The Parallels between Political Activism and Startups
I stumbled on this post by my good friend Sanjay Anandaram and was struck with how much it resonated with me – especially as I recently had a conversation along very similar lines with a young and passionate political-activist. Substitute “political activism” for “startup” and see if this resonates with you…Excerpts from “Balancing life and work“:
“My wife walked out of the house last week. I’ve known her for seven years and we’ve been married for five years and now I feel our relationship is purely transactional. I’m consumed by my startup and think about it every waking minute. I am obsessed with it and want to make it a roaring success. My wife works in the financial services industry and she too works long hours. We moved to Bengaluru from Mumbai so that our quality of life would be better. She travels on work and so do I. I get back home late and she’s either in bed or on her laptop. I keep responding to emails and SMS messages as well when I’m home. I don’t want to lose out on any business opportunity. She wants children and I am not sure I’m ready to be a dad till my startup is done. Am depressed and lonely. But I cannot give up on my startup dream. What should I do?â€
So said the 31-year-old CEO of a startup. And he wasn’t the first such person saying this to me. I have rather unfortunately been at the listening and counselling end of such laments increasingly over the past couple of years. It seems that the pressures of a startup (or political activism) are putting (can put) enormous strains on personal relationships…
A personal digression: In the month that my son was born and my mother passed away, I decided to quit and do a startup. The urge was uncontrollable and I took the decision without consulting my wife! I was in Silicon Valley and she was in India (we had decided to have our son in India). She was surprised and understandably upset but then was fully supportive. I travelled several times from the US to India during those initial days. Those were the days of emotional roller-coaster rides. After several months, my son and wife joined me in the US (visa issues delayed the family reunion!). The startup went through ups and downs—emotional and financial. It wasn’t easy but the support from my wife was always there though not always visible or expressed!
The point of this digression was that it is crucial to ensure the following:
That the partner or spouse understands how important the startup (or what you are doing) is for you and they support it wholeheartedly.
Openly talk about the trade-offs and sacrifices both have to make.
That you understand how important it is to have that support and therefore make efforts to show it.
Spend time with the family and don’t keep checking messages during this time. Consciously keep aside time. My time, your time and most importantly, OUR TIME. Be religious about this. You don’t have to respond to every message in the next nano-second. You will be surprised that the world still spins on its axis if you don’t!
Be open and discuss things. Take interest in the other person’s activities. Remember to take pleasure in the small things, e.g. just hang out together listening to music.
It is important therefore to remain grounded in one’s beliefs and values. With a rapidly growing consumerist mindset, there’s this pressure to enjoy the next great car, house, gadget and vacation. The startup (or political activism) doesn’t offer one the luxury to splurge on these..
Therefore before you jump into a startup (or political activism), think about why you are doing it and be clear about your motivations.
Paraphrasing Sanjay (in the context of activism), politics and political activism is not a cool thing to do or a get rich quick scheme. And as he says,
It is a vehicle to make your passion and dreams come true. And it is very critical that those who you want to share your life with understand this. As you should them.
Related Posts: This one is for my soul-mate… and Looking Back – Two Years of Living Dangerously and Changing India – One Step at a Time
P.S. The parallels between political activism and start-ups actually stretch much beyond the points mentioned above. I hope to explore these in a forthcoming post. In the meantime, comments and thoughts welcome, as always.
Family support is really needed and yes, we should give time to family too. I agree.
I think this is a wrong combination. Both working late hours will have to face many hurdles in day to day affairs especially in country like our’s where everything is in disarry.Another dangerous aspect of this is that the kid is gonna grow up with some baby sitters. As he was setting up his own firm wife could’ve taken stayed back and looked after the home and take up a job once he is settled. Understanding is the key word and all this happened even after knowing each other for two years prior to marriage then whom to blame?
hi Shantanu,
i have really enjoyed reading your blog. would like to know a way to get in touch with you. could u provide your email id or some other contact means.
Thanks
Anjana
Thanks Anjana. Hope to see you here more often.
My email address is JaiDharma AT gmail.com (you can also find it on this page, just below the Support button in the right-hand sidebar.
Thanks for posting this, Shantanu and Sanjay.
It is, indeed, a huge challenge, especially given the “good” aura that politics has in India. Convincing my family has been such an uphill task and I am yet nowhere near the finish line!
More parallels..Excerpts from Top 5 myths about the lean startup by Eric Reis:
..The..Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. Lean startups waste less money, because they use a disciplined approach to testing new products and ideas. Lean, when used in the context of lean startup, refers to a process of building companies and products based on lean manufacturing principles, but applied to innovation. That process involves rapid hypothesis testing, learning about customers, and a disciplined approach to product development.
..the Lean Startup methodology applies to all companies that face uncertainty about what customers will want. This is true regardless of industry or even scale of company..
..There’s nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. What differentiates them is their disciplined approach to determining when to spend money: after the fundamental elements of the business model have been empirically validated.
..I believe the proper definition of a startup is: a human institution creating a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. In other words, any organization striving to create disruptive innovation is a startup, whether they know it or not.
…Lean startups are driven by a compelling vision, and they are rigorous about testing each element of this vision against reality. They use customer development, split-testing, and in-depth analytics as vehicles for learning about how to make their vision successful. Along the way, they pivot away from the elements of the vision that are delusional and double down on the elements that show promise.