Two Years of (living) ON PURPOSE.

Rich, messy and more than I ever imagined. I’ve been a salaried employee for all my 20-year long career, except for the last two. I enjoyed the exposure, learning and networking that comes with working with global brands as well as the experience of working with smaller, nimbler, agile outfits and being part of their growth story. Nothing though, even a business school, prepares you for the buck-stopping experience of running your own firm.

Here are five lessons from my second year as an entrepreneur that may be useful to others considering making a switch from employee to employer.

1.      Pick something that moves you: Viscerally. It’s ok if it goes beyond conventional wisdom of not having a real market value. A market-based offer makes you dependent on external factors for success. An articulation of what moves you as an individual, keeps the focus internal – the place we’ll go to when nothing else works, where we find our deepest strength, to take the knocks and rise again. It needs to be deep enough to come through when you’re caught in the pit asking yourself ‘why am I doing this again?’ – sometimes, every day.

 “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman

 Purpose comes from a place of privilege. I’ve had the good fortune of working with and learning from some of the very best teams in the PR business, globally and in India. If we get anywhere near to fulfilling our mission of using the power of communications to drive social change and if our team feel like they’re making a difference, no matter how small, we’ll consider that success.

2.      Meet people and explore possibilities: Several of our first clients came from conversations with people where we were clear about what we wanted to do. Not every conversation was meant for business conversion – with some I asked for advice, with others for referrals to people who would be interested in what we could do, and some others to understand their challenges and what would solve them. It helped shape our proposition, build our network of friends and advisors and helped take decisive action on ‘organisational fits’ to pursue.

Similarly, not all our employees started as full timers. Our first employee, Srishti Sharma and I had worked together previously, so we had something in common. She showed real courage by joining ON PURPOSE when we had little to show but a vision for what we wanted to achieve. Dhun Chhokar was referred to me by another ex-colleague. She and I have worked together the longest at ON PURPOSE. She started as a freelancer, working remotely and later joined us full time. I’m grateful to both for bringing their deepest selves to work every day. We are transforming ourselves, growing and learning by the act of creating something together, that none of us could create alone.

3.      Build your own tribe but write job descriptions when you must: I didn’t start in the communications industry. I had studied and worked as a hotelier for 8 years before making the switch to public relations 14 years ago. For several years, I struggled with imposter syndrome wondering when someone in my office was going to walk up to me and ask me what exactly I was doing. It’s taken me over a decade in the industry to feel comfortable calling myself a public relations practitioner. I have many people to thank for this. People who gave me space to find my feet, helped identify my strengths and others who were brutally honest about what was holding me back. 

 At ON PURPOSE, we’re welcoming of people from diverse backgrounds. A job description, however fluid it may seem in a start-up environment, helps manage expectations for both parties. We’ve learnt this the hard way with mismatched expectations with some and will continue improving how we hire people - balancing passion with skillset, flexibility with accountability and ambitions with career paths. Thank you to Bhavika, Shyam, Piyush, Aastha, Samvit, Shikha, Supriya Balasundaram and Supriya Jain for bringing your whole selves to work and being open to working on diverse and challenging briefs – with and without job descriptions. And for insisting on more clarity on roles so we’re able to align expectations and career paths.  

 4.      Everyone is hands-on: Even senior hires and consultants. As a bootstrapped start-up, our clients get the senior-most counsel within the firm. We’re privileged to have Meera Krishnan, with more than 25 years of experience working on some of our most challenging briefs as a Consulting Partner. Meera and I go back 15 years – she’s responsible for making my first brush with the PR industry an inspiring one. Today, she is one of the most hands-on practitioners I know, with a no-nonsense attitude we can all learn from.

Diksha Sethi, Head of Strategy, is one of the sharpest, most hard-working professionals I’ve had the pleasure of working with, now for more almost five years. With more than 12 years’ experience in building brands online, Diksha leads our capacity building work with clients and is also responsible for upskilling our team with the wonders and mysteries of the internet enabled platforms we spend so much of our lives in.

The team at Culturro – led from the front by Riti Srivastava and supported by Shiwangi and Ashish have laid the foundation of our team development process. We invested time and expertise to ensure we’re building a sustainable business, one where people can learn, grow and fulfil their career aspirations. Culturro takes care of every little detail of our recruitment, induction, learning and development and appraisal process. They take as much of the heat of our business cycles and my personal shortcomings as a leader as everyone else in the team. Proper troopers.

5.      Patience is key, urgency keeps us relevant: I often use the urgency argument to justify my impatience. Impatience towards clients not sharing proper briefs, keeping to meeting times or dismissing requests for payment on time with casual candour. I also have very little patience for our own part in not delivering on an agreed timeline without informing or requesting for more time. I’m realising though – more and more, that it’s a conditioning that comes from wanting to control an outcome. It’s a journey of self-awareness and I think I’m a work-in-progress. Getting the balance right between patience and a sense of urgency is an area of growth for all of us at ON PURPOSE, especially for me.

It wouldn’t be fair for us to close this post without a thank you to some key stakeholders who’ve been part of our two-year journey. It takes a whole village, as they say, to bring up a start-up:

Clients: The brave and welcoming 30 plus organisations who’ve taken a chance with us including Sesame Workshop India, Gates Foundation (via Scope), USAID, KPMG, Asian Development Bank, Smart Power India (Rockefeller Foundation subsidiary), Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, Cisco, Ola, ReNew Power, World Wildlife Fund, The government of British Columbia (via Citizen Relations), Raza Foundation, Mac Arthur Foundation, the Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy, Kaiterra, National AIDS Control Organisation, Swasti, Baghirathi Group, Breakthrough, Central Square Foundation and SourceTrace.

Industry publications and alliances: For the support and recognition. We wouldn’t have dreamed of becoming Fulcrum Awards’, Emerging Consultancy of the Year without the industry taking a bold stand on giving the award to a fledgling start-up with much bigger contenders in the same category. Thank you, we’ve been inspired to work even harder to be worthy of it.

Friends of ON PURPOSE: You know who you are. For every coffee, email, whatsapp, text, like, retweet and comment of encouragement. It pushes us forward.

Finally, our families. Working with a start-up is choosing to live a life of adventure and passion that comes with its own anxieties and is anything but controllable and predictable. None of us could possibly do it without an active support system. We’re grateful for ours.

That’s it folks. Thank you for reading. Feel free to share feedback, tips or suggestions from your own experience that may be useful for us and others to learn from. Or just say hello, we’ll reply with a smile 😊

Want to see growth? Read what we’d said after our first year here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-lessons-from-my-first-year-entrepreneur-public-balachandran/

Can’t get enough? Go to: www.onpurposeconsulting.in

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