Certainties & Serendipities

Some say India is an emerging market. Others say it is a faster growth market. Leaving such semantics aside, it is no doubt that this decade will be the determining decade for India.

The race is already on, between Buffalo and Bangalore and Shanghai and Mumbai. In the sectors where government regulations are less, Indian talents are already racing on par with mature markets. On the other hand, the heavy handed regulatory system, sadly, hurdles growth in many sectors. Overall, I’m optimistic that the tension between regulators and entrepreneurs will result in positive changes in India.

Until now investments in India were, primarily, for the growth of other nations. In the coming decade we will witness investments for domestic growth and I bet on the following sectors:

1. Education : Indian parents have traditionally placed a premium on education and it has paid off well. With economic growth, there will be new models of education emerging. Already Zoho and Arvind Eye Hospital are experimenting with a beyond-the-university-campus training model. Such models might emerge as a business track on their own.
   
   On top of it, there will be considerable investment into research and development. So far we have been happy to re-engineer or copy other’s research and satisfied ourselves with tinkering. But this decade will witness India specific research in health, public administration, agriculture and so on.

2. Entertainment : For most Indians, entertainment is limited to watching a movie or cricket or a TV serial. Though we are witnessing large budget movies and too much cricket, these markets are yet to saturate. So we will see more of the same. In addition, we will also witness development of allied markets – theme parks, music bands, youtube theaters and like. As Indians grow rich, there will also be markets for adventure sports, yachting, gambling and so on.

3. Mobile : There will be a lot happening on our palm. E-commerce, Location based services, Entertainment will come into mobile. Mobile communication is a highly competitive market in India and hence prices will go down and features will go up. Mobile users will demand a lot more in their hands in the coming days.

4. Rural : Indian villages have not yet been touched by the much celebrated economic progress. True India is in her villages and if India has to progress as a whole without disintegration, progress and growth has to reach the rural areas.
   
   Acclaimed management guru, C. K. Prahalad, has already sealed the idea that serving the bottom of the pyramid is a profitable business. Many companies are also experimenting with the concept – like ITC e-choupal. As rural India gets exposed to technological innovation, entrepreneurs will emerge from within their communities. They will posses the best insight about their markets and will partner with technology vendors to create services and products specifically made for their markets.

5. Good Governance : With explosion of ‘soft-industries’, first time entrepreneurs are springing up everywhere. They will demand less complicated and transparent regulatory systems. This will lead to many good governance programs, delivered via e-governance platform. This in turn will bring lot of private-public partnership deals.

6. Security : Security of the nation and business in both physical and virtual will be a big business. As India develops, internal and external forces will try to disrupt the growth path. So there will be a lot of investment within the security sector. There will be both preventive and corrective technologies emerging in the security sector.

7. Art of Living : With growth and steady rat-race men and women will feel a vacuum – or would be made to feel a vacuum. Yoga, meditation and such are already a billion dollar business. This will continue to grow. One set of people will spend on pubs; others on yoga; both won’t mind spending on a therapeutic massage.

As new entrepreneurs emerge and new investments are made, there will be a strong temptation to transplant the best practices of the western world into India in each of these sectors. While we can certainly learn from these practices, it should be emphasized that tools, techniques and methodologies relevant to our Indian ecosystem has to evolve.

Talking of ecosystem, it is also true that even our ecosystem should undergo change to support such a growth. How?

Growth comes from experimentation; but experimentation means failures, lots of them. Traditionally our society looks down on failures. But if India has to progress, we should be willing to accept and even encourage failures as we experiment to grow.

In all, this decade is going to be an interesting and action packed decade for India and Indians.

Every week I post a digest of very fine links and tweets. Here are the best links I found in the past week:

• Social Entrepreneurship in India–The Complete Guide to Funding, Profitable Sectors [and more] : There is profit at the bottom of the pyramid. This post lists all the various business models employed by social entrepreneurs in India along with the available venture funds for social entrepreneurs.
• How to Walk the Line : Consultants have to walk on a ‘balanced’ line all the time. Here are some of those ‘lines’ from the Million Dollar Consultant, Alan Weiss.
• With Innovation, You Don’t Get Points for Difficulty : The goal of business is to find the quickest, cheapest path to profits. If that involves imitation, then so be it.
• Mind Your OWN Business : We manage ourselves differently when we’re self-employed versus working for a company. What if an employee considers his job as a business rather than just a job? You’ll find yourself energized and with power you didn’t even know you had. It feels much better to be the driver of your career rather than a passenger.
• WebFilings streamlines SEC reporting using Google App Engine : WebFilings is a SaaS solution that dramatically improves the process of developing and filing financial reports with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). In this post the founder details the architecture of WebFilings. XBRL will be introduced in India soon and there is a business opportunity in India on this line.

Here are the best tweets of past week:

• Orrin_Woodward: 10% of the people do 90% of the work, but 90% of the people think they are part of the 10%.
• Orrin_Woodward: Will you choose the comfort of mediocrity or the quest for excellence?
• gitomer: The best employee is someone who wants to learn as much as they want to earn. gitomer
• MarkFritz: EARNING THE RIGHTS: The weak want the “rights” before earning it, while the strong would never accept them unless earned.
• MarkFritz: DISCUSS ASSUMPTIONS FIRST: Many problems we face in our key business relationships have roots in different assumptions.

Every week I post a digest of very fine links and tweets. Here are the best links I found in past week:

• Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web : “Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university.”
• Introducing ‘Nokia Listings’ beta: Connecting buyers and sellers in India : A local marketplace on mobile where users can discover and transact with other users using a simple mobile client interface.
• Stock Shastra #14: To enjoy the fruits of stock investing, be like a fruit orchard owner : Once the fruit owner has planted the tree, he waits patiently for the tree to bear fruit. He depends on the health of the tree to grow and bear fruit. He knows that once the tree bears fruit, it will continue to do so for a long time and hence, he can reap the benefits for many years to come. It may happen that in one season the tree doesn’t bear fruit, but as long as the health of the tree is good, he is confident that it will bear fruit in the next season.
• Why Online2Offline Commerce Is A Trillion Dollar Opportunity : O2O finds consumers online and brings them into real-world stores. Its a new model of offline commerce being driven by an online storefront and transaction engine.

Here are the best tweets of past week:

• vijayanands: dont give yourself the satisfaction of accomplishment with the birth of an idea, follow through with it .
• vwadhwa: Immigrants cause economy to grow/pie to get bigger. Make US more innovative/competitive.
• MarkFritz: PROCESS OR ACHIEVEMENT: Some confuse following a new process as an achievement. It’s just an enabler for AN achievement.
• BentleyGTCSpeed: Market and deliver concurrently. They are not “either/or” decisions.
• MarkFritz: WHERE & WHY: Too many people are rushing to the how & when before they have determined the where & why.

When we hear the word ‘startup’, we think of Facebooks and LinkedIns of the west. But in our own cities youngsters are establishing startups. InterviewStreet is one such startup based in Chennai. Vivek founded InterviewStreet along with his friend Hari (both were classmates at NIT, Trichy). In this interview, Vivek talks of the reason behind the startup and his experience in running the startup.

Q) Let us begin with your venture. What was the eureka moment that gave the concept of  interview-street?

Actually, Interviewstreet was started as a platform for mock interviews where students could attend mock interviews from industry professionals. This idea occurred to me during my final year when a lot of them didn’t exactly know what each company expected out of them. We developed a bare minimum prototype and presented it in a few B-plan competitions – won a couple of them too!

Q) Before you started this venture you worked at Amazon. You also mention that Jeff Bozz is one of your role-model. But you decide to leave to start a venture on your own. What was the trigger point? How difficult it was to leave Amazon?

Vivek - Inspired by Jeff Bezos

I think Amazon follows a very startup-ish culture – in terms of ownership, innovation & sometimes the amount of work More than the work, I loved the people and the atmosphere which makes it almost irresistible to move away. But, starting a startup is like an itch which can’t be controlled for long and hence had to take a call

Jeff Bezos is really an inspiring personality and I consider myself lucky to have talked to him for a couple of minutes . Everyone knows about the Apple, Google story, it’s surprising that not many actually know the fantastic journey of Amazon which survived the dot-com burst and the business-analysts predictions on it’s failure.

When you start working on something, you have someone whom you derive inspiration from and start marching to achieve that – if not become like JeffB someday, I would like to achieve atleast 10% of what he has done!

Q) Did you discuss your start-up idea with anyone? What was their response?

I think a lot of people liked the idea! It was something novel. Everyone encouraged me to try it out – atleast part-time. The positive vibes gave me a lot of confidence to move ahead – thanks to a wonderful set of peers and my parents.

Q) Converting an idea into a revenue generating model is a tough one. How did you go about doing it? Who are the people who supported you in realizing your dream?

Yes, it’s a tough thing. Having an idea is no big-deal , executing it correctly is the tougher part. There were a lot of people in the process of helping me come from the ideation stage to executing it – parents, Hari (who was working at IBM at that time), mentors, and genuine friends.

Q) Who was your first paying customer? What was the feeling to have someone validate your idea by paying for your product?

Great feeling! Its only a sign to work more on the product and satisfy many more customers! But it doesn’t stop there – now you have got to ensure they come back to buy more products/renew subscriptions from you – buck up the customer service.

Q) How is life as an startup entrepreneur? You mention that you travel by bus. Was it difficult to adjust to this life after a comfortable life as an employee of an MNC. What keeps you going?

It’s a roller-coaster ride. There are alternating highs and lows, it’s a hard journey, emotionally tough – for every rupee that goes out of your pocket, the immediate thought is – How do I earn it back? No hi-fi lunches, no cab travel – yes, it’s very hard, but the fact that you are doing something you like and sleep satisfied at the end of the day masks the pain behind it.

Q) Do you think our Indian Eco-system (academic, society, government) is conducive and encouraging enough for startup ventures? What could be done to encourage startups as well as their success?

No, I don’t think so. Not many people actually understand the term “startup“. I think money and good mentors are the essential things while starting out. If we could get a good sync between the two, we should see good amount of rise in startups.

Q) Would you agree that support networks are essential to keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive? What kind of support you continue to tap and what networks are available for Indian entrepreneurs?

Absolutely! Having a few people around you who are experiencing the same thing as you are going through helps a lot – communities like that should come up. There are ofcourse open-coffee-clubs in various cities – but those are very informal. At chennai, a few people are building something called as Startup Centre which looks promising!

Q)  Why startups are essential for a growing economy like ours? Do startups contribute only financially to the country? What other contributions do startups make to a country’s fabric?

I might not be the right person to answer this, since I haven’t thought about these things. I started interviewstreet because I badly wanted to! However, more number of startups give rise to a lot of innovation simplifying millions of lives!

Q) We constantly hearing new startup ventures now-a-days. Is India moving into product innovation space from just services?

A: A lot of startups are coming up – the awareness is definitely increasing, but I am not sure about the numbers and hence might not be able to comment.

Q) What product innovation have you brought into the market with your startup?

I think hiring/recruitment has been a perennial problem in companies of all sizes (startups/SME’s/MNC’s). Our product helps us to match the right candidates for the company – increasing the productivity of employees.

Q) Have you ever regretted your decision? Was there a moment you wanted to throw up everything and join a MNC again?

Hmmm…regretted wouldn’t be the right word – but yes, when you are cash strapped and you see people around you “moving forward” (according to the world) – you do feel you have been left behind in the race. But I am sure, this would pay off later!

Q) Finally, what advice or suggestions you would give to those who start in this path?

I am too young to comment on this. But as I said earlier, starting a startup is more like an itch – you know there would be problems, you know you are going to undergo a lot of pain, you know every problem associated with it, but still you give it a shot. It’s natural and the learning curve is exponential, take a calculated decision – it’s only a matter of time before you jump in – no entrepreneur can sit with ideas on his head not going live.

If you are a student or a company check out Interview-Street. You will surely benefit out of their innovative product. But much more than that let us wish that Vivek and Hari will be next Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak or Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. India needs its own startup-success stories in product engineering.

Thank you Vivek and Best Wishes to you and Hari.

Every week I post a digest of very fine links and tweets I find around the web world. Here are the links & tweets from the past week:

1. The Globalization Map – 12 tips from the Million Dollar Consultant, Alan Weiss, to take your consulting business global.
2. 13 Ways to Better Monetize Your Blog Posts : ‘Marketing is queen and the queen runs the household’ and other tips to better monetize your blog.
3. Sad State of Job Portals in India [Startup Opportunity] – Pathetic state of job portals in India and that may not be a bad thing.
4. Books/Blogs for Startups « Steve Blank – Essential reading list for startups by a Serial Entrepreneur.
5. How to Conduct A/B Tests for WordPress Blogs – Test your WordPress blog to increase response rate or other desired outcome.

and tweets:

1. MarkFritz: THE EXPERIENCE THEY REMEMBER: Customer services is just as much about the feelings as the facts. It’s the experience.
2. portnik: A person who can speak many languages is not necessarily more valuable than a person who can listen in one
3. portnik: Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.
4. MarkFritz: AVOIDING THE ISLAND SOLUTIONS: Strong leaders drive processes to avoid island solutions spread across the company.
5. youarefiredboss: There is no shortage of money, just a shortage of people who think they are worthy of earning piles of it.