Pankaj Goyal - Before You Start Up: How to Prepare to Make Your Startup Dream a Reality

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Copyright Text Pankaj Goyal

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise (except for mentions in reviews or edited excerpts in the media) without the written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 93 8653 835 2

TO MY GRANDPARENTS:

Dadaji and Ammaji

I would have never written this book, but for my wife Swati. She convinced me to pen down my experiences as an entrepreneur. She also helped me structure and edit the book. I thank her for all this and for being in my life.

I thank all the entrepreneurs who spent the time and effort to share their journey with me. All of you are an inspiration to me!

Finally, thank you to Dipti from WordFamous, my literary guide; Shikha, my publisher; and Vidya, my editor for giving an opportunity to a first time author.

Hold on. Understand what it means for you, your family, and your career.

Learn why your Why is important and real/fraud reasons to start up.

Learn techniques to generate new business ideas.

Recipe for disaster! Evaluate your business idea through a new business plan template focused on your customer and you.

No! Learn what to look for in a co-founder and how to design a prenup with the founding team.

Wait! Have you talked to your wife/husband?

Do you have enough cash for your familys expenses? Go through the most crucial final steps.

Prepare well, but at some point you have to take the plunge. Believe in yourself, believe in your idea, and have no regrets.

Time, product, team, cash, and youhow to manage these five priorities?

I am not a successful entrepreneur. Else, you would have known me. You would have bought this book just by looking at the authors name. You would not be reading the first few pages as you are probably doing right now, contemplating whether the book is worth buying.

Then, who am I to give you advice about starting up and why should you buy this book?

I will answer this question first. If you are convinced, proceed to reading the rest of this book. If not, do not waste your time and money. Keep the book back on the shelf or just close your browser window.

I am an ex-entrepreneur. I started a company in 2008 and quit after three years. I shut down the company. In diplomatic words, I was not-so-successful as an entrepreneur. In honest words, I failed.

I believe I had all the ingredients to succeed. Born into a middle class family in a tier-2 city (Jaipur), I had the hunger to be successful, rich, and famous. I had been preparing for it since my school days, following the standard path and succeeding at each step. I went to the best schools (IIT Kanpur and IIM Bangalore), got excellent grades, and got the perfect job in a top tier management consulting firm (McKinsey & Company). I underwent training on running a business. I worked hard, put in long hours, and gave it my absolute best. I chased my dream relentlessly.

However, I did not succeed in my venture.

I had an excellent start. Year one was fantastic. We built the product prototype in two months, got our first customer in nine months, grew to about fifty thousand customers, and became cash positive in fifteen months.

And then it all stagnated and went downhill.

In Year two, we failed to scale up the product. Sales stagnated. I failed to build my team. No new products. No pivot. No growth. I had differences with my co-founder on the future of the company. I could not fix these issues. After battling for over a year, I decided to quit.

So, where did I go wrong? Was it in Year two?

On the surface, yes. But on further reflection I realised that the real mistakes happened before I even started up. I messed up the preparation before starting up. The chaos in year two was the result of poor preparation before day One. There was no way to build a strong building over a shaky foundation.

Bhaiya, Im bored of my job. I am capable of so much more! I also want to launch a startup!

I was catching up with my young neighbour, casually sipping a cup of hot tea on a foggy morning in February 2011. I was getting married the next day. There was a lot on my mind. The last thing I wanted to talk about was startups and the startup life, having already answered a million questions on my business from curious relatives and friends over the past week.

From what I remembered, the twenty-three-year-old eager adult standing in front of me had been a sincere student throughout school and had managed to get into a tier-1 engineering college through hard work. He was good at coding and had seemed pleased to land a steady job with a reputed software company in Bangalore. I was meeting him for the first time since he had started earning. I could see changes in his standard of livinghe was using the latest iPhone and had an expensive watch. He had learnt to spend on himself, which is a difficult skill to pick up for middle class kids in India. I was happy for himthat he was financially independent and ready to build his career.

So, what do you think? He was anxiously waiting for an enthusiastic embrace and a high-five with a punch in the air.

Are you sure? Do you even know what it means? Have you prepared well for it? I responded with sincerity and good intentions.

His reaction was a mix of shock and anger. He had assumed I would support his decision and expected a warm welcome from a current entrepreneur. Instead, he felt belittled at my unexpected response.

What do you mean I dont know? What do you mean by preparation? I can start tomorrow if I want...

He is not the only one who has approached me with an intention to start up. Several people in my networkfriends, family, colleagues, batchmatesmost of them in their twenties, highly qualified and capable, and some of them in well-paying jobshave approached me with similar questions over the years. I want to start up. I have an idea. How should I go about it? And each time my answer has been, Are you sure? Do you even know what it means? How are you preparing for it?

Eric Reiss, the author of the pioneering book The Lean Startup writes:

When we fail, as so many of us do, we have a ready-made excuse: We did not have the right stuff. We were not visionary enough or were not in the right place at the right time. After more than ten years as an entrepreneur, I came to reject that line of thinking....Startup success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught. (Reiss, 2011).