A year into the pandemic, I decided to leave tech to work at a manufacturing startup in Delhi, India that needed to grow while showing profits every year.
One of the most instructive experiences of my life. Prior to this I had run my own tech startup mostly out of posh co-working spaces in Bangalore and prior to that worked at a heavily funded tech company with catered meals and live food counters.
The manufacturing company’s head office (in a remote non-descript industrial area outside Delhi) did not even have a properly functioning AC. Every penny mattered. And it was simply the case that managing working capital and buying equipments for our tiny prototype plant was more important than the slight discomfort of not having a casette AC.
If you’re a mid to upper-mid level exec in tech you don’t ever hear of working capital cycles or depreciation. Those things come much later.
But if you’re in manufacturing every penny matters. It’s quite remarkable how much I had to unlearn and re-learn.
You can still stay at the secure big corporation while understanding how that comfort/stability is being given to you, while appreciating the things that keep everything in place (e.g. new fundraising -> runaway to continue existing, or xyz recurring customer -> powers company fancy offsite every year), without having to go through the founding hustle of a whole startup
Well said!
A year into the pandemic, I decided to leave tech to work at a manufacturing startup in Delhi, India that needed to grow while showing profits every year.
One of the most instructive experiences of my life. Prior to this I had run my own tech startup mostly out of posh co-working spaces in Bangalore and prior to that worked at a heavily funded tech company with catered meals and live food counters.
The manufacturing company’s head office (in a remote non-descript industrial area outside Delhi) did not even have a properly functioning AC. Every penny mattered. And it was simply the case that managing working capital and buying equipments for our tiny prototype plant was more important than the slight discomfort of not having a casette AC.
If you’re a mid to upper-mid level exec in tech you don’t ever hear of working capital cycles or depreciation. Those things come much later.
But if you’re in manufacturing every penny matters. It’s quite remarkable how much I had to unlearn and re-learn.
You can still stay at the secure big corporation while understanding how that comfort/stability is being given to you, while appreciating the things that keep everything in place (e.g. new fundraising -> runaway to continue existing, or xyz recurring customer -> powers company fancy offsite every year), without having to go through the founding hustle of a whole startup