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Future Startup Weekly #11: The Psychology of Startup Growth

Carol Dweck discusses two mindsets in her excellent book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success: growth mindset and fixed mindset. Growth mindsets believe effort can change outcomes. They don’t consider failure as a final outcome. Something that tells about their ability. Instead, they embrace failure and regard every failure as a momentary setback — and an opportunity to learn — that they could overcome through hard work, dedication, and effort.

According to Dweck, successful people maintain a growth mindset. To my understanding, so do successful organizations. Because mindset ultimately determines your behavior and actions.

A growth mindset is what Shunryu Suzuki calls “beginner’s mind” in her brilliant book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. She writes: “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.”

Per Dweck, a growth mindset is when we are open to learning and curious about failure, when we don’t stop when we fail, rather we investigate our failure, learn and try again and try better. Exactly the mindset you need when you are trying to grow your fragile early-stage organization called startup. Read the article here.

On to the updates.

1. TechCare's Bootstrapping Success Story.

TechCare is a Bangladeshi origin and Edmonton-based UX and UI-focused Software Development Company. From a small bootstrapped project, started by two computer science undergrad students of Rajshahi University, TechCare today employs over 17 people, serving hundreds of clients across multiple markets. Read our interview with TechCare co-founder Toafel Hossain here.

2. Stygen is building a dedicated online gift platform in Dhaka.

In 2017, Stygen started as an F-commerce business. The founder recalls that on the first day, he purchased teddy bears and chocolates and wrapped them as gifts.

Later, he recruited a man from his hometown to wrap the items, transport them to Pathao Courier, and occasionally even deliver them himself if necessary.

3. Online Grocery Startup Chaldal Turns 8.

Chaldal, the leading online grocery startup in Bangladesh, has turned 8 years this month.

Waseem Alim, Zia Ashraf, and Tejas Viswanath founded Chaldal in 2013 in an attempt to gain share in online grocery shopping, a then-nascent market with seemingly boundless growth opportunities. Over these past 8 years, the company has managed to build a strong foundation.

We look back into Chaldal's evolution through some of our interesting coverages. Read here.

4. Amarlab CEO Tazin Shadid On Building Amarlab, Digital Healthcare In Bangladesh, and Entrepreneurship.

Amarlab, a digital healthcare startup that provides at-home diagnostic test services, online doctor consultation, a platform for doctors to run their practices digitally among several other solutions, is one of the most prominent digital healthcare players in Dhaka.

We recently sat down with Amarlab Co-founder and CEO Tazin Shadid to get an insider view of Amarlab: how the company came into being, what is Amarlab, services, and products it offers, how the company operates, the state of its business today, and ambition going forward, the healthcare sector in Bangladesh, challenges early-stage founders face, and much more. Read the full interview here.

5. Markopolo looks to automate digital advertising for small businesses.

We published a story on newly launched marketing automation startup Markopolo. Markopolo is a Dhaka-based marketing automation startup targeting SMBs both in local and international markets.

For a large number of SMBs, today, marketing mostly means digital marketing. But managing digital marketing remains a costly affair. Managing multiple channels, complex processes, and resource requirements, and ensuring effective results out of digital campaigns remain a major challenge for most businesses. Markopolo aims to solve this problem. Read the full story here.


Ideas from around the web

# I'm looking forward to this Netflix documentary on Naomi Osaka. Link

# Check out Lucian James' new newsletter UnderThink. Link

# Book I'm looking forward to reading: Work by James Suzman. Link

Mohammad Ruhul Kader is a Dhaka-based entrepreneur and writer. He founded Future Startup, a digital publication covering the startup and technology scene in Dhaka with an ambition to transform Bangladesh through entrepreneurship and innovation. He writes about internet business, strategy, technology, and society. He is the author of Rethinking Failure. His writings have been published in almost all major national dailies in Bangladesh including DT, FE, etc. Prior to FS, he worked for a local conglomerate where he helped start a social enterprise. Ruhul is a 2022 winner of Emergent Ventures, a fellowship and grant program from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He can be reached at [email protected]

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