Maybe you don’t need a “vision”

I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time now. When people ask me - “what’s the end goal” or “where do you see the company in ‘n’ years”, I usually didn’t have a good answer. 

So I went ahead and started looking. 

Our country has a lot of problems. Lack of infrastructure, poor education standards, income inequality, a very small women labor force participation rate, unemployment, poverty and more. The list goes on. Could a private company building software products solve any of these problems in a meaningful way? The answer in my mind initially was a resounding “no”, but I wanted to see if and how other big companies have impacted any of these problems.

Over the last 15-20 years, India has seen some great companies. I do believe that while none of them have actually solved any of the problems stated above, they have helped push us in that direction. Some have created massive employment opportunities, while others have used the proceeds from their wealth creation to support causes like women empowerment or education. 

I’ve essentially come to the realisation (with help from some people who I’ve had these conversations with) that it’s naive to think that a small company could actually solve for any of these problems. The problems are just too big. Ruthra from Frappe even suggested to join politics to even have a chance of solving any of these problems. Which I agree with, but won’t act upon :)

Looking back, I realise that “changing the planet/world/country” is naive. It’s not that it’s not possible, but your contribution to it is so diluted and insignificant that it’s not meaningful. In fact, one might argue that it’s cringe - just look at how WeWork used to think that they’re going to change the world by renting out office space. 

Since my bubble of an idealistic world is popped, I’m back to square one: what’s the vision? Maybe you don’t need one at all. Maybe, the vision is to get better at your craft, build cool products and find joy when other people love using them.