The Fishermen were driven out of their market, depriving them of their livelihoods. Mumbai Police couldn’t gain control of the growing crime, and soon Lalbaug became a petri dish for nefarious activities. People feared entering Lalbaug.

As a last resort, the fishermen community prayed to Ganpati and wished for a miracle. In return, they promised they’d honor him.

Over the next two years, crime disappeared without Police intervention, and finally in 1934 the fishermen’s market opened again. Fishermen got their rooms back and business flourished.

Fishermen (known as Koli) started looking for someone who could build a Ganpati Murti. They wanted the Ganesh murti to look like a fisherman.

Madhusudan Kambli a sculptor, residing in the nearby Chinchpokli area took on that challenge and created the first Lalbaug cha Ganpati in 1934. His son Ratnakar Kambli started shaping the murti in 2002. As we speak, almost 91 years later, Santosh Kambli, the grandson, runs Kambli Arts.

Lalbaug cha Raja, lovingly known as Raja in Mumbai tells an amazing lore.

Sometime in early 2016, I received a picture of an extremely good looking and divine Ganpati over WhatsApp. At the bottom of the picture read Lalbaug Cha Raja. I was taken in by Raja’s charm — he was dashing, charming, handsome. To me, he was the “one and only.”

Later that year, while visiting my parents during Ganpati, I shared my desire to see Lalbaug cha Raja to my mother. My parents didn’t believe me, and said everyday 30–40 thousand people visit Lalbaug and getting an up close darshan was not worth the hassle. But I insisted, and over the next few days, I called several people to see who could take me to Bappa’s feet.

On the morning of Sept 8th, 2016 a stranger living in Lalbaug who was referred to me by a friend’s friend called me and said to show up at the entrance of Lalbaug Mandal at 2 pm.

We met as planned. He began rushing me through some very small lanes around the perimeter of the mandal.

He said “We are going through Peru Chawl, Raja navasacha Ganpati ahe!”

Soon we reached a spot that appeared like a massive pandal that was covered in blue cloth. At one corner was a waist-high opening, guarded by a Mandal volunteer. Several people were trying to sneak in through the entry point, but the volunteer was scooping them out rather roughly.

The stranger friend looked at the volunteer and said “Aapla manus ahe” and shoved me inside the pandal. I looked back but he had disappeared. I never saw him again.

I turned to the inside of the pandal, and found myself in a special line that would take me directly to Raja’s feet. I was literally 50 ft away (see pic) — he was every bit Raja like — utterly magnetic.

I went back to the US with a burning desire to bring Raja home. Not just any murti, but an exact replica of Raja. I had no idea who made the murti, and how to even go about it. I just had a dream.

Seven years from that date, on Sept 10th 2023, at around 6 pm in the evening, I stood next to Santosh Kambli (see pic) taking charge of the one and only Raja.

Raja was going to America with me on an Air France flight that same evening. When I reached Mumbai airport, I told Air France that I’d pay any sum of money to get this oversized custom built aluminum container safely to the US. Air France escorted me and the container through a special baggage check in at the underground level at Mumbai airport. They even waived off the baggage fees. I realized I was actually traveling with the vignaharta himself.

After I reached home in Atlanta, I called my mother and told her everything that had happened. She couldn’t believe I had pulled off something massive as this. She cried tears of joy. She knew I’d made this as my only ambition in life. On September 19, 2023, I began Ganpati Puja at my house in Atlanta, and performed puja on a small eco friendly ganpati that I placed in front of Raja’s Murti.

The same evening, my sister called me to inform that our mother had died. I flew back mid Ganpati to India to cremate her. I’ve never experienced happiness followed by such immense grief in a 24 hour period ever in my life. My dream was fulfilled, but my idol was gone.

Getting Raja home has been “the finest hour” of my life. The Kambli family are celebrities in Mumbai. Ratnakar Kambli, Santosh’s father has only one job. Once the murti is ready, he climbs up the 20 ft ladder and paints Raja’s eyes. I suggest you check out the beautiful eyes of Raja. They’re mesmerizing. They own a patent on Raja’s murti.

Santosh is now like family, but when he and I first met, he was adamant that he was not going to make a replica. He didn’t know me at all and primarily cared for his and Raja’s reputation. But, we kept talking about Raja’s lore that afternoon in his workshop, and somewhere during the conversation, he had a change in heart. He said he would think it over but also said he was very worried that I was planning to take Raja to the US. He said the risk was on me and warned me that if anything ever went wrong in the process, I’d had to bear the repercussions of an angry deity.

The next day, Santosh called and said they’ll make the murti. I still remember his words on the phone.

“Over the last ten years, we’ve been approached by many influential, wealthy, and respected people to make Raja’s replica for their home, but we’ve always turned them down.”

He continued, “Just for this year, we voluntarily made a 20 ft replica murti for another devasthan, and then I’m doing the 2 ft murti just for you.”

I have the rare privilege of housing the third Raja — the only one outside of India in the whole world. May be in the years to come, a few more devotees may get their personal Raja made by the Kamblis, but until then, this distinction will always be mine. I can’t begin to tell you how heady that realization feels.

Earlier this year, Santosh met my wife in Mumbai and handed over special clothes for Raja. I can’t wait to drape him in the new clothes.

This 27th August, my family and I are celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi and Gauri pujan too. You’re all invited. Ganpati Bappa Morya!

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I entered the workforce in 1998, and my first decent-paying job was at Zee Telefilms, then considered India’s fastest-growing media company. Although Zee hired me in their HR department, my daily job was to chase Senior leaders on their delinquent time cards just in time before we ran the monthly payroll.

Back in the day, we maintained a timecard for every employee. The time card showed the days they were in office and any Privilege leave or Sick Leave. The HR department comprised a Deputy General Manager and a Payroll Manager, and a handful of Payroll and Compliance processors, who spoke loudly on the phone and talked in vernacular all the time as they worked. HR in a media company was an afterthought. Those in Sales and Marketing could easily override most HR policies. The culture was to fly by the “seat of our pants,” which meant working very long hours. Still, I began liking my job and its meager pay.

I became friends with a colleague who Zee had hired six months before me. In a very short time, he had gotten to know the people and culture of the organization. From Executive Assistants of Senior leaders, other employees knew him by his first name and occasionally stopped by to chit-chat with him during business hours. A few years later, it dawned on me that those who came to chit-chat with him were there mainly to check if payroll would process on time.

I began to associate more with this colleague and came to know him better. He was good at his work, connected very well with people, and also was very resourceful. As we began to share work, I noticed he was very much into technology trends and was “an early adopter” of new concepts. He was savvy about the internet, networking, printing, and also social networks. He had downloaded ICQ software on his computer, which was back then a new messaging software. Every now and then, ICQ would beep, and he would drop everything and care for the person who had messaged him. More often than not, it would be one of the female co-workers.

He also had reserved a computer at the back of the department from where he could access the internet. No one was allowed to touch that computer. He had literally grabbed it, but it came across that he had earned it. He would care for this computer more than his workstation. He had connected the printers to the computer. He ensured no one was misusing the computers, and the cords were not crisscrossing. He also dusted it frequently. In short, for anything related to tech, he was our go-to person.

Every evening when the payroll processors had left for the day, he would go to the department’s backroom and start accessing the dial-up from this computer. One day, I decided to stay after hours and join him in his past time.

Once everyone had left, he showed me what a dial-up connection was. I saw him double click on some icons and heard a strange noise as if we were connecting to aliens. After a long wait, he would exclaim, “Ha! it’s connected”. I was so naive on all this new tech that I simply joined him in his excitement.

Then he did something that changed my world. He opened a Netscape Web browser and typed www.Hotmail.com. I had no clue what he was doing, so I just kept looking. In a couple of minutes, I saw a web page with names of people and a subject line, all in bold.

I still didn’t get it, upon which he said that’s Hotmail, founded by Sabeer Bhatia. It’s a free email service that anyone can use to send emails to one another. An entirely new wave of tech vocabulary washed me away that evening, and with his help, I created my first email. But what remained the most in my memory that evening was the name of the Indian engineer Sabeer Bhatia who had built this service.

-2-

Sabeer Bhatia arrived in the United States to complete the last two years of his undergraduate degree from the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Later in 1989, he attended Stanford University and completed his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. According to Bhatia, the seeds of the big ideas were planted when companies such as Apple Computers and Sun Microsystems would visit Stanford and tell stories of how they’d made it big. Inspired by these stories, Bhatia started actively thinking of big ideas.

Although he was supposed to pursue a Ph.D. degree after his Masters, he decided to join Apple Computers as a hardware engineer. While working at Apple Computers, he befriended Jack Smith, who would later become his co-founder. Bored with the mundane work at Apple Computers, Bhatia and Smith joined a startup FirePower Systems, where they worked for two years on an exciting concept of a web-based database.

While they found their new work exciting, Bhatia and Smith were getting frustrated as their company’s firewall prevented them from communicating on their personal emails. Those days emails were configured on workstations and could only be accessed from that particular computer.

Smith reasoned that if they could access any website over the internet, they could also access their personal emails via the web. This would solve their problem and a large group of office-going individuals and other internet users who shared the same frustration.

About six months later, on July 4, 1996, Bhatia and Smith launched HotMail, a free web-based email service. Within an hour of its launch, they had 100 subscribers, and that number kept going up by the hour. By the end of the month, they had 20,000 subscribers, and within six months, Hotmail had little over a million subscribers. About a year later, Microsoft, who was struggling to build Microsoft Exchange, decided to buy Hotmail for a staggering $400 M.

Hotmail’s momentum continued. Their new memberships would frequently total more than 1 million per week, with about 150,000 daily active users. By the start of 1999, Hotmail had added 20 million new members. No email service in history had reached such a large size or added members so rapidly. With over 400 million subscribers of Outlook, Hotmail can be considered one of the most viral and highly accepted concepts ever launched.

-3-

Over the next few years, I gained experience in HR, pivoted to a career in ERP, and came to the United States in 2004. As I was going about my life and career, the phenomenon of twenty-year-old, unknown individuals starting software companies and then getting acquired for some staggering sums of money began to pick up serious momentum, especially in the Silicon Valley of California. Companies such as Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp, AirBnB, which are now familiar names, didn’t even exist until the mid to late 2000s, and within 5–10 years, they had become Unicorns.

Leading magazines, news media, startup incubators, and recognized conferences started inviting these young and famous entrepreneurs to learn from them. The sense of inspired feeling that Sabeer Bhatia felt while at Stanford was dawning on me.

I made a list of entrepreneurs I wanted to read more about. That list was long. Right at the top was Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, down to Whitney Wolfe, founder of Bumble. I launched a serious investigation into these insanely great success stories. From a consumer of their products and services, I became a student of their journey. And it started right back from Hotmail.

-4-

What made Hotmail so successful in such a record time? Among the many findings, my research pointed to one critical conclusion. Don’t just solve any problem, but solve the right problem elegantly. Let’s break this into two parts — the right problem and solving it elegantly.

In the case of Bhatia and Smith, initially, their problem was clearly personal but later became a proxy to millions of other people. One reason Hotmail became such a viral hit was that the most popular online activity around the globe was the regular use of email. A worldwide internet study conducted by Intelliquest Information Group said that about 80% of users on the internet were regularly using emails, which they saw as a critical communication tool over any internet-enabled PC. Clearly, Bhatia and Smith had their hands and mind on the right problem.

And how did they solve this right problem elegantly? The answer lay in the conversation with my colleague in 1998. Amazed at what I had just seen, I asked him how did he get access to Hotmail. He answered that it was pretty straightforward. He received a message in his inbox with the following words in the signature of that email “Get your free email at Hotmail” at the bottom. After clicking on the word Hotmail, he was taken to Hotmail’s home page, where the free email service was explained. Back in the nineties, most computer users paid for internet service, which included one email address. The fact that this email service could be accessed from anywhere, without any dependence on their home computer, at absolutely no cost, and was fast and reliable was the elegance factor that made Hotmail so viral and so successful.

I began to inquire more. Was Sabeer Bhatia a computer prodigy like Zuckerberg? No. He didn’t have a computer or knew any software programming language until his first job at Apple Computers. Did he have prior experience with startups? No. Did he know how to write a business plan, let alone pitch it to venture firm Draper, Fisher Jurvetson? No.

While I felt great about hacking, one of the fundamental premises for Hotmail’s success, I was getting impatient to find out if this applied to other startups as well. I also wanted to know if there were any other criteria such as intellect, prior experience, leadership skills, or past failures that contributed to the success of such unknown, first-time startup founders.

In my upcoming book, I will share the tangible and intangible aspects of some of the world’s most extraordinary modern-day startups and their founders. But before that — What is a startup?

If you’re a first-time star-up founder or share a passion for sharing knowledge about startups, please shoot me an email at nforcefeedback@gmail.com

Ref:

1. Kings of the Internet: What You Don’t Know About Them? By Mohammad Bahareth
2. Worldwide Internet Study — Intelliquest Information Group

With over 130 runs to score in 60 balls, you gotta rely on something from within and believe you can still win.

Every heroic story at some point has experienced a near death experience

Sam Curran’s 18th over almost nailed MI, but …

There is no genius in life, just a man and his discipline

Skyron’s post match interview — countless hours of carefully rehearsing solutions (shots) to all possible problems (balls) that could be thrown at you.

Sometimes you get lucky.

A perfect yorker chipping off Skyron’s bat between his feet to to the boundary in second ball of final over🤔

You don’t create high performing teams, you just put people in a crisis and high performing teams will emerge.

MI has an uncanny knack to come out on the top in crisis situations — defending two low score totals and winning one of the most breathtaking chase.

Just Pray, thank God.

How Covid-19 unknowingly created value and why focusing on value creation makes more sense than a New Year’s resolution.

All of us started 2020 not with a New Year’s resolution but with a scare of Covid-19. A couple of months into the year, we fully understood that coronavirus was real. From thereon, it occupied our lives, took away lives, displaced lives, and livelihoods. Just like you, I spent most of the year rueing about the cause and effect of this pandemic and praying for a significantly better 2021.

But as the year went by, I started seeing videos on WhatsApp and other social media apps of empty roads from all over the world on which birds and animals ventured freely. I saw videos of some of the busiest streets in my home city of Mumbai, where skies looked resplendent with shades of gray, blue, and red. I also saw a shift in Employers’ and businesses’ moods — focusing more on their employees’ mental health and well-being.

Technologies like Zoom, Teams, Skype reached a peak in demand and consequently sent these companies’ stocks soaring higher than ever. Best of all — immediate family members got an incredible amount of time together, and they did things together with whatever they had at their disposal.

Although our plans to travel the world, hit the gyms, study abroad, start new businesses vanished, for the first time, I silently began to like aspects of this pandemic. Unknowingly, Covid-19 created value. It made people embrace what was available, what matters the most, and focus on others. And for the first time, in my mind, I began to hypothesize if value creation makes more sense than the New Year resolution.

I think people make New Year resolutions mainly to minimize personal regrets or failures. If I lose weight, I would feel better and look more attractive. If I make more money, I could buy that car to impress the neighbors. Simply put, New Year resolutions are selfish.

Selfish things don’t sustain. That’s why six weeks into the new year, 62 percent give up on their resolutions. By the time the first quarter ends, 86 percent forget all about them.

On the other hand, value creation creates value not only for you but also for all those stakeholders that matter to you. But what exactly is value creation, how do you make it, and what are stakeholders.

Value creation is creating something out of nothing.

A candle burns itself to illuminate the area around it. A burning candle puts out darkness, relieves people, and assures kids. The candle is not becoming more; it’s becoming less. But you can see the value it’s creating for the people and place around it.

One day, earlier this year, when my 7-year-old asked me to play with him, instead of directing him back to his toys, I asked him to bring me a sheet of paper. From that sheet of paper, I created a paper airplane. His curiosity and happiness took a new flight. I suppose I created value in his life in those moments.

I think I am making my point here. Still, I’d like to share a more comprehensive model of creating value for you and your stakeholders. Let’s turn to the world of business and take a chapter from it.

As of Jan 2020, Bill Gates owns a mere 4.3% of Microsoft. Initially, both Bill Gates and Paul Allen shared equal ownership of the company. When Bill realized that he was working more hours and having a more significant impact on the company than Paul, he increased personal equity, leaving Paul with much lesser equity. Later in 1983, when Paul was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and couldn’t work with the same vigor as before, Bill reduced his equity furthermore.

Still, how did he end up with only 4.3% equity? Bill realized he needed to create value around his software. And to create value, he had to develop a business model. In this business model, he figured out how he would create and deliver value (money) to its different stakeholders, i.e., him/company, investors, customers, employees, vendors, other partners etc.

With every round of investor money, employee equity, partner and vendor equities, customer acquisition, he had to let go of his gigantic equity. In a way, he was functioning like a candle. In the end, he created enormous value for one and all and became the wealthiest person in the world.

If you survey the wealthiest entrepreneurs, a vast majority of them don’t hold more than 20% of their company’s equity. Warren Buffet owns somewhere around 18% of Berkshire Hathaway, still everyone knows how valuable he is to the world.

That brings us to the last segment of my opening thoughts for 2021. Knowing what we now know, could we abandon the idea of making new year resolutions and, instead taking a cue from Covid-19 and the business world, create a business model for our personal lives and drive value through it for its stakeholders? The answer is, Yes.

Here are three simple steps you can take to create and deliver value through your business model. I am taking the liberty to share how I did it for myself.

I). Design a business model for your personal life and identify your stakeholders

A business model does not always have to revolve around economics. Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, and even Google and Hotmail were founded on a business model of gathering users quickly. Monetization came much later.

Over time, for some of these companies, the initial business model changed — Google added advertisements to monetize and hired an experienced leader, Eric Schmidt, to boost investor confidence.

My business model for 2020 was about creating impact and influence. And my stakeholders were me, my Employer/Clients, my family, and my community, in that order.

II). Start by creating value for yourself

Just like every other year, 2021 will bring in 365 new days. Allocate a significant amount of days for your business model’s stakeholders, keeping a little for you. Let’s say you own 15% of the year for yourself.

That 15% is roughly 54 days. In a year, there are 52 weekends, which means 104 days. So 54 days is approximately one day of the weekend for you.

If 2020 was a typical year, and if I had asked you how did you spend one day of your weekend for the whole year, I am sure you’ll be searching for an answer. You did something, but you don’t recall. That’s because it wasn’t significant.

But now, with a 15% equity in the whole year or one day of the weekend, you have a choice to do something consistently just for you. Imagine what you can do with 54 days just for you — you could watch movies, read books, write your book, donate your time to community activities, learn about investing, write software, take up Yoga, or learn a new course. It can be anything as long as it just involves you.

I wrote a couple hundred words one day of the weekend for the whole year. As a result, the manuscript of my first book is ready. Now I am looking forward to editing it with 15% of the time from 2021. You see, I clearly remember what I did each weekend and what I’ll be doing in 2021.

What’s remarkable about this concept is that the lesser you keep for yourself, the sharper is the focus. Neither did I complain about lack of time, nor did I try to increase my equity. At times I had to give up on that one day of the weekend, but I got back on the horse again the next weekend.

III). Be intentional about who your stakeholders are and how you will create value for them

My stakeholders comprised my employer, family, and my community, in that order. And because I focused on my stakeholders, I didn’t have space or time for Meetups, hiking groups, making new friends, or mingling with like-minded people at religious associations.

Here’s how I created value for each of my stakeholders.

a.) Value for my Employer: Right off the bat, I stopped complaining about Monday or the long hours. Instead, I began to see my work as a privilege and a unique chance to create value for my clients. With this changed mindset, I went all-in to solve my client’s priority problems. I delivered outstanding results for my client. In turn, my clients praised my employer and me and gave us repeat business.

Next, I worked very hard to put my client on as many panel discussions and industry conferences. Net result, the client showered heaps of praise on my employer. And since I had already diluted my stake from the whole year, I had no trouble working for my client even when I was on paid time off/vacation.

b.) Value for family — I noticed that my daughter was taking a keen interest in creating Gacha videos. A Gacha video is like an anime. I began to wonder if there was a way to create value for her.

First, I suggested her to churn out Gacha videos just for fun. Then we began posting those on social media handles. When likes and comments started pouring in for her work, I got her on a freelancing website to sell her original Gacha videos. She posted her work there, and within the first day of registering, she secured a contract to make a 6-minute Gacha video. The buyer was willing to pay her $100.

As this was unfolding, I explained to her how these platforms

worked and how all parties make money. Today, aside from making beautiful Gacha videos, she is also educated on the freelance economy’s business model. I am sure there are many thirteen-year-olds tinkering with things and hobbies, but how many know the end to end aspect of creating and delivering value like my daughter does.

c.) Value for the Community — Earlier this year, I became a board member of a non-profit to promote Cricket in the City where I live. As part of those initiatives, I led and assisted a couple of important initiatives for the organization. In doing that, I created value for other board members, the community’s youth, and the City.

Neither my daughter’s activities nor my involvement in a non-profit was my New Year Resolution. Yet, I ended up doing a lot more on all fronts. Most importantly, I validated my hypothesis that value creation makes a lot more sense than a New Year’s resolution.

A couple of weeks ago, I heard on news media that Gitanjali Rao, a 15-year-old girl from Colorado, will be featured on the TIME magazine’s front cover.

Gitanjali is a brilliant inventor and a scientist. Last year, she featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. She has created history for herself by being TIME’s first-ever kid of the year.

Personally, I’ve always been intrigued by such breakout successes, especially if they involve a child prodigy. But Gitanjali is not the only one. We’ve seen and heard many other child prodigies.

But what exactly makes one a child prodigy? Can a child prodigy be created, or are they innate?

My answer to this question is a child prodigy is created and not something innate. But before I discuss why I think so, let’s look at the two defining characteristics of a child prodigy.

1.A child prodigy develops a deep desire for something or shows a unique talent when they’re just about 9 years old.

Mark Zuckerberg, Magnus Carlsen, Venus and Serena Williams, once considered child prodigies, all began doing what they’re doing on or around the age of 9. Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber, Tiger Woods began much earlier.

Is there something magical about this age? Yes. A child at this age is utterly uninhibited. They are both old and bold enough to articulate their dreams and desires and show sustained interest in what they like to do.

2. During this age, a child prodigy trusts and listens to their inner voice. However, compelling and persuasive the outer voice, a child prodigy ignores it. Often, this confuses a parent or a teacher, and in some cases, it is also seen as a rebellion. The system around the child swings into action to apply restraint or course correction. Most times, these interventions fall flat.

Let’s look at the process that makes a child prodigy.

1.Future child prodigies tinker around with their interest or talent. They give themselves about 1–2 years to get a solid handle on that. It’s a myth that these prodigies know it all or can do things faster or easier than others.

2. Once they’ve got a handle on what they’re doing, they commit to it from ages 11 to 16. During this time, their area of interest becomes their passion and all-consuming.

3. And lastly, they continue to resist the outside voice. This trait is especially crucial because as the child prodigy grows older, the external voices become stronger and more determined to distract the prodigy.

History is replete with cases of much-touted child prodigies who lost their path and could never get back to their original mindset only because they were vulnerable to these outside voices.

This brings us to the main question. What can you do as a parent?

If you’re a parent and have a very young child, then you have a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a prodigy out of him/her.

Here are the five time-tested steps you can take to become a catalyst in your child’s prodigal abilities.

1.Notice for signs of deep interest in something or an exceptional talent in your kid. If your kid shows promise in academics, double down your spending and time on it. The same applies for music or sport or another talent.

2. Once you’ve gotten them started, don’t kill their inner voice with your well-meaning parental advice or guidance. Remember, you were not a prodigy.

3. Let your child tinker around with their liking for a couple of years. They may quit on what they thought was their passion. Regardless, don’t question them.

4. Instead of being a parent, become their manager. Just follow them everywhere like their shadow.

5. Finally, shield them as much as possible from the external voices. Vulnerability is no respecter of talent.

I began to know my uncle more when visiting him during my middle school holidays. What stood out to me was he was always busy with his hands and mouth.

With a dust cloth in one hand, he would be vigorously moving around the living room, dusting off the furniture. With his second hand, he’d be throwing published magazines at me, encouraging me to read those to improve my English speaking abilities.

A vernacular language school drop-out from a village, my uncle, had become an urban success. He was confident, upbeat, and spoke with style and sophistication. I think he was my best English teacher. But, more than his ambition and hustle, his personal story began to appeal to me the most as years went by.

We’ve all lost in our lives. But only a handful experience tragedies as my uncle. More than a decade ago, he lost his beloved wife, and within one year of her passing, my uncle lost his daughter. My cousin died at 25. She was a replica of my uncle, just a modern version. These back-to-back tragedies broke him from inside, but he put on a great show of zest and confidence to the outside world. At that time, I truly understood who he was from within. Often my mother and I would praise him for his resolve in our conversations.

For the next decade or more, he bonded with his son and his family and supported his old age mother. He took pride in narrating his son’s business and financial success. He enjoyed seeing his granddaughter grow into a smart, educated young woman and shared her joy of seeing her getting married. It began to feel that he had finally found his peace.

Earlier this year, tragedy struck again when my uncle’s son died at the age of 55.

I’ve never seen my near, and dear one die. Earlier this year, Covid took away my father from me and left my mother devastated and helpless. Life has shielded me from sorrow and tragedies, so I don’t quite know how to mourn a loss. But my uncle knows a thing or two, or I’ll say three about loss and tragedy.

Nowadays, I read my uncle pouring his heart and feelings over WhatsApp messages. He shares memories and pictures of his son. He also writes emotional ode’s for his son. His son’s passing away took out the stool’s last leg that my uncle was standing on. Still, I am hopeful that he will find a new goal and waltz with it for the rest of his life.

Y Combinator (YC) is one of the most prestigious startup accelerators in the country. It has launched over 2000 companies, including Stripe, AirBnB, Dropbox, Instacart, DoorDash, Coinbase, and Twitch. As of 2019, the combined valuation of the top YC companies was around $155 billion.

A recently published statistic showed it’s much easier to get into Harvard than into Y Combinator. Not only does YC want to hear about the next big idea and the potential market for the concept, they also want to make sure that they have the right founder.

Many things can go wrong in the early years of a startup. Issues with product design, product-market fit, talent acquisition, and cash flow are typical. These issues, however, are fixable.

But nothing is more damaging to the startup’s overall prospects than having a wrong founder. When this happens, investors get wary, employees start to lose confidence, and mojo disappears.

Every so often comes a startup idea that is so magical that it doesn’t require the ideal founder. But all other times, it is essential to preempt this potential anomaly. And that is why accelerators like YC or even the top VC firms like Sequoia Capital spend a lot of time getting to know the founder.

Examine YC’s latest cohort of promising startups or check out Sequoia’s list of the new Series A funded startups, and you’ll notice that almost all of them have either a two or a three-member founding team. At times, it’s even a four-member team.

Sam Altman, President of YC, has gone on record saying that they usually stay away from one-person startups. With millions of dollars at stake and the inherent uncertainty of the idea’s viability, this paranoia is justified.

Further, it is not uncommon that, with each round of investing, the lead VC firm will ask for a seat on the board. This parental supervision on the company’s board allows the lead VC firm Partner to be a coach to the founding team.

In doing so, they can preempt a crisis or promptly resolve it, especially if it relates to a founder. An all-time classic example of this was the firing of Steve Jobs in 1984, where the board ruled in favor of John Sculley.

In short, for backers of a startup, hedging their bets on a balanced founding team over an idiosyncratic founder is a well-thought-out strategy to minimize risks and maximize long-term success.

But is insisting on a team of founders always the best strategy? Let’s examine three startup stories, from three different eras, and see how the above premise played out in each case.

Facebook — The social-media giant started as a college project with a five-person founding team: Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskowitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes. We don’t know much about McCollum and Hughes’s involvement. Zuckerberg and Moskowitz worked on the code, while Saverin focused on bringing in ad revenues and funding.

Facebook’s early traction got the attention of Peter Thiel and Accel Partners. With massive investments kicking in, suddenly, this somewhat controversial and crazy college project went into a turbo mode of growth.

They eclipsed Orkut, Friendster, and the formidable MySpace and never looked back. It’s truly a perfect startup story and remains my favorite story to go back to when running low on entrepreneurial motivation.

Today, we don’t see Saverin or Moskowitz anywhere near Facebook. After the legal dispute between the founders settled, each of these guys went their own way. Moskowitz started Asana, and Saverin renounced his US citizenship and moved to Singapore to do his own thing. Zuckerberg continues to run Facebook with full gusto.

Netflix — In 1997, Netflix’s cofounders, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, started tinkering with renting DVDs via mail. The DVD player market was about to boom in the US, and Hastings and Randolph wanted in.

Randolph became the first CEO of Netflix but eventually stepped aside in 1999 and left the company in 2003. Hastings continued with Netflix and made it one of the greatest underdog stories at the intersection of technology and television.

Apple — Let’s go back a couple more decades. In April 1976, two friends in their twenties anticipated the onset of the personal computer revolution. One of the founders, Steve Jobs, saw an opportunity to make and sell computers. In contrast, the other founder, Steve Wozniak, was content with making the most efficiently designed computer and was even willing to share his blueprint with Hewlett-Packard and other computer hobbyists in the area.

It is unequivocally true that without Wozniak’s passion for design and innovation, the world would have never seen an Apple I or Apple II. But, Apple’s greater truth would not be what it is today without Jobs’s vision and dogged determination.

Facebook, Netflix, and Apple are incredibly successful ventures. They debunk the myth of needing the right founder or founding team and bring to the fore a glaring truth.

The key to entrepreneurial success is not foundership, but leadership.

Leadership is an elusive concept. It means different things to different people. In this case, entrepreneurial leadership can be explained based on three things:

Founder’s threshold for risk — When Zuckerberg realized that his college project was growing at breathtaking speed, he had to choose — continue with Harvard or drop out.

He decided not to drop out altogether, but first skip one semester. Facebook continued to grow faster, which led Zuckerberg to drop out of the second semester. Eventually, he had to make a trade-off.

He quit Harvard and moved to California to work full time on Facebook. Saverin, on the other hand, didn’t want to leave his internship on Wall St. Eventually, they had a falling out, and Zuckerberg prevailed.

Founder’s philosophy towards life and business — Woz was never interested in Apple’s business side or incredibly crazy about changing the world. The lure of trade and reward never motivated him. He was happy to build a computer for himself by putting in his best creative effort.

Herein lies a critical difference between an innovator and an entrepreneur. An innovator does things for fun, solves challenging problems, and in the process, creates breakthroughs.Then he moves on to the next idea. An entrepreneur gets going where the innovator stops.

He perseveres, takes enormous risks, pushes his comfort zone and those around him, and, most importantly, continues to care deeply and more than anyone else to make the innovation a commercial success. Jobs enjoyed being an entrepreneur while Woz was content being an innovator. Eventually, their paths diverged.

Founder’s ability to adapt — In Reed Hastings mind, there was never any doubt that all TV will move to the internet one day. Since the technology was not there, he tapped into the upcoming DVD player market and began selling and renting DVDs.

A few years later, when Amazon started selling DVDs, Hastings sold off its selling side of business and focused exclusively on renting. In 2007, he pivoted to an online streaming model and partnered with production houses such as Columbia Pictures to show their films solely on Netflix.

After living on borrowed content for years, in 2013, he pivoted again into creating Netflix original content. Their first production, House of Cards, became an award-winning television series. What started as a DVD by mail rental service has virtually redefined what it means to watch and create TV.

So should an aspiring founder scrap the idea of looking for cofounders? — Far from it. There are many renowned companies that are still run by their cofounders. Larry Page and Sergey Brin run Google. Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk run AirBnB. And Dropbox is still under the auspices of Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi.

Takeaways: Team Up or Fly Solo?

A cofounder or cofounding team is optional — As evidenced by the above stories, startups can achieve greatness under one founder’s direction and leadership. Startups are naturally hard and all-consuming, so don’t make it harder by adding unnecessary overhead.

If you believe in your leadership ability and are willing to do whatever it takes to grow your startup, I think you can work around the perceived gaps.

Clearly understand your cofounder’s perspectives — The nostalgia of the future blinds the founders to one another’s flaws and quirks. Unfortunately, these deficiencies become most prominent during the inevitable crises.

It is too late to handle these shortcomings when you already have many fires to put out. Have a straightforward conversation with your cofounder on every aspect of your startup. That requires courage, and you must demonstrate that confidence.

Find out their views on vision, product design, execution approach, roles they want to play, and even compensation and equity. Don’t leave essential conversations for the end or hope that your cofounder will understand.

Make sure they are ok with playing second fiddle? — Playing second fiddle does not dilute one’s influence or position. It just clarifies who makes the ultimate decisions. Charlie Munger has been a long-time partner of Warren Buffet in their partnership firm, Berkshire Hathaway.

It was Buffet who persuaded Munger to join Berkshire. Munger is intellectually gifted and wise and as much of a capitalist as Buffet is. Still, as the partnership evolved between them, Munger was perfectly happy to play second fiddle, leaving Buffet to be the company’s face.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble; it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so — Mark Twain.

Being certain about something is often considered a sign of one’s confidence and authority. However, throughout history, we’ve seen many examples where certainty has brought disastrous results.

The stock market crash in the 1920s that led to the Great Depression, the dot-com debacle in the 2000s, and the housing bubble burst that led to the 2008 recession are glaring examples of certainty gone awry.

Although such large-scale unfortunate events happen occasionally, the ill-effects of being sure about something are felt daily at an individual level.

Several months ago, in the suburb where I live, a speeding truck hit a Honda Accord at an awkward junction. In the Honda was an Indian family off to do some errands. The teenage daughter was unhurt, the wife got bruised a bit, but the husband died on the spot. This news spread like wildfire, especially within the Asian Indian community. As people’s analyses and reactions poured in, I learned some more about this man and his family.

The man was an engineer by profession. He was married, originally from Southern India, worked for a top consulting firm in the US, and had a daughter who had just hit puberty. People from certain parts of India perform a ritual or ceremony to mark this essential developmental milestone in a girl. The family was on its way to buy merchandise for that ritual. That’s when their world changed forever.

But one more thing came to light. The man and his family were on a work permit but, more importantly, didn’t have the financial resources to continue living in the country. Their mourning period became more of a logistics nightmare. The deceased man’s widow had to put things up for sale and make plans to go back to India.

Fortunately, the Asian Indian community started a GoFund Me campaign, and, in just a couple of days, they collected close to $300,000 for the woman and her daughter. Ironically, the man’s death proved more valuable for his family than his staying alive.

For the next couple of days, updates about this horrific incident kept coming in, and eventually it stopped. I suppose that could have been because the man’s body and his surviving family were no longer in the country.

Most of us are no different than this family. We’re confident we won’t die anytime soon, at least not as abruptly as this man did. Each of us has a cadence of income, expenses, debts, savings, and investments that makes us feel somewhat secure. Added to this, most of us live constraint-free, sickness-free, and misery-free for solid 15–20 years in our adult life. Consequently, it never occurs to us that what we’re sure about today may not hold good for the next 20–30 years.

Often, critical financial talks accompany death. In this case, the Asian family was utterly unprepared. Most of us don’t have a compelling financial strategy, and we do not surround ourselves with people who have one. We didn’t take Wealth I and Wealth II as subjects in college, and probably grew up knowing little to nothing about this topic. And we don’t do this for a living. Yet, we are optimistic about our prospects.

Optimism is essential to living, but it doesn’t protect us from the losses and unexpected downturns of life. When I realized this, I began to take a long-term view of finances and how to make them work for my family and me.

My family consists of my three kids and me. I am the go-to-person for all things for my kids. I am their father, their mother, their emergency contact, their chauffeur, their homework helper, their doctor’s-appointment guy, their dentist guy, their shopper, their buy-me-this-toy guy, their extracurricular-activity cheerleader, their mentor, their friend, their dirty-dishes guy, their laundry guy and the give-me-the-towel guy.

To achieve financial wellness, one does not need a stratospheric IQ or unusual insights. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework to make decisions. I could do that. The framework I came up with is simple but covers all the important contingencies:

Pay yourself first

George S. Clason wrote the classic book The Richest Man in Babylon. I read it several years ago and took some of the recommendations to heart. The book does an outstanding job of bringing to life the basic financial principles through Babylonian tales. I highly recommend reading it.

One of the first principles the book outlines is ‘A part of all I make is for me to keep.’ That means, before I give money to anyone else, I will keep a portion for me. And then it says, this amount cannot be anything less than 10%.

I was already contributing to my company-sponsored retirement plan. But, I took a second look at it and adjusted my contributions, primarily to get the most throughput from the benefit.

Tip: Don’t elect a high contribution amount as it ultimately reduces your net pay. Find the right balance between your contribution, company match, and net pay. Don’t leave any money on the table.

Get Life Insurance

The most reliable method to protect your loved ones in the case of your untimely death is life insurance. However, I hadn’t subscribed to this concept yet. I didn’t trust life insurance mainly because I had no way to confirm that the insurer would pay my beneficiaries once I am dead. Also, it felt like throw-away money. Nevertheless, the tragic accident had challenged my point of view, so I began to tinker with this option.

First, I found out that the insurance industry is highly profitable. To be specific, there were far more subscribers than there were recipients of death benefits. Most subscribers outlive their policy. If I were one of the unfortunate ones to die, the insurer would not have any concerns about paying out my death benefits. Secondly, Warren Buffet, the most successful investor of all time, loved the insurance business. That 50% of his net worth (to the tune of $115 billion) came from his investments in the insurance business made me appreciate this industry a whole lot more. And lastly, death benefits are tax-free! I had a moment of epiphany.

I calculated how much my beneficiaries would need to cover their living expenses, pay for college, and hold on to the house. I also compared the total premium over the lifetime of the policy vs. the death benefits and realized the benefits far outweighed the costs. I was a happy insurance customer.

Look Into Disability Insurance

Mental health issues are on the rise. Unexpected physical or psychological health issues rob us of peace and performance. Although I didn’t belong to this category at present, I wanted to insure myself against this.

There were two options: Either buy a disability insurance policy or explore the health benefits offered by my company. I found out that my employer’s long-term disability policy covered me for almost 50% of my income and that I had the option to increase that threshold. I liked that, and so I set up an automatic after-tax payroll deduction.

Tip: Don’t overlook your company’s health and wellness benefits. Review them each year before your annual enrollment.

Also Consider Insurance for Short-Term Disability

Here again, I found that my employer’s short-term disability benefits covered me for a substantial time at no loss of pay.

Tip: When taking up a new job, don’t just look at the base compensation or bonus or commissions. Look at your total compensation. The top employers offer incredibly good benefit plans.

Wipe Away Bad Debts

There are two types of debts: good debt and bad. A mortgage is good debt, as you’re building equity in your house. If you’re a startup, receiving a Series A funding in exchange for a stake in your company is a good debt. Bad debt is multiple credit card balances, or a car loan for a fancy car that you didn’t necessarily need and for which you made a low down payment.

As a solution, debt consolidation makes sense on the surface but isn’t the most efficient way to manage your credit card debts. Instead, there are credible credit card companies that allow you to transfer your credit card balances to their card and give you anywhere from 12–24 months to pay off the balance, with no interest charged.

I don’t have any bad debts, but if I ever were to be in this situation, here’s how I plan to manage that:

1. I’d move all my outstanding credit card balances to a single credit card that offers 18–24 months of no-interest.

2. Set up a monthly recurring payment.

3. Never use this new credit card until the outstanding balance is zero.

Invest

You don’t have to be an investor to live well or to carry out your responsibilities. One of my main responsibilities is to fund college educations for my three kids, so instead of speculating with my money, I came up with a simplified securities plan.

I like securities. Mainly because, during a century of stock market history, stocks have outperformed all other vehicles such as bonds, mutual funds, treasury bills, gold, savings, fixed deposits, etc.

Here again, my limitations worried me, but I found an answer in Lucile Tomlinson’s comprehensive study of dollar-cost averaging. Dollar-cost averaging is a monthly purchase plan in which you allocate the same dollar amount each month to buy one or more common stocks.

The author presented results of dollar-cost averaging in the group of stocks making up the Dow Jones Industrial Index. Tests were made covering 23 ten-year purchase periods, the first ending in 1929, the last in 1952. Every test showed a profit either at the close of the purchase period or within five years after that. The average indicated profit at the end of the 23 buying periods was 21.5%, exclusive of dividends received.

This method gave me the confidence to invest without having to worry about the vagaries of market and prices.

Leave a legacy.

I began to consider what I bequeath to my kids that would be a delight for them. Could it be a substantial sum of money that can help them to make a down-payment for a first house, to buy a brand-new luxury car, or to bulk up their savings? The details didn’t matter. I knew I wanted this icing on my cake. To my delight, I was able to craft a separate insurance policy with an affordable premium.

Tip: Don’t dismiss insurance. You can structure your policy in a variety of ways to achieve your major goals and not have to spend on any overhead costs.

Several months ago, one night over dinner, my 6-year-old son suddenly went quiet. He withdrew from the chit chat. I asked him if he was sad. Tears welled up in his eyes. He said, “Daddy, I don’t want you to die.” Right in that moment, the tone and mood the conversation changed. He continued crying, and although I tried to console him, he wouldn’t stop.

My 13-year old and 11-year-old hugged him and said, “Daddy is not going to die anytime soon, he is going to be around for a long time to annoy us!” That moment passed, but the statement continues to ring in my ears. Fortunately, I am no longer worried.

Innovators are not a product of happenstance. Instead, they are a by-product of the compounding effect of a series of early childhood influences.

In his ground-breaking book Psycho-Cybernetics, Dr. Maxwell Maltz argues that whether we realize it or not, each person carries within himself an image of him — the sort of person I am. He referred to it as Self-Image.

This self-image is created innocuously by the thoughts, beliefs, and experiences the person has had in their early childhood. Those who’ve had positive experiences, develop an empowering self-image, whereas those who’ve d inhibiting experiences often develop an inhibiting self-image.

A direct result of an empowering self-image is that such people can take on new challenges, try new things, make mistakes, yet move forward. In other words, they develop the skills and attitude to innovate much earlier on in their life. On the other hand, those with an inhibiting self-image never develop the courage nor the inclination to do anything different.

Story of an Ideal Childhood

Can Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ spectacular business and philanthropic success be attributed to his ideal childhood?

The ideal parents

Bill Gates was born in 1955 to William H Gates Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. Bill’s father attended the University of Washington, where he earned a BA in 1949 and a law degree in 1950.

Gates Sr. co-founded the law firm, Shidler & King, in 1964, which eventually became Preston, Gates & Ellis LLP. He continued to practice law until he retired from the law firm in 1998. Gates Sr. also served on the board of Planned Parenthood.

Bill’s mother, Mary Maxwell, was born to James Willard Maxwell, a banker, and Adele Thompson. Her grandfather was the president of National City Bank in Seattle and Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She also attended the University of Washington, where she met Gates Sr., whom she eventually married.

Mary Maxwell briefly taught school, but after Gates Sr. co-founded his law practice, she turned her attention to civic activities. She served on the boards of the Children’s Hospital Foundation, Seattle Symphony, Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, United Way of King County, and many other nonprofit organizations.

She also served as President of the Junior League of Seattle from 1966 to 1967. In 1980, she was appointed to the board of directors for the United Way, becoming the first woman leader of that organization.

Mary Maxwell Gates distinguished herself in so many ways that even a long list of her accomplishments can’t adequately sum up her importance as a community leader. At the same time, she was a devoted mother who raised a family during her many civic activities.

The ideal environment

Beyond the benefit of having an illustrious lineage, let’s examine a few key environmental parameters in which Bill Gates grew up.

1. Every summer, the Gates family, along with ten other families, spent two weeks at the Hood Canal. This was their annual tradition. One visitor to the Gates’ family outings remarked, “The family encouraged competition. It didn’t matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the dock, there was always a reward for winning, and there was always a penalty for losing”.
2. Bill Gates’ parents encouraged their children to read. From an early age, Bill Gates enjoyed reading non-fiction, especially science and technology books. He learned so much that his parents had to institute a rule of “no reading allowed at the dinner table.”
3. Conversations at dinner were mostly about his parents’ day at work. Whether it was Gates Sr. talking about Intellectual Property Issues, planned parenthood or Mrs. Gates discussing aspects of successfully running her many civic programs. The Gates parents treated their children as intellectual and emotional equals and encouraged dialogue.
4. Bill Gates’ two favorite games were Risk and Monopoly, two popular games that hone business skills.

I think we can conclude with reasonable confidence that this confluence of the ideal parents and the perfect environment resulted in Bill Gates developing strong self-confidence, self–direction, intellectual curiosity, and a good grasp of business and social concepts at an early age.

Let’s take a look at how these experiences and choices made shaped his future.

Gary Kildall wrote the first version of the computer operating system. When IBM was looking for an operating system, Bill Gates recommended Gary to IBM. Unfortunately, IBM and Gary Kildall couldn’t reach an agreement. Sensing an opportunity, Bill bought QS-DOS software for $50,000, adapted it to create MS-DOS, and eventually licensed to IBM.

Although Gary Kildall was a very creative and talented, he turned out to be a poor businessman. On the other hand, Bill’s decision not to transfer the copyright of MS-DOS to IBM catapulted Microsoft to market dominance in the sector of the operating system. Could this maturity in business decisions be an outcome of his early exposure to all of those business and law discussions at the dinner table?

In 2001, the United States filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation. The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Windows operating system.

Bundling them is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft’s victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It restricted the market for competing web browsers Netscape Navigator.

Microsoft stated that the merging of Windows and IE was the result of innovation and competition, that the two were now the same product and inextricably linked, and that consumers were receiving the benefits of IE free.

Opponents countered that IE was still a separate product which did not need to be tied to Windows, since a different version of IE was available for Mac OS. They also asserted that IE was not free because its development and marketing costs may have inflated the price of Windows. Did the early influence of games such as Risk and Monopoly make Bill Gates strive to achieve dominance in the operating system software market? Did it encourage him to adopt strategies to create a monopoly?

On June 10, 1994, Bill’s mother passed away. That devastated Bill. His mother was a massive influence on him, and he felt a strong sense of purpose to continue her charitable activities. The same year he instituted the William H Gates Foundation and asked his father to lead the philanthropic activities.

Over the next few years, he and Melinda began to take an active interest in these activities and in 2000 formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Eventually in 2006, Bill stepped aside from his daily role at Microsoft and went full-time with BMGF.

Today, BMGF is successfully tackling and eradicating a plethora of life-threatening issues such as Infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, reproductive health issues, family planning, so on and so forth. Could Bill’s early exposure to stories of leading and managing public programs prepare him to create the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the most successful philanthropic organizations in the world?

Let’s imagine a fictional opposite environment.

1. What if we replaced the mature dinner table conversations with constant talk about money running out before the end of the month?
2. What if he hadn’t been encouraged to read?
3. What if, during their summer outings, mere participation was considered an achievement rather than winning?
4. What if, instead of playing Risk and Monopoly, he’d played Chutes and Ladders?

Would this kind of environment have created a different Bill Gates?

Any aspiring entrepreneur should study Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg’s entrepreneurial story is almost identical to a real-life plane take off. With Mark as the pilot, the Facebook plane started at some point of time. Slowly, the wheels began to turn, then the aircraft gathered momentum, took off, fought tremendous resistance while scaling up, kept cruising, and after reaching a particular stage, Zuckerberg put the plane on autopilot and called for coffee!

Most startups can’t boast of such a splendid takeoff, let alone the auto-pilot mode. They go awry for a variety of reasons within the first 2–5 years. Today, Facebook and its affiliated businesses of WhatsApp, Instagram have close to 25% of the world population on their network. It’s been 16 years since its inception and no signs of trouble, or decline for this juggernaut. They’ve nailed down user acquisition, popularity, scaling, revenues, returns for investors, influence, criticism, and envy.

All of the above is nothing short of a perfect modern-day startup story that any aspiring entrepreneur desperately would want to write for themselves. Follow along to learn how Facebook became the ideal startup story.

Facebook:

1. Was never first to the market, but knew what people want and delivered what they wanted

Reid Hoffman was first to create a modern-day social network. He launched SocialNet in 1997. It was a platform for online dating and social networking. Although SocialNet never took off, it planted the seeds of social networking.

A couple of years later, social networking sites such as Friendster, Orkut, and MySpace emerged. Then came Facebook in 2004. Until early 2007 MySpace was the leader in the social networking space in terms of user acquisition and popularity — Facebook was trailing significantly behind.

How did then Facebook succeed in a crowded market and also wipe out the other social networks? It was Zuckerberg’s singular focus on connecting college students, specifically, within Harvard. Friendster, Orkut, or Myspace could never achieve that clarity. They tried to be everything for everyone and eventually disappeared. Interestingly, Reid Hoffman later created LinkedIn with a focus only on connecting professionals.

2. Offered something that was significantly valuable than anything else

Facebook’s mission was to connect people. At the time, when competing social networks were tinkering with Avatars and fake identification, Facebook connected real people, with real name, age, gender, and pictures. The authenticity and simplicity of this approach made it substantially valuable in the eyes of people and earned their trust.

3. Worked like a charm!

Nothing can be more repressive to a person on a social network than a choppy technical product, or a sloppy user experience. When almost all the competing services were struggling with technical glitches, cluttered user interface, and bad user experience, Facebook was virtually non-flawed. It always worked, and it worked like a charm!

4. Solved a customer problem, or even delighted them by meeting an unspoken need

Zuckerberg, who took Computer Science and Psychology in his freshman year at Harvard, understood that people have a deep innate desire to know what’s happening in other people’s lives. Although there was a lot of content on the internet such as restaurants, malls, movies, fun places, etc. that could be indexed by search engines, there were no tools that allowed a person to express themselves and in-turn share with others around them. Meeting this unspoken need via Facebook was Zuckerberg’s genius.

5. Had seeds of greatness (virality)

Ever thought why people share something? Generally, it is because it makes them look good to others, or gives them a feeling of importance or authority, or both. At its core, Facebook was nothing more than a simple yet powerful tool to express one’s life. But it also gave people tremendous latitude to share their experience with anyone they wanted to. This phenomenon caught on and virtually became impossible to stop.

Roger Federer wanted to play the perfect tennis, and he played. Usain Bolt wanted to run the perfect 100-meter sprint, and he ran. So next time when someone says “strive for excellence, not perfection,” think again. Think Facebook!