We invited Sowmya Keshava, Co-Founder of Nilah Advisors for an interview with Most Popular Stories to know more about her entrepreneurial journey.
Sowmya Keshava is a startup pragmatist with strong competence and know-how of Startup and VC ecosystem. She has successfully penetrated global markets w.r.t startups, accelerators, and consulting. She founded a boutique consulting firm ‘The Mustard Tree’ in 2013 with a focus on Strategic Business Solutions, Brand Strategy, and Digital Marketing.
- Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an Entrepreneur.
I was born and raised in Bangalore and did my schooling here. I am a double post graduate with a degree in MBA in Marketing and Business Management from Mount Carmel College in Bangalore. Six Sigma and Statistics were my favorite subjects in college and someday I would like to do a Ph.D. in Statistics.
Growing up, I always wanted to become a cardiologist but I was unable to get a Medical seat in Bangalore (and I didn’t move to any other city). It was difficult at that time to give up your dreams and decide to pursue something else.
I am someone who always plans ahead and knows what my next 3-4 years of life should look like. At that time, it was my brother who made me understand the scope that other fields have and how I could actually make a career out of it.
I decided to pursue Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Statistics and went on to do my MBA and that’s when I figured that I have a passion for building brands and telling stories that would connect to people.
I don’t regret not doing my MBBS one bit as I am happy with the way my career has taken the twists and turns and helped me with some amazing experiences and also meet some wonderful people from the industry from whom I have learned a lot.
My career spans from working with startups and multinational companies to top VC firms and accelerators. I have worked with companies such as Kalaari Capital, Kyron Global, Zynga, Ogilvy and recently with VivaVideo (& VidStatus).
I have been able to successfully penetrate global markets w.r.t startups, accelerator and consulting through my connections in the startup ecosystem in various Geos.
Becoming an entrepreneur was something that I didn’t plan. My role model is my father who is a businessman. Back then he was one of the leading businessmen in his field and my brother and I would always help him in his office during our spare time.
So I believe it was a natural progression for me. My stint as a consultant / advisor started during my MBA days when I would help friends set up their businesses, give them leads or suggest ideas on gaining more traction which continued even after I started working full time.
I was lucky to have very encouraging bosses who were fine with me consulting post office hours as none of my projects were paid jigs. I did it purely for learning and gaining experiences in various fields.
- Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
I took my first step as an entrepreneur in 2013, when I started a boutique consulting firm called The Mustard Tree. It was around the time when I was already with a large multinational gaming company working with some great minds and loving my job.
That was also a phase when some of my colleagues moved on to set up their own startups which led me to think of doing the same.
Moreover, at that time I was helping 6-7 friends with their companies, advising them with marketing, social media or evaluating their business plans. They would always ask me to either come on board or help them full time.
I wasn’t following any trend of becoming an Entrepreneur but I knew I wanted to do it so why not now? At that time I had a good number of years experience in various fields and a good network of people who needed my services so it felt like it was the right time.
- What was the vision behind it?
The Mustard Tree was a consulting firm where we worked closely with early-stage startups helping them with their business and marketing strategy along with fundraising.
I was very clear that we will work with early-stage startups as they need guidance and support at the initial stages when founders tend to ignore the importance of market research, customer behavior, brand strategy or even business strategy post the first couple of product stages.
My second stint as an entrepreneur is with Nilah Advisors. I have been working with a few foreign investors and Indian Startups for some time. It’s only time now to give it a name and make it more structured and formal.
- What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?
With The Mustard Tree, the first year was a struggle though we had enough clients and projects. Our clients were mostly early-stage startups or small businesses and we have had scenarios where they would say things like “We are a startup and may not be able to pay you, are you ok with equity?”, “Oh, this social media campaign is too easy, just posting on Facebook & Twitter right? My 10yr old can also do it so why do we need an elaborate plan and 2 people dedicated to it?” Some clients who were my friends who would say, “We haven’t used the designs and creatives your team gave us, so we can’t clear your invoices yet.”And so on.
We had to think quickly and not let this repeat for another year, so we quickly changed our approach and started working with VCs and their portfolio companies, that way things did stabilize as we know that the companies are serious about who they spend their time and money on.
- How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Pressure and stress come at different levels depending on the situation.
One of my ex-bosses and mentor made me realise early on that I work best when I am under pressure, be it last minute issues or requests from clients, sudden change in deadlines or losing resources at the nth moment, I have handled them mostly all by myself.
In my 14+ years of experience in full time jobs or as a consultant, I have faced issues and they have all taught me some valuable lessons.
As a working professional or founder, one needs to understand that there are going to be challenges and stress at every stage in your career just like life. We need to be mentally prepared and face it. The true test is to come out of shining and evaluate what you achieved or lost during that time.
The only way I handle stress is to not look at it as stress. I handle stress or pressure as an examination. I know there is a problem given, what are the ways to handle it, evaluate the best and second best option and then give it your best shot.
My husband has been my rock and helps me a lot in cooling off the stress. He has been a pillar of support and the best thing we do is talk my heart out until I get it out of my system so that my mind can think clearly.
Cleaning and cooking is a therapy in some way for me as I do most of my thinking and planning while doing my chores.
- What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/startup?
What has worked for me is having mentors and friends around you who you can talk to and bounce off your ideas and thoughts. Most of the time, I get clarity of thought when I am talking it out to someone. I am lucky enough to have amazing ex-bosses and my husband who is my go-to-person.
The other ‘strategy’ for me was to constantly evaluate my growth in my career. What next? Am I doing the right thing? Are there more interesting things that I can do in this field? Should I consider moving to another field that can also utilize the experience and knowledge that I have gained so far? This really helped me to move from being just a brand manager to investments and advisor for startups.
Having a connection to growing ecosystems like S.Korea and China gave me more reach and a better understanding of cross-border opportunities and helped me learn much more.
- How is your company helping India to grow?
In this hour of global crisis, a lot of startups and companies are either shutting down or are forced to rethink their strategy. There are a lot of questions in everybody’s minds like will my startup survive if I keep it running, or where will I get the next round of funding from, or even can I invest my money in a startup and hope to get returns.
We are helping startups with these questions by coming onboard as their advisors to connect with the right investors, evaluate the startup for our investor partners and with the help of our experts who are willing to spend their valuable time to mentor the startups and advise them on the right direction in these challenging times. We also help some companies in their efforts to digital transformation.
We are exploring opportunities to work with the Government and policymakers to help them with their existing initiatives for encouraging entrepreneurship in Tier II and Tier III cities.
We are also building a concept platform to connect mentors and founders directly.
We hope this will help the ecosystem find stability to some extent which will contribute to the growth of our economy.
My network with folks from S.Korea, Japan, and China helps in understanding the cross-border opportunities which will help the ecosystems learn from each other.
- In your opinion what are the keys to success?
Being an all-rounder really helps when you are an entrepreneur but that doesn’t mean one needs to put his/her finger in many pies. I have seen that most founders are products and technology people.
Having an understanding of various aspects of business such as Marketing, Sales or even Human Resource will help them have a vision on how they want to build their company and what the culture of the company should be. This will define the soul of the company which most founders tend to think about much later in their startup journey.
One thing that has helped me immensely to learn and give it to the ecosystem is mentoring the budding entrepreneurs. I involve myself in many initiatives where I spend my time as a mentor and if the idea and teams are good then I continue to engage with them as advisors.
- What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
- One can’t become an entrepreneur overnight. One has to identify the interest within oneself and understand if he/she is prepared for a journey of ups and downs without an assurance of income.
- What most aspiring young founders need to keep in mind is that your startup is just not your own dream, it also belongs to your team. Make them believe in your idea and take them along with you on the journey. Hiring the best will only help you with achieving your company goals, so let’s not compromise on the quality of people.
- You don’t start a company with the thought of how soon you can raise funds or how soon can you sell the company. Your goal needs to be to build a brilliant product/platform/service that meets the needs of hundreds which will help you bring in the next thousand customers.
- Have a short term and long term plan for everything so you are not left pausing every few months and ponder what next. Having a plan B helps.
- Entrepreneurs need to be responsible not only with the kind of product or services they are creating which would be beneficial or harmful for the community but also be aware that whatever they do will also have an impact on the team.
- Constantly evaluate opportunities in these changing times.
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