Sushrut Bidwai

Till about 10 days ago total amount I had spent over ecommerce website in India was = Rs 1,200

In last 10 days it is = Rs 10,000 .

Change - Flipkart dot com.

Before I started using it, for getting books I had to go to Pune as lot of books are not available in Nasik. Now I receive them in about 3-4 days after ordering.

Things to learn -

1. Very simple user interface.

2. Excellent stock.

3. Great consumer experience.

4. Once you have created account you can order books using credit card in around 2 mins max.

If you are an entrepreneur venturing into this space, you have loads to learn from flipkart.com.

Disclosure - I am not at all related to flipkart.com, havent met any of their team members ever and have not received any special gifts for give this shout out. This post comes straight from the fact that I just ordered entire LOTR collection in 2 mins while waiting for a conference call.

Uncategorized

After about 6 years of continuous working, I finally am giving myself a good long vacation. These last few years out of college have been a great great experience. I think I have achieved few of the milestones I set on various fronts. There are more to achieve. But more importantly there are more to set. 

We generally set ourseleves lots of milestones and try to achieve them I try to keep setting myself new milestones to achieve every now and then too. Goal is always have something so big to do that you are just not having time to get distracted.

I will be in Ooty for 3-4 days and Kodaikanal 3 days. With parents. Should be fun. Taking lots of books with me. I am not really a trekking sight seeing sort of person. I mean like it. But right now what I want is peace. Time to reorganize some of the thought process. Look at all the mistakes done in last couple of years objectively and find patterns in them. 

Gonna try and see if I get chance to study Israel startup culture and education system and if there things we can learn from them too.

Havent yet packed so heading home. Mangala Express to catch tomorrow at 5am!

See you folks back on 3rd May. Have a safe and happy time till then!

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I have written last two posts on founders/co-founders. There are few more things I would like to write about, so thought it will be great to make a check list.

First of all, whether you need a co-founder is itself a big question. This post is not a discussion about that question. I will try to address that question in a separate post.

This post is about things that you should look for in a person before starting a venture, from a very India perspective.

Checklist - 

1. Piggybacker - Is he trying to piggyback you? If yes, then may be he should not be an entrepreneur, but more of an non-executive member of the team who is just providing some financial support to the team. Call him an angel if you want, but not a co-founder. Details about such piggybackers can be found here.
2. Daydreamer - I have discussed this point thoroughly too, and you can read it here. So if s/he is one of those daydreamer, then may be not a good idea to have him/her in the team.
3. Vision - How far can he see? Can he think ahead of time for the responsibilities he will be shouldering? For example, if he is going to be technology head in the company, can he see where geek community is moving? Can he be one of those person who will lead the community in right direction? 
4. Social - I strongly believe that you can not create culture in the company. You and your founding teams personality is directly reflected on the team. So if your founding team is not very social, your company will not have lot of social aspects. People will be just coming and working there with out much of interaction. I dont prefer such companies. Hence I would like a co-founder who is social like me.
5. Sacrifice - Taking financial risks and career risks in one thing. But sacrifice even some part of personal life is a big thing. If your co-founder is going to be attending each and every family event with out even considering current work pressure then he is not a good fit. One of my mentors and a serial entrepreneur told me a very good story about himself. When he started his first company, his wife was pregnant with their first child. Yet he used work from 7am to 2am everyday including weekends! Now he is very successful with millions of dollars. I am not saying everyone should make such sacrifices, but there has to be some. Its a tough thing to be an entrepreneur, no matter how hard you try there are going to be taxes on your personal life. You cant talk to your girlfriend for hours and still be part of next big thing you know.
6. Reason - Why a person is looking for entrepreneurship? What is a driving force for him? What keeps him awake at night? What will keep him motivated in the journey when your burst you tyre/s ? If money is the only reason, then dont even consider him. Most important reason I would look for is does he drive to be the best in what he does.
7. Comfort zone - Lot of people have tendency to get into comfort zones. With hints of even a small success such people will start underperforming big time. They will start spending lot of money too. Plus since they cant be fired from the company, that puts them even deeper into their comfort zones. This attitude will soon be reflected on people who work directly with them and so on. Not a good fit. An entrepreneurs needs to be agile in bad times but equally (in fact more) agile in good times. Momentum needs to be carried forward and forward.
8. Originality - Some people are original in their thought process initially. But after a while since they are not may be reading things, learning new stuff or not interacting with peers/mentors, they lose their originality. Does your co-founder have a drive to find solutions to problem on their own? Is he original enough and does originality drives him? 
9. Team person - Its absolute essential for him to be a team person. He should be work for the betterment of the team. Any thing and everything he can contribute to the team, should be contributed. If he is going to keep things to himself, then team as whole is never going to grow. Also fluid discussions in the team are not going to happen if he is not a team person.
10. Brand - All co-founders will typically be leading few parts of the company. How big is your own brand in what you do? If you are in technology, are you respected as a programmer/architect? Great people wants to work only with other great people. Does your co-founder have ability to create brand for himself to attract such other great people?
11. Decision maker - Last but most important, does he have confidence to take all important decision on his own. Typically an ideal co-founder is some one who can run the company completely on his own without you. 

Uncategorized Startup, startup advice, startups

Many startups start developing their product with out a ‘development plan’.  Many of the entrepreneurs I have talked to, found this as common thing. Common mistake that leads to mediocre technology is not having a decent development plan.

Well yes, startups can not adhere to some plan. Things are figured out as we go along. Things are added, removed, enhanced many times during the first beta release. But, that does not mean we can not have a plan for development.

Problem I see is, if you do not have a plan a target release date, you are aiming at a target which is not there. Result, you miss! and you miss BIG time. Worse is startups that put in place a very very aggressive development plan. 200% of times that target is never achieved. Once you miss one deadline you are going to miss many deadlines.

You need to find out set of features that you are going to implement in first release, no matter what. Find out function point estimations for this. Do some basic resource management math. Put it in an spreadsheet (I personally recommend Open Office!) and start shooting.

Now if you come across things that needs to be added, enhanced put them under on-hold changes. Release the product (even if internally) on or before the target date you had set. And then start incorporating those changes.

Advantages you get is, changes are required too often. Dev cycle is broken, processes go out of window when you change too often. Also many times changes are done and only to rollback in couple of days time. So time is wasted and wasted again. Instead keeping changes on hold, gives you time to really think about it. Make sure you are going in the right direction and not detouring so early in the development.

Summary: Always and always have a decent enough development plan in place and try to follow deadlines. No matter how cool features you have, how ‘All Stars’ development team you have. Teams have struggled hard when they do not follow at least basic software engineering principles.

Uncategorized entrepreneurship, Process, startup advice, startups

Appraisal systems! When you are leading a services company this is the most important thing which is ignored at early stage. For product companies few things held the group together, but services, specially in India people seem to keep hopping job forever. How I am implementing these system at StartupForStartups.

First of all what is purpose of appraisal systems in my opinion.

1. Systematic evaluation of things that went right and wrong since last appraisals.

2. Evaluating the goals that were set and whether the goals were achievable in the first place.

3. Reviewing positioning and career path the appraisee is following and whether that needs to be realigned.

4. Aligning goals of individuals with goals of the team for current appraisal cycle ie 6-12 months

5. Making sure appraisee is having a good time in the company and setting targets mutually to keep this up

What appraisal systems are not meant for.

1. Improvements. You can not have a 2 hour meeting and expect the appraisee to improve his/her performance.

2. Discussing salary hikes. I am strictly against this.

3. Discussing promotions. Again something that I do not like to discuss in appraisal meetings.

Open appraisals. How we do it.

1. Entire team fills out self appraisal and peer appraisal forms.

2. Every team member also fills out a appraisal form for senior person ie manager, but this form is submitted to manager of manager

3. Once these first round of appraisals are over, a team apprisal meeting is conducted.

4. This meeting is attended by entire working together ie smallest team that can be identified.

5. An open appraisal meeting is conducted based on level. For all junior members in the team, one meeting. For seniors one separate meeting.

6. Third party moderators, observers attend this meeting, though they do not participate in the proceedings.

7. There are no quantitative data that is discussed in the meeting. For example, we do not say like I think XYZ performed 4 on scale of 5. But instead we ask questions like what do you think is the asset that XYZ brings to table, and everyone including XYZ is suppose to answer.

8. This is again a 360 meeting.

9. There are specific questions which are for judging the performance of the team as one unit. And what we can do to achieve better performance.

10 . Team level quantitative data is given out. So if management feels that a team is performing 3 on scale of 5 then team members are notified. Also reasons for this given by management are discussed.

There are many things which are part of this open appraisal meeting and all IP can not be shared here. Also note that we do conduct open appraisal education programs for the team members and educate them about how to participate in such process. Do give me feedback as this an experiment very close to my heart.

Also I have not added advantages of this system on purpose. Let me know what you think would advantages.

Uncategorized entrepreneurship, evangelism, HR, innovation, Process, Recruitment, startup advice, training

Please note this is just my take on whole concept of entrepreneurship.

Many entrepreneurs think and act like businessmen. I often see people who are looking to build enterprises are stuck with mindset of businessmen. Below are in my opinion differences between businessmen and entrepreneurs.

Power of equity:

You need to understand that you have an idea around which a success story can be built. The only power you have apart from your own skills is equity. If equity is put to good use i.e. in hiring great people, you are creating more  chances of success. Lot of entrepreneurs think that diluting your equity to mentors, advisers, great engineers, sales people is waste of equity. This cant be more wrong. When you hire people who are best in what they do, you give your company more chances of success. Hence effective value of your equity is increased, so essentially you are not diluting at all! I will even say if your customer is interested, sell him some part of your equity. More people involved in realizing one dream, more chances of it becoming a reality. Don’t be greedy about your equity spending. Its worth something only when you succeed. Take top companies and find out how much equity holding founders had when companies reached a exit point and you will know what I am talking about.

Strict control:

You can’t build a great company if you are not ready to give freedom to your team members. You are not a baniya (a shopkeeper) who will shout at his employees (? or servant?) for every little mistake. True he needs to do that, you don’t. Your job is to find good people and build a relationship with them. Sell them your dream.

Delegation:

There are lot of things that need to be done to build an enterprise. You can not do that all. Make sure you have your own path in the company. At first you will have to do lot of things right from HR to marketing to coding! Decide when you want to delegate some of those tasks. Find and groom people to take over your responsibilities. Don’t try to become hero and work 24 hours a day doing everything.

Brand building:

How people see you and your company is VERY important. There are lot of small bakery product chains in India. In north Maharashtra we have this chain of bakery products called Modak’s. They have close to 50+ shops now. But they can never become McDonald’s. There are numerous such examples in India. When you don’t spend on building your brand, well you will create a great business but you cant create a great enterprise, Period. Spend on branding, not just your companies, but your own too. Customers don’t differentiate from you and your company be it a consumer product or enterprise.

Openness and transparent operations:

If you can not trust some one, you can not include him in executing your dreams. You can not go and ask his opinion, neither involve him in any which way in your dream building. But once you trust, (after lot of background search etc etc) trust people. Be open about your professional relationship with them.  This is true for customer relationships as well. IF you tell your customers you were sick and hence did not answer email about something important, well you can do that once not always. Also demand money every time you help out some one. If you always try to make 10% on a 10K deal you wont ever get involved in 10M deals. Some things, some favors should be given just for building relationships. Don’t ask for extra money for home delivery packages, that’s not what enterprises do!

Uncategorized entrepreneurship, equity, philosophy, Startup, startup advice

These few list of things I found out working in a startup and on a startup.

Employers:

1. Great team does not necessarily have all star players. A team in itself can become all star if it gels well together.
2. Don’t hire some one just to fill up that vacancy, not at least for first 10 hires. Fill it up when you get good fit only. 
3. Be HR manager for first few months or a couple of years. Your team is your best asset and you need to be involved in building it.
4. Your culture, attitude and personality is going to be reflected in attitude and personality of your company. Be sure what you are projecting.
5. Be transparent to initial hires. Don’t be afraid to even share critical data like business deals or financials. 
6. Use equity to your advantage. Don’t be greedy on that front. Your equity will be worth something only if you succeed and for that you need great people.
7. Intervene right away if you see minor cracks in the team. Don’t wait too long for the matter to be strightended out on it’s own. 
8. Don’t create hierarchy too soon. First few years should be directly you and your team. Use this time to grooms few people to become mid-management people and intrapreneurs if you like that word.
9. Be social and let your employees have some social life. Its not very productive to work 24 by 7. Take 2 day vacation once in a while and encourage your team to take it too.
10. Don’t go too much on brand of top institutions like IIT’s and IIM’s. Make sure person also has ability and right attitude to work in the team that is already there.
11. Is you see someone not performing, fire them. Don’t keep giving them second and third chances. This attitude is very contiguous. 

PS: Dont know why numbered lists are not working on the blog and too little time to dig into it. Any solutions?

Uncategorized entrepreneurship, HR, philosophy, Process, Recruitment, Startup, startup advice, training