“Startups” has today become a buzzword across academic institutions/research institutes, campuses, corporates, industrial parks, government bodies, regulators etc. Each of these stakeholders has curated unique paths befitting their visions and goals. However, one commonality found across is the concurrence of all on the significance and the role of startups in their growth-paths.
The startup community is delighted to witness the growing importance of the startups and relevance of startups to the economy. There is also excitement in the minds of the founders to live their dreams and make a difference to the lives and contribute to the economy. Along the life cycle of the startup from idea to prototype, to market the founders themselves undergo a complete transformation as a person. The transformation from innovator to entrepreneur.
The transformation journey of the entrepreneurs is like the transformation of a sports star, to a legend , be it a team sports or individual sports. Entrepreneurship has many elements of sportsman spirit. Recently, the sports arena witnessed the retirement of a legend in the lawn Tennis, Roger Federer. His journey took him from starting as a sports enthusiast, as a ball boy to scaling heights to the extent of being labeled the GOAT (Greatest of all times). The journey with highs and many lows is filled with emotions of all sorts. The performance of the player on the court is the final testimony of the physical and mental grit steadily built over a long period of time. During this process stakeholders like the team, medicos, trainers, coach play an extremely crucial role. The dream and vision of the player becomes the vision and dream of the support system. Similarly, every startup founder and his/her core team work tirelessly towards meeting their milestone inch by inch, similar is the case of a team backing a sportsperson, they work tirelessly in ensuring the player is in the right form and shape before every big match. After every victory or loss, the role of the team in the game is always acknowledged by legends. During his farewell speech Roger Federer paid a befitting tribute to his team, for their rock solid support. The role of support team can be similarly witnessed in other sports like Formula1, Moto racing events etc. The team closely watches every move of the racer, and should he/she have an issues with the racing car / bike or the racer himself / herself, the support team addresses it seamlessly in matter of seconds / minutes so that the racer is back on track and able to deliver the best possible result.
Irrespective of the success or failure of a sporting event or startup, the transformational journey is something every founder/ player would reverberate at all times. The path towards being a successful sportsman or entrepreneur requires a mindset to embrace high uncertainty & volatility with a positive attitude to learn from setbacks and improve on the drawbacks noticed earlier. The support team shoulders equal responsibility along with the founder/sportsman in this journey. This requires a deep sense of respect and understanding amongst all of them. There would be times when a team member’s action comes under the radar or vice versa for various reasons. In the recent ODI cricket match for women between India and England, when the Indian captain was questioned about bowler Dipti Sharma’s Mankading act, the captain (in response to the press), stood by the bowler’s act and focused on the merit worthy performance of the team. This gesture displays the role of a leader standing by the team member’s action, which was legitimate, although the eco-system perceived it otherwise. Similar incident had happened during a recent IPL event, where bowler Ashwin was questioned on his Mandkading an English batsman. The Indian Women’s Cricket Captain Harmanpreet Kaur displayed exemplary leadership by taking a firm stand supporting a team member.
The success of any organization, be it startup or any large organization, depends largely on the leader(s) driving the purpose, but the leader(s) needs to be always backed by a strong cohesive team which works shoulder to shoulder with the leader in achieving each and every milestone.
A transformed mindset of an entrepreneur also pre-supposes the right proportion of social and emotional quotient besides being an expert in the technology/domain. The building blocks while setting up of business requires people centric approach of doing things. Afterall success or failure of the business is dependent on the people, both, internal (mostly employees) and external (clients, regulators, advisors, supporter) to the startup, performing various roles and personas.
Absolutely right…. leader’s success or failure depends on team’s performance n commitment
Very true. Sports is a good analogy for an entrepreneur. The team behind the startup plays crucial role. Not getting hassled by the uncertainty is key. I say not having fear of failure is also important. Well said Ganga.
Excellent. Look forward to reading more.