At the Startup India event, our honourable PM shared that government’s impact is highest when it decides, intentionally, to stay away, and I agree with him. But we, as the citizens of India, can play a huge role. And we must.
But as a co-founder of NowFloats, a startup, here are some of my asks to you, my fellow citizens, and you may fall under multiple categories:
To Consumers: Sincerely, kindly adjust.
Like most of you, I have cursed Ola/Uber as much when the driver cannot read the GPS. Many of NowFloats’ over 200,000 customers escalate to me directly. All this is a part of the startup journey. We learn from this and hopefully act fast enough on it. So, please crib to us (speaking for all startups here), act obnoxious, throw a fit, expect the best-in-the-world quality, but don’t give up on us! Because we will fix things, once we get that next round of capital or find more efficient ways to train the drivers or the sales people.
To Enterprises: Startups are a feature, not a bug.
When a startup comes calling, please keep aside your desire to be an entrepreneur. That is a parallel process and highly encouraged, because it will make you adopt the new technology or product. If you are unable to do this, you may be unable to do that startup either (#harsh), where you are required to be a new person every single day (#think). So when a startup approaches you, it’s an opportunity to understand the latest technology, perhaps even get feedback on your own business plan. It’s not the time to feel left-out or ask questions that make you go ‘I could have done this so much better’. BTW, almost all startups are happy to discount their product (or even make it free), if you just agree to adopt (#hint).
To Investors: Stay true to your investment thesis and stage.
An angel investor is (and should be) very different from an institutional seed, and this should be very different from a Series A and so on. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches, and therefore only the stage-walla investor knows what the entrepreneur needs. Angels will typically give money based on trust and that’s all they should be bothered about. Blume Ventures (for example) is a seed stage investor and they understand their thesis and stage well. They don’t ask for monthly, 10-page reports from all companies but watch out for the ones who are sending these pro-actively. Their support and help is different for each and they will spend significant resources to deliver ‘personalized’ mentoring to each startup. This will not be the case at Series B, when the startup has its resources (now) to find (read pay) for external support. Our Series A investors, Omidyar Network, puts the next stage of pressure on us, helping us with higher growth and velocity.
To Government: Stay hungry, stay away.
In my opinion, the government has already done something that even they don’t realize it, yet! While some of the policy changes expected by startups remain open (refer my pre-event opinion in Mint & iSPIRT’s 34 point asks), but many were awesome starts. And by doing what the government did, they have unleashed a (wonderful) monster. They made the world (to borrow from them), stand-up and take note. This aircraft has taken off and it’s not landing anytime soon, supported by mid-air refuelling of new and relevant policies in future. Things will just have to happen given the velocity on the numbers and stuff we see every single day (see Digital Desh) (#no #choice).
To Family: Stay.
The real entrepreneurs are the families of entrepreneurs’, even though this was forced on them. To them I have to say only two things: Thank you and please stay the course. Pass or fail, this experience is going to change your family for generations. Just take my word, send your partner that home-made food (to save money and health) and… Stay! (#rockstars)
About Me
I am Jasminder Singh Gulati (@GulatiSinghJ), worked at global corporates for over 18 years, including 12 years at Microsoft before co-founding NowFloats in 2012 with Ronak Kumar Samantray, Nitin Jain, and Neeraj Sabharwal. NowFloats helps local businesses get a meaningful digital presence that connects the business with local consumers, resulting in higher revenue & profits. Over the past 3 years, NowFloats has over acquired over 200,000 customers (90% of them in India) and drives over 6M consumers to them every month. NowFloats has 6 patents, all ‘Made in India’.