Comments for Design of Business

Comment on Be Forgiving – Lessons from my dad by Anuj

Anuj — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:58:44 +0000

Very very moving blog Sri – brings tears to my eyes! Thanks for sharing this story with its great “value point”.

About Sabareesan's comments: While I agree with what you have stated entirely, it is not applicable to this case. The Uncle did not give direct advise – he made a sneering remark about this young lad (Mr. K) to someone else. That is not like “intended critique” for sure… But whatever, it did very well to challenge Mr. K to a level higher than what his family's plight at the times drove him to.

On the side -
My father too underwent hardships to make a climb in life (we are again talking of the 40's here). He traveled to Kanpur to get a break in life in the “Chemical Industry” after a hard-earned honors degree in Chemistry from Central College-Bangalore. After years of toiling as an apprentice and not getting a useful job assignment at Tata Chemicals, he returned back to Mysore with a lot of gritty experience and not much money. He settled for a career in education – Lecturer and so on. He realized his dream of doing practical work at Industry after his retirement, when he worked as a Lab Chemist for an aromatic industry in Mysore, refining extraction of pure Vanilla starting off from Benzene! He got a pittance at that job, but he needed it all the same to sustain the household, so he did it. He used to cycle for 12 kms up and then again down, for this job, at the age of 58. He was an honest and proud man – tough life for my mom with him, but I am sure she was mighty proud of what he achieved.

Comment on Can startups afford work-life balance? by shivansh

shivansh — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:43:18 +0000

would definitely keep that trick under my sleeve, again we will always find ways for the things/people we love…:-)

Comment on Can startups afford work-life balance? by ksrikrishna

ksrikrishna — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:35:09 +0000

@shivanshtyagi, great point of physical proximity – even in a regular job how often we've taken phone calls at home. Of course many at time @chitrasri has asked me if you are going to be on the phone all evening, why bother coming home It works great particularly if you have very young kids, so you are around them or the significant other has to get out of house for a while!

One other trick I learnt after many years, is when based in CA and working with folks in India, I could cut out by 4PM, do the soccer thing with my kids at 630PM, dinner and be back at work at 9PM. The kids loved it, I got some sunlight and I had to work India overlap time anyway – so was a big win-win. Of course those 8AM meetings then with clients were a killer!

Comment on Can startups afford work-life balance? by Shivansh Tyagi

Shivansh Tyagi — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:56:59 +0000

Great thoughts, life is always a superset of everything(though maybe not the proper superset) ,here are some of my thoughts which I have after being in a a rear busting job and a startup -
>Being in a startup the work never stops( because again you love it only little less than your girlfriend | wife | mom ), so always makes sense to reach out to your loved ones in the intermittent breaks,however short

>Most of the times all you need for getting your work done is your laptop and Internet connection( lets face it that being in startup you most probably would not be using a virtual private network), so try to be in the physical proximity of your family while finishing up on the test-cases/presentations, just being near to your loved ones, even while totally immersed in work could be quite reassuring and comforting( except when you are on a field trip or coordinating with your team on some task)
...and now I am back to busting my rear...

Comment on Are you a failure if your startup fails? by ksrikrishna

ksrikrishna — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:13:42 +0000

Ramesh, good to hear from you. thanks for the support. would love to hear perspectives on some of this as well, given the number of startups you have done and are now participating with!

Comment on Can startups afford work-life balance? by Tweets that mention Can startups afford work-life balance? Does it many any sense | Design of Business -- Topsy.com

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:42:36 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bhashkar Sharma. Bhashkar Sharma said: RT @ksrikrishna: Can startups afford work-life balance? – http://ksrikrishna.com/F3 – new blog post [...]

Comment on Are you a failure if your startup fails? by rameshharidas

rameshharidas — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:13:03 +0000

nice post, enjoyed reading it!

-ramesh

Comment on Are you a failure if your startup fails? by ravipratap

ravipratap — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:07:05 +0000

This is pretty good advice, but as you say, it's quite hard to remind yourself to maintain perspective when things are just looking really down. Which is why your comment on outsiders helping out with a different point of view is pretty important.

Nice post!

Comment on Are you a failure if your startup fails? by ksrikrishna

ksrikrishna — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:54:39 +0000

Vinod, good to see you here. In startups, especially in bootstrapped ones, unlike with GPS devices – the challenge is that it's never clear how far ahead the right bend is (where you turn the corner!) despite numerous false positives. So its good to have some perspective – that only folks not involved in the business can bring. Sometimes despite “darkest before dawn” the dawn seems too far, so it helps to try and maintain perspective – easier said than done!

Comment on Are you a failure if your startup fails? by ksrikrishna

ksrikrishna — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:51:47 +0000

Thanks for your kind words. I never ceased to be amazed how perseverance always seems to overcome setbacks. But it always is easier if there are people how can help you keep it straight, ie., separate our businesses from ourselves. Still a struggle for many.