Entrepreneurship

7 years ago, on 14th December 2013 Sangeeta and I looked at each other and said, “Let’s do it” before hitting the publish button. 10 seconds later, the first ever article on Storypick was live. 5 months later, the CEO of one of India’s largest media companies flew us to his office & offered to acquire Storypick. We passed. We passed not because the offer was low (we weren’t making any money then, but we had millions of readers) but for the opportunity: the opportunity to grow Storypick on our own terms, while getting our hands dirty, learning entrepreneurship the hard way. ...

In the first part of the ‘Think like an entrepreneur’ mini-series, we learned to think of pain-points rather than ideas. In entrepreneurship, much like life, we shouldn’t try to do everything ourselves. You might think that it’s cheaper to DIY, but we’re losing time (which is costly) trying to do something that can be done better & quicker by an expert. Obviously, if you’re the expert yourself, by all means do it yourself. But let’s be real, we all have our limitations. ...

When you realize that most people are risk-averse, the path to success seems almost obvious: embracing calculated risks. In life, to start a journey, nobody waits for all the traffic lights between their home and destination to turn green. If you know the destination, you simply acknowledge that there might be traffic jams, detours, red signals on the way. You check Google Maps and decide to take calculated risks. “Oh, that’s not it. I actually have too much at stake if I lose.” ...

If you are trying to find solutions to a problem in your life, you may consider adding the below approach to your strategy (among other methods): Ask ‘What if the reverse happened’. And try to answer it. E.g. The problem is: You want to test drive a car, but due to (insert your unique situation) you’re unable to visit the car showroom. Applying the reverse approach: Instead of you visiting the car showroom for a test drive, what is the dealership sends someone to your home with the car? ...

There’s a lot hidden in this seemingly simple saying. To win, you will have to figure out the game. But remember- it’s a stupid game. The rules are not predefined. Then, where to start? Start by taking a detour. If you play the game like everyone else is playing, you can’t expect different results. Need more hints? Observe your behaviour, list down the things you do in a week. Then compare it with the activity of your peers, colleagues, family, friends, relatives, extended circles and beyond. ...

As clichéd as it may sound, ideas are dime a dozen. Although rarer than opinions, they are aplenty. Yes, plenty of ideas.Inside people’s heads. Some really good ideas. But still safely locked inside people’s heads. Some are even paranoid that others will steal their golden ideas. But unless someone executes on those ideas and turn them into reality, the idea itself isn’t intrinsically valuable. Doers > Ideas If you fail while executing an idea, you learn. If you succeed while executing an idea, you win. ...

Entrepreneurs are creators. They create value, they spot business opportunities, they break out of linear work. To begin thinking like an entrepreneur, there’s one simple approach: Don’t think of ideas, think of problems. Real problems faced by real people. Don’t think: If I create this, many people will buy it. Think: If I can solve this problem for them, people will pay me. And before you know it, you will start spotting problems to solve everywhere you look. Trust me. ...

One fundamental tenet of life is that you cannot extract value without creating it first. E.g. nobody’s going to pay you if you don’t offer something of value in return. It applies in every sphere of life. If your presence, your advice, your thoughts, your blogs, your tweets, your Instagram stories, your Facebook posts, your emails, your products, your services, your work, your job doesn’t create any value for someone, then you can’t expect to extract value in return. ...

Jio recently announced new postpaid plans with three major OTT providers bundled with it viz. Netflix (single-device, mobile plan), Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar. Bundling OTT providers with postpaid plan isn’t a new concept. Airtel and Vodafone Idea (recently co-branded as Vi) had been offering such plans for quite some time now. While bundled OTTs is a no-brainer strategy for Jio (it gets new postpaid users, who are highly valued in telecom), if you’re wondering how will it benefit Netflix, Prime and Disney+, it’s not that complex either. ...

One of the fondest memories from my childhood is when my cousin, Mausum and I learnt to ride a bicycle within a day. It was the first bicycle of my life, and it didn’t come with a user manual. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ From morning till the sun went down, we tried to master it; we fell, got scratches all over our limbs. But we returned home victorious, finally getting the art of pedalling while maintaining our balance. What a jubilant feeling that was! ...