Funny how about 5 years back in school, I would press the ‘7’ button on my keypad four times to reach the letter ‘s’ in my phone, and how life has changed now. Amazing how I’m not a stranger now in a stranger city through Google maps, how I book a cab, recharge my phone, buy my grocery and what not by a click of a button through technology.
But there’s one thing that I’ve observed about all successful companies around me – time, they help you buy time. In countries outside India, where people work on hourly wages, people know how expensive their time is and hence know what the worth of their time is. And people in India are slowly beginning to realise this too; and that’s what the investors flooding their money on startups are waiting for, for us to realise how expensive our time is.
Two learnings –
1. Understand that your time is expensive. Work, invest in, taught to, laugh with people who are worth your time.
2. If you’re a company, or a startup building a product, ask yourself if your product/company is helping your users buy their time. If the answer is yes or so you believe, you’re heading the right path.