Diffentiate In the Little Things.

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Working with startups, you realize that you are not responsible for just their financials and execution plan, but much more than that. You also have to build the entrepreneur up in the value system and most of all steer the company towards building its core values.

There is a rule that some of the folks in the previous generation held fast to. Whenever they cook, they always cook for atleast one extra person. The justification? it was for that unexpected visitor who might drop by. And if a visitor did drop by, they always stay for lunch. I still remember that when we were younger, my parents used to ensure that we dont drop by anytime after 11 and before 3pm – just to ensure that we werent being inconvenient on anyone.

Gone are those days.

We get a lot of visitors as startups – and possibly since we are associated with IITM, but one of the thing that caught my attention a few days ago was how some of the startups neglect to ask the basic questions to our visitors. They drop in by lunch time, and nobody asks if they’d had lunch.

Startups are busy. The ecosystem is not very supportive and with this climate (economically and literally), it is an extra effort for the entrepreneur to care, go out of his/her way and make someone comfortable. Most folks give an excuse that they simply cant afford to do that right now, and perhaps once they grow they will.

Couldnt be more wrong. You will always be busy. You’ll always have a thing or two to do in a time frame that is impossible. And most of all, if you cant do it right now, you’ll never do it. Even scarier, if you dont care to build that differentiation, and that compassion and the core value to go beyond yourself to take care of someone else’s comfort, you will simply never get there.

And that’s scary.

Diffentiate In the Little Things.
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One Response to “Diffentiate In the Little Things.”

  1. Krish says:
    May 25, 2009 at 3:31 am

    Vijay,

    Allow me to mangle that “lunch” metaphor a bit.

    When was the last time someone asked whether the startups have had their morning cuppa’ let alone lunch?

    Why not use a fraction of tax money to stimulate truly innovative enterprises, bristling with new technology (assuming there is), that with a little push from the center, won’t just survive this crisis but help India thrive when it is over?

    It’s also time that startups do themselves a favor by lobbying (here’s some meaningful job for that dysfunctional gorilla – TIE ) with the M/o Commerce and Industries department before they use that to write off Agricultural loans taken by Mayavati, O.P.Chautala and Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendras of the world :-)

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