Go Start Up!

Fingerprint! Publishing’s ‘Go Start Up’, by Karan Kashyap is an incisive must-read. It empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to benefit from the values and culture system. Focusing on the people behind a brand and what it takes to establish as well as consistently foster the right environment for the promotion of growth-it is based on the author’s vast experience of working with founders. The book links values and cultures to the success of startups and focuses on oft-overlooked ideas and facts. Corporate Citizen brings you excerpts from a conversation with the author Karan Kashyap

Karan Kashyap

Karan Kashyap’s ‘Go Start Up’ provides a starting point for young enterprises’ owners to make minimal errors on the risk-driven road of startups. Based on intensive interactions with businesses in India’s third-largest startup ecosystem, the book effectively caters to the demands of small business magnates who often face time constraints as they execute multiple roles in their journey of entrepreneurship, and offers a blueprint for them to establish their legacy as founders.

Corporate Citizen: Your book Go Start Up, appears to be extremely timely in our age of start-up. What prompted you to pen this book?

Karan Kashyap: In any profession, decisions can be easily taken when risks are low or probabilities of failures are few. But when a situation is one that involves higher risk and a probability of failure, such as in entrepreneurship, dilemmas abound.

These dilemmas are often met with silence because the right conversations are not initiated as there is no awareness of taking decisions based on values. During dilemmas, your values provide mental strength, clarity of thought, and emotional support in your difficult route to success. They play the role of a guide and prevent a founder from going astray in most vulnerable situations. The extent to which you can attain mastery over them determines success in an entrepreneur’s life; successful business owners are mindful of this fact.

Over several years, founders of companies such as, Droom, upGrad, OYO Hotels & Homes or Swiggy have followed the golden rule of protecting and promoting the values and culture system in their organisations; this has enabled them to even conquer change, garner enormous goodwill in the market, and to transform their enterprises into the fabled unicorns. While hoping to emulate these role models, prospective founders have seldom found books that can guide them to acquire the required entrepreneurial skills to form strong inter-linkages between these two topics. Therefore, to cater to this gap in today’s turbulent times and the requirements of this target audience, I have written a book that links values and cultures to the success of startups.

CC: What lies at the core of Go Start Up?

Go Start Up empowers aspiring entrepreneurs to benefit from the values and culture system. It is practical and adaptable and helps you to establish your legacy as a founder of an organisation. This book assists you to deal with dilemmas and build the right work environment in your startup.

You must treat this book as a starting point rather than an end in itself. It has been written especially for beginners who aim to start an enterprise, while possessing little or no prior business experience or know-how. Eventually, reading this book empowers readers to answer the following questions: How can you develop the mindset and skillset of an entrepreneur? How can you form teams to start an organisation? How can your startup attract a more skilled workforce? How can you introduce, and tackle change effectively in your setup? How can you grow your fledgling company?

"You must treat this book as a starting point rather than an end in itself. It has been written especially for beginners who aim to start an enterprise, while possessing little or no prior business experience or know-how"

- Karan Kashyap

CC: What is the kind of research that went into it?

Despite the vastness of the subject, I have focused on values and culture systems in startups at three levels – ION (Individual, Organisational and National). Starting from the book’s origin, much before the commencement of its writing, I would like to express my gratitude to Sun Group’s Vice Chairman, Mr Uday Khemka, who spared time from his packed schedule in international policy negotiations at UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) COP-15 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, for a life-changing meeting. During this pivotal moment, he emphasised the importance of values and culture in the field of entrepreneurship via anecdotes from his time spent at Harvard Business School. His patience, in answering all my scepticisms regarding the importance of this idea in entrepreneurship, sowed the seed of its relevance in my head.

On my return to India, my further interactions with Tana Paddock and Professor Warren from the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, South Africa, guided me to attain additional clarity on organisations’ influence on the values of their employees. In 2017, I started writing this book project at the Swedish Institute Management Program (SIMP), which turned out to be an ideal platform to observe values-driven economic practices in Sweden, one of the highest-ranked countries in innovations and startups. At this programme, my mentor, Anne Mette Erlandsson Christiansen, who is an external lecturer at Copenhagen Business School, guided me with patience to research, to comprehend the likely obstacles in my path. Ruben Brunsveld, Deputy Director of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), provided me with vital insights on processes followed for ethical businesses and values-based leadership in organisations. I would also like to specially mention Dick Von Martens, founder of Self-Leaders, and Caroline Sahlborn Stiernstedt, Chairman, Ekskäret Foundation, whose workshops handed me valuable knowledge on growth-enabled mindset required to implement change within individual values.

I was also able to delve deeper into the subject matter relevant for startups, young aspiring entrepreneurs, owing to the knowledge that I garnered from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) boot camp. At MIT Bootcamp, Erdin Beshimov, lecturer and senior director at MIT, Vimala Palaniswamy, Director of MIT Bootcamps, Hyungsoo Kim, founder, Eone Timepieces, selflessly shaped my thoughts, which further honed my expertise in fledgling enterprises. During this course, I also learnt about the relevance of disciplined entrepreneurship from Professor Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. I would forever be grateful for his kind support and patronage. In addition to this, I analysed the work of Dr Geert Hofstede, Anthropologist, Author of Cultural Consequences, to create worksheets, which avoided the pitfalls of differences between national cultures, and which prepared a startup founder for expansion into new markets, and countries. Young entrepreneurs at Government of India’s Niti Ayog’s Atal Innovation Mission enabled me to evolve ideas for this book, and this project would have not been possible without the generosity of Indian founders who altruistically shared their pearls of wisdom from their experiences.

"Based entirely on primary experiences and interactions with successful entrepreneurs in India and abroad, Go Start Up includes ideas and facts which other books overlook. It is an all-in-one consolidated source of practical and theoretical knowledge for beginners, who aspire to become successful founders of startups"

CC: The book focuses on the people behind a brand. Can you give us a few inspiring examples?

As one of the featured facets, this book does talk about the people behind a brand. I would like to quote first-hand experiences from entrepreneurs in this regard.

“One of the most important company values we have is ‘Never Give Up’ and that’s a value that is deeply ingrained in everyone working at Truecaller. This has helped us overcome many challenges, whether it relates to expansion in new markets and geographies or building and growing a huge ecosystem of users, businesses, partners and developers. Our rapid growth and global spread are largely attributed to the persistence and dedication that comes with this value.”

- Alan Mamedi, CEO and Co-founder, Truecaller

“Imbibing each of the values of our framework ASPIRE (Accountability, Speed, Passion, Integrity, Respect, and Excellence) makes upGrad a respectful workplace, where one not only learns and grows professionally, but it also helps the brand build a legacy that facilitates our learners to achieve their desired outcomes. While at the same time our employees build fulfilling career journeys, thus enhancing the desirability of our brand.”

- Ronnie Screwvala, Serial Entrepreneur, Co-founder and Chairman, upGrad

“I think that being Swedish is a very important factor. Sweden has had the luxury of not being involved in a number of wars that have torn apart many other countries, and this has helped people not to have super confrontational approaches. I think that type of mindset ends up being reflected in the long-term—friendly culture we have developed at Storytel. We don’t go for the final extra little crown in the negotiation. Storytel is never going to be the kind of service that explodes overnight. It is a slow-pace, step-by-step building up of the market, and both the Swedish and the Storytel cultures reflect this mentality.”

- Jonas Tellander, Founder and CEO, Storytel

“Culture is what flows right from the founders to each member of the leadership team and even the on-ground sales teams that we may not interact often with. It will drive revenue, retention, happiness-that’s why it’s important for every startup to care about it.”

- Swati Bhargava, Co-founder, CashKaro

“Externally, brand values are the promise that a company’s product or service offers its clients and consumers. They will shift and change with the zeitgeist. And internally, brand values are connected to a corporate culture where employees can identify with a set of common goals on which they can act every day, bringing coherence and efficiencies to the workplace. They give clarity about corporate business goals and strategy leading to better decisions and reducing micromanagement.”

- Dilip Cherian, Founder, Perfect Relations

CC: What does it take to establish and nurture an ideal environment that promotes growth?

Cultivating an ideal work environment is a delicate process that involves honesty in conveying facts, acceptance of differences in opinions regarding these shared facts and clarity in communication.

As the first step, a founder must define the values of her/his startup and then communicate them succinctly to the employees, to the customers, and to the outside world. An effective medium of communication, such as emails, office interior decorations, and videos on YouTube, can also empower entrepreneurs to relay the intended message for the employees. Or they can even list bonuses in the salary structure of your workforce to emphasise the necessary traits and actions expected out of employees. You can even develop your very own unique way of communicating the company values. For instance, Bengaluru-based Intuit, a provider of financial management solutions for small businesses, believes in vibrant workspaces to keep its employees creatively charged up. The Intuit Values Wall is located at the entrance of their office.

Secondly, founders must make sure they actively follow through on their stated values, by acting upon them. The organisation’s core values must resonate with a founder’s vision and should be something that most employees can relate to and routinely execute. As leaders, you are the linchpins of your culture. It is not just about creating vision documents and sharing them with your employees. Actions speak louder than words, so making conscious efforts to live the chosen values during the hustle and bustle of the daily work routines is crucial. Whether it is a team meeting, a one-on-one discussion, or an event at large, make sure to restate and reinforce the message through your actions. People need reminding.

This will make involved parties aware of what to expect, in terms of both stated and unsaid norms that exist within a company’s workplace. And result in a feeling of trustworthiness, which is an essential ingredient to cultivate an ideal work environment for growth.

"A founder must define the values of her/his startup and then communicate them succinctly to the employees, to the customers, and to the outside world"

CC: How would you say cultures and values are linked to the success of startups?

Most of the successful startups today realise, advertising can only create and push your brand to a limited extent; in the long run, the only way to establish a resilient brand is by investing time in defining and promoting the startup’s values and culture system. A brand’s reputation is a result of a fine-tuned system of values and culture that will influence startup’s products and will persuade customers to buy its services. It will impact what you build, how you build it, how you interact with employees, and how you talk to your customers. A reputed and trusted brand offers benefits that go beyond fund-raising; it drives sales and revenues because customers often buy into your company’s name before they buy your product. As the first round of money is largely driven by a startup’s brand perception, to successfully raise capital, a founder must especially pay attention to how his/her company is perceived.

As nowadays employees are more sensitive to work environments and give higher importance to questions such as ‘Am I enjoying my work?’ or ‘Does this brand suit me?’, startups use various methods, such as testimonials and social media, to advertise stories in support of their work culture and environment, which directly affects the motivation and loyalty of employees. During the critical challenge of recruiting a talented and skilled workforce, your startup will not be able to battle already established corporations in terms of pay packages, but fledgling organisations could compete by providing exciting opportunities and a more fulfilling work experience to employees, especially if the hired individuals are young millennials.

In addition to this, what works in one country might not work in another due to cultural norms. Eventually, as your startup grows into a global conglomerate that operates in countries and hires people from all over the world, a founder will have to develop knowledge of nuances in different cultures from around the world.

CC: Any ideas and facts, which other books have overlooked, that Go Start Up pins attention to?

The subject matter on startups, values and culture, offered by other books, is widely spread out. Most of these written works do not form strong inter-linkages between these two topics and even if they do, the presented information is targeted at individuals who possess prior knowledge/experience of running their businesses.

Furthermore, the other business books preach about topics without paying attention to the fact that not every individual needs to pass out from institutions such as an Ivy League university in America or IITs and IIMs in India to become an entrepreneur.

Based entirely on primary experiences and interactions with successful entrepreneurs in India and abroad, Go Start Up includes ideas and facts which other books overlook. It is an all-in-one consolidated source of practical and theoretical knowledge for beginners, who aspire to become successful founders of startups.

This book is divided into three parts. The first part of the book consists of the key characteristics and personality traits that enables to create a successful entrepreneur. It enables you to develop the required mindset, and includes information on naming an enterprise, choosing an office space, mentors, and taking decisions for the startup in the correct manner. The second part consists of real-life inspired case studies showcasing stories on the importance of values and culture system in work-life balance, hiring and teamwork ethos, change, and expansion of a startup. Each case study is unique and different from the other. These case studies begin with an introduction, and subsequently, proceed to reflection and exercise sections. The reflection section includes my experiences of working with startups.

In the end, the third part of the book is the For Your Information (FYI) section, which includes worksheets for quick implementation of ideas learnt through these chapters.

CC: How do you feel this book could help budding entrepreneurs?

Aspiring entrepreneurs often face time constraints as they perform and execute multiple roles in their journey; to effectively cater to them, this book understands the fast-paced lifestyle of the current generation and presents grounded information in concise and simple language, including diagrams for clear communication.

Go Start Up helps budding entrepreneurs to make minimal errors on this risk-driven road of startups, with case studies, and worksheets for practice. It contains pivotal thoughts from a myriad of successful startups for inculcating a growth-enabled mindset. Along with valuable information of established hiring resources, accelerators, incubators, venture capitalists and angel investors that have been selected essentially to fulfil niche requirements of an aspiring entrepreneur.

CC: Tell us a little about yourself.

As a well-renowned business journalist, I am one of the most established contributors for Forbes, where I cover startups, investors, and entrepreneurs in South Asia. Along with this I have been trained by the United Nations for providing skill development to international migrants and refugees in their entrepreneurial ventures and studied entrepreneurship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Bootcamp. As a mentor at the Government of India’s Atal Innovation Mission, I often conduct lessons on values-driven entrepreneurship.