This was one of the questions posed as a challenge to all startup founders at the #PNGrowth Camp last week. We all thought that we had the magic sauce or the unfair advantage that will help us build category leadership companies, only to realise that most of us did not.
200 startup founders across the country, spanning different domains had participated in the PNGrowth Camp at the Mysore Infosys Campus last week (Jan 8-10). It was the first ever such large gathering of Indian Founders at a single bootcamp. This was organised by iSpirt to nurture the Indian startup Ecosystem to help founders create more successful ventures.
The Advantage had to pass the following criteria to be qualified as an Unfair Competitive advantage.
– An Advantage that
- you could derive value out of.
- cannot be copied.
- is quantifiable.
Putting this to test, most of us realised that we did not have the unfair advantage.
In the “North Star” module, we explored how much we have stayed true to the core goals and vision we started out with and how much we have steered away from. A small digression initially looking harmless, takes us far far away from the original goal over a period of time. In the day to day running of a startup and firefighting, we often forget the big picture, missing the forest for the trees. This module bought us back to the core.
“Your network is your networth” is a well known adage.
In the “IPO module”, we got to know where we stood w.r.t leveraging our network (Information, People and Organisations – IPO). We explored what missing connections we needed to take our startups to the next level.
In the “Shark Tank” module, mentors reviewed our actions plans and gave us candid and honest feedback on what we need to do. This was the best part of the whole program for me to be picked and my startup strategy reviewed, and getting candid feedback.
Overall, this 3 day bootcamp was a great transformation experience to get my bearings right, get honest feedback from mentors and peers, make a lot of new connections, revisit some of the assumptions and have a solid plan to execute.
Thanks to iSPIRT team and #PNGrowth program team members for giving us this “Unfair Advantage”!
Guest Post by Shashi Bhushan, HealthMacro