The journey, from getting a new client to setting up your first office to getting the “big” client, is intense and filled with unmatchable highs. The lows, well, while not forgotten, are not dwelled upon.
Indians are the second largest users of MOOCs after the US, but like students everywhere else, we are not completing the courses for which we sign up by the million.
Offering silver-bullet prescriptions that are blindly lifted from the playbook of countries like Singapore is a wasted opportunity and a pointless exercise akin to jerking off in the dark and convincing yourself that you have scored!
To handle such challenges, it’s critical to measure, and to do systematic root cause analysis on your successes and failures. Like in programming, it’s a good idea to execute smaller and manageable pieces first, and then build complexity incrementally on top of that.
Our discussions with them were progressing at a rapid pace when they asked, “Why are you moving so fast on this deal?” I think it is one of the smartest queries relating to a VC’s evaluation process– entrepreneurs should ask questions not only when a VC is moving too slow but also when they are moving too fast!
A successful startup does not necessarily scale well. A successful high scale organization does not necessarily stay successful forever. The choice of employees you have made at each stage probably has a very high degree of contribution on the continued success.
Selling equity outright is, averaged out, an expensive proposition!
If you study what the really big things on the internet are, you realize they are masters at making things fast and not making people think.
The thin line between spending time doing research before taking the plunge and buying time to make up mind to get ready for risk is really thin and could take forever to figure out.
A great entrepreneur understands the revenue drivers and cost structures of the business deeply and think though what will it take to achieve a sustainable and profitable market leadership in the segment it is operating in.
But nineteen billion? Just not quite adding up in the context of the planet we live on.
No, I don’t mean ‘another’ WhatsApp, but another business which creates tremendous value, but is slow in monetizing the value.
A large majority of deals do happen once they reach the term sheetstage; hence it’s a serious milestone. Its usually a 3-4 page document that founders can Google and decipher on their own and with a little bit help.
Gaming still remains one of the most risky segments. Remember there are 1000 failures behind one success story in gaming.
I have come across examples where the difference in in-app CTRs has been to the tune of 2X between custom dashboard and Google Analytics. A deeper dive into the code of one such case revealed that the click event was being counted twice in the custom dashboard!
In most of the cases, the salary is almost 3-4 X of what a startup is willing to pay for. Is that worth it? Maybe, but what about the baggage they bring along? My guess is no.