Plan your leap or plunge

One common oversight of entrepreneurs as they decide to take a calculated plunge into entrepreneurship is the preparation for the plunge. Most entrepreneurs in Bengaluru take this plunge after a few years of work experience in the corporate, mostly with an exposure to the technical aspects. So, this forms the primary aspect that this section focuses on.

In the zeal to take the plunge, entrepreneurs often jump to quitting their stable job and developing the product and then taking it to the market. The first dimension they seem to underestimate is the time it would take for the business to grow. They would have anticipated a six-month runway but may often take up to two years to get the product off to a market. Creating the financial cushion which helps manage the journey is important on multiple fronts. One, it allows you to focus primarily on the business. Two, it gives you an upper limit on the amount you could wastefully spend in other activities. And finally, while giving a realistic target, it also allows you to have a checkpoint where you can independently assess the potential of the business taking off.

The second dimension of underestimation comes from the assumption about other people and their behaviour. The dominant training, often in science, creates an illusion of people and develops the perspective that their behaviour is absolutely predictable. This is akin to assuming point objects in studying the motion of physical bodies. The social world is more complicated than what we have learned in the physical world. The complexity arises due to the free will of the individual. Despite being exposed to the same environmental situation, it is less likely that two individuals will behave in the same manner. The way we think about the situation plays a major role. This raises the question – when you cannot predict people, what is the next best thing you can do?

Influence! Yes. We could influence people and study their behaviour. More importantly, it is essential to understand them before we can influence. Understanding ensures that we appreciate the free will component of their decision making. To understand, we should shift from the mindset of treating every interaction as a transaction and instead approach it as an exercise in relationship building. Through relationship building, we would be able to understand the situation more realistically and design appropriate means to influence people.

The third component is setting up the expectations in entrepreneurship. A new venture’s journey is filled with uncertainty, and we are often not trained to deal with this. To ease the process and also possibly to ask ourselves if we can handle it, one would need to taste it. A quick way to taste this uncertainty is to work in a startup environment. Invest a year maybe, to work with a startup – looking at how decisions are being made, what parameters individuals consider, and how do they behave etc.

In essence, preparing for the plunge would be a good investment if you are serious about the transition and, at the same time, give yourself a rope to hold on to, just in case.

Ask yourself:

Have I prepared myself financially for the journey ahead? How much runway have I created? What is my absolute no go?

Could I experience the environment of a startup and assess if I am willing to take the plunge? Have I invested in people? Could I rely on some of them to help me through the entrepreneurial journey?