If You Fail, Fail Fast, Die Young: Nikhil Vora, Sixth Sense Ventures

What does it take to effectively launch a business, and be on the road to success? The founder and CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures, Nikhil Vora, reflects on the dos and don’ts of being a successful entrepreneur.

He said, “In every business that one does, the idea is to look forward to what we can do and build further on it. Entrepreneurship is also about the belief that we will tackle things as they come. It happens with arrogance, which is a brilliant thing to have for entrepreneurs.”

“For all of us, it is important to know where we want to be and the path to that could be different. Sometimes, we should also know that when we are on the wrong path and the business that you thought will have the longevity, may no longer exist. So you should know when to cut short,” he added.

He asserted that entrepreneurs today have numerous lives whereas a decade back they only had one life. He stated, “If you fail, fail fast, die young and live again because you will have a chance to do it again.”

Giving an alternative viewpoint to his earlier statement of having belief in what you do, he said, “Your belief should also be tested every now and then. If tomorrow the market doesn’t exist which you are a part of, you can’t be sticking onto it if you have to be relevant.”

Vora explained that there is a tendency for people and for businesses, even politics and economy, to overestimate what will happen in the very near term and underestimate the impact of the same in the longer term.

In the Indian case, highlighting the past government initiatives such as GST, Bankruptcy Code, Demonetisation and Direct Transfer, he said, “All the event calendars which have happened, at first looked like the biggest event and thereby our expectation that these events should unfold impact lot more sooner. But in retrospective, if I had to look at this, I would want to believe that this could be the most meaningful changes which would happen in the Indian economy over a period of time, keeping aside right or wrong part of it.”

Concluding his address while speaking at the BW Businessworld and BW Disrupt TechTors, he asserted, “Disruption is going to happen to you or because of you. Businesses do get disrupted and they will disrupt if you don’t disrupt your business. And in India, we don’t see that happening much.”