Startups — Law of the Jungle!!
An army of multitasking wolves, strengthen the pack towards Jungle war
Carnot Chronicle-II
“NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”
Excerpt from a poetry written by Rudyard Kipling.
Are these lines hitting you similar to the law of startup!! Especially the last line which says the strength of a startup is its people and the strength of people is its startup. And for being a part of a startup you need to be a multitasker. In the same scenario the story of Carnot started, where people are blessed with a multitasking mindset.
The Story of Multitasking Mindset
The story of Carnot’s accounts department is very familiar with these concepts. In the early stage of a startup, the company doesn’t have any department for accounts. These are all managed by Rohan Vadgaonkar, Co-founder and CEO. He also outsourced the accounting work to a third party. But the workings done are not enough for the company. As time is changing, the company started to grow and there is a need for an accounts department, for that the first person hired was Samshudin Shaikh. When he joined Carnot, there was no office, it was just a room where everybody works. At that time, there were few employees but the workload was at the peak of the mountain.
The Initial Challenge
The first biggest challenge for him was, “Where to start from” because there are many things to settle down. And a process is required for doing every task, which is necessary for every company.
Samshudin says people in Carnot are from the IT sector, initially they didn’t have any knowledge about finance and accounting. There are many problems running in the organization like invoices are missing, a bit confusing in filing the returns, etc. Whenever Carnot is surrounded by problems, there is one mantra they follow–” Always try to gather your focus on solutions rather than sticking with the problem”. The same is again followed by the Carnot, they focused on getting a way out to solve the accounting issues. They started creating processes for billing, invoices, payment, reimbursement, etc. Being short in time Samshudin also worked in admin, HR, and inventory and also worked in the logistic sector. After a time, Ruchi Suresh Gori, joined Carnot and helped the company to establish a better process and maintain accounts of the company.
The power of 100 people– One Man army!!
Ruchi Suresh Gori, Associate Director of Finance & HR says that, when she joined the finance department of Carnot about 3 years ago, things were quite scattered. There was no work process for expenses, purchases, salary, invoices, etc. And the accounting was done with Quick books. At the very initial stage, she worked on vendor onboarding and then also established the HRMS portal. At that time invoices for the company were in big chaos, the actual problem arose when the auditor asked for it. Every process is set with the help of Pushkar Limaye and Rohan Vadgaonkar, Co-founders of the company. Sometimes I had to be very strict and straightforward, I knew I was getting Hitler’s image, but it was necessary. She also said that employees supported the implementation of the process, no one creates any disturbances during implementation.
Mahindra’s B-Series Invest Round in 2020 proved to be an exposure for me. Management showed confidence in me and entrusted the entire responsibility to me, while this job was completely new for me, I did. Also, I got many registrations done.
Ruchi says that we have now set the process in such a way that when we worked from home during the lockdown, Rohan and he would have talked only 2–3 times only. Moreover, she prepared the audit report and the best thing was there was no red flag from the auditor. Now, she has a good companionship with the Mahindra department and whenever any problem arises she is comfortable discussing it with different departments of Mahindra.
One should not hold back from doing any work. When the urge to do something is in your mind, then you get to learn everything and the company also supports you, otherwise, the job of 9 to 6 makes you a robot.
- Shamsuddin Shaikh, Accounts manager
I always believe in learning new things and taking on challenges. Moreover, there is more to the satisfaction of working and learning than anything combined.
- Ruchi Suresh Gori, Associate Director of Finance & HR
