‘Business leaders need macro vision and eye for detail’
QUICK TIPS The author of ‘Start Up, Stand Up’ offers advice for entrepreneurs looking to transition to being organisation leaders
Starting your own business can be an unnerving experience. Once you decide to do so, you need to do all the right things to grow it.
In her new book,
Nandini Vaidyanathan, a management professional with over 20 years of experience at various multinational firms, offers a step-bystep guide on how to build and grow your company as well as your brand. She offers some tips in this interview. Edited excerpts: this is the beginning of your transition. To my mind, he should have, what I call, and
These are concepts I have borrowed from Hindu mythology, according to which the Universe is governed by the triumvirate of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
Brahma is the Creator; Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva is the Destroyer. If we look at Vishnu as the preserver or perpetuator, the skill set he needs is not just a 30,000 ft view of his Universe, but also the ground level.
In other words, he needs to have the macro vision as well as eye for detail. That to my mind summarises what the entrepreneur needs to cultivate, to transition from a product builder to an organisation leader. Mentoring does plenty of good things, but the single most benefit from mentoring is that it is the best risk-mitigating strategy there is.
In the entrepreneurial journey which is fraught with uncertainties, having a mentor is like performing your trapeze act with the safety net.
Your mentor prepares you in terms of your business by giving you knowledge, network and skill; strengthens you emotionally and intellectually; handholds you if the market throws a googly at you; and guides you seamlessly when you decide to pivot. One of the things that fascinates me in this whole entrepreneurial journey is, how does an entrepreneur discover his customer and engage with him? Does it happen naturally, in the sense you have a great product and the customers queue up on your doorstep? Or does the entrepreneur make it happen?
The answer obviously is that customer seduction is not a natural process but a strategically articulated one.
In this context, I have been a huge fan of Nir Eyal’s blogs for over two years now where he introduced the concept of “behavioural design”, that is, and I’m quoting him here, “the intersection of psychology, technology and business”.
Nir is fascinated by the notion that an entrepreneur can create products that can hook a customer to change his behaviour and become so addictive that he cannot imagine not just life without them but that there was a time when he actually did live his life without them!
He called it the “hook” model where customers use the product once either prompted by an external or internal stimulus which he called the trigger, responded to the trigger by acting upon it and over a period of time, became so invested in the product that he bought it without any trigger whatsoever.
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AN ENTREPRENEUR’S JOURNEY IS FRAUGHT WITH UNCERTAINTIES AND HAVING A MENTOR IS LIKE PERFORMING WITH A SAFETY NET