Emergic

I recently made a day trip to Amby Valley near Lonavla to give an invited presentation to a company we are working closely with. It was the longest talk I have given in recent memory — just over 1 hour 40 minutes. I covered a wide variety of topics in the digital space. (I will not be able to post the presentation here since much of it was specific to the company.)

This was my second visit to Amby Valley — had made a sightseeing-cum-picnic with a friend’s family about a year-and-a-half ago. The drive is quite scenic once you get on the Mumbai-Pune  Expressway. It took me 2 hours 15 minutes to reach — left early morning at 7:30 am. (The return journey was a little longer — I left Amby Valley at 7:15 pm and reached home 2 hours 35 minutes later.)

Amby Valley is beautifully done.The only challenge is the approach road once you get off the Expressway. The expanse, the picturesque setting — it feels like a different world. Probably ideal for a weekend home for those who like to get away. I for one haven never been of that sort so I guess it will be a few years probably till I get back to Amby Valley again!

I wrote this Tech Talk series – An Entrepreneur’s Early Days – about five years ago. Here is how it began:

An idea fertilises with a mind to give birth to an entrepreneur. The life of an entrepreneur is not an easy one. Extinction in the form of death is always lurking around the corner — the first mistake can be the last. And yet, as the entrepreneur progresses from childhood to maturity, there is a thrill that nothing else can quite match. For adventure seekers, an entrepreneurial venture is the ultimate challenge. So, what are the challenges that entrepreneurs face during their early years? This is what we will examine in this series.

The start of a new venture is always filled with equal amounts of excitement and trepidation. But if one can set aside the fear of failure, there is an absolute delight in taking new ideas to the market. Of course, many will not work. But as many entrepreneurs will tell you: It is the journey which also matters.

This week’s links:

• A more rational view on the financial crisis from Benchmark Capital
• Deep insights from Nouriel Roubini into what the financial crisis and what is coming — from someone who foresaw it all
• A short history of modern finance: From The Economist
• Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy: by Paul Graham
• Tsar: A Thriller by Ned Bell: A book I read recently on my Kindle

The past few days have seen plenty of back-and–forth on commentaries by VCs about the impending doom and gloom for entrepreneurs and the capital raising scenario. Presumably, they are going to have twin challenges of drawing down on the commitments made by their LPs (limited partners) and meeting the needs of their existing portfolio companies who are now going to find it harder to raise capital or get liquidity events. This means that new funding is going to get hit big time. And some funded companies will also see challenges unless they are profitable.

For entrepreneurs, they need to forget about the craziness around and just focus on the business and market. The stuff that’s happening has little or no impact on the business of most early stage companies — in most cases, their revenue base is too small to see any negative impact from “market conditions.” So, any sales person giving market slowdown as a reason for not meeting targets needs to be given a talking to!

I also think this is a great time to get alternative / disruptive ideas to consumers and businesses. Everyone is much more receptive to  discussions about solutions which provide better RoI. (And without a simpler, cheaper solution, entrepreneurs don’t really have much of a chance anyways.)

What I find hard to fathom is the VCs who are re-negotiating existing termsheets to drive companies to accept lower valuations. For the entrepreneur, it is like getting into a marriage with a gun to one’s head.  If one needs the cash, there is little choice to accept the lower valuation since there is no alternative. But if one can doesn’t need the cash, I would recommend walking. Valuations are not based on what the Dow Jones is currently trading it. Ventures will not see exits for 3-5 years in most cases, so what’s happening today in the world is irrelevant. I do get the sense that some investors are using this opportunity to try and get assets on the cheap in a manner which is not quite right.

So, for entrepreneurs, the message is to keep the focus on building the business — just as a BSE Sensex at 21,000 doesn’t really help one much, neither does a 10,000 index negatively impact anything other than some sentiment. Get past all of this and go get customers and generate cash the old-fashioned way.

Continuing the thread on my experience in buying the Lenovo Ideapad S10, I walked in and out of Croma without them attempting to build a relationship with me. They could have used Invertising (which we offer to our enterprise customer base) to reduce the cost of next contact with me and build a hotline with me. The should have asked me to sms a START CROMA to opt-in to a channel which would provide periodic updates on new products, special offers, etc. I am as interested in getting the info from them as they are in sending it to me. But now, they have no clue who I am wven though I spent Rs 25,000 with them. I want to “invite advertising” from Croma into my life. An SMS once a week would have the ideal way for them to connect to me — along with giving me the option to opt-out at any time.

This is what retailers, brand owners and others need to think of. Every customer walking in to their store has a mobile in their hands. How can retailers like Croma delight them with information that they want? This is the magic of Invertising.

I bought the Lenovo Ideapad S10 from Croma (near Chandan cinema in Mumbai). Their tagline is “We help you buy.” They can surely do better on that front.

The S10 was being promoted with a Tata Indicom CDMA USB modem free (worth Rs 1,999). The actual purchase of the S10 itself was easy and smooth. And then came the issues. First, at the payment counter, they said I needed to pay Rs 1,000 more for the modem. I pointed out that the offer was quite clear. Rs 1,999 and free. After a few minutes, they agreed. Then, they refused to give me the modem unless I activated it immediately. They pointed to the “Conditions apply” fine print with the offer. It took me four levels of managers to talk to for about 15 minutes before they reluctantly relented and gave it to me. Presumably, the store gets an activation fee for the USB modem. But from a customer viewpoint, I did not want to get it activated right then and there since they would start billing me immediately. And that point was not highlighted when I made the purchase.

Second, while buying, I was told that there was a 60-day trial version of MS-Office on it. This was good for me since I planned to use it for a presentation the next day and it would have saved me the hassle of connecting an external CD/DVD drive to install MS-Office. On starting up the S10 in the store, there was no trace of MS-Office. The salesperson had miscommunicated to me.

These minor issues took the sheen off what should have been a pleasant buying experience. There was a disconnect for me between the advertising byline and the actual experience, which could so easily have been avoided.

“Mom, I had gone to some malls and did some shopping.”

“So, what did you get?”

“A laptop.”

“WHAT?”

“Yes, the smallest, cheapest, thinnest (almost) laptop.”

This was the conversation I had at home on Sunday after buying a Lenovo Ideapad S10 for Rs 25,000 ($550) from Croma in Mumbai.  I had been looking for something light to replace my HP Pavilion for some time. I don’t use my laptop much — except when travelling. And so, wanted something very light and small. The new Netbook class of machines (pioneered by Asus) is now getting company with Acer, Dell and Lenovo having launched their models. (The model I bought has 1 GB RAM and a 160 GB hard disk.)

I used it for an hour at home, and it does look good. The 10-inch screen provides a 1024-pixel width display. It uses the Intel Atom processor. The keyboard looks very usable — but I haven’t tried typing a whole lot yet. I had read the reviews online and the S10 came out quite well. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 would have been the other option but they aren’t selling it yet in India.

The buying experience could have been better — which was a surprise considering the way Croma advertises itself. More on that tomorrow.

I first came across the phrase “BHAG” in Jim Collins’ book “Built to Last.” It stands for Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals. It is something entrepreneurs need to embrace as they seek to build out their ventures.
If one is going to spend the next few years doing something, one might as well try and change the world rather than doing something that is incremental. Essentially, one needs to put aside the fear of failure and take up big challenges. The odds of failure are of course high, but that is true for any start-up.

That’s one reason I like the mobile data space where we are working in Netcore. Given that the mobile is already the most important device in our lives, there is a big lag in the services that are available on it. The current model of services only being made available via operators is going to change — operators will open up their platforms to a wider array of content and applications that their subscribers can access. It is in this context that the mobile offers a plethora of opportunities to create interesting services.

Mobile data  is where the next new business models and digital leaders will emerge. As long as they have BHAG in their DNA!

Every Sunday from now on, I will link to one of the posts from the archives. This will point you to some of the writing I have done through the years that I think is still relevant and topical. Wherever possible, I will also provide a small commentary to place it in perspective in today’s context.

This Sunday’s post from the past is the one which gets me the maximum feedback — the story of how Abhishek was born (written in July 2005), a story of “one couple’s dream to have a baby and another couple’s determination to make that happen.”

As I look back to that period, memories have started fading – being replaced with the joyful images of Abhishek through the years.  Even now, as we recount the story sometimes to people we meet, it seems remarkable how we lived through the emotional upheavals of that period. I also got periodic emails from people who read the story and want to know more about experience or want a reference on the doctors (Dr. Aniruddha and Anjali Malpani). I hope by putting our story up there we have made a difference to some people who faced a similar situation to the one we did.

Every Saturday, I will highlight some of the good posts that I have come across over the week.

Here is the week’s selection:

• Capitalism to the Rescue: The New York Times Magazine on Kleiner Perkins’ investments in energy and cleantech.
• Making Sense of the Mortgage Meltdown: An amazingly insightful presentation from the Milken Institute, via Paul Kedrosky.
• IBM’s All-Star Salesman: Fortune writes about how Vivek Gupa cracked the Indian mobile market for IBM.
• T-Mobile’s G1 Emulator: Go play!
• Sequoia presentation for Startups and managing in the downturn
• MEX on Blyk: Marek Pawlowski asks if the classification of ‘advertising-funded MVNO’ is still appropriate for a business focusing on developing a ‘youth media’ with user experience at the heart of its model.