Indian entrepreneurs—mostly in their earlier 30s—are a busy lot, juggling their fast-growing startups, personal goals, and a lot of attention that comes with being part of a booming ecosystem.
As the year turns, 10 Indian startup entrepreneurs took stock and shared their resolutions for 2016 with Quartz:
Naveen Tewari, co-founder and CEO, InMobi
Year-end resolutions are not just about changing for the better. They’re about committing to progress, self-improvement and doing more for others. Hence, my resolution is to entrust more responsibility to my colleagues and employees, be open to new ideas no matter where they come from, pursue innovation and perfection, as well as bring together InMobians as one large family.
On a personal note, I am hoping to play a more active part in solving problems for the society and community at large. InMobi has a lot of data and I would love to find ways to harness it to solve more pressing problems, for example, problems around Bengaluru traffic.
Ashish Goel, founder and CEO, Urban Ladder
I want to follow a fitness regime very regularly and work out for at least 320 days in 2016.
On the work front, I want Urban Ladder to produce knockout products, on which I am completely involved, from consumer research to product launch.
Kalyani Khona, founder and business head, Wanted Umbrella
My new year resolution is to take a week off every three months and travel to a new destination. I love travelling so much that I have a tattoo that reads “blow with the wind.” But during the last year or so, I have not had the time to travel at all. I have only been making two-day business trips and I want to change that in 2016.
Bipin Preet Singh, founder and CEO, MobiKwik
My personal new year resolution is in sync with my professional mission as well. I want to completely stop paying with cash for any kind of transaction. I am already there 90-95%, paying my bills, making payments for shopping, travel, and dining with my online wallet.
Sometimes, for payments less than Rs200, I have to use cash, and I want MobiKwik wallet to serve those instances as well.
Abhishek Goyal, co-founder of Tracxn
In 2016, I wish to expand Tracxn Research to 25 countries from five right now and scale our online angel platform, Syndicate Patform, to 50,000 angels globally. I also want to groom and empower the next level of leadership at Tracxn.
Azhar Iqubal, CEO and co-founder of Inshorts
My professional resolution is to make Inshorts a platform that serves the most relevant content to users. To accomplish this, we need to demonstrate great technological skills and also harness the support of thousands of our beta users.
On the personal front, I want to hone my soft skills and develop excellent leadership qualities.
Sulakshan Kumar, co-founder and CEO, MySmartPrice
Being an entrepreneur has taught me that running a company is going to be a marathon and not a sprint. Over the years, I have neglected my health which is impacting my efficiency. Only a fit body and mind can create a fit company.
Since this marathon is going to go on for many years to come, I realise that I need to find out a way to spend more time with my family. I don’t want to miss my child growing up. For this, I plan to learn how to use time more effectively.
On the professional front, I want to get at least a million people to shop through us monthly.
Avinash Saurabh, founder and CEO, Zoojoo.be
I read about keystone habits, which basically help in creating a chain reaction and rearranging all other habits. So this year, I am picking up a keystone habit of waking up early. I wake up around 9 am now, but I want to start waking up at 5:30 am in 2016. This will help me do lots of other things on my to-do list like meditating, reading more and reaching work early.
Professionally, I want to read more around team management and team building because these things are becoming critical for me now. I need to develop the ability to recruit well as we grow our team.
Brijesh Agrawal, founder and CEO, Tolexo.com
In 2016, I want to set up a mechanism to measure the happiness quotient of my team members, and improve it 10 times.
I also aspire for a 10X growth in customer experience, topline and product assortment at my company—and to achieve all this with 50% less resources.
Amit Jain, co-founder and CEO, CarDekho.com
My new year resolution is to start reaching office by 9 am, unlike 11:30 am now. I end up working late into the night everyday and come home late. I also want to quit smoking in 2016.
Another resolutions is to stop sitting inside my cabin and spend more time with the teams on the floor. As my company grows bigger, I am losing the connect that I had with people in the office during the initial days. So I am going to spend at least one day per week with each team and reconnect with them.