Day dreaming about Entrepreneurship?

“So, what does it feel like to be an entrepreneur?” 

Quite predictably, this is the most common question asked of peers who have decided to go over to the “other side”. If only every executive turned entrepreneur had received a dollar for every time they have been asked this question. By now, they probably would not need any more funding! 

Some folks get rosy visions of young people in energetic co-working spaces, raking in Millions. Others see see unpaid bills, stress and burnouts. Then they shake off the temptation and go back to work.

In reality, the most pertinent question I have been asked to date is “has there been any new learning?” And to that I can resoundingly say yes, there has! In fact, there has been so much re-learning of business priorities that I almost feel like I am starting from scratch! 

I shifted from the rarified corporate domain of running large P&Ls and managing hundreds of people. Yet I am now convinced that even the experience of running a small mom & pop shop teaches you a lot that the most senior of corporate roles simply does not. 

This is because the margin for error in entrepreneurship is relatively narrow. The high degree of personal risk hones your animal instincts and brings out the fighter in you. You are forced to become laser focused and are constantly aware of ever-present danger. It keeps you on your toes as opposed to numbing your mind. 

Do remember though, that a lot of these learnings flow from being a bootstrapped startup. The moment “funding” enters from the front door, sloth slips in through the back :-)

So what are the learnings you can look forward to, if you decide to become an entrepreneur?

1.         Cash flow is king. All hail the king!

A “business case” is the holy grail of corporate P&L managers. Financial projections, justifications, ROI… everything to convince the business to give you the budget you desire. And then you’re off to the races. But there is hardly ever a consideration of cash flow. 

Where will the money come from? When will it come. Will it be a steady trickle or an erratic flow? Can monthly expenses be maintained while we execute our fancy three pronged strategy? 

This equation gets turned on its head when you become a business owner. You get hard nosed about every transaction. You understand why your CFO insists on a certain margin, despite the “strategic value” of the customer. You obsess over credit worthiness and whether payments will come in time. You negotiate advances and bill discounting plans. You walk away from deals if the payment terms don’t make sense. 

You pay the office rent first, salaries next and yourself last or not at all. In short, you start treating money with the respect it deserves because suddenly, it’s your money on the line.

2.         You learn to ask for help

Entrepreneurship teaches you humility. All kinds of people in your network start to matter, simply because they may know someone and that is valuable. You learn to reach out and ask for introductions. You learn to identify areas where you don’t have expertise and ask for help in those areas. You work with banks and financiers and request for lines of credit. You actually “ask” for business. 

Surprisingly, these are things that one starts getting insulated from, as one moves up the chain in a corporate role. The frontline sales guys may still be running around, but the boss of a fiefdom starts to get used to being at the receiving end of connection requests, fawning media sales people, obsequious relationship managers and star struck juniors. 

As long as your “upward management” is figured out, you are gold. You get used to “giving” and forget how to “receive”. Re-learning that can be a humbling experience.

3.         You learn to fire quickly!

This is my personal top learning. Despite what most teams think, letting someone go or handing out that pink slip is often one of the hardest things for managers to do. Every time you fire someone, you have to internally acknowledge that you failed in some manner as well. Either in training & guiding or in the process of identifying the right candidate and so on. And no one wants to be the bad guy. 

Because of this, many corporate managers avoid taking a hard call and keep delaying the inevitable even when they know that this is the wrong person for the job. At best, the tendency is to simply shift the person around and make it “someone else’s problem”. 

This changes the moment you are paying the salaries from your pocket. You assess fast, grit your teeth and let the person go as soon as it becomes apparent that he or she is not delivering value.

You can only feel sorry for the other, or for yourself at a given time. Choose.

4.         You gain a whole new appreciation for back office 

All of us make the right noises about appreciating back office functions like finance, order processing, operations etc. But let’s face it, most business leaders in large enterprises secretly think of them as inefficient bureaucracies that need to be “managed”. 

We ask for something to be done. It appears simple and when it does not happen fast, we get irritated. Try doing it yourself. Then you suddenly realize that the simplest of things has twenty sub steps in the background that you were blissfully unexposed to. 

A simple thing like “raise this invoice” can mean finding out the consignee details, verifying the GST number and the the right rate to apply, getting bank transfer details, figuring out whether TDS is liable, is the shipping address different from the billing address, what terms of payment to apply, is there previous outstanding, has credit limit been breached and so on. 

None of this is apparent when we fume “can’t raise a damn invoice for two days.. don’t know what these guys are up to”.. isn’t it?

5.         Not everyone who’s made it, knows it!

The startup world is hungry for information. And many youngsters nowadays jump straight into entrepreneurship without any significant work experience. (Why? That’s a whole different topic). There are seminars and conferences galore. Very often the speakers are retired businessmen with some money to invest, aka “angels” or corporate honchos (like I was) with fancy designations. 

While one cannot tar everyone with the same brush, the realization soon dawns that success does not necessarily equal brilliance. There is such a thing as simply having been in the right place at the right time, and now needing validation. Far too many people are puffed up with self-importance and go around peddling untested “opinions” as insights to a captive audience that is hungry for direction. 

You soon learn that your time is valuable and startup events are to be examined with a thoroughly cynical eye. As for awards and ceremonies, that’s the biggest scam on the circuit. Within months of starting up, we were flooded with offers for awarding us as “most innovative”, “promising new” etc. at glittering, star studded events across the globe. For a fat fee, of course.

6.         Your resilience becomes a valuable asset

You soon realize that “oh, that’s so brave of you” means “you overconfident fool” and “I’ve always wanted to do this” means “but I value my career and have no intention of gambling it away”. 

It is a human trait to be assailed periodically by self-doubt and to indulge in some self-flagellation when this happens. So you learn to tune out the external noise and rely on yourself. 

This is very different from a corporate management role, where all opinions are listened to carefully and decisions are usually taken by consensus. There the risk is shared by the corporation. But when the risk is personal, you sometimes have to adopt what I call “the strategy of the bulldog”. You get your teeth in and never let go for a defined period of time. For at least 2 years you don’t ask yourself existential questions, you don’t evaluate opportunity cost, you don’t look at peers who are forging ahead. You simply come in every day, have a set of things that need to be done and bash on with single minded focus. 

An important disclaimer though, is that you should always have a mental time limit, or a “stop loss” period for this behavior. While resilience can be a huge strength within a defined period, carrying it on for too long can become self destructive. You learn to make that fine balance.

-- So if you are a corporate manager with itchy feet, my advice would be to reconsider that expensive foreign MBA you were eyeing because you feel stuck in a rut. Why don’t you invest that money into a business instead? Any small business. Maybe in partnership with someone you trust. (Do partnerships work? That again, is a whole different topic). 

Apply both the time and the money you would have planned to spend, with all sincerity. I guarantee you will come away energized with useful learning. This will help you run your corporate P&L much more practically and in a manner that the boardroom appreciates. Because now you are thinking like a businessman, not like an employee.

So what do you think? Is entrepreneurship not for the faint hearted? Let me know in your comments.

Sandeep Menon

Sandeep has led several large tech businesses for multinational corporations, both at the national and international level. He is currently engaged in his first entrepreneurial venture, MeetzPro Global, and is thoroughly enjoying the raw thrill of tight rope walking without a safety line.

#business #startup #management #sme #smallbusiness #success #inspiration #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #angel #investing #venture #venturecapital #transition #cowork #coworking #ideas #operations #leadership #cxo #P&L #cashflow #profit