Decoding the Startup Gnome – “The Sutra”
My interest to study deep into the roots of how civilization has evolved and how our ancestors had lived their lives in the past really pushed me to bring few things into context for discussion. I came to a realization that nothing much has changed in the way human beings wanted to connect and live in a community in the past or present, it is the same. Community by word is “Common-Unity”.
Doing my little bit of pondering on the clichés we fancy talking about a lot nowadays; particularly in the startup world we talk a lot of about disruption, social-media, crowd-funding, mixers/meetups, cognitive thinking and so on. And here I'll draw a few parallels:
Why a Popular Religion & Startup Success is same
Fundamental aspect of Religion is belief, a faith and once belief is there, rest follows. It requires some level of conviction to take the journey in the path of a particular religion. This directly correlates to the very basic DNA of starting-up. Every Founder/Co-founder has a fundamental belief that his idea at core is going to change the world. The very basic aspect of belief and changing the world has brought very powerful and highly influential religion as a practice to the earth Buddhism, Christianity, Islam & Hinduism.
The idea of changing the world is very subjective; no religion gave birth with the thought of changing the world, the enlightenment of the master gave birth to a beautiful thought process which was soothing to the commune to follow. In the startup terminology, to make it easy to understand, only after the traction came in the belief of the master, the people approved the religion and became a big phenomenon.
The same applies in the startup commune as well. For you to be the Master, you need to go through the process of unlearning and should live in the present. Not the past not the future. Then the enlightenment happens. It's similar to "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."
Disruption is good then, now and forever but it is a rare occurrence
Do you know that our body goes through change every 7 years? During this cycle the whole body will lose its old cells and new cells will generate. That is the time at which the body will be in its highest fluid state both mentally and bio-physically. This is the time transformation happens in every human being.
Every 7 years the body comes to a point where old goes and the new settles. It is a transitory period. If you want a new dimension to settle in your life that is the moment.
In the history of humanity as a whole, every 25 centuries there comes a peak. That is where you see new gurus were gifted to this world & social change happens. (Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad and so on) That is the fluid state. Old is meaningless, past has become insignificant, future is uncertain. The time is for the present.
New patterns have arrived and you will see it settling down. Life is a cycle, it has to move.
I’m forced to see that technology world reach the fluid state every 10 years. It will take some time settle down and then becomes the standard pattern to follow.
Disruption is good; there are moments when changes happen. The present is ripe, we are experiencing those changes.
Villages and life, there was Social then
In olden days people lived in village, there was no urbanization. Everyone knows each other;they had a clear direction on what they are supposed to do for living, every season and every situation. People where dependent on each other. They were able to lead a peaceful life since the commune and harmony was there and people helped each other, genuinely cared and shared with each other.
The modern world has gone far-away from this old lifestyle. Increased Urbanization, lot of people packed into a tight space, no village sense of community, lot of strangers stuck together, passing groups of people, we don’t even know our own neighbors. Such is the plight of the today's so called civilized world.
There is a great need for change in our existing society. We have great deal of misery in our hearts. The problem is more of inside. It is an inner problem. People have so much of wealth at disposition when compared to 3rd world, still they are unhappy.
In the 3rd world people don’t have the problems what the developed and developing countries are facing. They have good family connections, enjoy communal living; they are more content and support other each other and so on.
Social Media as a platform with the raise of technology has given big hope and opportunity for the modern world to connect back to its roots. Explore the world & communities in the way how it used to be back in times.
Social Media is not an invention; it is a rediscovery. Being normal, simple & dependent is in the very nature of human beings. The fundamental elements cannot change so it makes a great deal of sense to conclude that social-media is here to exist.
But it is in the hands of the visionaries, thought leaders to synergize it in the way it has to go than complicating it into a social misery.
Barn raising & Free Loan Clichéd as Crowd sourcing & Crowd funding today
Barn raising, also called a “raising bee” or “rearing” in the UK is a great example of crowd sourcing.
People in the villages took help from each other. If a farmer wants to build a Barn, they gather people from the neighborhood and start constructing the barn. The families will give them food, shelter to relax and the neighbors in return build the Barn for them. The favor would eventually return to each participant when in need. The entire activity doesn’t involve any exchange of money for the work delivered.
Ages before, the communities used to collect money from every inhabitant of the village and keep it for good use. Any needy person can put a request to the villagers asking for money and the money will be given to the families for their well-being. Once the crisis is over, the families will re-pay the money over a period of time and still continue contributing the money into the fund so that it will come to good use for another needy person.
Usury was a forbidden practice in the olden times. Fundamentally if someone is lending money they are not supposed to take interest for that. It was considered as a sin.
In the modern times, crowd-funding comes back to the communities as a service. It can be a product, a service or some charity.
Crowd sourcing & Crowd funding is a great platform and it is going to prevail for times to come. There is nothing new about it; humanity is in the period of rediscovering its roots on the evolving technology platform. Good thing to happen.
Mixers/Meetups/Bajans/Evangelism/Sermon/Hackathon / Debates
All this events signify the ethics of doing right and wrong. Fundamentally helps to take decisions and to choose the right path to go.
Such events help human beings to develop their cognitive behaviors. It helps them to choose between right and wrong. It also helps them to take a certain course of action on the preferred path.
These events fundamentally act as a strong guiding factor to lead them to the destination.
Every religion had an ethical code of conduct to help people take right path in leading their lives peacefully majorly on 3 pricinples.
Ethics of Restraint - Identification of things which you want to hold yourself back from
Ethics for Cultivation or Development – Develop qualities within you that will take you in the direction that you want to go
Altruism – Helping other living beings. This was considered to be fundamental need for the ability to act and interact with others.
These Ethics helped the people to judge their actions to discriminate between what to do and not to do.
Putting body into action to take conscious decision. They knew the art of how to act in the world.
I see these qualities highly relevant in the context of the startup communities as well. This is the very basis on which I see all the leaders in the community are preaching too.
Cloud is the evolution of the good karma the technology has built for itself
To summarize, the technology has taken the mankind to the new highs, but the very fundamental aspects of any human being is still the same. We still wanted to connect, communicate, learn, share and thrive in the society as we have done in the past. The medium of doing it has changed, but men & women will still remain to be Adam & Eve. Hallelujah!
