The Start-up Challenge: Six lessons from a Rocket Ship Journey

Last month, my rocketship journey with Railsbank came to an end. The mission to be a category creator in the embedded finance space amidst payments and ‘Banking as a Service’ innovation revolution is indeed a thrilling one. I had the privilege of hiring and working with an “A Team'' in APAC and leading APAC’s people efforts with a stellar leadership team, and Wow! it was a journey of a lifetime. I will always look back at this time as one of the most exciting, challenging and rewarding time in my career. It was no less than a rollercoaster ride in a rocketship with hyper growth in the region, and a great trajectory ahead of us, but the global climate turned too quickly and we all had to face the worst.?

Despite what was happening around us,? I witnessed the "A Team" work across functions towards a common mission and goal, selflessly helping each other solve problems and evolve every day. There were no blame games, only synchronised problem-solving efforts. I saw a display of tremendous empathy and support and we all helped out colleagues in all ways possible when layoffs started. It was like we were a team of Avengers, every person was a superhero in their role. Gives me goosebumps when I think back!

This journey was full of learnings for anyone who seeks to get on a 'rocket ship' or is on one already.

Fun Fact
A rocket goes from a speed of zero to nearly 25 times the speed of 
sound in a matter of about 9–10 minutes. No other machine does this!        

A start-up has reached the rocket ship stage when it's ready with its product and is building the crew and the ship to go full throttle on its journey. Do you want the ticket on it!?

1. Aim for the Stars: Sounds cliche, but you have got the ticket on a ‘rocket ship’, it's not just a job, it's going to be the journey of a lifetime! This job will give you experiences like no other. It's like you will be on a roller coaster while you are still constructing it, and your tools might fall off due to high speed. You will get to learn how to operate at a speed and at a pressure that will hone your skills as a professional. You got to aim to reach someplace no one has been before to make this pain count, and inspire everyone around you to get there, maybe not proactively but purely through your clear intentions and actions.
2. Accept the Risk of a Failed Mission: Even before you get on the ‘rocket ship’ know that the gap between you and the vast vacuum of space is a few centimetres. Many space journeys come back with mission goals un-accomplished, not because of one person’s failure but several times because the mission circumstances are in the unknown. You will take on projects, build product features, launch countries, create processes however, some of these may not be successful. Enjoy the journey of creating and learning from every moment of it. In the end, even if not successful, you will learn the 100 ways of how things don't work.?
3. You Got to Love the Pressure: You can't become an astronaut if you are afraid of what pressure does physically and mentally. In a start-up, many times you will be the only point of success and failure for multiple jobs—without a backup! This kind of dependency and burden is not for the weak-hearted. You have to be someone who can get a good night’s sleep even when you know the stakes are high because the stakes are always high and you have to be able to sleep to avoid burnouts and short career spans in start-ups.
4. You Are Dependent on Your Mission Team for Your Life!: Well, not literally but your success and the mission’s success is dependent on this lean crew’s ability to perform their jobs as a team! Invest in your team in creating a seamless rhythm, not judging them, and accepting them for who they are. You all have something great in common—the courage to be on this ‘rocket ship journey’—have huge respect for that.?
5. Create a New Benchmark for Efficiency: You may have been in organisations before where you had a big team doing the same task. In a start-up, it's only you! Your time has never been more precious. Not only do you need to accomplish your Business As Usual duties, there are also side projects to create and improve processes. In addition, there are new horizon initiatives to brainstorm on; and then … you have a life to live! Being efficient and planning your day to a minute through a never-ending to-do list will be an art you need to master. A colleague of mine gave me a brilliant idea to split my to-do into red, amber and green and prioritise based on urgency.?
6. Learn To Be a Sheepdog: While I talk about it last, being a sheepdog is probably the most important skill of being in a start-up. You are working in an environment where everyone is like you—the only person doing their job with several other side projects, and now you need to get them to work towards your agenda. You need to herd people continuously to meet your objective, to bring their attention to your project, your meeting for those 30 mins and make sure you get them to do what you need them to do to move ahead — be it an approval, a decision, a feature build, an opinion, a quick review or just a pat on the shoulder. You need to be shameless in following up, reminding and blowing your horn till it's done!

There are many more lessons I have learnt while I picked my favourites for this article. I would love to hear more from the fellow astronauts ?? and readers.