New Delhi Times - Gaurav Bhatnagar reporting from New Delhi, India

A little more than an year back, I made a trip to US which I suspected was the beginning of a long journey. Tomorrow I again fly to SFO. In these 15 months we have come from being just 2 guys (and a third one waiting to join) in a "garage" to 30 odd in a 3500 sqft office and looking for more space. Time has passed really fast in these 15 months and yet it feels like ages ago when we were welcoming our first set of hires in our tiny office. Ashish and I had quite naievely assumed that our original office with a seating capacity of 6 will be enough for "at least an year". Frankly, Lady Luck has been extremely kind to us so far and we all have worked very hard to hang on to each and every oppurtunity that came in front of us.

The biggest lesson in entreprenurship that I have learnt so far is that no matter how small a company might be, it has to be bigger than its co-founders. That is, to grow and succeed, the "dream" must be shared across the entire team. Everybody must truly buy into the "story". And everybody must add to that story something of their own. It might be mere rhetoric for the CEO of a fortune 500 company to tell her employees that it is their "own" company, but for a startup it is a matter of survival. The feeling of oneness and ownership is what makes a startup environment electric. Every person in a startup team must truly believe that they have two responsibilites - one, to deliver on their roles and requirements and two, to grow the company. The company culuture can not and should not be a mere mirror reflection of its co-founders. It has to be constantly evolving into an amalgam of common values, goals and aspirations of the entire team. The startup must empower every team member to be able to leave a lasting stamp on the company. This - the ability to make history - is what attracts great people to work at startups. This is also what makes startups exciting. Because you never know on what day history might get made!