Business is an act of creating services and products that can eventually sell for profit. When the cost to deliver the services or manufacture the products is below the final selling price, you know that you have a business going. The fact that enough others are waiting to enter the same market after learning the art of business that you have gotten involved in and cater to consumers, brings dynamics of competition into what you thought was your core business. Competition is always good as it benefits the end consumer of product or service but for you, as a business owner, it brings you out of your comfort zone. Business after all is about staying out of your comfort zone.

One of the key things, I have understood by being involved in the growth of businesses and brands, over the years, is the need for speed. My first work was with a network marketing company that I was a part of until I turned 24, and thereafter until I turned 27, I built my personal brand as an Inspirational speaker. Parallel to building my personal brand as a speaker, was the work to build this online media you're reading the article piece on. Besides both, i3 [Influence Inspire Impact] has been an offline training platform that was introduced and run by iU [delivering 300+ conferences across 4 cities in India]. iU initially started as a training company and the training vertical now is an offshoot of this online media, SiMUS is another brand that is a business consulting firm now [from being a digital marketing company earlier], PLUWIS was a web development brand that we put in place delivering to over 200 clients; Adad is a social initiatives platform bringing social impact spearheads on one platform and iU Cares Foundation, a body with several projects (that are brands in themselves), acts as the CSR Body of iU online media. All of this happened with one element and that was the "speed" of work with whatever resources we have had over the years.

There's always one difficulty most businesses find themselves in and that is in defining a speed for their venture. Since it doesn't get defined for a long time, whatever the business does (literally anything at all) begins to look right.

When I look back, I realize that I used to have huge milestones for each of my wings of work and people would criticize mentioning that those milestones won’t be reached. But in hindsight, while many things did go wrong [which they generally do], keeping high aims pushed us for higher speeds, and that lead to growth that benefited all over the years in various ways. If we had to know that we are going to fail at something, even that happened quite fast. Some journeys were just meant to complete. Like i3 lasted 5 years before I called a pause on the platform to hopefully come back in a different shape. The social impact projects have become a seasonal execution now compared to consistent weekly/monthly executions then. The focus shifted to iU online media, consulting Startups and businesses for fast-paced growth and some exciting projects that are under development, but what remained common has been the ‘speed’ of getting things done and moving forward.

I'm not sure if the speed we move at suits your work, but lethargy and slow progress don't suit anyone. What looks slow might not be and what looks fast might not be either. This is why I mention here, a speed that defines your business at hand, with an awareness of your resources that maximizes the output from the opportunity at hand, becomes very important
to ensure that the best potential of your people comes to play.

The easiest way to get this happening is to associate a number to everything that you are setting out for. They talk KPIs [Key Performance Indicators] and most entrepreneurs [small business owners in particular] call them jargons and keep them at bay. The point is to have a parameter to measure and milestone to look out for. It gives you a sense of where you stand and where you need to be in a stipulated amount of time.

When you wish to reach your friend's place at 8 pm and you know that the drive would take 45 minutes from where you are, you better should have left at 7 pm and the latest by 7:15 pm. Likewise, when you know achieving your sales target takes 100 working days, you better set out for it 2 quarters in advance if you need to meet the target before your financial year closes. If you do not meet your targets or find yourself cursing the team involved, bad circumstances, or anything else, ask yourself if you had put down numbers clearly and had taken them even more seriously. If you didn't do this, you likely didn't define the speed at which your venture needs to move. That leaves any speed to be the speed you are satisfied with.
One of the many things I know, this is sure shot way to failure and wouldn't bring any success. If you are somebody who has been a victim to this or now, after reading this piece until here, realize that you have had this happening, don't punish yourself too hard, it happens. Pick up a pen and paper now, write down your goals, KPIs, and ways to achieve them and see yourself defining a pace. Get all associated people to feedback on it and then with little tweaks from their feedback, arrive at numbers everybody can watch out for. If you are not doing this even now, you're likely punishing yourself.

Once you have done this, don't forget to connect with me on twitter or through an email and let me know how did it impact your business progress, and I will tell you that eMail will not have any other tone except a Joyous success filled tone to itself. No exaggeration here at all. Wishing you and your team the speed your business deserves. If you find it hard to set the pace and can't get the numbers clear at all, don't mind shooting a text to me, and let's get brainstorming together. From changing brand names to defining timelines to getting growth strategies right, I have helped awesome founders do awesome stuff with their brands over these 8 years.
Happy to be there with you and share some of my failures to let you not fail the same way. :) Let's catch up & discuss what speed your business truly deserves.

Here are some quick data points I found on the web to highlight companies that inspire speed:

1. Uber was formed in 2009. In less than a decade the company expanded to 65 countries, offering services that include food delivery & freight transportation. [Source: Inc.com]

2. Huawei’s Smartphone model P30 series had hit the sales volume of 10mn within 85 days of its launch. [Source: GSMArena]

3. Amazon had shipped the books to all the 50 states of the USA & 45 different countries in the first month after it was officially launched as an online store on July 16th, 1995. [Source: History.com]

4. Whatsapp's Growth Timeline:

It was launched in June 2009 and within 2.5 years i.e. October 2011, the number of messages sent through Whatsapp had reached 1 billion per day. By June 2013, it was processing 27 bn messages per day with 250 million users on its platform. It was acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for $19bn. [Source: BGR]

Whatsapp timeline of the number of monthly active users worldwide from 2013 to 2020 (in millions): [Source: Statista]



5. Indian Company Swiggy entered the group of unicorns in the country in 4 years of its existence. [Source: Livemint] Let's connect & add speed to your business growth; whatever is apt and right, but, let's define it.