What a little book called Ikigai made me realise about my life’s mission
On a recent weekend, I was on my usual Bangalore — Delhi sojourn when I realised had some time to kill. I walked into the airport book shop on a whim, and picked up this little book with a pretty blue cover.
It was called Ikigai, and it purported to teach me the Japanese secret to a long and happy life. I’m usually sceptical about such books, but something about this one made me get it. I have also been fascinated by Japanese culture and their way of life, especially the way they look at work as a kind of duty.
On the flight, I just scanned through few pages, but ended up reading the whole thing in one go.
And the reason I couldn’t put it down was that I realised that a lot of what it had to say was resonating with me. Ikigai asks some fundamental questions on what you love, what you are really good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
Let me try and explain this better: According to the Japanese, everyone has an Ikigai. Some people have found their Ikigai, while others are still looking, though they carry it with them. Our Ikigai is hidden deep inside each of us, and finding it requires patient introspection.
The journey to my own Ikigai
When I was moving on from Nasscom a few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Deep Kalra, founder of MakeMyTrip. I was looking for some advice on what I should be doing next. I remember him asking me questions around what I love doing and what was my purpose in life. I probably said something at that time, but I don’t think I answered it in the way Deep was looking for.
This was a long time ago, but Deep’s question stuck with me. I went on to join Paytm after that, and then iSPIRT happened with Sharad, but this question subconsciously kept bothering me.
After the third edition of SaaSx, Pallav Nadhani, founder of FusionCharts, put me on the spot in front of around a group of around 20 founders. He asked me the same question: Why am I doing what I’m doing? I found myself stumbling again, and I don’t think that whatever my answer was did justice to the depth of the question.
This time I knew it was an important question, and I attempted to write the answer down, which became an essay — why I’m doing what I’m doing.
Writing that down gave me a lot of clarity at that time, but after completing Ikigai, I was able to think through these things even more deeply. I think I might actually have a really good answer the questions that Deep and Pallav asked me.
My Answer
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, it is not an act but a habit — Aristotle
The answer to the questions that I have been thinking about for a while, are, I have come to think, threefold. I’ll go through each of them in a little bit more detail here, and I hope my thought process helps.
The Flow State
This is something that has got my attention in the last couple of years. Put simply, the flow state is how we do things without any blocks or mental interruptions, especially in the context when we are really enjoying doing something we love. We don’t really care about the time or how difficult the task it, we just get immersed in the doing.
This is how Ikigai explains the same feeling:
There is no magic recipe for finding happiness, for living according to your ikigai, but one key ingredient is the ability to reach the state of flow and through this stage, to have an ‘optimal experience’.
In order to achieve this optimal experience, we have to focus on increasing the time we spend on activities that bring us to this state of flow, rather than allowing ourselves to get caught up in activities that offer immediate pleasure.
I found that this flow state is something that I’m constantly looking for at work, along with my colleagues. I had just never defined it this way, and the fact that I could now put it into words gave me much joy. I’m sure my colleagues and friends will appreciate this way to think through this as well.
Paying it forward
In my personal context, I find that I really enjoy myself when I’m helping founders connect with each other, and maybe build a platform where they get to learn or give back to the ecosystem. Bringing people together who can make a difference is one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done.
But I’ve been quite fortunate and grateful that I’ve been able to actually work with many founders who want to give and have other founders benefit from their learnings. Working with such people is a perk that no one tells you about, and it is with the invaluable contributions and sacrifices of time and money on their part that some part of this vision has been achieved.
When building programs and initiatives with an audience as sharp and as hungry for support and direction as Indian entrepreneurs are, the sheer amount of help and guidance I get from successful Indian entrepreneurs willing to pay it forward is just mind-blowing. This pay-it-forward mentality is what will take Indian SaaS forward, and being able to facilitate this in the small ways we have has given me a lot of joy and pride in the last few years.
Bringing people together
Though I have spoken about this before, let me dwell on this a little bit differently here.
India’s SaaS ecosystem is a fragmented a varied space, mirroring our great nation itself. Our strength lies in our different ideas and approaches to life, and yet only together can we be the force for change we need to actually move the needle in the direction we want.
It is this mantle that needed to be taken, a space that needed to be filled. Sometimes all that potential needs is direction, and once that is made clear, something incredible can be unleashed. This has been my calling, in effect, making sure that two people who should be talking to each other actually do, three people who should brainstorm this together actually do, this bunch of great entrepreneurs get together and create something bigger than them and they actually do.
There is a lot to be done for and in our SaaSBoomi (I’m referring to India here), and bringing all these good people together was, is, and always will remain one of the things can motivate me more and more. And because so many people have shared these ideas of mine, I have retained the energy to keep going.
Who knows, that one conversation may spark something that creates a category leader, or at the very least, three more jobs?
Parting note
Though this post was about Ikigai and my life’s personal goals, I think this is a good space to briefly note what I did in 2019. It will also help me map them to my missions stated above. It may also help young entrepreneurs wade through to the initiatives that make sense for them.
My contributions to the ecosystem in 2019
SaaSBooMi — Something which we launched in Jan 2019 and is now probably the biggest and the best learning platform for SaaS entrepreneurs in India. I’m fascinated by this community, as I think the SaaS revolution might be bigger than the IT services wave. It has been able to do well without much support from the government or other such stakeholders. Quite happy that we get to see the entire industry shaping up into a behemoth, and that I happen to be somewhere in the whole action.
The movement started with a small event called SaaSx, and has now metamorphosed into SaaSBooMi. We did the inaugural edition in Chennai, and followed that up with Hyderabad and Bangalore. We have already touched more than 500+ SaaS founders in the ecosystem just in the last year and the NPS for all the activities done is 80+. (The 2020 edition is inviting applications, and you should apply!)
We actually do think SaaSBooMi will be very meaningful and has the opportunity to be the biggest movement for the SaaS community in India.
Niche communities that I co-created with friends/founders.
Apart from the huge congregation that is SaaSBooMi, I was also able to create and nurture a few niche communities that helped us pay it forward.
- BreakfastPeCharcha — We are trying to create this community with a diverse set of people. We meet once a month and explore a good south Indian restaurant in Bangalore and have interesting conversations over a long-ish walk.
- People’s People — At this time we don’t have a platform to share our learnings as community leaders. To bridge this gap, we have made an attempt and hopefully we can learn from each other. If you are a community leader and want to learn and share, please ping me.
- SaaSOne — A cohort of SaaS founders with revenues between 100K — 500K; we try to learn from each other, and help. Niraj from HiverHQ has been kind enough to facilitate this. It is quite early, but I’m quite hopeful that this will be a great launchpad for all founders in the years to come.
- GrowFaster — A cohort of SaaS founders which we started a few years back. This continues to grow well and recently one of the companies crossed 10mn in ARR. When we started the group, all of the members were less than 1mn in ARR.
- DPC — This community continues to thrive, although I wish we can meet more often. This is an invite-only group of founders who meet once in a while over drinks and share their learnings, bond with each other, and also share their pain with each other. The idea was for a safe space where founders can talk to each other and help themselves through the tough parts of being an entrepreneur. I’m delighted to say that we have been able to achieve this and more.
- Founder’s Offsite — We(Ashish Tulsian from Posist and I) did an offsite for 11 founders in Goa where founders can lean on each other, and share their darkest fears without worrying about being judged. Last year, we did a trek and this time it was a long beach walk! Very gratifying, and lots of fun!
- Yoga is something which I discovered a few years back and have created a community of yoga enthusiasts, all connected with our ecosystem. Our activities are loosely coupled with work, and when we meet once in a while, we have some deep conversations that I look forward to a lot.
Again, my work at Accel has been very satisfying, and I’ve been very happy with the overall contribution/impact that I made to the ecosystem this last year. This gives me a lot of happiness and continues to make me a better human being. I would also like to thank many people who have been with me as friends, volunteers, and well-wishers who keep giving me the energy to keep contributing to the ecosystem. When people ask me how I’m able to keep this going, little do they know that they themselves are the answer!
