Subhajeet Mukherjee
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Don't become a cargo cult victim - Thu, Apr 29, 2021

Startup lessons series

Last year, TPF’s secretary told me one crucial thing i.e. not to fall victim to cargo cult. I had never heard this word before. So, as usual, I googled it.

In the initial stages of TPF, I was delighted, considering the amount of positive response I was getting from my peers. Very soon, I realized that they are just temporary. Real users need to use the platform and benefit from it; that was the real challenge. Getting invited to give talks at conferences regarding your startup is great and all, but the impact is essential.

This was a lesson I learnt in the early stages of TPF. I wanted to add some bullet points here for startup founders:

  • Don’t implement project management concepts and principles in these early stages. Keep things simple.
  • Avoid hierarchy - reduce barriers between people.
  • Absolutely avoid people especially engineers, who don’t understand your startup’s limitation at all cost. Don’t derail from the goal or get carried away with too ambitious plans.
  • Avoid relying on SaaS. You don’t wanna create dependency in the initial stages. Sustainability is very important.
  • Give importance to people who really understand the mission of the startup.
  • Ask for advice from people whom you trust. At the end of the day, you take the decision; therefore, don’t blame people for your mistakes.
  • Continuous innovation is extremely important.

They vary a lot. The general structure, however, can be beneficial.

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