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This year truly tested me.

It started with a massive high – we had pulled off a remarkable Management Buyout in 2015, closed the year with the best sales ever and entered Jan 2016 with spirits and energy at the highest levels possible.

And then it struck!

Feb-Mar 2016

The investment scenario had turned upside down. Funding dried up.

We were running out of money. And we had to ensure the company wasnt jeopardized because of the decisions I had taken. So we decided to go back to first principles of business and also conserve all the cash that we could.

Which meant taking some really hard decisions.

I felt responsible for all of it – for every job lost, for every benefit withdrawn, for every insecure face I encountered, for all the times I tried to pep things up but felt I was lying to my own self.

I WAS responsible for all of it – the low morale, the skepticism, the “you brought this onto us” look.

Admitting this, even publicly, wasn’t going to be enough.

I began to record my feelings. Everyday to work, I spoke to myself – expressly freely what I felt. It helped relieve the emotions, but it wasn’t enough

I had to get myself back. In order to get nearbuy back.

On one such recording sessions, I asked myself, “fuck, how is it that I fucked up so bad? So so bad? I was happy a month back, and now I struggle to find a reason to be so. As if I have forgotten what it felt like to be at peace”

And I thought…

Would it help to go back to that world? That moment when I was truly at peace with myself. What is it that I used to tell myself then? Maybe that would help?

So I spent the next week, wading through my content from the past. Blogposts, Quora, Linkedin, Facebook, Emails, Notes.

And it helped a lot. I found patterns. In my thoughts, my emotions, my words.

Patterns that I figured might help me get back on track.

And one of the content stayed with me.

My resolution for 2016, one of which was 

Record at least 10 cover songs in my voice

I wondered why I had resolved to sing?

I wasnt a good singer. And was extremely shy of singing in front of public.

In the tough period of Feb-Mar, I couldnt remember what drove me to sign up for singing as a 2016 resolution.

So I decided to give it a shot, almost desperate for a solution.

And magic happened

I sang

And sang

and sang

Horrible at first

Tolerable by now

But I didnt care

I made it a ritual. Everyday after lunch, I used to walk on the office lawns, earplugs and sing to myself.

Invariably I would end up crying everytime, as I sang

The emotions didnt stop.

The healing didnt either.

I would look forward to driving, because then I could sing.

I would record what I felt were my best renditions.

Share it, not for feedback, but as as sign that I was coming back.

All I wanted to do everyday was to sing

In a month, I knew that this tough phase, while real, will not consume me. I will not allow it to consume me.

By April, I had myself back.

The act of singing, feeling my entire body emote to the melody, the lyrics, rhythm – made me go back to my original self.

The self that wanted to be free, to find meaning in my actions, to feel happy with my judgement, to stand by my thoughts.

The act of singing made me connect with my own self, more than writing, or photography.

Over the past 10 months, I have sang more than 500 songs.

The act of singing saved me in 2016

The year has been the hardest I have ever faced. It taught me the importance of making people feel secure, the importance of will, the power of faith and perseverance

and above all, it taught me that the only person who can ever know you well, is your own self.

I became my best friend

Nowadays, we hang out together, singing :)

At toll booths, boom barriers reflect the behavior of most organizations out there. 

Employees approach with ideas, advancements, experiments, wild bets at the toll booth. 

Someone, supposedly capable but mostly simply a checker, is siting. Accepts some form of exchange – money in real world, ideas, presentations, data in organizations. 

And the boom barrier is raised. Allowing for the employee to go past. 

Before lowering itself again for the next employee. 

Day in and day out – the same “process”. Multiple booths, multiple checkers, multiple employees. But all allowed one a time. 

And then someone decided to introduce tags. 

Something you do (upfront payment in the real world) fetches you a badge. Where you don’t seek permission anymore. The boom barrier is never lowered on you. Till you keep paying that payment. 

Unfortunately, just as real world, less than 5% of the universe eve gets this tag. 95% still go through this painful sequential process. 

It’s ironical – the toll road was built for a speedy, unrestricted passage. And then someone, to establish importance and authority, choked the system at the toll booth. 

As a founder/CEO/manager – while you constantly aim to build toll roads, ask yourself how many toll booths are you also adding. 

And why? 

What will it take to give everyone a tag?

What will you give up? And what will you gain?

Does your organization really need a boom barrier? 

Interviewed a super smart woman last evening. She is a visual designer. And while her work spoke for her talent and finesse, what stood out was an honest admission towards the end

“Creativity doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to work really hard for it. It’s unlike the movies where one sit and creativity starts flowing”

I have spoken in the past about the difference between geniuses and artists. This conversation reminded me of the same.

Most talent in this world isn’t inborn. It isn’t natural. It has to be worked upon. Because it’s necessary for your definition of success.

The ones that come across as supremely talented are ironically the ones that believe they still have a long way to go. 

People need to feel secure 

In their relationships 

At their workplace 

Amoungst colleagues

Around competition 

People need to be told “I will watch out for you” 

When times are bad 

When times are good 

People want to know that if they show up and give their 100%, they will grow as will the company 

So far I had felt that security was a bad thing. It brought with itself entitlement. Complacency. Mediocrity. 

This year told me that security meant being human. 

I just returned from a fundraising road trip. 

6 days

3 countries

5 cities

1 key learning 

“So Ankur, what do you think  of this player xxx?”

“I think highly of them, but they are not in the same space”

“But they can get into the space”

“Yes they can, but they won’t” 

“But what if they do. They can get into anything, given the wave they are riding”

“I hear you, but I don’t share your enthusiasm”

“It’s not enthusiasm. It’s fear”
Most investors are scared. 

Scared of competition

Scared of someone else with deeper pockets

Scared of how fast technology is changing 

Scared of what if this doesn’t scale, this doesn’t become big

Scared of what they cannot understand 

This fear isn’t without basis – I admit, but to me the pervasiveness of this emotion was striking. 

These are people who are betting other people’s money in the hope of a return. 

Fear cannot be the foundation of this. 

That’s when it was evident – the investors with the Midas touch and the ones with not – is simple to explain. 

Investors that invest on the basis of fear will remain in the business of entering and exiting businesses. 

Investors that invest on hope, on courage, on first principles will build institutions along with the entrepreneur. 

And if we are lucky, we will partner with hope and not fear. 

When Vidur was 6 months old, we conducted a mental experiment. 

Every night, when we put him to sleep, we played music. The same kind. Every time. 

For about 3 weeks, we followed this regime. While putting in effort to put him to sleep. Effort that was visibly coming down with every passing day. 

By the end of 3 weeks, we started to play the music. And saw “magic” happen.  

He fell asleep by himself. 

Today, at 6 years, he takes no more than 5 mins everyday to sleep. Mostly doing so by himself. 

He has developed, what I call the 6pack abs for his mind. 

The recipe for physical abs is well established. 

Nothing similar exists for the mind. How do you get your mind to the highest fitness levels? 

My realization is that the mind can be easily tricked. Its naive, almost without a mind of its own. 

But we leave the fitness regime for the mind, to chance. 

We leave inspiration to chance. A video here, a talk there, a quote somewhere. Not actively sought, but accidentally encountered. 

We leave positivity to chance 

We leave inspiring company to chance

We leave learning to chance

When, we can trick the brain every single day. 

People who know me well, know about my fetish for superlatives

“Fuck, this is awesome”

“Something fascinating happened”

“It was magical”

“It’s such a splendid moment” 

I am tricking my mind. With the choice of these words. It feels it’s actually something awesome. And feeds back that emotion. The circle completes itself. 

Everyday when you wake up, you have a choice 

Tell your mind I am going to make you happy today

Or

Ask your mind to make you happy today

Choose wisely! 

Something has changed on Uber maps. My home address, when pinned, reads the name of the colony next door. 

So this morning I found my driver wandering in that colony. Called him to check. 

“Sir – but you entered the name of this colony, so I came here”

“I didn’t enter that. It was Uber who picked it up”

You see what I did there? 

I defended myself. With a fact, yes. But I did defend myself. 

And I asked myself – why did I do it? What is it that I was trying to achieve? Prove that I am not a moron? Prove that this was a factual error and not intended? Prove that I am better than this? 

Guess what – no one cares a fuck! 

When the work isn’t done, we offer an excuse. A defense. And let’s assume that the defense is valid. 

That still doesn’t mean anything. It didn’t get the job done. 

And yet we offered the excuse as if it could replace the desired result. 

No one cares a fuck! 

Our excuses does not mean the work got done. Instead it conclusively proves that the work wasn’t done. 

An excuse is the distance between where you are and where you could have been. 

Is perhaps the only rule of fund raising as well

“Don’t waste your time with explanations. People want to hear what they want to hear” 

Prepare well. 

And that means – prepare for what works for them. Not what works for you. 

On second thoughts – this is the first and only rule for life. 

Prepare well. 

Last evening, at a team dinner, a much loved colleague remarked

“We don’t have assholes in the founding team” 

He didn’t mean assholes. Instead, he was using it interchangeably with attributes such as taskmaster, autocratic, “shut the fuck up and get this done” DNA. 

I felt at peace within, when I heard this. Because over this year I have come to peace with the fact that I am not this guy, will never be, and won’t allow the culture at nearbuy to exhibit this ever. 

Early this year, I wouldn’t have been. I may have even agreed. 

I was consuming content at a crazy pace and almost everything was telling me that the best founders in the world – the Elon musk, the zuckerberg, the jobs, the Jan koums – are all “assholes”. 

That’s how the media projected them. No bullshit, taskmaster, abusing, “why the fuck are you wasting my time” – mercenaries in every sense. 

It was after I studied them deeper, read between the lines and dissociated the media interpretation from my observation, that I realized they exhibit behavior similar to how I think

• Don’t create a false sense of urgency 

If something is required by tomorrow evening, don’t ask for it to be done today. 

Don’t let your bad planning become the reason to fuck someone’s planning

Don’t make things bigger than what they are. Always project the truth. Not the exaggerated version. 

• Be a fervent truth seeker 

Seek the truth, because that’s the only absolute. Don’t seek opinions. Or views. Or judgement. 

And don’t stop until you find it. The team then aligns itself around the truth and not around the happiness or pleasure or an individual. 

• Say more “let’s do it” than “no, let’s not” 

Give people the freedom to think and approach you with no hesitation 

Encourage people to challenge established norms, within or outside

Push them to find the simplest way to complex problems. 

Push them to take risks. And don’t reprimand if it fails. No one sets out to fail. 

• Respect people

You can be disrespectful towards the situation, the circumstance, the moment. But never the person. 

“Fuck this shit” is different from “fuck you”

• Be intolerant of mediocrity 

Mediocrity is not an absolute. And this isn’t easy to digest. 

People aren’t mediocre. They appear to be so in certain circumstances. And if those circumstances are the prominent ones in your world, then they will always look to be mediocre. In some other circumstance, they may shine. 

Let go of them. Don’t persist with them. You will rarely win.

The easiest thing to build today is a company. 

The hardest thing is to build an institution where people love to come to work. 

Asshole founders don’t create institutions. They merely start and run companies. 

Grow. 

It’s a big world. 

There’s room. 

You fit. 

I promise.