STARTUP / ENTREPRENEUR SPECIAL …..Startup mantras from entrepreneurs (2)

Startup mantras from entrepreneurs (2)

How important are financial resources, or is resourcefulness more handy; should your startup be many things to many people, or just a few things for some; what if you fail; what's more important, the idea or the execution; how do you ride the rollercoaster that a startup is; how hard do you really need to work; how ambitious should you really be; should you start up in an upturn or a downturn.

Here are the gems from the NEXT SEVEN .
       
      7. Kunal Bahl, 31 CO-FOUNDER, SNAPDEAL.COM

'It is Important to Have a Purpose'

CLAIM TO FAME
Along with Rohit Bansal, Bahl founded the online marketplace that is now valued at nearly $2 billion

STARTUP MANTRA

It is important to have a purpose. When we started our company, our team got motivated by just surviving and staying in business for one more day. Then as we entered a phase of hyper growth, the team felt immense excitement as every day was new and unique. However, we realised that to motivate a few thousand very smart 25-year-old team members, just survival or growth wouldn't suffice. That's when we introspected and figured out that our end goal is really to do something meaningful for others, specifically the small businesses selling on Snapdeal. Soon, we saw that this galvanised the company and everyone felt immense energy and motivation to give their 120% every day, given that there was a higher purpose towards which they were all contributing.


8. Bin Lin, 45 CO-FOUNDER, XIAOMI

'Our Goal was to Make Smartphones that We Would Love to Use'


CLAIM TO FAME

One of the founders of Xiaomi, which in four years has become the world's fastest growing smartphone maker and the third largest after Samsung and Apple.

STARTUP MANTRA

Starting Xiaomi with Lei Jun and the other co-founders has been one of the highlights of my career. The whole process has been wonderful and exciting. We are huge fans of digital products. We believe that accessing mobile internet through smartphones is the future, so we decided to create our own brand of smartphones. Our goal was to manufacture smartphones which we would love to use.

It was tough in the beginning, especially when we started to build our team and negotiate with various suppliers, as no one had heard of Xiaomi yet. For example, we spent 12 hours convincing one of the first engineers to join us. It took us a lot of effort to ink contracts with suppliers.

A lot of people at the time did not expect Xiaomi to do very well. Most of our critics thought it was a challenge to sell 3 lakh handsets but we exceeded this number in a short amount of time. Now we ship over 60 lakh pieces a month.

Other than smartphones, we have extended our product lines based on technological trends and demands.

For example, we now offer Mi tablets, TVs and routers along with other products. Personally, I still think it is too early to call our business successful but everyone can see how far we have come since the start.

9. Ashish Kashyap, 40 FOUNDER, IBIBO GROUP

'Fail Fast, Kill Fast and Evolve'

CLAIM TO FAME
Kashyap founded the fast-growing travel e-commerce company, which expanded its offering by acquiring red-Bus.in, a bus ticket booking platform

STARTUP MANTRA
Don't get emotionally attached to what you have created. Be realistic — fail fast, kill fast and evolve. Ibibo initially was a social media company. I realised fighting global networks in social media businesses will be foolish. Secretly, I started I started building goibibo. com. I also started building a payments business that was later renamed PayU India. I recall my board was not too pleased that I wanted to kill the social media businesses. However, online travel and payments businesses had taken off. Later, we acquired redBus.in, making ibibo Group the biggest online travel company in India in terms of volume of transactions. (We also sold the payments business to Naspers.) This, for me, was an excellent lesson in failing fast, killing fast and evolving as an individual as well as an organisation.

10. Dhiraj Rajaram, 40 FOUNDER, MU SIGMA

'Strive for Clarity, Focus and Perseverance'


CLAIM TO FAME

Founder of the analytics services provider that counts over 125 Fortune 500 companies as clients

STARTUP MANTRA

The biggest lesson I have learnt is that entrepreneurs must strive hard and long for clarity (why you are doing this?), focus (what needs to be done?) and perseverance (how to get there?). These are the three key outputs that every entrepreneur needs to strive for first — not revenues, not margins, not valuation! This is what helps them stay steadfast to their vision especially when the going is rough and people (employees, investors, customers and other stakeholders) might question you. However, to develop these three key outputs, one needs to continuously develop three key inputs — curiosity (to seek), competitiveness (to get) and gratitude (to keep). Curiosity helps you ask questions and get clarity. Competitiveness helps you focus — your biggest competition is to strive to get your full attention on your purpose without distractions. And gratitude helps you persevere and make sure you want what you have.

In 2008, during one of the world's worst recessions, we lost a major customer that accounted for almost a third of our revenues. The customer wanted industry exclusivity from us — something that we were not willing to give. It would have been easy to yield but that would have defeated the purpose with which we started. We lost that specific customer but doubled our company revenues that year!
11. Malini Agarwal, 37 FOUNDER, MISSMALINI.COM

'No One is Too Cool for School'


CLAIM TO FAME

Creator of the multi-platform Bollywood/fashion and lifestyle content portal that has a huge following among India's internet generation

STARTUP MANTRA

A willingness to jump in and get hands dirty. To be an effective leader, one must lead by example. I am proud to say at Team Miss-Malini, we do that every day from writing blogs to stuffing envelopes. No one is allowed to be too cool for school.

12. Arathi Kuppu, 41 FOUNDER,
CHERISHMATERNITY.COM

'Shoot for the Best, Expect the Worst'


CLAIM TO FAME

Founder of the online venture that retails apparel and accessories for moms-to-be and young mothers.

STARTUP MANTRA

Shoot for the best, expect the worst and just move on. Your startup journey will be one of love, discovery and growing up.
13. Rohit Chadda, 32 CO-FOUNDER, FOODPANDA.IN

'Execution More Important than the Idea'


CLAIM TO FAME

Co-founder of what is billed as the world's largest food delivery marketplace

STARTUP MANTRA

Execution of an idea is more important than the idea itself. You need not necessarily have the most unique idea to build a successful startup. You can always execute an existing model better than the existing players, which means the winner need not always be the first mover but the one who is the fastest follower and the best.
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