Mentoring Session With Kanwal Rekhi

I had an excellent opportunity of attending TIE Mentoring Clinic. The mentoring session was conducted by Kanwal Rekhi. I am sure he doesn't need any introduction. It started with Kanwal sharing experiences of his entrepreneurial journey. Then people had chance to do a short 10 minute presentation of their business which was followed by Q&A and suggestions from Kanwal and other dignitaries present.

I have tried to capture his experience and suggestions to entrepreneur. I believe it will be helpful.

According to Kanwal, entrepreneur should be LISTNER rather than being PUSHER. Mostly entrepreneur fall so much in love with their idea they start beginning to think that their product/service is exactly what a customer wants. They somehow forget to listen to customer needs. And in the process ignore their valuable feedbacks which could drive innovation. The innovation should be driven by mix of Gut feeling and customer's feedback not just by former.

VISION and FOCUS: Entrepreneur should have long term and broad VISION – big, audacious ideas. However, they should have short term FOCUS. Entrepreneur are limited by time and resources, hence instead of focusing on many different things at a time, they should have a focused approach. Having one product/service and five customer is any day better and happy situation than ten products/services but no customer. One happy customer can provide lead to many new customers.

Another important consideration about focus, is addressing customer's Pain Point. This could be best understood using a patient analogy who is in real pain. This patient who is suffering from acute pain would be only interested in getting a pill that could reduce his pain, rather than some vitamins or energy booster that promises to keep him healthy. Once you have addressed the customer's pain then only think of providing add-on things to make life better.

APPROACH: One of the biggest mistake that many entrepreneur do is they take INward OUT approach. What it means is: they look INside at their product/service first and try to place it somewhere OUTside in real world. If they are not able to find placement for their product the end result is less or no market share. I won't call it as failure because in the end there is always a learning experience, but it's not success either. Contrary approach that should be taken is: OUTwards IN or customer centric approach. Look at the market, understand the needs and work around.

The approach should focus on finding out high impact areas. Identifying gaps or missing links within the current solution, and try to fill in the gaps with your product/service. This is something in which big companies are not good at because of their size. Entrepreneur should take advantage of this,

TIME: Timing is major factor behind success or failure of many companies. In consumer driven market one day late could be too late. Any time given to competitors might be sufficient enough for him to sweep away the market share. Best way to avoid this is, start with a simple to the point solution, and innovate as you understand the market and its dynamics. One should validate the opportunity, product or service when it is at an early stage. That will help in keep the keeping the cost low.

According to Kanwal, entrepreneur should treat their market as Dart Board. Hit the market with your product/service at the earliest possible, having all the basic required and not worrying about advanced features. Focus here should be on hitting the dart board not the center of dart board. Once you hit the board, you can take clues from market, customers and then add advance features to reach the center of dart board.

To Summarize:
LISTEN don't PUSH
Address Pain Points
Think OUTwards IN
Identify Gaps
Focus On High Impact Areas
Get Into The Market Soon