Aditya Kothadiya’s Blog

Your network is your net worth!

Targeted Audience: Students

Networking is always useful in any walk of your life. Finding opportunities, converting those opportunities into actions, and accumulating these actions for the ultimate success – all these things cannot be achieved single handedly. My mentor, Rajesh Setty always taught this to me –

What we know is important. But, who we know is more important than what we know. What is also important is how we know who we know.

During our academic life, when we are away from our parents, our friends and our seniors are our new family members.

These new roommates and friends play a vital role in our academic success by staying with us in both good and bad times. It is very crucial to get nice roommates. And that’s where our network of old friends and seniors come into picture.

Instead of trying to figure out things for ourselves by ourselves, we need to leverage our network to provide right opportunities for us at the right time. Seniors guide us in selecting relevant courses based on their experiences and industry requirements.

They inform us about the potential vacancies for RA or TA positions when they are graduating and leaving those positions.

When they are working in corporate world, they help us in forwarding our resume in their companies and guiding us for interview preparations. And referrals work much better than any job application process. It is like half the battle won.

They provide us their used materials like photocopies, books, notes, which help us to save a lot money.

The advantages of leveraging from your network thus goes on and on. But it’s not always about taking. It rather first starts with giving. We need to invest time to give without expecting a return for some time. These relationships do not happen as it is. They have to be carefully constructed and then maintained. Every relationship takes considerable amount of our time and we should consider that time as an investment towards building that relationship.

We may not see the benefits and rewards of these investments immediately, but in long run we will see the time invested in building these powerful networks getting to its fruition.

For more articles from this series, please visit – Beyond Intelligence
 

#1. If I ever finish a speech, and I can still standup, then that was a lousy speech. — Tom Peters

#2. To lead men you have got to lead them with affection. — JRD Tata

#3. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change a nation; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. — Dr. Margaret Mead

#4. Respect your efforts, respect yourself.  Self-respect leads to self-discipline.  When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power. — Clint Eastwood

#5. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. — Henry Ford

For more quotes, please visit, Inspiring Quotes.

Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs, Recent Graduates, Students

We know that a sharp saw cuts trees far better than a blunt one. So for higher yield, we sharpen our saw once. Then we start cutting the trees. And we observe that we are able to cut more trees than we used to do before. So we keep cutting more trees. And we become so busy in cutting those trees such that we do not realize that by this time, our saw again became a blunt one.

Same is the case with our career. After talking with many friends, I realized that people sharpen their skills once, and based on that, they get good opportunities in their career. But then they settle down for that same opportunity for years. They think that they are still cutting large number of woods.

I think the time has changed now. We need to step back for few moments from our busy schedule to do some introspection. It may be high time to re-sharpen our saw. If we have sharpened ourselves with one particular technology skill, then it is time to sharpen ourselves with another technology skill or with some management skill.

The point here is not to look for another opportunity. The point is to look for another skill – either professional or personal. We can not stop learning process. It will be a sin. We have to remember that there are no speed limits on the road to excellence. So we have to speed up, we have to shift the gear. And shifting gear will happen smoothly when we re-sharpen our saw on frequent basis.

Happy full-throttle driving ahead!

Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs

Background: I read a lot. And I try to read as much quality stuff as possible.
Many times I stumble upon very compelling and thoughtful writings. I
learn a lot from those writings, but some of you may miss those
articles in this era of information overload. And I don’t want someone
to miss those compelling articles. 

Henceforth, whenever I stumble upon any compelling reading on
Startup or on Entrepreneurship, I will link those resources in my blog.

Today’s must read articles for any would be young entrepreneur:

Guy Kawasaki: How to Get the Attention of a Venture Capitalist

John Nesheim: The Rule of 2

To read more articles from this series, please visit Startup and Entrepreneurship Resources.

Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs

I being an engineer always thought that starting a startup
is all about designing and implementing some application. Now I understand that
the reality is quite different. Technology is critical aspect of any startup,
but strategies, decision making, business planning, resource management,
financial management are probably most vital aspects of any
startup. If these things are not in place, then it might be hard for technology alone to find its way.

I thought I would be spending more than 90% efforts on
technology aspect, but I realized that I can’t. On the same line, I found
interesting statistics on allocation of efforts for technology startups by
engineering founders during their first six months of business. The allocation
goes as below:

• Engineering – 31%
• Sales/Marketing – 28%
• Manufacturing – 25%
• Finance/Administration – 16% 

The point here is not that you allocate your efforts
according to above figures when you are working for your startup. The point is
that, you may come from engineering background, but you may not always spend
your time doing what you thought you would be doing. You need to take care of
many other aspects for which you were not prepared earlier.

Their Teaching Ability!

I don’t say that being a good teacher is the requirement to start a company, but I strongly believe that if you are a good teacher then you have an edge over other entrepreneurs to grow your company.

You might be a hardcore geek who knows how to code highly complex programs, or you might be a sharp business minded man who knows how to make money. On your own, you might start well as you know everything that it takes to build a startup. But when you decide to grow, you need your team to be as efficient, as geeky and as sharp as you are. It is very essential that you transform your skills, your knowledge and your insights to your teammates and subordinates. You need to know how to create more “you”.

Transforming your knowledge to your teammates and subordinates can be framed as a learning opportunity for them and for you. Teaching someone else always helps to learn something new. If you are about to teach others, you start to think, study and prepare. In that process, you get consumed by learning.

As we know, entrepreneurs are highly passionate about their knowledge, their work, and their disciplines. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and others can catch that enthusiasm through real life interactions with them.

When you’re in a class with someone who’s truly passionate about a subject, don’t you get jazzed about it? Doesn’t that person really turn you on to the subject?

Same is the case with entrepreneurs. Through their teaching, entrepreneurs do not just motivate their team but they inspire their team. Their teaching continues to make a difference even after they have moved on. And that is the key of growing successful startups.

To read more articles in this series, please visit, What Makes Them Entrepreneurial?