What makes your company tick?

Early last year, I met a startup team that was building the next great mobile application. They had built a system that could offer mobile social networking to end-consumers. The team had great technologists including a few successful entrepreneurs among them. They were convinced that their system would be the next great thing for consumers; they were supremely confident?bordering on overconfidence, about the uniqueness of their offering. This company was trying to build a company focused on the end-consumer as their customer. This meant that they had to build a brand, build a system that would be ridiculously easy for consumers to use, have a mechanism that would keep attracting people back to them, and figure out a way to make money.

Of course, companies like Google and MySpace were their role models. The team had enormous expertise in building and running systems for businesses, selling and marketing businesses and supporting business customers. They, however, had no experience in creating and running a brand, and no experience of the mobile world. And most importantly, they were targeting a consumer segment (namely, youth) that was far removed from the world the team inhabited?for example, the team comprised technology people in their late thirties to early forties who did not blog, did not socially network and essentially did not do the social things that their customers were involved with.

Given that they were great technologists, they quickly figured out the nuances of mobile technology. But solving other issues required a different mind-set, a different set of experiences, expertise and involvement. In short, it required a different organisational DNA.

Every organisation has a certain DNA. It is critical to realise this, understand it, and then leverage it for developing maximum benefit. In some cases, the realisation and understanding of it results in needing to reconfigure the company?s plan and making changes?additions or substractions, to the team.

Does the team have the right background, does it understand the market space and its customers, does it have the experience of working in the same space?the relationships to form partnerships and to hire people; experience of the operating realities, the ability to market and sell to the target segment are issues of paramount importance. The fact that investors seek well-rounded, high quality teams only buttresses this point.

All too often, people confuse years of experience with having the ?right? experience?right for the job at hand. Having 20 years experience, for example, on the shop floor at say, Tata Motors is not quite relevant to the launching of a new hair oil at say, Marico.

Young companies, especially, cannot afford the luxury of getting the entire organisation up the learning curve, more so in markets that are competitive. While the people may be smart, energetic, and hard working, the changing of mind-sets and the unlearning of past experiences takes a lot more. Many a time therefore, having no experience can be a bigger asset than having a lot of experience that might not be relevant or appropriate to the job at hand. Understanding your organisation?s DNA?the sum total of its experiences, culture, mind-set, approach, abilities and competencies?is therefore, very important for young companies to appreciate. This appreciation leads to the creation of first, the right team and thereby, a strategy and approach that?s more relevant and real to the market context of the company. Given the organisation?s DNA, it is appropriate for a company to drive maximum benefit by the leveraging of it. It is this DNA that gives a company insight and the ability to navigate the openings in the market that others with a different DNA cannot.

I met the mobile startup company again a few weeks ago. They were far more down to earth. The arrogance of ignorance?of the market, competition, selling and marketing challenges, had gone. Instead, they seemed reassured and focused and had got their first customer: a small and medium business. They were no longer focused on the young consumer but instead were focused on helping small businesses use their mobile system to reach out to the youth.

What is your organisational DNA?

?The writer brings close to two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, corporate executive, venture investor, advisor and mentor. He can be reached at sanjay@jumpstartup.net. These are his personal views