College was easy for me. I seldom had issues understanding what was being taught. This gave me the luxury of putting in only the amount of work I cared to. I diligently studied the courses the interested me and got an A grade, while sauntering through the others and being satisfied with a B grade.… Continue reading No Room for B-Grade
Month: May 2022
What if it Works?
When I was CFO at Zoomcar, our product head (who, by the way, I didn’t get along with) proposed that we launch a ‘zero deposit’ initiative, whereby certain customer segments wouldn’t have to provide the Rs. 5,000 deposit while booking a car. The hypothesis was that this would reduce friction and lead to higher bookings.… Continue reading What if it Works?
Why Do It?
When I joined Zoomcar in 2015, finance was a mess. We had a skeletal and unstructured team. Our financial numbers were (very) incorrect. We had very little tracking and control over our spending. We didn’t have a consolidated view of our cars. My team and I got to work. One by one, we figured out… Continue reading Why Do It?
Trust
In an interview some time back, the interviewer asked me, “Say, there’s an urgent deadline to meet and one of the key senior members of your team is not available. The work requires your remaining team to work nights and weekends. How do you ensure you deliver?” I don’t know what answer he expected, but… Continue reading Trust
Committed or Bust
I started Twish, my first startup, with three friends. Two of them were running another startup alongside Twish and the other was working a full-time job as he had some financial obligations to cover. I was the only full-time person on the team. Our initial product idea, financial courses with storylines and animation, generated no… Continue reading Committed or Bust
“Nobody cares, work harder”
I graduated from the best engineering and MBA schools in India. I’m an IIT-IIM. When I started working at Lehman, I had a level of self-importance that was significantly above my skill set. This led to some bad attitude and work quality issues. I took a few months to realize that my educational credentials had… Continue reading “Nobody cares, work harder”
What Can You Learn from It?
My first job was as an analyst at Lehman Brothers. I was bottom rung in the team but being an IIT and IIM grad, I had this grand view of my capabilities and how I should be spending my time. So I used to get very irritated when the VPs and MDs in the team… Continue reading What Can You Learn from It?
The Joy of Ownership
At Lehman, I was doing $25-50 million deals. I was paid over $100,000 per year. I wore expensive suits and travelled business class. When we started Twish, my first startup, we struggled to generate sales. No one wanted our product so we tried different things. After a few months, one of the colleges expressed interest… Continue reading The Joy of Ownership
Employee to Founder
At Twish, my first startup, we had exhausted our first set of product ideas and leads without traction. I pinged one of my co-founders on Google chat and asked him what I should be working on. I got a very frustrated reply saying there were so many things to figure out – new product ideas,… Continue reading Employee to Founder
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
At my first startup, Twish, we aimed to use stories and animated content to modernize teaching and add context to what was being taught. When we started the company, my immediate inclination was to dive into creating courses the way we thought they should be taught. My co-founders, however, told me that we need to… Continue reading Get Out of Your Comfort Zone