The need for Experience to deliver a Lecture on Entrepreneurship
A Bootstrapper’s Diary
Stories of successful Internet companies are heart warming fairy-tales – after they have exacted their fair share of efforts, from the founders, to get scripted. Any news of Internet success in the market leaves the self proclaimed ‘gurus’ mouth-watering, with an appetite to use start-up jargons and generous doses of ass-kissing, to give their ‘I told you so’ nuggets for wannbae entrepreneurs. Start-up lessons are a dime a dozen in the WWW, as there are MBAs and weekend hackers. What leaves an odd taste in the mouth is that very few come from people with any experience at all. Most are abstract and aimless cliches feeding illusions of milk, honey and big-money which often work to the reader’s disadvantage.
Disadvantageous because, only entrepreneurs with real experience talk about setbacks and challenges (those everyday realities of business) rather than predictable fluff (build smart products; be committed as founders; stay ahead of competition) . Any straight talk is glaringly missing in today’s discourses. These fake pundits have taught us enough to celebrate success, which may not be a bad idea by itself, as long as we don’t miss out on discussing those practical techniques that help in reaching the goal without quitting.
As an entrepreneur that has sustained the same business for 2 years, without soliciting or even needing an investment, I frequently get asked “How do you do it?” and “What is the journey like?”. Beyond all these plaudits, I sincerely feel, Muziboo could have gotten here faster with some sensible advice – admittedly, this was hard to come by. Hence my decision to take it upon myself, to discuss ( and not teach ) through a series of posts all our experiences and learnings that we (Prateek and I) have gained through Muziboo under the heading ‘A Bootstrapper’s Diary’ in this blog.
10 Responses to 'The need for Experience to deliver a Lecture on Entrepreneurship'
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Hey Nithya,
Thats a great initiative. And you are so right about the lack of real picture out there on the web. And India is different we cannot be reading from bloggers in US and thinking it is all smooth and exciting to do a startup.
I always wanted to write some of the real experiences especially for first time entrepreneurs and out of India. But as you mention not being a founder officially till date is something that has always made me conscious to go there in public though I think it was a fair share of the roller coaster. I hope to write a series too someday.
Jyothirmayee
13 Nov 09 at 4:20 am
To add: I strongly think Nishant should write. He should write but he wouldn’t. I learnt a lot from him, though we disagree on certain things. He is the big inspiration.
Looking forward for your posts.
Jyothirmayee
13 Nov 09 at 5:23 am
Hi Jyothi,
You said it right. The Indian ecosystem and landscape is so totally different from the US that it is tough to derive inspiration from them.
What we need right now is more people with real experience sharing their learnings so that all of us don’t end up committing the same mistakes.
I am sure you sharing your iRead and Reviewgist experience can help a lot of start-ups. I’m also sure having a common blog platform (or something like HN?) to share start-up learnings can push Nishant and yourself to take the first step.
Sharing learnings is not just about the tricks and strategies that worked, it is also about the ones that failed and how one recovered from the losses. And these are what I am planning to write about.
Nithya Dayal
13 Nov 09 at 5:46 am
I believe worlds greatest bootstrappers are in India. You can obviously find millions of stories all around the world about internet and tech startups but the real boostrapping lies in Local Small business. Techies usually has a very less business acumen compared to local business man but it is viceversa. Tech startups can learn a lot from some hard realities of local business. Execution Intelligence required in India is way ahead of any other country. A blog having local business stories and a lesson learnt from them as they speak would be great information for every bootstrapper.
Austin, Texas has a high buzz word about bootstrap with huge community, you should check this out http://www.bootstrapaustin.org/ and may you can scale it up or even acquire few concepts and tailor it to local needs.
Praneeth Patlola
16 Nov 09 at 8:19 am
Hey
One thing that i feel i need to ask is- in what ways do you see Muziboo different from all the other tools for indie music … do you even see yourself as a tool for indie musicians – just curious
Ta’
tafxkz
16 Nov 09 at 8:12 pm
Hi Tafxkz,
Though your question is tangential to the topic being discussed here, I really appreciate your interest in knowing where Muziboo differentiates itself.
What most music services fail to understand or completely overlook is that providing just the tools for publishing ones work is not solving the musicians problem. What a musician needs is a platform of tens of thousands of music lovers in whom he can find an audience and with whom he can engage through his music. This is where Muziboo excels and makes a difference. Muziboo has in a span of 2 years built a culture where talking about your music and promoting it among fellow members is not considered intrusive. Rather it is welcomed and appreciated!!
It would be great if you can contribute your thoughts for my post in Muziboo blog where this discussion would be more relevant.
http://blog.muziboo.com/2009/11/16/gaining-audience-online-the-need-for-promotion/
Thank you!
Nithya Dayal
16 Nov 09 at 9:19 pm
Hi Praneeth,
I am sure we all have a thing or two to learn from the local businesses here in India
Nithya Dayal
16 Nov 09 at 9:22 pm
hi,
One thought I could sharehere is not to view the journey from the lens of the past. I guess it’s easier to think that a good portion of what I know today I am going to have unlearn tomorrow (anyway). Is that better than believe we could have built up or grown faster? I don’t know, but it helps embrace and adapt to change quicker.
I love the perspective on Muziboo!
Santosh
Santosh
4 Dec 09 at 4:42 am
Hi Santosh,
I’m not sure if I grasped your comment the way you intended it to be. As far as I see, running a business is all about learning and unlearning, doing and undoing most things quick enough that you survive.
Even the cognizance to unlearn a few things from a failed experiment comes after much scrutiny and experience
Nithya Dayal
4 Dec 09 at 5:00 am
Does sound like we are on the same page here,
Santosh
Santosh
4 Dec 09 at 9:10 am