If you are conservative by nature, then no amount of cajoling is going to make you scale fast. If you are the aggressive kinds, no amount of holding back is going to stop your quest for scale
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| Krishna Kumar |
I was sitting with an old friend who had just turned entrepreneur, when the discussion turned to an important question. How fast should the startup grow? Should he build his business slowly, waiting for scale, or should he push for scale right from the beginning?
Should he work to get his product offering exactly right first? Or, should he build scale with what he has got, particularly considering that cash flows are ok and that he might even be posting a profit this year? It was not that his product was not good or right. It was just that it could get more robust and have a bit more features. Maybe a little bit of tweaking to get it more foolproof…
If you ask me, there are no straight answers to that question. It depends more on your outlook and deposition than on the business environment. If you are conservative by nature, then no amount of cajoling is going to make you scale fast. Glory can wait, but not perfection. On the other hand, if you are the aggressive kinds, then no amount of holding back is going to stop your quest for scale and the greater glory. You would rather do the minor tweaks later, after you have achieved the glory of size and scale.
And for those who are in the middle third, we are living in an age that is in a hurry – in a hurry to explore new things, in a hurry to conquer the unknown, in a hurry for the movie being released next week and its music, in a hurry to get our hands on the latest cell phone, in a hurry for better valuation, in a hurry for the next round of funding to close, in a hurry to do that IPO…
When you are part of a generation that’s in a hurry, perfection may well have to play second fiddle.
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I do provide two conclusive answers. (i) "It depends more on your outlook and deposition than on the business environment" (ii) perfection may well have to play second fiddle.
PS: On a personal note, I have lived in the DLF Qutab Enclave property that your firm designed (http://ameetbabbar.googlepages.com/housing). One of the best designs in Gurgaon! They just don't design them like that anymore!