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Entrepreneur, Employees & Customers: The Trinity Keep in mind that people are the most important asset in any business – especially in technology businesses

By Naveen Goyal

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Entrepreneurship is a new job, new business and new fashion in India. Some young generation people like to have a CEO/Founder title quite early in their career. There are others who are not happy in a corporate job, or have learned enough (that's what they think) and want to do a try as an entrepreneur. Have you read about the text everywhere on the internet – try before you repent later?

Few others run this as a business and looking to add another business vertical within an existing group, or an existing portfolio. While about a decade back the funding ecosystem in India was non-existent, now such companies are mushrooming everywhere in India. Not sure where all this money is coming from.

Work Culture

The idea is to get money and "quickly" scale up, even maybe international expansion. Such scaling will further increase the valuation and the story continues. Founders and employees work tireless completely destroying the youth and life with the expectation that the payout would be high later. An interesting fact is that even investors and founders and businessmen expect startup employees to work non-stop.

Most of these startups are in technology space. Thanks to the explosion of mobile phones and cheap data available on phones that has encouraged so many internet startups worldwide. People actually expect that employees have data on their phones, have WhatsApp, skype, Viber (and several other such apps) and that people respond almost immediately. What a startup life young generation is fancying about!

Contrast this to Europe, the US or even South East Asia. We are surprised to see the work culture even in South East Asian countries which are developing economies. Working conditions, environment and people's mindset is very different from India,

Making Something Real

As an entrepreneur, we ought to build something that adds value to people's lives. It's not the idea but the execution that builds a venture. Execution means a lot of things including positive energy every day, perseverance, focused etc. That does not mean working long hours and expecting employees to do the same.

First at this point employees cannot be you – founder. Do not expect them to work as you do. Think about living for yourself and for the employees. The growth of the company might be slow but it will be in for the long term. That's how ventures in the western countries grew to be organizations and institutions people love to work for. They scaled gradually. People worked for their passion, lived lives well and created substantial value.

We will see such organizations coming out of India once entrepreneurs in India understand this.

Keeping ourselves healthy is important. Exercising keeps us focused. One of the most important lessons in Entrepreneurship we learn by gymming.:

  • howsoever hard it is to lift, always keep looking straight. Pain should never let you look down, always forward-looking

  • Its that extra repetition that separate men from boys. Keep going with that pain in your muscles. This is the only way to build muscles or ventures that truly will amaze people

Keep in mind that people are the most important asset in any business – especially in technology businesses. If you want to travel far keep people with you, travel together. Get the right kind of core people that will be with you for a very long time. The relationship is built over time, however, the start is very important, Just like the sapling that needs a lot of water and sunlight initially. Keep the hygiene right with compensation and enough equity for everyone to see the upside. You have to keep intentions right so that people see positive energy. Wrong intentions emit energy that becomes visible in the near future.

As an entrepreneur, the biggest value you bring is the energy in the team. Keep that energy high every moment. That's what will keep the people moving.

Naveen Goyal

CEO, Adda52

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