Mine did! Two actually.
Funny how we take our ears for granted. 2 funny looking things sticking out from the sides of our heads. Input jacks for the noise that surrounds us, as we lead busy lives.
However, this isn’t a commentary on the human body. This is in fact how I used my ears to make one of the most important decisions of our lives: Re-thinking our Startup.
It all began with me reading startup related headlines since 2014. NotStaleFood gets 1 cr seed funding (who are these guys??) Ourecommerceisunique.com established in 2014 gets 20cr Series A (what is that?!!) . 2months later, NotStaleFood (hot food tech) gets 50cr funding. What??!!! Here I am: calling clients for overdue training bills of 30k!!!! My brain started to get hot hearing these noises. Boy if these guys who came in yesterday can get this kind of free money, why can’t I?). Then friends, gurus, newspapers, blogs, podcasts everybody started screaming together. STARTUP! NOW! START UP NOW! And I used my ears. I heard them. I did.
We launched a video-based soft sills training startup. Wow, my 3rd child was born. Very special! My favourite. It even had its own nickname: Ed-Tech we all called it. “Video is the future” everybody told me. “Soft skills are the future, Edtech is the future”, they said. “The opportunity is now! Go for it you all.” I heard. And we did go for it. Full steam ahead. Got a team, launched the prototype. Started sending out the deck (we old fashionedly used to call it presentation till I was pulled up at a high profile concall). Mugged up the investor jargon. I heard everybody and then some magic happened.
It started with my very first fund raising pitch. Full of my product, my company, my startup, I launched into the pitch. Till I was interrupted by the investor: “Low barrier to entry”, she said softly. (Luckily I didn’t need to Google that!!) I was stopped in my tracks. And for the first time in 4 months since my startup launch, I listened. Like someone had applied the handbrake on me driving at 90 kmph. And what did my ears teach me?
- Insight, not advice: Keep talking to people, friends, investors, experts about your idea. I don’t understand `stealth mode’. Hell if it’s that easy to copy, it will get copied anyways, patent be damned. This is a cruel world. The more you listen, the more you get to know about the shortcomings of your own product. Remember, you are looking for insight…you are looking for experience…you are not looking for advice. Advice is cheap…hell, its free most of the time…insight..on the other hand has to be earned and appreciated because it is someone’s else’s costly experience that’s helping you save time and money….for free.
- Your child has failed: How many of us have thought about…If only my dad/mom/uncle whoever had not forced me into engineering? I wish I had become an artist instead! I wish…I wish… Our parent’s generation generally could not understand the uniqueness of each child. That everyone is different. What worked for them may not work for us. But we are living in a different world now. Our children may be failures in studies. Hopefully not. but it’s a reality. Maybe their interests lie elsewhere. The same with a startup. It’s your baby your child. But we need to accept our startup’s weaknesses. Maybe your child is not ready yet to grow up. Maybe it needs more nurturing (traction, better UX, whatever). The truth hurts, but better before the money is onboard and before the angry calls start. I listened to some of the top investors telling me why my idea was great…but it was incomplete. What all it needed- to become a complete fundable idea. I listened, and I appreciated what I heard.
- People are for you, not against: Not everyone has an agenda. There are a lot of helpful investors and experienced people out there who can give you the magic mantras , not just money. In fact getting the initial round is not that tough. But if you can have a conversation with an investor without discussing `exit’ and `valuation’, trust me, you need to latch on and get mentorship from them. It’s just a question of talking to as many people about your idea as possible. Leave your ego behind. in fact, put it to sleep temporarily. In Hindi: `suno sabki…`karo apni’
- Buy low-sell high: worked for the Neanderthals, worked in the middle ages, worked for our forefathers, will still work when are gone. No free lunches, everything has price, etc. etc. prototype is bullshit.. App downloads and web visits are just milestones. How many people are paying you higher than your costs? That’s what matters. Sooner or later, the numbers will catch up with us and we would have left our pants behind.
In our corporate Listening skill workshops, we start by telling participants to choose `listening’ over `hearing’. Well, I can tell you at FPOnline, we experienced it first hand. We have gone back to the drawing board, looking for the right direction to pivot, trying to figure out revenue models, and not just looking for a better deck.
So young founder: Stop pitching…start listening! Remember: SILENT has the same alphabets as LISTEN.