By 1995, my first startup Comnet was ready to take off. That is when I made four big mistakes.
My first big mistake was around people. Desperate to start, I invited people I had worked with before, realizing a little that familiarity with people is not the same as creating a high-impact team. It took me months and years of painful learning that hunger, desire, and competence should far outweigh the comfort of knowing people.
My second big mistake was around markets. While my people strategy was clear, I was still unclear about the markets. The Internet had just come in and was changing everything around us, and the opportunity size looked big. Thus I was like a child in a candy store wanting to do it all. Soon we ran out of resources and had made little progress. Once again, I learnt the hard way to sharply focus on a micro-segment of the market and become most significant in that segment before looking outwards. That led to the birth of VSATs and the NSE order, and only then did we set our eyes on global opportunities.
My third and most embarrassing mistake was around money. Every start-up is bootstrapped, and so were we. However, I was high on possibilities and invested in winning instead of investing to show we CAN win. There is a big difference between these two statements. I realised this difference too late, shifted gears, onboarded a big global bank as an equity partner and then took off. However, this mistake caused a delay of 2 years and a near certainty of a shutdown.
My fourth big mistake was around innovation. Innovation comes with an end date, and you have to find a new one. High on the success of VSAT, we almost forgot that we need another ten times bigger idea, and we need to find it before VSAT growth tapers off. We stretched it out, believing that we had a few more years. The Remote Infrastructure Management idea was a big idea that changed Comnet forever; however, I had always wondered if we could or should have launched it a year or two before we did.
Life always allows you to make mistakes and correct them before it’s too late.