Aditya Kothadiya’s Blog

Their Ability To Work Unsupervised

We all know that the most critical ability of entrepreneurial people is to work insane hard. But there are many people who are not entrepreneurs and still work insane hard for their employers.

In the later case, i.e. when you are working for someone, most likely there is someone who is supervising you. Someone who is directing you and preparing an action plan and schedule for you. Someone who is providing appropriate resources and facilities to you. There is someone who is doing market analysis for you and taking care of selling the product as well. All it remains to you is to execute the implementation as per given criteria.

But when we talk about the former case, i.e. when you are working for your own startup, along with insane hard work, you need the ability to work unsupervised. You are whole and soul to define the direction of your product, prepare the action plan and schedule, decide the priorities, design and implement the product,  defining marketing and sales strategy. You can not blame someone for not providing appropriate direction or not having appropriate resources.

That is lot hard work than just usual hard work that we talk about. Every single step, you have to take certain decision, and probably there is no one experienced to tell you if that decision is going to be right or wrong.

I mentioned in my previous post about entrepreneurs’ sense of freedom and their discipline.

Successful entrepreneurs enjoy being free, setting their own goals,
working towards their goals, and taking their own decisions. When they
get the freedom to do what they want to do, they perform the best. They
don’t enjoy someone asking their progress report now and then.

In short, successful entrepreneurs are highly disciplined, goal oriented and posses leadership qualities, which are very essential to work unsupervised.

Note: To read more articles from this series, please visit: What Makes Them Entrepreneurial?

I’m a big fan of multiple projects. I cannot think of myself doing just one thing. Sure, sometimes it becomes difficult to focus my energy on one important thing as I easily get distracted in other non-important projects. But I’ve also experienced that if I work diligently on one project, irrespective of how tired I am, I also tend to work very well on other project.

I’m not talking about learning skills from one project and applying it to another project. Irrespective of the nature of two project domains, if we work diligently and responsibly on one project, I think we tend to achieve better results on another project as well.

I’m talking about the passion to achieve best performance, the confidence we gain by accomplishing small tasks or milestones, the discipline and sense of time management we develop by executing multiple projects efficiently, the vision we develop to foresee what’s coming to us and plan accordingly, and the sense of loyalty and feel of satisfaction that we are executing our job responsibly.

I’m talking about the cascade effect. They are of two types – the positive and the negative cascade effect.

If I slog well during my day time job, I tend to produce more code when I go home for my part time project. If I produce more code in the evening, I tend to help my wife happily in cooking and doing dishes. If I help my wife in daily household stuff, I become more satisfied and tend to think more positive. When I think positive, I tend to generate more ideas for my projects, for my blog and also for my book. And the positive cascade effect continues…

Same is the case with negative effect. If I screw up in early phase of my day, I continue to be less productive for all future tasks in a day.

The conclusion is obvious. Whatever project or task we are starting our day with, let’s start it with bang! Let’s give our best shot to whatever task we are doing. The positive cascade effect will help us to achieve more by the end of the day.

Have a positive cascading effect!

This post is related to my previous post about trying what you want to start. On the same note, I read an interesting quote –

This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing how few oil people really understand that you only find oil if you drill wells. You may think you’re finding it when you’re drawing maps and studying logs, but you have to drill. — John Masters

That’s why I said, if you have some idea that you want to start, just drill it. Don’t worry about not having related prior experience or competency. Don’t worry about the domain knowledge. Don’t worry about what’s your day time job and what’s your part time startup require. There are tons of ways to acquire that knowledge and get started.

If you are a biz-dev types of a person, then don’t fear to make your hands dirty and crank out some code. If you are a hacker types of a person, then don’t hesitate to attend few networking events and talk to few people about your idea and getting guidance from them.

Believe me, it’s not just some "theory" advice. I’m doing it. And it’s not a big deal. It’s possible. Just start drilling it, and then just keep doing it. Don’t give up, until you find oil!

I read interesting thoughts by Paul  Buchheit on why to join a startup Vs why not to work for a big company in his recent post Is there more to life than money? Here is excerpt from that post –

There is plenty of evidence that happiness is only loosely correlated
with wealth. People seem to derive a much greater sense of satisfaction
from good relationships, and having a sense of purpose and meaning in
their life. Money matters too, but not as much once the basic need for
food and shelter are addressed, and those aren’t big issues for most
people deciding between joining a startup or a big company.

Furthermore,
most people who do join startups will never experience a huge payday.
Google distributed billions of dollars to thousands of employees, but
that was truly exceptional. Even moderately successful startups that
eventually sell for $50 million dollars or so will only make a couple
of people rich.

If all you care about is money, I doubt that
joining a startup is the right way to go. You’ll probably make a lot
more at a hedge fund, or by becoming a lawyer, or something like that.

Maybe
it now seems like I’m defending the boring 9-5 job, but it’s actually
just the opposite. Those 8 hours/day are a huge chunk of of your waking
life, and don’t forget that you’ll probably also spend a few hours
preparing, commuting, and "unwinding". Even worse, bad or boring jobs
can sap our energy, so that at the end of the day all we feel like
doing is sitting in front of the tv.

That’s no way to live, if
you can help it. Why surrender such a huge chunk of your life just to
get some money? For some people, that’s the only option, but for those
fortunate enough to be smart and educated, there’s a better way.

Instead
of throwing away your "working hours", why not make every minute count?
Why not find work that you can actually enjoy, work that’s fun and
meaningful?

…

the structure and systems in big companies tend to make work
meaningless and life unpleasant, at least for me. Of course smaller
companies can be awful too, but they have a greater potential to be
good.

If your job isn’t working for you, if it isn’t making you
happy and energized, then why are you still there? I can’t guarantee
that you’ll find something better, but perhaps you should at least try
something new. Don’t just give up on life.

I truly enjoy writing
code. I love creating new products and features. I like getting
feedback from users and finding ways to solve their problems. I like
the game of business. I like helping people. Of course there is always
some amount of unpleasant work that must be done, but that can be
contained (my rule is that work should be no more than 10% awful).

That’s why, even though I don’t financially need to work, I choose to work (and end up staying up until 4am pushing new code).

On the same line, I have written why entrepreneurship is a great career path. Here is excerpt from that post - 

The Experience Unlimited

Starting your own company and
managing it to grow is an incredible way to gain experience and grow as
a person. I think, in the early stage of your corporate career, it is
very untypical that you will get very challenging and the cutting-edge
work if you are working with big companies. Sure, some people do get
challenging stuff, but I’m talking about generic pattern here. It’s
also very unlikely that you will learn numerous other things, which are
essential to develop your personality as a whole than your routine job
skills.

On the other side, entrepreneurship
is a combination of all the disciplines like technology,
administration, human resource, legal, and business management. It’s
about passion, confidence, learning, growing, and achieving. You can
learn all these things by staying in the corporate world as well, but
the core advantage of entrepreneurship is the rate at which you will
acquire this knowledge and experience will be incredible.

I think learning lot of stuff and
growing as a person at a rocket speed is a strong reason to seek
entrepreneurship as a career option.

After discussing with many entrepreneurs, one common characteristic I strongly noticed that the main driving force behind their entrepreneurial mind was – their passion. Whatever is the reason to start a startup, eventually it boils down to passion.

It was the passion to innovate the next remarkable product or service, the passion to add value to the customers, the passion to become rich out of the business, the passion to empower the people through generating more employment opportunities, and the passion to change the world!

Their passion is a force, sometimes an uncontrollable force that infuses their life with meaning and joy. It is that incredibly compelling emotion that enables them to go places others are afraid to go, to try things others are afraid to do and to be the kind of people others are afraid to be! It creates the energy and drive required to do what others think is impossible.

At the end, I wouldn’t say, starting or joining a startup is a good thing and joining a big company is a bad thing. Whatever you choose to do, if you are passionate enough in whatever you are doing, then you are doing the right thing. But IMHO, starting a startup can be the most passionate thing.

Have a passionate week ahead!

It’s super foggy here in Silicon Valley today. I really mean it. It was "super" foggy in the morning. While driving to the office, I couldn’t even see what’s ahead of 0.1 mile. You just won’t know what’s coming to you next – is it a left turn, or a stop sign or a traffic light. I was sure about the destination I wanted to reach, but the path was blurry and foggy. The good part was that, the road to my office was known to me. So I could take necessary precautions based on daily experience of driving on that road. All I focussed on every next 0.1 mile. And step by step, I reached to the office.

This reminded me a classic situation – A first time entrepreneur’s startup journey. Isn’t it also a Super Foggy journey?

You know where you want to land up, or what you want to become or what you want to build as a long term product. In short, you know your destination. But you are totally clueless about the journey. It’s blurry. Sometimes you don’t know what’s coming to you – a U turn, a stop sign, an ultimate dead end or bright sun rays. Anything is possible.

The tricky part for first time entrepreneurs is that, the path to their startup’s success is not well traveled as well, like it was for me in my driving situation. For them, journey becomes more challenging, and probably more exciting.

So all it remains in our hand is, to focus on next 0.1 mile. Drive step by step. On every step, look, plan and work for the next step’s destination. And ultimately, reach to the final destination. That’s how I will travel on this path.

What do you think? Do you think the startup’s journey is a foggy one? What approach you would use to travel it then? Your thoughts will be useful to make a first timer’s startup journey a successful one.

As I mentioned, I’m working on a cool idea. Hold on. It’s still not the right time to announce it yet. I’ve worked on few ideas in the past as well. Some are still working, and some did not work. Those which are working, I’m not a part of it. And for those which did not work, I’m not sure if they were failure. I prefer to call them as experiments. It’s just that failure sounds too negative, and as you know, my blood says B+ve.

I’m not even sure that with my new idea, if I will be a successful or not. But I’m beginning a new journey. I’m trying again. By trying a new idea, I will figure it out what will work with me or what will not. I’m sure I will develop whole new perspective and more worldview. By trying, atleast I’ll not ask those "What if…" questions to myself anymore. While starting this new journy, I believe -   

The time is always right to do what is right. – Dr. Martin Luther King

If you are also one of those who wants to start (whatever it is), I suggest you try it. As you know, beginning is also very important.

Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs, Students, Recent Graduates.

Background:
Renowned leadership expert and author John C. Maxwell describes how
anyone can improve his or her relationship skills with 25 principles in
his book Winning With People.

I plan to cover each of his principle in this series.  Please read more principles here: Winning With People

John Maxwell’s The Number 10 Principle

All people have potential. Everyone you meet can be a 10. Believing in people usually brings out the best in them. If people believe in themselves, they can reach their potential and become the individuals they were created to be. If you’ve been hurt or disappointed in the past, don’t let that negatively color your attitude in the future. Philosopher and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, “Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”

Two lessons to take away from this principle –
1. Believe in yourself. The obvious and the must one.

What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. — Napoleon Hill

2. Believe in others. The uncommon and the tricky one. The uncommon because, believing in yourself is still comparatively easier than believing in others. Don’t we think that we are the smartest one on this earth? ;-)

And the tricky because, it’s hard to believe someone just based on his promises of what he could be in the future. I think even while believing someone for his potential abilities, we do consider his past track record, and judge our belief.

But the point is, if we believe in people, and make them realize that we believe in what potentially they can achieve, then there are high possibilities that they will achieve it. Few words of inspiration can mean a lot to many people.

To read more principles from this series, please visit: Winning With People.

I received an invitation from my school mate to join his network on LinkedIn. Here is LinkedIn’s invitation below –

One thing that cought my attention is, why LinkedIn is telling me how many CEOs use LinkedIn daily?

As per my profile on LinkedIn, I am a Design Engineer. And my friend who is sending me an invitation is also a Research and Development Engineer. So wouldn’t it be relevant if LinkedIn tells me how many R&D Engineers, or how many other students from our school use LinkedIn daily? Where is the relevancy of CEO statistics in our connection? Why would I care of that data?

I think they wasted their some hours in programming that logic which was not useful to many end users.

My perspective is, if you are not having some relevant information for the end user, then don’t send it. It’s ok. This advice is not for LinkedIn only. It’s for all of us for our daily conversation as well.