What Three Years of Consulting Taught Me
And what I’m going to do about it now
Two years ago when we sat down to create Alpha Growth Labs, we had one objective in mind, we wanted to help startups. Albeit, at that time most of these startups were people in our own network who needed help with the basics, over the years we evolved and so did our services. We met a fair share of people and we made our share of mistakes.
But we learnt a lot:
Matlab (Hindi for ‘meaning’) > Money:
(P.S I’m getting this written on my business card) The projects we’ve had the most fun with are the ones that personally meant something to us. I, for example am very interested in ed-tech and personal finance projects, and have done the best of my work in these fields.
Founders can make or break a team
I’ve met the best of founders and the worst of them. If you’re not able to hire or retain employees over the long term, chances are you need to take a good look at your culture and mostly at yourself, period. People who work with you thrive on passion, but need respect. I’ve seen whole teams leave in a period of a month because of lack of respect and lack of vision (this happens more often than you think). Talk to your team often about why you’re building what you’re building (start an internal office email thread, do it now) and keep office talk respectful.
Don’t preach, practice. People observe your antics anyway
The most inspiring people I’ve met, I’ve learnt from by observing them. They eat, breathe, walk and talk what they believe in, and it’s hard to not respect that. Their memories stay, they’ve inspired me, enough said.
Find people who’re smarter than you to work with
Otherwise you’ll be stuck in a cycle that leaves you unsatisfied with life and your work. Even if it means working on the part time with smarter people (if you’re working the rest of the time to make money to survive) or talking regularly to mentors. It makes a world of a difference. If you, or your co founder, are the smartest people on your team, you have a problem.
In the past 2 years we’ve helped numerous startups launch and grow, and now it’s time for me to take things to the next level.
And adhere to what I believe in.
Which is why I’m joining the Founders Office at Bold Kiln.
Bold Kiln is essentially what we set out to build with AGL, it’s a one stop shop for startups and growing companies
- offering in-house services (web & app development, design, branding, advisory, influencer marketing and digital marketing),
- curating founder-friendly information (check out Startup Weekly if you are an entrepreneur/founder for actionable insights, or hiring), tools and resources.
- building relevant products for founders to use,
- operating a fund (check out OperatorVC, we invest in early age ventures),
- offering coworking space (Noida Sec 10, 5 mins from Sec 16, drop by to say Hii).
We’re also curating/have curated a list of additional partners for services that we don’t offer in-house.
I’m working with people who’re smarter, passionate, and are of the same value set. The vision hasn’t changed, and I’m still on the same track.
Honestly if you’re working around the same vision, are building an awesome product, or are just looking for help, reach out to me at aashna@boldkiln.com.
I’m excited, we’ve got a whole bunch of worthwhile problems to solve.
Liked what I wrote? Show me. :-)
