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Koo's Founder on ⬇️⬇️ Should you join a startup I narrated my redBus story not as much for a nostalgic walk, but more for those who are considering joining one to get a sense of how innocently I went about it and the sacrifices it needed. I was leaving my life as I knew it, from one city to another, for a 70% salary cut, holding ESOPs with very little value then, knowing I won’t save 1/100 of what my business school batchmates will accumulate over the next 10 years. In the thick of ambiguity across personal and professional spheres. And I went through my share of pain and fun in the years that followed. Fighting loneliness, home sickness, settling down in a new city, extreme work pressure at the age of 26, ambiguous work environment, thoughts of shutting down, 2008 recession, having just 2 months runway, raising funds at a 50% down round to hitting it out of the park, being one of the fastest growing startups globally, being spoken about in the media, hitting new milestones every few months, learning new things on the internet at breakneck speeds, living in a bachelor pad for many years and surviving on the meagre salary to make ends meet. Would you do it? I don’t know. But here’s what I think: Join a startup if you think it’s solving a problem that excites you. Join a startup if you think that the solution will be the default way of living in the future. Join if the gang you’re joining seem like folks you can spend hours with. Be it thrashing solutions, being in the trenches, having fun, fighting and debating. Folks you know you can depend on. Join if you’re solving a problem you face. Or if it’s a problem that others you know well, are facing. Follow your gut at most times. Many times your analytical mind won’t make sense of what the gut pushes you to do. Join for the right reasons. Not to get rich quick, or for market / salary jumps. Not for ESOPs worth millions. The journey is so tough that none of the monetary reasons will let you shine and make a mark. You may land up making money but you won’t enjoy the journey. If you decide to join one, remember this: Entrepreneurship is a very selfish journey. You’re doing this for self satisfaction. And to serve millions of people who may benefit from your creation. Remember the sacrifice your closest ones will make while you embark on this. There needs to be a lot of passion on the other side of the seesaw to make sense of this otherwise heavy imbalance. Startups are a lot of fun. They are informal, relaxed, fast paced, quick decision making environments, sometimes backed by little / no data. You need to be comfortable in extremely ambiguous situations. It’ll make you stronger as a person and help develop a strong gut feel on what will work and what won’t over a period of time. You may handle far higher responsibilities ahead of your planned career curve. That’s never a bad thing for the hungry ones. You’ll deal with situations that large corporate execs rarely do. You’ll learn to multi-task and handle multiple information sets in your mind while deciding what to do. You’ll learn to make decisions keeping various stakeholders in mind. Customers, Suppliers, Founders, Team, Investors and the media. You’ll have the time of your life building a product at an early stage startup and see the product shape up in a few years. It’s the most fulfilling thing for me and I can’t wait to relive this in every new gig. The early years are the best and most memorable ones. You’ll learn to think processes, systems, scale, defensibility, survival, prioritization, team building, organization building all at once. It’ll become second nature. You’ll truly understand what strategy is and how a lethal one can help you become a monopoly. The earlier in your career you join one, the better. It gives you great grounding for various reasons. You also have lower personal / financial responsibilities when you’re younger and aren’t as spoiled by material desires as you do when you get older. Try and not take debt for anything. Try living within your means. The lower the debt, the higher your flexibility in anything in life. At the end of it, everyone is chasing independence of some sort. Always avoid giving up that independence for anything. Love, marriage and children and well accepted exceptions I know of!