HKN : discover your destiny

Starting up is a learning curve.

The faster we learn, the lesser we make ‘avoidable’ mistakes, we increase our chances of success.

The beauty about this is that if you are prepared to learn, you will realise how foolish you were when you started up. And how being foolish worked to your advantage.

A few pointers on how to re-look @ your business idea and your approach.

(Caveat Emptor : I may be completely wrong. I have consistently managed to be wrong in that past too.)

1. Execution

Is your idea the next revolution? Great.

But you know what. Ideas are dime a dozen. All that matters is execution.

You can spend all the time strategising but if you dont execute well, irrespective of how   well or how much you have thought about it, it just won’t work.

If you are a startup, act like one. Focus on ground reality. Get the pulse from the market – customers, vendors, competition. Ask the right questions – the painful ones. Know what you can do and more importantly, know what you cannot do.

Eventually market reality is going to stare down your face. Its wiser to deal with it upfront than wait for it to happen.

The point is – be in control of your ship as much as possible. Know what to do next, why and how. You may not have all the answers, but ask all the questions. And keep looking for answers.

2. Scalability

Lets face it. You are going to struggle.

Whatever you do, whoever you are, struggle is certain. And if you are not, there is something seriously wrong.

And you are struggling for a cause whose chances of success are based on a plethora of assumptions and even at the best case, look only bleak. (please note : the idea may succeed, whether you will in its execution remains to be seen)

So if you are up against so many odds, atleast have a cause that has a payoff that will justify your cost (time-effort-money). Plain and simple, build something which if at all does well, has a chance of making it really big.

Shooting for Mediocrity is a blunder. Do not ignore the opportunity cost for your effort - better idea, more money.

And lets stay clear of wishful thinking in painting up a future for our idea. It has to be based on clear facts – commercialistion model, investment / cost, market need, capability of team, ramping up, competition.

3. Time to Market

Dont wait to create a masterpiece.

Build fast, execute well and learn along the way.

The faster you are in the market, the sooner you will learn.

Everything that you have thought is time dependent. The faster, the better.

Thats it for now.

More as I learn along !

One common problem we all would have suffered is ‘Commitment – Delivery gap’.

Be it a normal shopping experience, the daily rickshaw ride or even a professional vendor – client relationships. What gets committed is never really delivered. And whats delivered is not what was committed.

Wonder why, but in our country, somehow we are in this habit of ‘Over promise and under deliver.’ It really is a sad state of affairs because so much of workable time is spent as a client just to ensure that the vendor sticks to the delivery sign offs. And then you wonder what the vendor had said in the first meeting – ‘we are looking at a long term relationship.‘ Aaaaargggh

So, why is it so hard to stick to one’s commitments?

As we do our BD, we realise the seed of the problem really lies because the client is often over promised without proper evaluation of delivery capabilities. Now as a startup when sales cycles are really long and sales pipeline really empty, it indeed becomes very tempting to commit anything in order to get business.

The risk we run obviously is a failed delivery. And lets not kid ourselves. Anything less of 100 % delivery is a failed delivery. Knowing how detrimental failed deliveries are to businesses (BD, Team Morale etc etc), every ‘over promise’ we make only increases the probability of having a ‘Failed Delivery’.

Considering this ubiquitous fact, is it not just common sense to refrain from saying ‘We can do that too‘.

Because really, you know what you can do. Then, lets stick our deliveries to facts and not assumptions and fool hardy optimism.

Simply said,

Commit only what you can deliver.

Deliver whatever you commit.