What Should An Entrepreneur Invest Into?

Bangalore: When starting a company, there are several questions in the mind of an entrepreneur. One of them is ‘what should I invest into’. “I feel that entrepreneurs should invest in a great team and hire people better than themselves. Whether it is the success or the failure of the venture, it is the effort of the team and never that on an individual. Even though the entrepreneur is the face of the company, it is the team that delivers as a whole,” says Ravishankar, Co-Founder and CEO, Nevales.

But a good team cannot be identified by posting jobs on various sites; an entrepreneur has to be a go-getter, he has to make sure that the prospective employee understands the vision in the same light as that which inspired the entrepreneur to build the company.

“Entrepreneurs should hire the people whom they can confide in. Even if you have an iota of doubt on a person, you should not hire that person, as it is not just about the effort and the money wasted. A wrong person would bring in negative energy which would impact the others in the organization also. Thus go for the right person, and the money would follow,” says Sreekanth Lapala, CEO, TenXLabs.

You can speak at events or conferences so as to meet new people, where you can share your vision and you would be lucky if someone shares the same wavelengths as yours. Again, even if you are not in a position to offer them competitive packages, you can offer them a flexible work environment and other benefits, as at the end of the day, the right kind of people can shape the way the startup goes.

Many a times, entrepreneurs overlook the importance of automating their daily processes, but they forget that these simple processes are the pillars of the development of the company. “Entrepreneurs feel ‘why should I invest on automating the CRM or HR, when the Excel sheet is there’, owing to the money constraints. But there is a system available for every price point, thus rather than postponing the automation till the business scales might be too long a wait. I learnt the importance of automation the hard way, and would suggest that entrepreneurs should automate the business processes early,” says Lapala.

Business is not everything; an entrepreneur should take care of other factors also. “I feel that one of the most important things an entrepreneur should invest into is ‘health’. Entrepreneurs tend to become workaholics, focusing more on the business and the money, thereby ignoring timely intake of food and sleep, which instantly effects their health and efficiency. Thus, I feel that entrepreneurs should take time and take care of their health also in the similar way that they take care of their business,” says Kumud Sharma, CEO, SuperSeva Services.

She also adds, “Another thing entrepreneurs should invest into is in getting an external consultant, who can play the devil’s role and keep on showing you the mirror. It can be any person, a friend, mentor, but someone from outside the organization. My external consultant always plays the devil’s role and keeps pinpointing when we tend to go off our agendas.”

Similarly, reading more is one thing which would help to refresh oneself and also build the knowledge. “I would suggest that every entrepreneur should invest their time into reading. This is a way not just to rejuvenate oneself, but would also help in developing the knowledge base,” says Phanindra Sama, Co-Founder and CEO, redBus.in.