The cool things keep on changing. Like the latest are Indian Premier League Matches, Shahrukh Khan’s six pack, Kareena Kapoor’s size zero and so much more. The advertising world may not have been able to shed their Bollywood hang-ups when it comes to defining ‘cool’, but Gen-E is showing signs that it has moved on. Campuses are also witnessing a phenomenal increase in entrepreneurial activities and participation by students.
More and more youngsters today are getting excited about being associated with startups. Startups represent passion, power and learning. Working closely with the company’s founders makes you share their enthusiasm too, which makes your job far more meaningful. This change in attitude is being driven partly by the realization that careers are not solely about money. If your startup is successful, you can earn several times more than if you were working for someone. If it fails, you may not be rich but it leaves you with a wealth of learning. So you gain both ways.
Ten years ago, new companies were generally associated with the small scale industry. Five years ago, they weren’t regarded as innovative. Today, startup companies are seen as high-impact, interesting places that allow self expression while building value for society.
And Gen-E has decided that is cool. When young entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and bloggers talk about why they are excited about a company, they refer to very specific aspects of a startup. These specifics sometimes reflect personal values, but many resonate across individuals.
The startup is cool because it is world-centric. Any practice that makes the world a better place is cool.
Achieving world-class excellence and becoming global thought leaders are important goals for an ambitious startup. The startup should have the vision to change the way human beings behave. For instance Microsoft Excel was such a huge success just because it was able to change the way human beings behave with the transition from paper to software was an amazing change.
The vision of the startup should be to create practices that are not just the best today, but also tomorrow.
Cool startups do their own thing and follow their own passions without caring much about what others think. Though accepting and working on feedback is important, it should not lead to compromising on what you feel is right. It is challenging to begin from scratch, when you don’t have anyone to fall back on when things go wrong. It also makes the startup experience more exciting and cool. A cool startup is very sharply focused on a niche market, does something different and differently and creates a need or takes a pain away. A sensible startup works in a domain that has enough opportunities to grow and scale.
For a cool startup it is important to capitalize on an unexpected opportunity. That is the way these startups make a gold mountain out of a cash molehill. One has to combine passion and opportunity for the cool startup. And for sure coolest entrepreneurs find a way to make it work.