Written by Arvind Agarwal, Founder & CEO, C4D Partners
Politics in India is majorly perceived as easy access to power and money rather than a noble profession. But in 2012, when the Aam Aadmi Party emerged in Delhi, exterminating all moats in the age-old political landscape, it created hope for a change in the status quo. The masses became optimistic regarding the positive changes promised by these individuals who had left their stable jobs with the idea of creating change to offer better public services.
Wait. Doesn’t this sound familiar? Working professionals who leave their cushy jobs to build something innovative and valuable for the markets traditionally dominated by established organizations – isn’t this what start-up founders do?
Not just their notions, I believe start-ups and new-age political parties, in this case, AAP, have much more in common and can learn significantly from each other by drawing parallels. For instance, both entities, a start-up, and a new-age party, demonstrate the promise of solving a societal problem. While their propositions address the challenges of the public, it is the sheer strength of the solutions they offer that drives people to support their ventures. When the audience connects with the ideologies and propositions of these entities, they themselves become advocates for these brands, spreading their agenda and driving their first successes. Therefore, it is crucial for both to build on their core propositions, showcasing themselves as one of the most distinctive players among the established entities and consolidating their positions in the market.
As entrepreneurs identify a plausible strategy to go to market, AAP too adopted the same route during its establishment when its party symbol ‘Broom’ and tagline ‘Mai hu aam aadmi’ received nods of humor and attention from the audience. With the people as their brand ambassadors, the awareness and popularity of the party rose exponentially. Riding on such success, a new-age party can ideally build a strong foundation with efficient delivery of its services. Its work would speak for itself, further boosting acceptance amongst its audience and gradually making way for opportunities to expand its reach. But in haste to move faster, new organizations start seeking routes that would enable quicker reach into desired markets.
Here, self-interests and ideology make a huge difference for the party leader and start-up founder as the new-age entrepreneurs forging into various sectors and emerging political parties representing different regions hold the same flag of growth and expansion. Having said that, several instances resemble AAP’s moves with start-up businesses. Considering the entrepreneurial strategy compass, start-ups are prone to encounter failures after their first growth spurt. Some are a natural part of the growth process but scaling up prematurely proves to be a poor market fit. In fact, this was one of the factors that AAP had overlooked as it hastened to expand beyond Delhi without building a powerful presence in its regional market first. Evidently, this proved a poor strategy for AAP, and the party could not achieve the success it had hoped for in other parts of the country. Therefore, instead of consolidating or digging deep to go big too soon, the founders must figure out the workable go-to-market strategies and not lay bare aspirations. Be it start-ups or political parties, both need to understand the significance of establishing a solid value proposition and strengthening their market position in their growth phase.
Though, just like AAP, most start-up entrepreneurs are likely to make this mistake. As soon as they have tasted a little success, in a rush to capture more markets first, they start working on expansion plans without strengthening their proposition and position. In such a case, they would be diluting their value proposition and indicating to their audience that their primary focus has shifted to gaining scale (for a start-up business) or capturing more seats (for a political party) rather than the original propositions that gave them their initial successes. This common error occurs because most start-up founders and political leaders, blinded by their ambitions, foster a short-term vision for their organizations. Like a political party would plan for the next five years after the elections, start-ups nowadays look at the next funding round or the next 12 months. In the race to grow their businesses and influenced by market pressure, most start-ups start focusing on valuations more than value and engage in hasty decisions in anticipation of increasing their business valuations, like expanding their market reach as quickly as possible, thereby looking through the prism of short-term gains and diluting their own propositions in the process. Thus, a leader should always have a long-term vision, regardless of the entity they lead.
Without a strong vision, the people in any organization will eventually lose direction and the organization will be set for failure. AAP lost many of its former members, who disassociated themselves from the entity as they claimed to no longer identify with its core values. Speaking of manpower, which forms an integral part of any organization, expanding into new markets also means onboarding more people. But if the leader has failed to set a strong vision and has not established a solid image for the company, there is little hope that the new people will be able to comprehend and align themselves with the purpose and culture of the organization, thereby destroying the core values on which the organization had built itself. In the case of political parties, not just new members but even ministers from other parties, which may or may not have similar ideologies, are on-boarded in an attempt to strengthen the party’s position. Similarly, start-ups, too, hire new talent at all levels, be it executives or top management, from different organizations. But coming for new experiences or more money, if these individuals are not able to connect with the basic ideologies and culture, they will barely be able to add any value to the business. In the long run, such moves will only lead to challenges in the organization’s growth.
Establishing these parallels, there is a lot for start-ups and new-age political parties to learn from each other. As the start-up ecosystem in the country grows and new ideas and ideologies rise, it can be significantly advantageous for entrepreneurial professionals – business and political – to draw inspiration from each other and create something more valuable in good order.
Find more interesting reads by Arvind Agarwal on LinkedIn
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