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1/ I quit my job at ThoughtWorks 4 years ago. Became an entrepreneur with 0 experience in running a business. We’re still alive and kicking, a team of 9, close to profitable, and have 25K+ developers on our platform. Here are my reflections from the last 4 years.
2/ Don’t start up unless you're sure about it. Starting up is not for the weak-hearted. If you think you will dabble in it while at your job, don’t do it. If you don’t have support from your family, don’t do it. You’ve either started up or you’ve not. Part time is a waste of time
3/ Building a b2c product brick by brick is a hard game, especially when bootstrapped. I’ve often thought a pure b2b product that can be grown via sales would’ve been a better route for me to take.
4/ I was told getting payments is really hard in India. To date we’ve not had an issue with payments. Sticking to a traditional business model most companies are used to, helped. So even if your product is super innovative, stick to payment systems people are used to.
5/ Hiring the first set of people is hard and painful. Try to build your core team from your own network. If you don’t have people from your network who will join you, that is probably a sign, and something to fix before you start up.
6/ Working at a startup has been 10x more satisfying than my previous employer. And my previous employer was great. As cheesy as it sounds, starting up feels like I found true love.
7/ Moving from software delivery to completely owning end to end of a business has been eye-opening. I would’ve struggled more if I hadn't gained high quality Ops exposure in the last few years at my previous job. If you don't have this, get a mentor.
8/ Two big noob mistakes I did - did not talk enough to our customers, and did not use data to make business decisions. Both have hurt us and we’re correcting both now. Even though i knew i should not be building the product head down, that's what i did.
9/ Distractions are a-plenty. It’s hard to stay focused. Especially when these distractions have lots of money to offer. Like someone told us, “Every time you say No to distractions, your value goes up”. I think this is true.
10/ It’s really hard to believe in what you’re doing. There are times when I don’t know what the hell I got myself into. “This is a stupid idea, why am I even working my ass off for this” etc. are common. Persevere.
11/ I’ve expanded on some of these, and there are additional thoughts here - medium.com/@krishnannair/…
