Shubham Jain’s ‘Make Fair Mistakes’ talks about the obstacles that come in the journey of start-ups
What Shubham Jain learned from his entrepreneurial journey was to open up about the mistakes of his start-up business. While sharing his recently released experiences, Shubham said, “The founders should give up their failures and the lessons they learned so that budding entrepreneurs don’t make the same mistake.” Make fewer mistakes: learn from the journey of start-up founders (Author’s channel)
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A self-help management book for leaders and entrepreneurs, Make fewer mistakes Start-ups are less about success and more about the difficulties and failures that entrepreneurs face along the way.
Shubham, co-founder of GronOnant, an online product rental start-up, was devastated when he had to shut down the business after five years. When he researched the Internet to find out how other entrepreneurs survived, he received “horrifying advice”. He also gave examples of how Steve Jobs, who split from Apple, launched Pixar in two years and how Jack Ma was rejected at Stanford and McDonald’s; He made six attempts before tasting success with Alibaba. “There was no mention of what Jobs or Ma did to maintain their mental health and deal with failures,” Shubham said.
The next four months were a life-changing experience when he summoned 25 entrepreneurs including Ankit Nagori (Curefit), Mayank Bidawatka (Koo App), Richa Singh (YourDost), Neha Kant (Clovia and Sandeep Kannambari (Monkeybox)) for their mistakes. And he broke up while sharing the start-up ecosystem but what he didn’t anticipate were revelations from fellow entrepreneurs. “He told me ‘You’re not alone. We’ve all messed up in the past and that’s how we get out. Come ‘. It was a great relief to know that I was not alone. “
Shubham feels that the success stories of start-ups often do not capture all the nuances of running a business. “The founders are proud and these ‘heroes’ feel pressured to keep quiet about the failures. New-age entrepreneurs like me have not faced obstacles and different circumstances.”
Important elements for a growth mindset
- Teammates to take ownership: Most first time founders are bad at handing over and trusting people with decision making or execution. This not only creates a micro-management environment, but also prevents teammates from taking ownership. The creative freedom of an organization is directly proportional to its productivity, and the founders pressurize their peers to trust and empower them.
- It is okay to fail. This leads to learning: when founders run after audacious goals, everything is not in the desired outcome. However, it should not be avoided to grow the business. What each failed attempt does not work, and opens the door to learn about recalibration. Smart entrepreneurs share their learning from teamwork with teammates and create an environment to strive fearlessly despite failures.
- Build repeatable systems that are massively efficient: a development phase has tons of uncertainty. Intelligent founders further focused on working with and replicating smaller audiences to reduce uncertainty. Not all products are on a linear scale and not all geographies are equally receptive or service. For example, using technology to automate processes, build feedback loops with customers, and mimic marketing efforts.
In the course of time, he also mentioned 15 start-ups. Based on her experiences helping other entrepreneurs, her own start-up journey and interviews with other founders, Shubham decided to publish a book. Keeping a daily journal helped him become a writer. The book is broken in terms of lessons learned, funds raised, and hard news of lay-offs. “There will be so many ups and downs. Your mental health will break down, money will develop, the team will not believe in you but you have to keep it together. A failure will not define life. ”
‘Courage and vulnerability’
The interesting part for him was to find that courage and vulnerability are closely linked. “Founders need courage to make difficult decisions, but they also have to be honest. They feel that if their team is weak then they will not respect them but we are human and fail many times. “
Shubham feels that the epidemic provided the founders with an opportunity to assess what was important and what was not.
“The founders needed to find frugal ways of navigating through it,” he says and is an example of Treebo Hotels that turns many properties into quarantine centers and has leased out hotel kitchens to restaurants that Were delivering food to monetize their real estate.
Most urban migrants, consumer product rental start-ups, vacant metros, shrink the addressable audience for such startups. However, the founders in this space found simple, useful ways to capitalize on the new work-from-home (WFH) trend for the rest. He began offering the WFH package to people to set up a dedicated workspace in their homes, including workstations and chairs. He further tied up with corporations to ship laptops and tablets to employees using desktops in office premises.
Almost all the founders learned to develop thick skin because there was nothing they could do to change the situation. Soon, opportunities were presented to those who held their nerve. Some industries thrived due to changes in consumer behavior during the epidemic.
Make fewer mistakes Not only for those planning to start a start-up, but also for those who are already running start-ups and want to grow their business. “I’m not telling anyone what to do but the book is more of what not to do,” he concludes.
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