Shortcuts suck - just do the work

Founders always have the urge to find shortcuts around things. That’s actually a strong sign of entrepreneurial spirit. But, it’s only a skill, just like any other skill. It can’t be used to get around everything in entrepreneurship.

Founders can growth hack themselves to a million users, but those shortcuts won’t give you users that stick around.

Founders can use FOMO to build their first round, and get a fat valuation. Will that same strategy work the next time? Will it get them more capital? Not really.

Shortcuts are great for jumpstarting a process. Using growth hacks is a great way to jumpstart user demand for your product. But sustaining that traffic means doing the boring old stuff. SEO, Youtube, Consistent social media presence, Inside sales, and all the drudgery that needs to be done consistently.

If you’re stuck doing jugaad, you’re never going to truly scale.

It’s hard to impress how quickly everything falls apart. Let’s take the example of code. You decide to write a hack-y solution which works for now. Great. It’s bound to break some day. And when it does, you won’t know how to solve it. This isn’t called jugaad. It’s technical debt. It catches up quickly

The same can be said about life. Everyone wants the easy way out. Cheat your way through interviews. Just like with code, you are only adding debt to your life. Life’s bound to catch up.

There are no easy ways out. There are no shortcuts. Do the work. Do it consistently.

I consult with startups to help them scale. Reach out at consult at vatsalkanakiya dot com.

I also occasionally invest in great startups. Reach out to me at startups at vatsalkanakiya dot com.