power

A lot many of us in enterprise setup crave power. I am not sure if it is their ego or lack of confidence.

A successful organization provides returns to its stakeholders and delights its customers while treating the team well. Every member knows their responsibility well. Success and failure are transparent in front of all.

As the organization grows, the culture takes a back seat, resulting in absolute disaster.

The league of intelligent minds gets into a power struggle and ego trap. As a founder, finding the right leaders who can escalate through this and build a team on meritocracy.

soup

Building a product is like making soup and depends on three pillars: what? How? When?

What?
Knowing the customer’s pain or what to build is the first pillar.
We involve customers, do market research and conclude on what to build. Our sales and customer support team’s insight is valuable in upgrading an existing product or developing an adjacent product module.

How?
This part requires multiple teams together with design to development and customer support. The architectural overview and development stage are the key aspects of it. Then comes distribution to a specific customer group and getting feedback.

When?
A clear timeline for delivery falls in when. As a project manager and product lead, this is your responsibility. Most product fails because the team takes ages to ship or overbuilds them.

“What, how, and when ” mismatch screws up a product or organisation.

India at 75

It’s India’s 75th Independence day. It would not have happened without the sacrifice of our brave freedom fighters. We have come a long way, fighting many battles within and outside. We are a young nation, and we have just begun. Our adversity is also causing abundant opportunity. It gives us the purpose to wake up and do something. We, the people of our country, will define and shape the nation in centuries to come.

Politicians will come and go. Dictators will divide, and fundamentalists will keep inciting violence.

The country must survive, thrive and progress. Lucky to have been born here in India.

Energize

One thing which any fresher requires at the start of their career is a coach. The other important part is getting feedback, appreciation, and constructive feedback.

Spend time with the young ones, and nurture them. They need enough love, respect, responsibility, and recognition. A successful leader needs an army of great talent. One has to nurture and energize them.

few

We don’t need a world to build something incredible or leave our legacy. Everything starts small and finds its course in the journey. It is easy to give up or forget about the true north and perish.

Someone has said that success has many friends and failures, none. I would say the path to becoming successful happens with a few well-wishers.

Whoever you become in the future, remember about a bunch of these few people. They will shape your life by bringing luck, motivation, and belief.

preference

Who decides what we eat? Eating chicken is a mainstream and alright thing but not some other animal? Is it more to do with economics or health or our religion? In the end, you are killing another life for your appetite. Why is this duality, and how does society perceive it?

Whose preference is this? Why is it imposed on us? Are we even aware that we are riding on others’ preferences?

purpose

As a founder, you are challenging yourself against all odds every day. Your days are a sum of rejections, failures, and successes. It is like sailing on unchartered territory with no end to it.

One thing which keeps you going against all the naysayers is your purpose. It acts as a torch or light. The journey of entrepreneurship becomes easier. You become fearless and walk every moment with an absolute focus.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is not a badge of honour.
It is a purpose-driven everyday life grunt.
Things will break during the journey or work out. It requires a lot of focus and dedication, unlike what the media and internet portray.

The amount of hoopla startup press has created about founders; I won’t be surprised kids without going to school will aim to become founders.

The media glorifies all the successful companies and rags-rich stories about entrepreneurs.
A few tell us that 99% of startups die. It requires a lot of patience, perseverance, and luck.

Becoming a founder is not a medal, do it for yourself, not for social media swag. Be honest to yourself and your purpose, and take a long bet. It is not a get-quick scheme overnight.

Company

I will be turning 37 in a few weeks.
I have been struggling ass off with Krishna for over the five years in building Taghash.

We are finally somewhere in the journey of building our company.
The journey with limited resources can be challenging.
One of the few things that worked in our favor: was the people we worked with: the team, our mentors, and our customers.

There are books, blogs, and podcasts on the internet telling you how to run a successful startup. It comes down to you and your definition of success. You need to know what you don’t want and the options in hand.

We almost took five years to go out and market ourselves. We silently built products and sold them to customers by solving their pain. We made many friends and learned about life and business.

The company of people around made a lot of difference: quitting is the easiest thing in the entrepreneurial journey.

We have just begun and solved less than 10% pain of our customers.