Pubs, Toilets and Entrepreneurship

                                                   : I ideate on the Pot :

It was October '14. TechSparks had just ended and our whole diverse neo-gang of entrepreneurs and passionate thinkers, decided to get a few after-event mojitos at one of those popular pubs, Bangaloreans get smashed in, on Saturday Night. Intense conversations on ideas, world issues, the Indian political structure and the state of entrepreneurship in the country followed, until the alcohol started to kick in.  Being the only sober kid in the group, my conscience generated this innate you-should-really-fuck-off-now signal triggered by the EDM that played in the background while slowly killing the aesthete that I thought I was.  The group insisted that I stayed a little longer, pestered, eventually convinced me to stay for another half an hour. I decided to waste those 30 minutes in the washroom, being the headstrong person that I was and headed there with a grin I'd wear exclusively on proud occasions. The toilet welcomed me with a sight, far from pretty. A woman, twenty something, pretty drunk, leaned on the wash-basin eagerly waiting for her tummy to give her a break. Prompted by sympathy, I rushed back and returned with two glasses of water, that, luckily, were enough to give the woman the relief she'd been longing for, for quite some time. I waited for her outside the loo as she puked, wondering why her face seemed familiar. The loo door finally opened. She stepped out with an embarrassed smile. The following conversation happened, while the both of us were still in the washroom :

Tara : Sorry for all the trouble. Didn't know, the situation would get so out of hand.

Me : Haha, alcohol can make or break an evening. It must've been one of those unlucky days for you. Happens to the best of us and it's alright!

Tara : Thanks for understanding. I'm Tara (name changed), what's your name? 

Me : It's Avisha. Why do you look familiar?

Tara : Haha, well, I may have come in Bangalore Mirror a few times for my work in education-centric entrepreneurship and blogging.

Me : Oh my, are you the founder of GoalRun (name changed)?! 

Tara : Yes, haha. Have you read my blog?

Me : Of course I have. I've been following it for quite some time. Your approach to the whole problem looked way more viable than all I've come across in the field till date. Where do you plan to take this? 

45 minutes passed, we didn't stop. The exchange of information was magical. Both of us were on the same page, as far as escaping the crowd and the EDM were concerned. Common interests may have been catalysts, but the bond or open-ness to sharing information, all the knowledge, even more important for valuable connection than professional background, was formed because of the scenario we were in. The "In-Soup" scenario. 

That was probably the first time I questioned the whole idea of "Networking Events". Hundreds of startup founders and software professionals, desperately hunting for resourceful people like hungry wolves, eye-signalling and gesticulating an eagerness to talk to anyone their eyes found startup-active and amiable. How much could sharing business cards and sending a few emails later even assure? Say, you even find a CEO worth networking with and being a total smartass, you manage to generate an incentive for him to listen to you (assuming the two of you differ in your levels of badassery, his being higher than yours). Would he tell you the *deeper* things? Things you wouldn't find on the net even after hours of loafing? Hard, unless you're some psychoanalysis guru who goes around, smoothly extracting information important to you from anyone. 

My aim isn't to downplay the significance of these events. They certainly make exposure to ideas and startups fun and easy. This is only a friendly-taunting attack on people who equate entrepreneurship and networking to exchanging business cards, emails and pseudo-intellectual talk. It's great that you're meeting venture enthusiasts professionally, or rather, pushing yourself to meet them so they'd collaborate or help you expand, all that jazz and who knows, that may even work in the near future. But expectations can employ dangerous filters. The whole rigorous pre-event agenda making activity may sound great, definitely like something any ambitious founder would indulge in, without thinking twice. Does it always make the event more productive for him/her? I'd say, no. 

This may have infuriated a few of you for how shallow, naive (on my part) or untrue you think it is but hey, shedding some light on another perspective won't hurt, would it?  

Going with focus works better than going with an entire plan. Pictorially, 'focus' for me looks like a set of concentric circles. It places a blanket-like restriction, giving the mind a subtle, permitted boundary to loiter within. Each subsequent circle, moving inwards, represents a narrower radius of thought, important to obtain a definite or a near-definite conclusion in the end. 'Focused wandering' is something our system needs to embrace. The concept may sound oxymoronic to those who haven't used it in their lives or realised it could even exist yet, but the benefits, both theoretically and practically, in any arena, be it networking, education or even casual brainstorming, are too many. 

Say, we take one point on each concentric circle shown below. A plan, in my view, is a sequence of these points. There's no scope of wandering. The unexposed, pre-event mind fixes the positioning of these thought-dots using its power(?) of prediction. Can the power of prediction be trusted? It can't. When the plan of action (the sequence of points, mentioned above) is found irrelevant at the event, the mind loses interest and refuses to engage at a level it ideally should, impacting the enthusiasm of its maker. Amicability, approachability, focus and content are prerequisites for any event. 

  Focus : The Blanket Approach

I'd trust an entrepreneur and his approach if he told me, he got his big idea while taking a shit or showering, more than I'd trust someone who planned, structured, restructured, moulded and remoulded his idea for months, after relentless trying and retrying. Forced ideas and carved passion provide short-term results. Post this term, when founders start pitching these forced ideas to bigger investors and VCs(who, usually are psychoanalytically adept), their fake passion shows. 

The foundation of a startup is a founder's belief in his idea and its originality factor. When this belief is lost, commitment is lost. Forced ideas come through borrowed thought, restriction and past records (not always trustworthy) ergo, the foundation is lost anyway.

There's a visible similarity in the best ideas I've gotten till date. All of them came to me when I was chilling and not when I dedicatedly tried to search for them (in pubs, getting coffee or drinks with friends, while cooking brunch on a Sunday, cleaning my room, while lazily rolling in my bed in the morning before starting the day etc). The same similarity held for all my existing, valuable professional equations. These equations started with personal bonding not a contract or a deal. The attitude was non-expecting and casual. 

Concluding, I'd say, build bonds before business partnerships. Subtly hope, don't expect. Be optimistic, not desperate. 

Au revoir.