Nitin Mistry's Podcast: Recent Episodes
Nitin Mistry
In today’s disruptive environment, the mindset of leaders must evolve and change.
Many leaders struggle when they enter a new stage or into new responsibilities in their careers.
Often leaders are unaware that they are holding onto to a mindset that doesn’t serve them in the new realities of business and is preventing them from making important and necessary changes.
A leader’s mindset has a powerful impact on career paths and how far an individual will move up the corporate ladder.
Mindset change can be very elusive. Leaders may do all the right things: commit to new experiences outside their comfort zone; lead others without relying on their specialized expertise, and find new role models and peer groups that support a new leadership mindset. However, if leaders fail to reflect on these experiences and create a new story about who they are as leaders, their mindsets likely will remain unchanged.
With the rapid pace of societal change, helping leaders shift their mindset is more critical than ever.
Those awesome leaders in such situations keep their eyes on what is happening although things around them are shattering.
Disasters can make or break a leader.
Leaders should think about themselves as islands of coherence in a sea of chaos. Your ability to manage yourself in this process—to stay grounded and to remain clear in a disorienting situation—is really what will make or break you.
As a leader when you are leading through crisis – a great thing can happen or a terrible thing can happen, for the kind of decision you make.
You should not forget one thing, every decision has an emotional price tag.
The longer you take to make a decision, the more the decision becomes emotional.
Although, Exit is not a goal per se, as a CEO it is something you should think about as early as possible in your cycle, in addition to being business-focused.
Business experts say - “Exits should be on the CEO agenda.”
The founder’s mind should always be thinking about “whether to sell or to grow.” Because most of the founders think that “The time to exit is when you’re running out of money.” No, absolutely not.
Founders should always remember, “Companies are bought, not sold.”
Life as an entrepreneur is challenging — particularly if you are expecting to have …a personal life outside of your professional existence.
The stress arising out of it leads to many potential issues — mental health is a challenge for startup founders.
But, even on a very practical note, balancing the demands of the startup as a founder with other needs outside the startup is very much difficult.
Like having kids, startup life is about bringing something new into the world.
Neither all are like sunshine, smiles, and sandwiches, but in my opinion, there are parallels around personal sacrifices, risks, and rewards in both endeavors.
According to me, the most crucial member of your team is ‘YOU.’ Everything starts with YOU.
You should be self-aware of what you can and ….what you can’t do.
Yes, because the reality is…. you don’t possess all those skills to scale up your business.
So, better to self-evaluate.
What skills do you have and what do you lack?
It is not about the hard skills alone, what we are talking about is the soft skills too. Studies say that for any successful founder, soft skill is 77% important.
While performing self-evaluation, your personality, your values, and your beliefs are the things that you need to take into consideration.
Once you bring the things you are good at and what you lack, it is easy for you to choose your team to fill the gaps.
A venture capitalist (VC) is an investor that provides young start-up with capital in exchange for equity.
VCs are equity investors who provide capital to companies having high growth potential.
In exchange, they acquire equity shares in the startup that will become their profit margin.
Well …as a startup founder you will approach a venture capitalist but the real challenge is…how to convince VCs to invest in your startup.
As a startup founder, you have to envisage what kind of questions investors may ask and you have to prepare convincing answers for all of their questions, in advance.
Many founders, in spite of knowing well, sometimes struggle to answer investor’s questions…. about traction, market growth, or business model.
One of the important lessons an entrepreneur needs to learn while facing investor’s questions…. is to get accustomed to the rhythm, it is like a shuttle cock game.
Your every answer will be responded to with yet another question by investors.
Every investor has their methods and evaluation criteria depending upon what level of investor it is and what size of the startup they are investing in and what stage of startup they are pitching in.
Broadly… evaluation of a startup is based on the data…
The data can be obtained from startup documents and the founder’s idea and plan to implement… during the pitching session.
Even though all investors primarily look for the product-market fit and the good tractions… I believe, the number one reason they choose to invest in any startup… is the founders themselves…!
Your brand story has to be real. Your brand story should not sound like a fiction. You can’t simply invent something from nothing—because everyone you’re trying to sell to …from customers and prospects to investors and talent, …will be able to see through it.
Your story has to reflect something that’s inherently true about your brand…. which in turn…..has to reflect something that’s inherently true about your business.
Your startup is not a Pie and equal rights for others does not mean that you give away your rights.
Equality is a….. necessity in any organization…. that every individual must enjoy working together for an organizational goal.
Equality in the workplace ensures that employees are given equal opportunities…, and equal pay…, and are well accepted for their differences.
Equality is nothing but creating an inclusive and conducive work environment where employees feel secure and happy. Equality ensures removing any possibility of discrimination in any form, in the workplace.
Building an amazing team for startup is…. as important as building an amazing product.
Most startups don’t have any clue how to find, attract, and hire the right people.
The question of incubator vs accelerator for a startup company depends on your circumstances.
If you just need some financial support to help you grow more rapidly, an accelerator program could be right for you.
If you're not confident enough about the readiness of your innovation or venture, an incubator program might be what you need.
Leave a lasting impression with a well-thought-out pitch deck presentation.
By building a thoughtful, well-structured pitch deck, you can show investors how much time, research, and commitment you’ve put into building a successful startup—and why your idea and business is one they should invest in.
Takeaway for you all:
After all this efforts, if the investors answer is ”no”,
Don’t get dejected. There is always another investor in waiting.
In a simple terms, a startup pitch deck, is a presentation that helps potential investors to learn more about your business.
In my opinion, the primary objective of a pitch desk is not to secure funding but to make a possibility to go to the next meeting.
This is because, securing funding is a multi-step process. And, a good informative pitch deck is the first step of the ladder.
Pitch deck is a presentation which will make the future investors interested and engaged to your startup activities.
The startup environment often ….buzzing with valuation… series A, Series B, or Series C, bridge rounds, VC round…..etc.
A new entrant in startup world sees other entrepreneurs opting for various funding.
In fact he …who is actually running a quite profitable business and require no external funding,… but feels left out in the company of others…..who are opting for various funding.
Does that mean… that you do not require external funding at all?
No! I never said like that.
If you are developing a product or service and aiming for a rapid growth……you will most likely need money to support your startup growth.
The major difference between Angel and VC is that - Angels invest their own money, whereas VCs typically invest other people’s money.
What difference does it make? I guess it makes a great difference.
A startup pivot occurs when a company shifts its business strategy to accommodate changes in….its industry, customer preferences, or any other factor that impacts its bottom line.
A pivot could be anything…. from changing how a product is manufactured…. to ….shifting marketing efforts to appeal to new buyer personas.
As a founder, you must remember that in a startup very few things are under your control and the majority of things are not!
Hence, create a timeline around the things that you can control.
You can change everything in the startup at a later stage – the product, the service, employees, marketing strategies, finance plan, or to that matter even the idea itself – but you cannot change the founding team, ideally. It is the heart and soul of the startup.
The failure of a founding team is the failure of the startup.
In my opinion, entrepreneurship can be taught.
I believe that most people, in varying degrees, have the capacity to run their business- although they may not know it.
The problem lies with our education system, social media, and society by and large, who have placed entrepreneurship on a seemingly unreachable pedestal.
A business plan, chalked out in a detailed manner will provide a road map for the business for the next three to five years.
A business plan is an important document aimed at a company's external and internal audiences….like investors or financial institutions, customers, suppliers, employees, strategic allies and most important the people who in the future, want to shoulder responsibilities as partners or stakeholders in your business.
A business is nothing without the people who work behind the scenes. The founder of the startup may have big dreams but it is ultimately the team who can realize the founder's dream.
The team determines the fate of a startup as the best idea stands to fail in the absence of a team with the right capabilities to execute it.
The purpose of idea validation is to make sure that your idea has real demand otherwise there are chances that your idea will also be referred to as "just another idea."
Idea validation is a process that starts with an idea and typically ends with customers who are willing to pay for your product or a solution you are going to offer.
Ideas Are Abundant; Drive Isn't
Perhaps the greatest factor that determines whether or not an entrepreneur will be successful isn't the business idea itself, but rather the entrepreneur's willingness to try (and keep trying) to turn the idea into reality. Great ideas are abundant, but what we decide to do with them counts.
With the exponential growth of business models such as Airbnb, Uber, Snapchat, and many others, the word " Startup" has become the everyday vernacular of the business community.
In fact, we tend to call every small business a STARTUP.
I love to work with those who have an Entrepreneur's heart and a Business idea but have no concept of where to start. Through my Podcast series, I wish to address early-stage startups and their challenges.