'Founders go through falls, not failures': Rahul Chandra on entrepreneurship and success

A founder’s journey is dynamic, filled with stress, success and failures at rates which are unprecedented in their lives. Most people don't go through the kind of stress a founder would go through in a week even over the course of a year, believes Rahul Chandra, MD, Arkam Ventures.

As he puts it in his book, "a founder's mind is a deep dark well, in its crevices rest the secrets that when passed reveal the ideal behaviour pattern that could create mega outcomes".

Chandra’s book, Tightrope to the Moon, was launched at YourStory's flagship summit TechSparks 2024 held at Bengaluru. It dives into the mindset of founders and unravels how some of the ‘mega founders’ think and deal with everyday situations.

“I have met 3,000 founders over the last 25 years; with 60-65 of them, I've taken 10-year plus journeys,” said Chandra in a fireside chat at TechSparks. The book was written as an attempt to be a handbook or a companion for founders on their journeys.

Witnessing testing moments of founders’ lives, such as chaos unfolding, cash running out, co-founders wanting to discontinue, and teams falling apart, built Chandra’s appreciation for the ‘state of being a founder.’

“To me, it's always seemed unreal how a founder would deal with situations and still come out strong from that situation,” he said.

In challenging situations, there are specific behaviours that can be noticed among the founders which then lead them to success. Over his journey of 25 years, Chandra picked up on instances where those behaviours have a pattern that ‘leads to immense success.’

Discussing some of the patterns associated with successful founders, he begins with the ‘nuclear reactor nature of the founder.’

“There is massive energy release. That energy is taking some thought into a company which will then hire thousands of people… It's like a Big Bang moment where a startup is born in the head. And after a few weeks and months, you'll actually see an office. There'll be people inside, there'll be customers, there'll be invoices,” he said.

The person who leads such an energy transformation is who Chandra classifies as ‘the key.’ This is the person who would be “the last person; if everything shuts down, money runs out, customers run away, the last person to turn the light off and the first person to put their house and take a loan against it to keep the lights on will be the key,” he added.

The journey could last for 10-15 years and requires a marathon mindset. “It is managing the burn that you put on a daily basis. You don't want to burn out too fast. You don't want to give up too soon just before things are turning. But at the same time, you need to sustain relationships. You need to engage better. You need to build teams which are then taking up the relay race further,” Chandra added.

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Role of luck in success

There is a strong component of luck in a startup's success. Founders who want to stay grounded will credit luck to a greater degree, while those who are taking the train to arrogance city will attribute success to their own brilliance, according to an excerpt from Tightrope to the Moon.

“If a founder is successful, luck may or may not have played a part. But acknowledging it is actually important for a founder because it takes the self-grandiose or the self-image down a notch. It helps you stay grounded,” said Chandra in the context of the above excerpt.

Winning the startup war

“I've actually chosen not to use the word failure in this book. I've called it a fall, because I think failure is permanent, fall is temporary. And I think founders go through falls, not failures. Until they stop, until they just give up, there is no failure,” he emphasised.

In the current Indian setting, Arkam has a focus around ‘middle India.’ According to Chandra, its theme is “how to get to the next 500 million unserved Indians who are wanting to take their first few steps.”

Founders must be mindful of access and build products in a 500 million consumer space, not 50,000 or 100,000, he added. Simplification of the complexity behind products is also needed for widespread adoption.

He cites the examples of smallcase and JAR. What interested Arkam about smallcase was “the simplicity of the front end where anybody new to the market could adopt", he explained. Whereas, JAR is an extremely simple product which makes it easy to get on and stay on a savings journey.

"While most VCs said no to JAR because they felt that middle India has no money to save, our thesis was that jar is creating a product which actually nudges you to save, whether you have money or however much money you have," Chandra added.

"You can actually create markets for 500 million people by building the right product. So, that's how the thesis translates to product," he concluded.