Tag: startup company

Don’t be a Romantic!
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Don’t be a Romantic!

Starting your own business has never seemed more cool or exciting than right about now. Everyone wants to do a startup and raise a million dollars! It’s a good dream to have; it’s also probably never been easier to get investors to believe in half-baked ideas that might one day find a mass audience. The problem lies in the vision. Let me explain, any idea that a person believes in seems exciting. We now tend to fall so much in love with this idea and that all sense of practicality fails to reach us and there is reason feeling guaranteed success! The idea only seems to be missing the fuel of money and funding seems to be the one sole goal for the entrepreneur. Now, I hate to shatter this dream but funding or money isn’t the secret to success. Startups like Food Panda, FabFurnish, TinyOwl, Housing.com, and many others are proof of this. I follow startups, VCs’, rounds of funding very closely because it’s very important to understand market trends, mistakes and what has been done right. While everyone obsesses overvaluations in the words of the Softbank’s President Nikesh Arora, “To live up to these valuations, there is a need for perfect execution!” So stop being a romantic and falling in love with ideas. Be passionate but practical because, in the end, the only thing that matters is execution! I will be writing a part two to this real soon about what a startup should focus on.
Posted by FYA
Developing Better Culture for Employees
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Developing Better Culture for Employees

In the last few blogs, I was talking about the responsibilities that you have as an entrepreneur. However, entrepreneurs solely cannot run a company. There are many factors that drive the business ahead. Of course, as a leader, you must know what are those attributes that help you go further with your goals. *Goals! Remember your goals for the company are not only yours, they belong to your employees as well* Identify those attributes and their roles, know where they fit in and their potentials. Hire people for their passion and commitment first, experience second and credentials third. There’s no shortage of CVs out there, but find those who have the same interest as yours. Ask them the right questions: What do you love the most about your chosen career? What course interested you in school? What’s your motivation? What do you expect from your career? Have an idea of what your potential employee believes in! As you choose the right employees, meet them, sit with them to discuss what is going well and what isn’t. It’s important to note your success, but it’s as important to analyze your weakness and losses at the same time. It takes a rich workplace culture to identify when things go around well and resolve the issues. Communication does not just mean talking, but also equally stress upon listening. A fertile culture grows around people who listen to what happens beyond the walls. What is trending in the market? What developments are going on, which can or cannot affect us? What does the target audience prefer? *Employees are a part of the same audience* Traditional workplace fashion is just so mainstream and monotonous. Take a step ahead of the changing world and be the change you expect.
Posted by FYA
Don’t be a Romantic! — Part Two
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Don’t be a Romantic! — Part Two

In our last blog, I explained why it can be dangerous to fall in love with ideas and lose focus on execution. So considering that what should a startup be focusing on? Here are the three things that can make or break a startup: 1. Structure It is very important to understand that a business has a legal side and having the right paperwork goes a long way. Also, think of structure in terms of the people that become a part of your business and what core functions will they be executing. Managing people is a core part of a successful startup because your team can be your biggest asset but also remember they come with a fixed cost that will be a major chunk of your burn. Remember, as an entrepreneur you can’t do everything on your own! 2. Profitability There are a lot of startups that focus on the adoption of their services and products versus profitability. Keep your eyes on the prize. While investors are ok with startups bleeding for a few years in order to become a mass accepted service/product, this usually motivates people to lose sight of the cost of customer acquisition and then most things go downhill from there. Any resource whether time, energy or money is spent must have a measurable and acceptable return on investment! 3. Scalability No one wants to invest in or run a company that can’t grow beyond its first ten customers. There must be constant innovation and growth because that is an undefined goal of every startup. It’s crucial to keep an eye on the competition, changes in technology and ensuring your concept is future proof. Someone bought 500 horses a day before the car was invented!
Posted by FYA
How to Cultivate a Winning Culture at Startup
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How to Cultivate a Winning Culture at Startup

The only thing that a startup usually focuses on its survival. Many founders struggle and thus fail to find the time to define the culture they aspire to follow! You set one for yourself or not, a culture exists at all times. Culture drives the value of the business but if non-defined, creates negation in the smooth working environment. So why allow an uncontrolled negative culture to take over the attitudes of the employees when you can set a rightly motivated one? Make sure the culture you are trying to define is a winning one with these pointers! 1. Decide upon the core values Every company needs some core values, values that make the company what it is. So decide it earlier, when a startup is still in its infancy, as to what kind of company you want to become. Do you want to become like IBM or Google, and what values will help you get there. Understand those values then communicate and incorporate them. And uphold those values in everything you do, from the interaction with your client to enjoying a coffee break. 2. Find the purpose No, I am not talking about the ‘make a loads of money’ or ‘create the greatest product’ I am talking about the ultimate purpose of why you are doing, what you are doing. So if you are a digital marketing company, your purpose can be of helping people and businesses to expand their ventures through digital tools. Communicate the purpose with every employee, employees are far happier and satisfied with their jobs when they are working at a purpose-driven company. 3. Keep it in check Culture is not something that you work on once and then forget about it. It’s an always ongoing process that requires a lot of patience and persistence. You will need to keep it in check all the time. One bad apple can have a significant bad influence if you let it. Especially when you are hiring, hire for value fit. Make sure that the person you are hiring is capable of keeping up with the culture that you have spent a lot of time and energy building. 4. Be a little loose, but not sloppy Okay, so it’s a startup and it should look and feel like one, you don’t need to go all corporate. But loose doesn’t mean sloppy. A little fun never harms anybody, as long as the work gets done. Startups work out best when there are lesser formal processes without compromising accountability. Thanks for reading.
Posted by FYA
5 Tips to Entrepreneurs
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5 Tips to Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship seems like a very romantic idea. After all, who wouldn’t want to be an owner of their own business? But the path to entrepreneurship is far from a rosy dream. It’s filled with hard work, dedication, and planning. So here are 5 tips for all the entrepreneurs who are aiming it big. 1. Practicality When you are an entrepreneur it becomes very easy to fall in love with an idea. Unique ideas that you think will work. But you also need to learn from the mistakes that people before have made. It seems like a very rosy picture to start your own business, but unfortunately, the world doesn’t work like that. There are a lot of practical decisions that you have to make. Realize the reasonability of the situation. Don’t just go with your gut feeling that ‘it’s just going to work because I believe in it’. Don’t fall in love with your idea so much, that you fail to see the practicality of the situation cause that might become the one thing that leads to your failure. 2. Patience Nothing happens overnight. It takes days and months and years before something works and you can scale it up. So don’t believe that in your first meeting you are going to get the funding or crack your biggest client. The idea you had for three months might actually take a whole year to scale it up. Shift your goals. Shift your guns. But don’t get demotivated. Everything takes time. You need to keep putting in the hard work every day. Only with that, the result will start showing. 3. People It’s very important to understand that you can’t do everything on your own. You might start out as an entrepreneur or a solopreneur, as a one-man army trying to cover up all the goals. But it’s not going to be possible. At some time you are going to need to build a team and give them responsibility. They might not necessarily be able to do what you can. But you need to believe that this what they can do and they are trying their best. And work with that situation. Because as an entrepreneur the most valuable asset you have is your time. Where you dedicate your time is very important. If you are giving time to the small things which actually can be done by someone else. You are wasting your time. Having the right people on board helps you to get more work done and achieve more goals. 4. Believe There are a lot of times when other people, your client, your team members say that this may not just work. Market changes, competitors changes and might make you think that maybe they are right. It is important that more than anyone else, you believe in yourself and your idea. Believe that it will work. Because it’s your belief that’s going to keep your passion and hard work alive. And it’s your passion that can touch your team members as well and fuel their hard work. If you don’t believe in yourself no one else can. 5. Adapt Market changes, competitor changes, team changes. The idea you started out with might not be a very practical one. But the thing that matters is whether you can adapt and address the market with your current setup. This is something that you need to learn to do. Many businesses are going to fail because of their lack of ability to adapt. Nokia, which was a leading mobile company which simply faded away because it could not adapt to the smartphone landscape. History has repeatedly taught us that no matter the scale of the company if they fail to adapt they will fail. So remember whether it is three months into the business, six months or ten years or sixty years. Never fail to adapt.
Posted by FYA
Ways to Break the Ice With New Co-workers
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Ways to Break the Ice With New Co-workers

Every activity at the office has an impact on the quality of the work. Developing and maintaining an interactive and fun culture has proven to retain employees. To make it happen, it’s important to break the ice between the co-workers. Try the following fun activities to break the ice! 1. The Trust Walk Pairing the co-workers into teams, this activity involves blindfolding of one and the other has to guide him around by making him follow the voice. This activity is one of the great ways to share dependencies and also trust the team they are working in. 2. The Interview This activity involves separating everyone in teams and interviewing one from the other team for a few minutes. At the end of the activity, everyone has to mention 3 things that they have found out about the person they interviewed. This is one of the best ways to allow coworkers to get to know one another and set a common base for them to work together. 3. What’s My Name It is very important to build trust in oneself and be able to carry yourself with confidence. What’s My Name is the activity where one has to mention an adjective that begins with the same letter as that of their name. This way, the team can know one quality about each and initiates conversations with one another. 4. What Would You Rather? Questions about various situations would be asked to a person where they would have to choose one from the options of what would they rather do. This portrays the decision making power and also the pro-activeness of the individual. 5. The Five Favorites Everyone has those shows that they love to watch. For this activity, people have to share their five favorites and watch the shows that are commonly liked by many. With these activities, the ice between the new co-workers will sure break in no time.
Posted by FYA
Best Way to Prepare Yourself for Entrepreneurship
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Best Way to Prepare Yourself for Entrepreneurship

After having an opportunity of conversing with a crowd of college students recently, I have come to realize that the “entrepreneurship is cool” trend has been successful in prevailing through the years. I believe that following the trend has made most of them go wrong while taking the crucial decisions of their life. Most of them don’t seem to know what it is about and what it entails until they get into it. Everybody wants to be their own bosses and feel happy with the misconception that building a brand or a business takes only 2–3 years of time. With none of them deciding on being an entrepreneur for the right reasons, here are the best ways to test yourself and know if entrepreneurship is for you. The most important thing is to know what kind of entrepreneur you are. You either belong to the lot that can come up with an idea but are somehow unable to run a business or the lot that can execute an idea and successfully run the business. Entrepreneurs belonging to the first one always end up looking for a co-founder and it’s crucial to determine whether you need one or you don’t. The second most important thing is to analyze your idea. What is it and how do you work on it to make something huge out of it. Every idea must be passion-driven, something that makes you want to leave behind all the physical and mental barriers that stop you from achieving it. Maintaining a long term vision for your brand is an absolute necessity. It is not wise to be carried away by an idea that is “in” presently with not a great future. Entrepreneurship is not for those who wish to make a “quick buck”. Coming up with an idea that sounds good is easy but ask yourself whether it’s practical. The only thing I keep saying to those looking forward to being an entrepreneur is that don’t fall in love with your idea. The last thing that is a must-know is who your customers are. Analyze your audience, research as much as you can about who they are and what do they want. There might a really great idea that has struck your mind but it would be of no use if the customer doesn’t respond to it in a particular manner. Every business is a fail till the time the customers begin to find it interesting. Understanding their interests, need, price-sensitivity is the crux of every new business. Mastering the three things that I have mentioned can help me be a good entrepreneur. Everything else can be learned over a period of time. I believe that failure is a part of entrepreneurship on a daily basis. So if you nail everything else and aren’t too moved by the smaller daily failures and what people think about you. Take the ownership and the responsibility of your business and have a bit of a thick skin as if you don’t, you’d never be able to make your decisions that you can trust.
Posted by FYA