Everytime we try to do something, we think of all those reasons as to why to do it and convince ourselves into doing it.
How many times do we stop and say, ‘wait, let me think of 3 reasons NOT to do this’ and see if the thoughts still hold.
Invert!
Invert your thoughts when you step onto something and ask yourself for 3 reasons not to do it.
That might give you better perspective.
I met an entrepreneur a few days back.
One of the discussions was about planning for future and stuff like that.
After coming back, I gave it some serious thought. What were my thoughts and plans at these stages:
Looking back, I had hugely varying plans in each of those periods. And like they say, change seems to have been the only permanent thing.
I don’t know about the other entrepreneurs out there, but with me, I know I will change again, probably in 6 months. Hopefully in a positive manner like it has generally been so far.
That’s not bad at all. In a way, its an indication that you’ve grown and matured. While fluctuation and distractions could also lead to changing thoughts every 6 months, my point is more on the lines of more learning and knowledge inducing you to redirect the path in a better than planned manner.
This is especially true with entrepreneurs like me who are learning on the job. For people like us, having concrete plans beyond 6 months into the future is futile.
Make a 6 month plan, step on the gas pedal and execute, make sure you learn a ton in the process and…. be willing to adapt to the new lessons and learnings that you went through in the period.
You should be willing to re-evaluate your plans every 6 months depending on the feedback loops – both positive and negative.
Positive feedback loops are extremely important in the sense that they are what will catapult your company into the next level and beyond. Something is working well, you do more of it, it gets even better and it starts feeding itself. That’s how positive feedback loop generally works.
At the same time, negative feedback loops are very important as well. They are the ones that will point out something is going out of target and causing instability of the system. At that time, you have to pull things back and set the house in order. For eg, if you are eating and you “feel” full, you have to stop. That’s your internal system asking you to stop. Without that negative feedback to stop eating, you wouldn’t be a normal person.
For a startup like ours, where we are still on our discovery path, phasing our growth on the 6 month feedback loop seems to be a much healthier approach than having concrete plans that go poof every 4th month.
Of course, you have a general direction for the company – but how, why, where, when, etc could alter depending on lessons.
To give you an analogy, think of a missile.
You want to hit a moving truck.
What do you target? Not the location for sure, because the truck would have gone by the time your missile lands there.
So you build a feedback loop mechanism.
Every few minutes, you check the position of the target.
If it is on course – that’s a positive feedback. Keep going in the same direction, probably even faster.
If it is misaligned with the target, that’s negative feedback. Change direction and check again. And check again.
Rinse and repeat till you hit the target.
In 2010, I developed an itch.
To do something on my own!
When it grew strong, I simply quit from my job. I had no clue in life as to what I would do next.
There were a few sleepless days – driven by fear of going nowhere. However, the itch was bigger and helped me stay put.
Over the next few months,
Things looked bright.
The itch was different now. We were gung-ho about an all-India reach-out plan.
Several years ago, when Britney Spears was supposedly still a virgin and petrol prices were still within the reach of my pocket money, I met with an accident.
I was 17 and in the process of learning how to ride a scooter (my Dad’s).
I took the scooter out one night and crashed into an auto at high speed for a small town like Ooty (60 kmph). The auto guy who was ahead of me did an unexpected u-turn and I simply couldn’t help but replace his seat with my scooter. Yup, I managed to knock out the entire driver seat (and the driver too I guess) and seat my scooter inside the auto – cozy and warm.
I was taken home (after a visit to hospital) by another auto driver in pain.
While my Dad was furious about it, my uncle told me something I haven’t forgotten till this day.
I’ll be honest.
After having run Tapprs as professionally as possible and after having tackled quite a few issues successfully in a short span of time, I felt we had done fairly well. And that all will be rosy and cozy in future. We just needed to push the pedal harder. Everything will fall into place. We will scale, we will do more business and the Good Luck Fairy will see us to the top. And I will laugh my way to the bank.
At this stage, I know we are doing very well. We are confident of establishing ourselves as market leaders in this space. We are picking up expertise that clearly differentiates us. Also, our vision is ahead of others, at least, so I feel.
In spite of all that good feeling and confidence, the last one week, I have had to do some serious soul-searching.
Are we working towards creating a company that I want to eventually create? Do all the criteria match?
It looks like yesterday when I was woken up in the middle of the night by a nightmare!
Jobless, directionless and confused. Having given up a good job and nothing working out in life, I cursed myself left, right and center.
I quickly realized that it was just a nightmare. I still had my job. I still had a salary coming in every month. And the appraisals and a possible good hike just around the corner.
I sat at my desk at 2.30am in the night and really wondered if I should resign from my job without any idea about what next to do in life. Should I hang on for a while? Should I take it easy? Should I wait until I figure things out?
I couldn’t come to a conclusion. I slept.
Come morning, come light.. I thought, “heck, let me just do it”. Also, my wife was very supportive about it. That really helped!
I resigned from my job. The day was January 4th.
And then, began the story! Continue reading
Every now and then, a friend asks me for a book recommendation, especially on personal finance, entrepreneurship and investing. Not because am an investing guru (which I am not), but because I read a ton of them!
I thought I will note it down here as well.
All these are books that I have read and liked a lot.
Few like One up on Wall street gave me the confidence that I too can be an investor in the stock market, which until then was crocodile infested space to me. Few like Intelligent Investor have been a huge huge help on almost everything finance. Few like Where are the customers yachts? changed my opinion on the stock market quite abruptly and changed my style of investing drastically.
And yet, few like Richest man in Babylon made me realize that simplicity and a principled method matters. A few like Extraordinary popular delusions helped me stay away from making costly mistakes.
Perhaps, there have been a few that have led me astray as well. Rich dad poor dad? Could be!
Am back from attending the 3 day JLR NTP (Naturalist Training Program) at the Bannerghatta national park, conducted by JLR’s Chief Naturalist, Karthikeyan.
It is an amazing program (and Karthikeyan is a super-fantastic teacher) and I am extremely happy that I attended it. A long pending wish got done in my bucket-list.
During the program, one of the discussions was about how much effort actually goes into food production and how we trivialize it into simply idli and sambar. We often do not realize how intricate and inter-connected things are in our lives.
We take for granted, the plate of rice and often end up wasting quite a bit. There’s so much that goes into the process to enable that plate on our table.
We pay for it. We pay in paper currency. Why bother with trivial data? Why care about some farmer’s hard work? Or about the involvement of nature in it? Or the time it takes to grow it?
“Entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on their business plan before they’ve focused on their life plan”.
– Norm Brodsky
I don’t know if I am an entrepreneur yet. But I am glad I read this, because I was on the same path. Focusing too much on the business plan and ignoring the much more important life plan.
Life’s a roller coaster these days!
On days when I have many enquiries, I feel on top of the world. On days when there’s hardly an email or two, things look doubtful. Will I be able to cross last months revenue? What the heck am I doing here? Should I go back to a job? Questions plague me.
My way of overcoming those questions is usually by hitting the gym. Running does wonders to my mood.
Tapprs is growing!
Honestly, I didn’t think it would take off much. Out of my frustration of not being able to figure out what I wanted to pursue as a business, I simply started something whimsically. That has grown into what could turn out to be THE BEST TRAVEL & PHOTOGRAPHY RENTAL in Bangalore, if I stay put for a year! Oh yeah, maybe… more than just that!
Of course, there are issues. But those are sweet ones. Of developing a brand. Of growing, managing and scaling up. Of making profits. Of wondering if my hobby has gone for a toss devoured by the demon of money making!