Blog

This weekly quiz from YourStory tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this twentieth edition of the quiz, we present five issues tackled by real-life entrepreneurs in their startup journeys.

What would you do if you were in their shoes? At the end of the quiz, you will find out what the entrepreneurs themselves actually did. Would you do things differently?

Check out YourStory’s Book Review section as well, with takeaways from over 325 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.

Q1: When is a good time to start?

Starting up at different stages in life entails a varying range of advantages and challenges. Starting early gives more time to learn from mistakes and evolve. Starting later brings the advantage of years of work experience and connections. But what is common across all ages of founders?

Q2: The problem with the pivot

The pivot is an essential part of the startup journey, since the initial idea is often not the right one. It’s one thing to abandon the original product version and feature set. But there’s one more aspect of the pivot that is even harder – what is that?

Q3: Omnichannel versus multichannel

Given the wide range of physical and digital channels today, companies have to have the ability for multichannel marketing, which involves many or all channels. However, omnichannel marketing is about more than the channel – what is the key difference?

Q4: WFH metrics

The ongoing waves of the pandemic are leading to more of a WFH (work from home) movement for those who have the privilege of being able to have such a work environment. But WFH calls for new kinds of employee evaluation. What is this new mode of assessment?

Q5: Tackling climate change

Climate awareness is clearly growing, but much more action is called for. Discussions at global summits are only a regular reminder, and must be followed by effective policies, educational initiatives, and corporate support. So what’s an innovative way to find climate solutions?

Answers!

Congratulations on having come this far! But there’s more to come – answers to these five questions (below), as well as links to articles with more details on the entrepreneurs’ solutions. Happy reading, happy learning – and happy creating!

A1: When is a good time to start?

Entrepreneurship is indeed about having the power of ideation, commitment to the mission, and the ability to execute on the vision. These capacities may certainly vary with age.

“The only mandatory thing for every entrepreneur whether in the 40s, 50s or even 60s is ample perseverance and self-belief,” explains Ankit Kedia, founder and lead investor of Capital A. Read more about the qualities of entrepreneurs and their startup journeys here.

A2: The problem with the pivot

It takes courage for a business team to accept that they may have made a mistake and not done things right. “The reason why pivots are hard is because it’s not just about pivoting the product but everything around it,” explains Siddhartha Ahluwalia, Founder and Host of 100x Entrepreneur.

“Your organisation, your people have to pivot faster than the actual product pivot for you to be market ready. A lot of times pivots don’t work because of these reasons and not the product themselves,” he adds. Read more on the ups and downs of startup journeys here.

A3: Omnichannel versus multichannel

“The fact that omnichannel prioritises the customer is a significant differentiator between omnichannel and multichannel marketing,” explains Punit Gupta, Founder and CEO of EasyEcom.

Omnichannel marketing is a cross-channel content approach. The channel is not the touchpoint – the engagement with a unified view is the touchpoint. “While digital is one channel, a digital chat with your customer is a touchpoint,” he adds. Read more about the omnichannel advantage here.

A4: WFH metrics

“The biggest lesson that all of us have learnt in the past year is that we aren’t tied to a location to get our work done or run our companies,” explains Anuradha Kalakat, Head of Product Innovation, Flipkart.

“Organisations have been able to trust their employees and provide a more output-based evaluation rather than a face-time based one,” she adds. Read more about such shifts in the future of work from this in-depth HerStory article here.

A5: Tackling climate change

Hackathons, incubators, accelerators, and startup partnerships are all ways that can help individuals and organisations innovate in the face of climate change, argues Gagan Reddy, Founder and CEO, Cittamap.

The Dutch company provides data analytics solutions and urban resilience mapping. “The startup ecosystem needs to integrate climate and biodiversity currents into strategies as it impacts problem statements across all industries,” he adds. Read more about such solution paths here.

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).