Agility Quotient
AI is disrupting the way businesses operate. Leaders must learn to adapt to the changing scenarios to remain successful. And that involves improving one’s ability to tolerate risk and failure.
6 mindset shifts to improve your risk and failure tolerance
Art of the Value Chain
Value creation is not only part of the end product or service. The product or the service is a composition of many relating parts and processes that ultimately lead to the final product or service. Sometimes being part of the composition to make it better for the surrounding parts and processes is also value creation, even if it remains invisible to the end customer.
Entrepreneurs Who Master the Art of the Value Chain Have a Greater Advantage
Bankruptcy to Billions
Failure is not the end, it’s the learning and the stepping stone to success. Tory Link shares interesting learnings from his family business that got into bankruptcy and yet they managed to pull back and become a profitable billion dollar empire.
How Jack Link’s Went From Bankruptcy to $4 Billion Empire
Beliefs for Succeeding With AI
Any new business idea is not perfect to start with. It evolves over time. Things may not work as planned initially, that does not mean giving up on the idea. It in-fact calls for learning and relearning and trying again differently.
The Beliefs That Determine Whether You Succeed With AI
Bookshops
Bookshops are making a comeback, especially post the pandemic. More than 400 bookstores opened in the US in 2025, and the growth has been around 70% between 2021 and 2025. Home, Work and then the Third place is none better than a bookshop.
Every other shop is built for speed. The bookshop is built to keep you.
Business v/s Lifestyle
Most entrepreneurs build a business over lots of personal sacrifices, while it may be their story, it is not a rule. Designing a life and building a business around that lifestyle is possible and worth building.
Build a Business Around your Lifestyle
Choosing Ideas
Ideas are great, executing them successfully is greater. Even if it does not succeed, its still great for the learning and growth from it. But when it comes to choosing between which ideas to work on immediately and which can be put on the back burner for now, is about asking the right questions around the idea itself.
How Nik Bentel decides which absurd idea is worth building
Community Supported Agriculture
The traditional model in agriculture has not been sustainable for farmers, dependent on the demand supply economics that decide the price a farmer fetches for his produce. A community supported agricultural practice is a better approach that ensure secured good pricing for the farmers and quality chemical free produce shipped directly to customers. Sumeet Kaur founded Spudnik Farms supporting 250 farmers and 1000’s of subscribers for the produce.
This woman entrepreneur is helping small farmers earn more through community-supported agriculture
Content Creation for Fund Raising
Investors are not sorting at the pitch and profiles of entrepreneurs to guide their investment decision. They are diving deeper into the dialogues, the comments, the content entrepreneurs are sharing on the Internet, to make a better understanding of them over and above the business they are pitching for.
Content Creation Is Now Your Strongest Fundraising Asset. Here’s Why.
Content Creators
Major brands are set to paying attention to content creators with small number of followers, emphasising for a quality audience than a quantity audience. Everyday content creators or anyone with a small list of followers can stand a chance to work with the brands and win some rewards. For such content creators this should be an opportunity to get started, even if it means less rewarding to begin with. Getting started and doing the work eventually leads to something more worthwhile.
Content Creators with a small tribe of followers, to trend amongst big brand contracts
Credibility
An entrepreneur success is not only depending on the team and the successful execution of the idea, but much before starting up. The credibility factor plays an important part when it comes to launching a startup. Having contacts who vouch for you and your work, plays rightly while starting up.
Your Company’s Success Began Long Before You Launched it
Credibility A Growth Strategy
Suppliers as well as customer validation and voices around every interaction consistently leads to credibility, that helps at every stage in growth. Investors, new suppliers and customers will understand the business easily from the credible stories in the markets and thus enabling faster business processes and growth.
Why Founders Need To Treat Credibility As A Growth Strategy
Data Centres
While AI and pre AI digital technologies have made it convenient for the end users to extract information, the costs of maintaining the servers and the affects to the environment, economics and the general people is enormous. Opportunity to make it sustainable and hence profitable is the challenge ahead.
7 Ways Data Centers Affect US Communities
Decision Making
Entrepreneurs face enough challenges in making their ideas successful, but focusing only on the idea is not sustaining enough for the business. A business has many functions, identifying the critical functions and defining guide rules around those functions is important for the long term.
Early Stage Decisions in a Startup for smooth growth and operations internally and externally
Design Thinking
Design thinking is nothing but integrated thinking in the process of developing products and services. Sustainability and collaborations are key features in design thinking.
Desperate Customers
The bottom line of an idea being successful does not depend on it’s execution, but on the customers actually buying the product or service. Ideas are good, but are they worthy is the important question to ask. Executing an idea well, but not having customers demanding the end product is a situation that must be avoided to begin with.
On The Importance of Desperate Customers
Dreams v/s Goals Confusion
Dreams are not in our control, there are external factors that come in the way with our dreams. Whereas Goals are in our control, we can work on them with intent and control.
Stop Confusing Your Dreams with Your Goals
Entrepreneur Showcase
Chase Gallagher
Chase Gallagher tasted success in his childhood by starting a lawn mowing business. Even though the jobs paid him less, he respected the work and the money and continued with it. Eventually selling that business and getting started with landscaping that earned him bigger amounts on the contracts. Starting young let’s you to learn faster, earlier and mistakes will not be stressful. Education is important but find a way to get that done whilst running a business, else skip it for the time being and focus only on the business. All the jazzy stuff around the business can be dealt with later, first it is always about generating revenue.
He Started Working at Age 13. Now His Business Is Worth $2M
Colette and Andy Bell
Finding a niche opportunity in serving customers small projects that the big contractors could not afford to take up, led Colette and Andy to start Handyman Services in Colorado in 1998 with $10k. The Bell’s started franchising their service in 2001 and got purchased by ACE Hardware in 2018. The original founders and the most if the franchisees continue to be active with the business to date.
How the Franchise They Started With $10k Reached $113 Million
Kim Vaccarella
Kim was into real estate, had no experience in fashion or retail. But being an active beach goer she struggled with totes, and that led to her founding Bogg Bag in 2014, more importantly in her 40’s. She had no intentions of building it into a million dollar business, early plans was to develop the product and then sell it out to an existing brand, but after being rejected at by multiple brands, she decided to build a company out of it. Losing money in the initial years resulting from defective shipment from China, putting the whole project on the back burner, only to return back and build it from scratch whilst working full time in real estate. Quitting her day job in 2018 to focus full time on Bogg, the brand is worth millions today, has made its presence in the market especially against knock-offs.
Paula Blankenship
Hailing from an entrepreneurial family, Paula had early experiences watching her family and then also starting smaller gigs in clothing and home decoration items, eventually moving into the home design space. Heirloom Traditions Paint became a natural move to get into the paint business. Paula used her contacts from previous dealings to contract a manufacturer. Starting small with modest targets, Paula has grown the business out of her kitchen table to a warehouse and with her husband getting involved in it as well. Early business growth was achieved through selling to retailers. Product innovation and online channel came next for direct to consumer segment, building it into a $100M business.
Heirloom Traditions – from kitchen table to multiple units
Rob Ward
Rob Ward founded Quad Lock, bootstrapped, with lean teams even when they were doing millions in sales, profitable every month every year, created an ecosystem of products that ensured repeat purchases, exited the business partly during Covid and fully in 2025.
I Sold ONE Product in ONE Color – Then Exited for Half a Billion
Experience
In entrepreneurship experience is gained by simply getting started. There is no perfect time or resources to wait for. Ideas will evolve with time. Challenges are bound to come sooner or later, getting started gets you into the momentum and opens the way to progress.
No Experience Necessary, Just Get Started
Fear – Boon or Bane
Fear is a natural emotion whether one is an entrepreneur or employed. It being a boon or bane has become subjective with time and individual circumstances. When comparing across generations certain advice that was a boon back then may not be so now. When comparing within the same generation, individual circumstances dictate the boon or bane of it.
Focused Teams
Businesses and companies are profitable when the people are focused and productive with their roles and responsibilities at individual as well as team level. Being mindful about meetings and constant communications and encouraging no meeting days is important in helping people getting to do their actual work in time and quality.
How the Best Teams Become Indistractable
Flow State
Identifying the activities that will grow your business, and then putting in the quality time and effort even if it is challenging is the key to success. Often challenges are discomforting and one looks to escape from the discomfort to the comfort, however nothing meaningful happens in the comfort. Recognising the discomfort as the starting point of something meaningful and sticking to the same for 23 minutes to achieve the flow state is the only formula to succeed with your tasks.
You Only Need 23 Minutes Every Day to Grow Your Business
Funds Update
996 Startups Attractive to Certain Investors
Startups that do not have a 996 policy, that’s 9am to 9pm 6 days a week, are bound to fail. Startups that have a work from home policy are bound to fail. Investors such as Jason Lemkin who has been a Tech investor for a long time believes that startups need to be developing on their idea / business for long hours across the week, in order to compete with AI tools and generally succeed in the market place.
This Investor Only Backs Startups That Follow a Gruelling Schedule
Internpreneurship Trending
Summer breaks in 2026 are not seeing intern intakes in big name companies or the Wall street. Students are focusing on carrying out internships at startups or building their own using AI tools.
Students opting out of Wall Street Jobs, to focus on building their startup’s using AI
Next Bharat Ventures
A subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corp, has launched its second fund to back startups with long gestation periods. The current fund of Rs 2K crore is 6 times the previous fund.
Suzuki’s Next Bharat Ventures Rolls Out ₹2k cr Impact Fund
Literary Tourism Trending
Bookstores and libraries are back in demand with the increasing trend toward reading a paperback or a hard bound. Literature festivals have become an annual feature in most cities. People travelling for such events and generally travelling to just get glued to a book or books without being disturbed is the new trend – Literary tourism.
Mental Health
It natural to be worked up, feeling heavy, or having a low energy moment. Accepting the state and mindfully working around it is the key to gaining over it and switching back to a more energised state. Any tries in pushing harder in such times will only lead to more burn out and stress. Taking a break, doing something unrelated and intentionally setting up certain routines for such times are some of the ways in coping with the situations and recovering back to the normal state.
7 Ways to Clear Heavy Energy and Feel Like Yourself Again
Mindset
Startup, Fail, Learn and startup again. Better than not trying due to fear of failure and then wondering years later.
Right mindset in dealing with failure
Multidisciplinary Up Skilling
While AI adoption seems to be threatening most entry level positions, students must specialise in dual streams to be competitive.
Stripe President: College Still Matters. Here’s How to Stand Out.
Newsletters
A captive audience – To keep something in captivity, to stick around, requires keeping it free.
The Guy They Kept Passing On – People’s opinion may be right or wrong, does not matter, what matters is your thoughts, your ideas, your actions in becoming the best version of yourself.
Cultivate An Eye Like This – Find opportunities in challenges, possibilities in problems, creativity in clutter, accomplishments in anxieties.
Controversial – Controversial an opportunity to learn, to grow.
Excellence Is Not an Act, But a Habit – To excel in your idea, make it a habit of developing it.
Industrialism and the slippery slope – Scale can be achieved by mechanisation, which comes at a cost, which may force to cut corners elsewhere in the product development, so as to be competitive in the market, but compromising on quality which is critical if customers know you manily for quality.
Facts and feelings– Facts are validating, but it’s more important to validate the feelings first.
It’s So Hard To Find – A satisfied mind is hard to find. Being content and grateful and happy is most times found in books, in reality people are chasing one goal after another, never satisfied.
James Clear on Luck, Improvement and Courage – Luck is more about putting yourself in good positions. Improvement requires change which is what makes it hard, as most people struggle with change. To get to where you want to be requires change, to improve requires change. Courage requires more action and less analysis.
James Clear On Feeling Stuck, Chasing Your Dreams and The Secret to Life – Nothing happens exactly the way we expect it to, distractions, disturbances, challenges, obstructions are all part of the process, enjoy them for the same. Chase your dreams no matter what, get started and it will lead you. Life is not perfect and don’t give up, keep trying.
James Clear On the magic of wanting less, changing inch by inch, and building a sense of hope – More is less, if you always want more, you will always find you have less. Less is more, if want less, you will always find more. Big changes can’t happen in an instance, incremental steps lead to big change.
Left unsaid – It’s easy to avoid what discomforts us, but that does not get us anywhere. We need to face it, act on it.
Learn To Ask This of Your Actions – Small actions on a daily basis on your goals help you in becoming the person you want to become, inaction, no action or negative actions keep you stuck in being the person you want to out grow of. Being aware of your actions is important in moving closer to your goals and living happier.
Rethink Freedom and The Stoic Virtues – Freedom must be exercised with responsibility, with thought of what it took to attain the freedom.
The Builder’s Creed – Choose to build it, than waiting for it getting built for you.
The urgency paradox – Urgency in working on the important things is good. A paradox of it that generates more urgent and important things to work on, even better.
The 50 Books I Never Read – Book recommendations via mails and social media feeds can be a good source to build your library, and then it can actually be a totally another thing to taking the time out to actually read through all the books purchased, or to accomplish that reading goal for the year. External recommendations can be noted, but when it comes to follow through, its best to go with internal recommendations.
Wait And See – No amount of research, analysis, understanding, opinions can influence the reality at a certain point in future. One must wait and see.
On Paper
Paper is power. Putting things down on paper, be it thoughts, ideas, business plans and anything else of importance is more meaningful, powerful and actionable than working the same in mind.
10 Times a Piece of Paper Changed the World
People Pleasing
People pleasing does not benefit in the long term, it leads to frustration and tiredness. It is a sense false safety. Being you is hard, but for the long term it’s the best approach, it lets people know you truly and respect you for that, and allows you to be and do things the way you intend to.
Stop Living for What Others Think of You
Rest & Recovery
Entrepreneurship can be a 24x7x365 routine. And surely that can eventually lead to burn out. Being mindful about rest and recovery and actively practicing it is vital for self and the business.
Startup Ecosystem
Indian startup ecosystem is growing deeper. While metros are known for the startup hubs, startup growth is now accelerating in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Developing infrastructure physical and digital is contributing to this growth. Additionally government policy is supportive in developing the smaller cities and rural India through promoting startups.
AI Enabling Startup Easily
AI is making it easy for aspiring entrepreneurs to launch their ideas. Whether starting solo or with a team, AI is helping out build business plans and design systems.
Why 5.7 Million Americans Started Their Own Business Last Year
Starting Up Costs Slashed
Entrepreneurs don’t have to bother about raising funds to hire resources, thanks to AI. Non tech founders can build their tech products using AI platforms. Market research, readability studies, competitive analysis, business strategy roadmap and such important business functions can be attended to through AI tools whilst starting up.
The 6-Step Playbook for Building an AI-Powered Startup Without Burning Through Cash
Startup Spotlight
Atomgrid
Launched in 2023 as an R&D facility focusing on the manufacturing of speciality chemicals. Speciality chemicals are built for specific applications, and Atomgrid is focused on developing agrochemicals for home and overseas markets. The team builds it’s strength in R&D starting with business idea validation to product development. Speciality chemicals seems to be a booming sector ahead.
Why Atomgrid is betting big on specialty chemicals | YourStory
Boston Beer Company
Jim Koch founded Boston Brewing Company from his kitchen table at the age of 34 quitting a successful and stable consulting job. Turning it into a billion dollar business was possible only by taking risks, by deciding to let go of comfort (job) and startup, by continuously improving the product in terms of quality and price, and collaborating with competitors to lift the whole market up, thus helping everyone gain some.
Boston Beer Company from Kitchen Table to Billion Dollar success
Kitchen Blockers
After decades in advertising Brad Robins had retired from all commercial pursuits, but once an entrepreneur is always an entrepreneur. An injury at a pickleball game, using personal connections to sketch an eye protection wear for pickleball players, deep testing the product, soft launching it in Canada, then the USA and now in more than 50 countries, Brad’s startup is generating millions in revenue. Attracting investors from all over, Brad and his pickleball partner are politely declining the offers and looking for appropriate distribution partners for the business.
Entrepreneurial success post reitrement
Liquid I V
A 30 person startup with sales of $100m five years ago has grown to a billion dollar in sales and is leading in the Unilever Health and Wellness brand category. Figuring out a problem first and providing a solution to that problem is a simple market entry strategy. Why waste time building something without knowing whom it’s for and where those people are? Competition is bound to be there, must not let that deviate your focus, vision and plans.
Liquid I V leading the hydration powders market
Stord
Sean Henry dropped out of college at 19 to focus on his startup Stord a platform that helps brands to compete with Amazon Prime, by handling the warehousing, shipping, tracking and all the technology needed in between. Sean first tasted entrepreneurial success at 8 by selling on eBay.
College Dropout Launched Stord to Compete against Amazon Prime
Tilt
Abhi Thanendran founded Tilt with the idea of bringing back the human connection in shopping, helping non influencers host sales on the platform, and ship the products from their homes. Members make anywhere between $500k to $1M annually. Starting with flash sales for brands that didn’t pick up quite well, pivoting to live auctions in resale fashion.
Tilt – a live commerce platform that’s helping people make huge money selling live on the platform
Stuck Up
Access to tools and technologies is easier than actually using them. People mostly get stuck at the spot when it comes to using the tools or technology. With AI platforms guidance is at hand as well.
Why Businesses Have Access to Every Tool but Still Feel Stuck
Switch off the Off Switch
Succeeding in entrepreneurship requires one to be focused, disciplined and committed to the idea, the business. There are success stories to get inspired with, but that’s momentary. Challenges ahead are bound to be there and not giving up then, believing in self, pushing to develop the solution to overcome the problem is the difference between succeeding and failing.
Ted Talks
David S. Rose: How to pitch to a VC – Simple tips on pitching by an experienced serial entrepreneur earlier and also an experienced investor later.
Venture Capital Trend
Limited partners are making VC fund raising tough in 2026. So far approx $800M has been raised across 32 funds, being the lowest since 2015. LP’s have got selective with their investments and are willing to back ventures with proven profitability. Management teams are being held accountable for previous investment cycles.
Indian VCs Face Toughest Year in a Decade as LPs Ask Hard Questions
While VC’s are having a tough time raising funds from partners, the entrepreneurial ecosystem is live in action in terms of gaining VC funding in the first half of 2026. The comparison between the first half of 2025 and 2026 is positively higher, although the number of deals are low, the deal sizes are higher.
Videos
How To Organize Your Life Like A Stoic Philosopher – Being organised in profession and in person is very important for a fulfilled life. Stoics had simple rules for daily practice and for lifestyle practices that guides one in the day to day as well as through various scenarios or phases or life.
12 Lessons From Marcus Aurelius To Change Your Life – Stoic philosophy provides simple rules to live mindfully, peacefully and happily. Focus on the inside for the answers to most things.
Sources
1000 Libraries
Daily Stoic
Economic Times
Entrepreneur
Fast Company
Foundr
In Stock
James Clear
Jesse Itzler
Magazine
Nir and Far by Nir Eyal
Human By Design – Dr Ritesh Malik
Real Simple
School of Greatness
Seth Godin
TED Talks
The Chalkboard
The Optimist Daily
Tim Ferris Blog
World Resources Institute
YourStory
YouTube
