Keeping up with Gaurav

I would like to introduce myself as an Entrepreneur, albeit a struggling one. I am still looking for that event that will change from struggling to “not struggling” or on the way to a “successful” one. It may be fundraising, or maybe a $10 M Revenue run rate, or maybe profitability, or maybe even sponsorship of IPL.

And that topic gets me back to Gaurav. Who is Gaurav?

Don’t you know?

You are asking me, whether I know who is Gaurav? Yes, I do.

He has been in the news and articles of many a VC. One of them is one who I call a “breathless writer” because that is how his writing style is. I hold my breath when I am reading his articles. One of those articles said that Gaurav has someone who reads articles and summarizes them for him. How cool I thought, this is certainly on the “bucket” list now. Until I reach that stage, I use the free text to voice plug-ins, but it feels so cheap.

Another thing I read out about him was his directive to his teams. Wipe the competition off the map, hire anyone you need from the competition, and pay 10x more salary than they get there. Okay, 10x is a number I added, his directive may have been much more. I decided to use this tactic with my team. I wanted to give them the same directive, but received a wake-up call from my finance team — “Sir, how do you plan to pay salaries this month”? I said obviously from the bank account, to which my finance person replied, filmy style, “Show me the money”. As there were more urgent issues to tackle, I didn’t discuss the new strategy with my team but decided to store this strategy for later use.

Gaurav also uses a private jet to commute between cities to save time, each hour of his time is worth a few hundred thousand dollars it seems. I broached this topic with my board. I know our limitations, I didn’t propose a private jet, but asked “Can I travel by air?” The response shook me a bit. “Do you work at night?” they asked? I said “No”. Then “Travel by Night Bus” was their response, you can go by the AC one they added helpfully. I would like to confess that the “shake” of these buses as they are traveling on our roads at the night gives me a great sleep. My team member who I traveled with the last time said that I slept like a “shaking” log the whole 12-hour journey. So, this private jet thing is one more bucket list entry item.

I also heard that Gaurav uses a chauffeur-driven car. I broached this question to my board again. I can work the whole way from home to meetings. Anyway, I can get this perk? One of the members who regularly greets me in the parking lot ahead of board meetings asked, “But, Giri you travel by scooter right? What’s the use of a chauffeur? Do you want to ride a pillion? I haven’t seen anyone work well on a laptop while riding pillion on a scooter” basically closed that matter. Another bucket list entry for some time later.

You know Gaurav checks into a 5-star hotel regularly for blue-sky thinking and strategizing. Maybe this is what moved the need to be “successful”. Thinking of all the responses from the board, decided to adopt a different tack. I said, “I need some time on my own for blue-sky thinking, was thinking of going offsite, away from home, etc.”. Somehow, I seem to be unprepared for the responses I get. They said, “Nobody is attending the office right now, as everyone is working from home. You should feel free to be the only person attending the office, it will keep you away from home and also offsite from your home office. I heard you can get Tea delivered regularly too”. The bucket list seems to be just growing.

As I keep finding my way, I will surely find some nuggets from “successful” entrepreneurs that I can adapt and go from “struggling” to “successful”.

Until then…