You are warned regularly in life by your well-wishers about the dangers of swimming in untested waters. Mainly by your parents, as they fear the worst. Well, quite literally. However good you swim or however well you are equipped, once you are caught in a swirl and then there is no escape. Trying to put a few thoughts into perspective here, I realized how I was lost but have recently found myself in the middle of untested waters.
The startup bug had not bit me so hard when the whole buzz was going around Bangalore. As a matter of fact it still is with the investment space ever picking up and some crazy valuations being trusted. Nonetheless, a few friends of mine and I were discussing about starting up right from the college days. It was kind of like the bro code. You had to discuss about startups and how some young chap has gathered a few people to disrupt the current ecosystem. People like Bhavish Agarwal, Ashish Hemarajani, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Jack Ma, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and others were of great inspiration. For me it was more like how as young kids we were looking upto Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and others and hoping to hit cover drives, late cuts and bowl flippers like them. I didn’t intend to start business to the scale that these guys have. I always carried the fear of taking the next big step towards it. But there was and is an intent that is unmatched. I believe so at least.
Last year I came back from the Eastern Ghats and prior to that had just completed a project in the Western Ghats. Working with the tribals for nearly an year before returning to the city, my life had changed for good I hope. More importantly I came back with an idea. An idea I thought would change the way we look at our social systems. I still think the same by the way. But when you look at self-sustainability of whatever that is you are doing, lot of your ideas gets funneled out. As then, the financials are at play and your intuition and gut may take a backseat at this point. But you continue. People around seem like they were waiting all these while just to tell you that the thing you are upto is not going to work. You can actually trust them, as it may not. But the point is to make it work. And that is exactly where this fear of taking the next big step kicks in.
After having worked for this idea for nearly ten months now, I have come to realize one very important thing. Entrepreneurs around trying to create an impact with their ideas listen carefully. Ideas won’t bring about a change. It’s the solution resulting out of that idea that actually brings about a change. Your idea leads you to your vision. The idea in itself cannot be the vision. I will tell you how. One has to sell to survive. You need to create value, of course. But you just cannot sell your vision to generate revenue. You need to sell a different value proposition that generates revenue and eventually leads you towards realizing your vision. Currently we were stuck here and it is still a long way to go. Nobody appreciated the fact that they will have to pay so that their kids would be the next leaders of change. Leaders of change; you know, just what our country needs today. What do you mean by country, it’s the people isn’t it? So people want leaders of change and they aren’t willing to pay for creating one, of their own; confusing but damn real dynamics. We have only one option, to adapt to this mindset and work around it. And that’s why I said, that when the financials kick in, your intuition and gut takes a backseat. Trust your intent but. Your life right now is hell because you haven’t chosen the easy path. It is supposed to be hell. That’s why we are all here.
This leads me to a few more lines of an entrepreneur’s dilemma. You may call it, cribbing. It is in a way just to have a founder married to his/ her idea. But hey, you have got this idea because you have a very evident emotion towards something in particular. I am not referring to the entrepreneurs who start for pure investment prospects. I am talking about these passionate few trying to create value connecting dots like no one else before. I think, that is the root of it. The emotion that is driving you to do things that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. This has to be kept intact throughout your journey and never forgotten, rather, you should allow it to grow. Metrics will start kicking in even before you go operational. Yes, and it is bloody important. This is where a shrewd and an ambitious entrepreneur win. The challenge of working towards your metrics while you continue to respect and play to your emotions is the toughest I feel. And at this point the founder’s relationship with the idea is questioned. This will be the longest period of self-talk in the life of any creative and impact oriented entrepreneur, I guess. I am struggling to stop talking to myself.
After a lot of self-talk and mind work those passionate few, pivot. They may work on a whole new solution, alter their vision a bit but they will never compromise on respecting their emotions. I am telling all this as an honest confession of sorts because we have hit a similar roadblock and it has been quite a challenge to make things work. Communication halts as the run of ideas stop. The doubts creep in like never before. And you never thought about going through all this when you simply followed your gut. There will be a jolt. And it won’t be for long before you realize that you actually ended up swimming in untested waters about which your parents and well-wishers always warned you of. And that’s the fun at the end of it all. No? I think so.
The startup bug had not bit me so hard when the whole buzz was going around Bangalore. As a matter of fact it still is with the investment space ever picking up and some crazy valuations being trusted. Nonetheless, a few friends of mine and I were discussing about starting up right from the college days. It was kind of like the bro code. You had to discuss about startups and how some young chap has gathered a few people to disrupt the current ecosystem. People like Bhavish Agarwal, Ashish Hemarajani, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Jack Ma, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and others were of great inspiration. For me it was more like how as young kids we were looking upto Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and others and hoping to hit cover drives, late cuts and bowl flippers like them. I didn’t intend to start business to the scale that these guys have. I always carried the fear of taking the next big step towards it. But there was and is an intent that is unmatched. I believe so at least.
Last year I came back from the Eastern Ghats and prior to that had just completed a project in the Western Ghats. Working with the tribals for nearly an year before returning to the city, my life had changed for good I hope. More importantly I came back with an idea. An idea I thought would change the way we look at our social systems. I still think the same by the way. But when you look at self-sustainability of whatever that is you are doing, lot of your ideas gets funneled out. As then, the financials are at play and your intuition and gut may take a backseat at this point. But you continue. People around seem like they were waiting all these while just to tell you that the thing you are upto is not going to work. You can actually trust them, as it may not. But the point is to make it work. And that is exactly where this fear of taking the next big step kicks in.
After having worked for this idea for nearly ten months now, I have come to realize one very important thing. Entrepreneurs around trying to create an impact with their ideas listen carefully. Ideas won’t bring about a change. It’s the solution resulting out of that idea that actually brings about a change. Your idea leads you to your vision. The idea in itself cannot be the vision. I will tell you how. One has to sell to survive. You need to create value, of course. But you just cannot sell your vision to generate revenue. You need to sell a different value proposition that generates revenue and eventually leads you towards realizing your vision. Currently we were stuck here and it is still a long way to go. Nobody appreciated the fact that they will have to pay so that their kids would be the next leaders of change. Leaders of change; you know, just what our country needs today. What do you mean by country, it’s the people isn’t it? So people want leaders of change and they aren’t willing to pay for creating one, of their own; confusing but damn real dynamics. We have only one option, to adapt to this mindset and work around it. And that’s why I said, that when the financials kick in, your intuition and gut takes a backseat. Trust your intent but. Your life right now is hell because you haven’t chosen the easy path. It is supposed to be hell. That’s why we are all here.
This leads me to a few more lines of an entrepreneur’s dilemma. You may call it, cribbing. It is in a way just to have a founder married to his/ her idea. But hey, you have got this idea because you have a very evident emotion towards something in particular. I am not referring to the entrepreneurs who start for pure investment prospects. I am talking about these passionate few trying to create value connecting dots like no one else before. I think, that is the root of it. The emotion that is driving you to do things that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. This has to be kept intact throughout your journey and never forgotten, rather, you should allow it to grow. Metrics will start kicking in even before you go operational. Yes, and it is bloody important. This is where a shrewd and an ambitious entrepreneur win. The challenge of working towards your metrics while you continue to respect and play to your emotions is the toughest I feel. And at this point the founder’s relationship with the idea is questioned. This will be the longest period of self-talk in the life of any creative and impact oriented entrepreneur, I guess. I am struggling to stop talking to myself.
After a lot of self-talk and mind work those passionate few, pivot. They may work on a whole new solution, alter their vision a bit but they will never compromise on respecting their emotions. I am telling all this as an honest confession of sorts because we have hit a similar roadblock and it has been quite a challenge to make things work. Communication halts as the run of ideas stop. The doubts creep in like never before. And you never thought about going through all this when you simply followed your gut. There will be a jolt. And it won’t be for long before you realize that you actually ended up swimming in untested waters about which your parents and well-wishers always warned you of. And that’s the fun at the end of it all. No? I think so.
