The art of growing a company: An entrepreneurial monologue

Abstract

This paper presents entrepreneurship as an emotional pursuit. It is the gut feeling that is most important in making a start-up decision. Drawing on his own experiences and of those closely associated with start-ups, the author offers a framework that reflects on how a company can be started—the various stages, the key problems in each stage, and suggestions for sailing smoothly through them. The different stages are as follows: Confusion: It includes three phases of Fright, Flight, and Fantasy. The initial apprehensions of a failure could hold an aspirant from starting up. It is possible that he gets frightened about the possibility of failure or gets frustrated about his lack of focus and keeps jumping from one idea to another or be overconfident about the success of his idea. Crossing threshold: The limited few who cross the stage of confusion face the three P’s: Peer Pressure, Procrastination, and Poverty. A green signal from family, friends, and industry leaders and the confidence of a sound financial backing are important for a take-off. Although starting up should be a bold step, yet one needs to have at least six months financial expenses, an activity plan for the first month, and lots of ‘hope’ in the baggage. Start-up: The key issues at this stage include how to set up a team, share equity or raise funds. It is important to realize that responsibilities cannot be shared equally. There has to be a leader with highest equity who would be ready to own the consequences of a decision. First thousand days: This is believed to be the decisive phase. There could be difficulties in capturing clients, managing too many jobs at a time or getting payments in time. At this stage, it is very important to have a clear set of priorities, be flexible, and responsible. Success or failure would also depend a lot on how the ‘hard’ issues such as finance, marketing, technology, and partnership and alliances are tackled. Growth: Once the company crosses the hurdles of the first thousand days and is in the winning track, there emerges the fear of losing focus. This is the most difficult period in the company’s life with the possibility of the business ending up in a disaster. To sustain the focus on organizational growth, it is important for the entrepreneurs to: • decide whether he really wants to grow and if yes, be prepared to face the emerging issues • separate the two roles of investor and entrepreneur-manager • break the vicious cycle of money-recruitment-retention • align the important individuals to a common organizational vision through equity. No entrepreneur should forget the supremacy of cash, mind, and intuition. He who has these would be able to fight, take rational decisions, and remove mistakes at the earliest. Above all, what is important is to enjoy the journey towards the destination.