Why I Stopped Wearing My Socks

by Alok Kejriwal

The Mobile2win China experience really taught me about how an entrepreneur should carefully choose his investors and align his interests with the agenda of his investors, to succeed. Financial investors are ideal partners in the early stages of a startup and strategic investors are best suited to come in towards the end (as potential acquirers too). I believe that Siemens was justified in trying to operate and control Mobile2win China since they were strategic investors who wanted the business to operate within the do’s and don’ts of their corporate framework. I should have been more aware and prepared my team for business process changes after we decided to get funded by Siemens. The appointment of Nick Zhang was a very interesting learning for me. I had always despised expensive consultants and their elaborate proposals, but the success of Heidrick and Struggles in hiring the perfect CEO for the Mobile2win China business taught me that there was a reason why the world’s top companies worked with such consultants. They delivered and really created value for their clients. More so, I learned that startup founders were not always right. In this case, I would never have hired Heidrick and Struggles, but the VCs did, and that decision catalysed the sale of Mobile2win China to Walt Disney. The sale of the business also made me realise that even though operationally, startups can be very troubled and often badly messed up, the value they create through their struggle and strife...