BIO: Kamal Krishna is the founder and CEO of MOBILISE, Bangalore’s fastest-growing advertising & B2B marketing agency.
STORY: Kamal was looking to diversify his business. He partnered with a former colleague who had the talent he was looking for. Unfortunately, he had a negative attitude towards entrepreneurship and never delivered the end of his bargain. Kamal had to cut him out and count his losses.
LEARNING: It takes so much more than just talent to succeed. Choose your partners wisely.
“Choose your partners well. Spend time and put in effort when choosing partners, and I assure you, it’s all worth it.”
Kamal Krishna
Guest profile
Kamal Krishna is the founder and CEO of MOBILISE, Bangalore’s fastest-growing advertising & B2B marketing agency. He has worked with significant advertising conglomerates for nearly 15 years before jumping into and starting his own company. Even though he did not invest anything initially, he kicked off MOBILISE with hard work, creativity, and client advances which made it profitable from day one.
Worst investment ever
About six years ago, Kamal had just started his advertising business. While the business and prospects appeared good, there remained a fair bit of early apprehension around continuity, scale, capital, etc., you know, things that all entrepreneurs deal with in their initial years.
As an advertising agency, Kamal found himself looking at an opportunity to diversify into creative and design services by bringing in a partner along with a then very substantial investment. An old colleague had visited Kamal’s office, and he was pretty excited about the venture. The colleague was keen to come in as an equity partner and bring in data and analytics capability to pair up with Kamal’s creative and design ability. On the face of it, he sounded great. So Kamal signed him up, took his money, but luckily decided to park it and committed to only touch it after a few months.
Once they started working together, Kamal figured out quickly that his new partner wasn’t keen on getting his hands dirty, something any new venture requires. He was expecting entrepreneurship to be something of a comfort zone once the money had been brought to the table, not realizing that he was supposed to combine his ability with Kamal’s as a data and analytics subject matter expert. Most importantly, the partner should have worked hard to convince and deliver to new customers. Kamal found himself in a situation where he’d be making promises he didn’t think he could keep. His partner trusted his talent, all right, but consistently blamed failures on either the customers’ lack of understanding or their lack of appreciation of a startup.
Kamal found himself faced with a choice; he could either use the capital from his partner and find a way to work with him or trust himself and his original plan to stay solo and cut any losses early on. Kamal decided to go solo and return his partner’s money. While bringing on this partner was the worst investment of his life, cutting his losses was probably one of the best decisions that turned his company into a profitable, growing business.
Lessons learned
- When hiring employees or choosing partners, remember that talent or individual ability alone isn’t and never should be a dealmaker. It takes so much more than just talent to succeed.
- A person can be supremely talented yet carry a very negative attitude towards work.
Andrew’s takeaways
- When someone comes into a company, make it clear what they will do and what they will bring.
Actionable advice
Find partners who align with your vision and not just expect to receive without giving. A committed partner is so much more critical than any capital you can imagine.
No. 1 goal for the next 12 months
Kamal’s goal for the next 12 months is to diversify further into brand new marketing communication specializations with new clients and renewed confidence.
Parting words
“If you’re looking to succeed, partners are your best investment. They’re way more valuable than any capital you raise.”
Kamal Krishna
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