LESSONS FROM A SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR Mukund Mohan

LESSONS FROM A SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR Mukund Mohan The One Secret of Successful Serial Entrepreneurs is a Disciplined Work Ethic  The difference between a growing startup and one growing ‘well’ is productive (smart) hard work, not just long hours Most entrepreneurs will tell you they work extremely long hours. That’s par for the course. I have come to realise that both smart work and hard work are necessary, but not sufficient, to run a successful startup that is growing quickly but does not have an exit yet. The difference between a rapidly growing startup and one that’s growing ‘well’ is productive (smart) hard work, not just long hours. At my first startup I mistook activity with progress and ended up doing long hours and I felt the ‘burnout’ after three months. I paused, focused on what needed to get done alone and tried to balance my work. At my third startup, I mistook milestones for achievement and focused on fund-raising and number of employees hired, and found that no one in the company but me cared about them and I ended up alienating many new employees. What makes smart and hard work such a potent combination? And what really is ‘smart work’? And how many hours make up ‘hard work’? I define ‘smart work’ as a combination of 3 things — asking the ‘right questions’, having a plan and maximising the number of experiments in unit time. I define ‘hard work’ as the most productive work time, with limited or no distractions and the ability to do it consistently, for years. Not for a few weeks, months or just a few hours. The smartest people I know have learned the art and science of asking the right questions. They usually start with asking a lot of questions, and have literally no or very few answers. Each answer leads them to more questions. Asking the ‘right questions’ is what they derive from experience. They are also willing to conduct a few experiments to see if their assumptions and hypothesis are valid. They have a plan for the experiments. It is not a ‘let’s try this, and if not let’s try that’ approach. They rarely ‘wing it’. At my first company, Interfinity, my co-founder and I would have a simple whiteboard with a list of open questions in red, to which we did not have answers. Every week we had to reach out to people who would help answer one or two. Every week, the answers would lead to 5-7 new questions. The whiteboard was perpetually filled with questions. It’s very easy to spot smart teams. They come with a list of 2-3 questions that they want to address in a meeting. They don’t just come to the meeting and pick up the whiteboard and start to ‘brainstorm’. Hardworking teams don’t ever mention how many hours they put in last week or yesterday or that they hardly got ‘any sleep’. They are aware of their physical limitations and are usually well within those limitations. They keep looking for time cut away from unproductive work that is used to question, experiment and plan. They don’t brag about their long hours. Hardworking teams also tend to compartmentalise their time. Some people call this ‘bucketing’ or ‘chunking’. Just because they work hard does not mean they don’t give their brains a rest and goof off for a while. Finally, hardworking teams are consistent. They show up day after day, week after week and go through questioning, experimenting and planning with rigour and consistency. I realise that being smart at work and working hard is extremely difficult. In fact, it’s rare. That’s why successful startups are rare. The combination is what I call startup discipline. Which is why I firmly believe that a disciplined startup will beat a startup with just pure intellect any day. At BuzzGain, my third startup, I would be in the office by 8.30 am, work until 6 pm, head home, have dinner, put the kids to bed and then get on calls with our US customers from 9 pm until midnight. It was an unending series of demos, conference calls and meetings. It never gets easier. Mukund Mohan CURRENT DESIGNATION CEO, Microsoft Accelerator COMPANIES FOUNDED 5 (3 were sold, 2 closed down) ONE THING I’D DO DIFFERENTLY I would build a team that can last a decade and build a large business as opposed to building for the short term THE MOST EXCITING SPACE TO BE IN Robotics and 3D printing ET 121222