We must remember that an entrepreneur cannot operate in a silo and there will be influences all around the startup. But it is we who decide whether to get affected or influenced, and how.
In the start-ups that I talk to, I find that the founders are very resilient to the people around them and the environment. It is the employees of start-ups who are relatively weak-willed and susceptible to being influenced. It can be a pain to be an employee in a large company. In a smaller company and a start-up where everyone has to carry forward the responsibility with ownership, the pressure on the team is so much higher.
Amongst start-up founders, about 5 per cent focus on the problem they set out to solve when they founded the company, and forget about everything else around it. Their sole focus is on the reason for their existence. The founder became a founder because he or she found a gap in the market.
Most others tend to keep in touch with what is happening in the media. Reading other people’s point of view in the media is not how you arrived at the problem in the first place. But in the metrics of the mind, the media helped find that problem. Therefore they are not able to leave the media behind. If you’ve found a problem then the focus should be on solving it and solving it fast. Constantly scanning the market trends can actually hurt the company from becoming bigger.
Take the Shivji ka damroo (small drum of Lord Shiva). I see one broad end as the start-up’s ability to go to market after looking at what exists. The narrow part reflects the ability to choose something and focus on it. At the other end, you have the ability to scale it for the rest of the world. Instead of a damroo, most people use a pipe – and a leaking pipe at that.
Innovation requires the ability to go deep. Because of focus on everything in the media, the focus to go deep isn’t coming.
Now this is from the point of view of the founder. There are other perspectives to consider.
On The Role Of Media...
The media is like a river. It has to keep flowing. In the monsoon, it will be breaking banks, in summer it will shrink. But it has to go on. You have to go after the biggest story there is, and you have to put it out faster than anyone else. How else do you establish your credibility?
If you’re a media guy, no big company opens up to you (unless when they want to). In case of a smaller company, you have even lesser sources of information. In the rush to talk about something quickly, without enough sources, you go with what you have.
When you have to evaluate others, it’s done on the basis of outcomes. But when you evaluate yourself, it’s on the basis of intent. We tend to judge accordingly.
Media isn’t doing a PhD nor is it claiming to. So the language around start-ups has become funding, users touched, downloads (without even factoring uninstalls), virality (in case of content), etc. And remember, media doesn’t have even this information to start with.
25 years ago, you could take a week to write a piece for a financial daily. It’s just not possible in an age of instant publishing. How much more can you expect in these conditions?
The issue is not with the media. It is with the start-up founders who are supposed to focus on a problem. If I am getting late to office, can I afford to stop and watch two guys fighting on the road?
The Investor Piece
At the other end, the investor is not putting his own money. He’s pretty much like a fund manager allocating money. He’s also responsible for the returns of the portfolio. The difference between a mutual fund and an investor is that a mutual fund doesn’t say he’s investing in six companies that are changing the world. For an investor, the only way of showing the world that he is doing well, is to show the start-ups he has invested in are doing well. That will be through the media.
If you talk to some of these guys one on one, you can understand a lot about what can build a business. They’ve seen a lot and are wiser for it. But if they talk about their portfolio, they will have two or three companies to talk about. Not every investee will be a star or have a story.
On Unicorn Dreams...
A unicorn is just a number. And we must remember that it is not irreversible. It is a fictitious milestone. I honestly don’t think everyone works towards it. But yes, everyone wants to get there.
What is more important is to scale at the right metrics, especially in times when investor money is difficult to come by. Anyone who has focused on being positive on unit economics tends to be able to last longer.
I see this a lot in categories where there has not been too much talk of funding, like infrastructure start-ups or other specific B2B domains. Those aren’t very sexy, they aren’t very hyped, but they’re built on solid unit metric foundations. And they tend to survive longer and do well.
They chose to solve a problem and they have stayed focused on it, like all entrepreneurs should.
(Aditya Save is Co-founder of Agilio Labs, a start-up studio that works with young companies on strategy, market access and funding. As told to Stimuls Unplugged.)