Aneesh Khanna is a startup incubator. He is an early-stage entrepreneurship consultant & coach. Aneesh’s expertise lies in working with entrepreneurs at the ‘earliest’ stages of their entrepreneurship journeys. Ever since Aneesh started mentoring and guiding young startups, he realized the lack of structure and clarity of thought, in the earliest stages of the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Over the last five years, Aneesh has focussed on his consulting practice and leaned more towards working with early-stage startups. In an exclusive interview with Bizz Buzz, he explains about his coaching philosophy, books and trends within the evolving and ever-changing startup ecosystem

Tell us more about Aneesh Khanna?

I am the author of ‘Ain’t No Eureka – Your Idea to Enterprise Journey’ and an earliest stage entrepreneurship coach.

I spent around seven years as a corporate employee, after an MBA in marketing from Singapore, in multinational companies in healthcare, diagnostics and primary care at mid to senior positions. I then turned entrepreneur and built one of the pioneering companies in Indian home healthcare. I raised two rounds of seed capital after over 72 pitches and scaled to 100 employees in three cities.

In my current role as an entrepreneurship coach, I spend time with both young people who are still in college and entrepreneurs who in the early days of their bootstrapped ventures and help them think through their idea-to-enterprise journey.

What is the crux of your book - It Aint No Eureka?

I wrote the book thinking about people who roam with an idea in their Pocket, or in a Google Drive Folder or the spaces of their mind; with so many unanswered questions and lack of clarity on the next steps to take their ‘idea to enterprise journey’.

In the last two years in particular, I observed how a combination of ‘Startup India’ efforts and the ‘Shark Tank Phenomenon’ have created a sea of aspiring entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship has become a career choice for many. The book is written like a workbook, where each chapter of the book, peels the layer of the IDEA, step by step.

How would you describe your journey, USPs, and philosophy?

I believe that the 0-1 journey comes naturally to me. I find it exciting to look at new opportunities and also live through the ‘Birth + Scaling’ of Ideas through the journeys of my mentees and coachees.

My Coaching Philosophy

Come back to your why and the problem – when in doubt, it is my duty to steer the entrepreneur back to his ‘why’; the cause, belief or purpose, on account of which he started his/her journey. The other aspect is to keep obsessing about the actual problem area, rather than thinking about new features of the solution.

‘Move the Needle’ on Sales – My Coaching philosophy is also to urge the entrepreneur to keep ‘moving the needle’ on sales and traction. Every new customer that you add to your business, makes it that much easier when you sit across the table with the investors.

What kind of value addition you will bring in when someone starts a new business?

John C Crosby said that "Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen and a push in the right direction". A mentor, coach or consultant has to maintain a fine balance of giving advice, while retaining the authenticity of the founder and the startup.

My role is to guide the entrepreneur to find his/her path, with a strong focus on the problem that he or she is trying to solve. Other activities that are taken up include finding their customer cohort, who will benefit the most; deep diving into those customer cohorts, to find the product market fit; pragmatic advice on fundraising; focusing on unit economics and profitability and scaling the business, while retaining the early-stage company culture and WHY

What is early-stage entrepreneurship and what are the necessary tools to keep in mind while starting a business?

Early-stage entrepreneurship is often called the 0-1 journey. However, many times this journey commences in the ‘minus 1 to 0’ space as well, when the idea is just born and the aspiring entrepreneur is taking baby steps to bring it to life.

Bootstrapping: bootstrapping is an important stage, because it teaches the entrepreneur to be frugal with capital, yet show some early traction.

Compliance: In the early days itself, stay on top of what is required with respect to statutory laws, licenses to run your business, taxation laws etc.

Co-Founder and early team members: The Co-Founder and first hires, form the core company culture in the early stages. Look at complimentary skills sets, but hire for culture first and skills second.

What is the key to networking, connecting with investors, and ways to pitch?

Investor – entrepreneur fit: Don’t pitch to any random individual angel or angel group or early-stage VC. Do your homework. Go through their fund thesis, portfolio companies, background of the general partners.

Referral from an investee company: Today the volume of pitches that an investor receives through the ‘Submit your Pitch’ type of button on their website is staggering. A referral from one of the existing investees of that VC/angel is always very helpful. Tap into your college entrepreneur alumni network.

Online networking: LinkedIn is a wonderful way to build your network online. But it won’t be effective, if you are not disciplined and have a clear plan on what you want to achieve. Set clear goals on what you want to achieve and refrain from cold in mails.

Evolving trends in startups and how to build a strong brand value proposition?

I believe that in the early days, there are two branding principles amongst others that you must adhere to:

Small details matter: The belief that your logo or your tagline or ‘performance marketing’ budget builds your brand as an early-stage entrepreneur is incorrect. For a new business, you want early customers to fall in love with the product or service that you are building. ‘Sweat the small stuff’ while delivering your product or service.

You are your brand: “If you spend time chasing butterflies, they will just fly away. But if you build a beautiful garden, the butterflies will come, don’t chase, attract”. Build your personal brand on LinkedIn. Talk about your journey, your clients, your industry, your belief system, small bootstrapped wins, your fitness regime etc. Pull works better than Push in the world that we live in today.

Give 5 tips for building a successful startup venture & sustain it?

• Stay authentic to your WHY

• Chase sales and not fundraising on Day 1

• Understand your own strengths and weaknesses and look at complementary team members, by way of co-founders or early hires

• Dream big but keep taking small steps. Be the best, you don’t have to be the biggest.

• Keep iterating your products/services, and look for the ‘secret sauce’, which can help you scale your business. Success is not the opposite of Failure, in fact Failure is a requirement or precursor to Success.

You have only one chance, make it count: What is the secret to effectively pitching, raising capital & to use it wisely?

Talk more about the problem and the sufferers. Investors want to know, if you are a painkiller or a vitamin.

Talk about your WHY – The cause, belief and purpose, because of which you thought of this IDEA and this Problem to solve. The WHY can be deep rooted in your experience, your industry or your deep understanding of the problem at hand.

Metrics: Be strong on metrics across users, repeat rates, cost of acquisition, revenue, unit economics, profitability etc.

Bring every ounce of energy, optimism and good vibes to your pitch. Think of every pitch as your last pitch.

Give five trends within the evolving and ever-changing startup ecosystem?

Quick Commerce: Quick commerce which got a lot of criticism in early 2023, is here to stay in consumer and D2C product categories, and is soon becoming a channel of choice over ecommerce and marketplaces.

Profitability Focus: It is important to gear all your cost and growth structures, towards a goal of being profitable. It’s important to stay focussed on your unit economics and your path to profitability.

Incubators and Central Government Grants: Early-stage entrepreneurs should look at becoming part of incubators, particularly if there are in sectors like AI, AR/VR, med-tech, agri-tech, hardware, blockchain, robotics, etc.

Focus on Organic word of mouth over Performance Marketing

Made in India for the World: Don’t just think of building for the Indian consumer only. Jyoti Bharadwaj, Founder of Teafit, a healthier beverage option of low sugar, low calorie brewed teas, has used exports as a great channel to take her low sugar brewed teas business to places like Singapore, New Zealand, Hongkong and Dubai.