we want?

Are we wasting hours listening to an inspirational podcast or YouTube interview to get more lost?

How will we find answers when we are clueless about what we want or need?

Time

Time management is something that gets sermonized in our industry, how every minute matters and opportunity cost will matter.

I am not denying the importance of limited time in our life. But what matters is how we live from moment to moment.

For a monk, time is all about his meditation, and for a capitalist, it’s about making more money.

The question one has to ask is what are we doing with the time we have in our hands. Are we living moment to moment and making the best of it?

I don’t care about opportunity cost or running on the treadmill of becoming someone or something but utilising the moment with my absolute consciousness. I am not perfect yet but trying.

conflict

The entire world seems to be affected by the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The arms manufacturers and robber barons are doing everything to keep it prolonged. Our media has a TRP spot for it as well.

We meet friends and relatives and speak to everyone about this war and its side effect. We have all become experts in military and warfare politics.

We have all become war experts without winning the battle we go through every moment. The constant conflict of seeking answers and knowing what we don’t want is still lacking.

persona

Part of building a successful product is sticking to a particular persona. It gives you ample visibility of existing pain points of customers.

With persona in mind, we know what we are not building. It keeps us more focused.

People building large enterprises did not start it from day one. They learned and moved up the order knowing specific pain points. In short, they kept customers and their persona at the center.

If you are building a product, start small with a niche, pick a persona, stick to it, learn the trick, satisfy the user and move up the stack.

making

There is no overnight success. The sad part is that media glorifies the present much without listing the past.

We only know Edition got us the light bulb without million times he failed. We all know how Ray Kroc revolutionized the franchisee model concept with McDonald’s. No one knows he did not give up for 50 years of trying his hands in multiple businesses.

We must understand that things take time and that the journey is painful with lots of teaching.

I see current youth aiming to take shortcuts for glory because of half-baked media information.