The Startup Journey

Clearly, our entrepreneurial ethos and role models are going through a massive generation change. The quotes from Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy that entrepreneurs in the 1990s took to heart included: ``Under promise and over deliver. Investors respect this.''  ( On why Infosys gets the kind of valuations it does)  " Revenue is vanity; profit is sanity; cash is reality " and " PSPD: Predictable, Sustainable, Profitable and De-risked " Cut to 2015. Mukund Mohan, Head of Microsoft Ventures, writes : Amateurs under promise and over deliver.  They are the ones I hear always complain about valuations. They fail to realize that the “professional” entrepreneur friend they have is growing at an insane rate, but they choose to only compare “valuations” and dilution. And what do the "Professionals" do to make "investors chase them"? Professionals over commit and outperform.  They are the ones that get the best valuations and ...

Came across this old post by US-based venture capitalist Mark Suster on the topic via a recent guest post by Amit Sharma in NextBigWhat. Uses comparative examples to help understand Gross Margin / Net Revenues, Price/Revenue Growth, Cash Flow vs P&L Profitability, etc. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

From an Knowledge@Wharton interview with Atul Jain, the founder and CEO of TEOCO: ..people sometimes “tell me, ‘I want to be my own boss.’ I tell them that when you become an entrepreneur, nothing could be further from the truth. Every single employee is your boss because if they leave, you have nobody to do your work. Every single client is your boss because they tell you what to do. When you work for a company, you typically have one, maybe two bosses. When you're an entrepreneur, everybody wants to tell you what to do. Your employees will tell you what to do, your clients will tell you what to do, even your vendors will tell you what to do.” ...Part of business success is cost management. We never let expenses get out of line with revenue. The way I explains this is: think of your revenue as an 18-wheeler truck on a highway. It's like a large truck. Then there is another truck right behind it, another 18-wheeler called expenses. Sandwiched between the two 18-wheelers -- rev...