15 Things I Wish I Knew as a First Generation Entrepreneur

Sharing some of my reflections:

1. Cardinal Mistake of?not knowing how much money?would be required.
2. Hired too fast, built and hired team very early. Time & Energy, when required to get customer feedback and pilot testing, was spent on process building, training and communications.

Every internal team should be small enough that it can be fed with two pizzas

- Jeff Bezos

1. Not all good Managers are good leaders. Pedigree and background do not correlate with leadership. Leadership is a trait that very few possess. And It's OK.
2. Assuming people will learn the work themselves?and take ownership since I thought they loved their work and the things they did. However, not always true this way. They require to be told and lead, and this is all right.
3. Always START from the Customer. Build a product - Not what you want to offer, but what customers want from you. Even if how good things you build and what you want to provide. If customers' needs aren't met and they don't like what you offer, it's a failure.
4. NPS is not just a business jargon. It's the best indicator of many things, including how good you spend your time, Energy and resources. Work on getting ten customers with 100% CSAT rather than focussing on 100 customers with 10% CSAT.
5. Missed proper Financial planning:?ran out of cash?(Both for Company and Personal expenses)
6. I used my savings, stripped down to the core. Not realising, personal security and safety play a significant role in individual motivation, mental health and relationships. If ignored, they impact negatively on your performance. MASLOW HIERARCHY is a very important tool for CAREER BUILDING and applies to personal life as well. Unless your other needs are taken care of, it doesn't matter how much success you want; you'll not be able to focus on Self-transcendence. To help others first, help yourself.
7. CASHFLOW IS KING. DHANDHA iS EVERYTHING.?Heavy focus on product features and design but ignoring the core business (dhandha). REVENUE REVENUE REVENUE. I repeat, REVENUE unless you are a seasoned entrepreneur and have already built multimillion dollar companies in the past, revenue must be the topmost priority for you an Entrepreneur.
8. KNOW YOUR BUSINESS MODEL. The growth vs Sustainable Biz model operates differently, decides firsthand and then build your company accordingly. Building a Growth Biz model without deep pockets is financial suicide.
9. By not writing the roles and responsibilities and formulating a written contract. This creates a mismatch in expectations from employees.?NOT MAKING ASSUMPTIONS. Everybody is working for money ultimately.
10. MONEY IS IMPORTANT. To hire and retain the best talents. To keep up motivation. To keep business processes going on. To Market and grow.
11. OVERLOOKED MARKETING. I assumed that people would flock if I built a great product. But even how great the product you make. If customers don't know or are aware of it, it's a failure. A POOR PRODUCT marketed GREATLY can work far well than a GREAT PRODUCT sold POORLY.
12. PRODUCT MANAGEMENT?process: Follow all steps sequentially. These steps are very crucial. Don't jump or skip any. One is an input to another and has been perfectly laid by industry experts.
13. NOTHING IS PERSONAL.?KEEP EMOTIONS OUT OF THE OFFICE: product, Business, Colleagues, teammates. YOU ARE JUST PLAYING THE ROLE OF CEO. IN OFFICE YOU ARE EXPECTED TO DO CERTAIN DUTIES that are in BEST INTEREST for the company. WHETHER GOOD OR BAD for an employee or yourself. In OFFICE, LOGIC > EMOTION. Of course, we can be empathetic in understanding, but we must be logical and bold while acting.
14. As A LEADER. When things go good, it is a Team Effort. But when things go south, the blame is yours. GET USED TO IT.
15. Yourstory and SharkTank are not the entire reality. We hear all those stories about a crappy product getting zillions of funding. It keeps us tied to these shows, blogs, and articles. To fulfil our innate needs. I could have built this, too, where a couch potato can comment that was so easy. Let me break the bubble for you. It's not a cakewalk. I Underestimated fundraising effort - Degrees don't matter; the business does. Fundraising is Hard. Very hard. Only 1 or 1000 get funded*. (Equivalent to cracking CAT/UPSC). Not impossible but hard. If we can better plan and know how things work, we might have better odds than others.

Disclaimer: This article is an outburst of thoughts written directly. Please ignore the typos or grammatical errors if any.

Thanks for taking out time to read!