5 Personal Lessons from an Entrepreneur

Today, I bid good bye to a company that I founded in 2016.  Recently, I had sold this business  to a group, who could grow this bigger, while I pursue different things starting 2021. For context, the company I had build is a SAAS (Software as a Service) product company, selling to the global markets.

In my email to the employees, I shared 5 things that were relevant and among the key personal lessons of our journey. These were more of personal lessons, and not business lessons, which I hope to share in another post. So here goes.

In closing, I would like to share 5 things, that I learnt along the way:

1. Customers come first: We all learnt that if we keep customers at the centre of our decision-making process, we will come out victorious. So, always keep them at the core of your decision making. We are a successful business when customers get value from the product we have built, and they can do it easily, that they get to the moment of Aha/value very quickly.
2. The secret: Work hard, remain hungry to learn a lot more, and stay humble at all times. The day you think you know it all, is the day you stop or slow down your learning. Even if you are at the top of the game, there is so much more you could do better. If you introspect, you will find there is so much more you can learn. There is no limit to your learning, and growth. While working, pay a lot of attention to the detail, that one thing separates the most successful from the rest.
3. Value your time and health: Remember the most precious resource in our life is time, and once the time is lost, we can’t regain it. This is one resource each one of us get in equal proportion from nature. It completely depends on us what we make of it. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Don’t waste even a single second. You can only succeed in fulfilling your dreams if you have a fit and healthy body.  A discipline for exercising and eating in moderation will go a long way.
4. Build empathy and long-lasting relationships: To better understand another person’s point of view, try to think through the situation from their point of view. It will help you immensely in understanding each other. Relationships are built when we are not transactional. If you ever are in a position to help someone, don’t miss it. It always comes back multifold. Respect everyone, and you will see you learn so much more from each other.
5. Build a positive mindset: In every situation, you will have a choice of how you look at it. Be optimistic and positive, and you will find the solution in even the most difficult situations. I recently learnt that when you change your way of looking at things, the things you look at change. It is a very powerful way of seeing. It means what we focus on expands. So, if you build a positive mindset, that you will succeed or will be able to achieve a hurdle, you will notice that nature will also help you in the process.