On this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, our guest is Sriram Manoharan, founder and Managing Director of CONTUS.
Sriram shares the lessons he’s learned through a failed startup in 2008 and how he made the best out of those lessons to make CONTUS successful & profitable while bootstrapping.
Having interviewed hundreds of candidates over the past 17 years, he explains the difference between hiring people when you are an executive at a company working for someone else versus hiring as a founder of your own company. Sriram also highlights the best practices to build a good work culture and values at a bootstrapped company.
How did you face the difficulties of a startup?
Sriram started an online technical support platform known as Support1000.com. However, they were unsure about how they would market it within four months without funds. He was looking for solutions along with his team. They had to go without salaries and revenues for a few years. Their sole aim was to keep the business going. They somehow managed to find a way to work in software development. He started designing websites for several companies. This is where he learnt about digital marketing. They prepared a few software services models and started marketing them.
He adds that making a startup requires a lot of consistency. The first step or idea always tends to fail. New startups should just continue to keep their place in the market space. If they have a good product, they will definitely find a market for their products.
The funding opportunities were extremely less in 2008. Thus, they had to run the startup with their own funds. However, Sriram says that they are self-sufficient. He does not believe in non- profitable companies having billion dollar valuations. They keep investing in their own business in order to grow it. Moreover, they were a services company which made it even more difficult to raise funds.
Implementing digital transformation in organizations:
Sriram finds the idea of implementing technology extremely useful. The hiring in the company is huge thus making it difficult to implement this. However, he feels it can bring a great change within the organizations.
Choosing between remote work and hybrid work:
Sriram feels that along with working remotely, employees should come to the office and meet each other once or twice a week. Meeting people and learning from seniors helps the new hires in order to get into the culture of the organization. He finds it hard to meet people over laptop screens. Giving a personal touch will always help build a culture.
However, he is a strong proponent of the hybrid model and feels it is successful. It has ramped up the way of work making everything very easy. He adds that the hybrid model is the most convenient option as forcing employees into the office is not acceptable as well.
Advice to other entrepreneurs and people managers:
Our guest provides valuable advice to other entrepreneurs and people managers: We all have to add a human touch to everything. We have to be helpful and supportive towards the organization, the employees and even candidates who lost their jobs. The IT industry is a less-affected industry. Thus it should take the responsibility of helping others as well.
Follow Sriram Manoharan on LinkedIn
Podcast host: Junius Dsilva
Produced by: Priya Bhatt