Blog

Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 48th edition of the quiz, we present 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 and innovators themselves actually did.

Would you do things differently?

Check out YourStory’s Book Review section as well, with takeaways from over 340 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.

Q1: Remote work

Remote work practices were accelerated during the pandemic, providing the assurance of business continuity while also opening up new conveniences of work-from-home for employees. What’s another advantage of remote work, from the talent point of view?

Q2: Messaging and beyond

SMS was the dominant form of messaging in earlier generations of mobile technology. Smartphones lowered the costs of messaging dramatically. What other profound impact did smartphones have on messaging, and what opportunities opened up here?

Q3: Evolution of organisational knowledge

Many organisations have successfully leveraged knowledge management (KM) to improve creation of best practices, enhance collaboration, and locate expertise. As social media, digital transformation, and Industry 4.0 dramatically increase the content pool, what new contributions can KM make, and how?

Q4: Founder approaches

Aspiring founders should focus on a problem space with deep customer needs and aspirations. They should build the necessary skills, hire the right team, and meet funding requirements. What else should a founder be addressing?

Q5: Energy and sustainability

Governments and industry need to collaborate on increasing energy supply from renewable sources such as solar, wind, and tidal flows. Effective distribution is another enabler of sustainability. But an additional angle needs to be addressed, beyond generation and distribution. What is that factor?

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: Remote work

“With the successful proof of concept for remote working, organisations are opening their talent apertures beyond geographically accessible pools,” observes Yogita Tulsiani, MD and Co-founder of iXceed Solutions, a global tech-recruitment provider.

A hybrid work model enables organisations to target previously untapped talent pools from smaller cities and experts from mature economies. “Additionally, hybrid work also opens the door to gig workers and freelancers,” she adds. Read more about the future of work here.

A2: Messaging and beyond

Messaging on smartphones opened the door to full-fledged conversations. Seeing this shift, SMS messaging platform Gupshup pivoted to becoming a conversational tech platform and rebranded itself in 2013. “As emerging markets are getting digital and the mobile revolution is happening, the only way to reach every mobile subscriber–the next 5 billion users–is through mobile messaging,” explains Beerud Sheth, Co-founder of the unicorn.

Today, Gupshup offers conversational messaging to more than 45,000 businesses. “We are on the cusp of another fundamental shift in how the world leverages mobile technology,” adds Krishna Tammana, CTO, Gupshup.

A3: Evolution of organisational knowledge

“As data velocity continues to increase, knowledge management will play a greater role in providing context,” explains Zach Wahl, CEO, Enterprise Knowledge and co-author of Making KM Clickable. He describes six steps of the KM cycle: create, capture, manage, enhance, find, and connect.

KM should not be just about finding knowledge but making it understandable and actionable, he advises. Read more here about KM steps such as content cleanup, findability redesign, expert finder, and semantic search tools to improve learning and productivity.

A4: Founder approaches

“Do something that you really love or have skill sets in, and most importantly, get a co-founder with complementary skills, because that is life-changing,” advises Tejal Bajla, Co-founder of All Things Baby, a curated platform for mother and baby products.

She left a stable corporate job to make the entrepreneurial leap, and acknowledges that the journey towards entrepreneurship isn’t always a smooth sail. Finding a co-founder can bring in the right balance and improve chances of raising funds. Read more here about the startup’s journey through the turbulent period of the pandemic.

A5: Energy and sustainability

“We need to fix the supply and consumption of electricity in Indian homes. It can’t just be about supply, but consumption as well,” affirms Pranesh Chaudhary, CEO and Co-founder, Zunpulse.

The platform enables users to control all the smart products in their home with a plug-and-play solution. Sustainability in the energy field will come not just from generation of clean energy but also efficient use of it. Read more here about how apps and IoT-enabled energy devices can make homes more energy-efficient.

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).