Month: January 2010

Since Abhishek started school (Lower KG) in July, my vacations will now have to get synchronised with his. I haven’t been much of a vacation taker – trips that Bhavana and I have made in the past have tended to be short, and mixed with business. For Abhishek, Diwali and Christmas vacations are only about 10 days, with the big vacation time in July-August.Vacations are also when Bhavana spends time at her mother’s home (in Mumbai itself) and then visits here sister in Surat. So, the Diwali and Christmas vacation days don’t leave much time for anything else. For the next twelve years, our long vacations will have to now be done during the Mumbai monsoons.

One of the vacation ideas I have been talking to Abhishek is about taking the train across the US – from New York to California. I had done that once – in 1991. It took three days, and the Chicago-Oakland stretch on the California Zephyr was an amazing experience. When Abhishek is older, it is one train journey I hope to do again.

I wrote this series in August 2005.

What is under discussion is the need for Indians to venture out into the world of entrepreneurship, build intellectual property and create wealth, which hopefully will find its way back into the system to fund more start-ups. India may be becoming a hotbed of innovation as an increasing share of global R&D shifts here. But Indians are still not making the shift to entrepreneurship and aiming to build the next Microsofts, Ciscos and Googles – we seem to be content working for them.

This week’s Tech Talk is, thus, an exhortation and a plea to arms – India needs Entrepreneurs. They need to go out there and build out the next global giants. In doing so, like in any race, many will fail. But a few will succeed. Together, they will inspire the next generation. That, according to me, will be the real coming of age of Indian technology and entrepreneurship – when we start building the products the world needs out of India. To do this, we need to get out of the comfort zone we find ourselves so happily ensconced in and make the leap.

This week’s links:

• Mobile Trends 2020: compiled by Rudy De Waele.
• Web 2010 Predictions: by John Battelle. Among them: “2010 will mark the beginning of the end of US dominance of the web. I am not predicting the decline of the US Internet market, but rather its eclipse in size and overall influence by other centers of web economies.”
• Enterprise Software Systems: by Tim Bray, on how not to do things.
• A Guide to the Cosmos, in Words and Images: from the New York Times. About ““Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle,” by Michael Benson.
• To be a great engineer: A friend suggested an excerpt from this commencement speech from 2008 by Jeong Kim, President of Bell Laboratories. “To be a great engineer is to embrace wonder, to follow where your curiosity leads, and to act with passion and conviction on the insights that follow…The case of Sharad Ramanathan reminds me that to be a great engineer is to travel outside your own comfort zone, to explore alternative paradigms, to open yourself to alternative fields of knowledge.”

There are a number of books that have been published in recent times which focus on how we make decisions. Here are three good ones.

“Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition” by Michael Mauboussin. From the book’s description: “Leaders in all fields-business, medicine, law, government-make crucial decisions every day. The harsh truth is that they mismanage many of those choices, even though they have the right intentions. These blunders take a huge toll on leaders, their organizations, and the people they serve. Why is it so hard to make sound decisions? We fall victim to simplified mental routines that prevent us from coping with the complex realities inherent in important judgment calls. Yet these cognitive errors are preventable. In Think Twice, Michael Mauboussin shows you how to recognize-and avoid-common mental missteps.”

“How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer. From the book’s description: “Since Plato, philosophers have described the decision making process as either rational or emotional: we carefully deliberate or we “blink” and go with our gut. But as scientists break open the mind’s black box with the latest tools of neuroscience, they’re discovering that this is not how the mind works.Our best decisions are a finely tuned blend of both feeling and reason-and the precise mix depends on the situation. The trick is to determine when to lean on which part of the brain, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think. Jonah Lehrer arms us with the tools we need, drawing on cutting-edge research as well as the real-world experiences of a wide range of “deciders”-from airplane pilots and hedge fund investors to serial killers and poker players.”

“Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average” by Joseph T. Hallinan. From the book’s description: “We forget our passwords. We pay too much to go to the gym. We think we’d be happier if we lived in California (we wouldn’t), and we think we should stick with our first answer on tests (we shouldn’t). Why do we make mistakes? And could we do a little better? We human beings have design flaws. Our eyes play tricks on us, our stories change in the retelling, and most of us are fairly sure we’re way above average. In Why We Make Mistakes, journalist Joseph T. Hallinan sets out to explore the captivating science of human error–how we think, see, remember, and forget, and how this sets us up for wholly irresistible mistakes.”

2009 was to be the year Abhishek started school. A school and its teachers can make a big impact on children as they grow up. I still remember my days at St. Xavier’s – my teachers helped shape a lot of what I am today. Parents lay the foundation for a child’s character; it is the school and teachers which build on that.

Choices of good schools in Mumbai are very limited. Bhavana was very clear at the outset about the school she wanted Abhishek to go to: a school that was close to home, co-ed, and followed a curriculum that emphasised all-round development. (She has been saying since Abhishek was two years that he isn’t going to be the academic kind like me!)

With admissions to schools in Mumbai being so competitive, it is not as much as picking the school as the school deciding to admit us. Our first choice was Aditya Birla World Academy. Luckily Abhishek got admission in the school. That had to be the happiest moment for us in 2009.

Looking back to Abhishek’s first five months in Lower KG at the school, we are absolutely delighted with the decision. He loves school, and has opened up a lot. He takes the school bus (the school is about 1.5 kms from home). He looks forward to going to school every day. Seeing him happy and learning to learn, Bhavana and I know we made the right call.

Tomorrow: Good Books

In January of 2009, I decided to see if I could play some role in the forthcoming elections to better understand India’s politics and governance system. I decided to support the BJP. Along with a group of other professionals, we also started a forum called “Friends of BJP” for others like to us to get more engaged with politics.

A number of people whom I meet (along with others who have commented on various blog posts) ask me whether I think I made the right decision given the results of the elections and the subsequent events that have transpired in the context of the BJP. My answer is Yes. I have been disappointed by what happened, but that does not mean the decision I made was wrong. While winning is everything, especially in politics, losing can also teach if one is prepared to learn.

I believe that what India needs is a centre-right formation in its government. The BJP is the closest to this. Yes, the party has gone through dramatic downs over the past six months, but I think it will emerge stronger and better. Political parties in every country have gone through trying times – and the BJP in 2009 has been no different.

I do hope the party learns from its mistakes, and creates a genuine centre-right formation. It cannot win by aping the Congress. Going ahead, I hope to do more in helping drive the centre-right movement in the country. India needs more of us to be involved in creating our future. And potentially, create better political parties on both sides of the spectrum.

Tomorrow: Decision 3

We (the management team) had two choices for NetCore: one, keep growing our MyToday subscriber numbers even though there was little immediate opportunity to monetise them, or two, focus on overall profitability and ensure that subscriber growth remained in check. We decided to go for the second option – ensure that we converted a significant monthly deficit at the start of the year into a reasonable surplus by the end of the year.

It was not an easy decision to make. We had, for the past two years, focused on growing subscribers and building a significant consumer business in the mobile space. But what we realised early on in the year was that ad-based revenues would take a long time coming because of the twin factors of the economic slowdown, and SMS being a new medium. I could have continued to invest money into the company, but as a team we decided that we had to ensure that the investments we had made needed to be converted into a business that could grow profitably.

So, we reined in costs, and focused on growing our enterprise revenue streams in both mobile and mailing. New ideas were temporarily put on hold as we focused on meeting needs of existing enterprise customers to ensure we had a solid foundation. We ended 2009 with three straight quarters of growing profits.

Now, we have a good foundation to build on – without worrying about raising external capital to fund business operations. Our twin challenges for 2010 are to convert the growing enterprise revenue streams into cash engines, and build a consumer business that can combine both reach and revenue.

Tomorrow: Decision 2

We need to make decisions all the time. Some have a nominal impact; others can make a more lasting difference. Some decisions are easy; others are hard. Some decisions can be reversed; others are much harder to change. Decisions are a constant in our life. Most of the time we make decisions without thinking too hard. At other times we need to think through a lot more because of their importance and impact.

Whether it is made in a blink or we ‘think twice’, every decision has consequences, and we need to live through those. Sometimes, decisions go right, and sometimes they don’t. At times, it makes us a long time to realise and accept that we have made an error in the decision.

The year-end tends to make one think about the past year. As I started to think about 2009, my mind went back to three key decisions that I made in the year. These are the ones I will discuss in this series. I will end by looking at a few books which help us better understand the decision-making process.

Tomorrow: Decision 1

I wrote this a year ago. I should probably do an analysis of what I got right and what I didn’t!

Here is a brief summary of my pick of the ten trends that will define the mobile space in India in 2009:

1. Subscriber growth in India will continue, driven by rural expansion, entry of newer operators, 3G and cheaper handsets.
2. Incumbent operators will face challenges (and opportunities) on four fronts: new operators, mobile number portability, 3G and MVNOs.
3. Focus on Value-added Services and Data will increase in saturated, urban markets.
4. Mobile VAS operators which build direct-to-consumer relationships will start emerging.
5. Flat-rate Data Plans will accelerate the use of the Mobile Internet, Social Media and Rich Media.
6. Operators and/or handset players will launch AppStores to drive usage, innovation and revenues.
7. Mobile Payments and Commerce will come into vogue for microtransactions.
8. Companies will create multi-faceted mobile presence to deepen customer relationships and drive permission-based interaction and engagement.
9. The Mobile will emerge as the next advertising and marketing medium – and be seen as capable of not just mass reach but also allow a high degree of targeting.
10. The 2009 general elections will be an inflection point in the usage of mobiles in many different ways.

This week’s links:

• Top 10 Mobile Apps of 2012: A look into the future.
• How long can an unhappy India stay united? by Vijay Rana. “India’s warring politicians need to sit together to discuss these conflicting regional aspirations in a sensible and enlightened environment. We cannot continue to play political games of setting people against people, caste against caste and religion against the religion.”
• Put down that Shovel! by Andy Kessler. “Forget old-fashioned infrastructure. Here are six government projects to foster a lasting economic recovery.” Ideas for the US, but that’s the kind of thinking we need for India also. 
• The Year in Ideas: from The New York Times.
• Ten ‘BreakOut!’ Business Ideas Of 2009: from Forbes. Among them: “Invisible speakers. Detergent-strength tap water. Landmine-sniffing rats. Instant whiteboards.”