Startups are hard! This statement shouldn’t be sugarcoated. It’s the unmasked truth of running a startup. If you are not ready to sacrifice sleep, a considerable percentage of family time, work umpteen hours ( including weekends), stay self-motivated then this is not for you.
6 years back I, Sukesh, and Pani came together to co-found a software testing consulting services company, we had no idea of what we are signing up ourselves for. It was just a rationalized thought process and fire in the belly to do something of our own. But as we progressed we got to learn it from colleagues, industry leaders we have worked with, books, and blogs. Trust me, once you venture into something without knowing anything about it whether you survive or succumb both the outcomes are accompanied by tonnes of learning. Even though it has been 6 long years that we survived and enjoyed every bit of but still we feel that we just started a month back.
Here we stand after 6 years with close to reaching 100 people, serving 30 + clients, solved some amazing software testing problems, understanding that it’s largely about finding some great people to work with. It’s a proud feeling when we look back and see the impact we have created with our clients. It is a journey worth taking up and pursuing. Some of the learning from this journey has been:
- Pursue an idea only when you fully believe in it. There will be ups and down and unless you are totally immersed in your own idea, you wouldn’t be able to gather energy to go through the downs. But yes do your homework as well on certain aspects like potential market size, competitors, how are you different, etc. Particularly true in the services industry is Kaizen ideology which was coined by Toyota which believes everything can be and deserves to be improved.
- Stay lean. Generating revenue and staying positive goes a long way compared to a fancy office and loads of nonsense perks. A business survives only with a positive bank account. Let’s accept that the world and ecosystem out there are focussed only on Products. VCs are busy funding Product startups, SaaS startups, etc. Unfortunately, there is no place for Service-based startups to get funded whether you make a profit or not, luckily we didn’t get to hear a no because we never approached for funding yet. Secondly, business is not your piggy bank, plow profit back into the business; if you are not ready to back yourself, who will. Always remember that even a slow growth at the end of the day is also growth.
- It’s all about people. “an organized group of people with a particular purpose”, that’s the definition of Organization. Finding the right people is a make or break, perhaps for any business, I believe. Hire only the best, hire smarter than you, even if it takes time, don’t compromise. Building an org with the right set of people also inherently builds the right culture to some extent. Undoubtedly people are your greatest asset, help them learn, and grow.
We are lucky to survive when 9 out of 10 startups fail (source: Startup Genome — the 2019 report claims 11 out of 12 fails), 7.5 out of 10 venture-backed startups fail (source), by end of 5th year all new business fails (source). Every time we read this data, we thought it applies only to product starts-ups and kept our head down and worked. 😊
Happy Reading!
Nishant Verma (CEO, TestVagrant)
