Vivek Ravisankar's Web » entrepreneur

Invest in Technology – Start(i)up

bytingme — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:55:06 +0000

Being frugal is essential in a startup life, but there is a thin line between being cheap (not spending at all) and being frugal. The thought of a startupper is always to get the best by spending the least. Some of the things I felt startups shouldn’t mind spending on …

Designers are needed, esp if you are a geek:
Hope all geeks dont take me wrong on this, but most of the geeks suck at aesthetic sense and designs. Given a mock-up, there can be none better than them to get it live on the site, but designing a mock-up requires a different (I would even say complementary) skill. If you are running a e-commerce business where most of your transactions and business is going to be online, better get someone to design the pages – even the sign-up button, it’s position, size, everything matters!
Even though, I don’t use wufoo much, I simply love their site, their colors, the dotted underline when you hover over a button, everything is so cutely made that I was forced to use their product!
Interns are costly – hire them
There are tens, no hundreds of internship sites where you could post your description and some of them say ‘Rs. 1 per hour‘ – I understand you are a startup, but come on … If you really need to get your job done perfectly, you need to shell out a little. The ultimate goal should be to get the feature done (or) accomplish the sales target you have set – don’t compromise on quality
Hosting space – get a dedicated one
We initially hosted interviewstreet.com in MediaTemple (shared hosting space) and faced so many issues! Yes, it was cheap, much cheaper than others existing in the market, but not having a dedicated one implied you don’t have root access (you don’t have root access on your own startup?!), limit on memory limit to run django process and many more.
We wasted 2-3 weeks of solid development effort trying to tackle all problems posed by a shared server and finally unable to take it anymore, moved on to linode
It’s so much peaceful when your local development machine and the remote server are of the same configuration & OS – no nasty hacks on the server to get your app running.
Accessories – laptops, netbooks, keyboards, etc
Again, I am sure there would be a team (or 1 person) whose job role is to code. Invest in a good laptop (not netbook!), a comfortable keyboard, good internet connection – never be frugal/cheap in these. It’s extremely frustrating to work on a bad keyboard with slow internet speeds – this frustration can make the developer stop coding!
Stay Connected
Customer service is a key element in a startup – replying to e-mails spontaneously brings so much joy in a customer. A data card (or) a phone with GPRS facility to keep a tab on customer activities and getting back to them tells a lot about your startup. Invest in them

There are so many other ways of saving money (work-from-home), economical travelling, etc – when you are running an e-commerce business, don’t hesitate much to spend on technology if it’s going to improve the productivity of the overall company. To be honest, I didn’t do anything of what I stated above initially , but slowly realized and have almost done everything.

What an Idea

bytingme — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:07:22 +0000

Numerous questions have been asked on what’s the most important thing for a startup – team? idea? execution? investors, etc. Most young startuppers (fresh out of college) tend to romanticize the idea they have in their minds. They are on cloud nine when something strikes them and just can’t control their excitement – a belief that they have latched on to something big and the only thing remaining is developing the website and hosting it.

It’s good to aspire big (or) move on with a positive frame of mind, but the value of just an idea is cheap! Most of the startups have been started either because the founder himself has been affected by the lack of something (or) he/she is dedicated to give back something to the community.Everyone of us has an idea and everyone has got another way to simplify the existing processes.

Holding just an idea is equivalent to just seeing a beautiful girl. Everyone in the shopping mall would have had a look,the tougher/main part is not having a glance at the girl but asking her out for a date – in the startup scenario it’s not the idea that counts, but it’s execution.

The misconception that an *idea* is everything leads the startuppers to keep it to themselves (or share with their very very close buddies) and not discuss in public – why? the fear of someone stealing it! I have already mentioned the value of an idea , still lets meet the types of people whom you can possibly bounce the idea with:

Budding entrepreneurs/entrepreneurs: Like how your girl is the most beautiful angel on earth, for each entrepreneur his product/company is *the* thing. He is definitely not going to drop his own project and start with your idea, for all you know he might think your plan is stupid! Infact, it’s a good thing to bounce your idea with like-minded people, they might provide valuable insights
CEO/CXO of a big firm in the same domain: He has 1001 things in his mind and 10001 clients to serve. He is not going to put a team and rip off your idea, there are already many products waiting in the queue. Again, he might provide you good tips and suggestions on how to proceed in your domain. Make good contacts & network, someday he might acquire you
All iz well – the happy MNC guy: No way he is going to start! He is a happy guy with a good salary and a comfortable position. Again, its good to bounce it off with him, he might give some industry perspectives and if he/she has a lot of cash – potential angel
Wannabe entrepreneurs: These guys just want to start-off something – maybe because they are bored of their day jobs, maybe they want their business card to say ‘CEO’, many more reasons. I am not sure whether discussing with them would help, but some of the guys in this category act as a very good devil’s advocate

As Abhishek Bachan in the movie Guru says ‘Gurubhai se ladna, tho Gurubhai banke. Lekin gurubhai eki hai‘ (To have a fair fight with gurubhai, you need to become one. And there is only ONE Gurubhai!). It’s not enough for someone to copy your idea, they need to copy your mind, your execution, but there is only *one* mind like you! Bounce your idea with smart guys and start thinking about how to execute.

All the above are just to emphasize the fact that having an idea is *NOT* a big thing. You can copy the idea, but not the mind, not the execution and that’s the challenge for every startup. The mistake I made was, the idea can mask all other challenges that a startup undergoes – it’s good you have got a nice model, but think and move further.

Race on…

Wery Weird

bytingme — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:21:31 +0000

Good to meet you all, I am still alive . Of late (4-5 months), I have been meeting truckloads of people from students to CXO’s and sometimes queer things come out of the discussion. I talked to a lot of wannabe entrepreneurs asking them why they really want to start off, a few reasons seemed surprising and deceiving….

‘It’s fun to run a startup‘

I think there’s a difference between fun and excitement. Fun is something you do with your mind free of any pressure – a trek trip with your friends (or) a week long vacation with your girl at goa! Excitement is something that’s interesting but not without tension/pressure in your head – an India vs Pakistan WC finals is exciting for the players but has it’s own share of pressure, tension, etc accompanied with it.

Startups are mostly like the latter. It’s really exciting as you keep learning a lot of things, meet new people but something is constantly running in your head! If one thinks it’s going to be a relaxed life since he’s the owner/founder, etc. I think he’s terribly mistaken! I would call it exciting not fun!

‘It looks good in my profile’/ ‘I get more respect in barcamps/meetings, etc’

If this was your primary reason, I think you are almost heading for a failure. Quitting a big MNC for the sake of having an ‘entrepreneur’ tag is just a heroic act – doesn’t serve any purpose. It might look good in your profile only if you have worked er..slogged in your stint as an entrepreneur and done some solid work, for which the motivating factor is entirely different.
If it’s for garnering respect/people raising eyebrows, you might be better off saying you work for Google News Team than some random abc.com!

‘You are your own Boss‘

This is the one common reason cited by many and frankly I think this is a huge misconception. You are the boss only in your business card. What people fail to understand is when you run a startup, you are essentially answerable to all your customers. So if there are 1000 people registered with you, then you are answerable to 1000 guys! Well, earlier it was only 1 guy, now? . And nowadays, it’s become so simple to tarnish your reputation with the advent of tools like this and this. A CEO/CTO/VP etc. doesn’t really make sense if your customers aren’t happy… rather if you don’t have any customers!

‘I get to spend more time with my girl/wife since I am on my own‘

Yes, was told by someone who was in his mid-thirties. I think the problem of work-life balance is even higher for an early stage entrepreneur, even if you work out of your home. I don’t know how/why, but atleast in the initial stages, attempts mostly would be futile. The probability of meeting an early stage entrepreneur who says ‘I spend more time with my wife than when I was working in an MNC’ is like seeing Ashish Nehra rattle the stumps with the middle stick out of sight!

I am not even sure if the guys whom I met are going to read this (yes the URL is there in my business card), but I just wrote what I felt applicable to early stage entrepreneurs ( < 1-1.5 years). It’s not to discourage anyone but I think this is the reality.
The bet you have to make is on the team and the idea and the rest of MBA jargons ‘customer segmentation, market research, etc’ can be figured out! Race on…

Viv

Entrepreneurship in love

bytingme — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:14:28 +0000

As I was walking along the beautiful IIT-M campus yesterday evening, I bumped onto this inspiring entrepreneur who currently runs a startup in the education domain. I have met him earlier in a couple of events, but happened to talk to him only then. We kept walking, discussing various challenges in the life-cycle of a startup,how he solved, etc.. We kept walking for almost an hour when I thought it was time for me to get back home. Just before I took leave, (out of curiosity) I asked him about his educational background. He replied ‘I just completed my Masters in Entrepreneurship‘! What?! Is there a course M.S Entrepreneurship?! Sounded weird to me. I just nodded and left.

This thread kept running in my mind, difficult to kill (damn the geekiness!:)). I just questioned myself ‘What is entrepreneurship?‘. Entrepreneurship to me is a feeling – a passionate feeling towards your idea/product. It’s something that can *not* be taught in a classroom or can be studied from a textbook.

When you see a beautiful girl pass by, there is this sudden rush of energy,2 wires standing up,bells ringing on top of your head and nothing else visible to your eye! That’s exactly how an entrepreneur feels when he gets an idea! – can strike him anywhere, anytime, when he is taking a shower, or an evening stroll.

You cannot wait, but to gather more details about the girl. Is she from my college? How old is she? How can I impress her? Does she already have a bf? Is she an FCP? . An entrepreneur does similar things – is a similar offering of my service already present? What is my USP? let me google for similar products like these, can i conduct a survey to see the response?

Once all these cobwebs are cleared out, your phone bills are on the rise! Message more, talk more, dream more, etc.. On the other side, you start off with the prototype, keep improving the design,dream about making the product really big, innovate and add new features, etc..

Now comes the D-day when you say those magical 3 words to your loved one and you are fully committed! On the other front, it’s just 2 words (I quit!) and it’s definitely not to your loved one! . You are fully committed to your startup and its your life! And as the history says, ‘They happily lived ever after’ .

These thoughts occurred to me as I was on my way back home!. Now, don’t ask me an analogy for a serial entrepreneur

Europea(or)n entrepreneurs

bytingme — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:56:37 +0000

I heard this interesting story about a couple of entrepreneurs from Europe. After having lost their jobs, they planned to launch a new startup which would sell pornographic cd’s featuring top stars at a very low price!. This drew the attention of a lot of excited folks and hence they decided to get themselves a copy.

The entrepreneurs were amazed! They never expected such an overwhelming response! . However, they had very little stock,enough to serve only about 5% of the requests. But the mastermind act comes here! Instead of trying to serve the remaining 95% requests, they put out a banner on their homepage which read

“Sorry, we ran out of stock. We will refund your amount if you request us to do”.

But, almost none wanted to request for a refund! Why ? – for the simple reason they did not want to have a transaction in their account statement which read

Debit X pound from Pornographic community enterprise

and the amount they spent was also pretty low!

Lol! And they enjoyed all their free money! I guess they were caught later! I understand entrepreneurs should be innovative, but this was, well…..

A Strange(r) entrepreneur

bytingme — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:25:19 +0000

Not many times you get to meet a stranger and strike a conversation that lasts for slightly over 30 minutes and finally derive some inspiration out of it! Well, it did happen to me yesterday. My friend & I had some work on the ECR (East-coast-road). I hopped on to his bike, we would have hardly moved 2 km, when the back tyre got punctured! After walking a few metres, we found this un-puncture shop

He quickly got into his act. Busy fixing the tyre, he shot a question to me “What are you planning to do?”. I was taken aback a little, quite unsure as to what he was exactly asking and hence said “I am planning to start my own business”. He then shot back again “Do you know what business is?“. Little irritated, I wanted to say, it is a Web 2.0 application built on PHP and Java, but I just controlled my temper and thankfully let him speak! He started narrating about how he built his shop….

[Speaking from his perspective]

I started this shop 2 years back. I had no job then and none gave me any too. I decided to start a shop that would just sell tyres. I spent close to 6 months walking down the streets of ECR trying to find a place to start my shop. Everyday, I talked to 10 different people with just a single ray of hope that someone someday would tell me there is a vacant place you can use. Finally, the day came after a loong wait for 6 months.

My family being a little superstitious, wanted me to start the project after 2 months. Hence I paid 2 months rent for nothing. I started it after 2 months, bought all different types of tyres and waited for people. I waited..waited…waited… it was another 6 months and I did not get even a single customer! And I mean it – not a single customer. I was disappointed earlier that I had to pay rent for 2 months without using the place, but just imagine the situation that I was put in after 6 months!

I started analyzing the cause as to why this didn’t kick off. I went and knocked at each door in the ECR to gauge the market for a tyre shop, conducted a survey. Many people just shooed me away. Some even told me that they don’t possess any vehicle with a shining Merc parked in the front! This continued for another 6 months… Hence, I was effectively paying rent to this place for 18 months without earning a single pie. But, somewhere inside my heart, I knew I could fix the problem and come out.

I then decided to start multiple services and not rely on one! It was not just selling tyres, my shop did overhauling, fixed punctured tyres, and I am starting to run a service where I would recommend drivers for people here and ofcourse earn a referral fee, he chuckled! . The business slowly grew. Each customer came for different offerings and my shop became a commonly used word in the town – more to say, it’s almost a landmark here!

The name spread by word-of-mouth. I did my job to perfection and always stuck to my timelines. I would never do stuff that I was not sure about. If I take up, it would be real neat job! People were impressed with my work.Now, I am the Raja (King) of this area. Anyone who has any problem with their vehicle tyre, come to me. I am earning a good sum. I waited for 2 long years to get to this state.

[End of story]

I didn’t know what to say. It was really really inspiring! Never thought, I would bump into someone and be inspired so much. I could just relate a few things what he said to the startup world.

Perseverance and determination are the key factors! Try harder, be patient and you succeed. Never never give up!
Never rely on a single service/offering. If Google had just stuck to Search, I am not sure it would have reached the level it has now!
The 1st guy you approach is not going to be your client. You need to knock at each one’s door and be patient to get your client!
It’s ok to slip the deadline by a few days and give an impressive product rather than sticking to it and making a mess. The service should be of high quality for people to refer!

Phew! Great experience!

Startup Frenzy #3: Are you ready for the VC?

bytingme — Sun, 03 May 2009 15:50:26 +0000

Ok, now that you have built a good team and done enough of market research, can you approach the venture-capitalist? Ideally, my answer would be a big NO! I did this mistake back in college, when I used to meet a lot of VC’s with bare presentations explaining them what exactly my product is, my target customers, etc.. Like how A picture is worth a thousand words, A demo is worth a thousand dollars!

A demo is worth a thousand dollars

Build the product

You need to have a working demo of your product.The ppt’s and flashy animations alone will not impress them. Your product needn’t implement all your features (obviously), but at least a bare framework showcasing your service. You need to instill a belief in the VC that you guys can build the product. A coveted degree (like a Phd, Masters,etc.) might give you an edge only if you are able to build the product, not before!

KISS – Keep it short and simple

Your demo/presentation should NOT last for more than 5-6 minutes. It should be slick and to the point – no boring graphs and long text! The VC must be raring to know more about your product after you are done.

Numbers and vision

More than the technology, a VC would be interested to know how much (and how?) you are going to make money. Here is where you can afford to be a little verbose, explaining your surveys, your initial sample set, how you intend to grow, your projected revenue, etc.

Most importantly, you need to have a vision for your startup – what do you want to ultimately be? and what’s the roadmap.

Well, whatever I have blogged is from my past experience and mistakes that I made. Hope it helps and get started!

Startup Frenzy #1: It's about you!

bytingme — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:15:03 +0000

Finally, I get some time to breathe! My schedule has been really hectic off late with 5 hours sleep being a luxury. Its been about 4 months since I started working on my pet project. Started off just as an idea, progressed as a normal project and now things are looking serious – will it turn into a startup? I have learnt sooooo much during this small stint that I can’t imagine how much I am going to learn if I branch out on my own. Anyways, I just wanted to share my experiences with you all.

So, what exactly does it take to form your own company? There are a zillion factors – market potential,return on investment, etc.. that play a role, but the most important factor is your team! No matter how great your idea is, if you do not have the right set of people to work with, you are heading for a failure! Following are some of my thoughts as to how a team should be.

Are you passionate about the idea?

Being passionate is an understatement! You must live, breathe and think about your startup 24×7. When you see the other guy working for 10 hours a day (very small, mind you!), there should be a feeling that triggers you to expend 11 hours the next day, and there you see a vicious circle coming up. A healthy competitive environment is a must.

Growing a startup is like nurturing your own kid. You really got to love it so much and not fuss about the tantrums/problems it throws about – be it in the wee hours or on a nice Sunday afternoon. Your startup must be your life!

Choose the right people

Choosing the right people to work with is the most important thing to start off! Never include your close relative/friend in a startup because he/she would feel left out otherwise. There are a million other ways to make them feel good. The team is the most important component and there should NOT be any kind of compromises made. It’s better to go with an average programmer whom you are comfortable working with, rather than a stud programmer with whom your rapport is under question

Call a spade a spade. Do not suppress your thoughts and wait for the other person to get back. Never go with the assumption that everything will be fine soon – the truth is, it’s not going to be!

Do NOT fight for your role/stake

A CEO/CTO role initially is actually nothing to be proud of. C’mon you are the CEO of 5 people ? . I am not saying you shouldn’t assign roles to yourselves, infact it’s a must that you do so, but there should not be any kind of disputes while doing so. You assign a CEO to your startup because the angel investor or the venture capitalist needs to have a single point of contact. Of course everyone’s views must be taken into account before a decision is made.The question of who’s the CEO/CTO etc. should just have 1 answer – it must be unanimous. If it isn’t, well press the pause button and think it over again.

I am against dividing the stakes equally amongst the founders initially. Ideally, each one of them should take 5-7% of stake at the start and based on your performance, you get an increase in your stake. Do not ever fight over this issue, it’s going to leave a very bad sore at the end – something very hard to heal.

Place your startup ahead of you

I totally agree, starting a venture is a risky business, but if you really want it succeed, you must place the future of startup ahead of your personal gains. People tend to think that there is a possibility that their startup would fail and then he/she would be stranded on the streets with no job. Yes, there is a finite probability that it might happen because of which so many people don’t take the plunge. But, did you give a thought about your startup’s future? What if a similar (probably the same idea!) startup like yours comes up in another 2 months? trust me, digesting that is very very hard!

You will curse yourself for not taking the plunge earlier and might even affect your current job. So follow your heart, follow your gut feeling – you don’t realize it’s power! Again, it’s not enough if you are the only person thinking this way, your entire team should have the same thought.

Do you need a Phd/MBA graduate in your team? What is the minimum degree that you need to possess?

The only degree you need is passion!

So, pull up a good team and get started. Well, that’s all I have got to say in the first post of this series. Stay tuned for more!

Vivek Ravisankar's Web » entrepreneur

Invest in Technology – Start(i)up

What an Idea

Wery Weird

Entrepreneurship in love

Europea(or)n entrepreneurs

A Strange(r) entrepreneur

Startup Frenzy #3: Are you ready for the VC?

A demo is worth a thousand dollars

Startup Frenzy #1: It's about you!

Are you passionate about the idea?

Choose the right people

Do NOT fight for your role/stake

Place your startup ahead of you

Do you need a Phd/MBA graduate in your team? What is the minimum degree that you need to possess?