To my fellow Wartime Startup CEOs and Founders...

The startup world is talking about Wartime CEOs. As an infantryman who led hard combat missions in some of the most treacherous combat conditions, and now, in this black swan event, as a startup Cofounder & CEO leading Jumbotail, a wholesale marketplace and new retail platform serving thousands of mom & pop grocery stores in India, I am someone privileged to have seen both situations - military combat and wartime startup, in practice. Here are my perspectives to my fellow Wartime Startup CEOs and Founders, the heroes on the ground, fighting their battles during these unprecedented times:

More than weapons, you require courage to fight.

— There comes a moment in every battle when the combat team needs to fight with its own resources - a small team, a simple rifle, few rounds of ammunition, a dagger, one meal on your backpack. Sometimes dagger is also a luxury. All you have is your body, mind, and spirit.

— It's easy to think hypothetically, what if I had that fancy rifle, or radar, or a night vision device, or more ammunition. But the simple resources you have in your hand is the real thing. You got to find a way to win with those. This the cash and team you have, right now, with you. Do more with less. That's all you have.

— And therefore the key differentiator becomes, not money, but courage, indomitable courage. Muster all your courage at this time. Don't waste your time seeking money. You won't get it. You will waste time.

Courage comes in many forms.

— Courage is not jingoism. Courage is not always dashing with a dagger foolishly in front of a barrage of bullets and getting killed.

— Even to stay hunkered down for the storm to pass, waiting for the right moment to attack, is courage.

— It is equally courageous to temporarily suspend your lofty goal (say geographic ambitions, or cutting edge products) to stay alive. its perfectly ok to stay where you are, or even shrink.

Decide that one target bunker that will silence the night.

— There are many bunkers to capture. having one very clear objective is the single most important thing at this hour. Reduce all your plans to a single, simple, objective your troops understand, and agree. Then go after it with everything you have. You need to choose the most important bunker when captured will silence the night.

— So, choose a single, important metric - profitability or customer churn or excellence or whatever,

— Fight with everything you have to capture that one bunker - one metric - which will help you and your team see the light of the day.

— Lead by personal example. You should be able to do a specialist's role for some periods of time, if your specialists go down. You should be able to rescue the mission.

The only wisdom is to Act decisively, Act now.

— Fog of war is dense. It's a lot of rapid judgment calls.

— A bad decision is better than indecision. Act quickly. Act now. Do not delegate your decisions to the wisdom of the crowds or the wisdom of the experts.

— Don't waste time building consensus. Own your decisions. Live with the consequences.

— Empower your teams to make decisions. Don't have them look back and take permission. Let them seek forgiveness, not permission. Accept those consequences too.

You no longer have a platoon of 30. They now have dispersed into 15 buddy pairs. Trust is paramount.

— In pitch dark, you can't see your own team. At this time, your team is no longer a platoon of 30. Its 15 buddy pairs, who have taken their final battle positions. In startups, think WFH or field sales teams - fighting from their own small bunkers, dispersed everywhere.

— It takes blind trust to believe that the 15 pairs will do their job. And it is difficult to build trust if you have not already built it by now. You cant go around asking for status updates in 10s of positions where your buddy pairs are fighting from. You just have to trust that everyone is doing their jobs.

— It takes a lot of communication. How do you communicate to the troops who cannot see you, that leadership exists and it is intact. In the olden days, the colours and flag were symbolic of a functioning leadership.

— So, think, how do your teams know you exist, how can they believe that you are leading them with courage and clarity, and that the team under your leadership is making progress? Have a simple framework to communicate succinctly and frequently. Communication builds trust.

Your HQs (aka existing VCs) will get the macro right but they will likely get the micro wrong.

— The Division/Command HQs will have a lot of advice for you. They will have invaluable advice on what's happening in the macro situation, in other battlefields.

— HQ staff’s intention to share insights/advice is extremely honourable. But they will almost always be wrong about the micro situation in your tactical battlefield. While VCs can tell you what's happening in China, in SaaS, in Grocery, in 2001, 2008, but they can't tell you what is happening now with your business, your customers, your employees with as much clarity as you can tell.

— So, while you must listen to your HQs (VCs) and take their advice, never hesitate to discard your HQs advice about your battlefield. You know better than them.

— But always seek to know from your HQs what's going on in the macro, and adapt your tactical plans to evolving macros.

Earn your HQ's trust but don't let your HQ fight your battles.

— Earn trust from your HQs. Keep them updated. Deliver small wins. Ten bunkers make a hill. Ten hills make a war zone. Every bunker, every hill, you capture, the more trust you earn that you will capture the war zone. Every metric you achieve, the more results you deliver, the more trust you will earn from your Investors.

— Many HQ commanders will quickly come to remote fighting mode - they will take over the radio channels to micromanage and start fighting your war. But you are the commander on the ground. Don't let your VCs fight your war. You are accountable for your mission.

— Likewise, don't fight the battles of your teams. Trust them to do their jobs. Guide them, and get out of their way. Learn to accept the consequences. That's why you are the commander, the CEO.

Reinforcements will arrive, but only to the ones that survive the night.

— HQs will most certainly have reinforcements. The war is won by reserves. But they will wait and watch, and reinforce the winner. No one will reinforce a failure.

— So, survival is the utmost need. If you survive, reinforcements will come. Or, you will find some way to live off the land and be on your own. But survival is key.

You can be a great commander. But your HQs might still fail you.

— Even when you fight the battle well, your HQ can take bad decisions. Field Marshal Rommel was winning North Africa with scanty resources, and in hindsight, he had a better chance to capture Russia via the middle east and also control all the world’s oil. But Hitler made different strategic choices to go the eastern Europe route, got caught in Russian winter and the rest is history.

— So, even when you do well, you have a better team, you have proved you can do more with less, your HQs might fail you. Remember, they are also acting in the fog of war. That's the nature of war. Today, Rommel is one of the only German War Hero from WWII. So, the world will still be kind to you if you have done your job well.

— Likewise, realise you might be failing someone down the chain as well, by your own judgment calls. It's a fair game.

Be ready to lose battles to win the war. Live to fight another day.

— You might have to withdraw from different battlefields to conserve resources and focus on the main theatre of war.

— It's ok to take tactical losses, ok to cut off support to one of your distant teams to win the main war.

— if you are one of those teams whose support was cut off, its easy to form judgments about unfairness, but everything is not fair in war. Try to understand the greater cause. You signed up for death anyways.

— It's ok to shrink to a nucleus, keep the mission alive with a small leadership, regroup and rise when battlefield conditions turn favourable. Terrorist groups waging asymmetric guerrilla warfare, do this beautifully well: when overwhelmed by force, they shrink, regroup, disperse among the crowds, raise more fighters and fight again.

Its perfectly right strategy to seek mutual support, make peace, or form alliances.

— Seek mutual support of other combat teams and locals in your war zone. Every partner who can collaborate with you will be willing to collaborate with you if they get some benefit. Start from your existing investor's portfolio companies. Think about how you can help them, and how they can help you. They are most likely be the ones to extend support. Ask your investors to request their portfolio companies to extend support, even force the support. Ask them nicely, and everyone will help.

— Make peace with competition who are fighting for similar causes. Everyone is waiting for someone to help. Be the first one to move and offer help.

— Many local players would be willing to collaborate with warring nations or factions. Seek out all those who want to work with you, who can help you capture the bunker that will silence the night.

— Many raging wars have truce and cooperation, and ceasefires. Think of the greater good of the nation. Don't get carried away by jingoism.

— WWII was won by an alliance, sometimes even with as conflicting short term alliance between nations with divergent philosophy as communism (USSR) and capitalism (West) to defeat a common enemy (Nazis). So, form alliances with anyone who share a common goal. They will likely be more very open during these times to give you a hearing.

There are only two kinds of soldiers, The good and The dead.

— Decide who you want to be.