Profit and loss

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the inaccurate projection of profit and loss by startups.  Many of them are very unrealistic,  they may not have studied the market properly.

It is important to keep your ego aside and take the advice of an experienced person who will point out the negative aspects.  Most of them do not  invest their own money,  so it is not very important.

Work Culture

While  selecting a company to work with  , it  is important to consider the work culture.  If the interaction with employees is minimal,  it does not matter much, but  if you are going to interact on a  daily basis,  a certain level of comfort is necessary.

For example if you are conservative and believe strictly in merit, you will obviously not be comfortable working  with / in  a company where flirting with bosses is the norm determining promotion.  Of course, in the long run the company suffers.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Teams and decision making

One of the big disadvantages of having a team is the slow decision making process.  Till every one agrees,  decision making may be delayed.   Also  some persons may not do much work  and get a disproportionate share of the rewards.

Inside scoop please?

H* is an online startup with 2 cofounders from  software companies . It gets a lot of coverage in the  Indian digital media, funding from an angel network.  The nature of the startup is such that it requires a lot of logistic support and is difficult to scale without hiring people.   It is one of the few startups with a female cofounder.

Yesterday I read that the female cofounder had left for “personal reasons” .  When you start a business after leaving a job, you obviously plan to stick around for some time.  So why has she left ?  Was she eased out ?   No inside scoop available.

Does networking help?

Some people  say that social networking helps  to build contacts and grow your business. But this is true in only certain kinds of business, many service oriented, where references matter.

For larger professionally run companies, only product quality, features and price matter, it is difficult to justify why a “friend” is favoured.

Arrogance

One of the most surprising thing about the internet industry here is the arrogance of the employees working for the larger internet companies here.  Some of  them cannot speak a few sentences without mentioning  how “big”  a company they are.

Most employees of really big companies in the country are far more humble.  Having such employees, affects the company in the long term as potential customers are deterred by such behaviour.

Elitist mindsets

One of the reasons internet is not very popular, is that it is very elitist.  Many of the people have never ever interacted with people from different backgrounds  (usually less privileged than their own)  and unable to even think of  things from the other persons point of view.

You may be rich, your friends may be rich,  but  the not everyone is rich like you.

Female cofounder

When a startup has a female cofounder she is usually

  • GF / Wife of the founder , a pretty face to adorn magazine covers
  • Looks after marketing / design/ HR
  • Has limited decision making powers

About a team

VCs prefer if a startup has a team for many reasons like:

  • Backup if some thing goes wrong
  • Important information is known to at least 2 individuals
  • There will be differences of opinion when there are 2 people  and this can be exploited by the VC.