Sanjeev
and Hari
Track Timing
-
Journey and transitions till date (02:58) |
Three rhythms of a scale up (20:02) |
Being deliberate about culture building (28:06) |
Getting senior leader transitions right (35:34) |
Intellect and clarity of thought - correlated? (47:39) |
Founder development and role of coaching (52:18) |
Founder CEO or Professional CEO? (01:02:08) |
Co-Authors
Sanjeev Aggarwal and Hari TN have seen the "scale-up movie” in different contexts. Sanjeev was the Founder CEO of Daksh that he eventually sold to IBM. He is now an investor at Helion Ventures and Fundamentum Partnership. The have recently co-authored the book - From Pony to Unicorn - Scaling a Start-up sustainably. From Pony to Unicorn lucidly describes the X-to-10X journey that every start-up aspiring to become a unicorn has to go through. The book effortlessly narrates the fundamental principles behind scaling. Peppered with anecdotes, insights and practical wisdom, the book is a treasure trove of lessons derived from the authors' rich personal experiences in both building and guiding several start-ups that went on to attain the 'unicorn' status and became public-listed companies.
In the conversation, we speak about how Founders should think about scaling up, the three different rhythms of an organization that is scaling up, how organizations should think about transitioning senior leaders, being deliberate about culture building and more.
Published in March 2021.
Nuggets from the
Conversation
Journey and transitions till date
Sanjeev and Hari speak about their respective journeys and talk about how they transitioned from one orbit to another. Sanjeev speaks about his journey from the corporate world to entrepreneurship at Daksh to investing in Helion and Fundamentum. Hari speaks about his journey from engineering in Tata Steel to how he serendipitously ended up at Daksh and how that has taken him to head HR at Bigbasket and on a wider note, engage with the start-up ecosystem.
Three rhythms of a scale up
Sanjeev speaks about the three rhythms with which organizations often need to operate – growth, efficiency and foundation. He mentions that the first comes naturally to entrepreneurs and what differentiates the great founders from the average ones is their ability to walk that three-dimensional tight rope. He also goes on to speak about the power of complementarity in the leadership team that can enable these three rhythms.
Being deliberate about culture building
Sanjeev and Hari speak about how entrepreneurs can get intentional about building a certain culture in an organization. They speak about the role of the founder initially but also the criticality of having processes, systems and role-models as the organization scales.
Getting senior leader transitions right
Hari and Sanjeev speak about how start-ups can be thoughtful about getting senior leadership transitions right. They speak about what organizations can do at the stage of hiring and what they can do at the time of the leaders transitioning in.
Intellect and clarity of thought - correlated?
We often get confused with the notion of intellect and thinking clearly. Hari shares his perspectives here. He also speaks about how laziness might be a preferred attribute with founders as being busy could lead founders spending time and getting caught up with the wrong things.
Founder development and role of coaching
Hari and Sanjeev share their perspectives around how founders can think about improving their self-awareness. They also speak about the effectiveness of Coaching in gathering nuanced feedback and helping founders and the leadership teams scale up.
Founder CEO or Professional CEO?
Sanjeev speaks about how he thinks about Professional CEOs and Founder CEOs and speaks about why it is so hard to get the transition right. He also shares his take on what is the one thing he looks for while betting behind founders.
