Source: Entrepreneur | Author: Jacqueline Whitmore | Image: Shutterstock

In 2015, the number of women-owned firms increased again. Women now own about 30 percent of U.S. businesses and employ nearly 8 million workers. Businesses owned by women provide one in seven jobs in privately-owned businesses, reports Womenable.com.

It’s not uncommon for women to face unique challenges, especially when trying to juggle traditional roles of wife and mother with the demands of starting and running a business. Over the years as a business owner myself, and through training women to run their own etiquette businesses, I have learned a few tips that may help women looking to start a business.

1. Find your passion.
You are going to spend many long hours working in and on your business, so pick an industry that you don’t just like, but are passionate about. When you are passionate, it shows, and your enthusiasm and belief in what you are doing translates to your customers, sparking their enthusiasm about what you are offering.

2. Fit your business to your personal goals.
Are you looking to work part time to supplement the family income or work around the children’s schedules or are you focused on building a full-time business? Is money or freedom the goal, or both? There’s no rule that you have to work a full-time schedule when you run a business — start a boutique business or work as a consultant. Choose a business and business style that suits your picture of a fulfilling life.

3. Keep your home and work life separate.
It is important to set aside time for both personal and work lives, in order to give each the attention it deserves. Set specific office hours and unless there is an emergency, stick to them. Train yourself to work during office hours and do not accept calls or check emails after hours. Your customers and clients will also conform to your schedule as long as you stick to it. That means not calling or emailing others after hours. Create a separate work area, whether inside the home or in outside office space, and shut the door to the office after hours.

4. Embrace technology.
Don’t let the lure of an incoming message get you off track, whether you are concentrating on a project or spending quality time with your loved ones. Let emails wait until morning or check them at certain times of the day only, allow your voicemail to take calls, and employ auto responders. Let technology work for you.

5. Form genuine connections.
It can be difficult to work alone, so the connections you make will prove invaluable, and not only for business. Find a mentor or create a women’s support group and share your ideas, goals and frustrations. Use the “village” to help you navigate the business landscape. Join a women’s business association such as the National Association of Business Owners (NAWBO) or the American Business Women’s Association (ABWA) for professional support and resources.

6. Define your brand.
Carefully define your brand: what does it look like and what does it stand for? And stick to it. Make everything you do and offer conform to the brand, from color schemes, logo design, packaging, correspondence, and presentations, to customer service, and the company culture and mission. Do not deviate from your brand. It is the message and consistency by which your clients know, remember and trust you.

Having your own business is an adventure, so embrace the challenges and rewards it offers.

Source: Times of India

In a significant move to boost innovation, NITI Aayog has initiated the process for setting up 500 tinkering labs in schools and 100 incubation centres across the country.

To foster creativity and scientific temper in students, the government will provide a one-time establishment grant of Rs 10 lakh under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) for establishing Atal Tinkering Labs (grade VI-XII) across India.

Also, an amount of Rs 10 lakh would be provided for each lab over a period of five years for operational expenses, which mean the government will spend Rs 20 lakhs per laboratory in each selected school.

Under the mission, the government will also provide financial support to academic and non-academic institutions (companies, technology parks & group of individuals) to establish new Atal Incubation Centres across the country .

They will be established in areas such as manufacturing, transport, energy , health, education, agriculture, water and sanitation.

The mission’s objective is to set up 100 such centres during 2016-17.

Under the mission, a grant of Rs 10 crore will be provided for establishing incubation centres over a period of five years towards capital investment as well as operation and maintenance expenses.

The mission will also provide scale up support of Rs 10 crore over a period of two years to establish incubation centres for augmenting their capacity . They will be shortlisted on the basis of key performance indicators.

Both these schemes will radically transform the start-up ecosystem in the country by creating a network of incubation centres of world-class standards, the Aayog said.

The government’s thinktank has invited applications from schools, institutions and individuals seeking financial support for setting up research laboratories under the mission.

Incubators would need to have specified physical infrastructure as well as mentors enrolled with the organisation to be eligible, according to the contours of the definition being discussed .

The government’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will issue a notification to put in place a framework to enable private incubators certify startups as part of its Startup India plan making them eligible for tax benefits and other facilities, official sources told ET.

“We are in the process of finalising the eligibility norms for an incubator . This will widen our base of incubators in the country,” the official, who did not wish to be named, said adding that it would be put in place shortly.

At present only an incubator funded by the government or established in a post-graduate college is permitted to certify Startups. Incubators provide a set-up where multiple startups are given space to operate and mentored to scale up their business to a certain level.

Of the 200 start-ups that applied for availing the tax benefits 30 were shortlisted and only one company made the cut for final approval by the inter-ministerial board set up by the DIPP. Cases of 10 companies have been deferred for consideration in the next meeting after they give further details. The DIPP had put up a stringent definition of a startup when the plan was launched but incubators were not defined then. There is a paucity of incubators and the government is keen to see this this gap filled to meet the larger objective of boosting job-creation via entrepreneurship.

Incubators would need to have specified physical infrastructure as well as mentors enrolled with the organisation to be eligible, according to the contours of the definition being discussed.

The government plans to create sector-specific incubators under the Atal Innovation Mission along with 500 tinkering labs to promote entrepreneurship, provide pre-incubation training and a seed fund for high-growth startups as part of the Startup India action plan announced by PM Narendra Modi in January this year.

DIPP has also started the exercise of mapping incubation centres across the country with a special focus on tier two and three cities. It plans to identify 10 incubators to evaluate them on pre-defined key performance indicators and provide them Rs 10 crore each to ramp up infrastructure.

Source: FoundingFuel | Author: Haresh Chawla| Image: Simon Law

Until a few months ago, startups were the flavour of the season to start one’s career. Top notch engineers and executives quit their jobs in Silicon Valley to join them in India. But now, the ground has moved—or so it seems. The events of the last few weeks have swung the pendulum too far. IITs have barred six startups from hiring their students this year because they paid less than what they promised. IIMs are unhappy about the delays in joining date. Next year, these firms will probably lose their coveted zero day status at these campuses due to the public fracas.

It’ll be tragic if events like these instil fear among fresh graduates and their families that startups ought to be out of bounds. I think it an utter travesty if they ask questions like “What if a failed startup smears a smudge on my resume?” For that matter, “If it goes belly up, would I have wasted my time?”

If you are among those grappling with these questions, this one is for you.

Keep in mind though, too much noise and romantic notions have been peddled around about what a startup is. The past two years have painted a distorted picture—fancy offices, fancy salaries and fancier perks. But reality has struck and we’ll see sanity return to this market. Unlike what you read in the media about becoming billionaires and overnight successes, most fail.

Then you will come to a crossroad. Imagine staring at a job offered by the likes of Infosys, Cognizant or Unilever on the one hand. Then on the other, there is an unknown startup. If you opt for the former, a blanket of security will envelope you. The latter offers lower than market salary, a promise and perhaps stock options at a later date.

Given this dilemma, why should you join a startup? For that matter, why should anybody join one?

Simple. Because now is actually the best time to consider a startup job—a shockwave of rationality has hit them. They will be run more sensibly, and with a lot more focus. Of course, you’ll see bursts of irrationality in the race to gain quick traction and market share. But it won’t be wanton and it won’t be random anymore. Things will be done to a plan. The plan may be flawed. But that’s par for the course. Startups try, fail, pivot, and they survive. Or they die and the team makes a comeback again in another form and shape.

So, don’t let the news about downrounds (where investors buy a company’s stock at a lower valuation than in previous rounds of funding), restructuring, salary corrections and cost-cutting scare you. Working at a startup can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life. A word of caution. Before you get into this game ask yourself some honest-to-God questions.

1. Am I cut out for the job?

Not everyone is cut out for a startup job. It’s easy to be lured by the hype war stories your friends and batchmates share. Instead, ask yourself:

• Am I ready to go out of the comfort zone that a structured job offers?
• Can I deal with ambiguity and uncertainty?
• Do I have an ambition to start something of my own at some point?
• Am I willing to make the work-life balance trade-off?

If your answer is yes to all of the above, jump in. Join an early stage startup.

An answer like “I want to join a successful startup” is a plain silly one. If the startup is successful, it is not a startup. If its survival is not under threat, it is an enterprise. It’s just a more exciting “sector” to work in.

So don’t mix up joining Google, Amazon, Facebook or even Flipkart with joining a startup. Of course, these firms offer great careers and jobs that give you responsibility early. But their survival isn’t hanging on a thread or bound by the passion of a small team. You can experience that only at an early stage startup.

2.  What should I focus on?

• Money
• Stability
• Security

If you answered yes to any of these variables, don’t join one.

Consider money first. If you’re young, say in the 22-26 bracket, what are you really worried about? Your stakes aren’t too high. Don’t eye the salary and the fancy perks. Remember, less than 5% of you will rise to be the CEO or run your own firm. And those who do get there, don’t get there because they took a “Day One” job or the highest paying offer on campus. They get there because they focus on learning over earning in the formative years of their career.

Some of you may have financial obligations and student loans to pay off. If that be the case, stay away from startups. Go for a corporate job and bide your time. Take the plunge when you can afford to.

3. So what should I join one for?

There are some things that you will get only from a startup.

Join for the grit and the grime. It’s where you roll up your sleeves and get down to work. It’s where you learn on your own, learn by doing, and learn fast. You learn what not to do. It’s a place where things inevitably go wrong.

For instance, the team may not have the experience, the market is a tough one, customers may not accept your product or service, or because customers don’t want to pay. Every day is a firefight. No one will hold your hand and take you along.

4. What can burn me?

Startups aren’t really companies. They are “provisional businesses”—until they prove that they have a right to exist and thrive. Therefore, by implication, you are a provisional employee. Don’t forget that. Ever.

Newspaper headlines about the funds they raised might make you feel comfortable. But don’t be tricked by it. No matter how much they have raised in their series A, B or C, they might be nowhere close to success. Funding is usually a marker for an investor’s hope and greed, not consumers’ validation. A lot of startups get funded when they are “buying” customers with deals and discounts. The truth is revealed only when they withdraw these incentives.

5. Do I have the support system?

Don’t be a hero. If you are not ready to live out of a sleeping bag, and drink watered down Old Monk rum, startups are not for you. Having a support system—and in India, it’s mostly the family—is a great advantage. Keep in mind, asking them to support you financially is not a choice. Because for all practical purposes you are now an earning member. You opted to take the startup route. What you ought to do is be candid and share stories of your ups and downs with your parents (or spouse as the case may be) and ask that they support you emotionally.

Heck, they may love you even more for wanting them to be part of your journey.

6. Do I know what I am signing up for?

Here’s what you need to check before you join one. Some of this data may be publicly available. But tap your circle of friends and colleagues and do some research about the firm.

#1. Founders and Team: Research the founders and their background. Don’t believe all of what you read and hear about hyped up startups. There are outstanding ones that haven’t bothered with the limelight.

Watch out for old boys’ clubs. Inevitably, they take all decisions, never delegate or involve others on the team on broader decisions. That they will lose sight of their business and people is a given. And before you know it, they will panic at the first sign of pressure and take knee-jerk decisions.

#2 Culture: Startups are evolving places. So don’t expect a culture. If one exists, it will be a raw one. What you need to know is their operating philosophy. What you need to know is their values and behaviour.

Are they transparent about their situation with the team?

Does the wider team know the challenges or is it a bunch of three people handling the funding and investors?

Do they care about customer experience? Do they resolve complaints?

Try their services and register a complaint. See how much they care. If they do, join them. Else, you know what to do.

Little things like these will tell you a lot about them.

#3. Role and Exposure: Join a startup at an early stage and rest assured your learning curve will be steep. Consider yourself lucky to get paid to make mistakes.

If you are joining a late stage, well established, well funded startup, be clear about your role and who your mentor will be. Some firms are like cruise liners—lots of people with lots of tiny jobs and you can get lost. Find one which is known to create room for experimentation and promotes talent that shows spark.

#4. The Business: Find out as much as you can about the market a startup is in

• Who are they serving, and what are they solving?
• How big is that market?
• How will they be different?
• How profitable can that idea be?
• How they will use technology (or whatever their mojo is) to beat the incumbents?

Deploy your common sense

#5. Structure: Do they have a team of people who know what they are doing? Or are all of them in permanent experiment mode? Ideally, there should be a mix. We’ve just seen a lot of this in the last few weeks where startups that were “experiments” were garbed as “pivots”.

Instead, you should ask: Is there a method to the madness? How do they tackle difficult problems? Find out from your friends: What’s the structure? Who does what? Are there regular review meetings? How do they measure progress?

So if you find the answers are ambiguous, stay away

Remember….

Starting up is tough. And it’s even tougher in India, where things don’t move. Where all the infirmities of our market come to play and make it difficult for a small business to break through and scale. That’s just the way we are—so if your startup promises an easy life, free popcorn and coke, run. Far away.

In fact, ask if people are overworked or not? If the guy interviewing you doesn’t have dark circles, ask why. Startups are 24×7 jobs, and that’s why you learn so fast.

Save your paycheque. Don’t spend it away on too many beers. Assuming the first one doesn’t work, having a financial cushion will give you the chance to keep taking risks. The startup wave has just begun in India—and the experience you get will get more valuable by the year.

And finally, work your backside off. You’re in there not just for a free ride and the learnings. While a startup can offer you a lot, you’ve got to have the spunk to ask yourself what muscle do you have to offer the startup. And as much as your successes will be applauded, your flaws will be exposed as well. The responsibility on you to deliver is huge. Live up to it.

On a parting note, here’s my version of Catch 22: “If a startup is crazy enough to offer you a hefty salary, you should be sane enough to decline it.”

Books for founders at each stage of a startup

I #%&@ing love books. They’re high quality, cheap, can help you relax and break up a working day, improve business progression and also can prevent you from making common mistakes. For founders they should be a vital source of information.

Why have I made this resource you ask? Well, I was tired of reading books and thinking ‘This information would of been a lot more useful a few months ago’ or ‘This book is really interesting but not that useful’.

This resource aims to help founders read the most useful books at the right time for their startup. The list is far from exhaustive and is currently limited to the books I’ve had the fortune of reading. The reviews have a slight bias towards tech startups — however most the books reviewed apply to all business types. If you have any comments on the reviews or categorisation then please get in touch!

If you have any good books or online resources to share then post them in the comments.

Review approach

The reviews have been divided into three fundamental stages of a startup — idea conception, product development and launch and growth. The reviews have been ordered from top to bottom where the most useful books are at the top of each section — If you have limited time then just try reading a few books from the top of each section.

Category
Each book has been given one of the following categories to highlight which area of a startup would benefit from the information. The categories include:

• Business, management and leadership — Personal development has been included in this category.
• Product development
• Investment and finance
• Marketing and growth
• Recruitment

Usefulness rating
All books mentioned in this resource are great reads for any founder. However, founder time is precious and to account for this each book has been rated against how useful the information is to a founder. Usefulness is determined as information that can be practically applied to a startup that improves company progression or aids in minimising mistakes.

• Must read — These books are an essential to any founders arsenal. They offer highly transferable information that will directly impact on how you think about and run your startup.
• Should read — These books provide transferable information however it can usually only be applied more indirectly. Example topic areas are personal development or books with more general advice. Any founder would benefit from finding time to read these books.
• Could read — These books provide interesting information to any founder, although the information may not be easy to directly apply to your startup or has information less useful than other books. These books are perfect for when you have some spare time or just love reading good content.

Book summary
Each book has been given a brief summary encapsulating what it’s about, how it will benefit the founder and, if relevant, who should be reading it.

Idea conception

Founder focus: proof of concept, team building, product development preparation

Noteworthy resources
Understanding startup strategy types
Equity distribution
Y-Combinator advice

Eric Ries
Product development

Must read
The lean startup provides an approach to product development that minimises wasted resources and places learning at the forefront of everything you do. Five principles are established, and consist of entrepreneurs are everywhere, entrepreneurship is management, validated learning, build-measure-learn and innovation accounting. Arguably one of the most prominent of these principles is validated learning — a company’s success is determined by its ability to most efficiently learn how to build a sustainable business by running frequent experiments. The lean startup will help founders spend the least amount of resources on finding answers that your startup needs before you can move forward. The lean startup approach can be applied to any aspect of the business (not just product development!). Any founder will benefit from reading and applying the principles from this book.

Geoff Smart and Randy Street
Recruitment

Must read
When founding your startup a common mistake is to focus on the what rather than the who. The book Who addresses the importance of who you work with, how costly a single hiring mistake can be and a methodical approach to identifying and recruiting talented people (or as they describe ‘A player’s’). Four main steps to recruitment are addressed — producing a scorecard, sourcing, selecting and finally selling. For any founder still looking for another founder to join their startup or a business founder that’s new to recruitment this book is a must read. A key takeaway piece of advice from this book is if you’re in anyway hesitant about a hire decision, say no.

The 4-hour work week

Tim Ferriss
Business, management and leadership

Should read
Both your personal and business life can be drastically improved by The 4-hour work week. Over the course of the book Tim shares his initial struggles with the 9 to 5 grind before starting his own business. Over time he incrementally make himself and the business more efficient to the point he can achieve, you guessed it, a four hour work week. Using some of the pragmatic lessons described anyone can benefit from this to define and realise their own goals — whether that’s working abroad or just minimising the amount of days you work. Any founder will benefit from the book if they want to improve their own time management and focus. Ultimately, the more hectic you find your life the more you will benefit from this read.

How to win friends and influence people

Dale Carnegie
Business, management and leadership

Should read
How to win friends and influence people presents 30 different principles to help you improve how you handle and treat people, win people to your way of thinking and also change people without giving offence or arousing resentment. Each principles is accompanied with great anecdotes making the information highly engaging and easily transferable to how you deal with your social situations. Naturally, this book is great for any founders who deal with people on a regular basis.

The art of happiness

Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler
Business, management and leadership

Should read
This may single handedly be the most important book you’ll ever read if you’ve never tried meditating. Startups provide one of the most intense emotional rollercoasters life can offer. Experienced entrepreneurs know it’s essential to keep a level head day to day. Although allowing your startup’s mistakes and failures to not influence your happiness is extremely difficult. One notable anecdote from this book explores how you can often find homeless people that are far more satisfied with their lives than a comparative wealthy individual. Why? Well, one is living in the present, gaining their happiness internally. The other gains their happiness externally from their surroundings — resulting in happiness that is determined by what they can’t control. This information is useful for any founder and can help you in every form of life whether that’s improving your concentration, listening skills or how effectively you can control your emotions. Search for your favourite influencers on whether they meditate — you’ll be surprised how many do.

Zero to one

Peter Thiel
Business, management and leadership

Should read
Creating new innovations, rather than copying things that work, is what takes us from zero to one in this concise read about building for the future. One great distinction made early in this book is the massive difference between perfect competition and a monopoly. Perfect competition happens when companies compete in the same market, resulting in a focus on margins and a struggle for survival. In contrast, a monopoly company doesn’t have this concern and can focus on innovation — benefiting everyone. Zero to one is a great resource for founders that want to elicit long term thinking and strategy.

Entrepreneur revolution

Daniel Priestley
Business, management and leadership

Could read
Technology has changed society drastically over the last century providing new and more diverse opportunities for new businesses. Daniel encapsulates this change detailing why you should not miss out on the new ‘global small business’ opportunities available in the entrepreneur revolution. This book is a great motivator to get any aspiring founder into taking action yet also offers some great advice on customer development and how to approach your own business.

Product development

Founder focus: minimum viable product (MVP), marketing and growth planning

Noteworthy resources
Growth tools

Contagious

Jonah Berger
Marketing and growth

Should read
Word of mouth is arguably the holy grail of effective marketing, but it’s often one of the hardest things to generate for your startup. Why do some pieces of content and products go viral where others get unmentioned? Contagious helps answer this question and offers 6 principles (Social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value and stories) that influence why something is talked about with real life examples. Any founder working on marketing and growth can apply this short book to produce better results for generating word of mouth.

Hooked

Nir Eyal
Product development

Should read
Whether making a coffee, browsing Facebook or shopping for some new clothes — Habits play a major role in how we carry out our daily tasks without us even thinking. Turning your product into a habit forming one is what Hooked aims to deliver. The process established is the ‘Hook Model’ which takes your users through a loop consisting of a trigger, action, investment and finally a variable reward to start making a habit. The faster and more effective your product can repeatedly go through this process the more habit forming your product becomes. This information is vital for any founders that needs their product to be used on a frequent basis — such as a social network, fitness application or news site. If you’re interested in habits then another great read on the subject is The power of habit by Charles Duhigg.

Oversubscribed

Daniel Priestley
Marketing and growth

Could read
Having too many customers is a dream for any startup, and this dream is one that Oversubscribed believes is achievable. Principles for becoming oversubscribed is detailed in the first half of the book with a notable focus on the market, product differentiation and customer development. Following this a great bit of advice on campaign driven marketing. Whether you’re doing an event, releasing a new feature or raising awareness to anything in your startup, campaign driven marketing offers a great way to make the most out of your marketing efforts. Startups can continually improve their campaigns by using robust planning before and then analysis afterwards. Any founder focussed on customer development and understanding their market will benefit from this read.

Launch and growth

Founder focus: product market fit, analytics (conversion funnels and split A/B testing), seeking investment, recruitment plan

Noteworthy resources
Venture hacks bible
Investors list

Venture Deals: Be smarter than your lawyer and venture capitalist

Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
Investment and finance

Must read
Venture deals offers the perfect mix of general advice with facts about venture capital that prepares any inexperienced founder for the venture capital process. Two chapters cover the most important factors for founders in any venture capital deal — economics and control. In these chapters the vital terms are covered ranging from liquidation preferences, vesting, anti dilution, protective provisions and drag-along agreement terms (amongst others). For every legal term an example is given so you can familiarise yourself with what to expect. The book also covers all of the players involved in venture capital, the process of raising money, terms of the term sheet that aren’t as important for founders, how venture capital funds work and even some negotiation tactics to use when raising capital. Overall a combination of facts with great advice from venture capitalists and entrepreneurs makes this book an essential read for any founder. Founders will be comfortable walking into a venture negotiation after this read.

High output management

Andrew S. Grove
Business, management and leadership

Must read
Changing Intel from a memory to processor business is no easy task. When also considering Andrew was involved with the organisation turning into an international success it becomes obvious why this book has attained a legendary status. Each chapter is concise and informative managing to deliver complex principles in effortless explanations. A few example topic areas include how to increase managerial leverage to maximise the organisation’s output, the importance of different types of meetings including how they should be conducted, how to make decisions and avoid group decision problems, how large organisations are nearly always made up of both mission oriented and functional divisions and also when to use different modes of control for a given situation. High output management is simply a must read for any founder looking for management advice that they can instantly apply. This book is perfect for when a startup is beginning to pursue growth.

Bargaining for advantage

G. Richard Shell
Business, management and leadership

Should read
Bargaining for advantage turns negotiation into an easy to understand process that any founder can effectively apply to a startup’s negotiations. The book contains two main parts. The first half establishes six foundations (your bargaining style, your goals and expectations, authoritative standards and norms, relationships, the other party’s interests and leverage) that once combined make up an effective negotiation. The second half applies these foundation principles, presenting the process of a negotiation taking you from preparing a strategy through to closing and gaining commitment. The concise and effective process can be applied to any negotiation. Founders would find this book particularly useful when negotiating for investment or with other businesses (such as suppliers or service providers).

The hard thing about hard things

Ben Horowitz
Business, management and leadership

Should read
Ben Horowitz is no stranger to the problems endured within a startup and after surviving the dot com bubble he eventually took Opsware to a $1.6 billion exit sale to Hewlett-Packard. The hard thing about hard things summarises the hard lessons learnt over this period, detailing topics that are rarely talked about. A few examples include firing or demoting people, how and when to bring in executives, minimising politics and evaluating yourself as a CEO. When a startup is starting to pursue growth this book is a great read for any founder wanting to avoid the inevitable tricky situations ahead.

Mastering the VC game

Jeffrey Bussgang
Investment and finance

Could read
The venture capital world is thriving in response to the increasing number of startups. Mastering the VC game aims to make sure you understand both ends of the bargaining table. Important topics addressed are how a venture capital firm works under management, finding out how to pitch your startup and also an overview of the intricacies of a single deal. Venture Deals (which was reviewed above) is recommended if you are only looking for a single book to cover your venture capital needs. Although as a casual read this book still has useful information.

The 48 laws of power