The past couple of years have witnessed a lot of start-ups rise and shine, and then there were others who witnessed a deep decline. Many of them even shut shop. Here’s a quick account of our story — a journey that started from a dingy,…

Startups fail at an alarming rate of 92%. Very rarely, it is because of a bad idea. In fact, most startup ideas are brilliant and very connected to the problem they are looking to solve. They fail due to bad execution, which is a result…

A few weeks back, I was invited to a collaborative talk on building lean startups that are self-sustainable and independent of investor funding.   I took this as an opportunity to reflect on Exotel’s journey that started from a dingy, windowless room. At the time,…

Everyone thrives on being productive. For startups, being productive or not can be the difference between being alive or not. Startups experience unique constraints in terms of time, talent, resources and money. The combination of these constraints makes them productive in creative ways. There are…

A couple of weeks back, I logged into Amazon, the giant e-tailer and looked up a few options for a swimsuit that I planned to buy. It was meant to be a casual browsing session and all I wanted to do was to know what…

No entrepreneur begins their journey with the hope to become another statistic in the numbers game. Yet, 90% of all startups fail. About half of them fail in the first year. We all hear about the 1 great success story, but the other 9 are…

Most of us want to do our jobs well. We want meaningful jobs, greater security, higher status, bigger pay packages and a brighter future. This expectation is valid irrespective of the type of industry or organization one works in. The one place I particularly find…

Take a minute with me here. What is the word or phrase that pops into your head when I say the word balance. Chances are you associated it with the now ubiquitous phrase: work-life balance. This phrase has attained universal relevance. There is no business…

Harbouring an idea in your head is one thing. Taking the leap of faith to execute, nurture and grow the idea is an entirely different ball game. It calls for a tribe of people that we call Entrepreneurs. Fortunately, this breed is on the rise….

As of April 20th, 2016, Exotel is four years and 10 months old as an organisation. In the start-up investor jargon, Exotel is a VC-funded, high-growth start-up. Our home-grown on-demand cloud telephony services, powers over 1000 businesses of all sizes and shapes. Now, if that’s…