Foreign media sees india gaining from china slump

1. Pain of Growing Up
Entrepreneurs who begin with a belief that starting up is all
about guts and glory are fast discovering that it is often more
of the former and rather less of the latter, finds Evelyn Fok

2. The daily life of Albinder Dhindsa, cofounder and CEO of grocery
delivery startup Grofers, has gone through a sea change over the past
year. After his company received wave after wave of funding from
marquee investors in recent months, its performance has shot up
multifold. And his day-to-day work has become a marathon of
meetings with clients, investors, and potential employees. “The nature
of problems has changed. I used to be involved in sales content,
cataloguing, and tech. I don't get time for that anymore,“ he said.
Dhindsa's journey is emblematic of startup entrepreneurs expanding at
breakneck rates, spurred by bullish investors and eager customers. The
adrenaline and media attention aside however, such founders have to
confront growing pains that are difficult to resolve.

3. Contd..
A founder's role first evolves from creating a product to positioning it in the
market, said TaxiForSure's cofounder and former CEO Raghunandan G,
likening the transition to going from being a mechanic to a heart surgeon.
Then, as the compan begins to scale, “what drew you to a startup is no
longer what you will be doing,“ said Raghunandan, who sold his company to
larger rival Ola this year.
At one point, founders have a hard time when the firm achieves its own
identity that overtakes their own, a transition known as nominal legitimacy,
according to Srinivasan R, professor of corporate strategy and polic at IIM-
Bangalore. “This is a phase of doubt and rediscovery for the founders that is
extremely hard on them,“ he said. “They go through a crisis where they ask:
how much control do I retain, versus how much should I give up to
managers?“

4. Contd..
Entrepreneurs can lose control not only to middle management, but to
investors as well when funding comes in, said Rachel Gojer, an experienced
entrepreneur life coach based in Bengaluru. “That's where a lot of conflicts
happen, so entrepreneurs have to be very clear on how much control
venture capitalists have on what's happening in real time,“ she said.
In a lot of cases, Gojer added, entrepreneurs may not anticipate the rate at
which the company will grow and may not have done the planning and
groundwork in preparation. A natural solution is to institute formal processes
as the company scales across verticals and geographies, but entrepreneurs
may be reluctant to do so as it runs contrary to the entrepreneurial spirit of
constantly questioning and not adhering to organizational structures.

5. And while founders are caught up in a myriad of incremental problems
that alarming scale brings, “it is easy for companies to lose foresight
and long-term thinking,“ said Alok Goel, partner at SAIF Partners who
previously was chief executive of FreeCharge and before that chief
operating officer at RedBus.
Within such a rapidly changing organisational landscape, therefore,
“people have to grow even faster in order to be in control,“ said
TaxiForSure's Raghunandan. This involves a delicate balancing act--
between individual and organisational priorities, management and
innovation, delegation and execution, customer experience and scale,
culture and productivity, the immediate and the future--all with the
flexibility and grace of an acrobat.

6. Contd..
If a startup's growth does outpace that of its leader, then a professional CEO
can be brought in, which brings its own set of challenges. SAIF's Goel knows
this well, having been involved in two landmark exits--Snapdeal bought
FreeCharge this year and Ibibo acquired RedBus in 2013. “With the amount
of time I spent, the amount of passion that I came in with, it was always as if
they were my own startup,“ he said. “Unless founders, investors, and the
CEO think this way, it is never going to work out.“
In the end, a lot of the solutions lie in psychological adjustments that
founders need to make, said Srinivasan of IIM-B.
“They should be able to reconciliate with the idea that you are the one who
built the ship, but you are not the only one running the ship,“

7. For details and bookings contact:-
Parveen Kumar Chadha… THINK TANK
(Founder and C.E.O of Saxbee Consultants & Other-Mother
marketingandcommunicationconsultants.com)
Email :-saxbeeconsultants@gmail.com
Mobile No. +91-9818308353
Address:-First Floor G-20(A), Kirti Nagar, New Delhi India Postal Code-110015