Tag: Entrepreneurship

The Playbook: Monkeybox founder Sanjay Rao on rebuilding his startup after the shutdown

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Entrepreneurial comebacks are rare and extremely tough. But then, founders are known to bounce back after failed startups.

However, reinventing the same startup after shutting it down ranks amongst the rarest of rare.

Meet Monkeybox founder Sanjay Rao. Nearly two years after shutting down the startup, Rao is launching it again. He’s applying all the lessons from the failure.

When it announced “a temporary shutdown” in March 2018, Monkeybox was delivering around 10,000 meals to school kids every day.

“We didn’t want to compromise on the quality of our means and services, so we had to shut it down. Now, the parents and schools we worked with want us back, and we have new backers too,” he says.

Tune in, and listen to the Monkeybox story.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Kumar Mangalam Birla on what large, successful firms find most challenging

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Challenges never end when it comes to running a business. While establishing a company itself is a challenge, maintaining the momentum after it grows big on being successful, is a bigger task. In fact, the bigger the organisation, the bigger will be the challenges.

But what is the most challenging task for large and successful organisations? According to Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, one of the largest conglomerates in India, the most challenging task for big companies is to drive innovation.

According to Birla, big companies find it most challenging to drive innovation, not because they cannot, but because “there isn’t a compelling incentive to disrupt themselves”.

In a note written by Birla which highlighted 2020 reflections and learnings, the Aditya Birla Group chief said, “Driving innovation at an institutional level in diversified business groups is never easy.” “Insurgent competitors often use this as the wedge to drive their way into markets.”

According to Birla, innovation can act both as a bulwark against insurgents and as a means to penetrate and capture new opportunities.

“While we have a rich legacy of driving inside-out innovation, my learning over the last few years has been that ‘outside-in’ frameworks can also be equally effective,” Birla said.

Birla highlighted in the note that through Bizlabs, its outreach programme, the company has several engagements with startups across the Silicon Valley, Israel, Europe, Singapore and India. These engagements cover a wide range of applications including logistics, packaging, sustainability, fintech and home building innovation, to name a few, he noted.

“As I have now learnt, innovation cannot be bound by traditional organisational cadence. It requires different incentives and often longer time horizons,” added Birla.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

This book taught Bill Gates the importance of a good night’s sleep

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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“Dream is not what you see while sleeping, it is something that does not let you sleep.”

–          APJ Abdul Kalam

As Kalam said, almost every success story includes ‘sleepless nights’ – it’s as if the recipe of success is incomplete without sleepless nights. While there seems to be a direct relationship between sleeplessness and success, several scientific studies say that not sleeping or not sleeping enough affects not only one’s health but also productivity.

So how important is sleep for success? Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose wealth is estimated at $105.7 billion, provides insights.

In his latest blog, Gates outlined the benefits of a good night’s rest. Proof of the pudding? He cites Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep, a book he recently finished. “Now that I’ve read Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep, I realize that my all-nighters, combined with almost never getting eight hours of sleep, took a big toll,” he says.

Gates says he routinely pulled all-nighters in his early Microsoft days to deliver software, at times, even staying up two nights in a row. “I knew I wasn’t as sharp when I was operating mostly on caffeine and adrenaline, but I was obsessed with my work, and I felt that sleeping a lot was lazy.”

Gates, citing Walker, says neglecting sleep undercuts your creativity, problem-solving, decision-making, learning, memory, heart health, brain health, mental health, emotional well-being, immune system, and even your life span.

As part of his review of the book, Gates answered a few key questions that all of us are seeking answers to.

Does everyone really need seven or eight hours of sleep a night?

“The answer is that you almost certainly do, even if you’ve convinced yourself otherwise. In the words of Dr. Thomas Roth, of the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, ‘The number of people who can survive on five hours of sleep or less without impairment, and rounded to a whole number, is zero.’”

Why do we sleep?

“After all, when you’re sleeping—and all animals do—you can’t hunt, gather, eat, reproduce, or defend yourself. Yet Walker concludes that the evolutionary upsides of sleep are far greater than these downsides.”

What can I do to improve my sleep hygiene?

• Replace any LEDs bulbs in your bedroom, because they emit the most sleep-corroding blue light.
• “To successfully initiate sleep… your core temperature needs to decrease by 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit,” according to Walker.
• Limit alcohol, because alcohol is not a sleep aid, contrary to popular belief. While it might help induce sleep, “alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM [rapid-eye-movement] sleep,” Walker says.
• If you can possibly take a short midday nap like our ancestors used to and some Mediterranean and South American cultures still do, you should (but no later than 3 pm). It will likely improve your creativity and coronary health as well as extend your lifetime.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

The Playbook: Samir Bodas of Icertis on building a SaaS unicorn, life lessons from cancer

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Far from the glory and noise of consumer internet startups, a new breed of enterprise software entrepreneurs is quietly building this decade’s most valuable companies. Zoho, Freshworks, BrowserStack, to name a few, are shining examples of such enterprises.

Add Icertis, which is based in Seattle and Pune, to that list. Icertis is a startup that helps some of the world’s biggest companies manage their contracts better. Founded in 2009 by Samir Bodas and Monish Darda, Icertis has raised around $200 million so far and has annual revenues of around $80 million.

I caught up with Bodas to gather the journey of Icertis. During the chat, he dropped a bombshell.

“Late last year, I was diagnosed with cancer, but not a serious one, but I still had to be away for over a quarter,” Bodas told me in this podcast.

Surely, the bad news must have had an adverse impact on Icertis. Not really, according to Bodas. “While I was away, the company performed the best ever in our history,” he told me.

Bodas’ absence did change the way of Icertis was run.

“I had to reinvent myself and apply myself in a different way. I went through this phase where I immersed myself in research. The way I engage with the company today is very different from how I did it last year,” he says. “I focus on very different things now. I now focus on our three-year strategy and not just quarterly performance. I had to pivot. “

Tune in to learn how to build a unicorn startup from the Icertis playbook.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

How and why to build a ‘meaningful’ business as an entrepreneur

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Entrepreneurs aim to solve a problem they are passionate about; be independent and work for themselves, and innovate. Starting a business from the ground up is a tough job. If you are trying to solve a problem that is considered a ‘social one’, it requires an innovative approach and a can-do mindset to deliver a scalable business. The chances of failure is high, but as an entrepreneur, one should worry about the opportunity you might miss rather than fathom the thought of failure.

When you set out to build a for-profit social enterprise, it’s important to combine proven practices along with technology to address complex social problems. For example, while building a business that provides financing solutions to largely excluded communities in the lower socio-economic strata of society, combining established microfinance principles along with innovative technology can ensure successful lending to this demographic. An approach that combines these two aspects results in a highly scalable and profitable business model with social impact.

According to one of the world’s most successful start-up accelerators TechStars, 10 percent of their companies fail in their journey. This figure is even higher when entrepreneurs try to create a “meaningful” business. But challenging the status quo would result in greater satisfaction, and the potential to create social impact at scale is in itself a noble mission.

So what is the secret to success? Below are five factors to success

• The right mindset: If you want to succeed in solving societal problems, the right mindset is key. To every problem, there is a solution, however challenging it might seem. However, the most obvious solution is not always the right one and you may only learn this through practice. It’s crucial to be quick to execute, learn and pivot. Failure is not a concept. You are always learning and making progress. Finally, focus on your strengths and use that to create value.
• Choosing the right problem: So what’s the right problem to solve? Choose a problem you are connected to and believe in, because you need the drive to work 24/7 in finding a solution. Choose one big enough that it matters and one that other people are trying or have been trying to solve.
• Right location: Location, location, location! The most favourable place to adopt and scale your idea might not be your home. Instead you need to be sure the market is ready to adopt a solution and consider the size of the addressable market. Crucial for success for entrepreneurs is a market where it is easy to do business and you can rapidly show proof of concept, without too much bureaucracy.
• Invest in a great team: This means a team that believes in the mission, challenges the status quo, is competent in key areas from fundraising to business development. Occasionally add in “the odd duck” — people from a different background to bring in a fresh perspective.
• Go big or go home: Just like the quote, give it all you’ve got and be the best that you can be, or don’t participate. All you’ve got is what is going to make you achieve the scale that matters. Identify the key strength of your product or service and double down on them. Always do faster in order to stay ahead of the competitors. While learning fast, growing, pivoting or doubling down on certain parts of the business, communicate clearly with all stakeholders and build relationships with key stakeholders.

If all these are done while keeping the DNA, mission and vision of the company, you will surely build a scalable meaningful business. Always remember, “if it were easy, someone would have already done it”.

Cedrick Tandong is CEO, Three Wheels United.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow