How To Start Up Without Really Dying: Insights From a Solopreneur
Your startup is not your baby, it’s more like a matrimony. You shouldn’t rush into it and it is bound to drive you crazy at times. Technically, I’ve been on my entrepreneurial journey only for the last 2 years. But truly, I’ve been ‘starting up’ (around and about) most of my life. Like when I was 10, I organised an exhibition at the front lawn of my house, selling Pine tree cones (yeah, CONES!) that I had collected on my family trip. My business idea got a little better when I turned 15, this time it being handmade bracelets at a school function. At 17, I, along with a few friends competed with other food stalls at a school fete to sell the most number of plates of Bedmi-aalo, a Gujarati delicacy. As bizarre (and embarrassingly fun) as that sounds, I only realised it over the last few years that all I truly wanted was a business of my own. (Not saying that I could really appreciate the amount of grit and hard work it entails, at that time.)
But here’s the truth about selling cones in a lawn or Gujarati snacks in a school fete; you’re done and dusted at the end of the day. You created, you made deals and if you made a few good ones, you won! Real-life building is all about delayed gratification. You’re not only building a product, creating a story, you’re also recalibrating your routine, studying your experiences more closely & redesigning your life.
1. Kicking weekend in the butt
Weekends turned into weekdays and Saturday night-outs turned into sweaty gym sessions. So if you, like me, have had an unhealthy attraction to your weekend shindigs, you might need to purge.
2. Marathon runners don’t sprint?
I did. The first few months that I was on my own working on my brand, I was the human road runner on Gatorade. It was a brand new space for me, I had to prove my abilities to myself (still do. Every. Single. Day), I had shit tonne of work to do and I wanted to do everything ASAP. All of this is still true, except that I’ve learnt to pace myself to avoid sheer mental burn out.
3. Entrepreneurship doesn’t make Instagram look pretty
No more fancy trips, no sushi lunches and cheaper the wine, the better. But if you’re smart, you will be able to scrape up enough to do what you enjoy every once in awhile.
4. Auto-piloting my decisions
“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.”
― W. H. Auden
This is, by far, the hardest and the most utilitarian process to imbibe; the process of routine. If you can craft a slick routine, one that enables you to distill yourself to your highest efficiency, all you have to do is repeat it every single day. It is hard work, but over a period of time, my mind and my body seamlessly aligned themselves to this new normal. This also meant boring stuff like eating eggs for breakfast every single day!
5. Ideas are useless without fundamental execution
Everyone’s gotten the memo on this one. To create, you have to work. It is as easy as that! And yet, somehow, a heady mix of the entrepreneurial adrenalin cocktail means that we have too many ideas and too little time or attention-span to execute them. Many experts have said this before, that one is better than zero. Take that single idea, sharpen it, and then drive it like you stole it :)
