“STARTUP”. Almost a moniker.  Simple, sweet, and easy terminology … Got an idea… find an investor…build the product… pitch it to the public… (The best part is that it can be in any order) and the Startup is launched!

Now also imagine this…You conceptualize it… You visualize it… Holding back your excitement, very patiently you design it… painstakingly engineer it bit by bit giving it your all. With great determination and exhilaration, you breathe life into it…and voila! You have successfully also created a Beast!

Trust me, this beast is both Notorious and humongous. Yes! that is what it is… camouflaged behind the cute moniker… impossibly hard to bear, rear and shepherd! Demanding blood, sweat, tears and sheer grit at all times.

This beast takes birth as a novel idea in the minds of a rare breed of beings, the beast-riders aka the startup founders. Passionately, they nurture the beast, shepherd it until it breaks into a sprint, ready to run the marathon ahead at the same furious speed, sprouting wings along the way and metamorphosing into a Unicorn! Phew! First chapter done. On to many more ahead.

But remember, what got them here will not get them there. Once up and flying, riding this beast only gets tougher and the beast-riders need to draw a battle plan delegating and systemizing the Beast’s trajectory of triumph. The Beast is all devouring and often enough, the Beast eats up the beast-riders.

The only way the Beast is going to be driven in the long run is when the beast riders learn to ease off slowly and let competent hands engage with the beast and become co drivers. This is more so since as the journey progresses this Beast will require more and more energy which the original Beast riders will be unable to keep up with. As long as they learn and ingrain this the ride will be smooth otherwise as they say “THEY WILL BE DEVOURED AND BECOME JUST ONE MORE PREY”