Leicester City's Title, A Lesson In Entrepreneurship

"Everybody knows Leicester is a Champion!"

Leicester City are champions of the Barclays Premier League, the most watched competition on the planet. And they've got by with a little help from their friends.

What makes this win magical, if not unique, is the tremendous 5000:1 odds that Leicester City faced. What makes this win unforgettable is that fact that Leicester City F.C. is much like a bootstrapped startup that went on to become a unicorn.

Ranieri - Never Give Up, Even At 64

For all those 30 under 30s, 40 under 40s, and impatient people expecting instant-gratification, there's a wise old fellow, who - at 64 - defied the common narrative: NO, AMBITION DOES NOT DIE WITH AGE. CREATIVITY DOESN'T DIE WITH AGE. GUTS DON'T DISAPPEAR WHEN YOU'RE FIFTY.

Those who watched Ranieri lift Chelsea into the Champions league, and then disappear into the European wilderness, to the point when he was kicked out of his job managing Greece, will understand the magnitude of his achievement. Perhaps he was lucky. But he worked hard for decades, manufacturing this luck.

Bootstrap, bootstrap, bootstrap.

You can buy ~25% of Cristiano Ronaldo with this amount

Leicester is functional. Lots of meat, little gravy. No fancy names, nothing flashy; just great work-ethic. Amazing strategy, and deadly execution.

This is what great teams are made of. Get help from family, friends... a little bit of jugaad. And then work with what you have. So what if you don't have an Oil-baron or a Sheikh funding you? If you have a vision, and a strategy to get there, you will find a way. With or without money. And you will learn a lot more with limited resources.

A team for a strategy. A strategy for a team.

Now that Leicester are champions, and Uber is a unicorn, there are case-studies to tell us how they got there. You can pay $200,000 to learn about these success stories if you want. And then you can do an Uber for X or a Leicester for Y. Or you can take your chances, and be your own Leicester City.

But case-studies teach you a thing or two, with the benefit of hindsight. Look at this infographic, for example:

Call it genius or call it dumb-luck, but Leicester knew themselves well and created tactics to maximise their strengths and cover their weaknesses. If you have a rockstar-developer, focus on creating a world-class product, but if you have a killer sales-force, your focus oughtn't be on the product as much as on an on-ground strategy to build your business.

There is no strategy that fits all; there is no team that fits all. But there is a strategy-team combo that will see you through to the finish. Find that combo.

Believe, always.

Believe in what you're doing. There is no place for doubt.

You can get there only if you've no doubt you can. Yes, you can tell the media and your friends another story. But when you're alone in your room, sitting on your bed, thinking about your startup, you cannot doubt it. There is a way forward, and nothing else.

If all else fails, find yourself a God: a religious deity, a preacher, silence, Elon Musk, or Science. Or get yourself some Thai Monks to help you out.

These are lessons in Sports and Entrepreneurship, and we - at Khelfie - cannot wait to put these into practice!

#Fearless #LCFC

The Idea-Person-Thing

“The three grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.”

— Alexander Chalmers

In my attempt to distill happiness into its purest form, I thrust all three of these pursuits into a single idea-person-thing combination. That idea-person-thing becomes my all. I wake up to it, I breathe it, I eat it, I sleep with it.

It is always with me. It possesses me, and takes over everything else. I cannot give up until I win. And I cannot win unless I keep wrestling. There are a million things that badger me, that try to pry my attention away from this absolute purpose of existence. Even if my eyes leave it for a moment, I must return to it. I have been wired that way. I am obsessive, and I don't give up.

It is difficult to explain the past few months, that have flown by in breathtaking pace. I wake up, think about new ways to realize the idea-person-thing, feel let down by a lot of things that happen, pick myself up because I know I can't win unless I keep wrestling, win small victories that fuel me for weeks, and keep working until I'm too tired to work.

You cannot be unimaginably happy unless you go all in.

Notes of a Sentimental Lover

Every path you traced on her surface, every little nook which you think you alone hold secret, each of those scents that have delighted you every time you were alone with her on those evening-streets… you vividly recall the tastes, and words whispered a long time ago, and her familiar touch…

I was at the Main Gate at 3 am last morning, zooming into the campus in a sedan, instead of strolling past the guards with a bunch of friends - some drunk, others sleepy, some trying to hide the red glow of the midnight cigarette lit at Bus-T by cupping it in their palms…

As the car sped past Ravindra Bhawan, I watched the campus being readied for Cognizance – flexes, posters, tents, and the general hustle-bustle near the UG Club. I was instantly transported to the same space four or five years ago: the flexes were the same; they once said ‘Technovating India’, now ‘Aim BIT’.

I fell asleep in KIH, refusing to suffer repeated bouts of déjà vu and nostalgia at such an unearthly hour. “No,” I said to myself, “I will suffer this tomorrow.” The internet was still as hopeless as it used to be. Roorkee remains stubbornly untouched by both progress and decadence of outside-civilization.

When I woke up this morning, I made myself a cup of Elaichi Tea in the Khosla International House and sent a photograph of the lawns to my friends on Whatsapp, titled “Guess where”. I have spent most of today in a trance, often unable to believe I am on campus again. Maybe I am not; I no longer have any reason to walk towards Cautley or Ganga, I didn’t stare at Sarojini with the same wonder, Alpahar is now extinct, and there is a massive Multi-Activity Center that houses a CCD and a Souvenir Shop!

To take my mind off this distortion of space-time, I decided to have lunch at the mess. After a good hearty meal, I knew that I would be able to tell the difference between 2010 and 2016. I served myself food – stiff, parched rotis, long dry grains of rice, bland yellow dal suitably warmed, brownish aloo-gobi glazed with a layer of oil and dahi that turned watery when poured into a steel cup – and sat on a hard, wooden chair. Halfway into my meal, as I recalled the sour taste of Roorkee’s thin dahi, I was struck by the oddness of the room, which was both colonial and sarkari at once. I dashed out of the mess.

Near the Civil Department, a young couple crossed me; the guy was wearing an old pair of bluish jeans and older slippers, and the girl was in a loose t-shirt that she had probably pulled out from the bottom of the shelf. Her strong jasmine perfume mingled with the Roorkee air. I turned left near the Electrical Department, and walked past the JEE Office, towards the Main Building. The steps surrounding the Main Building are among my favourite places on campus, simply because they offer comfort in their plainness. My path today, as it usually was during my four years on campus, was empty. I was alone with this delightful place.

I felt my skin form tiny undulations in response to the chill March breeze. The giant trees rustled gently, and the air dripped with the sugary sweat of red springtime flowers. It is a scent you can associate with love or heartbreak, with pain or victory, with peace or excitement; each of us has a distinct personal memory of this smell, and it is a smell we shall never forget.

I clicked this photograph as I passed the Main Building, thinking about a past that didn’t have so much Instagram or Whatsapp or Facebook. I thought of all those people who have walked with me down those roads – friends whose cycles I rode, friends who got drunk and flirted with the girls’ hostel, friends who climbed the water tank because they had nothing better to do or because the stuff from the mountains was actually that good, friends whose hands I held thinking I was in love, friends who walked with me to Solani or to the dosa-guy near the bridge or to Baadshah, friends who helped me meet tough self-made deadlines, friends who added me to their list of proxies, friends who changed everything forever – and decided that I was better off not thinking about them. I would either laugh like a madman, or I would cry.

I am grateful that Roorkee, in my perception, is frozen in space and time. It is this magical place 170km from Delhi which can never change. You can go back whenever you want to see that young guy or girl stroll through the streets with childish arrogance, with earphones blaring the raw lyrics of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, with little to do other than drink coffee, eat Maggi, and watch a TV Series all day long… You can go back whenever you want to see yourself as artwork on a flex at Kranti Chowk.