The best part in my profession is that I get to talk to entrepreneurs, CEOs and business heads and understand their views on their mission and vision for their companies. In this whole 1 year I have now good sample of such thoughts collected from various CEOs on the basis of which I have got a practical understanding of Indian IT Startup behavior.
While I was compiling all these raw data into some piece of information I realized that now I am getting answers to all those questions which used to keep jumping on some wires of my mind all the time few years back. And I believe you might not have realized it but these are your questions as well:
How does a startup start
You wont believe but the answer to this question is a huge list. Falling in love with the word entrepreneur, searching for better career option after 10 years of experience, doing something of my own, giving a shape to my brainchild, wanted to launch my killer concept, what about my business management degree, wanted to add a new line of business to my father’s group of companies, when funding is there ideas come along, the only option left to leverage my expertise in the domain, my 20 years of experience, it was high time, I am born creative, take risk and make money was principle and it worked, wanted to change the world, Its big contribution to society, I have great business connections, The trio worked –three of us are best combination, have a state-of art solution, best alternative to my stupid boss, its all about money, well it started from freelancing………and list goes on. One thing I realized is that it doesn’t matter what made you start your company, but what matters is what plan of action you have and how great your idea of implementation is. Does it need a lot of money to start a business…and the answer is ‘No’ then what it takes – passion, courage and a vision. Getting funds is not an issue , the issue is how much. If you can sort out his issue you are done.
For how long one can be called as startup
The biggest irony of Indian Software and IT business is that if you ask the CEO what’s your company’s mission and vision – he will say ‘well that was drafted by my web development team and you can read it on ‘About Us’ page on our website. If your mission and vision are copied pasted from some good website and just lying on your Aboutus.html I am sorry to say but you will remain a start-up for lifetime. If survival is more important than expansion you are still a startup my friend. I have also seen people love to call themselves a startup even after being in market for 3 years just to negotiate on price with their vendors. The answer to this question is most commonly used diplomatic and vague one – ‘ well it depends’. Have you ever heard of terms like – mid stage startup or final stage startup..NO because if you go by literal meaning of this its just the early stage of your business where you are drafting a plan to align your vision/ mission with implementation. As soon as you start implementation phase you cross your startup stage. One more thing I have noticed is that people do not call themselves as a startup as a matter of pride instead they use this word just to grant an excuse for themselves.
What’s Next?
More than 90% of my prospects are fighting this battle of life to find out the answer to this question. Most of business starts with their personal connection, they get business from them, get moral support, get their energy boosted up, everything is fine, some get business from connection’s connection, but what’s next. Either you are finished with your personal contacts to get enough business or being lucky you get a long term AMC type contracts but the main questions still hold the root in ground – what’s next?
Last month I was attending a live press conference of Steve Jobs where he was talking about signal drop issue with iPhone 4. He accepted that there is a minor issue with iPhone 4 but Apple is such an established brand where consumer expects miracles and there expectations are right. By this statement of Steve Jobs I realized that the challenge everywhere, in fact it keeps increasing as you grow and probably that’s the main reason why most of the CEOs are not able to handle these challenges. Keeping the graph up in first quadrant on your report card is the real challenge. The vision needs to be segregated for each phase of your business then only one can keep moving as there is absolute no end of success. Everyone is creative in India, but keeping a continuity in creativity is something rare and that’s what the key is. I wish my India should not just become a junk box of Big Fat Startups but its should be a house of Big Fat Economy Leaders.
Shashi Sudhanshu
CEO, iLeadFarmers
