It’s been a roller-coaster of a journey being a bootstrapped food entrepreneur in a segment which is on its own journey towards being accepted by the masses.
In 2015, when I set forward on this journey, it was all about Junoon (passion). I was on a mission to change the way we think and consume food in the modern times.
During these 6 years, while I have been building an organization, I have gotten a chance to speak with numerous people associated with food or farming - farmers, producers, policy makers, civil society, entrepreneurs & consumers. This has resulted in me getting a sense about where we really stand as a society, when it comes to food and food systems.
It’s been a fascinating journey and has taught me immensely about food, farming, our society and myself. And I wish to share 6 major learnings (honestly 6 doesn’t justify all that I have learnt) as an entrepreneur during these 6+ years –
In-depth understanding about the sector is very important
Focusing on your mission takes care of the economics
Being honest with every stakeholder
Being Focused in your approach
Accounting and legal discipline is of utmost importance
Defining your approach towards growth
1. In-depth understanding about your sector
Being an entrepreneur in a space like the organic food space comes with responsibility. If you’re in this just for a lucrative business opportunity – you’re in the wrong space. While building an organization in this space it’s important to understand organic food, its reality and to define why we are really a part of this space.
Once we are clear about our why is what is required in an in-depth study –
- Perspectives of stakeholders
- Field visits to see how organic farming and its effects are different than conventional farming
- Understanding the fact that organic farming is not just about productivity
- Consuming the produce ourselves, regularly.
- Looking up various facts and numbers shared by governmental and non-governmental organizations.
This effort in knowing where we get our food from, how exactly is it grown and why is it the right produce to share with consumers is a must.
2. Focusing on your mission
While most of us get into business for a simple and uncomplicated reason to make money, is it just about money?
This leads us to a question each of us needs to answer for ourselves – “What is money?”
How I see it is that money is one of the RESULTS for all that you do while running the business.
If our focus is our MISSION and we move closer to achieving our mission – as a result, money will surely flow in. But if the focus is money, it might or might not help us move closer to our mission and eventually the money might not flow in either.
For me – “I wake up each day to inspire people to rediscover their food habits, rooted in tradition and nutrition”.
3. Being honest with every stakeholder
Honesty is the most important virtue of being an entrepreneur. May it be your customers, suppliers, employees, any other stakeholder or yourself – you need to be honest about every single thing.
Businesses are built and destroyed based on this single virtue.
There was a time when I was facing a major liquidity problem with my business and I couldn’t pay back some of my suppliers on time. All I did was be honest about it to the couple of suppliers I hadn’t paid back on time and you’d be surprised to know that they supported with open hearts. It’s about being honest and having that conversation.
Similarly, with consumers – especially in the food industry, it’s of utmost importance that we share everything about the ingredients and processes with our consumers, with honesty. Then it is up to them to decide whether it something they wish to consume.
For me, being honest has always paid off in the medium to long term.
4. Being Focused in your approach
Focus is everything. I’ve been guilty of spreading too thin when it comes to doing things myself or as an organization. And all it did was slow down the process.
As an entrepreneur you’ll feel the need to do many things at the same time, but it’s absolutely important to be cognizant of the fact that you have a particular set of resources and things need to function in sync with that.
Also, when it comes to strategy or product launches or trying out new things – we need to curb the urge of doing everything that seems interesting or lucrative. Yes, it might be – but the mantra has to be “everything can happen in due time”
I recently started reading about OKR’s (Objectives and Key Results), made famous by the success of Google and this can be a great guiding model to create efficiency in a very focused manner.
5. Accounting and legal discipline is of utmost importance
In India, many entrepreneurs find accounting and legal requirements to be something we can figure out on the way.
For me, when my organization started to grow and we didn’t have enough hands, the 1st thing that went on the back-burner was legal and accounting discipline. While the business kept growing, there is always a threshold to growing without having your accounting books and legal papers in place.
Also, putting all the backlog together can be task while the penalties and fines can be a dampener for business cash-flows and profitability.
More than all of this, not having these in place can lead to missing new business opportunities or create mistrust with your current customers as well (especially in the B2B space).
So, this might seem like an extra effort or usage of resources – but is absolutely essential.
6. Defining your approach towards growth
An entrepreneurial journey is about growth. If there is no growth, there needs to be introspection. But your approach towards growth is at your discretion. You would ask why is it so important that it’s part of my top 6 learnings?
As per what I have experienced, defining your approach towards growth provides that clarity in your own head as well in the minds of every other stakeholder – especially your team.
It gives you the space to go deeper and focus on execution, while reducing all the external noise. Building a business with a solid base while solving a large problem needs space and focus on doing while there could be some businesses that need to work at lightning speed or they could become irrelevant.
Whatever may be your business and the approach that it you wish to have – Define it.
So here are my 6 major learnings during these 6+ years as an entrepreneur in the organic space. Some of these have slowed me down at times while others have expedited my process – but these have all helped me reach where I stand today – a person proud of what I have learnt but with lots of miles yet to cover.
Beautiful -Shankar