A chance conversation with friends this morning, on the value of minimalism for bootstrap entrepreneurs, has led to the revival of my humble blog :) - but only because, there are some interesting connections worth sharing, with my learning during a recent volunteer program I attended... at the Madras Crocodile Bank, one of my favourite places in the whole world!
Bootstrap entrepreneurship is that uncertain journey, that trek through the long desert, that battle for survival against the odds, and sometimes, against conventional logic, until the entrepreneur's business begins to click and generate cash, or, she manages to raise external funding, whichever happens earlier. If one of these two things does not happen, then the startup needs to be fed more, from the scarce reserves of the entrepreneur, to extend life, by that little bit more... a most undesirable option!
Most entrepreneurship courses, from the gurus who have done it, to the reputed B schools, to the VC incubators, all teach us how to build business plans and grow... but hardly anybody teaches us how to live through that murky grey twilight zone of survival, which obviously precedes growth. However, help is at hand... as in virtually every aspect of life, we have much to learn from nature and wildlife.
For me, a pride of lionesses on the African grassland, is the closest thing to a large multinational corporation with a giant food-chain. Let's say the lionesses, assisted by the lion, hunt a large wildebeest today. That's enough meat for the hunters and their cubs. Before they are done, they are joined by hyenas (which can crack the bones that even lions cannot), jackals, vultures, crows and others... in pecking order of course. More than half the prey is eaten by freeloaders who did not do the hunting, but who of course have a huge role to play in the overall maintenance of the eco-system (but I digress...) - there are other birds, rodents and insects, which finally ensure that the wildebeest is stripped down to a bare skeleton, which will then nourish the soil with calcium.
This is so similar to yet another Tech MNC setting up a large corporate office in my beloved Bangalore - besides creating an enormous number of local jobs, this nourishes a huge food-chain of businesses, from tech vendors, to real estate, to facilities contractors, to neighbourhood services like retail, hospitality, restaurants and so on. Well, the MNC is geared up to begin operations in a new geography with a certain scale, which cannot be reduced, even if the times demand extreme austerity, just like the lions' hunting and feeding methods produce collateral pickings.
Suppose another wildebeest was instead hunted by Nile Crocodiles while attempting a stream crossing; There would be no wastage, no trace. Hardly any pickings for birds, hardly any meat or bone sinking to river bed. The crocs would dismember and swallow pieces of the prey, to the extent possible.
Let us consider an even more comprehensive example... A reticulated python eats a pig. The snake slowly injests its prey, swallowing it whole, and then digesting it over hours or even days, depending on the relative size of the prey. No wastage, no trace... no sharing even! While some waste is obviously ejected, the python's digestive system is designed to extract the maximum nutritional value of the prey.
Now, some broad math on the nutrition examples above: each adult lion may need a nutrition equivalent of nearly 5 to 7kg of meat per day, but if it eats up to thrice that amount (that's about the maximum), it can go on for days, a week, at the most two weeks (in extreme cases) without feeding. The crocs and python on the other hand, after a large meat meal, can go on for several weeks, even months together without another morsel. Large reptiles have been known to survive for over a year on a single large meal.
In the real world of nature, most carnivores, including lions and tigers, scavenge occasionally, since opportunistic feeding is an essential for survival. But one majestic reptile, the komodo dragon (the world's largest lizard) actually makes a fine art out of eating carrion, both from it's own kill, and from any other carcass it can lay it's capable jaws on.
What's the takeaway for entrepreneurs? It is imperative, for bootstrap startup founders to think like reptiles. Hunt, scavenge, eat... eat opportunistically, eat efficiently. But waste not. Extend that meal until every bit of juice is extracted. Your job is to feed yourself, your business, with the sole objective of ensuring longevity, while your arms are free to build your business... it is for the large corporations with money to spare, to build the extended food chains.
There is more... reptiles, as we know are cold blooded. I never got bored of visitors at the Madras Croc Bank asking if all those magars (marsh crocodiles) were real (or models), and if they were alive and awake. Actually, crocodiles do not sleep. They keep their mouths open mainly for temperature regulation, their twin eyelids protect them under water and on land, but believe me, they are always ready for action! And if you visit the Croc Bank at feeding time, especially either the enclosures of the magars, the gharials, or Jaws the giant croc, you will know what I'm talking about. All reptile predators have fast twitch muscles and nerve impulses to help them move incredibly fast when threatened, or when they need to hunt. Komodo dragons can run fast as humans.
The lesson for entrepreneurs again is conservation of energy, of focus, of concentrating energy, as Karl von Clausewitz said, into a single overpowering pounce. Studying reptiles, especially large predators, with respect to their energy conservation and concentration can be amazingly instructional for entrepreneurs.
I could go on and on about these beautiful creatures, but will conclude with two final lessons that business entrepreneurs can take from reptile predators - stealth and patience. Whether it is a green anaconda, a salt water crocodile or the redoubtable, snake-eating king cobra: they all need to camouflage their huge relative size, and still deceive a prey, rich in the instinct of self-preservation, every time they have to eat. This aspect, of course, is not unique to reptiles - the actual success rate of super-fast cheetahs and agile leopards, which also have the advantages of camouflage, are low. Similarly, the startup entrepreneur, who is surviving on a small gas tank and is out to snare his customer (hopefully, he has chosen a large enough meal), must combine stealth, so as not to attract competition, and patience (to bear failure, at worst, and long sales cycles with smaller than predicted values, at best).
At the end of the day, the bootstrap entrepreneur's life is so similar to that of the animal predator. There is much to be learnt from the beautiful denizens of the fast disappearing wild, and amazingly, much of it is of direct instructional value for business. So, if you are in a startup, or planning to get into one, I would strongly encourage you to study wildlife. If you live in India, or travel here, I strongly recommend you begin at the Madras Crocodile Bank, and start your study with reptiles. Not only may you learn a lot, that can help your business succeed, but you will also be blown away by the beauty, power and majesty of large reptilian predators!
Bootstrap entrepreneurship is that uncertain journey, that trek through the long desert, that battle for survival against the odds, and sometimes, against conventional logic, until the entrepreneur's business begins to click and generate cash, or, she manages to raise external funding, whichever happens earlier. If one of these two things does not happen, then the startup needs to be fed more, from the scarce reserves of the entrepreneur, to extend life, by that little bit more... a most undesirable option!
Most entrepreneurship courses, from the gurus who have done it, to the reputed B schools, to the VC incubators, all teach us how to build business plans and grow... but hardly anybody teaches us how to live through that murky grey twilight zone of survival, which obviously precedes growth. However, help is at hand... as in virtually every aspect of life, we have much to learn from nature and wildlife.
For me, a pride of lionesses on the African grassland, is the closest thing to a large multinational corporation with a giant food-chain. Let's say the lionesses, assisted by the lion, hunt a large wildebeest today. That's enough meat for the hunters and their cubs. Before they are done, they are joined by hyenas (which can crack the bones that even lions cannot), jackals, vultures, crows and others... in pecking order of course. More than half the prey is eaten by freeloaders who did not do the hunting, but who of course have a huge role to play in the overall maintenance of the eco-system (but I digress...) - there are other birds, rodents and insects, which finally ensure that the wildebeest is stripped down to a bare skeleton, which will then nourish the soil with calcium.
This is so similar to yet another Tech MNC setting up a large corporate office in my beloved Bangalore - besides creating an enormous number of local jobs, this nourishes a huge food-chain of businesses, from tech vendors, to real estate, to facilities contractors, to neighbourhood services like retail, hospitality, restaurants and so on. Well, the MNC is geared up to begin operations in a new geography with a certain scale, which cannot be reduced, even if the times demand extreme austerity, just like the lions' hunting and feeding methods produce collateral pickings.
Suppose another wildebeest was instead hunted by Nile Crocodiles while attempting a stream crossing; There would be no wastage, no trace. Hardly any pickings for birds, hardly any meat or bone sinking to river bed. The crocs would dismember and swallow pieces of the prey, to the extent possible.
Let us consider an even more comprehensive example... A reticulated python eats a pig. The snake slowly injests its prey, swallowing it whole, and then digesting it over hours or even days, depending on the relative size of the prey. No wastage, no trace... no sharing even! While some waste is obviously ejected, the python's digestive system is designed to extract the maximum nutritional value of the prey.
Now, some broad math on the nutrition examples above: each adult lion may need a nutrition equivalent of nearly 5 to 7kg of meat per day, but if it eats up to thrice that amount (that's about the maximum), it can go on for days, a week, at the most two weeks (in extreme cases) without feeding. The crocs and python on the other hand, after a large meat meal, can go on for several weeks, even months together without another morsel. Large reptiles have been known to survive for over a year on a single large meal.
In the real world of nature, most carnivores, including lions and tigers, scavenge occasionally, since opportunistic feeding is an essential for survival. But one majestic reptile, the komodo dragon (the world's largest lizard) actually makes a fine art out of eating carrion, both from it's own kill, and from any other carcass it can lay it's capable jaws on.
What's the takeaway for entrepreneurs? It is imperative, for bootstrap startup founders to think like reptiles. Hunt, scavenge, eat... eat opportunistically, eat efficiently. But waste not. Extend that meal until every bit of juice is extracted. Your job is to feed yourself, your business, with the sole objective of ensuring longevity, while your arms are free to build your business... it is for the large corporations with money to spare, to build the extended food chains.
There is more... reptiles, as we know are cold blooded. I never got bored of visitors at the Madras Croc Bank asking if all those magars (marsh crocodiles) were real (or models), and if they were alive and awake. Actually, crocodiles do not sleep. They keep their mouths open mainly for temperature regulation, their twin eyelids protect them under water and on land, but believe me, they are always ready for action! And if you visit the Croc Bank at feeding time, especially either the enclosures of the magars, the gharials, or Jaws the giant croc, you will know what I'm talking about. All reptile predators have fast twitch muscles and nerve impulses to help them move incredibly fast when threatened, or when they need to hunt. Komodo dragons can run fast as humans.
The lesson for entrepreneurs again is conservation of energy, of focus, of concentrating energy, as Karl von Clausewitz said, into a single overpowering pounce. Studying reptiles, especially large predators, with respect to their energy conservation and concentration can be amazingly instructional for entrepreneurs.
I could go on and on about these beautiful creatures, but will conclude with two final lessons that business entrepreneurs can take from reptile predators - stealth and patience. Whether it is a green anaconda, a salt water crocodile or the redoubtable, snake-eating king cobra: they all need to camouflage their huge relative size, and still deceive a prey, rich in the instinct of self-preservation, every time they have to eat. This aspect, of course, is not unique to reptiles - the actual success rate of super-fast cheetahs and agile leopards, which also have the advantages of camouflage, are low. Similarly, the startup entrepreneur, who is surviving on a small gas tank and is out to snare his customer (hopefully, he has chosen a large enough meal), must combine stealth, so as not to attract competition, and patience (to bear failure, at worst, and long sales cycles with smaller than predicted values, at best).
At the end of the day, the bootstrap entrepreneur's life is so similar to that of the animal predator. There is much to be learnt from the beautiful denizens of the fast disappearing wild, and amazingly, much of it is of direct instructional value for business. So, if you are in a startup, or planning to get into one, I would strongly encourage you to study wildlife. If you live in India, or travel here, I strongly recommend you begin at the Madras Crocodile Bank, and start your study with reptiles. Not only may you learn a lot, that can help your business succeed, but you will also be blown away by the beauty, power and majesty of large reptilian predators!
