How to think like Einstein

7 habits of highly effective entrepreneurs

Apparently highly successful people have exactly seven habits according to Stephen R. Covey … This number may have been achieved through mathematical/astrological calculations or the whims of the author but it makes for an interesting list… Many have come up with their own list of 7 habits for success so I thought we should give it a go too with the focus squarely on entrepreneurs…

• Get involved– Standing on the sidelines does not befit an entrepreneur. Involvement in not just your own business but also the segment you are in will be beneficial. Sitting in your own office and hoping people will seek you out is just wrong. Go to conferences, meet people socialize, and who knows you might just find inspiration or the next best thing a mentor… Come to events like Sociopreneurship 2010 to learn more J
• Prioritize– Learn to attack your work from a priority point of view. Some things are more necessary than others. Often the curse of success is that you have no idea where to focus because you have so many projects going at the same time. Sit down with your team, find out what needs immediate attention, and get cracking. First priorities first will get you though a mountain of work in a jiffy…
• Delegate – For an entrepreneur to handing out responsibilities may seem a very natural thing to do but most of our ilk refuses to give up the reins. The other extreme of no involvement is the perfectionist who tries to do everything… Learn to place trust in people, choose a team that inspires trust and is worthy of it. Delegate responsibilities and free up time for yourself to focus on the matters you are good at. You cannot possible be an expert at everything so DELEGATE…
• Inspire– An entrepreneur is the ring master of the circus that is their start up. You have to be the one who gets everyone fired up when the going gets tough. Remember everyone looks to you for leadership so learn to be inspiring. Get to work before others, be the change that you want to see in your employees, set examples and push people to be the best they can be.
• Read between the lines– Learning to understand what is not being said is an important quality for an entrepreneur to have. Imagine of you could tell which employee is disgruntled just by reading their body language or tone. Would it not be great if you could gauge the reactions of investors just by glancing at their expressions?  Deciphering Body language may not be for everyone but if you stay approachable then people will open up to you be they employees or prospective investors.
• Hiring talent– Someone once told me that great idea with a mediocre team will fail but a mediocre idea with a great team will inevitably succeed. The reasons are simple your idea is not a stagnant entity but grows with the inputs that are made to it. The better the caliber of the people who are making the inputs the better the end product will become…Hire smart responsible people, run background checks keep a close eye on your hires and that should do the trick.
• Share success- An entrepreneur is only as good as the team that backs them up. Share the limelight with them whenever possible, make your team feel wanted and not as if they are slaving away for you for just a paycheck in a 9 to5. If they believe in your vision give them assurances that they are a part of it. Sharing profits is great but sharing the limelight too is even better.

Here’s an infographic by Funders and Founders on “10 signs of a likeable entrepreneur”

Dear Reader, I hope this list of 7 Habits of effective Entrepreneurs helps you out a bit. I am sure I have missed out on many more, limited as I am by the numerical aspect of this article. Feel free to let us know which ones we missed…

7 questions and answers that’ll reveal the story behind ScoopWhoop, yourstory.com coverage

I’m sure you know what we’re trying to do with the headline. Decreasing attention spans, a growing ‘bored at work’ audience, the race for pageviews- all these reasons have given rise to this ever growing new form of content. Brought mainstream by BuzzFeed in America, there are numerous sites that have come up across the globe to ride the wave. There are ongoing debates about the future of content and whether this new form does any good but the audience at large continues to consume. Sites like BuzzFeed, Upworthy have got astronomical numbers in terms of traffic and ScoopWhoop is doing the same in India.

ScoopWhoop has five co-founders who are in the their mid twenties and know each other from their Indian Institute of Mass Communication days. The guys- Rishi Mukherjee, Saransh Singh, Sattvik Mishra and Suparn Pandey- worked for WebChutney while Sriparna Tikekar, the lady in the team worked with DoneByNone.com in her previous role. They were friends outside of work and were huge fans of the likes of Buzzfeed, Upworthy, Thought Catalog etc.

We knew that a lot of Indians were consuming this kind of content. But we also realized that most of the content coming from these sites were very global/American in nature. We felt there was an opportunity here for Indian content, in the same format. And that is when we started ScoopWhoop as a side project in August last year. We still had our day jobs and post office hours, we used to work on SW.

YS: As a company, what was the vision with which you started? What does ScoopWhoop want to be?

SW: I don’t think we had any vision back then. We were just a bunch of 20 somethings trying to have fun with Buzzfeed style of content in India. We weren’t even sure if it would work. In our very initial days, we did not even think of ourselves as a startup. But things changed the moment we started putting content on the site. Our very first article went viral and in the first month itself we started getting traction, brands started approaching us for advertising. We suddenly realized this is something that can work. The proof of concept came in no time.

The vision for ScoopWhoop is to be an out-an-out social news and entertainment company. We want to be everywhere, from current affairs, politics, sports to funny listicles and share-worthy videos. The idea is to be a publication in the league of the legacy players.

YS: SW has seen a phenomenal growth, what do you attribute this to?

SW: We are very proud of the team that we’ve built. We have some of the most creative writers who form the editorial team. So if you have to ask me one reason why we’ve been successful, it’ll be the content that we create. From day one, our stories started going viral. At that time, we had no media budget, no tech wizardry, and no revenue stream.

YS: What is the team strength at the moment?

SW: We are currently a 12 member team. 7 are hired.

YS: What is your revenue model?

SW: Our revenue model is native advertising and sponsored stories. Some of our clients include Pepsi, Godrej, HUL, Budweiser, MakeMyTrip etc.

YS: Digital media is undergoing some massive changes. What are your views?

SW: That is both exciting and scary. Exciting because there’s so much to learn and explore. And that is also the scariest thing. You need to keep your eyes and ears open and stay up-to-date. Every day there’s so much happening; it’s very easy to fall behind.

YS: What do you think of the blurring line between media, content, ads?

SW: This space has definitely gotten more interesting as globally online advertising seems to be moving from traditional display models to more native formats. It’s still nascent and while the debate is still raging between the fine line between pure editorial/content and branded content and how much is really enough, I feel native models are definitely better from the reader’s/user’s POV. But at the same time, it is important for the user to know what he is reading, editorial or sponsored.

YS: Your thoughts on competition in the space.

SW: Competition is always good. It keeps you on your toes, and there is always something that you can learn from other players.

I think since we started, some 20 other sites have come up, while a lot of established publications and legacy players have also entered this space. But it doesn’t worry us. We like to believe that we’ve built a loyal base for ScoopWhoop; and it is only growing month on month. Plus, India is a hot bed for content and with internet penetration only increasing in India, it gives enough elbow room to multiple players.

Things I wish I knew before my startup journey

As part of my consulting, I meet entrepreneurs with a startup or who want to start one. I spend two hours as part of my business initiation to understand the person and maturity of the product idea. I ask them to explore a few things (listed below) before they are ready to invest the time and effort. Here is a reminder: Plans are a necessary evil. You plan with the understanding that all plans might not work.

I became an entrepreneur coming from a family with no entrepreneurial background. This is the list of things I wish I had known before I took the plunge.

Get ‘buy-in’ from family

Let me start with my biggest mistake. I did a lousy job of making my wife understand the need for me to start my own business and this haunted me through my startup journey.

Start talking to your family about the startup idea, both the success and failure scenario. Write down their questions and try to answer them. Do not ignore ones which you do not have an answer to; go and get answers. Do not expect them to be convinced with your answers, but still make an effort to explain.

Once they accept your decision, they may still feel insecure because there is no consistent income. Most of them are hesitant to bring up the topic so as not to upset you. Take the initiative to talk about it and look at alternatives and challenges. You need to prepare them more than yourself for the startup journey.

Remember it is your idea, and no one believes in your idea more than you do

Do not expect them to understand your idea and validate it. If they are uncertain about the project, it will affect you. You need to protect yourself from emotional pull downs in the startup journey.

My wife lost trust in my word to bring money home every month to run the family. (I had failed a few times). It was admirable of her to continue to support me and I am lucky to be with her today.

One could follow a lean startup idea while developing the product. Please do not start with quitting your job. Start with writing the code for your product or the business proposition.

Write the value proposition message for the product idea 

To start with, fill the below format for your product idea and use this in talks with others to describe the product. For a platform idea, with more than one customer type, fill this separately for each customer type. When you discover new things, update the same to make it more complete.

• For << this type of customer>>, Who << has this type of problem>>
• We offer<< this solution>>
• Which is <<different in this way>> From <<other competitors>>

Leverage the KISS philosophy (keep it simple,stupid) to complete them. Do not use buzzwords and keep it as simple as possible. For greenfield ideas, find a set of firms with businesses that are closer to your idea.

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Also read:  Why you should not start a startup

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Fill the business model canvas 

The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool. It allows you to describe, design, challenge, invent, and pivot your business model. Today, firms like Strategyzer train people on how to fill out this model. The BMC has questions to help people structure product ideas in their quest for new business models.

Keep the following points in mind while filling out the BMC:

• You need not have answers to all the questions. You know what you know, and what you do not know is not an issue.
• In search for answers, you get to network with people who might become co-founders, moonlighting employees, or customers.
• The BMC serves as a baseline to form a mental mindset of the product idea.
• Be prepared to hear that your idea is lousy and is not needed. Listen and make notes; do not argue.

Application of UI Design  

A lot of technical people feel that they do not have the UI skills but at the same time cannot afford to hire UI talent. If you feel that you need a good design for your product, you can learn UI skills.

• Attend online courses (some are free) on UI design practices, and get familiar with design concepts.
• Do research on innovative websites and applications. Use trial versions and take snapshots for features that you want in your application.
• Share designs with your developer and ask him or her to develop them. Any UI developer will feel motivated to come with more ideas.
• Never tell your developer that you have no idea about designing. Talk to some of your friends or contacts who might be working as UI designers in larger corporates. Ask them for feedback and share it with your developers. Be sure to water down the harsh part of the feedback!

Website design

Do not benchmark the first website with the corporate site. It should be something simple with focus on the customer. If there are multiple customers, choose one customer segment and target it. You should display the value proposition and ‘call to action’ for this customer on the home page.

• The effort required for the design layout of the website is different from the developer’s effort to program the website.
• There is an additional effort that comes with website content (images, text). As a techie, one often understands design and developer efforts, and underestimates content input.
• It would be good for the content writer and UI designer to work together (say for 36 hours) in a focused way and complete the website to prevent delays.
• Do not expect the website to be a one-time affair. You might have to update the website multiple times. Plan to perform minor updates without a designer.
• Some websites talk about the company, product features, and the team. These are good for internal pages in the website. When the end user likes the value proposition on the home page, he will want to know who is behind that product and what its features are.

 Build your network  

 As a cooperate employee, one can attend special interest groups and share ideas. I was a part of a cloud camp, and Android and Amazon meetup groups. Being an early member helped me create a network with entrepreneurs who I am in touch with even today.When you hear a speaker talk of the challenges in an area, you understand the situation better, and can ask questions.

• Be a part of TIE, and try to participate in iSpirit sessions and attend meetings in Microsoft Accelerator. Some may ask for a small token amount for networking sessions, it is worth it.
• Attend meetings; be open to meet people who are planning startups in your area or a different one.Attend enough meetings to identify the right community for your idea.
• Free industry sessions of India Product Leadership helped me learn concepts like value proposition, the Business Model Canvas, and digital marketing.
• Blogs of close.io showed me that my sales challenges were due to my ignorance.
• YourStory helps in the searching for competitors or becoming aware of other startups in your space.

 Gain domain experience

For techies, please reach out to professionals to get domain exposure and get your value proposition validated by domain experts. Try connecting with them through your friend circles. Some of your contacts will describe similar startup situations. You can look at their website and compare it with your plans.

Learn about the selling process

In my startup, we began with a product idea in the greenfield area. Today, I know that the greenfield area expects that we introduce the product concept to the customer and then sell the product. Being a techie in those days, I considered creating products in greenfield was cool and did not question our capability to sell products, even in areas with competitors.

If your employer provides you with pre-sales opportunity, take it even if you have to spend additional time. Sales is not account management with existing customers but also cold calling. As a techie, you may have limited or no sales capability. Sales exposure in a large company would help you learn the customer development process and tailor the same for your startup. Be open to learn from your mistakes and cultivate the ability to be resilient after rejections.

Explore external consulting opportunity

If you have niche skills, go ahead and take up consulting assignments. You can do it over weekends or at night. Look at these opportunities as a way to validate your solution to a problem.This is also an opportunity to test your ideas without actual risk.

In 2011, I failed to leverage consulting opportunities that needed cloud skills. I know of colleagues who leveraged their Big Data skills and have startups in that space today. I still remember a friend running a cloud company asking me to experiment my ideas by offering me his infrastructure.

Remember all interactions might lead to the creation of new networks and relationships. That gives you the opportunity to articulate and sell your skills. But give limited hours to consulting and be aware that you are preparing for your product, and not to become a consultant or a service company.