The startup ecosystem in India has undergone a remarkable transformation over the years, evolving from its humble beginnings to become a driving force in the global innovation and economic growth. Rahul Chandra, Managing Director of Arkham ventures, has been at the forefront of this evolution in India.
In Part 1 of this conversation with Devangshu Dutta, Chief Executive of Third Eyesight and Managing Partner at PVC Partners, Rahul discusses his book Tightrope to the Moon, which explores the traits and challenges of ‘Key’ founders in startups.
They discuss the Key founder who sets the direction and takes significant risks; the balance between rational and irrational thinking; the need for founders to have a marathon mindset; burnout and resilience.
Highlights from the conversation
(Editor’s Note: You can jump directly to the highlight by scrolling the video above to the mentioned timestamp. Or, you can watch it on YouTube and jump to any of the chapters.
We recently featured an excerpt from Rahul’s book highlighting a crucial concept, the Key—the idea that even among the founding team, a few members keep the spirit of the startup alive.)
2:30: The Key founder—defining factor in startup success.
Devangshu: You describe the Key founder as the keeper of the spark, while the other co-founders build on that spark. How do you identify them?
Rahul: It came from seeing startups run into issues that centred around forces getting in the way of each other, cancelling each other out… Even amongst founders, there is hesitation in stepping up to become a Key. It is a step up because the Key has to make the most sacrifices and take on the biggest risk as well… The most important thing that Keys do is to set the next destination, the next milestone… It's a very tricky thing for the Key to do.
10:08 What the lack of a Key can do to the team
Devangshu: Is a team without a Key actually is lacking some sort of a supercharged engine
Rahul: How far you jump is decided by the Key.
11:56 Good delusions, irrational goals and mega founders
Devangshu: You also discuss the concept of a good delusion as a key trait for achieving these ambitious goals
Rahul: Every startup has to go through the rational part… proving that what you're bringing to the world actually works… Most founders are able to achieve 50% here and there of the rational part, but only the mega founders actually go to the irrational part… what you see at the end of five, six years is a size and a scale and an impact which is way bigger than anyone imagined on Day One.
18:55 Can this drive be seeded?
Devangshu: Is it something one is born with?
Rahul: The innate belief that I have agency comes from the fact that in your childhood, you were able to cope with the stressors better than anybody else around you.
23:50 Control as a strength and a weakness
Devangshu: How can entrepreneurs learn to delegate without actually sacrificing their vision?
Rahul: The hardest problems come to the founder… [But] as you get to the larger size… controlling everything [will come in the way] of accommodating very high quality thinkers.
28:38 Marathon mindset and speed
Devangshu: Are we driving dysfunctional behaviour among founders or founding teams, given the pressures of a VC fund which is closed ended?
Rahul: In India, most of the problems we are solving for in the venture-funded world are execution problems, aided by technology… This by nature is a very long [game]... Investors tend to not understand this and set [short] fund lives…
I don't think eventually investors can make a founder run faster. They can give them more money and encourage irresponsible behaviour by saying, where's the growth?... They are coming at it by giving a large valuation themselves…. Here’s the big cheque, and now your valuation is suddenly some crazy number, but now I'm going to ask you for growth which will match up to that valuation…
The marathon mindset is exactly to this point. A mega founder will always want to move fast. You don’t want your best people to get hired by some other startup or your best investors to go away. So you want to be gaining market. But in your mind, the way you’re building is not a company that's going to live for three years…
The downside of thinking it is a short journey is, one, they exhaust themselves. They need to sustain energy over 10 years, while they're getting older… Second, the relationships you burn [by thinking it will not] come back and bite you, because you will be out in three years. And that's not what happens. It does come and bite you back.
36:02 Burnout and resilience
Devangshu: How do the best ones handle this?
Rahul: Most of us get The Gita wrong. When it says, don't worry about the outcomes, we tell ourselves that I'm not going to care about the outcome. Because if it doesn't happen, I will care less about how bad I feel…
Most mega founders don't do that. They actually feel every emotion—the disappointment, the massive upsets, the fear. I know mega founders who still throw up before a 100-million-dollar pitch. It's not like they're being super calm; they're feeling the emotion.
Burnout can be a camouflage thing, where you are not realising you’re burning out. A mega founder who has to continue with their journey for a long time, will not try and achieve that by blunting their emotions…. But they will do it in a limited period of time,...
It’s also the words they choose. They will not say, ‘oh, disaster has happened.’ They will say, ‘we’ve hit a temporary roadblock.’ … They give it tiny boxes in their heads and you can say that’s delusion also.
42:44: Beginner’s mind
Devangshu: How have you observed this shaping of perspective on success, failure, keeping on the path, and getting up after the fall?
Rahul: A seasoned founder [could think that] I'm experienced and I've dealt with it in the past, this is how I will deal with it again… you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself, saying that you're in your fifth year of starting up and the shock should be less…
But in the beginner's mindset… you're not saying I am supposed to know this problem. You will say, I have no clue, let me look at this problem as if it's a new thing…
I've seen founders have a very childlike attitude. For them, a customer conversation is a very fascinating thing… I've seen a lot of founders go and meet your customers and hear from them what you're doing for them. And that's a great medicine for any burnout.
Watch Part 2 of the conversation here
Read an extract from Rahul Chandra’s book, 'Tightrope to the Moon: How Mega Founders Win the Startup War' here
