Startups for a reason

For people working in startups, how do you access knowledge of an industry. Lets say, for example, I want to understand the supply chain of a startup operating in FMCG category. As a BCG consultant, I always had access to expert networks, which honestly cost a fortune. I just wish to know how startups navigate this challenge and what do you think might help in solving the access problem

I was leading a team which was involved in launching BNPL for a commodity product( flight tickets/train tickets), and the API we were using to cancel the tickets at the last moment from the 3rd party providers was flaky. It was supposed to cancel the tickets and provide refund back to minimize any losses we had. It was such a hit feature that led to 250% growth in numbers within a week. I was promoted, the star. My manager was promoted too.. But I knew inside something wasn't correct, BNPL just meant people not paying then but still had to pay sometime and 250% growth was just not something I could digest. I asked the team to switch it off for a couple of days, the whole company esp. Revenue teams were baying for my blood. After a month, there was financial reconciliation, and we realised the API was just giving the response of successful cancellation but was never actually cancelling it. The company lost almost 15 cr / day. No one wanted to believe this at all from top to bottom The company never told the investors we fudged up but instead raised more funding by mentioning the 250% growth. From then on I realised most investors are just watchmen. They want to be on the fast deal more than being on the correct deal. Don't believe anything on the internet that you read. Almost all GMV numbers are cooked.

I work as a Product manager at a series A well funded startup. This company is run by a solo founder/CEO. This is a wannabe tech and product startup that does not care about their product at all. The internal review meetings get 5 minutes on product and 55 minutes on business and operations on a good day! All they care about is how to run operations and tech just works on automation instead of building the product for the end user. Every OKR cycle runs for two months where OKRs are set for product but we end up building internal tools because things get "re-prioritised" and operations "can not miss targets". The worst part is that the strategy changes every 2 months and every week, the CEO keeps adding new "wants". Almost like a baby seeing shiny new toys. At this stage, the product has become a mess with no identity at all! This baby always says "But is that even do-able" acts critical and tries to seem smart in front of their employees while lying to the investors and board every other week that we are a tech and product company. I don't know if this happens at other startups in India. Would love to hear what y'all have experienced.

I applied for a Chief of Staff role at a recently funded startup and the first question during the interview this particular founder asks me is that why have I applied for this role when I don't have any experience with these kinda roles and my current and previous roles were literally working in the Founder's Office. No wonder startups don't sustain themselves in the long run.

The problem with Good #founders is they will not solve your problem, that is the worst. They will keep shouting at you about the problem, they will keep telling you to fix it, but they will not solve it for you, until you give up, then they would show you the right way. They want you to come up with a solution and learn the holistic way of doing business. They don't accept excuses and they will be the only ones who will help you grow. Don't resign out of frustration, fall in love with problem and find a solution, don't sleep until you find it. Hating the founder is just gonna make you realise after an year or two about how wrong you were! I love founders who will not take BS, who will give hints but not help. I love them. #consistency #growth #startups

Btw go for it. Yes, it's challenging. Yes, it's tough but so is remaining poor or doing a job you hate.

Come at me, I'm not scared. There is a reason why FAANG engineers are top-rated VS some random startup engineer. Here are the reasons why I think that Indian Startup culture is pure cringe: 1. The random use of the following emojis- 🚀💰📈📊💡 2. Fake enthusiasm for every little thing - "Wow! 25M people ordered condoms WOWOW!!!🚀" 3. Claim that you are a verb("company name"): "I am a (Zoman, Flipster, Swiggster or whatever)" but no one really knows about it outside of your company. 4. The HR is a proper softie in the name of Employee wellbeing but will end up being a sadist the moment layoffs happen. 5. Think hard if you really want to work in a place that is your LinkedIn feed on Steroids.

So recently, I read a lot of posts on Grapevine regarding some startups having no vision, poor management, toxicity etc etc, yet, many of these startups are doing quite a good business. I understand there is no correlation between work culture of a startup and it’s business outcome, but certainly, when a startup has poor management and unclear vision, then it should have troubles. That is not the case. Ola Electric seems to be doing well, Zomato became profitable and there are a few other MNCs with a similar scenario. As an employee, I really want to understand if we are missing something here, like maybe lack of foresight, or are we being greedy with respect to salary and stuff, or maybe we don’t empathise with founders? Sometimes I really try to understand the perspective of founders, but then nothing can justify pathetic workplace or poor management.

Shopflo laid off 28% of the team today - still don’t understand how this company exists and is hoping to make any money. Having no idea what to do next, they’re desperate to travel to US now to try and capture market there - reminder that this is a market with Fast and Bolt, both massively funded, shut down completely 🤡