Founder’s Vibe Check

We all talk about product market fit but as an entrepreneur I think the first thing that should also be worked upon is whether at an individual level we are ready ourselves for the market or not. If you are the founder, you are the face of your company not only for the outsiders but also for the workforce that makes your product happen! What I feel is often that part goes missing, where founders are too worried about business from an external perspective but they miss a point, that is to look at it from the internal perspective. How does your team see your company? Are they even aligned with the vision of the company; do they find meaning in what they do for the company on a regular basis? Can they relate to the words that you keep pondering upon in every internal meeting or every other public address? These are some of the basic questions every founder should ask themselves before thinking about how they appear in front of the public.

If you are a founder, you might think that your job is to create an opportunity and pay for the time that your ‘resources’ are giving but is that it? That’s more of a deep conversation you as a founder must have with yourself very often, to revisit your values and work culture. That is because, your workforce are not a bunch of computers – they are people with real values, real emotions and real expectations. We as founders often forget about that after the payroll is processed. It’s not that simple! If it was, you wouldn’t have cringed over the missing earphones or the charger every time you bought a new iPhone these days.

That’s a classic example of ‘its never enough!’. So to keep people happy should be goal, not ‘resources’ happy. The day you understand this as a founder – you have to some extent become ‘market-fit’ for your internal team.

Now comes the other part – the external affairs of the company. To be an entrepreneur also requires you to speak up, represent your team, your values and your goals along with your product offerings to the world. To do this, you must develop communication skills, interpersonal skills and grow your emotional intelligence to cater to emotions, not just customers.

There’s also an elephant in the room that people certainly do not talk about very often. That’s called ‘stage presence’. Now you might ask – what do you even mean by that! An artist would need a stage presence – what does an entrepreneur have to do with that! It definitely has a connection. What you talk about is just one part of the puzzle – how you do the talking is another part where most founders fail. You must build a strong foundation on soft skills that include communication, public speaking, emotional intelligence. This is because, when you stand in front of your customers or your team, how to do the talking matters, and how you appear is also an important aspect. As an entrepreneur are your confident about your vision? Do you know how things work? Even if you do, that must reflect on you and that gives out your ‘perceived character’. And that, is a game changer.

So balance sheets and doing business is one thing – but become a market fit yourself is one of the biggest tasks that an entrepreneur must complete and must keep on upgrading and updating, so that a company is viewed by the ‘vibe’ of the entrepreneur and the company keeps making noise for all the right reasons – be it a winning product, great service or building a great team.

Photo by Rashi Saha