In our latest interview, we spoke to Sivesh Kumar, who is an Investor, Mentor, Keynote Speaker and also the founder of StartupMonk.

Sivesh recently founded “StartUp Monk”, where he is trying to bring all stakeholders of the startup ecosystem on a single platform. He enjoys raising startups and moving forward to the next one and loves his dividends at the end of the year. Sivesh started with three failed startups before making the self-sustainable one. Which makes him an expert on what one shouldn’t do while running a start-up.

Sivesh mentors early-stage startups with their strategy and business plans. He is part of the mentor pool of IIT K and IIM R. He is also part of jury member panel of some elite incubation and investor pitches. He believes that the path between idea and making startup sustainable is the toughest. Most startups fail during this stage under multiple numbers of pressures. He guides entrepreneurs on their startup and its market acceptability.

By education he is B.Sc. (Maths Honors) and MBA in Human resources (though he never worked as per his education). Sivesh is a certified photographer and a globetrotter (he enjoys exploring new places, people and culture on his trips).
He also Spoke at TEDx recently and is a Keynote speaker at various entrepreneurship events.

Here are the excerpts from our exclusive interview with him:

Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?

Actually, I never chose entrepreneurship, it chose me. Got lucky to have an entrepreneurial mindset since I was a Kid. I use to run Comics library. I use to collect textbooks from my elder brother’s friends after they use to get promoted to the next class and ok and sell them at half price. For me, it was never the math part which got me interested in entrepreneurship but the freedom which it gives. The learning and your ability to help others. Over a period of time, I worked on a lot of startups, some succeeded and some failed. But there lies all the fun the uncertainty.

What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?

Oho, it is always the work. The work you are doing needs to be the driving force. As Elon Musk told in one of his interviews: “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favour.”. Yes, even we get frustrated and at times we question our decision of going forward, at those time I have three questions that I ask myself:

Will I wake up and do it even if I have a breakup (that time it was my gf now wife)
Will I wake up and do it even if someone dies in my family
Will I wake up and do it even if I lose everything and have to start again.

Why should people choose your products/services?

I will speak about my recent venture – StartUp Monk. It more of a community building than product and services. Considering the problem early-stage entrepreneurs are facing, we decided to create a platform and bring together all the stakeholders of the startup ecosystem. Why we are different because we are not selling anything to our community members. It is more of a peer to peer network, where people are helping each other mutually.

We clearly see that Indian entrepreneurs have the potential to give Silicon Valley and HongKong a run for their money. We are just trying to facilitate by building an even ground. A ground where entrepreneur from our country will have everything to take that plunge. When I speak about stakeholders of Startup ecosystem they are:

Entrepreneurs
Investment and Funding Agency
Corporate
Service Providers
Local, State and Central Government
Universities and colleges, Education Institutes
Incubators and Accelerators
Mentors

What’s your competitive advantage and why can’t it be copied?

Hmm… We are not here in competition with anyone. The market is too big for a single player. Yes, when you talk about defensibility (which I always ask my mentees to have in their startups), we don’t have one. We are a community and not a proper product-based organization. We are working on a vision and I believe no one can steal Idea/Vision. It all falls down to execution, how you are executing.

What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?

So we are trying to create an entrepreneurship culture in India. In every nation, wherever the culture starts developing, there are more instances of failures than success.

Culturally, we are not groomed to fail, and failure is frowned upon. Entrepreneurship thrives on celebrations, and a society that fails to appreciate business failures stifles innovation and creativity even before is fostered.

So we are fighting a mindset and I think it is enough of a challenge to tackle.

What are your expansion plans/breakeven projections?

Currently, we are working directly or in partnership across India. Now we are concentrating on expanding in more of developing countries: To start we are looking up option in south-east Asia. Nepal is certainly on our radar. I strongly believe in bootstrapping and raised some three startups by same. So we are bootstrapping and funny that we are making some revenue. Again as I said above I am more on creating value than the math of revenue. If you are creating value and working on a consumer problem, revenues will flow.

Tell our audience more about your failures? How should one bounce back?

Success is a journey and failures are pit stops. So if you are aiming for success it will part of the parcel. I had three failed startups before making one and success. And the success overshadowed all the rest.

Always remember one thing, people will always remember your success. Nobody will remember your failure. So, I just brush up my shoulder and say “Bring it on”. It is more of a personality trait in me I think and yes IQ of 148 and anxiety helps a lot J

What comes first for you – money or emotions?

I am neither a money person nor emotional. I take the decision on reasons and justification. There is a funny story: We are planning to add a feature to our website. And we were brainstorming it for like a week, my COO, CTO and CMO were all up with advice and suggestions but the final decision was taken on the advice of an Intern (who was there for just 1 month). I always keep an open mind and ask whoever comes with a suggestion for the betterment of the company to convince me. If they convince me for something, it is good to go. Being a Jury panel member of several Investor and Incubation centre startup pitches, I developed a knack for seeing what I wrong.

How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?

It gets best out of me. My psychometric analysis says, I can only be motivated internally and no external factor can motivate me to do anything. What better than stress to do that.

What advice would you give to someone starting out, particularly to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Where I get an invitation to speak at events of Colleges/Universities, being from the startup ecosystem I never fail to mention below line:

If You want work-life balance – don’t startup

If you are the one to easily give up – don’t startup

If you can’t give 14–16 hours a day – don’t startup

If you can’t adapt and change every few days and let go of who you were – don’t startup

If criticism bothers you to the point you can’t take it – don’t startup

If you’re not someone who can become obsessed with solving a problem or achieving a certain goal for your startup – don’t startup

If you want to go for a vacation every few months – don’t startup

If you want to play safe, if you can’t take risks – don’t startup

If you can’t go from one failure to another without losing enthusiasm – don’t startup

If you want to pursue hobbies in your spare time – don’t startup

If you’re scared of rejections – don’t startup

If you think startups are about funding and all will be well once you raise funds – don’t startup

If you have a moral obligation to be nice to people working with you even when they are not doing their job properly and you must tell them bluntly – don’t startup

If you don’t like reading which will probably the best way to learn and grow – don’t startup

If you’re waiting for the right moment (and years have passed by) – don’t startup

And always remember “Why” you started. The path will vary; you have to change the way it was initially planned. You will face challenges and you will learn new things and will have to improvise. Keep the focus on the “Why”.

You will find a lot of Gyan on my LinkedIn profile.

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BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, Stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.

Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.

In our latest interview, we spoke to Sivesh Kumar, who is an Investor, Mentor, Keynote Speaker and also the founder of StartupMonk.

Here are the excerpts from our exclusive interview with him:

Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?

What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?

Will I wake up and do it even if I have a breakup (that time it was my gf now wife)

Will I wake up and do it even if someone dies in my family

Will I wake up and do it even if I lose everything and have to start again.

Why should people choose your products/services?

Entrepreneurs

Investment and Funding Agency

Corporate

Service Providers

Local, State and Central Government

Universities and colleges, Education Institutes

Incubators and Accelerators

Mentors

What’s your competitive advantage and why can’t it be copied?

What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?

So we are trying to create an entrepreneurship culture in India. In every nation, wherever the culture starts developing, there are more instances of failures than success.

Culturally, we are not groomed to fail, and failure is frowned upon. Entrepreneurship thrives on celebrations, and a society that fails to appreciate business failures stifles innovation and creativity even before is fostered.

So we are fighting a mindset and I think it is enough of a challenge to tackle.

What are your expansion plans/breakeven projections?

Tell our audience more about your failures? How should one bounce back?

Success is a journey and failures are pit stops. So if you are aiming for success it will part of the parcel. I had three failed startups before making one and success. And the success overshadowed all the rest.

Always remember one thing, people will always remember your success. Nobody will remember your failure. So, I just brush up my shoulder and say “Bring it on”. It is more of a personality trait in me I think and yes IQ of 148 and anxiety helps a lot J

What comes first for you – money or emotions?

How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?

It gets best out of me. My psychometric analysis says, I can only be motivated internally and no external factor can motivate me to do anything. What better than stress to do that.

What advice would you give to someone starting out, particularly to aspiring entrepreneurs?

Where I get an invitation to speak at events of Colleges/Universities, being from the startup ecosystem I never fail to mention below line:

If You want work-life balance – don’t startup

If you are the one to easily give up – don’t startup

If you can’t give 14–16 hours a day – don’t startup

If you can’t adapt and change every few days and let go of who you were – don’t startup

If criticism bothers you to the point you can’t take it – don’t startup

If you’re not someone who can become obsessed with solving a problem or achieving a certain goal for your startup – don’t startup

If you want to go for a vacation every few months – don’t startup

If you want to play safe, if you can’t take risks – don’t startup

If you can’t go from one failure to another without losing enthusiasm – don’t startup

If you want to pursue hobbies in your spare time – don’t startup

If you’re scared of rejections – don’t startup

If you think startups are about funding and all will be well once you raise funds – don’t startup

If you have a moral obligation to be nice to people working with you even when they are not doing their job properly and you must tell them bluntly – don’t startup

If you don’t like reading which will probably the best way to learn and grow – don’t startup

If you’re waiting for the right moment (and years have passed by) – don’t startup

And always remember “Why” you started. The path will vary; you have to change the way it was initially planned. You will face challenges and you will learn new things and will have to improvise. Keep the focus on the “Why”.

You will find a lot of Gyan on my LinkedIn profile.

BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, Stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.

Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.