Vijay Anand | The Startup Guy.

India: Wide Open to Legends.

// June 28th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve been meeting a lot of folks lately, and lot of interesting discussions that circle around the way things work around here in India – the policies that we need to develop to govern ourselves, the way to evolve ourselves in the way we do business, the way we act on our civil responsibilities – the list goes on, and at the end of it you realize something. The work of building this country has barely begun.

India is wide open to people coming in, and if you put your head to it, and have the desire the contribute to this overall shaping up – you can be a legend, remembered for a while to come.

The kind of work that the likes of F.C. Kohli, Sam Pitroda, etc did in initiating the things that we enjoy today have quite a long way to go. Nandan Nilekeni in that way, is doing an applaudable task of spearheading something that will make quite a difference in our lives in the days ahead. We need many such people. We still lack people who can think – ideate, and envision the future of this country in terms of healthcare, financial infrastructures (though we have some great folks on this), education, and how our industry is going to respond in terms of policies and as markets are created and mature.

That’s not a opportunity that presents itself in most countries, not at this point in time. Thats why being here, right now, makes all the difference. Remember though, that status, doesn’t come easy.

Guide to Indian Entrepreneurship

// June 7th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Uncategorized

There is a major gaga (No, no, nothing to do with the Lady with the name) going on as to whether Venture Capital is good or bad. Should you be a fat startup or a lean one; if Entrepreneurs are made or born and if exits at all are important and the fun behind lifestyle businesses. Phew, that pretty much summarizes all the noise out there.

There is a load of bullshit in all of that talk. I’ll tell you why.

At the end of the day, these are templates as to how to go about doing something. I believe Entrepreneurs are born not made, precisely for this reason. Entrepreneurs are original in thought and the one trait that will distinguish an entrepreneur from a businessman or a Trader is the fact that they are originals and will do what others, at times, are hesitant to do – and will almost always do it in their own way. This is where Artists and Entrepreneurs become very much alike – Someone who sings someone else’s song is called a Karaoke Artist – as Simon Cowell will gladly agree – Definitely not an Artist.

One of the fundamental things you will realize about business is that it revolves around the very simple notion of “Revenue – Cost = Profit”. The revenue is quite simple – anything that you receive as payments for your service – either through advertisements/cross subsidy or directly from the customer. The cost usually comprises of three elements – cost of acquisition of the customer (+ customer service), cost of delivery of the service and cost of creation of the service. In the case that you are a non-IT company and are in manufacturing, the cost of creation of the service is split into two – the cost of the infrastructure (read: Production Plant) and the cost of the product (think a shoe manufacturing plant and the actual cost the company incurs to make it)

Most businesses are innately margin businesses. What is also now widely called as Ramen profitabililty is none other than the company trying to balance that simple equation of R-C = something other than a number which is negative. And thats the starting point. Traditional businesses, and until phenomenon such as Cloud services, the scalability that Technology brings in etc, are all margin businesses. It might cost 2 Rs to build and deliver a service and you charge the customer 5 Rs, pay a tax or Re 1 and take the rest to your bank account.

Traders and Merchants (and that is what the infamous Marwari and Baniya communities do) are all in this businesses – and that is what a significant potion of India’s businesses really are. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Truth be told, they personally make more money than most high-tech entrepreneurs in India today and I think thats a crucial thing you MUST at some point think about. There is no point running an NGO of sorts, being underpaid, if you are infact a high calibre individual (more on this towards the end)

A typical trading business does about a crore in revenues a month, and has about 15% in margins – since there is no investor, shareholding involved or the promise of an exit, the “entrepreneur” can take home most of it – if they are smart, they will set aside a portion of that profit to venture into new businesses or expand. Thats around 15 Lakhs a month for the mathematically challenged. Think about it.

If you ask me, this is the utopia of building and running a business. You get to set the pace at which you live your life, there is no one breathing down your throat, and you are truly your own boss. There is but one glitch. The initial capital.

Most of these lifestyle businesses are self-funded or by family money. Usually two generations ago, someone borrows a few thousands from someone, multiplies the money, returns the principle and uses the profits to grow it further. Two generations later it is grown into an empire and a lifestyle that the entire family enjoys.

The true value of Investors is that if you have the potential, someone might actually fasttrack this entire process for you. But you also are slightly stuck, because unlike the forefathers of the rich empires, you are also taking a lot of money which comes with a whole load of promises to deliver on – remember that everyone is used to managing the “margin” and expect atleast that out of you.

In order to do that, you start with the business, prove the model and bring it to a point where you can afford Ramen Noodles. And then comes the big bet of making the growth – especially the profit exponential. This will come quite naturally if its anything related to Intellectual property (think of a book written once – which means cost is incurred once – and sold multiple times without linear costing) – and this is the reason why most investors will ask what your Intellectual Property is – they couldnt care less about the patent filing you have which most probably will have no bearing, but intellectual property that really will make this exponential return happen. The other bit that could contribute towards this are the right set of processes, and the appropriate technology.

Go to an investor and ask for invesment towards buying technology – even if its infrastructure cost – that will start making your margin business into an exponentially profit making one, and you’ve hit the bullseye on what everyone is looking for.

So you see, it doesnt really matter if you are fat, obese, lean or darn sexy, what you need to have is the required amount of capital to go about your business in the best way possible and justify your investor with appropriate returns.

I know this all sounds a bit gloomy – it says that it takes time, effort and an extraordinary capability to actually make money fast – then again, who said it was easy? Smack anyone who tells you otherwise. Please!

PS: There is also the highway of building a business – for a vision much higher than just profits. Call it the Zoho way – in which case don’t dare go near investors.

When the Market says “Maybe”

// May 24th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // Uncategorized

You are quite screwed. Yep, you are. So much so that you’d realize that No is actually a great thing

In the process of trying to figure out the business model of a startup, the fundamental premise that you work on is that the market will tell you what they want, what they will pay for and what they want more of. Most often than not, thats actually a very optimistic approach to the situation. What most companies will not realize is that a customer saying “No” is infact the most generous act of kindness. To say No, is to give you a fresh lease on life and to get you to iterate. Infact “No” is at the heart of innovation when it comes to product building.

In the book “Getting to Plan B“, John mullins states how most business plans dont survive contact with the customer. The truth of the matter is, in most cases you will never be able to judge whether they love it or hate it – or worse, they are quite lukewarm about it.

In the book you will also notice that there is this notion of picking analogs and antilogs to see if there has been prior experimentation and proof that your business model might work. The phrase “hindsight is 20/20″ would be the way to talk about that. Pick any new business idea and coming up with Analogs and Antilogs would not be easy – but its definitely a great guesstimate tool. The thing to keep in mind is not to get stuck into that frame of reference. Great companies evolve because of that smart everyday decisions that they make. If Nokia a company that made rubber boots can change its business plan and get into Mobile phones – probably throwing every analog and antilog along the way – you can imagine what it’d take to stay in business.

But I digress from the topic.

The fundamental point to keep in mind is that most product companies build things that do not polarize. They are incremental luxuries for our everyday lifestyle – and the market can live with or without them. Thats the danger when building a startup and trying to evolve the model with the market.

So What are the options:

Measure, Measure, measure.

Define things beyond just sales figures. See how people use a product, see what they use in the product. Use every bit of the product – even if its a final product – as a prototype in the hands of the user to define the next product.

Build Products that do polarize.

If 5 people say your product is awesome, and another 10 people say it sucks, revel in that fact. See if you can find more of that 5 people, and if thats a sizeable market. if they really love it, and if it becomes a cult, it will turn into a revolution – heck look at facebook, whoever wanted to put their entire life online in the first place? If the “Cult” or as they call “True Fans” really loves your product, the rest will follow. Apple is a prime example of how to build products for true fans.

Innovation doesn’t come without some failing. Every awesome company out there usually has failed in their first product – despite the fact that they knew their market, had the vision, the money and knew how to design a product. This will require a few retries, so be ready for it. Its all about being open to iterate – maybe even from scratch.

… all said, there is still a fine chance that most probably the market will say “Maybe”. In which case, its time to cut down some features and upgrade a bit to get to your truly true fans.

Further Reading: The Concept of “Social Proof”

The Startup Named Venture Capital

// May 23rd, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Uncategorized

This Article was written and Appeared in Dare Magazine May 2010

Most people in India would argue today that the country’s sensation about entrepreneurship and business is a recent one. Many would also tell you that Indians generally have an affinity to taking risks. A lot many more, along with the Media might also tell you that unless you raise venture capital, you’d never be able to build an enterprise in India.

None of those statements are true.

Entrepreneurship has been a movement in India since the late 80s when the foundation of commerce and business in this country started taking shape. You will notice that most of the government initiatives in terms of entrepreneurship are as old as the day when this country received independence. In the mid 90s when policies were framed to make enterprises flourish, and taxation rules helped them grow, and IT as an industry was born and started to take roots, it felt as if entrepreneurship has reached out to the masses.

It only seems that way because apart from a few major successes, and especially the IT industry which thrives on the massive tax subsidies of the Govt, we havent seen that growth being an inclusive one. It is capitalistic at best.

Go back to the roots of how businesses have been traditionally been built in this country and you would see a rather different story. Reports suggest that there are close to 32 Million small and medium enterprises in India and as per the definition of the report, these are entities that are generation more than 2-3 Crores in annual revenue. And there are 32 million of them, they say. The average number of companies that get funded by the Venture Capital community today in a year is around 150 – where then did all these companies raise money from?

Here is a question that I have been lately asking entrepreneurs and I get some rather disturbing responses to: Which is more riskier and has a higher rate of interest on it – a bank loan or venture capital money? If you are like most people, you would claim that its a bank loan, but it is quite possible today that you can take a bank loan at around 10 – 15% Interest rate, and apart from the collateral (there also being collateral-free loans now) there is not much risk to it. Take money from a Venture Capital firm – which is no more than a specialized bank – and you are committing to a 400% interest rate in a time frame of five years and the power to appoint other officers, liquidate the company and a seat at the governing board for them.

Ofcourse it all makes sense to make that promise when you can justify the nature of the business you are in, the growth rate and the stage at which your company is it, and if you are one of those really really really rare companies which can outgrow that interest rate – most companies will never be able to do that.

Why then arent the Venture Capital Firms telling you that? Truth is, they themselves havent figured it out. The Venture Capital Industry has a record of never performing as it should anywhere out of the pincode of the Silicon Valley. Even in the valley where there are close to 1000+ venture funds (compared to the 154 funds in India – According to the IVCA membership list), not more than 25 of the funds are profitable and make money. Most companies that are successful and make it past the headlines to us are ones that are being fostered by a select few. When the same model does not even span out in the same Pincode, let alone the same continent, can we really expect it to work miles away in a continent and country which has its own flair as to how things work? I guess not.

The Venture capital industry is a key component of a healthy ecosystem – but it is also just one component, not THE component. And in this scenario, there is much that the industry as a whole has to experiment, before they can arrive at the framework which will make sense for India. Currently, in no way does it do that. In the past five years, close to 1.6 billion dollars have gone into investment in India as PE/Venture Capital and very few of that dollars have made returns.

On the other hand look at the companies that you will find in the manufacturing sectors, companies such as Shakti Masala (which processes,packages and retails masala powder) which are less than a decade old and garner a whopping 320crores in Turnover a year which was started with less than Rs.10,000 as initial capital, was built with loans, repaid and turned profitable – that it makes us doubt the heresy we have been hearing that Indians don’t have a risk taking appetite. We do. We have been, but we lately have been trying to offload that risk onto a vehicle named Venture Capital, which unfortunately is not ready for prime time yet.

Its time to go back to the basics of building businesses in India, lest you want to wait for the VC Industry to mature.

The Switch to Business Models, Not Plans

// May 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Experience would tell you – especially if you are/have been on the board of companies or have invested in companies, that Plan A just about rarely works. From Microsoft, to Google*, to Yahoo, to just about any successful company that you would come across, if you dig deeper you realize that these are not companies that executed their plans flawlessly, but companies that are perhaps in their Plan B and are constantly reinventing themselves in terms of their focus, strategy, positioning and even products.If all of these are meant to change, and it is said that just about “no business plan ever survives the first customer”, then what is the point and dogma about business plans? Thats the crux of a heated debate and discussion going on in venture circles these days.

The philosophy partly comes from Software Engineering. There were days when we had a rather lab-based model of building products. You come up with an idea, you come up with the specifications, you build it and then try to sell it. Customers didn’t not have a say it in. Its essentially the basis of the water-fall based development model – all requirements are collected and decided upfront and no change or modification happens anywhere in-between. Time, energy and a lot of wastage of both happened with that process, and companies died when they built something and nobody wanted it. Then came the Agile Methodology where the bare minimum – also called Minimum viable product – is built, and then released, and then customers define what is important and features are built on top. Products are released every week, or every six months iterating – which is where the concept of products always being in Beta stage comes in – because every product is undergoing testing and improvements continuously.

Does it apply for products which are non-web based? Absolutely. Even hardwares have firmwares, and Apple – even with their ipods – do this with new features being added to the firmware, and being upgraded rather than throw away the entire product and buy the next version. The base stations of the future will do this seamlessly with Software radio technologies maturing and going live; Cisco and Juniper are on a race to build a platform layer on which they can build all their router and network based products of the future which you can upgrade remotely. The key is to build the hardware with the flexibility to accept these new features. – The future, if not already is heading that way.

Coming back to the topic however, this same phenomenon is spilling over to business models. If you are a product company, its a no-brainer to say that the success of the company depends on the success of the product. We all realize that markets are fragile and change happens almost instantaneously killing companies and new products. If we are to survive that turmoil, it is inevitable for companies to be able to adapt – rather quickly, not only their products but their business models as well. This also helps from the perspective of effective management of cash – because rather than building a strategy and throwing money towards something that might never work, you now have the flexibility to be able to adapt, quickly iterate and to find your business model.The first question a lot of people are going to have is as to how one would know the difference between a “Lean Startup” and a “Confused Startup**“. If they are both being on their feet, and radically changing plans every other month, and experimenting, it almost looks like there is no difference between the two. One of the distinguishing feature will be the documentation process. Use an argument map at the very least to map the context and results. Its not a crime to fail, but it is a crime to fail and not learn anything from it. If you think about it, this way of building a business is rather quite scientific and experimental than you think. if we go back to our days of Chemistry experiments in high school, the process was more or less the same. Keep dripping the acid solution from the pipette till the solution turns colour or becomes transparent. We do this a few times and we can do the calculations backwards and figure out the patterns and have insights that we never did before. We are all just looking for patterns in markets and to evolve business models around it.

The Future of businesses and products are going to be not in terms of how cheap of a solution you can provide, but also in the clarity of the solution and how great of an experience you can provide the customer/end user. If that is going to happen in a consistent and sustainable manner, customer insights are crucial – almost to the point of being one of the most valuable assets of the company. You cannot continue to read macro trends from the likes of McKensize and Gartner and build solutions, but need to have our own understanding of how customers and markets will react, behave and adapt technologies and products. Iterative product development processes and consequently Business models will have to be put in place.This also means that this will be the death of business plans – apart for the excercise that we all need to have in terms of thinking through everything. A business plan is just a checklist to ensure that verbally and with numbers you have to justify your stance, but it has a track record of not surviving the test of time – not more than a few weeks in startups. The fun of working with startups is how you can never relax; the company that was on the high last month is in dire conditions this month. Hence milestone based funding scenarios will not work – and has been the reason for a lot of friction with early stage investors and founders because as plans change, the investors are not ready to adapt along with this change in strategy. and the way we track the growth of companies has to be beyond just the bottomline and turnovers. If you read more on Agile Methodologies, it offers ways to track a project to be on time and on budget even with changing requirements as part of the process – We would have to port those methodologies over to the business world soon enough for stakeholders to have their peace of mind.

We realized this at RTBI quite sometime back. We dont do quarterly reviews for startups, but we meet every month and for companies still in the ideation/market research phase we do it much more often. We also realized that measuring just cashflow can be detrimental – you push a child to start working before it has the time to grow up and become a valuable asset in the community, and he/she is going to end up as a drug dealer or worse. That said, growth has to be tracked. So for each of the companies we have defined metrics beyond just cash flow and numbers. We urge companies to track everything measurable, from the number of people who visit their site, the number of people they approach to become franchisees, the amount the franchisees earn, the satisfaction of their customers, the repeatability of customers, the adoption of new products, the growth of markets, new ideas launched, the success of ideas, why certain initiatives failed, what really are the dreams and aspirations of customers not just for today but for the future – everything you can lay your hands on, and most of all the lessons we learn through each of the experiments. Those things matter, and if a company does not show growth in revenue but can show growth in adoption, and other aspects, its a great sign that the company is indeed growing, making progress and learning a thing or two from the market – Yet our process is not complete. We are also learning and adapting quickly. But the results so far have been good – at-least for the entrepreneurs who are willing to go through this without looking at it as a tedious exercise.

The key is to accept that business models evolve – and when we are still in that process, the key is to experiment a lot and in as cheap a manner as possible. For one of our companies we believed that the future would be a voice portal where people will call in and ask for information. The cheapest way to experiment it – rather than building the entire solution and then know, was to advertise the solution (cost of less than 1000 Rs), and put a live person on the other side of the call to take the queries and respond. We got a rather abysmal response. We tweaked the marketing a bit more to ensure that we were not doing anything less on the advertising front. The results did not improve by much. It was time to drop that idea and move on. The total cost for the entire experiment: two weeks of man power and 2K in advertising. And it probably saved us a lot of time and money in the process. The one thing that we are blest with today is in the sheer amount of tools and means to rapid prototype something without infusing or committing an entire business to it.

The concept of plans still has its place – as a tool to stability and as the guidebook for executive MBAs to follow in cases where there is a need to manage chaos within a flood of a workforce in a service organisation like setting. But almost never do business plans seem to hold in organizations that are constantly building high impact products – But need a rather iterative business model approach. Its my strong belief that asking a startup to write a business plan and follow it to the word is detrimental – it can be rather restrictive**. Keep your eye on the problem you are trying to solve. How you get there – I hope you are capable of making some changes in route to get there. This might not be a luxury, but a requirement to build companies as capital becomes scarce as well. The writing is on the wall “Evolve, or become extinct as the dodo did.”

*[Just as an example and not to quote them as the only company. That company has its own flaws as well]

**[In some cases rigid Execution Plans have its place when the founders do have serious focus/clarity issues. In such cases and to know the difference, define experiments with certain time period and resources so that they get it over with and get back on track]

If you are interested to read more on this:
1. [Book] Business Model Generation
2. [Book] Four Steps to Epiphany
3. [Book] Getting to Plan B
4. Agile Software Development
5. Lean Startup
6. Minimum Viable Product
7. Argument Map
8. Plan HQ – Came across this web based tool that allows for dynamic evolution of a Plan and still keep everyone up-to-date.

10 Commandments for Innovators

// April 18th, 2010 // Comments Off // Uncategorized

Article Written for India Today, dated April 2010.

Two Immediate things in Need of Change

// March 26th, 2010 // 11 Comments » // Uncategorized

So it all seems to be coming together. Entrepreneurship is not such an alien concept anymore, there are more and more universities imparting entrepreneurship as a logical career choice, there is enough knowledge base, and support organizations that are there to help entrepreneurs, the media seems receptive to the notion of new enterprises, the economy and policies are gearing towards spurring its growth, and the investment community realizes that India is a big enough market that they are open to tweaking the funding models that they are used to. Change is not an easy thing, and thats happening.

Is Entrepreneurship mainstream in India yet? No. When will it? Well, when you see these two things change.

1. Stop Expecting Free Handouts.
Listen, I do contribute a lot to the startup community and I can say so. I have hours to show forth and I am proud to be part of it. But You might not want to expect that as a norm. Everyone has reasons why they do the things they do. Mine – eventually I do want to get into investing, advising and turning around companies as a career, and it helps to be part of building the foundation of the ecosystem.

All that said, time is limited. And anything that is limited is expensive. So if you are going to ask someone to spend time with you on a periodic basis, and also put the mental energy, pull connections etc, then you are going to have to compensate them – doesnt have to be in cash, can also be in equity, but beer simply isnt going to cut it (I’ve gotten plenty of beer offers, and so do plenty of folks i’ve talked to)

Think about it: You are going to build an enterprise that makes you your own boss (atleast for a while), lets you pursue your passion, and if all goes well will make you filthy rich. Tell me again why you are asking for my time in free? Karma doesnt cut it. There are plenty of NGOs that could return better Karma points.

There is also a more solid financial reasoning behind it. Every enterprise has to be calculated on the basis of inputs vs outputs and the value creation is the difference between the two. Economical break-even point is just one metric out of this calculation. What is also important to measure is every bit of input that goes into creating this value – otherwise you are going to end up with a skewed equation which can misrepresent the actual value that you are creating – what is not accounted for and leads to positive returns is no different than a subsidized model. So if you really want to measure the effectiveness of your venture and have a standing chance for when the market really shows its teeth at you, build it right, and measure everything possible right from the beginning. Account for it, and ensure that the model still holds.

So when will Entrepreneurship become mainstream? When there evolves a model to fairly compensate the support structures that are required to support entrepreneurs – that goes not only for Mentors and Advisors, but also for lawyers, Accountants etc.

2. Get out of Weekend Entrepreneurship Mode.
Have you noticed how everything related to entrepreneurship happens during the weekends in India? Why is that? Are we trying to accomodate students and people who are in day jobs to be part of it? If so, that answers your question as to whats the state of entrepreneurship in India – it means most folks are part-time, and so is the landscape as a whole.

I hate quoting silicon valley examples, but I was curious to notice how many events across the globe – (flipping through the Calendar of Somewhat Frank) that most startup events in Mature ecosystems happen during the weekday. Infact when I was in the valley, I was surprised to note that most of the startup events DIDNT happen during the weekend – except for ones where you build products over a weekend.

If startups are mainstream, and if entrepreneurship is an actual way of life, then it has to function as any other profession, right? Makes perfect sense to me.

In my mind, till these two are in place, starting up isnt mainstream Yet.

The Beginning of a New Dawn: Beyond Nehru’s Vision

// March 11th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Its strange, but its true. The Indian Institute of Technology is just next door to the phenomenal growth that is being witnessed in the IT industry in Chennai. While entire stretches of roads are seeing the boom of buildings that house thousands of engineers and designers who are developing the next generation of technological advancements, IIT has had its own share of exploits in the same. But it might be dawning that the two will start to meet and greet each other in the hallway now.

An evening stroll from the newly constructed IIT Research Park, leads you right into Rajiv Gandhi Road which houses some of the well known landmarks of the IT Sector in Chennai. The walk while euphoric in ways – carrying the charm of greenery which is a signature of the IIT element, is also in a way baffling; because as soon as you reach the main roads, you realize that you are greeted by the hoards of professionals from the IT industry. Its probably the most simplest of realities, but it hits hard. Why? Because for the past four years, I’ve passed by these IT landmarks, seen these professionals on the road, and have carried myself with a certain bit of pride of not being part of the rat race. We have been rather proud to be house, protected and in a way isolated within the greeneries of the 600 acre land that is IIT Madras. Our visions have been different, our ideas, development, and the sheer philosophy has been different, and we have thrived in it. Suddenly it feels like we would have to explain the outside world what we have been upto. And might even have to include them, and learn a thing or two from them as well.

Buildings are powerful. Because they are symbols. The parliaments, the house of commons, and every building of authority carries with it the commitment that as long as the building stands, the goal for which it was initiated and established for, will continue forth. And thats the reason why the building of the Research Park is a phenomenal step forward in the history of the IITs. Have the IITs been too much drowned in their own “brand”? probably so. Some rightfully, some just gloat. But a symbol like this will push things in the right direction and elevate everything that has been good and give enormous propulsion to the various serious efforts that have been birthed out of these walls.

Buildings are a statement. And this is a statement being made as the walls are calling out for collaborate, to be invited to the dinner table, converse, and to create a new future together. And it gives me a kick to know that for once – and within our lifetime, we see the visions of our great leaders being crossed. While Nehru and the visions laid out for the formation of the IITs were foretold and defined decades ago, this is a new evolution, a new start and one whose future and destiny we will control, and grow for the better.

I am both saddened and happy by this new move. Slightly sad because our elitism has been ripped away now. While a few craved to be back on the corporate workfloor, and we got it, there are some of us who got our fix of ideologies by the lush green campus, and the life that thrives around it. But I am happy, cause this means inclusion, and a brand new future to look forward to – most of all, this means we are moving forward.

Ten Tips to Starting up Right.

// January 7th, 2010 // Comments Off // Uncategorized

Thinking of Starting up? 10 Tips to starting up right.

1. Know your strength. There will always be a difference between those who inherit a strength vs someone who is intuitively good at it. Know what your forte is.

2. Learn to Tell a story. Boy meets girl, they fall in love and eventually end up together. This has been the story of the bollywood for atleast a decade, yet the style changes in every movie. learn to talk about your product, company and yourself as a story. It matters.

3. Take your time. Haste makes waste, and that relates to entrepreneurship quite well. Thinking of starting up? Meet and Interact with people, read enough, establish relationships, create dialogues, and be sure of what you are doing before you start.

4. Lead from the beginning. Entrepreneurship is not an alternative to having a job. Infact its all about being effective and having an insight that no one else seems to have. There will be plenty of time when you’ll have a curve ball thrown at you and you’d have to catch up, but dont start at that.

5. Predict the learning curve. At some point your learning curve will not keep up with the needs of the company and its complexity – which is when teams expand. When starting out, you should know when itd be time to step down and let someone else lead.

6. Measure everything. Passion is one bit of entrepreneurship, the rest is about making a miracle happen with the least amount of resources possible. Obcessively measure everything – not just the bottomline – and compete, strive harder. Apart from measuring your own growth, also take numbers from your competitors, place them at your stage and compete against their numbers (compete with the Industry, not just yourself – You can quite easily cheat yourself if you do)

7. Learn to manage Cash. A major portion of running a business is all about managing cash and cash-flows. It is imperative for the founder to plan and execute “on time and on budget”

8. Structure it right. Form leads to function, and the structure of the company in most cases, leads to its stability. Whether it be a Partnership firm, or LLP or Pvt Ltd, define roles, boards, advisory teams, etc with vivid clarity.

9. Pick your co-founder well. You do not know a person till you have started a company with them, and emotions run high in a startup-environment. If you do not want to lose a close friend, it helps making that choice wisely.

10. Nurture relationships. And do it as a habit, rather than by need. Your advisors, potential bankers, investors, partners, team mates, employees – spend time with them and keep their interests in mind as well. You never know where and when they might be able to help you out.

Instant Messaging : Rules of Engagement.

// September 11th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // Uncategorized

More and more I see this happening. I am logged onto most of the IM networks, from Office, Mobile, Home, and several devices. Whatever status you wish to show – busy, online, available, paranoid don’t really matter no more. Some folks are just permanently affixiated with certain statuses and close friends would know. Others dont. And when the rules are not clear, chaos reigns high.

There is also an assumption that if someone is online also means they are available. Lets not talk about all those embarassing moments, when we forgot to go “offline” on chat, and had some very personal messages displayed on the projector in the middle of a meeting. Oh, am I the only person to whom this happened? Oh boy!

But coming back to the topic, the point is that even though Instant Messaging is supposed to be “always on”, it still might be common courtesy to follow some rules, especially in this day and age where everything and anything seems to be demanding attention, and the option to avoid will go a long way to ensure that your relationship doesnt snap.

This is a simple rule that I follow, and those around me by now have come to know. Whenever I do see someone online and do want to talk to them, I send them a simple “?”. If they are in the middle of something, they either say so, or just ignore, and I assume that they are unavailable. If they respond back, then we chat. If they arent there, they always get back when they see the ominous question mark waiting for them.

Simple, but you have no idea how easy it makes life sometimes. The option to opt-out and not have to pay attention in real-time, is a luxury and anyone you can give this option to, will eventually thank you for it.