Awarded the
“Rodinstar” Post
of the week!!
After having spent close to 12 years in corporate life, working across multiple industries, domains and countries, I finally gathered some courage to give it all up and follow my dream – Be an entrepreneur!!
Just three months into my new venture, I still find myself going back to my corporate days and imagining what life would have been if I was still in a job? And this morning when I asked that question again, I realized that it was July 1st week, just about the time when employee quarterly / bi-annual performance evaluations are due. So I decided to do one myself for the last 3 months.
Since I don’t have a boss that could help me with it, I’ve put myself into two roles:
- Employee (My ever optimistic heart, always looking at the bright side, thinks it’s difficult to improve perfection, nothing can go wrong, I’m the best!!)
- Manager (My always grounded brain, with an extremely balanced approach, can call a spade a spade, keeps me on track)
And here’s how the conversation went (kinda talking to myself here):
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Employee’s self-evaluation:
The last 3 months have been one of the best times of my life. I have been able to embark on a journey that will hopefully help me achieve my dreams and lead the life that I’ve always wanted.
Here’s how I have performed against the goals that I set in the beginning of the year:
- Networking: Registered myself across various forums and am a regular at events (e.g. TiE, Startup Saturdays, TechSparks, Meetups etc)
- Create an online brand: Took a DIY approach, made a website, top search result for anyone searching “Gamification India” on Google, now active on FB, Twitter, LinkedIn. Video interview posted on YouTube. Got media coverage on two leading online newspapers.
- Company formation: All formalities done.
- Team building: Not surprisingly is the most challenging. Still dating a few potential co-founders.
- Get Gyaan: I consume-share-post comments on relevant stuff. Follow-track-get inspired by stalwarts in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
- Give Gyaan: Continue to assist anyone who needs career and professional guidance, especially now since I’ve taken this big plunge.
- Get funded: Currently bootstrapped. Tested the waters in the investor community, know who’s who, where and how much they typically invest, what ticks and what does not, made some connections that I can reach out to when required.
- Lean startup: Working on a couple of product ideas, while simultaneously building the services business, seeking potential customer feedback and ploughing that back into product/service development.
Manager’s feedback (typical sandwich approach – starts with good, sandwich the not-so-good, end on a high note):
Vikram, it’s a pleasure to see you get immersed into the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Given your corporate background, you add tremendous value to your startup.
However, one thing that I’m surprised to see is that you might be focusing on the wrong goals in the beginning of your entrepreneurial career, or at least seem to have your priorities a little haywire. While everything that you’ve mentioned in your self-evaluation is important, here are a few things that I was expecting you to focus on first:
- Product or Services Model: I know you’ve been working on a few ideas, even ended up filing for a patent for one of them…however, the sooner you can focus on what you want to pursue, the better it’ll be. Are you a product company or a services company? You too seem to be a victim of a common fallacy that “my services revenue will help me sustain my product development efforts”. Trust me, it doesn’t work, it’s not sustainable and you’ll be all over the place.
- Customer / USP / Competition / Market Analysis / Revenue Model / Funding etc: You seem to have a great understanding for each one of these critical components and can write heaps of documents on how they apply to either your product or service offerings. But again, you can only get deeper into these AFTER you’ve zeroed in what you want to do. FOCUS!!
Overall the last 3 months seem to have gone well, but it’s too early to judge and I’ll not be able to assign a performance rating for you. You seem to be going in the right direction, and I hope that you can stay focused in your approach. Good luck!!
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So whether you’re still in your job, thinking of leaving, or have already left and taken the plunge… do share your thoughts on how the journey has been, and how do you keep yourself in check and focused on doing the right things? Would love to hear your comments.
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Another interesting read from this author: From Merc pickups to auto rick drops…
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