My Experiences While Bootstrapping a Startup in India

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become” – Steve Jobs

It is now close to 3 years since I started my entrepreneurial journey and it has been a very fulfilling experience so far. I am by no means an expert in giving professional advice to budding entrepreneurs, but would just want to share some of my experiences so far:

• People – This comes first. Hire the best people. We learnt this lesson the hard way that - “DO NOT”compromise on the quality of people. Yes! good employees come at a very high cost that one can afford (especially in the initial days), so look for people who can work on contract (Hire them as vendors on project basis). Though you might have negligible savings initially due to high resource cost – Let it be. Delivering good quality will help to build the client base. It is absolutely true that “Quality delivery is the best sales one can do!”
• Financials – Cash reserve is like oxygen, expect only 50% of your due payments to come on time. Payment delays can happen with even the best of the clients. Plan expenses/investments based on 50% realization of payments. Adopt strategies like billing clients some percentage of invoice at the time of delivery and not just on signoff. In case of a long project, make your invoice milestone based, in such a way that it enables you to raise invoice on a monthly basis and the cash flows are intact.
• Fixed Cost/Office Location – Decide office location keeping the employees and fixed cost in mind – We decided to have office in south Delhi instead of Gurgaon and Noida. Though the look of office building is not very contemporary from outside, it has the these advantages:
• Comparatively less commute time than Gurgaon/Noida and easily accessible to everyone staying in Delhi NCR
• Walkable distance from the metro station (No need of providing daily cabs)
• Low maintenance cost due to less power disruptions in Delhi
• Facilities like Power backup are available at a cheap cost
• Non-Core/Supporting Functions – Hire the Accounting/HR/IT/Legal people as consultants instead of full time employees. While setting up companies abroad you can also use services of companies (lot of them available online) that work as consultants (they provide quality services at a very reasonable rate)

Well! These were just a few points that came to mind on thinking of my entrepreneual journey so far. There is still a lot to learn:-) In case you have any questions, need any support, or would like to share something please feel free to write to me at Saurabh.kathuria@infonativesolutions.com