Certainties & Serendipities

Flipkart, the pioneering e-Commerce store in India, just delivered last of the four books that I had ordered. This is the seventy-eighth book they are delivering to me, in the past three years. I could boast that I am a loyal customer; but I couldn’t have been one without their exemplary service. If you thought, I am getting a special service because I’m a long-term customer, you are in for a surprise – they don’t even have a loyalty program. I have been their customer all these years, only because their service is consistently superior.

Flipkart is not the first of the e-commerce stores in India. I used to be a customer of Infibeam for about a year. They had a loyalty program and given my book purchasing habits, I joined that. All was well until they had to cancel an order. At first, the delivery was delayed by ten days. That ten days was stretched few more times. Eventually the order got cancelled. But the amount for that cancelled order did not reflect in my account. At first I thought it was an oversight. It took me relentless follow-up for two months to get the refund. I was furious that, a) they didn’t have the inventory details b) they took time to inform about their inability c) they took even more time to refund the amount. I decided to look for alternatives.

I asked on twitter for options and narain informed about Flipkart. When I started with them they were small. Not this “India’s startup success story”. I proceeded with caution, but at every interaction my trust increased a little bit more. Not that there weren’t any problems. Of about thirty orders I have placed, they had to cancel two books. On both occasions, they informed about the cancellation and the amount was credited to my account on time. Another time, there were two books of the same title – one with a CD and another without a CD and I had ordered the one without a CD, a representative called me to confirm the order before delivery.

Recently they introduced electronic items, thirty day refund policy and cash-on-delivery payment model. I ordered Toy Story movie for my son. They shipped DVD of a wrong region. When I informed them, they picked it up free of cost. And the amount was credited into my account immediately.

When the trust is high, I could overlook a mistake or two. Isn’t it?

It is not just Flipkart which is getting the e-commerce right. I have been using ZoomIn for quite sometime and they too are fantastic. The range of products that they have is ever increasing. I’ve been able to impress my family members with their photographic products – photo albums, mugs, calendars and like. Some of them are so impressed that they have become their repeat customers.

FirstCry is another e-commerce store on the right track, though they are relatively new.

E-commerce was once the ‘new-thing’. Now it is a competitive market. You can’t win just with low price, discounts and loyalty cards. May be these gimmicks will get customers to try your product or service. But its the service delivery that will convert the try-outs into loyal customers. Conventional management teaches that customer service starts after sales. Its no more true in the electronic world.

Customer service starts as soon as a web page is served. And it continues through product search, cart management, order processing, delivery and feedback handling. Customers expect appropriate communication at every stage. And the experience has to be consistent as the orders are repeated.

You may change any of the components of the process, but that shouldn’t affect my experience. For example, over the years, Flipkart redesigned their website, introduced wish-lists, added electronic items, started own delivery network and so on. But none of that affected my experience. I still get the products delivered at home at the date mentioned¹.

Will I switch to a competitor in the future? May be. But for that to happen, Flipkart has to get their act wrong as well as the competitor has to beat them in service.

Image by: adrianmelrose

Call me foolish. But help me understand the reaction of technology community to SOPA.

SOPA was viewed within tech community as an effort by the rich and filthy movie and recording industry to kill internet. Obviously businesses that depend on internet were outraged. Internet users targeted GoDaddy, an internet based business that supported SOPA. In a short period, GoDaddy saw over 16,000 domains transferred. These efforts didn’t stop even after SOPA bill was withdrawn. Paul Graham, suggested to kill hollywood with startup concept.

But while going through arguments on both sides, I found that there were many non-movie/non-music organizations that supported it. I found many book publishing agencies in the supporting list. And then companies like Nike & L’Oreal. Oh it gets interesting, Business Software Alliance, which has all the prominent software companies as its members like Apple and Microsoft, supported it as well. (I know BSA withdrew its support as like Godaddy).

So why didn’t the tech community propose that no technical books will be published through McGrawHill or HorperCollins or other publishing agencies who supported SOPA? Why PG didn’t propose to kill Microsoft or Apple who were part of BSA? Richard Stallman would have been happy. Or force these companies to leave BSA as Kaspersky did?

Is it intentional blindness? Or there is a point at the other side of the table which tech community doesn’t (want to) understand?

The Internet is buzzing with Code Academy‘s code a year program. Everyone is signing up for it, even Mike Bloomberg, New York Mayor, signed up for it.

Is Code Academy trying to beat the universe?

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. ~ Rick Cook

Oh! wait, you can’t do that with 200,000 people signing to code. That is like sending everyone in town with a camera hoping that someone will turn out to be Ansal Adams. It doesn’t work that way. Not in photography, not in coding, not in project management, not in anything. But we don’t learn our lessons, letting the universe win.

As Vijay Sankar, tweeted,

hmm..not too sure about this “everyone shud learn to code” movement…world does not need MORE coders, we need BETTER coders #justsayin

How I wish some psychology expert would explain the illusion of quantity magically producing quality.

Governments, corporates, and individuals are all obsessed with this illusion.

What to do when a project goes for a toss? Add people¹.
How do we prevent fraud? Add more controls².
I want to improve my writing. What should I do? Write 700 words every day³.

So the magical answer is ‘do more’. But, more of the same only produces more of the same results. Nothing improves. Wait, it is not same results; it gets worse.

As I have realized after managing many projects,

to plough a field, you need two strong oxen; not one hundreds chicken

More often than I care to remember, I’m given hundreds of chicken. The field smells only of chicken shit.

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

• Balance satisficing and optimizing : Whether looking for the root causes of your problem or identifying solutions, you must be collectively exhaustive (CE). That means looking for all the possible solutions. That’s fine in theory but in practice, that induces paralysis by analysis. So you need to learn to balance your quest for collective exhaustiveness with practical considerations.
• Sell the problem : Lesson for consultants: No business buys a solution for a problem they don’t have. And a lot of people aren’t willing to embrace that they have a problem unless they also believe that there’s a solution. So you should both sell a problem and hint that there’s a solution that others are using, or is right around the corner.
• 8 Symptoms Of Social Schizophrenia : Companies are establishing a presence in social media to build their online reputation. They establish levels of service in social media that differ significantly from service levels in other channels. Does your company suffer from this ailment?
• Technology Selection and Cultural Fit : The basic question at hand for most technology selection projects really comes down to “‘what do we need and how much is it?”
• The right way to position against competition : How do you cope with competition, incorporating it into your strategy while not letting it consume you?

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.