Coming from a small town and hindi-medium educational background, he faced numerous hurdles all through his college days. Despite the challenges, he managed to start his small internet-based business while in college and later moved on to forming Xs Corporations in 1999. He later sold this to Lotus Interworks and continued working with them for a year. In December 2000, Sharma founded One97, a company which provides a platform for delivering mobile value-added services.

In this video, Vijay very candidly shares the highs and lows of his student and entrepreneurial life and this video is a must watch for all the passionate people who believe in creating something.

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In my opinion, it is largely irrelevant if a company has a rigid hierarchy or a more loosely defined and flexible structure. What matters more is to institutionalize a culture that promotes company building even at the junior levels. The bigger the organization, the more important it is to have a more democratized approach to solving problems or building new businesses.

Most companies that have evolved to large organizations employing tens of thousands of people have followed a similar path to success. After starting out as an innovative and nimble startup in the initial months and growing to a successful, emerging company, they tend to end up as an enterprise fighting to stay relevant. The battle of the middle-management bulge is a reality in almost all of the top enterprises and technology companies are not immune. Most technology companies employ a philosophy of hiring ahead of the curve, which is essentially increasing the pace of hiring without regard to the actual requirement for talent. The usual side effects of this philosophy include the emergence of a bureaucracy, under-utilized individuals and teams and subsequently less productivity per employee.

Companies once at the bleeding edge of technology fail to ideate, innovate, and execute faster than new players who look to disrupt the market. Even with their financial muscle and vast resources, many large companies just fail to compete in this age of hyper-innovation. This is partly due to the prevalence of a complacent culture that is all pervasive. The middle-management layer is often incompetent to spot a bright idea and bring it to market. This ensures that promising ideas are often nipped in the bud. This leads to disillusionment at the lower rungs and eventually the organization suffers. Many large companies fail to see the merit in fostering a hundred million dollar ideas in the quest for a single, potentially $100M bet. The small bets are often left to wither and die, as they do not account for more than a rounding error in the company’s balance sheet in terms of revenue potential. Often, the pressure of quarterly earnings adds to the problem with the company focus shifting from long-term growth to a short-term gain. Left to remedy too late and the organization runs the risk of turning into a vestige of the past.

As a startup, it is prudent to institutionalize processes to ensure that the pace of innovation is maintained as and when it enters the next phases of growth and avoid some of the problems that large companies so often end up in. It is far easier in the earlier stages of evolution of a company. It helps to have the right set of measures to encourage new ideas internally, help discover them, and productize the ones with promise. It is perhaps essential to eliminate the possibility of a decision maker to pull rank over rationale and veto an idea. Chain of command might work well in the military and government but could prove detrimental in a technology firm. It is more pertinent to have the right people in the right places to enable decision-making. It will go a long way in helping the company stay relevant for a long time.

Perhaps it is an idealistic argument but it is definitely worth a try.

What’s your opinion?

It is also worth having a look at what these companies have done – Fog Creek Software, IDEO.

[Guest article contributed by Shashank P S. The author can be reached on twitter: @shashank_ps]

Within a month of launch, forum has turned out to be a very useful platform bringing in insights from stakeholders across the industry – right from startups to VCs to industry professionals and helping entrepreneurs with answers to their questions.

Here are a few gems from the forum.

The Art and Science of Negotiation [Explained in a sentence]

“If you take a loan of Rs. 5,000 from someone and do not return, the person will threaten you (and even get goons for you).
If you take a loan of Rs. 50,00,000 from someone and do not return, the person will first threaten you, and then ask you to sit and talk about it“.
That’s negotiation. That’s muscle power. And it’s as simple as that.

The “we are a startup” Excuses

I continue to be amazed by the number of statements by founders I hear where “we are a startup” is used an excuse for something – either an excuse for blatantly copying, or not doing their homework on the industry, or not pitching to the right markets, or seeing their bigger competitors cash in while they focus on something else.

How many have you heard? What’s your typical response to such statements?

Where to get *INDIAN* Royalty-Free/Low-cost stock images?

I would like to use some good images for my website. Mainly it needs to be with Indian Faces. of course, google can give me some good links.  I still like to know where my fellow startup friends are getting it from. I hope your answers will be helpful for everyone else.

Startups and solutions for religious, devotional markets?

Its a pretty big business in India, with steady cash flows, across economic strata and geographies. What startups, apart from VAS players selling devotional content, have tried creating solutions for this space? Temple management, e-collections, appointments, etc?

What do you wear to office and does it make a difference?

We do the normal, monday to thursday formals, friday onwards casuals. I think its necessary to instill a sense of discipline in a person like me.
And I am sure its a person to person thing. Big companies including MS etc. do not have any kind of dress code. But for a leader its very important that the right message is passed on to his/her comrades. And my opinion is that formal wear goes a long way in achieving that.

Enable radio taxi like service for local transport (auto rick)

The idea is to connect locals with the local transport in a given area – something like a “location based app” using SMS as a channel (considering that auto drivers may not have App/ Wap enabled phones). Rick driver can check in or check out at a location indicating that he is ready to take fare in that area (say Brigade Rd or Jayanagar). Along with this he will specify few other details like which direction is more preferred (Towards Hosur or Towards Domlur / Indira Nagar etc), what is his minimum fare distance etc.

Help : Magento VS PHP for E commerce

Which is a better solution Core PHP or Magento for e commerce. Which is easy to customize??

Good to be a little ‘evil’?

..rather than just sit on or sell the tracked/collected data it should be used for a pervasive experience; for example if he logs into a traffic website from home VS he logs into it from his handheld device when outside, he is looking for different types of information in either case. If tracking information can provide for such an experience then so be it.

Can superb customer service be that winning shot in ecommerce?

Will a fantastic customer experience/service help you keep your customers and get more? I personally think the service standards in Indian ecom is pretty poor. Can somebody be the Zappos of India? As an end consumer what do you expect as a great customer service?

Water Cooler Discussions

• Unlimited vacation time
• “Apply Via API”? A Cool way to Rock Star Developers
• What made you join a startup?
• An Entrepreneur or the Family Person?

Useful Read

• How a restaurant menu is designed [typography]
• How to schedule your Gmail emails
• Why people hesitate/never quit
• How Tumblr’s David Karp built a £500 million empire
• HSBC Threatens a Techie, Sends Goons for Uploading a Hack Video
• 3 Numbers All Entrepreneurs Should Know!
• Who’s Your Customer?
• How iPhone was conceived
• Service Tax 101
• Where To Find Inspiration When The World Tells You To Give Up
• How a Business Team is Like a Tribe
• Missing the Wood for the trees – An awareness Test.

Join the super active Pluggd.in forum (login from your Facebook/Google account) – we will be announcing couple of new features/giveaways to the community starting next week and certainly aim to make Pluggd.n forum a very useful platform for entrepreneurs.

Well, wear a tie.

At least that’s what Mark Zuckerberg did in 2009.

From his timeline:

Wore a Tie for a Whole Year

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Jan 1, 2009.

My 2009 challenge was to wear a tie for a whole year. After the start of the recession in 2008, I wanted to signal to everyone at Facebook that this was a serious year for us. Great companies thrive by investing more heavily while everyone else is cutting back during a recession. But great companies also make sure they’re financially strong and sustainable. My tie was the symbol of how serious and important a year this was, and I wore it every day to show this.

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Brilliant, right?

Related Discussion: What do you wear to office and does it make a difference?

The one thing that you will often hear from fledgling startups to technology majors alike is the fact that it is rather difficult to hire good talent, especially good developers and designers. This has resulted in a competition to hire the best talent and companies are vying with each other to lure the best. It often takes months to fill a key position.

For startups, it can be extremely hard. It is not a problem of the lack of ‘qualified’ candidates for any given position. A job opening at any technology firm in India will have hundreds or even thousands of applicants. It is a problem of plenty. Moreover, with all résumés looking homogenous, it is a time consuming exercise to separate the wheat from the chaff. Our aversion to failure has ensured that applicants have mastered how to game the system and appear awfully talented and successful in their résumés.

I think it is time we recognize failure as a likely outcome of an ambitious project and encourage healthy risk-taking. The problem starts right from childhood. Parents often force their children to shun risk and opt for a safe choice when it comes to choosing a field of study or a university. In our universities, students are often encouraged to hedge their bets and opt for an easier project in lieu of an ambitious one. People are encouraged to opt for a conventional or a steady job upon graduation. Even those who are keen to work for a startup are advised to work for a mature or reputed startup and so on. Risk-taking is not encouraged at any stage.

The emphasis is on securing a future and in the bargain, many people are conditioned to take up structured, monotonous jobs with well-defined roles and a clear growth path. Of course, there is nothing wrong with people joining the workforce in the hope of a stable career. The problem arises when you want to hire people who can work in an unstructured environment, take on ambitious tasks and calculated risks and not worry too much about the possibility of a failure. This is where Silicon Valley, Israel and other hot beds of innovation have a huge edge over us. They embrace failure as much as they celebrate success. In fact, many VCs and technology companies prefer to work with people who have dealt with a failure and learned from it.

As I end this piece, I see more questions than answers and I am curious to know what others feel about this topic. Please leave your comments and thoughts below.

(The piece in no way suggests that there are no smart, talented folk with an entrepreneurial bent. The startups they have founded or they work for are indeed fortunate to have them. It only intends to suggest that they are very few in number and they are what they are despite the problems listed above.)

[Guest article contributed by Shashank P S. The author can be reached on twitter: @shashank_ps]

Recommended Read: Microsoft/FaceBook/Google from India?

Angel Investors - Where are thou?

What will increase the number of angel investors in India is simple – more people making big money (I can easily see another 15-20 employees of Flipkart, Snapdeal and InMobi becoming angel investors in 2-3 years) and specifically more entrepreneurs themselves having exists.

So if you are a HNI and are looking to help young entrepreneurs become successful, what else would make you an ideal angel investor that entrepreneurs seek out for money?

1. Relevant experience and knowledge of the space that entrepreneurs are looking to build companies in. This is the biggest value add you can provide, more than the money. If you have built a company in the same space, the value that you bring to the table is a lot more than any “dumb” money. In fact one could argue that your experiences are nearly worth twice the money you put into the startup.
2. Network and connections. Great angel investors don’t just write a check and disappear. Once you put your money in, there’s a responsibility to commit to the success of the company. The bevy of lawyers, accountants, bankers, marketers and other connections you have made in your career are worth their weight in gold. That’s an amazingly attractive incentive for any entrepreneur to rather take money from you than other investors.
3. Willingness to learn as much as you are willing to teach. Being an angel investor is more a lesson in learning than in teaching. I am pleasantly surprised with the insights I hear on hiring techniques, investor / board management and online marketing from young startup founders.
4. Ability to provide time and empathy during the tough times. Every startup goes through a sine-curve of emotions. In fact if you have been an entrepreneur you know the experience well. Besides requiring a flash report on sales, hiring plan, product strategy and other company related metrics, the angel investor has to be available to his entrepreneurs. This does not mean having to spend 10 hours a week on the startup, but being available for that call or having a cup of coffee with the entrepreneur when you have a moment helps go a long way.
5. Long range thinking. Angel investing is certainly not for the faint of heart. Market timing rarely works so most good investors I know invest the same amount every year for 5-10 years before they are able to spot patterns and obtain exits. The thrills of helping young entrepreneurs succeed though, more than makes up for the short term uncertainty.

Recommended Read:

• Give Confidence: The Best Thing An Advisor Can Do To Help An Entrepreneur
• The difference between visible and invisible elements of a startup ecosystem

• The investor can quickly browse through your profile to get a good sense of your professional background and relevance to the startup you are working on
• Check for mutual connections to do a quick reference check

But, here are a few suggestions while trying this approach:

• Do some research on the VC firm you are trying to reach and figure out the most appropriate person to reach out to, based on their profile. Most investor profiles list areas of investment interest (e.g. internet, mobile, education, etc.) and so this should not be tough to do
• Reach out only to one or at most two people at that firm who are appropriate for your particular startup. It does not help if your ping everyone in the VC firm. Yes, this does happen often and if anything it’s counterproductive. What happens is one of the investing team members who receives this, will forward it to the other team member who is more suitable to look at your company (based on interest areas) and if they realize you pinged all the members indiscriminately, it shows that you have not done any research on which of the investors would be better suited for your startup
• If you have a mutual connection with the investor, see if you can get an introduction by the mutual connection (especially if this person knows the investor well and is willing to refer you)
• Avoid requesting to “add as connections” directly. Try sending a message via InMail or through mutual connections. Many investors are particular who they add as connections and so, if you directly try adding them, they might “ignore” your request
• See if the VC is part of any group that indicates a mutual interest area and use that group to reach out to him/her.
• Keep the LinkedIn message short giving a 3-4 sentence summary on your teams background and what you are trying to do. Ask the VC if you could get 15 mins over the phone to give more background and see if mutual interest. Avoid very long messages.

While on the topic of reaching out via a social network, I would highly recommend reading the following article by Ried Hoofman on “The real way to build a social network“, if you haven’t already read it.

[Guest article contributed by Anand Daniel, Partner at Accel Partners. Reproduced from his blog.]

Recommended Read: LinkedIn More Effective for Lead Generation Than Facebook & Twitter [Less Noise Does the Trick]

“Our Business Has Changed From What We Originally Thought It Will Be”– Onze.

Onze, Bangalore based LBS startup found a niche model after going through few iterations. Cofounder Sudarshan HS shared the company’s journey at the Appnomy Conference.

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More at Pluggd.in TV and youtube channel, TheUnPluggd

If you are a startup planning to apply for the next batch at YCombinator’s incubation programe, know what it takes to make it there, what does Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston look for in a startup, what kind of preparation would you need , and what is it to experience life at YC.

About Interviewstreet : It  is a platform where you could simplify your process of filtering , screening and hiring candidates for companies. It helps you to create your own customized tests ranging from multiple-choice-questions, text-answer questions to programming questions (also it has an in-built codechecker to evaluate the applicant’s code), send it across to applicants and by just glancing through Interviewstreet’s reports, you would know whom to call for a phone interview!

» More @Pluggd.in TV

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Nikita Upreti from Iamstarting will be the editor of Pluggd.in TV and she will drive a lot of content/interviews/discussions on the site (get in touch with her if you have any suggestion/request: nikita@pluggd.in).

Nikita was earlier running Iamstarting.com earlier, an online audio and video podcasting website, focused on interviewing entrepreneurs, investors, hackers. This is an important milestone for Pluggd.in as well as Iamstarting team and we look forward to your inputs/suggestions on our video channel.

Aside, if you are running a niche blog/content site and see a strong partnership with Pluggd.in (i.e. you think we can make it bigger by joining hands), let’s talk (email: ashish@pluggd.in)

Introducing Nikita Upreti

In her own words:

I had learnt how to sleep with my eyes open, I guess doing monotonous work each day was getting at me. This is when, I started meeting new tribe of people who had nothing but passion and a strong will to build something. I liked this culture and wanted to help them tell there stories. This is when with help of a friend of mine, I started an “unnamed project” and as luck would have it, the first story I told was of flipkart team.

I struggled with the name for this project for few days and then one day serendipity to be thanked, I came up with iamstarting. I started telling stories of startups who had just started and focused on what industry calls “early stage startups”. And then on, we talked to a lot of smart people on the way.

One such meeting was with founder of PI Ashish Sinha. We talked about technology, gadgets, trends and startups. This was good meeting and after a few more such meetings, countless discussions, bottomless cappuccinos – here I am – with Pluggd.in TV!

As Editor PI-TV and after few weeks of planning and learning, Pluggd.in TV goes live right now http://www.pluggd.in/tv/ and let us know your thoughts on what other content you would want to see on Pluggd.in TV!

Everyone has one good idea, all that people need is a blink! So, we’ll try and push people over the edge to just start-up. If you are still reading till here, stop and head over to PI TV.

Pi TV will be a delivering some of the most recognizable and inspiring faces in tech. The entrepreneurs, the investors, the developers — everyone in fact who is helping to change the world, one idea at a time (without soap music ). We will be visiting start-up offices, calling them to Pi office, absolutely where ever we can get our cameras. We will be covering startups & tech the way it should be.

» Subscribe to Pluggd.in’s Youtube channel.

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Translated, it means ‘The businessman who knows how to ‘Sell’ is truly successful”.

25 years later, I couldn’t agree with him more.

No matter which profession or job you are in, you have to know how to sell if you want an accelerated career.

Here are seven compelling reasons I have learnt personally:

1. Sales make you believe in yourself.

When I started an unheard concept of creating online contests (contests2win) in 1998, I couldn’t even explain the idea to people because the online world was alien to them.

In a famous meeting I had with Gunender Kapur (GK) of Hindustan Lever (that lasted for one hour), in which I pounded the idea of online promotions for the Annapurna Brand that he headed. He finally exclaimed, “I like you, I like the idea of ‘contesting’, but pray tell me what is ‘online?’ GK did not know what the Internet really was!

I did hundreds of meetings like those during 98-99, only to face rejection, doubts and outright bewilderment.  But each meeting made me hone my skill of explaining my idea in more detail; it forced me to add so many more dimensions to my concept in more ways than I had even envisaged. It made me learn my business better and reinforced my conviction in it!

Thirteen years later, how much I thank those painful years for teaching me the hardest lesson that an Entrepreneur sometimes finds most difficult to learn – to continue to BELIEVE in her idea when the world says ‘Huh?’

Just the sheer passion in your eyes and speech will make people like you, notice you and even believe in you instantly. Even though they may not understand your idea.

Yup. It ain’t ever easy! Pictured here – Raj Menon – 2win founding team trying to explain a concept to an MBA Class of De Paul University from Chicago who visited us.

2. Sales train you ‘Patience’.

A gentleman called Gareth Thomas who was a management trainee at Channel V in 1998 liked the concept of online contests.

Channel V had a popular ‘Viewers Choice’ awards on their channel and they were keen to convert the same into online contests.

The only problem was that Gareth liked calling me from my office in South Mumbai to meet his boss Vivek Paul usually at 2 pm to their Lakdawala office in Khar, and after making me wait till 5 pm, he would send a message via the receptionist (or come down himself) to tell me that Vivek could not meet me.

Both Vivek and he repeated this ‘ditch’ game three times with me. On my fifth visit, after the usual 3 hour wait, Vivek did finally meet me and gave me the business of hosting the Channel V Viewers’ Choice Awards on my website.

Despite the bitter anger and frustration of wasting time ‘waiting’, I learnt the hard lesson of being patient.

Sofas, secretaries and guards in offices became my best friends.

Waiting became my meditation.

Waiting is meditation. This is the Tenrikyo (Japanese) religious service I went to for 10 years; in the end I learnt the basics..

Today, if I have to wait for a day, a month, a year or even a decade to achieve what I really want, it’s cool with me.

The religion of Sales has taught me that the fruit of penance is very sweet.

3. Sales makes you meet like minded people.

The most like minded people I have met! First c2w group photo – Circa 2000

I met Rajiv Hiranadani (another ACE Salesman) when we used to both wait for 3 hours (minimum) to meet N.P. Thirukode of Shaw Wallace at Ballard Estate.

As salespeople, we clicked despite the fact that while sitting on that sofa we were arch competitors. Rajiv used to sell Yahoo and I used to represent MSN  (Microsoft) as a sales partner.

By 2002, we had become good friends and I invited Rajiv to start up Mobile2win in India. By meeting him constantly, I understood what he was about.

More importantly, if he could wait with a smile for 3 hours to close a small deal, he was my clone. He was my kind of CEO.

Today, 10 years later Rajiv is still running that business. (Read this story of my exit from mobile2win)

When I last counted, I had 5199 visiting cards that I have collected as an online entrepreneur.

Yup. I’ve met and interacted with over 5000 people. All thanks to SALES

Each and every one of them has a Sales Contact.

You have to go out there, SELL and  in the process meet the most interesting people in the world. For all you know, your business soul mate could be one of them!

4. Sales teaches you how to ‘read’ People.

My 2win founding team member Raj Menon (Ace salesman again) and I had gone to Sony India (in their Faridabad office) in June 2003 to pitch a brand new format of contesting that we had conceptualized in collaboration with Jet Airways.

At the Sony office, we met a gentleman called Dinesh Chandra.

I began presenting the pitch. It was a 12-slide deck. The pitch price was on slide 12.

Raj and I have trained each other to watch and observe the client as a pitch progresses. As I crossed slide 9. I saw Raj reach for his phone. That was a subtle signal for me. I slowly finished slide 10. Just as slide 11 came up, I saw Raj’s sms message on my phone. It said ‘Do not go to 12. End now’.

After slide 11, I declared that we had reached the end of the PPT and thanked Dinesh Chandra for listening.

Just then Raj pretended to get a phone call, and in a couple of minutes, Raj looked at Dinesh Chandra and asked him ‘Sir, do you mind if Alok and I step out? I have an urgent business matter to discuss with him’.

Dinesh said “Sure.”

Raj took me out and said ‘Alok, Dinesh loves it. I saw his expression. We have asked for 7.5 lacs on slide 12. He will pay 15 lacs’.

I came back and sat down. Dinesh asked me ‘So, what does the Jet proposal cost?

I gently said ‘Sir, it costs Rs. 15 lacs’.

Dinesh said “Done”. “Send me the purchase order.” That was the fastest sale I have ever done in my life.

Both Raj and I left stunned and ecstatic.

Only a week later did we find out who really read whom!

It turned out that  Dinesh Chandra was launching the  Sony WEGA range in India for the first time and an interactive contest in Jet Airways that collected a live database for him was the most effective marketing he could have achieved.

He had actually ‘read’ Raj and Alok better than we thought we had read him.

In retrospect, we think he could have paid 30 lacs if we had known what he was planning to use the campaign for.

Sales makes you understand people – it trains you to see their invisible smile even when they maintain a poker face, it shows you the twinkle in their eyes even though they may be wearing sunglasses.

Can you read Gaurav Sharma? (One of 2win’s best Sales people clowning away to glory at the 2011 annual party)

5. VCs love SALES people!

I have been involved in raising Venture Capital (10+ transactions) for my own companies and for the companies I have mentored over the past 13 years.  I have a fair idea of what VCs like in Entrepreneurs and their businesses.

One of the things they expect is the fact that the entrepreneur should be able to SELL.

And here I mean Sales that are not necessarily revenue centric but also the ability to sell the idea, the concept or the service to potential customers and clients as proof of validation of the business.

Take what happened to me for the first time when I raised venture capital for Contests2win.com.

In June of 1999, I walked into the Khaitan Bhavan offices of  Acqauvit (what became E-Ventures in India) for the first time. There I met Neeraj Bhargava and Rajesh Jog.

The first question Neeraj asked me was “So, how many brands have used contests2win? What’s your proof of concept in the real world?”

Simply said, he was asking me ‘Boss, have you sold this idea to real brands or is it a concept on paper?”

I answered and said “Neeraj, seventy five of the Fortune 500 brands have already worked with us. Of them, fifteen have become repeat clients.”

Some of the Brands c2w has worked with

Neeraj could not believe me. He was a McKinsey veteran and knew how difficult it was to get even a single Fortune 500 brand to sign on.

I showed him the roster of clients and the campaigns they had done.

In that conversation, I volunteered and said “Neeraj, but you must know that all these brands have worked with me for free. I have not charged them anything”.

I still remember Neeraj’s reply so clearly. He said, “Alok, if you have got 75 brands to work with you, I will get them to pay. That’s the easy bit”.

E-Ventures funded me because I had shown proof of sales of a concept that did not exist in the world before – and none other than the biggest brands in the world being customers of that concept.

Today, when I sit in competitions in which real entrepreneurs compete for Money, I reflexively ask “So, who all have bought this?” Ever so often I have seen VCs politely asking entrepreneurs to come back to pitch to them AFTER they have had their first sale.

If you want to raise Capital, be sure you have proof of SALES in your pitch.

Some of the Best Sales People I have ever met in my life –  who became Founders of the 2win Companies. From left to right –  Mahesh (games2win), Rajiv (mobile2win India), GK (c2w), KK in white (media2win), Alok, Raj (c2w), Dinesh (c2w)

6. Sales teaches you the business models of the world.

I have sold over 2000 campaigns to over 1000 brands that belong to almost all the Fortune 500 companies in the world.

In the process, I have been exposed to the business models and insights of industries as diverse as telecom to trucks, airlines to antacids.

While selling my wares, I have been exposed to the sales problems of my partners, because after all, what they buy from me in terms of advertising solutions or games is only to help them sell better!

There is no MBA in the world that can teach you or expose you to live case studies, management issues, problems and solutions of the world’s biggest and best companies. Going into their offices to SELL them something is the best MBA program a person can attend.

Sales is the best education you get PAID to receive!

Just let me get a feel of it. I will figure it out. I’m a sales guy! Pictured – Alok being tutored how to ride a horse carriage in Budapest

7. Sales helps you Sell ‘yourself’.

What happens in a Job Interview?

The candidate ‘sells’ his personality, abilities and his experience to a potential employer. A resume is the sales pitch in a word format, while the interview thereafter is a meeting to close that sales pitch.

In today’s hyper competitive world I see the best bred, most outstanding professionals fast becoming extinct in the corporate world – because they don’t know how to sell themselves.

Today, it’s not good enough to be very good at your job or to have an expertise in your domain – you have to know how to sell yourself.

Take Steve Jobs for instance. He was not just brilliant in his vision and execution. He was a superlative salesman too – every keynote of his is a salesman’s Bible.  When he would go up on stage to present Apple products, the crowds would go crazy. He reinvented the concept of creating an explosive cocktail of emotion, innovation and sheer stage magic to capture the imagination of consumers; as if he was a rock star performing with his instruments, in front of his fans.

In the years to come, you will have to become a Rockstar yourself.

Think of what happens when people search for your name on google. What do they see? A list of linkedin, facebook and twitter links? I say that they need to see more. If you want to create an impact, you should be blogging, presenting a point of view, saying something compelling. They should be ‘pre-sold’ on you.

I’m relevant. Even on page 33 of a Google Search result on my name.

In February of 2010, Harvard Business School sent me an invite to speak to its students as part of an India Week. Their mail said, ‘We like what you write on rodinhood.com and wish you can present the ideas to our students’.

I think I had achieved a very rare and honorable ‘personal’ sale!

[Guest article contributed by Alok Kejriwal, founder of Games2Win. Reproduced from Alok's blog]

Here are the latest discussions on the forum:

What Golf has taught me about Entrepreneurship

My love of golf developed during my teenage years. Playing golf with my dad and brothers was always a great bonding session for the four of us. Over the years, golf has actually helped me learn a lot about myself and entrepreneurship as well…….
It’s easy to start something with a bang, but can you finish it?
In the golfing circles, I have always been known as a good striker, I can hit the ball a hell of a long way straight down the fairway. Sure it makes getting to the green easier, but once your there, you still have to finish.
Entrepreneurship is the same way. Putting requires focus and patience. Building a business is the same way, losing focus and getting impatient is the fastest route to a 4 putt.

search volume for keywords

I would like to know search volume (relative or absolute) for certain keywords on google. Can you please point me to some sources which can help me in this regard?

Freecharge copycats

Freecharge has defined a new business model – something that nobody in India ever tried. What’s interesting is a set of clones that the company has inspired. Is this the NEXT big thing?

Questions

Legal implications of working with a firm(MNC) and partnering in a start up?

What are the general/Legal implications of working with a firm(MNC) and partnering in a start up? How to tackle it?

Are you paying Service Tax on Adsense Income?

Many say consult a CA but not many CAs know abt Google Adsense (GA) program in India, making it tougher to get some guidance.So thought of asking here as people from various varied interests congregate here .

My question is -  ‘I earn more than 10lacs /annum through GA.Should I pay service tax (ST)?

Allotting fair stakes to founders if all of them are not equally involved in a startup

What is the best way to allot stakes to founders of a startup if all of them are not equally involved?
For example,
- Some of them are working full time and some of them still have their jobs and work part time.
- Some of them are ready to invest some money but some of them cannot invest any money.
We plan to keep stakes equal if it gets too complicated, but is there an easy way to allot stakes so that its fair to everyone involved?

Useful Resource

• The Startup Checklist
• Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors
• Amazon DynamoDB Looks Like A Game Changer

Frustration against ecomm companies

• And now fashionandyou.com : Ecommerce is not just online selling
• How not to do ecommerce like BigAdda
• Irrelevant Marketing by Yebhi on Facebook
• Fraud from eBay India

hack

• Youtube Lyrics Finder [Chrome Extension]

Most Active Participants

Sameer, Sagar , sameerparwani, HemanPatel.

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Got questions? Have insights to share? Wanna build invisible elements in Indian startup ecosystem?, participate in the forum – there are amazing people out there, sharing insights/helping others.

His point was he could pay money to have big buildings, large labs and a great campus in India – these according to him were “visible” infrastructure. What was still missing was “invisible” infrastructure. The particular example he gave was the Fedex person who delivered at Harvard, samples of live cultures and he would be at the office at 6 am sharp with his package, knowing fully well how important that time was to the scientists. The Fedex delivery person was part of what he called “invisible” infrastructure.

I wanted to draw some parallels to the startup ecosystem.

The startup community and ecosystem in Silicon Valley is extremely well revered. Its speed of innovation, the consistent “hits” and the unparalleled dynamism of ideas is worth applauding. The visible elements of the startup ecosystem – dynamic entrepreneurs, indulgent venture capital and seasoned mentors are what I call “visible infrastructure”. I would definitely include things that make the US extremely easy to do business in such as setting up your company, bank account, labor laws etc. Those are the table stakes and the easy parts that every startup friendly ecosystem in the world is trying to emulate.

Imagine entrepreneurship is a cult and Silicon valley the “Mecca” or the “Holy land”. Something amazing happens to the converted when they visit the holy land. Yes, they are still religious and follow the “rituals” of entrepreneurship elsewhere, but when they meet other converted in the hallowed ground, they get an almost “born again” fervor.

I was at University Cafe a few months ago, waiting for a friend, when I was sitting next to a table of 2 young entrepreneurs talking rather loudly to another individual (you could say I was eavesdropping, but they were so loud I could hear them at the Apple store, a few blocks away, if I was sitting there instead). They were trying to convince the other individual to join them and it was a full on “change the world, ding in the universe, pitch”. Their excitement and enthusiasm for what I gathered was a “mobile application to tag users by keywords instead of social networks” was nothing short of hubris, but to them that was the only thing in the world and they gave it their best shot. I call it  ”invisible attitude”.

At Ramona’s a few days later, there was an open “60 second demo” of developers to a group of their peers. I happened to listen to one developer who had a pretty awful time with the mic, then his app crashed two times and the projector resolution sucked so much we couldn’t really see his app at all. But post his “pitch”, he said “please download the app and give me feedback”, with a kinda sad look in his face. Within 10 minutes, during which time most folks were grabbing their beers, his app was apparently downloaded “30 times” and 5 people took time to review drop him a comment on his blog about what features they would like to see on his app. I call this  ”invisible encouragement“.

Here’s my point. I know India does not have many great mentors willing to give time, and I am acutely aware of the lack of many early adopters and also the dismal seed capital availability. At the end of the day though, only the converted help other converts.

It is up to us entrepreneurs to help other entrepreneurs.

Forget about the government, venture capitalists, larger companies and experienced mentors.

Forget for a moment that you are competing with multiple other startups and entrepreneurs for your time under the sun.

Go out of your way to help other entrepreneurs.

If its helping figure out scaling php on the cloud OR if you have figured out how to setup your company in the US, with a subsidiary in India OR if you have figured out the best source of organic traffic for your B2B SaaS company OR if its taking 15 min to buy online something you would offline even it costs 5 bucks more, OR if its downloading a new beta app and providing feedback.

Help other entrepreneurs, with no intention of getting anything back.

I assure you, it will surprise you back with its generosity.

[Guest article by Mukund Mohan, reproduced from his blog]

Here are the latest discussions on the forum:

Filing a Copyright Claim against an Indian website

Qn: What’s the best way to handle copyright issues in India? Of course I can contact a lawyer and have him handle it for me. But are there easier methods. For example, in the USA a DMCA takedown request will usually do the trick. Anything similar in India?  (by sameerparwani)

Answer: There is no obviously right thing to do here.  Some questions for you:
1. Do you want to proceed against your competitor, to get them to remove the content? or
2. Do you want to proceed against your competitor’s web host and tell them that they are hosting infringing material?

The second approach is supported under the severely-flawed free-speech nightmare law that we have right now in India (the Intermediary Guidelines Rules), and intermediaries have to comply with complaints within 36 hours (which they generally do, without examination as to the truth or validity of the claims in your complaint[1]).  I don’t believe that is the right thing to do, as they (or anyone else) could just send your web host / ISP / DNS provider false complaints that they will have to comply with under Indian law even without notifying you.

Does this Indian law apply to non-Indian service providers? Yes, according to the IT Act. Does this Indian law apply to non-Indian content? Yes, according to the IT Act.  So, it would seem, our law applies to the whole world, despite other countries’ laws applying only to that territory.  For instance, the DMCA only applies to the US, and not to the EU or India, etc.

The first, which is to go after the offender instead of the intermediary, I believe is the preferable option.  A cease and desist notice citing sections 14 and 51 of the Copyright Act should suffice.  Note that if you send a vexatious notice that you know to be false, then that too is a wrong under the Copyright Act. (@pranesh)

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12 Rules for Startups

- Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love.

- If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession

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What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received as an entrepreneur?

“Its never Business, its always personal.” [@harshamv]

“stop building and start selling what you already have” [@venkatk]

“Its not about how quick you make your first million, its about what you do to make your first million”  [@Divyesh]

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Topics that need insights:

Marketing for Internet companies in India?
What should be the best marketing channels for internet companies targeting small businesses in India? It seems internet marketing can get things started but the reach to small business owners is limited.

What’s the real internet status of Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities
I am looking for a reliable source for the demographic of internet users in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

Dividend Vs Bonuses
What should the company do after it becomes profitable after a few years in loss. All the founders have taken equal pay cuts. Lets say it has $100 to distribute in various ways at the end of the year.

1. Dividends to founders/owners,

2. Salary increments/Bonus based on company performance

Is there a place where one can find which are the most downloaded mobile apps specifically in india?

Is there any website, where one can see which are the most used / downloaded mobile apps in India?

Fitness

One hears very often that founders need to adopt a fitness routine to not just stay in decent shape for the forever sprinting mode, but also keep stress at bay. What do you do, and what has worked for you?

Cash Vouchers valid only on e-commerce websites

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Useful links:

- Definite quiz to take for all entrepreneurs

- Nobel laureate , Prof. Venki Ramakrishnan’s lecture at IIT bombay

Lighter Wayne

- Thinking ‘online’ : html6 ?

- Indian Government Wants ‘Human Skeleton’

Vettel and Schumi

Editorial Notes: This post is influenced by Mukund’s An Investor’s Promise article.

Having tried-failed-tried, small success & lot still to do, I know how hard an entrepreneur’s life. I have been helped by many people who loved what we @ my startup tried, some questioned, some ignored, some laughed, some scolded, some suggested and some cheated. But that is part of life no matter what we do.

I got excellent support from few people and at the same time was surprised to find many simply avoiding to support. When I spoke to many fellow entrepreneurs, the feedback is same. Hence this post is based on my experiences and aims to influence more to be supportive to other entrepreneurs & startups.

As an entrepreneur, I promise the following:

Open network

I will continue to keep my network open i.e. connect friends, contacts, (ex)colleagues, other entrepreneurs, mentors, advisers to you.

Participate

I will continue to participate in hearing your idea/ concept / evaluating your early prototype / try beta apps.

Communicate

I will continue to respond your queries/mails.

Endeavors First, Friends Later

I will respect your endeavors without getting biased whether you are my friend/contact/an associate. If your product is good, I will recommend and use your product even if it is built using my competitors product!

Don’t cheat

I will continue to treat you fairly well but never cheat.

No location bias

I will continue not to be biased whether your startup belongs to one city/another. I will respect you as an entrepreneur, your endeavors & your hard work

My Mantra of being an entrepreneur : “woh entrepreneur hi kya jo aur entrepreneurs ki kaam na aaye” ( He/she is not an entrepreneur if (s)he is not supportive to other entrepreneurs).

What’s your promise?

[Guest article contributed by Santosh Panda, founder of Ayojak. Reproduced from his blog.]

Walter Issacs on in his Steve Jobs biography talked about the reality distortion field of one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our era and that has left me thinking often about this factor living inside every leader / entrepreneur and perhaps every individual. Walter quotes Andy Hertzfeld from the original Macintosh team (1981):

“The reality distortion field was a confounding melange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand”

Steve Jobs had unrealistic expectations (his reality distortion field making him believe that it can happen) and he failed many a times. But in retrospect his reality distortion field worked. We cannot take away from him the successes he has had. But is that reality distortion field only restricted to Mr Jobs? Over the past few days, two separate incidents have shaped my belief that a reality distortion field works within every ambitious person.

In one email a friend (& co-worker) emails me “your admiration for xyz over-weighs so much that you are blinded…” He points that I am not seeing the reality, while I kept arguing that I am devoted to the end goal we are here to achieve, it is working. Somewhere in between both our versions, the distortion field breathed its last… we found a common ground, of course that took a few months to happen.

My learning’s from this incident is that the distortion field gives a pace to things, acts as a shot in the arm for actions. Many continued to be blinded with me and still continue, but in this case my friend managed to bring me closer to reality and I spent a few hours fixing a people issue at hand that I otherwise wouldn’t have done.

The second incident is again a conversation with a co-worker who argued that I am not allowing him to achieve large goals. My version of course is that I am preventing you from burning larger holes. And to anyone else working with us, it was clear that this co-worker is just a misfiring gun. His reality distortion field made him believe the same about us. We parted ways eventually. The distortion field though I can see in this case, sure gives a lot of confidence, but not always authentic.

Looking back at some homeruns that I have hit and many that people around me have, it is clear that a lot of success and failures are a product of a reality distortion field. You may argue that it isn’t impossible without a reality distortion field, but I would believe that the distortion field makes one achieve things that defies all logic.

The world is an expert in telling us, it cannot happen, you are wrong, give up. But what keeps an entrepreneur running is his / her own reality distortion field, which not only gets the best out of them, but helps them get over the logical side of brain that stops them from making a big bet. As a third person, I would respect the reality distortion field of an individual, unless of course the thin line between THAT field and BS is not crossed. Some noise is good, but no signal to back it up can be catastrophic.

[Guest article by Annkur/Reproduced from his blog.]

Side note first: If you are like most Indian entrepreneurs, you mom has a big say in the matter (so do most relatives, uncles, aunts and others). First was the date I should sign the agreement (has to add up to 9 was my mom’s advice), then the date I should move in, where I should sit (face East, the sun’s rays should first hit the CEO’s desk! yes, you laugh, but that’s what I was told). Did I really care about all these astrology / numerology and feng shui (Vaastu for us Indians)? Mostly no, but my mom did and mom’s always get their way. Anyway, I digress.

Back to my friend, though, who asked me “How often should we celebrate and what should be celebrate”?

There’s a really simple answer to that – “Very often and anything you believe is something to be proud of”.

That does not mean you break open the champagne every day or take the team out for a 7 course meal each week, but most startups don;t celebrate achievements enough.

There are 3 important things celebrations do:

1. They cherish those moments of fun and accomplishment – these are then passed along to all new employees as “folklore”.

2. They help put together shared experiences which helps you tied over the Sine-curve of emotions at your startup.

3. Most importantly though, they reinforce achievement. However small.

Most startups celebrate only the “major” accomplishments – funding, customer wins, new office space,  end of the quarter. Or if you are in India, Diwali, Holi, etc.

The amazing part is there are small milestones you can celebrate daily. I am going to make a short list and please add your own in the comments below.

I put these celebrations into categories: Product, Hiring, Finance, Sales, Customers, Admin (or Operations), Marketing, etc.

Within each of these categories you can have multiple celebrations. For e.g:

1. Product – mockup ready, alpha/beta/version 1 ready, demo ready, etc.

2. Hiring – first employee offer letter, first (or 10th, 20th any number really) employee hired, etc.

3. Finance – funding from angel investor, adding members to the advisory board, etc.

You get the picture.

Here are some more examples!

1. Name resolution from ROC – Yay! The name you wanted for your company is actually available! I suggest going to your local print shop and getting the name typed in gold print & a certificate embossed.

2. Signed up your first advisor – Bring the advisor to meet your team and get everyone lunch. The person who asks the most questions, gets to drink beer. Rest have to drink water.

3. Got your company incorporated. Make 15 copies of you MOA and AOA. You’ll need it! Even the person that serves you tea and coffee in India wants a copy of these in paper!

4. Got your domain registered and website launch page is up! I am told the launch page being up is the most legit you can get early on!

5. Your first mockup created on the back of a napkin. Take multiple photos, get them printed so you can then hopefully sell them on eBay when you get big.

Celebrate more! Have tons of fun and please invite me to the party.

Recommended Read: Running Your Own Venture and Still Having Fun?

[Guest article by Mukund Mohan, founder of Jivity. Reproduced from Mukund’s blog]

Here are the latest discussions on the forum:

Why is flipkart charging for shipments.?? & Change in Flipkart Packaging.?

Flipkart has started charging shipping fee for orders less than INR 200 (earlier it was INR 100).

Well, amongst the 230 odd books that i have purchased on flipkart, less than 5% of the books were of cost above 180..!! So, what i dont understand now is why is there a shipping cost?

Did the strategy to give away books at the cost lesser than manufacturing cost make some losses for flipkart.?? or did the strategy to throw away all other competitors pay off well for flipkart & now they are charging their customers.?

Joining a startup vs a job : what’s different?

The startup ecosystem has done a pretty poor job of getting the whole point of joining/doing startups across. Folks get taken in by the sexiness of it all, and want a startup stint on their CV, and come in and ask for market+20% salaries! Defeats the whole idea, doesn’t it? 

Would be good to share different perspectives on what it means to join a startup – from the points of view of (early) employees, co-founders, recruiters, and the startups themselves. What do you think goes on right now, and what do you think it should be?

I, for one, believe that as long as you call yourself a startup, you should NOT offer market salaries or above. In return, play/innovate on other variables – ownership (equity), ownership (decision making), flexibility and variety of roles – stuff you just cannot get in a regular job. In return, look for buy-in, self-driven-ness, street smarts (more than “ninja”-ness), and the desire to learn and push oneself outside of comfort zones.

If you were working in a big software services organization, or an MNC, what should you be looking for and looking at. And if you were to hire from these relatively “cushy” places, what’s the message you’d like to get across?

Reality in numbers

How do we truthfully verify some of these numbers bandied about?

Online communities and collaborative consumption changing society

Awaiting the day when the darker-side of “living their lives online” is lamented in a similar report. What goes around …..

What are indian consumers really buying online?

Any report out there or anyone have any insights on to what India’s consumers buy the most online? Is it books, mobile phones, computers?

Resources

Investor Cheat Sheet – How to Pitch

The Psychology of Fonts

Right Side of the Haimish Line

Any suggestions for a good “Value for Money” printer?

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Login to forum using your Facebook/Google account and join the startup community. It’s fun!

[Editorial Notes: This is a guest article by Mukund Mohan, in response to a query posted on Pluggd.in forum:

The Truth: There’s no easy answer. It all depends on your situation. I don’t know the answer, but that does not stop me from offering an opinion : -)

My bias is always to bootstrap. Bootstrapping helps you get creative, it forces you to validate your idea and execution plan well and it teaches you many intricacies of finance that most entrepreneurs dont bother to learn.

That said I read an interesting post brought to my attention that had me thinking about when one should go to a VC (or angel investor for funding).

Lets assume there are 2 options ahead of you:

1. Stay bootstrapped: Which means (by and large) grow slowly with accruals, be cautious on expenses and grow as you need. The upside is you own the company, the direction and the future. Lets call this the “Vembu way” after Zoho CEO Sridhar.

2. Get funded (either with angels or Venture Capital) and scale really fast and quick. This means you are focusing on growth (initially). Lets call this the “Bahl” way after Snapdeal CEO Kunal.

Neither approach is wrong or “better” fortunately. It all boils down to how you want to answer these questions:

1. How big is your market / idea? Bigger markets require more capital usually (But Zoho’s going after a huge market you say. Yes, he’s a rare breed).  Hypothetically, if you build a company that has $100 Million in revenues in 5 years, and you are valued at say $500 Million (5 times revenue), and at exit (due to dilution) you own 15% of the company, you will be worth $75 Million. If however you bootstrap, and your company does $25 million in revenue in the same time, is valued at $75 Million (3 times revenue) , you potentially are worth the same if you took venture funding.

Generally VC’s don’t invest in companies that address small markets (i.e less than $1 Billion) because the time and effort to help build a company is the same, they might as well go after a large market and have the potential to have a huge return.

2. How quickly do you think the market will develop? If you believe the market for your product or service is going to be large very quickly, then you’ll need external funding.

3. How quickly do you need to scale? If the market demands that you need to scale quickly and need to invest money before to meet the potential demand, then you’ll need financing to help you invest before (or just before) the demand.

Unfortunately, there are only 1 in 20-50 (depending on VC firm) companies that meet all the criteria for VC investment –

a) addressing large market,
b) quick growth & fast to scale, and
c) exit in 5-7 years.

Most VC firms invest in not more than 10-15 companies a year out of over 200-500 (or more) they look at. So even if you believe you need the funds, if you dont meet the a, b and c, together, you’ll likely not get funded by a VC.

P.S. I admire Sridhar, so I may be biased on this one, and I really respect Kunal too, so I really mean it when I say there’s not a right or wrong way. They are different guys with different ambitions. Who do you guys admire?

[Reproduced from Mukund’s blog]

Since that time, at least one study has shown the practice does little to empower women in oppressed cultures or improve quality of life for poor people. Yet there are still those who point to amazing microfinance success stories like these as proof that conscious lending can be a good deal for more than just the money men.

Reuben Mpunda, Tanzania

Mpunda had struggled for 10 years working at a hotel, a brewery, and a ruby mine. When he hit on the idea of selling clean water, a scarce commodity in Africa, he could barely afford the fees to power his tank. After three years of scraping by, he borrowed half a million Tanzanian shillings (or $360) from the Akiba Commercial Bank. The money helped him pay the municipal fees and buy three trucks to deliver water. His output shot up over 1,100% and his profits increased nearly six-fold. He’s using the money to buy more nutritious food for his family and pay for his sons’ schooling.

Marcelino Lopez, Colombia

Lopez and his family were living in a plastic tent in Barrio Nelson Mandela, Colombia, with $300 to his name. Driven to a refugee camp by guerrilla violence, Lopez turned to Fundación Mario Santo Domingo for a $95 loan and opened a small convenience store. A year later, Lopez had moved his family into a concrete home where he ran the most successful butcher shop in the barrio.

Nadya Felah, Jordan

The Microfund For Women helped transform Nadya Felah from a janitor into a successful businesswoman. She started a business selling gas cylinders with a loan from MFW that helped her buy two cars to make deliveries. In two years she has hired eight full-time employees, secured lucrative government contracts, and is able to support seven households besides her own in Amman. She is even mulling a run for office in the gas providers’ union.

Lidia Calzado, U.S.

Not all microfinance stories take place in remote villages in Third World countries. Lidia Calzado got a $10,000 loan from ACCION San Diego that allowed her to buy more inventory and thereby circumvent her supplier’s high interest rate. Her business selling jewelry and perfume is still growing, enough that Calzado can afford to do charity work with immigrant women. Amazingly, Calzado herself emigrated to the U.S. from Cuba despite speaking no English and being legally blind.

SHARE Micro Finance Limited, India

Since its organization in 1999, SHARE has become the biggest microfinance institution in India, and its success has prompted other banks to begin their own microfinance programs. The bank lends to groups of women, with each receiving $50 to $100 to buy rickshaws for transporting wheat to market or to help them open Internet kiosks. Of nearly 200,000 clients, over 98% of whom are female, 77% have significantly raised their income level away from poverty, and 38% no longer fall below the poverty line.

Joyce Wafukho, Kenya

Joyce Wafukho used her small savings to open a hardware store in 1994. But with insufficient capital, she was able to sell only a few items. After five years of being turned down by lenders, she approached the Kenya Women Finance Trust for a $680 loan. Today, after five more loans from KWFT, Wafukho employs 25 Africans full-time in her business, which now also includes contracting and selling lumber. The business has assets of $27,000 and Wafukho is able to pay for not only her children’s health and education, but for her sister to go to college for a master’s degree.

Parveen Baji, Pakistan

All it took to turn Parveen Baji’s life around was a $70 loan from the Kashf Foundation. The illiterate mother of nine and wife of an abusive, drug-addicted husband, Baji had resorted to asking neighbors for food. But the loan allowed her to start a jewelry business that quickly took off. Now she also owns a restaurant and catering business that employs eight people, and she is putting her children through high school and a son through college. “Microfinance has changed my life,” she says.

Bernard McGraw, U.S.

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans native Bernard McGraw found himself homeless and unemployed. He settled his family in San Antonio, Texas and opened a Cajun restaurant in a shack in the city. When The Baptist University of the Americas asked him to set up shop on campus, he financed the project with a $4,265 loan from ACCION Texas-Louisiana to secure supplies and part-time employees. He now serves upwards of 100 customers a day and has done well enough to start “Gumbo Under the Bridge,” a program to feed the homeless.

Likelesh Gebru, Ethiopia

To supplement her husband’s tiny income, Likelesh Gebru, a mother of five in Kacha Bira, started a small trading business. But when he was jailed for four years, Likelesh was left to provide for the family. As one of the first clients of the newly-built Wisdom Microfinance, she received 11 loans over 10 years and her business grew exponentially. Her profits have allowed her, her children, and four of her relatives to go to school.

Bodour Al- Jayousi, Jordan

Bodour Al-Jayousi has had a difficult life. When her parents divorced she was forced to drop out of school at age 15 and help her father sell jewelry. The business took off after two loans from the Microfund For Women, but after a disagreement with her father she had to abandon the business. A third loan from MFW helped her buy the hair salon where she had found work but had earned just $350 per month. Today she employs up to 12 people and provides for her sister who is disabled.

[Guest article contributed by Alissa Alvarez. Reproduced from the blog.]

The Art & Science of Scaling

And I mumbled to myself… “Wait n watch honey wait n watch”. I’m not exactly a cynic. On the contrary, I’m more positive than ideally one should be (entrepreneur’s curse??). But having been part of an organisation that started as a 5 people hang-out into a 450 strong (including the subsidiaries i.e.) unit today, and having done that more than once, we have seen some very interesting times. It’s always been the same – the initial days a.k.a. the honeymoon, when everything was everyone’s job (it doesn’t matter who makes the bed and who does the laundry eh!); the dark ages – when the critical mass kicked in and the demons of “KRA”, “KPI” (and a host of other acronyms!!) kick in; and finally the structure – which comes as a dawn, a new beginning, when the dust settles, and if you have done everything (or some things) right to keep the best talent and values, you come out victor with a lot of pride for your work and place, a peaceful co-existence between teams (read “no hot potatoes between sales and ops!”) and a clear vision of where you want to be as an org. If you think this is very melodramatically put, then you haven’t seen the real execution of it J

So what happens when the dark ages move to the dawn of glory? Do you think you can pull it all off alone? So here’s a bunch of pointers on what we felt worked for us (or so we like to think) and hoping it makes some sense to you. Not trying to pen an ‘algorithm for scaling a team/business’, but just a few real-life learnings that might come in handy when you see the little home office moving into the 20,000 square feet compound.

First things first – Why do you need professional managers for your organisation?

Quick back ground check. Are you Super Man? Are you the ‘alpha’ male who understands HR and finance and operations and sales and product development and technology? Are you Super Man? (Just re-checking). If the answer to any one of the above is NO, then you as an organization need external assistance to scale.

So now you are at a point, when your model has clearly worked, business is growing, the enterprise is performing, the IP is getting built every day (note to self: thank god I lived to see the day when I am talking to an Indian entrepreneur audience in terms of Intellectual Property and not in terms of $ per man-hours), and the model’s been around long enough to prove that there are no issues on scale per se. At that point, you have 2 options. First, grow at your pace. Learn from your experience, implement it, make mistakes, learn from them, re-implement OR get a guy who’s been there done that (and has a t-shirt to prove it).

So if you still have it about doing it all yourself, give yourself a break and do the right thing. Get the Experts. They’ll help you grow faster. In short, Invest money to acquire the right knowledge set, rather than invest time to learn it.

Have you figured out the gaps?

Remember the time you had gone out to buy pants and came back with a shirt. And it left you with 3 shirts and no pants to go with any of them! Well before you go out there to seek the right people, please be very clear you are seeking the right people to do what?

Don’t ever fall in the trap of dressing up the organisation (unless there’s a particular reason to). Focus on the needs. Frankly, most of the time answer will be right on your face. Trends of chaos will start showing in the department where the infra is not adjusting to scale. You just need to be smart enough to read the signs to fix it before it gets to a point of redressal. Of course, bringing in professionals to set up new businesses will be completely based on your vision, with no in-house feelers to guide you.

I’m too small to woo this giant!

Back to the rhetoric – great people make great organizations (before the reverse cycle begins). Hiring the best talent is always the key and the biggest challenge, especially for young/adolescent companies. Beatles gave you the deepest corporate secret on organization building when they proclaimed “money can’t buy me love!” Great people, especially ones who’ve achieved a level of seniority, move not (just) for the money, but for the big picture. Show them the 70mm magnum opus you believe in. If you have faith in your baby, you’ll sure find the nannies! We survived the boom time hiring frenzies all around, by focusing completely on selling the vision to the people we identified and felt could add real value. Once you get the right guy, go bonkers. BRING HIM IN.

How do you know, who’s the best guy?
Unfortunately, there’s no rule-book for this. Only key is to interact. Chat-up, meet-up more and more. One thing we did right about hiring senior management was to have them take sessions with existing teams (who are supposed to report to him eventually), as part of the interview process. This serves 2 purposes. You learn about the comfort level of your team with the individual, which is super critical. Secondly, there’s a lot that can be learnt about people when you just observe them about how they act with their teams to be. Even if there’s pretence, some basic traits are hard to disguise. Reference check is another very important key. We went ahead to check facebook profiles, linkedin and other social tools to understand tiny little things about the individual. These small little details form the bigger picture, which eventually help you make the big decision.

Just an after-thought, it’s usually birds of feather flock together. Most of the time, you end up attracting people who are somehow quite similar to yourself.

Managing the current team…
You don’t bring Sunny Leone to the Big Boss’ house without making the hot bunch feel insecure! Your team has been with you through good times and bad. Techies have handled the admin roles; content has managed operations; Operations have made sales house-calls in time of need. You can’t discount those efforts all of a sudden and get a daddy on their head. That’s clear unfair. For someone who has been so close to the organisation, but in the process has somehow “marked his territory” around a few departments, it can be tricky to introduce a new show-runner. You have to be highly sensitive to the individual’s aspirations. A dialogue helps. Pitch is simple. We are a growing organisation which needs to scale. For that we need experience. If the person is aligned, has full support (and assurance) from promoters, and is given enough incentives (read stock-ops) to have vested interests for business scale, this should be doable (if not a cake-walk). For trickier cases, an option is to identify small units which they can still run as heads. Whatever you do, do not de-sensitize the old-employee comfort issue. As someone awesome had once told me, how promoters deal with their old employees is a key factor for the new employees to decide if they would put their soul into the organisation or not.

Get someone sensitive to the ‘stage of evolution’ of business
I’ve seen enough cases in life when process masters came, tried to build an Infosys structure in a lean-mean sprouting org and did more damage than good. Basic mechanics – bend a stick beyond its yield point, and it will break. So while zeroing on a key-man (/woman), one prime criterion should be to see if he/she has the understanding of sensitivities of early stage orgs. Usually, someone who has done it before is your best bet. This one is very critical. Best intentions fail to deliver just because the right things are done with wrong timing.

Getting someone aligned to your vision (SUPER CRITICAL)

It’s super critical that the person you get, is aligned to what you are dreaming of. Take your time to listen to his understanding of your plans. Getting someone who is not aligned to your business model or your plans can be catastrophic. Usually senior professionals are expected to contribute to future strategies. So Board room should not become a chariot where all horses are running in different directions! Also get someone who understands the nuances of your industry. Imagine a guy from a legacy manufacturing industry starting to contribute to an internet business. He doesn’t understand the importance of an internet enterprise. For him a facebook is an unthinkable phenomenon which is a hype that will die down. Where do you go now? Most of your energies will start going into putting points across which ideally should be an easy digestion. Furthermore, any negative vibe from senior management can do unimaginable (even if implicit) damage.

What if it goes wrong!

OK fine. I did everything right, but the new kid on the block, just doesn’t blend in. First and foremost, identify the issues. Try and fix them… in all earnest. If you cannot, get feedback from all departments to ensure it is individual issue. If it is, please redress! Fix it immediate. Part ways. Don’t hesitate because you took 100 days to close this or will waste another 100 to re-fill the position. When in doubt, I follow a simple thumb rule – Ask yourself: “what’s right for the organization?” If you are always answering that question honestly, you will never make a wrong decision.

If you get it right…

If you get it right, your organisation will zoom like the cars did when the nitro button was hit in “fast and the furious”! Fresh people bring in fresh ideas & fresh thoughts. They put the processes in place. They come and tell you things you are trying to solve have been figured out by industry right after the invention of basil soup! If you were somewhere hitting your local maxima and feeling good about it, the good guys will raise your benchmarks to help you aim for better. The pieces of the jigsaw start falling in place.

Organizations’ success is partially you doing the right things and partially fate. Your job is to do everything under the sun to give a 100% to the former. As for the latter, sooner or later it will have to come to your side if you are persistent enough!

[Guest article contributed by Pankaj Vermani, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Vriti. Pankaj is a B.Tech / M.Tech from IIT Delhi. Prior to Vriti, he was Director of Engineering at Tribal Fusion & Co-Founder / Director, Product Development at SeekNet Technolgies. Vriti is the second venture for him, the first one having gone through successful acquisition in 2005. At Vriti, Pankaj primarily leads the product strategy, retail business teams, pre-sales and customer relations. A product technologist at heart, he has multiple track records of building teams from scratch and scaling them. He is an active dramatist and performs regularly in Delhi theatre circle.]

Image credit: JMaz/Flickr

Watch out this TED talk by Simon Sinek, author of “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action”. He describes the science behind why some companies/individuals are able to attract the right set of people to do business with, and others fail.

A few of them I am listing it here..

Married Entrepreneurs +

1. Ability to drop your child to school, when HE/SHE wants YOU to do. – Inner satisfaction obtained. Quality time with children.

2. Ability to attend a function in the school during core working hours! Be one of those parents who are always there for their children.

3. Its really cold today – so let me work from home today and enjoy some hot cup of coffee along with. Not to mention the amazingly awesomeness of the work I can do with my laptop and a beanbag.

4. Being able to play Scrabble with your spouse / partner and give some quality time to him/her, on a lull day.

5.  Go out and shop in BigBazaar on a Wednesday savings bazaar  at 11 AM, when the footfalls are at a low and you can enjoy some good shopping experience.

6. Be available for your friends, family when they need you. One call away!

7. Live life the way you want – Do what you want, and be happy. Isn’t it what the entire world is running for?

Add more…  I am sure there are many. So add yours.

[Guest article by Deepankar Biswas, cofounder of Offergrid. Reproduced from OfferGrid’s blog. Image credit:Terry Bain]

Recommended Read: Work From Home Or Take Up An Office Space? Answer These Questions First

What really happens when you start sharing is that you tend to get a false sense of achievement (after hearing your friends’ congratulations et al). The key is to keep your mouth shut.

Watch this video where Derek Sivers (the famous musician turned circus clown turned entrepreneur) shares few experiments from 1920s.

I would like to talk about the third part, i.e. EXECUTION. In my experience of building large businesses, it really is all about executing well. So here are my top 3 Dos and Don’ts if you are an early stage entrepreneur.

3 Things You DO

Radiate unreasonable passion

You have got to believe what you are doing is important. You need to sell your story to a lot of people, and unless you believe it yourself, you will not be able to convince others. Successful entrepreneurs seem to be kicked about something for no apparent reason and their passion tends to be infectious. It goes beyond rationality and hence I call it unreasonable. Steve Jobs believed that he was putting a dent in the Universe pretty early at Apple.

Have intense customer focus

Direct and meaningful contact with customers is like gold dust for early stage entrepreneurs. Whether paying or not, customer are GOD. Its important to be in close touch with them to understand what their real needs are and how you are being able to solve them since that is shaping your products.

Execute Professionally

While you need to be excited about what you are doing, consistent execution requires a lot of discipline. Often, being an early stage company, there might be a lot of parallel tasks running, however night-outs are not going to make them happen. Focused and disciplined execution, with a normal workweek goes a long way in keeping the consistency high.

3 Things You DON’T

Hire a team that needs to be motivated

If you are thinking about hiring HR to figure out compensation plans and employee motivation, you are probably headed in the wrong direction. You need an early team who buys into your unreasonable passion and has the ability to self-motivate. You should continuously drill passion, not motivation.

Solve to scale too early

I know stories how when Flipkart was small, the founders themselves used to pack books and ship them and take customer service calls. They knew this would not scale, but it didn’t stop them from doing it. Sometime you think too long term – how will this scale. You start solving for scale too early without understanding the real needs and possible solutions. If you keep solving customer problems to the best of your ability at the time, solutions tend to keep presenting themselves.

Don’t solve for problems that don’t exist just yet.

Spend without a plan

Cash is king as a small entrepreneur and you want to watch out for cash. At the same time, there are investments that need to be done and you don’t want to be penny foolish. You want to execute professionally. Create an operating plan, a budget. Even if you have to revise it every 2 weeks, have a baseline. Align accounting to that. It goes a long way.

Entrepreneurship is hard, specially in early stages. It’s also a lot of fun though if you stay true to your vision and stay focused on solving customer problems to the best of you ability. And stay kicked!

[Rajul is a co-founder of GlobalLogic, a global leader in R&D outsourcing with offices in 8 countries and over 6,000 employees. Earlier, he was also a founder of Pine Labs, a leader in point of sales transactions in India. His latest venture, Sunstone Business School focuses on creating future CEOs for the technology industry. Rajul has also consulted with various VCs including Seqouia and Battery Capital and is an active angel investor. Rajul is a 1998 batch Computer Science Graduate from IIT Delhi.]

I’ve been fortunate to be the reason for your happiness since my early childhood. Perhaps that’s why you named me Harsh. It has always been my endeavor to make you proud of me in things that I give my heart and soul into. Lately, I haven’t been able to give you that contentment which you had always expected of me. I’m not sorry about it since the truth of the matter is that the thing that I’ve given my heart and soul has still not borne fruits and is going to take a long time. And you’ve got to wait, along with me, to celebrate the fruits of my passion.

The road that I’ve currently chosen is tough, full of prickles and deadly thorns, with the presence of countless possibilities – both heartening and disheartening. It’s going to take a lot of time to be able to achieve anything which would make you proud of me, which would enable you to say proudly to your friends that your son is an entrepreneur, that your son pursued something different and made a mark of himself. The road is deadly; it might be possible that in the middle of the journey, I get so bruised up that I am not able to carry myself further. Forgive me, if that happens. The road is treacherous; it might be possible that at the end of the day, I sit back and realize that I’ve made tons of mistakes that I shouldn’t have. Reinforce my faith, if that happens. Because it was you who taught me not to fear mistakes while chasing my dreams. I wouldn’t stop. The road is unknown; it’s possible that at the end of the day I realize that the road was not worth going into and I’ve to crawl back to the place where I began. Congratulate me on my experience, if that happens. I know that my path is risky. But that’s what excites me. That’s what gives me a thrill. That’s what tells me the meaning of this life. That’s what I attain bliss from. And that’s what defines me.

Believe me mother, when I say that I heartily enjoy what I’m doing, despite knowing the facts that I might not be able to lead a comfortable life for the next two years, that I’ve become the least prospective bridegroom in consideration for any of the well-off families, that you have to fight the whims of the society which constantly pesters saying that I had been stupid in choosing the road less travelled over the conventional options, that it might ruin my chances of living a life free from hassles, that I might end up being bankrupt if things don’t turn out as expected. The good thing is I’m not scared. The better thing is there is no bad thing, just because of the good thing. I’m ready to take the leap – leap into the unknown just to know where my end lies – across the sky or beneath the ground. I can’t promise you success but I can promise you my hard-work, and I’ll make sure that I leave no stones unturned to touch my dream to perfection.

Coming from your womb, I’m fortunate to be endowed with all your traits – determination, passion and love – which gives me the confidence to trudge this dangerous path with unmatched vigour and resilience to make the impossible possible. From my end, I can assure you that I wouldn’t stop, not until my last breath – to sculpt my passion into a living icon. Please don’t worry, and be happy, just because I’m happy.

With love and faith.

Your Son

-

[About the author: Harsh Snehanshu is the co-founder of thewittyshit.com, a literary networking and crowdsourcing website. A 2011 graduate from IIT Delhi, he is pursuing full-time entrepreneurship along with his partner and batchmate Apoorv Jain. Besides thewittyshit.com, he has authored two bestselling novels in the last 3 years. He can be reached on twitter @harshsnehanshu]

Read on (and share yours in the comment section).

1. Thou shalt not be a part of the story but shall create the story.
2. Thou shalt learn, unlearn and learn again; each day, everyday.
3. Thou shalt not consider any work superior or inferior.
4. Thou shalt make friends with technology; the sooner, the better.
5. Seven days in a week  shalt thou labor, and do all thy work with a few fortunate breaks in between.
6. Thou shalt not expect bi-annual increments.
7. Thou shalt not covet thy friend’s house or her iPad or the Xbox for the first few years.
8. Thou shalt have the liberty to approach your Boss with the weirdest of ideas without feeling the least bit ashamed of them.
9. Thou shalt enjoy complete freedom over your work as long as they are in tune with the overall picture.
10. Thou shalt one day have all that and much more that thou ever dreamt of…

What’s your take on these 10 commandments?

[Reproduced from Discountpandit blog. Discountpandit was earlier profiled on Pluggd.in.]

Image credit: arquera/Flickr

Based on my experience, and my experience of interacting with fellow investors, here is a summary of what I believe are some of the non-obvious reasons. Of-course every investor has their own version of this, which forms a part of the due-diligence.

Also, what is non-obvious varies by person to person, so this is a broader list:

1) People Related

a. Founder and Team Chemistry, Culture – Investors watch out for co-founder chemistry, and any red-flags here. How do the non-co-founder team members work? Are they empowered? Do the founders understand their weakness and strength. Do they understand the critical success factors for the business? Has the team/founders done another startup before? How do they handle adversities? Given the team is a critical aspect, a lot of focus is paid on this.

b. Reference Checks – If reference checks for any individual co-founder shows some fundamental issue like integrity.

c. Coach ability – Is the founding team open to taking feedback? The founding team needs to have conviction, and own the final decision making, but are they open to critical points of views?

d. Litigation threat – Any litigation history of the founders. If this is a flag, depends on the type of litigation.

e. Single Founder – Some funds/investors as a general policy don’t want to invest in single founder teams.

f. City – This matters from talent/team perspective. If you are in a Hub City, it is easier to get good talent. Proximity to investors is a consideration. As long as the city is within 5-8 hours flight time, most people are fine with that.

2) Market

a. Competitive with Portfolio Company – Most investors make it a policy to check with their portfolio companies, if a given startup space would ever be on a conflict of interest path. Sometimes, the investors may not know on the outset, and may know after one or two meetings.

b. Burned before in the space –We probably believe what has happened in the past may happen again, or put in other words, we may want to learn from our experiences. As a result, if investors had a black sheep in a sector/sub-market, they may be shy of investing again.

3) Structure/Others

a. Cap Table Structure–

i. Is there substantial equity for founders/employees in the cap table.

Two variants of this

(1) Is there substantial “passive” equity in the cap-table? Cases where some founders have left with substantial equity, or promoters who have now become passive in a business, due to spin-off may have led to this situation.

(2) Was an early round very dilutive to the founders. A venture investor will likely calculate the cost it takes to build the business, and look at founder equity at the end of final expected round. Is that number in the ball-park to keep key employees motivated?

ii. Does the cap table contain lot of smaller investors, which may-not add value to the start-up. Typically a consideration during venture round, and may result

b. Partner can’t gather support at Partners meeting

i. The lead partner on the deal is not able to drive consensus internally. Internal fund dynamics can also play a role in this.

The bigger question is what you can do about this. It is advisable to work on whatever factors you could solve, before seeking funding. That being said, some of these are external factors, and being aware of the biases can save you some time in fund-raising.

[About Ravi Trivedi: Ravi works as a Principal at Southeast Interactive Technology Funds, a venture fund in North Carolina.  He moved back to Bangalore recently, and is an angel investor in India based startups. Ravi co-authored the book Web Services Security, and participated in creating web services standards. Ravi has an MBA from Fuqua School of Business and has a Masters in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.]