Get a peek into the heart of six-legged ugliness

Get a peek into the heart of six-legged ugliness! The Cockroaches!

This is my first attempt to writing such a post. Everyone is talking about cockroaches and I could relate to a lot of learnings I have had so far in my journey. I will write about that too someday.  

In the startup world NO ONE really gets attracted to the ugly cockroaches they just worship the blood sucking deadly mosquito, often wearing the mask of Unicorns.

But it is the cockroach approach that has the true flavor of entrepreneurship; what the unicorns have is just glamour.

If you are a wantrepreneur don’t look at the glamour of the unicorns. No one really fears a mosquito which is the world most deadly killer but everyone fears a cockroach.

Cockroaches are ugly, not deadly. That is how the entrepreneurship journey might be for you, living a filthy life as a cockroach. Full of dirt.

According to me this is what the six-legged ugliness resemble:
.
Leg 1:

Survival rate and cost of failure:

Cockroach startups have low burn rates. The are not fueled with investor money to live a life of glamour. Unicorns work in flashy offices defining emphatic metrics to raise more money. They are found speaking at startup events. Where as the cockroaches have small offices painted with love and spend their time with customers.They survive more or fail early at low cost.

Leg 2:

Focus:

Focus in cockroach startups is on growth, survival, scale and profitability. And all of them are interrelated. They are not running after raising money but creating value. And that is how it should be. Discipline is the key they don’t add a lot of things to their to-do list but eliminate things to focus on the top things that add value.

Leg 3:

Purpose not Perception:

The team at cockroach startups do not live a flashy life. That makes it difficult to live everyday with challenges but the one who have their life purposes and passions attached to building their startups, they have stillness in their minds. They don’t crib about the challenges, they don’t even notice them or talk much about it, they are in a different zone. Zone, where there is single minded immersion into creating value.

Leg 4:

Growth Strategy:
Cockroaches have a scarcity of resources. They measure the money they spend and constantly seek creativity to figure out growth hacks that get them to their target audience. They spend time getting customers and not creating a popular startups.

Leg 5:

Hiring:
Hiring for a cockroach startup is always a major challenge. They hire by selling the company’s vision. They look for team members who join them for the vision and not for building their careers. It not easy for a cockroach startup to attract quality talent, but often they hunt them, believe in their abilities, get them aligned to the vision of the company and form a small happy family where trust binds them together.


Leg 6:

Balance:
I think this is the key at the cockroach startup. They are always trying to maintain the balance between different metrics with their key focus on scaling a sustainable business model. Lot of such cockroaches are doing great things away from the glamour world living the true flavor of entrepreneurship at the sweet point of challenges and inner drive. Its the inner drive that is the fuel that gets them going through tough times build their own path.

When things get tough, the tough get going. Be ugly! Live filthy! Be a cockroach.

@ajaymittal033