Today morning, in between waking up and going for my walk, I was thinking of the two worlds I inhabit – the one world is that of the future with all the technology innovations that I want to create, and the other is the present with its challenges of the nitty-gritty of running a business. The first world is one of vision and imagination, the second world needs operational excellence and execution. How much ever I’d like to build the first world, it cannot be done without getting the second world right. The second is the foundation for the first.
This is the challenge I face – as do many entrepreneurs. Many times, the dreams get ahead of the reality. One has to execute well today to survive and be ready for the battle of the tomorrow. It becomes especially harder when one has an existing business model and culture which needs rectification – things have to be fixed in place since there is no luxury of an eraser to start with a clean slate. The hidden promise is that if one can do things well in the near-term, then one has a good opportunity to build out the future ideas.
This is also the story of India. The first world dream is that of a developed, modern India. The second world is our reality today. We need to get the details, the small things right, else we will not get to the promised future.
