With the Wind or Against It?

Making and flying kites is one of my favourite childhood hobbies. I had an enormous amount of joy right from making the kite and watching it fly a few hundred meters into the sky. A few years ago, my daughter and her friends were getting bored. I asked them if they wanted to fly a kite. They all said yes, but didn’t have a clue on how to make one. Buying the kite was another option. For me, keeping them engaged was important. Considering this, with a bunch of munchkin around, I rolled up my sleeves and got into kite making. It’s been almost three decades since I made a Kite. Kids were watching curiously when I lined up all the raw materials and shaped them into a kite. We went to the terrace and had an amazing time flying the kite. 

By then, I had travelled quite a long way on the Entrepreneurial path. As I was flying the kite, my mind started connecting kite flying and Entrepreneurship. At outset, they might seem distinctly different, however I see a lot of similarities. Let me share them one-by-one!

S1: Kite Building = Organization Building

To start with, Kite building has a lot of similarities with organization building. In order to  make a kite you need a variety of of materials like paper, sticks, thread, glue etc. Each of these items play a very important role in making a kite. The most important part being to tie the knot, which integrates the whole kite and makes it ready for flying. Getting any one item wrong will tank the kite. As a child, I have failed hundreds of times, made tons of mistakes, iterated each time before arriving at the secret sauce of putting things together. 

In the similar lines, the founding team of the entrepreneurial venture should have complementing strengths and put them together. Typically, it includes product or service, marketing, sales, operations and most importantly people function. For quite some time, the founders might end up playing multiple roles until they hire experts for specific roles. The cross-functional team needs to work together and launch the venture.Similar to the tying knot part of making a kite, the vision and mission should act as a glue by binding the team together.I see this is very much foundational in nature, without which the venture can’t even take off. Even if  it takes off, it will nosedive very soon. There are chances that you might have done the mistake of having a wrong person on the bus. It’s super important to find out quickly and get them off.

S2: Air Direction = Essence of Decision-making

Once the kite is made, it has to be launched into the air and make it fly. Finding out the appropriate air direction is the key here. After tinkering with hundreds of kites, I can confidently say that predicting the direction of the wind is largely driven by intuition rather than looking into the weather statistics. In an open space like a terrace, air will be flowing in all direction or sometimes very minimal air flow. It’s all about intuitively figuring out which direction to manoeuvre the kite. Going against the direction of the wind, which might do more harm than good. 

When you are building an organization, the sense of direction is determined with intuition than going by market analysis and prediction. Though data based decision-making is highly recommended, the intuition of the entrepreneurial team eventually helps to take decisions. I have seen a coffee table discussion among friends has resulted in creating amazing companies. It’s all about that Eureka moment driven by the intuition. After the kite starts flying, there are many occasions I found the direction taken is not favourable for the kite to fly higher. In such situations I changed the direction even multiple times if required. Along similar lines, when the venture is not heading the right way, entrepreneurs need to do necessary course correction, which we often call it as a pivot.

S3: Thread Quantity = Operational Cash Flow

Once the kite takes off, the only control I have is the thread. Having enough thread means the kite can fly higher. There are times when suddenly the air flow slows down, immediately triggering  the kite downfall. In such occasions I used to take quick actions and ensure the thread is folded properly and allow the kite to fly at a lower altitude where the air flow is better. Multiple times I messed up with thread folding, resulting in chopping off some portion of the thread. This indirectly means the kite can’t fly long distance.

The operational cashflow is the lifeline of any entrepreneurial venture. Especially in bootstrapped ventures like us, there is nothing more important than having enough cash in the bank. If this gets messed up like the thread, even the whole venture can come to a grinding halt. During adverse business conditions (example – COVID) it’s super important to preserve the cash by carefully calibrating when to cut the cost vs when to invest for the future. While getting external funding can help to ease out this challenge to some extent, in the long run managing cashflow matters more than anything else.

S4: Different Altitude = Different Leadership Skills

As the kite flies higher, the altitude factor comes into picture. It introduces challenge of air turbulence. Handling turbulence requires different skills to keep it steady throughout. Definitely, intuition helps in the initial flight of the kite. However, it will alone not help at high altitude. As the saying goes, what got you here won’t get you there.

In the same lines, when an organization grows, the leadership approach that worked during the initial days may not work. It requires a more structured, process driven approach. The organization, especially the leadership, should have the necessary growth mindset to adopt and evolve. Scaling a small cross-functional team into a multi-departmental organization requires the different leadership skills. I have seen many entrepreneurs wanting to have tight control over everything, like they had during initial days. It will not work well when the company grows, in fact it will suffocate people and make them leave the company, perceiving it as micromanagement. Adapting to the altitude called growth and building leadership pipeline plays a very important role here. 

S5: Journey = Joy

As a school kid, I faced numerous amount of challenges while flying a kite. Some of them include: 

1. The kite doesn’t take off at all
2. After flying, the kite gets stuck into a coconut tree 
3. Thread gets cut accidentally and losing the kite
4. Another kite comes in between and cuts your thread 

In the similar lines, as an entrepreneur I have faced and continue to numerous challenges like:

1. Hiring a wrong person in the team 
2. An amazing marketing idea didn’t take off at all
3. Cashflow drying up due to uncontrollable circumstances
4. Competitor eating up our pie of the market 

In both occasions as a school kid and now as an entrepreneur, it’s the journey which has given me the pure joy and energy to propel forward. Being in EdTech, there is nothing more joyful than to enabling a tier-2 engineering college grad with inferiority complex, insecurity to life, technical shortcomings and make them get their first job. The same joy which I used to experience while flying a kite. 

Both kite flying and entrepreneurship are worth taking a shot. Which one you are going to try first?