Startups and Team members

I came back to India in September 2004 and from then I have been involved in setting up Wirkle with my colleagues. We are still an early stage company but have passed through different phases. From our initial half room office (3 people could barely fit in) to a bedroom and finally towards our current office, life has never been the same.

But this post is not about me or co-founders, this is about experiences of a team and its comparison across the borders. The experience I share is not yet mine but includes lot of my other friends who have been running their own startups from a while.

While everyone agrees the thing that makes a startup different is the team. VC's might call it a proven team with serial entrepreneurs, past experiences but my take is - at the end of the day its the developer's game. Well proven management teams can fail if the product/service is not just compelling enough. I am not undermining the role of management but both are equally important.

Though most of the initial startup team is technical, given today's circumstances its hard to get and manage high thrill enthusiastic startup teams. Any people who join startups should realize:

- Persistence: Startups take their time to become companies. No quick returns. Have patience and persistence.

- Fun/Hectic: It can be fun to work in a startup, at the same time it can be quite hectic. Tight deadlines, too much work pressure - only hard work pays. If you want a cool 9-5 job, startups are not perhaps your cup of tea.

- Responsibility: Work in a team but be personally responsibile for your work. Realize the importance of deadlines.

- Professional: Programming is not just about writing new code. Aim is not just to code but to develop a product/service. Build a finished product. And when a user gives great comments on your product, that's your greatest achievement.

- Domain experts: If you are working in a particular domain, try to be an expert in that. In India, I have seen people hop a lot amongst different technologies but no one ever tries to be an expert. Secondly, no one can make you an expert, you have to be the master of your own destiny.

- Insecurity: Finally don't feel insecure. Even if startups fail, you are going to win at the end. See my earlier post: Is joining Startup really a RISK?

For guys who join startups because of money :

I remember interviewing a candidate with around 8-9 months work experience. He was getting a package of around 3.3 - 3.5 lakhs. And I asked about what kind of renumeration package he is looking for? His answer was: After 2-3 months, I will get a bonus and my package will become 4.3-4.5 and if I join another company I might get 5 and since you are a startup, I am expecting around 6 lakhs. This kind of behaviour is totally ridiculous on part of the candidate, if he wants to join a startup.

I and most of my friends have had experience working abroad and then setting up a team in India. One of the contrasts that we all have seen is people aren't professional enough. Perhaps we ourselves weren't professional enough when we graduated but the environment changed us. It's very important for every team member in a startup to realize , at the end of the day what counts is professionalism. Will you use a broken television set or read a local magazine or buy sub-standard products ? If you yourself aren't going to do that why will someone else use/buy the product/service that you are developing if it has concerns. Be professional in whatever code you develop or debug. And if it implies, as some call it "dirty work" (testing and debugging), you are personally responsible to do it.

You will grow and mature much faster in a starup. So even if it appears to be a risky venture, that risk will pay off. Have fun!

Busy Busy Busy!!

Last few days had been quite hectic. We all at Wirkle had been quite busy from participating in a candle light procession against reservation at AIIMS to writing software code to releasing new version of LinkNSurf. Life has never been the same from the time when we all started the entrepreneurial journey.

Do checkout the new version of LinkNSurf, atleast guys that don't have a mobile phone can checkout the website! We have done a complete makeover of the website and will be putting up new things much faster.

With LinkNSurf you can TRACK and SHARE your favorite:

• Blogs (MySpace, Xanga, Blogspot,LiveJournal,TextAmerica, MSN Spaces),
• MySpace profile comments,
• Flickr Photos,
• Hot or Not, Sports, Movie Reviews, Celebrity Gossip, News and content from hundreds of other web sources.

MIDP2 jar and jad files are available here.
linknsurf.jar
linknsurf.jad
Looking forward for a feedback from all the audience out there.