Back in 2008, when the recession had hit the Indian shores I saw a bunch of my graduating seniors lose their job offers. Their joining dates were indefinitely postponed and some of the brilliant seniors I knew were left with no jobs that year. For the creamy lot who got into companies like Microsoft and IBM, the companies did stick to their promise and kickstarted their careers despite turbulent times. The rest just stuck around at the placement cell in college ready to jump at the first jobs offered to them. These jobs were lowly paid, for the calibre of students taking them, and were mostly support jobs with strenuous night shifts and intense training. Companies like Infosys and Wipro, were barely hiring; for the ones like Accenture and Deloitte that were, they managed to get some good talent at extremely low pay packages. The few seniors who did realize the market conditions then opted for higher studies. Some even cracked the CAT and got into the IIM leagues. But there were only a handful of students who were brave enough to start something of their own. Probably the worst time and place to start a company.
India is not the kind of place that encourages startup culture, and we all do certainly hope Narendra Modi’s Make in India initiative changes that. Right off the bat, there is terrible support from family and society to do so. Quite recently, when a very successful Google VP of Indian origin announced to leave the company, he posted on LinkedIn that his in-laws were worried about his future. Imagine the state of engineering graduates and young entrepreneurs in India trying to convince their parents about starting a company. Varun Agarwal, founder and CEO of Alma Mater has written an entire book about overcoming this mindset. This mindset and norm set by the Indian society is probably one of the biggest challenges facing Indians; some who have brilliant ideas but lack the courage to pursue them and go the distance. Four years in an Engineering school is a ticket to a better life for most families. A journey which starts with a job in a multi-national company, with a hope that the company would send you on-site some day, hopefully to the United States, where one could earn in dollars, so that back home your parents could flash your matrimonial picture to your relatives for a suitable match.
The second big challenge for entrepreneurs in India are volatile market conditions and lack of kickstarter funding. While some organizations like TIE do drive, mentor, and foster entrepreneurship, the market has been skeptical for a long time with undervaluation and inadequate funding. In the probability where one does secure funding, comes at a sacrifice in the form of a big share value or creative/business dependence. However, with the internet opening up platforms like KickStarter, while Google and Microsoft are willing to support startups locally there is a ray of hope for budding entrepreneurs today. If you are determined to give your idea a shot, you don’t have to worry about funding for a long time. If you can ignore Anu Aunty, it’s all about building the damn thing right.
Step 1: What’s your BIG idea?
Ideas come from everywhere. Sitting in class solving a problem, stuck at a traffic signal, waiting for someone at a café, or being broken hearted and then finally getting your shit together. Right from college, and even to this very day I keep a sketchbook to doodle my ideas down. It is insanely helpful, and has been for me over the years. If you don’t have the BIG idea yet, you could challenge yourself to doodle-an-idea-a-day. But if you have already had the eureka moment and have the idea shining right at you it’s time to evaluate it.
One of the best books I’ve read so far is Zero to One by Peter Thiel, in which he describes at length the model that determines the valuation of your idea. He writes, “doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. Every new creation goes from 0 to 1. the next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.”
I would highly recommend giving the book a read to get an innate understanding of how you could evaluate your idea, future proof it, and build companies that monopolize markets in new ways; which by the way is a good thing from Thiel’s contrarian perspective.
While Peter Thiel’s book is absolutely relevant to a global economy and the next wave of successful entrepreneurs in general, you have a slight advantage if your company is driven locally in India. Yes, Peter Thiel does argue the necessity of building a ‘1 to n’ company, but we have seen over the last couple of years just how well companies like Flipkart and Zomato have done for themselves in India. Despite being ‘1 to n’ companies, and being built on the foundations of existing frameworks, Flipkart and Zomato are leaders in their own respective categories in a local Indian market.
If you are building a ‘1 to n’ company you put yourself in a big risk situation in terms of lawsuits and other legal challenges. Unless you are willing to take this challenge up and have the capacity to push and scale your idea I would highly recommend you refrain from this course. However, one can also learn from successful ventures like Zomato, who despite being a blatant rip off of Yelp, are doing good work locally, and are scaling up to international markets to enter the big leagues.
Step 2: Assemble a great team
Once you are convinced your big idea is going to work and change the world (and make you loads of money) it’s about finding the right people to build it. Yes, you could build it yourself, or you could be a small team, in any case you will have to find the right resources to build the product/service. Identify core skill sets you may need and how you may share that responsibility. Do not jump at the opportunity of bringing in friends/family on your idea because an idea is an intangible piece of non existent material; different individuals could twist the ideas in so many different ways and represent it in a much better way than you probably could. Refrain from being too open about the idea wise you will face the same doom the Winklewoss twins claim. Your first goal is to protect the idea until you can build it. Spend quality time polishing your idea, take it to a stage where you have substantial bits ironed out, and then finally decide what or who you may need to build it. Identifying the right people to build the product/service is based on existing/proven talent. Friends can be the best and worst people to work with. I’ve seen many companies dissolve and friendships ruined in this pursuit. I’ve also seen direct competition and rivalries end up in successful beginnings. As long as you are absolutely clear and have a strong rationale as to what each member on the team is doing you should be in a good place.
Building a great team is an ongoing process. You may need some, if not all these skill sets to build a product (this is a tech focused list):
- User Experience Designer — A UX Designer is someone who does user research, maps the user journeys, sketches out wireframes for the interaction flow, and has a strong visual sense.
- Visual Designer — A Visual Designer is someone who designs the visual look and feel of the entire product/service.
- Interactive Developer — An Interactive Developer (or Front End Developer) is someone who is skilled in HTML-CSS-JavaScript and other front end frameworks who could help you build the interactive experience.
- Software Engineer — Someone who could take care of the software architecture, back end programming, and set up the entire environment.
- Industrial Designer — If your product is a hardware idea, you may need someone who has good product design knowledge and can design the look and feel of the product in CAD.
- Business/Sales/Marketing Consultant — You will at some point need someone to drive the sales of your product by speaking to potential customers and marketing the product.
It is also important to make sure that you, as a founder, build the right relationships with the team, and be upfront about what the intended outcome of this project is going to be. It is important to be transparent of exactly what you would like to offer them if things work out for the company in the future. Nothing like putting a couple of signatures on a piece of paper to make sure the future of your relationship is secure. Things like involvement and contribution, if not stated clearly early on, will come back to haunt you some day.
Step 3: Plan your success
This is probably the most crucial step in the entire process. One that most young entrepreneurs overlook because they are too focused on building the product. If you are leading the company, it is your duty to set up definite deadlines, and measurable criteria; one that you can evaluate and be guided by.
I would highly recommend using the OKRs framework which have in the past proven to be highly beneficial for some of the successful startups.
OKRs is a flavor of Management by Objectives defined as
“A process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization in order to achieve them.”
The Objectives in OKRs state what change the organization wants to see in a KPI (Key Performance Indicators) over a specific period in time.
The KRs (Key Results) in OKRs state how you will measure the incremental movement towards an objective.
The most influential factor of OKRs is in its ability to guide your company based on definite key performance indicators and allow you to shoot for the moon. It takes practice to define the right OKRs and is something that will surely benefit your team.
Here is an excellent video by Christina Wodtke to get you started on OKRs.
It is also important to create a one page description of exactly what your company is trying to achieve. Remember, you will have to talk to a million people about your idea. If you do not have your elevator pitch ready, this is going to cost you when you meet a potential investor who will be evaluating your readiness. Split your company presentation into two main themes: An Elevator Style Pitch and a Full Fledged Business Plan.
Step 4 — Build the DAMN thing
Students and young entrepreneurs I’ve met in India have a fundamental problem when it comes to attitude — I call this ‘The Johnny Bravo Effect’.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve had students and young entrepreneurs ask me questions like, “How do I build a company?”, “How do I build something like Facebook?”, “How do I build a company around Wearable Technology?”. While I’ve classified some as naive and gone the distance to help them it’s the ones who have a terrible devil may care attitude I have a problem with. Ashwini Asokan has written a full article about her experience. To those who feel college has very little to offer, and that starting a company, attending networking events is the way forward please listen to the sane advice some people may give you. Starting a company is not the goal here, and it never should be. The goal should be to make a difference. To change the world. To make a dent in the universe. Or in the least, to build a tiny iteration to a better future. By being arrogant, self-consumed you are not only ruining your future, you are wasting your parents money and faith in you. I say this because I’ve seen this recurring attitude in youngsters these days. So if your goal is make that difference, lets move forward.
There can be no substitute to an MVP. It not only allows you to test your idea but also brings a lot of clarity to something you are going to invest a considerable amount of time, effort, and maybe even money in. This is time you are never going to get back. Do not equate failure with effort. You will come out of this experience (provided you’ve given it your best shot) with learnings you can proudly carry on, and hopefully to successful ventures. Experiences that can be great interview conversations to help you stand out in a job interview. People have failed loads of times before making it big. You’ve just got to be cognizant about the amount of effort you are going to put into this. Building an MVP early on, to illustrate the idea, test, get advice, is a good starting point. Every investor/mentor is going to look at your capability of delivering things. An MVP is a good way of demonstrating that. Do not expect investors to be interested in your product if you have not shown potential in the ability to build and run the team. It’s perfectly okay to not have a full product as long as you have a strong rationale to support it. Sometimes you may need additional skill set, and sometimes you may need more support. Turn this into an opportunity to extend the product and not as a disadvantage for yourself.
Step 5: Talk about your product
Once you’ve built an MVP, it’s time you got yourself a name. I’ve seen loads of teams spend considerable amount of time hiring and wasting money on branding, logo design etc quite early on in the process. The goal is to get to a healthy product. When you get to a product ready to be demonstrated to a wider audience you can chalk in some time, brainstorm ideas for names (both for your product and company), and design the brand.
Once you have a brand in place, it’s time to choose the right social channels. Identify channels you might want to have a good presence on and might benefit from the most. Is the product/service consumer driven? Choose channels where you may find your target market. Is the app for students? Plan innovative ways of reaching this audience. Is the product enterprise focused? Identify key platforms to reach the right audience in the right industry. Is it a B2B product? Maybe you need a sales person to set up meetings with key players. Choosing a channel, and being able to justify the need to be on it will allow you to position your product well.
I would highly recommend participating in popular networking events like Hackathons (and winning them) that give you exposure to both the target audience, and potential investors. If your product is good, you don’t really need to reach out to investors. They will come looking for you, so don’t be too bothered about that. Try to take part in these events and make sure you have the best presenter presenting the product, you have the best booth, and that you’ve spoken to the right people. TechCrunch Disrupt is one of the best hackathons to be a part of and they have local Indian hackathons too. Yahoo! conducts some good Hack Days across India. Other companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, all conduct hackathons around India which have some great crowds attend. Take this as an opportunity to speak to a bunch of similar minded folks, learn from the hackathon experience and aura.
Starting a company is not an easy thing to do. Being an Indian, with the norms created by the society, it becomes a lot more difficult. Set yourself your own norms, your own benchmarks. There needs to come a point in your life when you need to take a stand (while being humble) about what it is that you exactly want to do. Plan well in advance and evaluate as you progress; evaluate often against every milestone and failure. Take advice, accept the deltas, and work towards them. Critiques are there to make you a better person. Build a substantial product to show everyone your idea, and your potential. Lead, execute, manage, and motivate a team to completion. Starting a company is not an easy thing to do, but if you do it the right way, you will come out the experience learning the right things. You never know, maybe your next company might just become the next Apple Inc.
All the very best ☺
