Indian entrepreneur & Angel InvestorFounder & CEO of India GamesHe was the Managing Director, DisneyUTV Digital Rediff called him "India's King of Gaming"Among the top 25 powerful people in the Indian Digital BusinessHe has received no formal education in computers & is aB.Com dropout

Vishal Gondal

Path to the Promised Land

I

Ideas are dime a dozen. To be an entrepreneur you don’t need business plans but the courage and conviction to break through the initial challenges and bring your ideas to life.

Thou shall have balls & not business plans

II

Entrepreneurs should go out, meet people and invest in building long term relationships. Those who can’t help you today may prove to be valuable tomorrow. Don’t be transactional about it, make lifelong friends!

Thou shall develop relationships & not transactions

III

India is the land of opportunity because it has tons of problems for entrepreneurs to solve. Instead of aping solutions from the West, we should look at solving local problems – something not many entrepreneurs are doing today.

Thou shall focus on real pain points

IV

It’s imperative that you be No. 1 or No. 2 nationally or internationally in your defined sector to ensure you create a larger market for yourself. There is no point in becoming the nth player in an already competitive marketplace which has established leaders.

Thou shall be among the top 2

V

As an entrepreneur, you must focus on the 20% that gives you 80% impact. Entrepreneurs tend to waste their time and effort in a number of non-productive activities just to be everywhere. This should be avoided at all costs.

Thou shall focus on 20%

VI

The education system is designed to train students to fill up competencies required to work in large organizations. Start-ups are meant to disrupt and are run by talking to people and constantly taking feedback from the ground. The mindset required to excel at a startup is verydifferent from one that is required in a large companywhere there is time to invest in buildingyear by year projections.

Thou shall avoid MBA’s & spreadsheet makers

VII

As an entrepreneur you will have many moments of failure. Organizations where failing is not okay tend to become bureaucratic. As a startup you should build a culture which celebrates failure and people have the independence to experiment and execute new ideas without worrying too much about failure.

Thou shall celebrate failures & enjoy your journey

VIII

Don’t build your company with the intention to sell. You can’t build a great startup by dreaming about selling it someday. As an entrepreneur, your startup becomes the core of your life and you have to nurture it like your own baby.

Thou shall not want to sell

IX

As an entrepreneur, one tends to put their health on the backseat but there is no point in building a billion dollar company and having boiled vegetables with an IV attached to you. If you aren’t fit both in mind and body, you cannot operate a company.

Thou shall be fit

X

As a startup you will have a small set of people who won’t always have the best skills or resources at their disposal. In this case, the only thing you can motivate them with, is PASSION. As an entrepreneur you need to make your team believe that this is their chance to do something remarkable with their career!

Thou shall win with... Passion

Trust & obey

Presentation By:

This presentation is based on a talk that Vishal gave at Unpluggd, watch it HERE.

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Thank you

Sponsors: Microsoft Ventures