Vivek Ravisankar’s Web

Good to meet you all, I am still alive . Of late (4-5 months), I have been meeting truckloads of people from students to CXO’s and sometimes queer things come out of the discussion. I talked to a lot of wannabe entrepreneurs asking them why they really want to start off, a few reasons seemed surprising and deceiving….

• ‘It’s fun to run a startup‘

I think there’s a difference between fun and excitement. Fun is something you do with your mind free of any pressure – a trek trip with your friends (or) a week long vacation with your girl at goa! Excitement is something that’s interesting but not without tension/pressure in your head – an India vs Pakistan WC finals is exciting for the players but has it’s own share of pressure, tension, etc accompanied with it.

Startups are mostly like the latter. It’s really exciting as you keep learning a lot of things, meet new people but something is constantly running in your head! If one thinks it’s going to be a relaxed life since he’s the owner/founder, etc. I think he’s terribly mistaken! I would call it exciting not fun!

• ‘It looks good in my profile’/ ‘I get more respect in barcamps/meetings, etc’

If this was your primary reason, I think you are almost heading for a failure. Quitting a big MNC for the sake of having an ‘entrepreneur’ tag is just a heroic act – doesn’t serve any purpose. It might look good in your profile only if you have worked er..slogged in your stint as an entrepreneur and done some solid work, for which the motivating factor is entirely different.
If it’s for garnering respect/people raising eyebrows, you might be better off saying you work for Google News Team than some random abc.com!

• ‘You are your own Boss‘

This is the one common reason cited by many and frankly I think this is a huge misconception. You are the boss only in your business card. What people fail to understand is when you run a startup, you are essentially answerable to all your customers. So if there are 1000 people registered with you, then you are answerable to 1000 guys! Well, earlier it was only 1 guy, now? . And nowadays, it’s become so simple to tarnish your reputation with the advent of tools like this and this. A CEO/CTO/VP etc. doesn’t really make sense if your customers aren’t happy… rather if you don’t have any customers!

• ‘I get to spend more time with my girl/wife since I am on my own‘

Yes, was told by someone who was in his mid-thirties. I think the problem of work-life balance is even higher for an early stage entrepreneur, even if you work out of your home. I don’t know how/why, but atleast in the initial stages, attempts mostly would be futile. The probability of meeting an early stage entrepreneur who says ‘I spend more time with my wife than when I was working in an MNC’ is like seeing Ashish Nehra rattle the stumps with the middle stick out of sight!

I am not even sure if the guys whom I met are going to read this (yes the URL is there in my business card), but I just wrote what I felt applicable to early stage entrepreneurs ( < 1-1.5 years). It’s not to discourage anyone but I think this is the reality.
The bet you have to make is on the team and the idea and the rest of MBA jargons ‘customer segmentation, market research, etc’ can be figured out! Race on…

Viv