The Key to Startup Success: Getting Up Again

We all fall down at times in life. it is inevitable. What is important, however, is getting up frequently. one more time.

I started getting up again on July 21, 2015 after a heavy fall.

In India we celebrate success. Entrepreneurs whose startups become unicorns are celebrated. The Decacorn founders are worshipped. So far, so good. Conversation is a completely different matter. The founder of a failing startup is hated, often ostracized and avoided like a pandemic super-spreader. I speak from experience. The first startup I co-founded (Fabmart, later IndiaPlaza, an e-commerce pioneer in India) shut down in 2012. The creditors who were owed money (by the company, not by me) pursued me relentlessly and ruthlessly for their dues. Even my wife and son were not spared, who were never involved in this business. All three of us have been subjected to physical threats, humiliation and serious online abuse by suppliers, employees and partners. As a result, I stopped going out and spent all my time at home. My honour was taken away, a broken man, on my knees, ashamed of myself, does not even dare to look at himself in the mirror. It is a difficult thing to start and fail in India.

In 2015, Mint celebrated 20 years of the Internet in India with 20 in-depth articles on the people, events and institutions that influenced the development of the Web in the country since 1995. Amazingly, I was part of this fantastic list of impressive successes, with one important difference: My story appeared on a double-page center-spread, with a large picture of me and the title ‘Failure, The overwhelming response to the article convinced me of two things. One, there are people out there who are interested in knowing about failure. So I wrote about my experiences in what became a hot-selling book, Feeling to Succeed. Two, I understood quite clearly that I had no reason to hide. Like 99% of other startups, mine had failed. Why am I hiding? Let me go out and wear your fail badge with pride.

Entrepreneurship is like a drug and once you get addicted to it, it becomes difficult to do anything else. Yet, even when I was trying to move on, I was hesitant to start again. I tried angel investment, mentorship and even looking for a job, but my heart was not in it. I came across many startup ideas but could not bring myself to take the first step. That’s when a friend pointed out an interesting market gap in beverages.

All beverages on the market solve one of two problems: They have a clean label (no refined sugar, no artificial preservatives, colors or flavors) or they are shelf stable with a reasonable shelf life. But so far no drink has solved both problems. This essentially means that either consumers suffer or businesses suffer. Developing a drink that could solve both would be a huge step forward. I was getting interested.

Before jumping into full time, I set myself four key conditions. My next startup should be a product company (product companies are harder to build than services), it should be developing a product that is truly innovative (to make the effort worthwhile), it should be an industry about which I must have no knowledge (so that I could learn something new every day) and have the ability to make a strong social impact (so that the journey can be viewed with some satisfaction).

We started working on new beverages in late 2016. When we set out comprehensive specifications for the drink, we were advised that this could not be done. It took more than two years of constant tinkering, testing, tasting, and failing for more than two years before we were successful. We couldn’t believe it ourselves. Now we had drinkable yoghurts and milkshakes with no refined sugar, no artificial preservatives, colors or flavors; Yet the drink did not require refrigeration and had a shelf life of over 90 days. And we managed it without any background in consumer goods or food and beverage.

Around July 2018, we applied for the patent. Here also we were advised not to waste our time. But we moved on. In addition to industry innovation, obtaining a patent after three years has been a highly rewarding and satisfying personal experience. It left me behind the dark days and months I had endured alone with the support of my wife and son. It told me in no uncertain terms that everyone and anyone can be successful at anything.

The reality is that everyone fails at something. To be successful you have to fail. If you haven’t failed, you can’t succeed. J.K. Rowling eloquently captured it many years ago at Harvard: “It’s impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so carefully that you can’t live at all, in which case you’re by default fail.” None of us is to fail by default. We just have to get up. one more time. Like a child.

K Vaitheeswaran is the founder and CEO of Again Drinks. He tweeted @vaitheek