Being an entrepreneur…
A designer’s PoV
As a fledgling entrepreneur/ designer in the midst of a growing startup- Mammoth, I try to write about my experiences in the startup world.
You’ll be disoriented all day — I hardly sleep much these days and keep forgetting everything else but for Mammoth and my family. My extended family (huge in India), friends have started giving me sh*t and I sometimes feel really guilty about not talking/ spending much time with them.
You’ll become a Zombie — Since majority of my team is in US, you’ll see me slogging every morning till 3:30 or so. My mom thinks I have dark circle under my eyes (and I used to think these things only happen to women).
You’ll fail often — There are often days, when we look analytics and different funnels and realize the best sign-up flow we thought of, didn’t really work. Infact conversion went down. Holy F*ck ! What were we smoking when we did this? On other days, after sending out multiple emails to tech bloggers and magazines, none of them revert. And the sense of failure and helplessness again creeps in.
You won’t earn anything (monetarily) in the next few months — The text alert on the phone on the 28th of every month (my salary got credited, yippee); which gave me so much pleasure and multiple reasons to go out, drink, party; has stopped. I don’t get a salary and already feel like a retired person (who’ll possibly never get another salary).
You’ll do stuff that you don’t like — I don’t know many designers who like to code, look at sign funnels and conversion charts. I also don’t know many designers who have to test out features, write to bloggers, make a sales pitch. Why me?
But !!!
You’ll be confident — with each passing day, I feel so much more confident that I am learning something new everyday. Each day comes with a huge to-do list and I feel like a champion at night when I find them crossed off the list. Things that I never thought I was capable of content marketing, sales pitches, strategizing, product management, analytics, customer development, front end, etc (Also, one of them is writing a blog post every fortnight).
You’ll learn everything — Well, not everything, but a lot of things that matter in the startup world. Designing, pitching, prioritizing, making a decision based on incomplete information (JFDI in Mark Suster’s words), talking to your customers everyday, failing, learning and biggest of all — overcoming the fear of shipping.
You’ll learn to write — Last month I decided that I am going to write about my startup experiences(even if my writing sucks). I may not have improved right now, but I am trying and I’m sure I’ll improve soon.
You’ll discover love again — Working so hard for a startup will make you realize how many people are working hard to make you succeed. Your spouse/ kids/ parents, who are letting you spend most of the time infront of your computer, on a phone call — Just so that you succeed. Sooner or later you start appreciating the little things people around you are doing to push you up the pedestal and you’ll start loving them even more.
You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down — Reid Hoffman.
I’m still assembling my airplane☺
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Also make sure to check out Mammoth a collaboration/ productivity tool I’m currently building.
