Start up

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Everyone has to start somewhere. Whether he or she works for the largest corporation or the hottest start-up, every entrepreneur starts at square one.

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What separates the haves from the have-nots, however, is the path they take after stepping off square one. Though many paths lead to success, some are more direct and have fewer bumps along the way. No one, of course, finds success without encountering a few obstacles. So, below are three tips I share with my clients to help them navigate the startup process and find success.

Dream big and map it out.

When you are contemplating making the entrepreneurial leap, remember this: It doesn’t take any more effort to dream big than it does to dream small.

Perhaps you doubt your ability to make great things happen. Maybe you don’t want to appear greedy or materialistic. Or, you may feel that you don’t deserve all that being an entrepreneur has to offer. Regardless of the reason, you can’t listen to that voice in your head telling you to play it safe and not dream big.

My have developed the ability to dismiss that voice and replace it with an inner dialogue based on visions of what can be. They have the habit of asking themselves, “How can I?” when everyone else is saying, “You can’t do that.” They see opportunities that no one else sees. While others may be quick to point out why their vision will not work, they have the drive to prove those naysayers wrong.

Now, with a big dream motivating you, it is easy to want to go all-in right now. However, before you quit your job, develop a detailed plan for your business. Most entrepreneurs are visionaries with the drive to get things started. But they are easily bored and quick to move on to their next project. By creating a detailed plan for your dream, you learn to hold yourself accountable to yourself and that accountability brings progress. Without a plan, your big dream is just a day dream. With it, it becomes a reality.

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Identify your priorities, but be flexible.

As you put your plan together, you’ll find it obvious what tasks contribute the most to your business’s success. These are the tasks that must be pursued relentlessly.

One reason entrepreneurs fail is that they fail to properly prioritize their work. By separating the good from the best, you create the focus that would not exist if you pursued everything asking for your time and attention.

As you begin building your business, take time to identify the essential pieces of your business that will sustain your venture and provide the necessary cash flow.

Also, be aware that if you do not prioritize correctly, you run the risk of taking on too much and doing nothing well. Every venture has critical pieces that create the successful outcome. It is when you focus more on the support tasks than the critical ones that you begin watering down your best work.

Designing eye-catching packaging for your product, for example, may help you stand out from the competition, but if you have neglected the necessary legwork to get your product on the shelves in the first place, your efforts will all be for naught.

Fail fast and fail often.

Most entrepreneurs are not risk adverse. If they were, they would still be playing it “safe” in their 9-to-5 jobs. However, in order to be successful, you need to experiment and take chances that may frighten you at first.

If you are reading this in the hopes of not making any mistakes, then you’ve already made your first one. Do not look at mistakes as something to be avoided at all costs, but as unique learning opportunities custom-tailored to you, your circumstances and your business. The more lessons you can learn from in the quickest amount of time, the more you can shorten your learning curve and place yourself in a position to grow your business.

By adopting the mindset of “fail fast and fail often,” you’ll begin to leverage the power of iteration — the process of repeating and refining a process in order to meet a goal.

The ultimate goal for your business is to stay alive and ultimately to thrive. In order to accomplish this goal, you must iterate until you find the “breakthrough” that makes your business a self-sustaining entity.

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When you are starting a business, speed is critical for success. The more tightly you can run experiments and the faster you can iterate, the more chances you will provide yourself to find that winning combination. It is that winning combination that helps you become scalable. And scalability is what allows you to realize your big dream.

So, do not be afraid of making mistakes. You have to try, make mistakes, learn and try again. If you try, make a mistake and give up, you will never be the success you could have been.

Long gone are the scary days of Reefer Madness and an insurmountable societal fear of cannabis. CNN’s Sanjay Gupta recently  a 70-year myth about the enigmatic herb, confirming its medicinal properties. This, while some states are legalizing the herb’s recreational use, and even more states already permit medical marijuana and its derivatives.

It’s this momentum that is driving some entrepreneurs to dream of huge returns from the business of cannabis. Industry thought leaders spoke to thousands of aspiring at the recent , and the standing-room-only keynote crowd was more diverse and less eccentric than one might expect.

Dreadlocks meet Dolce & Gabbana in the new cannabis economy, and that’s because the business of cannabis isn’t just the business of seeds, soil and water. Today’s harvest requires a whole lot of innovation, paired with an influx of outside talent.

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New technologies like 3-D printing are being introduced. Specialized child-resistant, odorless packaging has been developed. Cannabis seed-to-sale cycles are now run with sophisticated inventory systems, business decisions are data-driven, and the industry has the same types of specialized professional services commonplace in traditional business.

Startups to Watch

This collection of notable cannabis startups ps manufacturing, distribution, retail and a few things in between. They’re a representation of the industry developments that exist and a mere glimpse of those to come. 

1.  These innovative Washington entrepreneurs made two wise decisions. First, the founders decided that there is a market of sophisticated users who want a designer-sculpted marijuana-smoking bowl in the tradition of vintage collector pipes and cigarette lighters. Second, they believed they could craft the unique bowls with 3-D printers. You don’t need a legal market to make that saleable.

2.  identified a unique regulatory compliance opportunity — the whereabouts of legal cannabis needs to be known at all times, and existing systems didn’t provide for that. So the company built a modern, simplified SaaS solution enabling any mobile device to report traceability data simply and quickly, turning it from a burden to a business competitive advantage.

3. promotes itself as a “full immersion business accelerator” and seed investment program, and it may lead the market as a very flexible and aggressive approach to funding startups. Gateway invests $30,000 (in each company) in up to 10 different cannabis startups two times a year.

4. offers a battery-powered vaporizer it claims provides the best tasting and smoothest hitting dab. The AcroVape does away with butane and torches. The device is portable and requires no plugging in.

5. addresses the problem of product packaging. Made of recyclable materials, these bags are child-resistant and odorless. Bags can be printed with directions, business names or product details.

6.  is carving itself out as a thought leadership and PR agency for cannabis brands. The startup helps executives and brands gain exposure in top-tier mainstream media and industry publications.  

7.  is “built for growers by growers.” This app is a essentially portable farming manager. It keeps growers up to date on growth stages. You can make notes, monitor production and keep a journal. And, it includes a marketplace for shopping supplies.

8. . A “recovering” former investment banker looked into the future and saw that every other industry had data, analytics and market research, but not the growing cannabis sector. That’s when New Frontier was born. The company guides trailblazers in emerging markets to make critical decisions based on data.

9.  claims to make the use of medical marijuana smarter with technology that blends cannabis research with robotics, artificial intelligence and DNA analysis. The products recommend cannabinoid levels and custom strains. How? Desktop and mobile apps advise patients on the suggested strains and administration methods for their specific health problems.

10. built a 42,000-square-foot-indoor farm in Minnesota committed to harvesting cannabis for the medical marijuana market. The company is focused on cultivation, extraction and packaging medical marijuana for Minnesota patients.

On 5th September, a week after launching our app YourQuote (something like Instagram for Writers) on Google Play, we packed our bags, books, and guitars, and drove 500 kilometers from Delhi to Solang Valley, six kilometers farther off from Manali. We found ourselves a stranded guest-house with high-speed wi-fi and a well-furnished kitchen with a cook at an inexpensive price, that’s all that mattered. One day later, we began our work in our balcony office that faces the Himalayas.

People back in Delhi thought we had gone mad, that the internet speed would be dismal in the hills and electricity would be sporadic. Sadly for them, none of their skepticism came true. I had been to this place three years ago while traveling across India and everything is just fine as it was back then. We don’t plan to return anytime soon, not until it starts to snow here, which is December.

When asked why we chose to move, we had countless answers. No, it wasn’t for seeking inspiration (we are already quite inspired), not even for the premium maal that Manali is famous for (sadly, we aren’t too fond of it) nor it was to hire talents (we are self-sufficient as a team of two). Since we are building a viral tech-product that requires no operations, we were location independent. The primary reason became the saving cost, thus moving to a small town became a natural need — what could have been a better alternative than an underpopulated Himalayan village? But more than any of these reasons, the impetus for moving was the pure disillusionment with the startup folks in Delhi.

Delhi’s startup janta is fond of what’s called gyaanbaazi. There are very few product folks in Delhi, most being sales/business development driven. YourQuote is our fourth product in the past one year and being the novice entrepreneurs that we were, we met a lot of folks in the industry for the past one year. Angel investors, VCs, fellow entrepreneurs, wannapreneurs and self-proclaimed startup mentors who haven’t had the balls to start anything of their own.

Sadly, barring a couple of insightful folks running their own product companies, everyone’s advice sounded like the quintessential startup gyaan with little substance. “Do this, you will get funding,” “go out and network with other entrepreneurs, you will get this”, “this person will help you get connected to that person, meet him/her”, and the redundant “I think it has a lot of potential but add a hyperlocal/video element to this”.

I remember Ashish and I driving all the way to Chandigarh, burning 5000 rupees in a day, to meet the founder of a renowned company. The meeting went well, or so I thought, and in the end, this fellow entrepreneur made it clear that he wasn’t willing to invest but he would be happy to connect me to some stalwarts in the Indian startup scene—Anupam Mittal, Kunal Shah and their ilks.

He splattered out their names himself. He asked us to revamp our deck and mail it to him — so that he could connect. We did as asked, kept following up with him for 2 months, but to no effect. Nothing came out of it except our disappointment and the feeling of being fooled. I detest startup folks who don’t value the time of their fellow entrepreneurs. Why can’t they be blunt and straightforward? A simple no is far better than a hazy yes.

Product requires vision and a key insight into the industry that comes from working in the industry for years. The gyaanbaazi that Delhi folks offer centres around the business model than the product, around marketing rather than growth. So many people wasted so much of our time that I am now averse to the industry — most of all, these dumbfuck analysts who call themselves VCs and pick brains with their second-hand startup knowledge, never having built anything of their own.

The first question I ask any prospective employee is the same as that I ask a prospective investor: “Have you used the product?” Until you use my frigging product, all your ideas are vacuous and you are basically planning to invest your time and energy and even money on an idea that you want to build—not what we are building.

Building a social product in India is challenging, and our abandonment of the previous three products is a testimony to that, because there is a dearth of early adopters in India. When our previous product failed to pick a viral trajectory on its own after some time, I resorted to an idea that I had already tested and attained product-market fit during my college days.

A mobile-first microblogging platform for claiming copyright on one’s quotes, so that a simple Google search could lead one to those quotes. As a writer, it was a problem I deeply related to. There was no existing way to stop the rampant plagiarism going on in the social media. Attribution of credit to your short creativity was amiss. Therefore, for YourQuote, instead of going the usual text-only way, we devised a pictorial way of doing it—so that the pictures are shareable, visually stunning and non-copyable.

Mobile-first approach implied doing away with the entire trouble of setting up a blog and so on. Inspired from Instagram, we created an app where the user logs in and starts posting their quotes on beautiful wallpapers right away, with no resistance. Hence, a writer garners his/her own follower base with their wit and creativity besides plagiarism becomes difficult as you cannot highlight the text on a jpeg and cropping the user’s name away will make the wallpaper look bad.

Over the past two weeks, we have cracked UGC (user generated content — often considered a beast by the Indian investors) and have had over 2000 quotes posted on our platform by a little more than 500 users.

For YourQuote, we have decided we are not going to meet any Indian entrepreneurial folks for advice or investment. Because we don’t need any more of their recycled gyaan. The only feedback we care about is our users’, who are already helping us build our platform better and more robust.

Nobody in India has ever built a global social product from scratch. Nobody in India understands what the writers want better than us. Nobody knows how to run a startup so lean that even a year and a half later, you have both the funds and inspiration to thrive for another year. We will keep working out of the Himalayas, invite inspired folks to come and help us grow our niche network until we escape from one Valley to another. Amen.

Take a look at these names…

• Dazo
• Spoonjoy
• TalentPad
• TaxiForSure
• Jewelskart
• Fashionara
• ITiffin

What’s the common thread that links these names? While these start-ups started off with huge investments being poured in for them to thrive, they failed to make a mark in today’s highly competitive market. As India witnesses a sudden surge in the number of start-ups, here are some numbers to prove my statement – 2281 start-ups have cropped up since 2014 across verticals, the harsh fact that 9 out of 10 startups fail cannot be refuted. From lack of product to market fit to disharmony within the team and founding members, Dr Som Singh, mentor, advisor and entrepreneur provides a post-mortem on why tech start-ups are faltering on their way up the ladder.

1. Ineptitude

Just because you have an idea in mind doesn’t mean you can build a business empire around it right? Is just the idea really enough? A few of the primary reasons why startups bleed out is incompetence to…

• Identify if the idea is market worthy
• Carry out sufficient competitive analysis of the industry
• Analyze if the product/service they are looking to offer is exclusive
• Identify a value bracket
• Categorize budget restraint and why it’s crucial to stick to the resources at hand

Additionally having ineffectual inexperienced employees on board and operational mismanagement drains venture capital while also exhausting revenue.

2. Lack of administrative experience

Not every idea gives you ‘Eureka!’.  Proper management is key and that management requires experience. Successful leaders have honed their skills over years after incessant practice. Some of the challenges in which experience is required are project and personnel management, crafting and executing a company’s mission and vision, and implementation of a company’s strategy. Weak teams add very little value to the company and are usually the ones who could ruin the company. Lack of innovative ideas and thus not being able to provide an exclusive niche product in an already over-crowded market also leads to collapse. A good management team is clever to discover tactics that ensure a company’s success in the market place.

3. Marketplace Deterioration

The industry is moving at a rapid pace. What is ‘in’ at the moment may be out-of-date in no time. This is the very reason why tech products have a very short lifep, may be even much shorter than the time it had taken to establish the product from ground up. Many tech start-ups see that the time they take to ideate on their plan, get suitable funding and start their business, they are already irrelevant or by now have some rough competition.

4. Poor IT infrastructure

When it comes to a technology company, it cannot survive without an excellent IT set up and support system. Start-ups need entire infrastructure built on powerful servers, networks, computers and workstations for employees. The technical dexterity required to set up such systems is exceedingly sophisticated thus it has been seen that successful start-ups often outsource certain sections of their work.

5. Inadequate marketing

You need to be aware of the fact that it pays to pay attention to your customers and for that you need a proper marketing and communication strategy. As a startup, there are more than a few cost effective marketing tactics that can get the word about your business out in the market.

6. Diminished Finances And Poor Cash Flow

“Cash is king”

Dearth of funds is one of the nastiest things that can happen to a startup. Most start-ups run out of cash as soon as they commence and bump into complexities in finding further funding. Archetypal causes why companies run out of money comprise inadequate administration, deficiency in sales and revenues, scanty finances, etc.

The tech industry is undoubtedly one of the hardest nuts to crack. So, if you are planning to start out, make sure you bear these points in mind and then take the leap. 

The startup success rate in India is just a little more than 3 per cent. While most of the startups are shutting down, there are some that held to tough times and are now emerging winners as their profits grow and losses shrink. One such organization is Foodpanda, the food delivery app. According to Rocket Internet’s financial results for the first half of 2016 (calendar year), Foodpanda’s net revenues grew 72 per cent in H1 2016 as against the same period last year.

“If you believe in your business and you know it’s going to work and make money, there’s no backing down,” said Gagan Arora, CMO, Foodpanda, speaking at Samvaad, a leadership conclave organized by the students of Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon. Gagan Arora, who was also the co-founder of PrintVenue, is now one of the top decision makers at Foodpanda. We spoke to him on entrepreneurship, coming out of tough times, technology and more on the sidelines of Samvaad 2016. Here’s what he told us in a quick candid chat:

Food startups are going through tough times. What would you say to entrepreneurs in such times?

Everybody is going through tough times because the situation is tough. One should never forget that for a business to be viable, it has to be profitable. As soon as one figures out how they are going to make money in a particular industry, they’ll be the winner. Fortunately, we are the ones who are operationally profitable and it puts us in a better situation to make profits in the near future. The clear focus for our company right now is how to make money in the next two years.

How do you see the food business of India in the next few years?

It is definitely one of the best businesses to get into. You don’t have to remind somebody that they need to eat. A person generally eats three times a day, so the potential in the food sector for these three times is already there. Given that more and more population is going busier, the need for delivering food is growing each day. We have a huge population that resides in cities. They are the target consumers. They are busy with jobs. We are focusing on how to get them food on time.

How far is technology helping in this whole revolution in food technology?

At no point, do we let a handshake go without an information shake. This, in the sense that if the food has been delivered from the vendor to the consumer, we keep a tab of it and each party involved is accountable. The role of technology is extremely important. It has taken us around one and a half years to come at this stage where every second moment, food gets ordered, it’s all real time.

Investors these days are following the herd approach. Do you think that’s affecting food startups?

This was the case six months back, but not as of now. Investors are getting more tactical about funding now. It’s a proactive call that I’ve seen that they are taking right now to conserve cash for the right opportunities. Earlier the race was about capturing e-commerce, but now the approach is to get hold of viable and sustainable opportunities.

One sentence for entrepreneurs/startups who are going through tough times.

If you know what you’re doing and you really care about it, give it your 100 per cent, don’t back down.

Does that mean shutting down is not an option?

Shutting down is not the right way. If you know it in your head that it is going to work, never get away from your target.

If entrepreneurship is something new to you, then I strongly recommend . Being drawn to the wrong assumption that you are required to build a complicated behemoth is as easy as it is overwhelming. That $100K app — or even the website — is something you can probably do without.

My experience has taught me that simple solutions tend to become easily complicated. What I do is think about how I would have dealt with a problem 10 years go. Doing so will help you keep focused on the crucial things, like:

• Am I engaging in true problem-solving right now?

• Will my solution draw anyone’s interest?

• When do we eat? (Never underestimate this one.)

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Start with the essentials. Educate yourself with every resource you can find, be it business books or any other source of knowledge available to you. Extend your skillset with the ones needed to create and run a company. It will help to do everything yourself in the beginning. Try your newly acquired skills on small projects.

Jeff Grover, co-founder of  puts his perspective on the essentials. “I’ve been through ‘the essentials’ a few times so far. My activities range from launching my own websites, building the marketing campaigns, to doing graphics design in Photoshop, to eventually creating every single system and process I work with.”

2. Training for a sprint.

I hate to break this to you, but launching an online business is a tedious process that will consume every bit of time and energy you have, so you’d better start liking it. Unless you are absolutely in love with your field, don’t start a business. Also, know that you are unavoidably earning some very handy skills during the process of business building.

3. Thinking that it’s a one-person thing.

“When I was set in my mind to launch my startup, I was confident that getting a co-founder was something that I didn’t need in my life,” said Melissa Thompson, founder of . “But I’ve changed my mind since then. Launching a business with a friend is a great idea.”

The reasoning behind this is pretty simple. You won’t be eager to work every single day. Also, your mom hasn’t done anything wrong to have to school you five times a day when things get tough. Don’t do that.

4. Fear of customers.

It takes more than simply building a business for customers to start appearing. It’s equally important to get the feedback of your target customer base as early as possible. I am seriously very afraid of speaking to potential customers about a new business idea. The fear of rejection gets under my skin, as it does with most people. This can result in a serious problem — you start building a business without knowing the customers’ needs beforehand.

Knowing everything there is to know about your customers is essential. What they need, what they want, what they don’t like. If you get this one right, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favor in the long run. Trust me.

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5. Doing but not learning.

Starting an online business is not a fast-paced game. Start slow, mastering the essentials one step at a time. If you think that putting out a newsletter every week is too taxing, do it once per fortnight. Begin with a simple calendar on social media, and build on it as time passes.

You see, in business, you learn everything by doing. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do everything perfectly, as long as you are doing it — and learning valuable lessons from it in the process. Start by doing one task every day that everyone else is avoiding.

6. Being a Scrooge.

All my businesses have been funded exclusively by me, so I know what it feels like not having enough funds to support your project. Having said that, I do think there are certain things you should be generous with:

• Good, quality legal and accounting support with regards to IP, agreements and business setup. Make sure you get all these right as early as possible.

• Branding and graphic design. A $5 logo looks like a $5 logo. It’s the harsh truth. Your business branding should be nailing it, letting others know in a flash the levels of success you aspire to reach.  

• Good employees. Hiring bad employees can cost you more in wasted training expense and stress than a host of other things possibly could. It is worth the time and effort it takes to find good employees. Sometimes the best ones come from simple referrals from trusted friends and associates.

7. Neglecting networking.

I honestly don’t believe that you can be a successful entrepreneur without having a robust network. My networking attempts started two years in advance of launching my business, and I think of it as one of the most basic foundations of modern business management.  

Another must is building your own professional personal brand. Spend time making, and , presentations and speaking gigs at industry relevant shows. Take advantage of your social media presence to make sure everyone knows how authentic, hardworking and great you really are. This is a process that bears fruit in the middle to long term, so stick with it, even if you don’t see results immediately

8. Wasting time trying to juggle between side projects.

Luckily, it didn’t take me long to realize that what made a successful entrepreneur was that they focused their resources on one or two projects, instead of wasting it on five different projects at once. Concentrate on your core business, and don’t lose focus. Pretend you are the eagle that is locked on its prey.

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9. Getting out of perspective.

I disagree with the popular notion that you need to die trying in order to be successful in business. The health, strength and success of your business are a direct reflection of you. Work hard, but don’t forget to take good care of yourself. If you don’t, then your business will fail along with you.

If you’ve been involved in various startups like myself, I bet you have nodded your head a few times reading at least half of these mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Learn from them, and don’t make them twice.

According to a latest report published by CB Insights and KPMG last week,  Q3 saw VC-backed funding, down14 percent and $24.1 billion invested across 1,983 deals globally, representing a very slight deal increase from the previous quarter. 

However, India on the other hand had reasons to cheer! The third quarter saw stability return to the funding environment. Domains like fintech, heath-tech, and other consumer tech areas have received the warmth of investor support.

“The investment environment in India is becoming stable with clearer business models emerging in the startup ecosystem,” says Partner, E-Commerce and Startups at KPMG, Sreedhar Prasad. “Though the speed of investments have not increased, we see a clear interest by investors in the payments space as well as in the health-tech sector,” he added.

This week saw stocks of major technology giants like Infosys and Tata Consultancy tumble, an interesting mix lot of technology-based startups managed to receive investors’ support.

Vernacular news aggregator DailyHunt raised $25 million of fresh funds from Chinese content provider ByteDance.  News-based startup Newspatrolling.com has raised $1.5 million amount of seed funding from an undisclosed investor on Friday.

Bengaluru-based women’s health app, raised an undisclosed round of funds from Rajan Anandan, vice-president, Google, Southeast Asia and India.

Postman, the platform that helps developers build, test, document, and share their APIs at a faster pace, raised $7 million in funding from Nexus Venture Partners.

Adventure travel startup , which owns and operates camp site aggregator Deyor Campus, has raised $500,000 from a bunch of early-stage investors.

U.S. private equity giant KKR via its pan-Asia  investment platform Emerald Media decided to pump in $50 million of investments in YuppTV, a home-grown content provider for the India diaspora which provides content provider for South Asian Content, as live TV, Catch-up TV, and Unlimited Movies

Indian Oil Corp has launched a Rs. 30 crore fund to promote startups and hone innovation in the oil and gas sector.