The Startup That Didn’t See Its Own Power, Until Everyone Else Did
CULTURE
Sometimes the hardest part of building isn’t the risk, or the funding, or even the competition. It’s seeing your own potential clearly because when you’re in the trenches, you only notice the problems. The small user base, the investors who don’t return your emails and you get lost in the operations. What you don’t notice is that the public might already be telling you that your product is bigger than you think.
Take Sehat Kahani, a Pakistan-based telemedicine platform. When it began, the idea seemed narrow, connecting female doctors working from home with patients who needed affordable consultations. The idea was unique and relatable to the cultural preference of the region but not a Unicorn at that time. Then COVID hit and suddenly, the same platform people thought was niche became one of Pakistan’s critical healthcare lifelines. The public elevated the use of sehat kahani. Hospitals, corporates, and even the government partnered with Sehat Kahani. What was once only a good idea became a national health solution.
You know it is ironic that founders are supposed to be visionaries, but sometimes you’re too close to your own product that you miss what others see and one day when the turning point comes you are able to recognise the perspective of others for your own idea.
Psychology calls this “curse of knowledge”, when you’re so deep in your expertise that you underestimate how powerful something simple can be for others. That’s why the market which is messy, loud and imperfect, often sees the truth before you do about your work’s potential
I think every founder needs this moment of humility. The moment you realise you’re not the final judge of your startup’s potential, your users are and that is where being human-centric comes into play. you start utilising empathy in your work, not only with just your consumers but also with your team as in with such huge blast in demand and the increase potential, the founders need to make sure that the team does not get overwhelmed and they are able to visualise what they could not before because of the miss on on the scalability by the founders
And sometimes, the biggest unlock isn’t about doubling your marketing spend or pivoting endlessly. It’s about listening to the whispers of adoption that are already there, telling you that what you are doing is bigger than you think you can not stop now. Startups don’t always fail because they’re weak. Sometimes they stumble because they don’t realise how strong they already are. The public sees through a different lens and if you’re brave enough to borrow that lens, you might discover the real size of the thing you’ve built.