MBAKarma, a CAT simulation product was launched a year back (read our coverage) and the founder, Sudhanshu Raheja has now decided to shut down the service and focus on his consulting service, vxtindia.
“I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying“.-Micheal Jordan
Very few of us have the guts to accept our failure – and talk about it.
Glad to present an interview with Sudhanshu on his learnings and nuggets of wisdom he can share with other entrepreneurs.
Why did we decide to shut down the service?
If only we could learn from other’s mistakes, life would be so damn simple. But like everybody else, I repeated the same mistakes again and again.
I had started out as a one man army and being a techie I only concentrated on getting the code up and running. It started working well and within 2 months, over 9000 people had given tests on the website. However, we hadn’t made it a paid service till that time and three things really hit us:
- The money was running out.
- We had no long term partnerships to handle content.
- My experience with starting a business was sad to say the least.
One fine day I realized that I didn’t have enough time to sort out the loose ends and that this project would have to get the boot till we make more money. And we took up the one thing that would save us from dying – Consulting.
The business is running well now, and we have a lot of paying customers to show for it – http://vxtindia.com/testimonials
About Mbakarma, as I mentioned before, it will be back again, most probably with a much altered business model. Till then our neatly designed, custom MVC stack operated, scalable architecture for online examinations will have to sit quietly in the repository.
Learnings from the entire experience
Mbakarma was my first product, and it didn’t work out as I would have liked.
Jason Calcanis had compared losing a venture to losing a child. Over the last few years I have realized that its the wrong metaphor. Losing a venture is actually like getting shot at in a battle. You end with a scar for life, which you can carry with pride, if you like.
Ofcourse, it works in your interest if you concentrate on not getting too many of those. Because no matter how much we romanticize it, it is still a very unpleasant feeling.
So here is what I think I did manage to learn:
- Either get funded, or start a consulting business first so that the money does not dry up.
- Get an experienced member in the team. If required, shell out some equity and get an experienced entrepreneur in the board.
- Learn how to negotiate with the big dogs.
- Don’t start out alone. You need somebody to answer to.
- Business Model is not MBA lingo, it is the soul searching exercise for your company.
- Startups are not to be run like marathons, rather as one short sprint after another.
- Big companies take way too long to decide on things and that can kill you. Concentrate on companies closer to your size.
- In the short term, sales and marketing are much more important that getting work done.
- Get others to do your work, and share some credit with them.
- Life has always been and will always be a bitch.
If I had to redo what would I do differently?
I am already doing it now 
Advice to other entrepreneurs
Always keep looking out for ideas and inspiration. I usually end up on http://getinspired.vxtindia.com and nine times out of ten, I find something to cheer me up.
Finally, the one single thing that you need to remember no matter what you do:
Let that which does not matter, truly slide.
What’s your opinion?
Ashish,
Thanks for the wonderful post. I liked the idea of Failcamp when Kiruba gave an introductory talk during barcamp event. Failcamp is a friendly unconference where people get-together to share and learn from failures. Take a look at Failcamp chennai event.
http://barcamp.org/failcamp
A blog post by Mr.Shiva
http://www.mindinspirations.com/2008/11/17/failcamp-a-camp-that-succeeded-on-many-counts/
Mano,
http://www.hexolabs.com
Lot of start-ups fail because founders have no prior business or sales experience. I strongly believe that founders must get some prior work experience (at cost of others) on business side before they take the plunge.
Selling/Marketing stuff and building a business from scratch is much harder than what lot of techie founders think.
Ravi, what would be better than getting the experience at your own startup?
As I said – Getting experience working for somebody else. Founders must have good understanding and experience of product development/engineering, sales and business development.
Without appreciation for these functions, hiring somebody for these functions turns out to be a wastage of resources.
If you include recruitment into the scene, then I guess you are right. Though most websites start development with the founders themselves and a small set of freelancers. Most people don’t get full time employees till there is some revenue or funding.
But I believe that if you start out on your own, the learning curve will be much steeper but it is only my perspective.
Sure the learning curve is steeper but, at whose cost? Would you want to learn medicine on yourself?
It seems I can’t reply to Sudhanshu’s comment.. bug or something.
Ravi,
The motivation to learn the intricacies of the business are much higher when it’s your own thing.
The ‘cost’ that you talk about is only money.
Would you say the same when somebody pays $50,000 for an MBA?
- Sudhanshu
You cannot compare the two.
I would not start-up just to learn and acquire a few skills that I can do otherwise without too much of risk.
I would rather acquire the right skills and then start-up
I don’t know whether its a promotional pitch for their new business or is it an experience sharing exercise.
I don’t know what does this mean
“In the short term, sales and marketing are much more important than getting work done.”
Anyways, its good to know that you are working on something that you like.
For me the most important point made in the writeup is “My experience with starting a business was sad to say the least.”
. But again nothing is stated clearly
This conveys that you never liked what you did
All the best and thanks for sharing your insights.
CHEERS!!!
Anurag,
I think you are drawing the wrong conclusions.
I meant that I had no experience before starting up. Starting up in is one of the most interesting experiences in my life.
Maybe you should try reading between the lines rather than taking everything so literally.
All the best and thanks for sharing your insights.
Add-On to this post: Michael Jordan’s 10 Secrets To Reaching the Top
I think the most important thing that he said is “Startups are not to be run like marathons, rather as one short sprint after another.” You need to have a vision for where you are headed to, what do you want to be in five years and then breaking that big vision down in to small measurable goals for periods of 1-3 months (depending on your industry) and run hard to catch those. Then consolidate the position quickly and move ahead.
But I think I disagree with the 1st point that either get funded or start consulting. Nothing like getting funded “at the right time” – not too early and not too late, but I find consulting a distraction. Takes time away from main venture, pays easier and can really dose down the motivation of giving a hard fight. I think one strategy can be to try and generate some revenue as soon as possible and scale it along with the size of the company. Basically as I read somewhere, every new pair of hands in the company should increase your revenue exponentially. If your business is scaling linearly with number of employees, your business model needs adjustment.
I think this is enough of gyaan
). Let’s all get back to work !
Abhaya
http://pothi.com
Business sclaes linearly with number of employees in a typical services/consulting business. Nothing wrong with that – Many great companies (Infy, Wipro, TCS, etc) are built that ways.
One must understand that its a different ball-game. Skills required to build a successful services business are very different from skills/competencies required to build a consumer internet business and is completely different from building an enterprise product business. One must understand the game one is playing and build/hire skills/competencies accordingly.
Abhaya,
I am glad that you liked my comment.
Though about the consulting bit, like everything else, it needs to follow a plan.
And I must add that I completely love what you’re doing at Pothi. I’m almost an evangelist for you guys
- Sudhanshu
Thanks Sudhanshu ! Just trying to do our best
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hey Ravi,
am in complete disagreement on this ‘getting experience at someone’s cost’ –
what cost? is it not your time wasted in doing work for someone else, earning for someone else?
it’s as simple as already mentioned in the article – wound/scar that you carry with pride — would the sense of achievement/responsibilty/../../ satisfaction ever be comparable to when working for someone else – no, if u ask me.
as for mbakarma, i personally thought it was a good concept, had all the right reasons to grow, but it didnt
hindsight gyaan — anyone’s the expert — me included
hey sudhanshu, i like the getinspired concept – it rocks! — quite nice…fall again, get up again, — you haven’t failed if u ask me, not that it matters now but that doesn’t matter to me either!
keep walking
“is it not your time wasted in doing work for someone else, earning for someone else?”
NO – Because you are acquiring the right set of skills/competencies…
Think about it. Its not very romantic but it makes a lot of sense.
it makes complete sense and that is what 90% of us do – all i am asking is does it not make sense to start your thing if you know you have to do it?
or is it a ground rule that one has to work for somebody else before starting on your own -
although it comes at it’s own huge cost,agreed, working for someone may give you insights into the business which one may adopt at his venture – but that’s not a suggestion i would force upon people and would encourage to do your thing if ‘you’ think and have the determination to do — to sum it, i respect Sudhanshu’s move much more than the hindsight wisdom of what should/could have been done.
Relax buddy…There are no hard and fast rules to anything in life.
Ravi, I don’t think you acquire right set of skills for running a startup while working for somebody else especially in a moderate to big sized company. And this is a statement about 90% of the people. Of course there will be some 5-10% who are exceptional.
Let me give you some examples. Suppose you work for a company in sales. Whenever you are making a sales pitch, you have the whole company brand behind you which others have built up over the years. For your own startup, the case is totally different. You sale more on your personal credibility and often without any success stories to back your claims up.
Working for somebody else, you are most often just part of a business process which will run mostly the same if you were replaced by somebody else. It is like trying to become a jockey by taking a ride on the horses in fares.
Absolutely. I am against working for a big or mid sized company…Thats like selling your soul.
I am saying working for a early stage start-up will give you the right skills, exposure and insights to do your own thing.
btw, in every big or mid-sized company, for every sales person who wants to close the deal, there are atleast 3-5 folks who don’t want the deal to through. Thats when selling internally becomes more difficult (and valuable art) than selling to customers.
work for a start-up before you start up?
now that’s a rhyming thought – nice to know that we think alike on the ‘rules of life’ thing.
Interestingly, most of the startups who have made it big have been started by guys with no prior work experience!!
..am not sure working for a startup will really help – most of the startups tend to think small (or let me say, not that big) and that does hinders your views as well.
Right?
absolutely Ian.
would there be Google…to name one out of the most.
I say if you are absolutely clear you want to start up, which was the case with Sudhanshu, can you work somewhere else?, do you need to work somewhere else?
if nothing else, i’m absolutely cocooned about ‘at the cost of someone else’ talk – not agreed, not at all.
By that logic one doesn’t even need to go to school to be a successful business man. I am sure you can think of many examples.
But, Is not getting formal education a good strategy?
They got lucky. Don’t get fooled by randomness.
Lot of people make money buying lottery tickets. It doesn’t mean buying lottery tickets is a right strategy.
Its called Survivorship bias – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
ok i take back, my all previous remarks — but this is getting weirder by the comment!!
They got lucky?
don’t be fooled by randomness?
i can’t even type the next one…
what are you on?
Ravi,
I think this would be more relevant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi.
The discussion was about having prior experience. The point mentioned was that the founders of Google did not have prior experience.
By the way, are you working with Google, I see that link all along.
- Sudhanshu
There are hundreds of people who became successful businessmen without any formal education. Does it mean thats a good strategy?
no, it’s not a strategy in the first place.
and that, my friend, is a decision one does not have much of an option of – usually our parents take that. if at age 12 i decide to start-up, there would be many questions hard to answer – again depending upon the nature of business and the exposure to it.
Yeah…Would you take this decisions about your kids?
Yes, I would.
I would decide that they need to study and study till the time they can’t logically defy my logic as to why not.
I certainly would encourage my kids and perhaps yours too to follow their dreams – do what they think they can and also that there is no absolute need to ‘join a start up before you start up’. they may fail, but then that failure is better than ‘learning at someone else’s cost’
I am also saying the same thing.
Acquire the right skills before you take the plunge.
Couple of years in business role in a start-up would change the way you look at building a business. Its not like learning to write software.
now this is something which sounds quite logical — hooray we have an understanding!
good luck… and read “Fooled by randomness” if you get a chance.
good luck… and read “Fooled by randomness” if you get a chance.
if only u had not read it.
whats that supposed to mean?
that i regret having started this useless debate, where no one would bend from their opinion, i still believe what i said and it’s only fair for u to believe what u said, just a different viewpoint(very different actually)…
good luck to you too.
It was good fun…
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I seriously not impressed with this post.. I would take this as your personal experience and shu away.
V