It's been a while since I posted anything here. Well, it's never too late. Here is an update.
After a long and eventful stint in the US, I am back in India. Every day, I have conflicting thoughts about my relocation to India. There are plenty of instances when I regret my decision, but on the other side, I am also happy for the opportunity to experience the joy of seeing my lovely niece and nephew grow up!
What's really keeping me busy is my Startup - Jodi Logik. Here are some thoughts I wanted to share about my entrepreneurial journey so far.
1. Don't start a company without a team of people who share the same vision about what you want to do. Ideally, your co-founders should have the complementary skills and can take ownership for a part of the business operations. In my case, I tried bringing together a team before starting and failed miserably. I went ahead and started anyway and I am exhausted trying to be a superhero every day.
2. Passion is everything. It can give you the power to take potentially suicidal decisions such as giving up on a cushy job, taking on humongous daily workload, enduring sleepless nights (I can't remember the last time I had a good night's sleep), and trying to convince your family that your efforts will pay off some time in the distant future.
3. While passion can be potentially suicidal, it also helps you get over speed bumps along the way. Because your brain is always working, you will end up solving most problems. The fact that your rear end is on fire pushes you to do amazing things. You will be surprised what an intrinsic fear of failure can do to you. But the fear has to be felt from inside the core.
4. I learnt that young Indian men and women have zero professional courtesy. Whenever I hear, "I will get back to you..." from anyone, I just assume that they won't. I am right 90% of the time. The funny thing is that I get the same treatment even from people I know and have worked with before! I am not saying everyone is bad and I am blessed to know a handful of people who take their word seriously. As a culture, we have failed to inculcate better manners in our children. I suggest every Indian should travel to a foreign country for at least for 1 week so they see the outside world. May I suggest Prime Minister Narendra Modi take 100 random Indians in his 747 every time he goes on a foreign trip? He needs to just make sure they come back.
5. Building a product is a continuous process that never stops. I see it as an infinite loop of improvement. Essentially, it a "Release - Feedback - Update - Release" cycle that needs to be carefully managed. Always watch out for what customers do with your product and how they use it / ignore it. Think about putting in place a mechanism to observe and monitor customer behavior when using your product. I learnt this late, but it is never too late.
6. There is never a dull moment. You will always have a dozen problems to solve at any time. Don't be overwhelmed. Just prioritize and diligently work towards solving one problem at a time. Remember the point about having co-founders? They would have helped me flush out these problems much faster!
7. Talking of speed, investors are looking for speed. This translates to your ability to execute on your ideas and recover from your mistakes quickly. They are looking for the fastest path to getting multiples on their investment. Remember that always.
8. Having a cool office, the latest laptop, branded T shirts etc are only for those Startups that have traction or investments or both. Nothing of this sort is needed if you are just starting out. Every Dollar or Rupee should go into your product. Thank God I have Indian parents. I am back to being a school kid when it comes to asking parents for pocket money. They oblige.
9. Learn from marketing experts, sales gurus, books, and thinkers. Now put everything you have learnt into practice. Wondering why I have 9 points in this article? It is a fact that list type articles that rank high on Google invariably have odd number of points! I learnt this by closely following a B2C marketing guru and so far his teachings have helped me a lot. Jodi Logik hit 33K monthly page views and growing :)
After a long and eventful stint in the US, I am back in India. Every day, I have conflicting thoughts about my relocation to India. There are plenty of instances when I regret my decision, but on the other side, I am also happy for the opportunity to experience the joy of seeing my lovely niece and nephew grow up!
What's really keeping me busy is my Startup - Jodi Logik. Here are some thoughts I wanted to share about my entrepreneurial journey so far.
1. Don't start a company without a team of people who share the same vision about what you want to do. Ideally, your co-founders should have the complementary skills and can take ownership for a part of the business operations. In my case, I tried bringing together a team before starting and failed miserably. I went ahead and started anyway and I am exhausted trying to be a superhero every day.
2. Passion is everything. It can give you the power to take potentially suicidal decisions such as giving up on a cushy job, taking on humongous daily workload, enduring sleepless nights (I can't remember the last time I had a good night's sleep), and trying to convince your family that your efforts will pay off some time in the distant future.
3. While passion can be potentially suicidal, it also helps you get over speed bumps along the way. Because your brain is always working, you will end up solving most problems. The fact that your rear end is on fire pushes you to do amazing things. You will be surprised what an intrinsic fear of failure can do to you. But the fear has to be felt from inside the core.
4. I learnt that young Indian men and women have zero professional courtesy. Whenever I hear, "I will get back to you..." from anyone, I just assume that they won't. I am right 90% of the time. The funny thing is that I get the same treatment even from people I know and have worked with before! I am not saying everyone is bad and I am blessed to know a handful of people who take their word seriously. As a culture, we have failed to inculcate better manners in our children. I suggest every Indian should travel to a foreign country for at least for 1 week so they see the outside world. May I suggest Prime Minister Narendra Modi take 100 random Indians in his 747 every time he goes on a foreign trip? He needs to just make sure they come back.
5. Building a product is a continuous process that never stops. I see it as an infinite loop of improvement. Essentially, it a "Release - Feedback - Update - Release" cycle that needs to be carefully managed. Always watch out for what customers do with your product and how they use it / ignore it. Think about putting in place a mechanism to observe and monitor customer behavior when using your product. I learnt this late, but it is never too late.
6. There is never a dull moment. You will always have a dozen problems to solve at any time. Don't be overwhelmed. Just prioritize and diligently work towards solving one problem at a time. Remember the point about having co-founders? They would have helped me flush out these problems much faster!
7. Talking of speed, investors are looking for speed. This translates to your ability to execute on your ideas and recover from your mistakes quickly. They are looking for the fastest path to getting multiples on their investment. Remember that always.
8. Having a cool office, the latest laptop, branded T shirts etc are only for those Startups that have traction or investments or both. Nothing of this sort is needed if you are just starting out. Every Dollar or Rupee should go into your product. Thank God I have Indian parents. I am back to being a school kid when it comes to asking parents for pocket money. They oblige.
9. Learn from marketing experts, sales gurus, books, and thinkers. Now put everything you have learnt into practice. Wondering why I have 9 points in this article? It is a fact that list type articles that rank high on Google invariably have odd number of points! I learnt this by closely following a B2C marketing guru and so far his teachings have helped me a lot. Jodi Logik hit 33K monthly page views and growing :)
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