Location, Hiring, SHOULD YOU START A STARTUP?, Age Limit for Starting A Startup, Work, work and work
Where to start your startup
Start your office in a less costly place and don’t worry about the price of the furniture. Get the used or cheap furniture for your office. Even though you have the million dollars from your VC, do not spend it to get the best chairs available in the market. You may feel sheepish when your visitors come to your office, but you need to be wise in spending rather than showing off your newly furnished office.
You can also start your startup in an apartment. Apartments are good to start something. It gives a feeling of a home and working from home is better then sitting at the cubicle. Instead of looking professional with glass walls and elevators, it is better to be professional in your work. During the starting of startup, you may need to live in the office, so why not make your office a place where you can live and work.
Location is very important for a startup. Apartments are better for the startups because they are cheaper and they provide an atmosphere of work. In an office located in an office park, all people go to their homes for dinner. But in a startup, people go for dinner together and come back after dinner to perform things which are better, more productive and can uplift the startup soon. Find out the place that has the right kind of vibe for a startup. Look for it till you get it and then start you office there.
Don’t hire
Not hiring people can help you not to spend money.
It sound little absurd, but this can really be a money saver and also your startup saver. Hiring other people may cause several problems when you have just started -
1. People causes recurring expenses
2. You have to move to a office if you hire more people
3. People slow you down
Lesser people can help you to do things at a faster rate without wasting time in meetings and other things. Hire people only when there is something that you like to do but can’t do because of lack of time as you are handling lots of works. You do not need someone with a specific job title to do something specific. Big companies have people with specific roles to do specific jobs. As you have just started out, don’t hire someone to fill your organization chart.
You will find most of the startups hire people even though they face the problems with hiring of people. Why do they do you? People hire more people because they like to have other people working for them. People often ask the question and even reporters do ask it. When people ask you how many people are working under you and you can mention about a thousand or more, you feel better than if you have to mention only ten. The more people work for you the more weightage you get. More number of people working under you impresses other people.
It is always better to have a company that is smaller but has the same revenue as that of your competitor with ten times more employees than you. Though the employee number is not impressive but the profit will definitely be. It is better to look small and more profitable than to look big and impressive but having lesser profits. Number of employees can also determine your office space and location, so take a right decision by being small yet impressive.
“SHOULD YOU START A STARTUP?
Now as we reach the last stage of this whole series, we need to discuss a basic question- “SHOULD YOU START A STARTUP?”
Should you start your own startup? Are you the right person to do it? Is it worth it to start a startup?
You may not realize but you may be the right person to start a startup. Many people do not realize it. If you realize that and other people like you do, then there will be more startups. It may seem terrible of horrifying, but it is not really that tough.
It seems very tough to me when I started my own organic vegetable business. But you known one thing- things are lot simpler once you actually do it. I did not have any idea of many a things-registering a firm, getting a license, starting a firm, structuring a partnership, managing people, structuring a retail outlet and so on. But the work was easy. With my partner Navanita, I started it quite easily.
The same thing happened to my second business- Internet Marketing.
Don’t be intimidated to try it. As I told IT LOOKS TOUGH BUT IT IS ACTUALLY NOT. If you are between 20-40 years of age, then you can any day start a startup. It is also possible at any age after 40, but some of you may have other obligations to meet.
If you want to get rich and want to solve the money problem at one shot instead of getting paid a small amount for the whole life, then it is for you.
You do not have to be very good in studies to become an entrepreneur and start a startup. Anyone with a common sense can start a business.
Age Limit for Starting A Startup
Till 20, you may not be ready for the plunge. It may not occur to you till that age. Again you may need to learn many things before you start doing something. Before 20, people will not take you seriously. VCs won’t trust you and will try to take advantage of your ignorance about the business. You may simply lose control of your own startup. Customers may not believe you as they may think that you will not be able to drive the company. You may also not be comfortable to boss some of your employees who are much older to you.
It is always better to learn few things before you start your own startup. Work for a company and learn the things that you need to know. During your employment, you will learn many positive and negative things. Both of these learning will help you to do better in your startup. Positive learning will ensure you follow them and get success. Negative learning will help you to avoid the errors in your own startup.
But remember, this is not the final say. If you think you can do it despite your age, then probably you will be able to do it.
The upper age that I mentioned as 40 also has certain considerations. You may have to work beyond the usual timings even till 2:00-3:00 am every night. After 40, you may not be able to do it regularly. Your physical stamina may not provide you the chance to do so. Again starting a stratup is a big financial risk. You can take that risk because even you do not make it, then you can restart and handle it. But after 40 it will be really difficult to start afresh. It will be more difficult, if you have kids.
Do you really want to start a startup? Are you ready to compress your life to a very small space for atleast a few years? If the answer is yes, then you are ready to start. When you start a startup, you work like hell for a few years, may be 3-4 years instead of working 40 years at a ordinary pace. If you are ready to work like hell for the next few years, then you are upto it.
Work, work and work
During the initial days of your startup, you will do very little but work. You will have to work because otherwise your competitors will do. You will be mostly working and busy. You will hardly have an hour or so in a day for yourself or for any leisure activity. You may need to stop going out, stop seeing your girlfriend, stop visiting cinemas and pubs and so on. The time will be less and you will have to work and work.
Working will be fun. Try to find some friends to work with you. Working with friends is always fun. Again take the happenings lightly because then you will have fun and will not be fatigued. There are lots of fun in working, which seems funny later in the years.
People think that in a startup, you have to handle lots of work and bullshit, but the notion is wrong. The amount of work and bullshit you handle in your daily lives is equal to the amount of work and bullshit while starting your startup. The difference is that, you have to handle most of them in a compressed time of just 1-3 years. Initially for the first 1-3 years, you need to work hard, but later, when you startup takes off, you can relax and enjoy the time.
For whom is a startup good?
If you want to take control of your life, then a startup is good for you. If you want to solve the money problem in your life for once and all, then it is for you. If you do not like working 40 years for a salary, then a startup is for you.
You may also have to think about your education and career. Should you choose your grad school or starting a startup. The solution is- start a startup if you really want to. Whether it succeeds or fails will be evident within a short time. If it fails and you want to complete your grad school, then you can come back to academics any time. But is it succeeds, then you will not have to go back to your grad school again.
For other people who are working, if you have the expertise or knowledge, you can go back to jobs if you fail. After a year or two, you can again try. But if you are successful in the first shot, then you will never have to work again in your life. Isn’t that easy? I did it. After losing my first business, I joined back another company with 4 times my previous salary. Then after 1-2 years I started again and in the second time I become successful.
Starting a startup is not so difficult as you think. You just need to do it. You do not have to know how to do business. You can learn it. Very simply – Create something that users love, get good people to work for you and then spend lesser than what you earn. Isn’t that simple?
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