20/12/2011
ADVICE TO YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS:-
Be early. you can make your mistake while it is cheap to make them, when there is no competition.
Do not exaggerate in your business plan. Under-commit and over-deliver.
Get great people - sell them the vision, the idea and share the wealth, be generous with offering stock.
If you are starting a business to make money, don't do it. Chances are that you ill fail, because there WILL be hard times. And if your motivation is not something beyond money, those hard times will test you. You will quite and go back to your job. But if you are doing something other then money, you will rough it through the hard times.
I spotted the opportunity but i didn't know how big it was, how big it was going to be. I just said this is a smart idea, I love it! And it happened to be the right idea, at the right place, at the right time... If you are in enough places, enough times and long enough, you get your breaks in some from or the other. You just have to be smart enough to take them.
Scaling up is also a lot about letting go. get smart people. If they are truly smart and if they have their self belief, they will create their own space and they will do stuff that maybe you can't do. Or may be you haven't thought of.
And do keep in mind that every choice you make impacts the family. If you live in a particular part of town, it will obviously impact the kind of school your kids go to. Frankly, these were the choices, the implications of which I did not consider. Thankfully, things have turned out well; the children also, the family also.
