#5 Things I Wish IIT Taught Me About Entrepreneurship So ideas do not matter simply, what matters is quick execution

I graduated from IIT Delhi in 2015 and sold my first start-up and I am now working on new logistics-based start-up. During my time at IIT, I learnt a lot of valuable lessons, which makes me incredibly grateful to my alma mater in a lot of ways.

However, there are a few life lessons I learned from my experiences with both start-ups, which I wish I had learned at college. Some of them are:

#Screw Business Ideas

Mark Cuban once famously said that for every one good business ideas there are probably 1,000 people working on it. So ideas do not matter simply, what matters is quick execution. Moreover while there might not be a solid execution plan at the start, most of the things will fall into place along the way. Hence smart, diligent and clear execution trumps everything.

#Brand Building and Customer Experience

For your customers you sell an experience... something that would make them crave for more. Today unless you create a 10X difference in price or quality it is hard to dominate the market. Quite naturally, on day one, most entrepreneurs are uncertain of the potential their brand can hold. However, what you should do is, focus on brand building. Paul Graham once said at an early stage in your operations you can really offer a great experience which adds value to the brand.

#The World is Grey

Being an entrepreneur you cannot take people at face value. Our current education system teaches us that people are good or bad- in other words black or white. Reality though is that most people are grey and can be good or bad, depending on the situation.

#Facing Problems is a Good Thing

When you are facing problems like clients asking for more or feedback that your tech is not upto the mark that is a good sign because that means you are onto something. However, at the same time you should be aware that these problems are not your own doing due to lack of diligence or complacency.

#Assessing Character

Hiring the right people is one of the toughest challenges for an entrepreneur. There are absolutely no set criteria while hiring the right people and it is very tough to judge whether a person will perform or not based on an initial interview. You have to be a very good judge of character, gauge how grounded she/he is and other aspects of their personality. Character in my opinion is more important than skills for a startup. As the company grows people's roles will automatically become more defined and functional, on which basis you can thenhire based on skills.