Category Archives: Other

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The Digital “keeping up with the Joneses” is a waste of time

I read a lot as do many of the other folks I know. A few people I know have over 200+ feeds on their Google reader. But most of it is of little use. Its the digital equivalent of “keeping up with the Joneses“. 

The theory goes you have to read enough to know how to take advantage of the opportunities that are created.
So think about this. How much use is that piece of news of Friendster or its funding of value to you now? Or news of any of the other 2000+ Web 2.0 companies that came, released and went away?

Don’t get me wrong. Its valuable to know stuff. You’re more likely to create opportunities that way. 
But its more valuable to create stuff. You see, creation expresses the form of reading that is active, and gives you the ability to express that way.
What I mean by that is to write – a blog, a book, a curated article, anything, but WRITE.
Even if you are an exceptional individual that retains 80% of what you read, I contend 50% or more of that is useless within 6 months. 
  • Lessons learned from startups that are successful, or failed.
  • How one company get profiled on Techcrunch.
  • How yet another entrepreneur got funding from YC.
All useless until you put it to use. 
The reason is even if you read a lot, you next step is to think about it and process it. Then you form an opinion and finally decide on implementing your thoughts. The trouble with that process is 70% of what you read you dont believe you can act on ASAP – so its forgotten.
The FIRST way to put it to use is to write. Even if no one else reads (which I doubt anyway).
So stop “keeping up with the digital Joneses” – start writing.
Here’s one technique – give up 50% of you feeds, news sites and blogs you read and use that time to process the 50% you decide to keep and start writing. See how much further that takes you.
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3 Step to turn your “features list” into powerful value propositions and increase conversions

Many websites that cater to the micro, mini business market tend to have a “Features” tab on their website. This page is typically a product tour with some relevant screenshots of the web service. The primary goal of the feature page is to showcase the key capabilities of that application.

What happens if you only list features, is that parity seeking customers will eventually make it a price comparison, assuming “features are more or less the same”.
While listing features is useful, most business buyers however first look for a “value proposition“. 
Examples of value propositions:
1. Increasing revenues
2. Reducing costs
3. Increasing employee productivity
4. Provide a competitive edge
5. Reducing time to market
6. Getting paid faster
Here’s how to take a set of features and tie them to specific benefits and value propositions.
1. List all your features. E.g. Our app allows you to correlate facebook friend signups with advertising data
2. Understand how the user benefits from that feature. E.g. Hence you don’t need to have multiple graphs open at the same time and manually correlate
3. Tie it back to a specific value proposition. E.g. We save you time. Instead of taking hours to understand how 2 differing data points are correlated you can now do it in minutes.
E.g. For the customer:
We save you time, by allowing you to have multiple correlating data points in a single graph.
—-
Bonus points:
1. When you quantify the value proposition with a specific number, that’s a clear, specific and terrific ROI (Return on Investment) statement.
2. If you provide a customer testimonial along with the value proposition, you have verifiable proof that your “feature” is now proven.
E.g. For the customer:
Using our correlating graphs feature, a large financial services customer (providing real names is better) reduced their time to correlate advertising data with facebook friends by 120% resulting in savings of $40,000 in the year.
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How to increase your sales and improve your luck with one simple step

I had a VP of Sales who would exhort to his team the importance of “showing up“, which according to him improved chances of winning the deal by 50%.

That has been the only proven way I know to increase sales. 
Yes, more customers are researching and buying online researching and buying online, and yes, prospects are not picking up the phone when you cold call, but 95% of retail is offline with real people involved. The people that win are the ones that showed up.
Its a cliche, but trust and relationships are the most important part of any buying process. People tend to buy from companies and people they trust or have a relationship with.
Here are 3 things I would suggest as new year resolutions:
1. Show up at at least 1 networking event (Meetup, unconference, etc) a month or a quarter. 
2. Use your network to go and meet 1 new person each month. Help them in any small way you can.
3. Attend the top industry conference in your area and setup meetings with prospects to meet them at their office.
Photo credit: Funchye 
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Why is advice for entrepreneurs conflicting? And what to do about it?

As a entrepreneur (first time or serial), it will be obvious to you that advice comes from all corners. Without deep knowledge your business, I can say that it will be very conflicting. That’s the one thing I am confident you will face. 

Why does this happen?

1. Personal experiences: What you take away from a certain experience tends to impact your outlook more than the outcome of that experience. While most entrepreneurs tend to reflect on their success and failures, self realization is rarely a precise science. Based on events that occur, you will tend to rationalize failure or attribute it to the wrong reasons. Sometimes you will get it right, but only after multiple sessions “with yourself”.
2. There’s no right formula: If you are building a consumer Internet company, getting advice on hiring, marketing, etc. from a enterprise software company advisor is obviously going to miss the mark. Why? No two startups tend to be the same. Even if the founders are from similar backgrounds, and have the same vision.
3. The same advice that works in one situation does not for the same company again: I have had success hiring friends and family and at the same time, had issues. The circumstances that require a specific piece of advice, are situational and very subtle in most case.

Advice for advisors:
1. Share your experiences of similar situations NOT the outcome first. When asked a question by entrepreneurs, first focus on what you did, and why you did not, not what result you obtained.

2. Realize that if the entrepreneur decides to take advice different from what you offered its nothing personal. Its not that they don’t value your advice, its just that the situation probably demands otherwise. Surprisingly enough you’ll learn something different than what you know before. They will make mistakes, and its incumbent on you to help them if they made the wrong choice.
3. Let them run the show. Provide the entrepreneur access to multiple points of view, from and outside their network, but its their startup. 
Other

Facebook friendship browser feature

Facebook is starting to look a lot more useful than before. There are a couple of new features that I saw which are interesting version 1.

First, facebook suggests friends to add to your list. That’s pretty neat. I have over 20+ lists of friends I manage, so new additions are very useful.
Second click on any friend’s profile page. On the left navigation below photos you’ll find a link View you and <friend name> – See below.
Clicking on View You and <friend> takes you to a page with common friends, likes, etc.
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Two weddings and a funeral

The ball sailed effortlessly over the 50 ft net, alongside the wall of the first hole, and kept going the distance. Feeling pretty pleased with myself I looked at the 3 wood and smiled in approval.

It was not until after a few seconds later, when the caddy remarked “I think the young master needs to spend more time at the range”, that I realized it was one nasty slice. I did notice, however, my father-in-law, said nothing. He was, as I know now, someone who’d never embarrass you or make you feel little. 
  • Drove the car backwards into a tree. “Oh, is the car okay?” was his question.
  • Forgot that my flight was the day earlier, and I showed up 24 hours late to the airport. “When’s the next flight?” was the thing on his mind.
  • Left the house keys in the car, and the car keys were in the garage. “Does your neighbor have a key” was his response.
If he ever panicked, he never showed it to me. If he was irritated, he’d make it clear, but never to make you feel small. Just remind you not to do it again.
My first golf outing was with my father-in-law. He was in love with the game after retirement. He’d discuss it with me, my friends, cousins, almost anyone who was ready to listen. He was also in love with photography, cricket, classical music and luxury cars and most anything to keep himself out of the home.
He had his way of convincing you that whatever he was doing at that point of time was the only thing worth doing at all. Like he’d watch the cricket match live in the morning at the stadium and shush everyone when they were disturbing him watching the highlights reel later at night.
I met him for the first time at Mysore, at the railway retiring home, 3 months before I graduated. V had prepped me well and advised me to stick to trains, cricket and music. Topics, she assured, would get him to talk more and save me from putting my foot in the mouth. The first few meetings were mostly about trains. The next few were about cricket. We found two topics we could have endless conversations about, so our jokes, our frame of references were all those two topics. Calls from the bay area to him to India were mostly about catching up on cricket more than how he was doing.
He loved his work and the Indian Railways. During my first road trip with him to local temples at Tirupathi and Tirumalai, we were accompanied by a junior railway officer. That was the first time I really got to know about how accomplished he was at work and how much he was respected. The junior officer could not stop singing praises of my father-in-law – youngest officer in the railways, first to introduce new catering services, first to leverage multiple coach shunting systems (I still don’t know what that is). I later got to know this junior officer never worked for him, just was railway folklore he was repeating.
During his first trip to the bay area, he met with my co-founder and wanted to hang out with us at our basement pad where the two of us would be coding all day and he’d be browsing the web, telling us how this “Internet” stuff could truly change Indian Railways. 
He took to retirement with as much passion as he did when he was working. Side projects became obsessions. 
On our road trip to Grand Canyon and San Diego, he was fascinated with taking endless photos of the rising and setting sun. I realized after 2 years that he showcased all his photographs in an exhibition which he was looking to do very soon after his retirement.
When our daughter was born, he loved just hanging out with her, talking to the 2 month old as if she could understand everything there was to understand about trains. Reminiscing on the days my wife was born, he mentioned, he hardly had any time to be with his kids, so he was reliving his fatherhood experiences with his grandkids. 
He passed away 2 weeks ago after a 3 year fight with Parkinson’s disease. 
Ananth Madabushi, Rest In Peace.
Every night when I pray, I will remember what you taught me, which psychologically gave me more courage and strength, that most problems need to be thought through, not necessarily solved.
Other

5 steps to a good market analysis for your startup (aka Market analysis 101)

I met an entrepreneur on Monday who is a young (fresh out of college), enthusiastic and a quick learner. Over the last 6 months, he and a friend from college have started working on a very interesting idea in the eCommerce space.
Both came in and presented “what they had done so far” – to get feedback from me and also get some pointers on how to prepare their pitch and company so they can get outside investment. The conversation got to “how big is their market”.
I wanted to document what I shared with them so you can help me with some feedback if I have missed anything. I have used these metrics consistently for a few startups and keep adding as needed an on going basis. Its not “quick and dirty” but at the same time its not meant to be “paralysis by doing immense analysis”. 
This is market analysis 101 which I suspect most seasoned entrepreneurs already know about.
First two metrics: Total market  and addressable market. The total market is the total revenue generated in a particular segment of the economy.The addressable market is the total amount of revenue that your company could generate if it acquired every potential customer. (source)
1. Understand the total market: Its usually a good start to look for numbers at a general macro level. Say you are looking to build a eCommerce site to sell widgets online. Top down analysis of your market looks at overall demographic, economic and other trends to find out how many people buy widgets (of all types). This is less about how many widgets are sold and more about what’s the total need for widgets overall. Subtle difference, but an important one. 
2. Compute the Addressable market:  Currently widgets are sold offline via physical stores. You should be able to get current total number of widgets sold. This is your addressable market. This assumes every person will buy widgets online and give up buying widgets offline. This is a highly unlikely scenario, but in certain segments, such as travel, increasing number of people are going online than to a travel agent to book tickets.
3. Determine the possible Market share: Take into account factors such as internet penetration (low in India), penchant for people to buy online versus offline and you will arrive at another number that will tell you the market for widgets online. Assuming excellent execution, your market share of that number will be anywhere from 30% (you are one of several players in the space to sell widgets online) to 60% (you are the dominant player in the space).
So, if the total market for widgets is $5 Billion, of which currently $2 Billion worth of widgets is being sold, assuming 10% of widgets will be sold online, you arrive at $200 Million. This is the amount of widgets sales that can occur online. Of this if you assume 30% market share with a first mover advantage, then you can possibly get about $67 million in sales, assuming you execute well.
4. Ensure you double check with price and unit sales. If you can only source 10% widgets, and assume you charge a lower price than offline vendors, this also lowers your potential revenue. So if offline stores sell 500 Million widgets at $4, and you can only get 5 Million widgets, sell them at $3, then you can get a max of $15 Million revenue.
5. Analyst reports based projections: Usually I dont give much credence to market projection by analyst firms. Many go through the same process but get lot more data points. Usually more data points is better accuracy, but the projection business is tricky and paying someone to get “more accurate” numbers is not worth the money in my opinion.
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If everyone is “hiring the best people” – where do all the others work?

I met an excellent entrepreneur on Friday who has built a company (bootstrapped) with about $5000 of his own investment to about $250K in revenues over 2 years. He was looking to get an investment from us to increase his sales presence and grow revenues 4 fold in 2 years. Like most others, he was enthusiastic, smart and intelligent. After sharing with me details about his market, customers, etc., we got to his unique value proposition.

“I only hire the best people. That differentiates us.”
I hear this multiple times from many entrepreneurs who have built a good business, in a competitive and crowded space. There’s not much (they claim) that can differentiate one company from another. I disagree with that premise, but more on that later.
It got me thinking though about the topic of this post and I had 2 questions:
1. If every company is hiring the “best”, where are “not the best” working?
 Even large companies claim to “hire the best”. So any entrepreneur who claims the people at larger companies in their domain have the luxury to hire and retain “second tier talent” is wrong.
2. How does one determine who’s “best”? What criteria does one use? SAT scores? References? Proven success?
When you are looking to hire, you have a lot of constraints for any  position. Assuming you have 10 potential “good” candidates for the role, with the right skill set match and experience, you still have the following hard criteria to consider among others.
1. Salary you are willing to offer. Everyone has limits. The “best” usually command a premium. Not every company can offer the highest take home pay.
2. Location of your company. Obviously if you are located in Palo Alto, you dont want the potential employee looking to stay at Boise, Idaho.
And others.
What typically happens is that the list of 10 goes down to maybe 5, because they dont fit within the parameters you set out above. So among the 5, who is the “best”? There are 3 soft criteria I think you should further look for:
1. Attitude: Consider a person whose attitude towards life, work and business fits with you and your company. If you are energetic go-getters, get more people like that. I know the conventional wisdom is to “round” out the team with complimentary skills, but that’s for skills NOT attitude.
2. Culture fit: What differentiates your company from others is also you and others in the company. The unique culture that you have all put together. Anyone you hire has to fit into and immerse in the culture of the company.
3. Values: Its important that the people you hire, share common values to others in the company. Its easy to say we value honesty, integrity, open communication, but few people really practice them on a daily basis. If you however hire people who share the same values, chances of “straying” away into quicksand are fewer.
I believe if you use these filters, then the “best” people are those that fit all the criteria, both soft and hard. Obviously not every company has the same culture, values and attitude requirements. So the people that work there are the “best” given those criteria.
Others who are deemed “not the best” are quite possibly the best at a competitor or another company who values and culture differ from yours.
Easy to say, but do you agree? Or is this too simplistic?
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Returning to India – How to sell (software, technology etc.) in India

If you are looking to start any kind of company in India, remember this rule – “First generate revenue, then build a business. External funding of any kind is only to scale the business, not to start it“. Innovation driven entrepreneurial ventures (unlike services companies or businesses that resell other products) are extremely hard in India. Given that it takes so much time to get things going, the first question most entrepreneurs need to think is “How quickly can my company generate revenue?”.

If you are looking to get funded by Venture capital (and I know 5 VC’s very well, to say this is the truth and the law). VC’s in India will NOT fund any company without a proven and repeatable revenue model. Yes there are exceptions, and some VC’s may fund the “show me momentum and traction” startup, but dont bet on it.
So that then begs the question, how do we sell in India? 
If you are a consumer startup, charge people early, and often. If your business model is based on large number of users paying no money, then figure out who will pay for those large number of users. If your product or service is primarily based on selling to other businesses, then this post is useful for you.
1. Like any other place, businesses and people buy from people they know and trust. The hardest part is to start to build those relationships. Start early. If you are a local (from India) tap into your college/ school network. If you have worked/lived abroad for most of your working career, join your alumni organization. Chances are high that your college alumni network has a few folks in high positions at companies in India. I personally know of many alumni networks which have regional chapters in the large cities in India. Go meet and schmooze. There’s no alternative. If you dont like doing that, get someone in your team who likes to do that.
India can seem like an old boys network and it will be that way until you crack the first few. Then you are in that “old boys network”.
Some tips I have picked up while trying to sell in India – HR folks have time, no money. Sales & Marketing folks have money no time. If you get an appointment with a sales VP or head of sales and your product helps him/her, go out of your way to make it easy for them to buy your product in your FIRST meeting. I know this is different from “dont try to close in your first meeting” advice you get in the US, but it is what it is. Building a relationship takes time and most of these people dont have time. Make your value proposition compelling enough for her to say “Okay, if this does what you say it does, we will trial it for X days and pay you for it”.
2. Quickly understand the company’s culture. If you are trying to sell to a company which rarely uses consultants or outside help, realize it will take you very long to get the purchase order process completed. Most services companies (Wipro, TCS, not Infosys) prefer to use inside resources and will build software than buy it.
3. Remember the element of service tax. Its a 10% overhead you have to account for. If your product is to be sold for Rs. 100,000 realize you’ll get that minus 10% which the company will keep and report as TDS. When you file taxes at the end of the year, you can apply for a refund, which you will probably get after 2+ years (if at all). So the best is to add that as an element in your quote. If you want to get Rs. 100,000, price your product at Rs. 111,111 so you get Rs. 100,000 after 10% tax.
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Returning to India: A perspective on the “business” of India

There had to be a strong impetus for me to return to blogging after almost a year. Its been a thrilling year and half since we returned to Bangalore after 15 years in the US. I had never worked in India before, so was a little apprehensive about it, but confident that an entrepreneur who can do well in the US, can pretty much do well anywhere. 

After all the US market is possibly the most competitive, most difficult to navigate and the most alien to anyone from outside, right?
Well, after almost 2 years running BuzzGain from India, I can give you some insight into what we did well, what we did not and what we learned ourself. I was planning on a series of posts about this topic, and was just way too busy (or too lazy) to do it.
After getting this link to the NYTimes article on a few people’s experiences on returning to India from several friends on facebook, I had to give a view into our experiences.
First the basics:
1. Each country has its pro’s and cons according to me. I loved my experiences in America and wont give it up for anything. I have made the best of friends and have worked at some great companies with some excellent folks, while there. While some things bothered me in the US related to work – hiring was a pain, some developers were apt to adorn the “prima donna status”, legal paperwork was expensive and the costs of getting a basic product was a lot (although its dropping), it was by and large good.
2. There was not a compelling reason for me to return to India. We (my wife and I) decided that our kids had to experience India at some point and the younger the better. Besides, our parents are all here and we thought it would be a good idea for the grandkids to hang out with them.
3. We dont have any plans to return to the US after “a 2 year expat gig”. We have moved. Permanently. 
Do we love it so much in India? No? But we are happy.
Are we open to come back to the US. Dont know. Right now, No.
Did we not like being in the Bay area? We loved it. Its very similar to Bangalore, in terms of weather, which made the transition easy for us.
I moved back with no expectations at all in terms of the working culture. Having heard about all the paperwork and bureaucracy in India, I expected it to be a pain to get anything done at all, let alone ship product.
1. Bureaucracy
Its true. All the paperwork and red tape, gets in the way. There’s no better way of saying it. Expect everything to take 2 months more on average. The only saving grace is you can hire people to get things done. You’ll end up paying for what should be “free” to get done, but you’ll be better of paying for incorporation, “Getting a name approval” from the ROC, setting up basic infrastructure, etc.
2. Professionalism
Its hard even to say this is not true. You can expect some degree of professionalism from folks who have worked at large companies like Infosys, Wipro, or some other big Indian company for most parts. If you are looking for freelancers who can help you get your prototype done, dont expect it. It never has worked. I have had very poor experiences with consultants, who I expected to get some portion of work done in a given period of time (given that you pay them more). They either will email you a day before the work is due to tell you that their kid has extra homework that day so they have to help out or they have to attend their brother’s friends wedding in a place where they have no Internet access.
3. Access to lots of great talent
Yes, this is true. Much as been written about how all the top talent in India prefers to work abroad, but there’s still so many great people still here. The average student out of a tier 3-5 engineering school is still very motivated, hungry and diligent. The downturn (recession) has only helped hiring. We get good quality resources a fraction of the cost of what I have hired in the US.
Coming back to the article, the main points made were the bureaucracy, lack of follow up and professionalism, which has many who returned to India think twice and return back to the US. I think the points are valid, and India can be a challenge for most “outsiders”. Anyone who has been outside India for over 15-20 years and thinks like an American will “expect” a certain work environment, will be sorely disappointed, even if they are “Indian”. I say that in quotes because they really have not worked in India to know the ins and out of doing business here.
If you want to succeed in India, after you return, you have to think Indian which has 3 most important tenets (according to me):
1. Plan for everything to go wrong, hence have a back up for every scenario, including people.
2. There’s always more demand than supply for most EVERYTHING in India, so if you want it badly, expect to pay a lot more to get it.
3. Surround yourself with people who can get stuff done that you dont like to do. Its not that you cant do it, its just that its not worth doing.
As a follow up, India is apparently a top 10 destination for expats.