Be Like Rahul Dravid: 7 Tips by Action Man Suniel Shetty To Follow Actor, producer and businessman Suniel Shetty put up a post on LinkedIn stating his views on the recent layoffs by Edtech colossus Byju's.
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Actor, producer and businessman Suniel Shetty put up a post on LinkedIn stating his views on the recent layoffs by Edtech colossus Byju's.
Ironically, the most recent statement from the company on Monday stated that it had raised funds worth $250 million from its current investors. Last week, they had announced that they have a plan to become profitable by March 2023, which in turn shall lead to the laying off of 5 per cent of their employees, which is 2,500 people. After months of delay, Byju's had released their financial statements according to which they had booked a loss of 4588 crore INR for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021.
Without mentioning Byju's, Suniel Shetty started his post by saying, "A recent article about a company laying off 2500 of its employees, was a tough one to swallow. Times 4, that's 10000 lives affected. I'd like to think that this wasn't an easy decision to make. Praying that the impacted ones are able to get back on their feet at the earliest."
He followed that up by saying, "While valuations and fund raising activity saw a sharp rise over the last few years, it is now clear that of late the global sentiment has turned somewhat conservative." Shetty then laid out a few rules that companies should live by in the current scenario. He said that he continues to believe in the India story, with there being a lot of scope for good business and growth, even though the rate has slowed down.
Here are the seven principles that he outlined in his post that early stage, small and mid-size businesses should follow in these unreliable times:
1. Stay alive- assuming no one can predict how bad the global slowdown will get, plan for the worst. If you're not seeing growth, switch to a survival mindset. Even if it means just hitting salaries and basic profits. The opportunities will return, if you stay alive.
2. Find your course - it's easy to be pressured into a direction based on what we see around us. Because X company did it a certain way, raised money, grew at a certain rate, or hired 30 folks, doesn't mean it needs to be your journey too. Identify a pace that suits your story. Don't be in a rush to scale.
3. Don't worry about the uni/sooni/mini-corn status - It's scary when every other startup you come across claims it's going to be a unicorn in 3 years. Don't let that be the goal. Apple, Google, Disney etc were focussed on doing what they did, really well. Just build a solid business, valuations will follow.
Most importantly, switch to the bootstrapping mindset.
4. Rely on your cash flow to fund growth. Find ways to optimise cash flow. Investing more than you earn, on growth, or over leveraging is a bet that could wait.
5. Focus on profitability. Long term growth can come from reinvesting profits. That's how we ran our restaurants. Profits & savings from one, were put into building the next.
6. Prioritise customers. Imagine the delight of a customer when the team of a startup he decided to buy from, is genuinely interested in taking & adapting the feedback he might have to offer?
7. Think long term. Think sprint vs marathon. Think Rahul Dravid. Stable and slow is just as great.
