Sushrut Bidwai

This is advice I received some time back from my mentor and I am merely passing it along. Views are mostly expressed by my mentor, but I do tend to agree with them.

Quoting (but in my writing style) him from one of his email -

For everybody who wants to be somebody derives inspiration, motivation from some one else. Lot of it comes from with in, but there are things which we are just blindly following from other peoples life. Be it Steve Jobs, Sergy Brin, Roger Fedrer, Alex Ferguson or any body else, who is successful. Many times, journalists create a very romantic picture about life of such people. Now the people I have mentioned here are very well known and popular. But there are cases where that may not be the case. A journalist telling story about how a 15 year kid innovated etc. What these people forget to mention is, what tools were available to this kid.

I am not trying to take away any thing from these success stories. You should read them. But just remember, you are in completely different surroundings. Tools you have available for achieving success (being successful does not necessarily mean achieving success) are very different from some of the people who are trying to emulate on some level. So beware - find the complete story. Don’t believe everything you read about people.  Dont push yourself the wrong way. If a kid all of 15 years old can do this then why cant I? Never ever base your professional (or personal) life on if they I can, then so can I. Thats not a very healthy and persistent motivation. It may give you spike in your motivational levels, but never a continuous thrust of inspiration.

Hope this helps you too, like it helped me.

Update - Dont know why but I felt like sharing this with you after watching 3 Idiots.

philosophy inspiration, mentor, motivation

Vishal Gondal writes a blogpost about why he thinks that Wipro-TCS-Infy are evil and how they are converting IT talent to “outbots” , term coined by him. Now I understand from where is coming and I also understand that his perception might be very different from my own. I admire him for the kind of success he has achieved but I dont think his views are correct in this debate.  Here are my own view points as a startup entrepreneur myself.

When I started thinking about starting up, I also had similar thinking outlined by him, when I interacted with initially hires, interns I also laid out similar views to fresh grads. But when I started thinking more deeply about it, I realized that everybody does not want same things in life. There are very few people who wants to take up challenges, specially in India, continuously work hard, learn things. Professional satisfaction and personal satisfaction may not have equal importance for everybody. Some people wants to have laid back life, where their dreams are limited to having a healthy, moderately successful and fulfilling life.

This gets interesting based on what a person wants in life. People who are entrepreneurs, like Vishal and I, may derive our satisfaction from successfully taking up challenges. This essentially means sacrifices on personal front. Lesser time with family and friends, lesser vacation. Not much time to pursue a hobby. Off course you can do all this even while starting a business or working in startup. But its very hard and I speak this from personal experience. So is it compulsory that every one should look for these same challenges in life? I would say, no.

Everybody comes different background, has different dreams. Or may some people just dont have dreams. And that is perfectly fine from my point of view. Not everybody wants to become Sachin Tendulkar. Calling these service giants as evil, is similar to calling BCCI evil. That BCCI makes so much money that no kid wants to learn and master hockey and hence BCCI is evil and should stop earning that money!

The way I see it is - IT services sector has given opportunity to lot of professionals to earn a good life style. Off course these companies will keep on evolving as time goes by and may turn into much better organizations and remove the flaws that we see now. I think the credit crunch might be good in that way. These organizations, at least from what I heard from my network, are becoming more value centric and are willing to take a bit more risks, which is definitely a good thing.

Now what we can do as startup entrepreneurs - Most of the time we come to this debate that services companies are evil because they are taking up all our talents. So what I thought is a good way to build talent pool for my company is connect directly to fresh grads, interact with them. Try to open their minds to certain professional goals they can have. Try to give them that spark and motivate to them pursue a career with startup like environment. This takes lot of time and hard work, but I think that is the best way forward. Instead of trying to solve the problem from top-down by saying services companies are evil etc, we should be a bit more constructive and solve it bottom-up by collaborating with educational institutions, students, interns and building at least few people who will understand our views, passions and may be 10 years down the line all startups will have better time in hiring. At least thats what I do by going to colleges and talking about technology, product engineering and career orientation (presentation) .

philosophy Services, Startup, Talent

Been long long time since updated my blog. But as you know, I write only about things which really moves me to write and unfortunately I havent come across any thing in last few months that did the same. As an update - things are progressing well on my side and all is well. Very excited about the next weekends first company outing, hope to understand my team better in the process. Anyways, here are something I want to share my views on.

1. Often I come across various views on Indian startups and lot of BS about it. One thing in particular - Why cant Indian startups build global product companies? This one question is posted by many writers, advisors, mentors and VCs. What I ask is - why should we focus on building global products? Whats wrong in working on local products. Off course if we see an opportunity for global product like dimdim, slideshare, zoho we will work on that. But that does not mean if I am building product from local Indian enterprises or consumers then I am not competent. I just dont have opportunity in sight and hence focusing on something which is in sight irrespective of target market. So if you are a wanna-be-entrepreneur and some one says to you, why you are focused on India market - just ignore them. Its their job to sell you global dreams. They have vested interest for you to dream global.

2. Dream a billion dollar market - well thats good to have. But should I just let go of opportunities which are lets say 10-15 million dollar market? NO. HELL NO. If I can sustain a business with big enough profit margin then isnt that good enough. I think so. Most of the VCs and advisors will tell you otherwise. VCs because they dont need to invest in such business. Advisors typically will also think similar to what VCs think.

Only thing matters while taking decision to pursue an opportunity - do you feel passionate about solving the problem? And if successful can you do that most of your adult life? If yes, go ahead and just ignore this big, global, kick-ass etc BC.

Startup, philosophy entrepreneurship, Startup

Since the resurrection of dot com phenomenon and with astounding success of youtube likes, many entrepreneurs dream of making it big.

There is no problem in such dreams.

But problem is entrepreneurs think that making it big in very quick time with not much efforts is very possible.

They dont realize, youtube like financial success is very rare and almost fluke.

It is not a repeatable success story.

You can never know if your venture will turn out to be a next youtube story.

So stop daydreaming.

People who always keep thinking that some Google will come and buy us out, all we need to do is have the product out there, are just kidding themselves.

People who think, even if we fail in dot com venture, some company will buy out our user base and hence we turn investors, are kidding themselves.

If you are thinking about what to do with your success or with your failure when you are running a company, then stop running the company.

You are not meant for entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is also not for retirement minded people, who wants to just make few lacks or couple of crore rupees and live the rest of life without doing anything, are the worst kind of entrepreneurs. In fact such people should join bureaucracy, as they dont even deserve to be in corporate life style.

Startup, philosophy philosophy, startup adivce, startups

There is good discussion going on around using Jute bags for shopping at Ideacamp Pune. There are various ways through which jute bag usage can be increased, there by reducing plastic carry bag usage and protecting the environment.

Doing something just for social change may not be possible. Not specially in war on plastic, as its directly attached with businesses and that too un-organized business entities like small retailers. 

But here is how I would do it -

• I am assuming jute bag manufacturing is already heavily subsidized by government. If its not then coax GoI to do it.
• Find out various ways to bring down cost of manufacturing of these bags.
• Try to project manufacturing jute bags as Kutir Udiyog, for which government already has lot of subsidies defined.
• Approach giant business houses in consumer goods like Hindustan Lever and have them advertise on these bags.
• Pitch them this as a mechanism to deliver advertisements as well as brand positioning. Jute bag is something a person will carry while going shopping, so brands will be interested in getting on-board.
• BSNL, Electricity boards give some concession of around 4-5 Rs if you pay your bills before a certain date. Instead of this try and see if they will be willing to buy these bags for less cost and give them away for free to customers who pay bills on time. By this distribution problem is solved.
• I am trying to bring Cost of bags delivery + advertisements = Cost of manufacturing.
• Talk to few political parties and see if they can provide their distribution channels for giving away free bags. Local corporators ie Nagarsevak sends out pamphlet for every other festival instead pitch it to them to give away these bags, which most probably will not see garbage bin straight away.
• This everything can be done even for profit! Though profits will not be significant but good enough.

Ideas, philosophy environment, Ideas, jute bag, thinking out of the box

Many times in entrepreneurship you have to say no to certain things. Be it in hiring process, in some project negotiation or while selecting a particular vendor. Also many times you are also someone who is being analyzed and rejected with out even a formal no.

Question is if you are an entrepreneur, would you like to read an email saying “Thanks for your interest, but we have decided to go with other provider” or would you prefer hitting reload on your Thunderbird and awaiting response from the client?

I would prefer having to read a rejection letter. Also not only that, but I would love to work with a client who knows how to say no. For example we fail to get a contract which we worked really hard to get. The client not only wrote a good email saying - “You are equally competent and in case things don’t work out with provider I have selected, you are definitely next in line. I am making this decision not on what you presented but more on my instinct as both of you look equally capable of providing said services.” Later on when the client was looking for partner for another project he wrote me and email and we did work for some time together on it with much more respect we had for each other than before.

If the client has remained quiet and has not conveyed selection of other provider, it would have made it difficult for me to work with with him in future. Yes, ego is there but more than ego pressure is the problem. Because of the splendid letter he had written previously, I was under no pressure while negotiating for next project and working on the project. It lead to a very good understanding in working relationship which is giving both us excellent benefits.

So what do you think should someone say no formally or just keep quiet?

Startup, philosophy entrepreneurship, philosophy, startup advice

I thought it will be a good follow up from my last post. In the last post I talk about things I know are happening in 2009 and hence looking out for. Now, what I want from 2009, not really from technology but in general.

1. Die socio-networks die - Well I am heavy user of Orkut, Twitter and Linkedin. Limited user of Facebook. Everything apart from that in Social networking should just go away. I don’t need your spammy invitations. I don’t need, so called, ‘niche’ social networks to talk about music, movies, cricket, Amrita Rao or any other thing. Linkedin/Facebook/Orkut groups and communities is enough for me to do that. But I know building a niche social network seems the easiest way to become an entrepreneur these days. We have so far seen social networks for BPO professionals, IT professionals, Cricket lovers, movie goers and what not. Day isn’t far where people will build social networks for Reynolds 045 Pen lovers. Give me a break!
2. High speed, low cost, high availability Internet - I strongly believe that government should subsidize Internet and not just for home use but for business too. BSNL is probably the most profitable government undertaking and Babus should do something so that it can provide connections to everyone at much lower costs. In US it costs about 10 USD/month for 4Mbps connection with Static-IP. If I have to get that kind of connection in Nasik its almost more than 200 USD/month!! Please some one do something about this. Internet is equalizer which will enable us to take on developed countries and its about time we get that for cheap.
3. Restructuring of Company Laws - Well I know its asking for a little too much and I dont think it will be done even till 2019, but I am optimistic person to the core. So Mr. Finance minister and Mr. commerce minister, please have some common sense and make it easier for us to setup companies and operate them. Please provide us some ease with laws so that we can concentrate on creating value for our clients and hence wealth for our country rather than having sleepless nights over 100s of forms and accreditions and blah blah to fulfill. Please, its not funny any more.
4. Better ways to organize online presense - So I have a blog, actually three blogs. Few more blogs focused on certain things are coming up too. Apart from that I have micro-blog ie twitter account. Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn accounts. Lot of linkedin groups. Subscription to lot of blogs/feeds. Thinking of opening FriendFeed account. 3 Email accounts. Picasa, flickr accounts. I need a better way to manage all this. I need a dashboard, single sign-on across multiple vendor websites. Or else Google, acquire all these services and integrate them in your services stack.
5. Lesser online time and a little more offline time - Spending 16+ hours a day on Internet has really given me very less time to read, reason, think. Though I make it a point to read at least 30mins to 1 hour even today, almost everyday, gone are the days where I used to read almost one entire 300 page book everyday . Though I am not complaining or not even deeply sad about this. But seriously I want at least 3 hours of time where I can be alone and it has become increasingly difficult to be alone while logged on to Internet. Though I know its more of my fault and hence I will be working on this in 2009.

And yes please no new Matrimony site. I have now disabled all of them on my broadband by setting up rules and told my Mom that all these sites are shut down due to no business. So please dont launch another one, else I will have to again take the pain on updating my routers rule-set. So please have some mercy. Oh yes and I will not say to new laptop too (Sony VAIO, latest model).

Misc, philosophy 2009, facebook, Linkedin, Orkut, social networking, web 2.0

Now after reading my last post, you know you need to evangelize your platform. How to do it? Well that’s a million dollar question isn’t it? Here is some free advice to mobile SMS platforms. If you are looking solutions for your own platform send me a gift that I would REALLY like and will post about it.

Government and organized institutions like Nationalize banks:

My father worked in Maharashtra irrigation department for 35 years. From 2006 he told me that District Collector communicates using SMSes! Reach to them. Go and talk to these people and make them see how they can use SMSGupshup like platform (SMSGupshup sucks, as its branded wrongly, so first build me too product with much better branding).

These large monolithic organizations require sending of memos (often one-liners) and receipt of memos. See if you can make them use it for the communication.

Emergency Services

First time in 20 years 5000+ Nasik people were left homeless due to floods.  Fire-fighters often need to  communicate with large audience. Emergency services, police, blood banks all need mechanism to communicate with community to get there support. Evangelize your platform for them, customize it and they will buy it.

Latency of content 

Internet is slow content delivery mechanism. When I say that, I mean a person has to be logged into Internet and be looking for stuff. Whats latency of your delivery platform? If its SMS, user is always online, content delivered in say 2-5 mins depending on bandwidth etc etc. So if you are using SMS for content delivery, think about who need fast information irrespective of where they are, traveling or in toilet! Few examples of such target audience for something like SMS content channel is Brokerage firms and there custoemrs, helath-care corporates and its staff, event managers. One quick example of all places you can use it is think out of the box. I attended Barcamp Mumbai 4 recently. It was a good experience. Problem was unconference nature of the event means sessions are rescheduled, venue for a session changed many times. I missed 3-4 sessions which I was really looking forward to. SMS to the rescue! Thats the power of thinking out of the box. 

Trade fairs and organized events

As I mentioned in the previous blog post about how you can create user base from farmers, traders easiest way is to use trade fairs for educating people. Don’t send your sales team to these events though, they are generally afraid of that. Send your product evangelizing team. What you don’t have product evangelizing team??? <very dirty look and thinking if you are from B-school> .

There are many more ways to do it, for the list of the rest develop good wordpress theme for this blog and help me maintain it .

Ideas, Startup, philosophy entrepreneurship, evangelism, innovation, internet, mobile, SMS, Startup, startup advice, startup ideas, startups

There are numerous applications which are developed to take advantage of mobile and SMS penetration in India. Vakow, SMSGupShup are just 2 such examples. All these entrepreneurs read blogs, industry data about how SMS is going to grow and mobile penetration is going to still grow. These blogs/industry experts give numbers like how many SMS delivered in a day, on particular day like festival, valentines day and all. They tell you how you can use SMS as content deliery channels to attract user base and create a killer startup with multi-million dollar revenues. All good, go for it. Before going for it think about what these blogs don’t tell you though.  Does any of the blogs tell you how many people who use mobiles for voice communication extensively are not using SMS? I dont think so. Do they tell why they are not using it? Naah, they just can’t figure it out. It takes lot of evangelism to understand your user base. 

One of the problems with web 2.0 startups that I recently talked to or I have seen mushroomed targeting mobile and SMS content delivery is, they focus on existing user base of these media. They are not putting lof thought about why lot of people are not using the media despite having access to it. If you are a budding entrepreneur then before creating your killer app consider these points that come up in this post. Its good to target a large existing user base and hey you got idea to get rich. But it will be better if you keep that scalability to your platform to reach non-existent user base and make sure your delivery channels reach them in short term OR long term future.

For example, SMSGupShup has lot of user base, market momentum and everything is good and they will make tons of money, or at least I hope they do as an entrepreneur myself. But problem is they are focusing too much on the Gupshup part of it. I recently developed similar app for a brokerage firm that wanted to use SMS as THE media of communication with its client base of 5000+ customers. Now I told them about SMSGupshup and they said they cant use something names so funny for professional purposes. Now I was trying to make them use it as I was not going to get paid for developing it as its my friends firm. Though he did send me Johny Walker Black Label 24 for my birthday! Why they did not want to use SMSGupShup, because its named Gupshup and gives impression that its for fun and ONLY for fun. So I think the brand does not have scalability, but that another post in draft about brand scalability.

Point I am trying to make is, think about existing user base of a media and think harder about non-existent user base and whoa you got yourself much better business model and hence more chance of making it big. Taking case of SMS channels for instance, can’t you reach to customers in villages/taluka places who have mobiles but don’t use SMSes? You can. I know you will say in comments section that these people can’t type SMS and literacy rates are low and every other problem. Instead think about can they read the SMSes? Yes they can, believe me I do lot of field work and I know lot of them (30% approx)  can. So who can send them useful SMS which these people, like farmers, can use for there advantage? Traders. For example, Nasik exports grape to global market. Lot of farmers who export them are not literate but are rich and have mobiles. Now you can bridge these farmers in Nasik to exporters in Mumbai using SMS channel. How? Let me explain. Go to traders in Mumbai and see how they work. For every day they will call n differnt farmers telling them todays market price and if they want to sell for that market value. Otherwise farmers go directly to markets and sell it for available market price with out holding for better valuation for tomorrow (or is it always yesterday?). So you can help farmers get good pricing for there goods and you can help traders in managing there supply chain using SMS channels. Makes sense? I thinkso. 

Though this audience is little harder to reach, but I think user base is so huge that once you penetrate in that market segment you are going to be rewarded n times for your hard work and evangelism.  Educate people and wider audience about your platform while you are doing good job at reaching to existing customer base.

Ideas, Startup, philosophy entrepreneurship, evangelism, innovation, internet, mobile, philosophy, SMS, SMSGupShup, social media, startup advice, startups, web 2.0