It's going to be OK: A founder's guide to not losing your shit in 2021

I lose my shit a lot!

There are good days and there are bad days. But most days, even the good ones, are always laced with a fear lining the pit of my stomach. There’s always this feeling that something bad is lurking around the corner. And that’s an interesting thought, given most days I’m just trying to the corner towards a better place. Everything about this journey is like this. It’s contradictions all the way. Every moment feels like it’s this and that, happy and sad, exciting and fear filled.

It’s the end of the year. All of you are probably trying to get a weekend off, while rewinding and playing and fast forwarding and playing scenes in your head that have gone by and many yet to come up. Overthinking everything, in short.

So I thought I’d take this piece today to tell you that it’s going to be OK. You’re going to screw up and then you’ll learn and then you’ll fix things and then you’ll screw up some more. That’s just the journey. It’s not you. It’s not that everyone else is doing better than you. No they’re not. In fact, everyone else and their journey is entirely immaterial to yours. There’s only one thing - your plan on the road ahead.

I’ve spent all last year using my board as therapists. They did a fantastic job at that. But more importantly, I found processes and tools this past year to help me realize that things are NOT bad, it’s NOT out of control and to keep me on track to setting, measuring and hitting goals again and again. I found that a few things done repetitively helps you realize that it’s going to be OK.

1. Model & Update your worst & best case scenarios every quarter. Have your finance folks model your worst and best case scenarios for you every quarter. Model your growth, your revenue, your cash flow, your burn and the money in your bank. Simple as that. And if you’re like me, keep those tabs open FOREVER! Until your laptop crashes one day and you can feel all the PTSD going away with that. Albeit temporarily.
   
   Jokes aside, these scenarios will constantly tell you whether things are ok. Not knowing this or not seeing this often enough creates a false sense of fear that you’re running out of cash or not growing. Optimize for 18-24 month runway at all points of time. This has helped me immensely. To constantly have in front of me, at all times, my options and choices given my numbers has changed the way I run things. And 99% of the times, you’ll be surprised to note that things are ok.
   

2. Learn to recognize real growth from other growth: I recently heard the Snowflake CEO talk about intellectual honesty at a recent chat. I’ve spent a large portion of this year completely bucketing growth into 2 separate categories. As a young company, you’re probably growing in all kinds of ways. Your team is growing, new leaders, more revenue, new customers … there’s a lot going on. Separate growth into 2. Ones that you make you feel good but you still go to sleep every night feeling like you’re failing and ones that make you feel great because you don’t need anymore VC money if this works out. I’ve realized this last year that the latter is filled with aspects that make up intellectual honestly.
   
   A customer sending you a fantastic email or giving you a shoutout on social media falls in the ‘feeling good’ category. Your NRR at 130% and greater is the feeling great category. You sharing a webinar of a customer chat on social or email is feeling good. Your expansion revenue for that customer growing 2x every year is the latter. Make a list. Make 2 buckets - be honest about putting each of these into those buckets. At the end of the day, if you have good metrics, growth numbers, cash in the bank - everything else is a moot point.
   
   Most months you will be unhappy about your growth rate and your cash flow. That’s ok. Just don’t take your eyes off those regardless of what goes on every month. Add 1 more new customer, upsell 1 more customer, renew 10 others at 10% incremental price at the end of year 1 and convince 2 customers to sign a 2 year contract instead of 1. That’s growth. That’s real growth that will happily be put in the ‘feeling great’ bucket and will automatically impact the sheet you will refer to, mentioned above in (1), every quarter. Your decision making style will change completely when you start to recognize why and how you make certain decisions, using these simple buckets. Watching the real growth bucket grow every quarter, can give you incredible confidence that comes from within, rather than looking for assurance and hope from external sources. This matters.
   

3. VC money is awesome. You’ll get truck loads of it when you don’t need it. I’ve realized one thing after all these years of building MSD. The minute I don’t need VC money, it’s available to me. Always. VCs are insane risk takers at seed stage. It all goes down south after that. (All VC friends reading this … turn away!) Trust me. The more cash you have, the more growth you have, the more VCs you’ll attract.
   
   ”As a CEO, you’re always fundraising” how many times have you heard this? Sure, you gotta schmooze and network and know people. But I’ve found this statement to be total, complete BS. You also gotta just work and grow your company. Focus on your team, your company, your metrics, your product strategy … it’s not like your to-do list is getting smaller with every passing day. Who has time to schmooze?! Let the VCs find you and trust me they will find you. The network is ridiculously strong. Once you raise a seed round, everyone’s tracking you. You’re on everyone’s radar, which means ‘being seen’ or networking doesn’t need to be on top of your list in order to fundraise. Hitting your numbers is the only thing that does.
   
   Don’t lose your shit about not being able to raise. 99.9% of the times that excel sheet in (1) above will show you that you don’t need to fundraise. So every time you lose your shit about not raising, refer (1). You don’t need the money. You don’t need a Valley VC. You don’t need a tier 1 VC. You need you to show up everyday and do your job. What you need … is to grow and build a business that will make people beg you to let them into your company. This is all Roy ever told me. It took me 4 years to listen to him and own it like I do, today. I only worked on owning this, this year. Might have something to do with turning 40 in a bit! I wish I’d tried earlier. It would have saved me so many many nights of dread and PTSD. It’s going to be ok because the magic is inside your company, not in the VC fund.
   

4. Who got your back? Focus hard on building strong and meaningful relationships with your board. Build the confidence that they’ll bail you out if you ever need emergency cash. If you’re building a business that your board believes in, if you bring them along for the ride honestly, along the entire way - there’s no way they’ll let you drown. It’s going to be ok because they got you back.
   

5. Workout, play a sport, lose weight. It rewires your brain. Everyday. Every week. I lost 10 kgs these past 2-2.5 months. I played badminton for 6 months of this year. I swear I’m a new person this year. It instantly puts me in a state of mind where I believe I can overcome whatever is in my way in the coming 24 hours or week ahead. I know it sounds trivial but it was life changing for me to have a routine outside of work that fed me all the positive vibes to take into work. I play board games with my kids and my elderly parents 1 hour a day. I have done this every single day of the last 2.5 years :) I’m incredibly proud of this routine. 7-8 am playing with the kids and husband and grandparents over coffee has changed my life. Try it.

Lastly, a funny trivial thing - have you tried washing your face with ice cold water and a fantastic cleanser & moisturiser before going to bed? I’m not someone whose ever given a shit about beauty routines. Anand, my cofounder and CTO has been waaaaay better at this. He’s always been the prettier one and the arm candy between the two of us :) As a proud wife and cofounder I can tell you I learnt a few lessons on going to bed and waking up with a fresh face. Wash your face guys. It helps you see everything clearer.

Get your ‘it’s going to be ok’ framework nailed first thing in the new year. And watch how you’re able to keep the rest of the year, drama-free. 2021 is the year of India SaaS. There aren’t enough SaaS companies to fill all the VC money available in the world. Your turn is coming very soon. Just make sure you’re on the right side of growth and watch your turn show up way sooner than you anticipated!

Happy 2021 guys! You’re going to kill it.