The startup world loves dramatic success stories.
A young entrepreneur develops an idea, launches a company, raises millions of dollars and becomes the founder of a unicorn—all within a few years. The story appears on social media, business websites and magazine covers. From the outside, it looks as though everything happened overnight.
But entrepreneurship does not work like that.
During my journey in finance, venture capital and entrepreneurship—and through my work with thousands of startups and SMEs at Kansaltancy Ventures—I have observed one consistent reality: sustainable success is almost never sudden.
A company may become famous overnight. It may announce a large funding round overnight. Its valuation may cross a billion dollars after one investor meeting or one transaction. But the capability required to reach that moment is normally built over many years.
Behind every visible success are countless invisible days.
There are days when the founder is worried about salaries. There are months when customers are not responding. There are products that fail, employees who leave, investors who say no and strategies that must be completely redesigned.
This is where what I call the Horse Mentality becomes important.
A racehorse wears blinders so that it is not distracted by everything happening around it. It can see the track ahead, respond to its rider and keep moving towards the finishing line.
An entrepreneur needs the same discipline.
Horse Mentality does not mean ignoring the market, competitors or good advice. It means refusing to become distracted by unnecessary comparisons, temporary applause, sensational headlines and the success stories of other founders.
It is the ability to remain focused on your own race.
The Myth of the Overnight Unicorn
The idea of the “overnight unicorn” is one of the most damaging myths in entrepreneurship.
When young founders repeatedly see stories of companies raising large amounts of money, they may begin to believe that funding is the primary measure of success. If their own startup has not raised capital within a year or two, they feel that they are falling behind.
This creates impatience.
The founder begins chasing investors before building a strong business. More effort goes into preparing social-media announcements than understanding customers. Valuation becomes more important than value creation.
I have seen pitch presentations in which founders spend a considerable amount of time defending an ambitious valuation but very little time explaining why customers will repeatedly pay for their product.
This is the wrong order.
A valuation is ultimately an opinion based on expectations. Revenue is evidence that somebody is willing to pay. Profitability is evidence that value can be delivered sustainably. Customer retention is evidence that the product is solving a genuine problem.
Funding can accelerate a good business, but it cannot permanently hide a weak one.
Let us take the example of Zerodha.
Today, Zerodha is recognised as one of India’s most respected entrepreneurial success stories. It transformed the discount-broking market and helped make investing more accessible to millions of Indians.
However, Zerodha was not created overnight.
Before building the company, Nithin Kamath spent years understanding the stock market and the problems faced by traders. When Zerodha was established in 2010, it entered a market dominated by large banks, established brokers and institutions with significantly greater resources.
The founders had to earn trust one customer at a time. They had to build reliable technology, deal with regulatory changes and educate customers about a new model of broking.
For years, much of this work remained outside the public spotlight.
When retail participation in the stock market expanded rapidly, Zerodha was ready. But it was ready because the groundwork had already been done.
The opportunity may have become visible suddenly. The preparation did not.
This is Horse Mentality: preparing for the opportunity even when nobody is watching.
Compounding Is Not Limited to Money
People in finance understand the power of compound interest. A relatively small amount can become substantial when it grows consistently over a long period.
Entrepreneurial effort compounds in the same way.
A founder may make ten sales calls without getting a customer. The eleventh call may succeed because the founder has learnt from the first ten conversations.
A product may go through five unsuccessful versions. The sixth version may work because the team now understands what customers actually want.
An investor may decline the proposal. However, the questions raised during the meeting may help the founder improve the business model, financial projections and presentation. Those improvements may later result in funding from another investor.
No genuine effort is wasted if the founder is willing to learn from it.
Imagine two entrepreneurs selling software to small businesses.
The first entrepreneur wants immediate growth. He spends heavily on advertising, offers large discounts and reports impressive registration numbers. However, customers do not use the product regularly, and many leave after the free period.
The second entrepreneur grows slowly. She personally speaks to the first 100 customers, studies their problems and improves the product every week. Her company has fewer registrations, but customers continue paying and recommend the software to others.
After one year, the first company may appear larger. After five years, the second company may be far more valuable.
Why?
Because one founder accumulated attention, while the other accumulated trust.
Trust compounds. Knowledge compounds. Relationships compound. A strong team compounds. Even a reputation for keeping promises compounds.
Horse Mentality allows a founder to continue making these small deposits before the returns become visible.
Every Founder Must Build an Invisible Foundation
A tall building requires a deep foundation. The foundation is not the attractive part of the structure. Nobody takes photographs of it once the building is complete, but it carries the entire weight.
Businesses also require invisible foundations.
These include proper accounting, compliance, customer service, technology architecture, employee training, contracts, internal controls and a clear understanding of cash flow.
Founders sometimes find these areas boring because they do not generate publicity. But when a company begins to grow, weaknesses in these foundations become dangerous.
For example, a consumer brand may suddenly receive ten times its normal number of orders after a video becomes popular. This appears to be excellent news. But what happens if the company does not have sufficient inventory, packaging capacity or customer-support systems?
Delayed deliveries begin. Complaints increase. Refunds affect cash flow. Negative reviews damage the brand. A growth opportunity becomes a crisis because the foundation was not ready.
Similarly, a startup may receive strong investor interest but lose the opportunity during due diligence because its financial records, cap table, intellectual-property ownership or statutory filings are unclear.
The founder may say, “We will organise everything after funding.”
The investor may respond, “If you have not organised the company before funding, why should we believe you will organise it after receiving our money?”
Horse Mentality means respecting the unglamorous work.
It means fixing the accounts when nobody is congratulating you, improving the product when there is no media coverage and documenting processes before they become urgent.
Freshworks: Eleven Years Behind One Famous Moment
Freshworks provides another useful example.
When Freshworks was listed on Nasdaq in 2021, the event became a historic and highly visible moment for India’s technology ecosystem. Photographs of founder Girish Mathrubootham and his team represented Indian entrepreneurial capability on the global stage.
But that one celebrated moment rested on more than a decade of work.
Freshworks began in Chennai in 2010. The company had to build software for global customers, compete with established international businesses and convince buyers that world-class SaaS products could be created and supported from India.
The journey required years of product development, recruitment, selling, customer support and continuous improvement.
The Nasdaq listing did not create Freshworks. It revealed what the team had already created.
This distinction is important for every founder.
A funding announcement does not create your company. An award does not create your reputation. A viral video does not create your credibility. These events can amplify what exists, but they cannot replace substance.
Recognition is the result. Capability is the cause.
Focus on the cause.
Raising Capital Is Not the Finish Line
I have worked on fundraising, venture capital, debt, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions and strategic advisory across different stages of business. One message I repeatedly give founders is simple:
Capital is fuel. It is not the destination.
If a car has a weak engine or the driver does not know the route, adding more fuel will not solve the problem. In fact, it may allow the car to move faster in the wrong direction.
The same applies to startups.
Suppose a food-delivery startup is losing ₹100 on every order. The founder may argue that higher volume will eventually solve the problem. But if the basic economics do not improve with scale, processing more orders may simply create larger losses.
Before raising substantial capital, the founder must understand:
- How much does it cost to acquire a customer?
- How long does the customer remain with the company?
- What is the gross margin?
- How much working capital is required?
- When does one customer or transaction become profitable?
- Which expense will reduce with scale, and which expense may increase?
There is nothing wrong with making losses during the early stages of a business. Many strong companies invest before they become profitable. But there must be logic behind the losses.
Capital should be used to cross a carefully identified bridge—not to travel without a destination.
Founders with Horse Mentality respect every rupee of investor money. They do not treat funding as personal success. They treat it as a responsibility.
Once investors put money into a business, the expectations increase. The founder must deliver growth, governance, transparency and returns.
A funding round is not graduation day. It is the beginning of a more demanding course.
Stop Comparing Your Chapter Two With Someone Else’s Chapter Twenty
Comparison is one of the biggest enemies of entrepreneurial clarity.
A founder sees another company raising capital and immediately begins questioning his or her own progress. But the two companies may have completely different sectors, business models, markets, teams and timelines.
One may be building a technology platform that can scale rapidly. Another may be building a manufacturing business requiring land, machinery, approvals and working capital.
Their journeys cannot be compared using the same clock.
Even within the same sector, founders begin from different positions. One may have twenty years of industry experience. Another may have access to family capital. A third may possess strong technical expertise but no sales network.
Instead of asking, “Why am I not where they are?” ask, “Am I stronger than I was six months ago?”
Are your customers more satisfied?
Has your revenue quality improved?
Is your team more capable?
Are your processes more reliable?
Have you reduced unnecessary expenses?
Do you understand your market better?
These are far more meaningful questions than whether somebody else received a higher valuation.
A horse wins by running its own race efficiently. It does not turn its head repeatedly to study the audience.
Love the Process, Not Only the Prize
Entrepreneurship is too demanding to be sustained only by the hope of a future reward.
If a founder believes happiness will begin after raising capital, the next target will soon replace it. After seed funding comes Series A. After Series A comes Series B. Then comes expansion, profitability, acquisition or an IPO.
The finish line keeps moving.
Therefore, a founder must learn to find meaning in the process of building.
This does not mean enjoying every difficulty. Nobody enjoys delayed payments, failed products or difficult negotiations. It means appreciating the growth that comes from solving those problems.
There is satisfaction in converting a dissatisfied customer into a loyal one.
There is pride in seeing a young employee become a strong leader.
There is excitement in discovering why a product is not working and correcting it.
There is confidence in surviving a crisis that once appeared impossible.
These small victories sustain the entrepreneurial journey.
At Kansaltancy Ventures, we have interacted with founders across sectors and stages. The strongest founders are not always the loudest or most visible. They are generally curious, disciplined and deeply connected to their businesses.
They know their numbers. They listen carefully. They accept difficult feedback. They do not panic after one rejection or become arrogant after one success.
Most importantly, they continue showing up.
Three Practical Ways to Develop Horse Mentality
The first practice is to focus on controllable inputs.
You cannot control economic conditions, government policies, investor sentiment or competitor actions. You can control how many customers you contact, how quickly you respond, how carefully you manage cash and how honestly you communicate with your team.
Create weekly targets around actions, not dreams.
Instead of writing “raise ₹10 crore” as the immediate objective, track the number of suitable investors approached, meetings completed, follow-ups sent and due-diligence documents prepared.
The outcome may take time. The inputs can begin today.
The second practice is to celebrate micro-wins.
Do not wait for an IPO to appreciate progress. Celebrate your first paying customer, your first profitable month, a reduction in product complaints or an employee taking ownership without supervision.
Micro-wins provide emotional energy during a long journey.
The third practice is to build the right support system.
Horse Mentality requires blinders against distraction—not isolation. Founders need mentors, colleagues, advisers and peers who can challenge their thinking and support them during difficult periods.
Entrepreneurship can be lonely because the founder cannot share every concern with employees, customers or investors. A small circle of trustworthy people can provide perspective when pressure affects judgment.
The Real Meaning of a Unicorn
A unicorn is financially defined as a privately held startup valued at more than one billion dollars. It is a significant achievement, and India’s unicorn ecosystem reflects the ambition and capability of our entrepreneurs.
But I believe there is another definition.
A true unicorn founder possesses a rare quality of character.
This is someone who can dream about the future while remaining disciplined in the present. Someone who can attract capital without becoming controlled by valuation. Someone who can accept praise without losing humility and face rejection without losing confidence.
Such founders understand that entrepreneurship is not one grand performance. It is a collection of ordinary actions performed consistently and exceptionally well.
They build when nobody is watching.
They prepare before the opportunity arrives.
They continue when the initial excitement disappears.
They remain focused when the world becomes noisy.
That is Horse Mentality.
Put on your blinders—not against knowledge, feedback or reality, but against distractions that do not serve your purpose.
Stop chasing every headline. Stop measuring your progress against somebody else’s funding announcement. Stop searching for shortcuts that weaken the foundation of your business.
Look at your customers. Look at your product. Look at your team, cash flow and commitments.
Then take the next step.
Real entrepreneurial success is rarely created through one spectacular leap. It is created through thousands of disciplined steps taken in the same direction.
Keep running your own race. The world will notice when the time is right.
