Original Published Date: 12-03-2023
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I like writing these reflective pieces. Hopefully they bring some clarity to the future as I indulge reminiscing the past. I have already penned a reflective piece, [State of the Year](https://buttondown.email/ontheside/archive/state-of-the-year/) which was intermix of the big changes that took place over the calendar year and priorities that I will focus in the coming years.
### Recap
Last week, I cut a cake at work to commemorate my 1 year anniversary. When I joined the company, they were 80 people. Now, there are more than 350 people. Things scaled rapidly over the year.
I wrote in [[State of the year - 2022]] about the radical shift that takes shape when you switch to an operator from a founder.
> The difference is that as a founder, you are privy to knowing what you are not good at very quickly. This helps in either finding someone to delegate or prioritise learning it. Where as in the role of operator, it doesn’t matter what you know or not but what the people working with you understand about your skills and competencies.
>
> You will also have to come to terms with things you can impact and things that are out of your purview. The constraints while being a founder are all external like capital, time and resources. Whereas the constraints come in titles, org structure and internal dynamics at play.
This was not an easy transition for me. While thinking about “What could have been done different?”. I couldn’t come up with one single reason but thought along multiple threads.
### Trust should be earned, not given
My operating principle starts with the pretext of trust is given. The subsequent step is to hope that it is not lost by either of us. This was my naive or utopian view of startups operations as well. The cultural context of where you work impacts trust building process. The place I started working operated in the mode of fight or flight. The more you fight for the betterment of the company, trust accrues.
The starting few months I was rigid to accept that such work environments are also prevalent in startups. It took a good dress down for me to accept and adapt. I was hopeful, borderline delusion, that things would change.
Paraphrasing my famous line from the bartender of Richmond’s Pub([Ted Lasso](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hope_That_Kills_You_(Ted_Lasso))), “It’s the hope that kills you” .
### Satisficing is good approach
My carefree nature goes for a toss when it comes to work. I am penchant for rigour. In my career as a product designer and even at the start, my bosses demanded high standards of work. They ensured I couldn’t subvert work, any half hearted work resulted in removal of all work.
We will take an example from my current work. Data has been of interest since building a product in logistics segment. Instead of picking resources that teach you ”How To” guides , I pick the foundational books of [W. Demming](https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi7yfWW4NX9AhUgumMGHYHAC1wQFnoECB0QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FW._Edwards_Deming&usg=AOvVaw1dezBsR9yXmgADPdIRnbHn). Now, by the time I learn how to be a data aware person. It will take some time.
So, when I started my work from first principles approach which inadvertently takes a lot longer compared to head first execution. It was not matching the expectation of my bosses. So, the navigation of get hands dirty and ship output was difficult. But, having done that. I am more cognisant of the fact that balancing both is very important. I empathise with my bosses who were patient enough but then pushed me to pivot.
### Incentives are everything
Operators are motivated with their incentives. It can be authority, monetary or impact. If you are working at startup you can throw the monetary part and just focus on the other two. Coming into the role from designing these incentives for other operators. It was humbling being on the other side. The incentives that I expected was impact but that was not on offer.
Aligning incentives with their personal motivation for your operators is one of the highest leverage functions for founders to reap outsized rewards. I have benefited immensly. So, I thought this would be common knowledge.
If you were to sum-up the difficult part of my time over the last year. It comes to mis-aligned incentives. Not being vocal about it only hurt any remedy that could be done by my bosses.
I did change that and things are looking more welcoming.
### Body of work
In the end it comes down to the people who you work with. For the last year, majority of my time was spent helping [Anvesh](https://twitter.com/deva_anvesh) (terrific operator) set up his logistics division. He is alumni of our previous startup.
I got the chance to help build a complete product (no-code) to enable operations from a first principles approach.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Taking another leap forward to digitize the agriculture sector in India, I am very pleased to announce the launch of FarMart Logistics, a mobile app streamlining the operations of the logistics team at FarMart <a href="https://t.co/lEhroFNU2l">pic.twitter.com/lEhroFNU2l</a></p>— Anvesh Dyava (@deva_anvesh) <a href="https://twitter.com/deva_anvesh/status/1605273238342344770?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 20, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
We went to the length and breadth of the country and understood the ground reality. It was similar to launching a little startup without the overhanging fear of running out of money.
### On the side
Other than writing on a regular basis on this newsletter. I have worked with [Anruag](https://twitter.com/anuragduddu?s=21&t=ceuqLdWqeeqDLt8Nqm-yww) and [Dinesh](https://twitter.com/din8shyadav?s=21&t=ceuqLdWqeeqDLt8Nqm-yww) on setting up [Agripreneurs]([https://www.agripreneurs.in](https://www.agripreneurs.in/)). It is a collective of startup founders and operators with the goal of changing the narrative and building an ecosystem to help each other.
We are just getting started. You can find our [writing](https://www.agripreneurs.in/coming-soon/) on the topic of agriculture over there as well going forward. We did a couple of interviews with some of the interesting founders in the space. If you want to be informed, subscribe over there.
### Looking ahead
We can call this as an year of acclimatisation for yours truly. In terms of future. Recently, I transitioned from working with one alumni(Anvesh) of our previous startup to an another.
We are working on developing a new initiative in the agri-fintech space. [Vishal](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishaljadkar15) who will be leading the execution of this initiative with me. It brings back the sense of purpose on why I enjoyed my time at Subjimandi.app. He started his career with us and now leading initiatives, thats tremendous growth in quick 3 years. Working with people who are earnest was the thing that kept me going. This new project rekindled that joy.
It always come down to people and the future of ag-tech is secured because of people like [Vishal](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishaljadkar15). They are learning the ropes at current crop of startups and have an inherent entrepreneurial mindset. I am sure they are going to launch their own startups in the near future.
It is exciting and something I look forward. I would love to be a resource to the current and future set of startups in any capacity possible. Even the role of advisor, teaching not preaching is on the cards.
The last thing that I want to say is the joke that I picked to deliver during my cake cutting ceremony. I didn’t get the opportunity to say it there so here it goes, ”I am a manager without a team to manage. Worry more about work not the title in startups.”
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Tag: #published #ontheside #personal #recap