Read this interesting article in the Economic Times about how people find it difficult to quit their jobs despite being miserable and planning for a long time.
Yes, I am all for following one’s passion and doing what they love but the mantra should be taken with a pinch of salt, especially in this day and age when ‘entrepreneurship’ is the ‘in thing’ to do and has been romanticized to quite an extent. Once FB’s IPO debuts, millions more will be ‘inspired’ to join the bandwagon.
So what does it really entail ?
Lets say you want to start an e-commerce store since that seems to be the flavor of the season, what with a new one launching every day
Assuming you were in a job and handling marketing or sales of a particular product or service offering in your company. You had an organization which provided various support functions in running the company business.
Now that you have started up, here are some of the things that you will have to do / get done (in no particular order)
Company Incorporation: You have to decide on sole proprietorship / partnership or pvt ltd model, find a CA, get together a bunch of documentation and do a bit of running around – Its not fun.
Allied documentation: Opening bank accounts, getting PAN cards, Sales Tax, Service Tax etc etc registrations.
Office Location: If you are planning to work from home initially, its fine, but ultimately you will need to go look for office space – Decisions regarding location, costs, space, access to public transport for future employees etc etc. Finding a broker, negotiating a contract, etc is pretty exhausting – And all the more fun if you are doing it in summer.
Office furnishings: Finding furniture, getting the office fitted out, internet connections, stationery supplies etc need to be taken care of.
Product Vendors: You will need to find vendors of the products you want to sell, meet them a million times, and convince them to let you sell their products while negotiating discounts, shipping and delivery and storage.
Warehouse: You will need a facility to store, pack, label and ship products from (Of course this can be done from your existing office till you ‘scale up’ )
Technology: You will need to get the website built which will include apart from other stuff graphic design, the UI and backend system. The first call that needs to be taken is should you develop it in-house or outsource to a third party. Both have their pros and cons and rest assured, whichever method you choose, it will be a major pain to get it out of the door – If you budget 2 months to get it done, hope for a realistic 3-4 month timeline.
Logistics: You will need to find logistics partners for shipping and delivery (And god help you if you offer Cash on Delivery)
Customer Support: You will need to have a team(even if its one person initially) to look after customer support queries
Sales: This is one crucial bit and can be very challenging if you don’t have any prior sales experience.
Marketing: This is one area which gets neglected most in a startup. Marketing aint some vague concept but broadly consists of “developing a good product and effectively conveying it to your customers”. It is NOT Advertising. It starts right from product development, branding, sales and customer service.
Advertising: The first is to develop an overall advertising strategy – The comes getting the creatives done after which comes media planning – Are you going to use Print / TV / Social Media / Outdoor Media etc etc.
People: Hiring people will be a pain and retaining them even more so.
And these are just some of the major headings which need to be taken care of. There will be a million small tasks which need to be taken care of on a daily basis.
Now you wont have to DO all of these things yourself but you still have to take a decision on all of them, which is much harder than it seems.
On top of this, during the development phase, not only will you not be making money, you will also not be earning your salary, which can be a bit unnerving unless you have decent savings or a better half running the house.
If you are planning to run this as a one man show (via outsourcing lot of the functions), you will have to deal with emotional swings – One day, you will be on top of the world and the next day, you will find yourself why did you even venture out on your own. Its in these times that having a partner / co founder helps.
Still think your job sucks and following your passion by running a business is a lot of fun ?
There is no straight answer which will apply to anybody.
Ofcourse its not all that bad. The thrill of making that first sale, learning new stuff everyday, meeting a variety of people, solving problems and getting work done etc etc is definitely more fun than slaving over ppt’s in a cubicle.
So yes, go ahead and startup. Just take off the rose tinted glasses first because at the end of the day, its primarily about creating and running a successful business.
Ever since we moved back, have been looking for a sports complex where I could go and play either Tennis or Squash. Unlike Delhi which has a couple of great DDA owned and operated sports complexes, Gurgaon has very limited options. Most of them are either in private apartment societies and clubs or sports academies like Ryder’s. Very limited ‘public’ options are available.
Was driving down Sohna Road the other day when I happened to see a board for the Tau Devi Lal Sports complex. Entered on a whim to explore the place and was quite excited to see the signboard (below) which lists facilities for a variety of sports including Basketball, volleyball, badminton, boxing, lawn tennis, swimming pool, squash etc etc apart from the regular favorites of football and cricket.
Well, my excitement as very short lived as after driving around the complex for a few minutes, all I could see were vacant plots with no sign of the myriad ‘facilities’ listed on the board. Only the football and cricket stadiums it seems were operational.
When I stopped and asked somebody where the tennis courts were, he started giving me directions to a place in Sector 14 !! When I asked him what all was operational in the sports complex, he told me that only the cricket and football fields were operational.
To say that I was dismayed is an understatement. I mean here is this huge place with the potential to be built into a world class sporting complex and all it has to show for are two fields. I wonder why if the government had ‘planned’ things on such a grand scale didn’t execute it to completion.
Anyone interested in filing an RTI petition to figure out why or participating in a campaign to see if we can revive this place and get all the other facilities built ?
Here is a word of advice for all NRI’s who are looking to move back to India.
“If you are looking to move to India because you are bored of your job in the US or feel there are more opportunities here, then DON’T move back”
I moved to Gurgaon 6 months back and its been a mix of pleasure and pain
Its dusty, dirty, noisy, crowded, humid with crappy roads, even more crappier condos etc etc..you get the drift.
If you want to live in a condo like you lived in the US, it will cost you atleast a lakh per month
Most service providers and handymen will not be on time and will even be very blase about it.
Shopping for good quality veggies and fruits is a pain.
The fine line between a weekday and the weekend usually blurs.
Maids and cooks are supposed to be a convenience but they are usually a pain in the neck because you gotta supervise them and keep an eye on them.
Options for weekend breaks are very limited.
If Google Maps says you will reach a place in 6 hours, it will take anywhere between 10-16hours.
Sports facilities are pretty limited and the ones that are available are pretty expensive.
The gyms here are crappy and are usually in the basement of some house nearby. There are good ones but usually very far from where you live and the commute is just not worth it.
5kms of travel is like 25 miles of travel here.
If you have been out of India for more than 3+ years, and have not been here in the last 3 years, you will get THE STICKER SHOCK of your life when you get back.
Stuff has become frightfully expensive…some examples include petrol, wine, fine dining, movie tickets etc etc.
Basically, everything is available here but at a price. You can almost duplicate your US lifestyle but the cost will be directly similar to what it was in the US. The only difference will be a drop in your salary (And this is if you were living in NYC or SFO. If you are living in Dallas or somewhere in the midwest in a $800/2BR apartment, the fun will be even more)
Well, that’s the bad part.
Now to the good parts even though they may seem a bit vague
Its home and I feel more ‘alive’ here.
The food somehow tastes better.
There is a notional sense of freedom (like zipping on the expressway at midnight without worrying about a cop car on your back)
I usually don’t buy books online. Yeah, I know its kinda strange but when it comes to books, I am more of an instant gratification person. If I want to read a book, I will want to go buy it that same very day. Which is why I had never bought anything from flipkart yet.
Was looking to get a book a few days back and since I was running short on time (and neither did i have a burning desire to read Rashmi Bansal’s “I have a Dream” the very same day) I thought i would give flipkart a shot.
I went ahead and placed an order for the ‘bestseller’ on the 8th of September. The order confirmation email provided an ETA of 2-3 business days. Having heard of flipkart’s focus on customer service, I assumed I would receive the book the very next day. Here is what i based my assumption on:
1.) I am a first time customer so I assumed that they would have systems in place to ensure “Customer Delight” to first time clients.
2.) I live in Gurgaon which is barely an hour away from their Distribution center in Delhi so I assumed their internal logistics delivery team would deliver it in a cinch.
Well, as they rightfully say, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me !
When i did not get the book after 3 days, I went to their Facebook page to see if other peeps were also facing similar issues. Turns out they were. And folks were not raving about their call center experience either.
Since I wasn’t in a tearing hurry to get the book, I just assumed it would arrive in the next few days. And it did finally, on the 14th of September.
A very good friend of mine works at FK so I gave him a call to apprise him about the situation. He did get back to me with the ‘reason’ for the delay. Turns out I had entered the incorrect pin code due to which systems had scheduled it for delivery with an external vendor instead of their internal logistics which would have resulted in a faster delivery time. Fair Enough.
This post is not however about the delayed delivery. Its about how companies gradually get sucked into the “marketing = advertising” game and “focus on customer acquisition at any cost”.
Ever since they have been valued at a billion dollars, it seems FK’s focus is on acquiring new customers even if they don’t make any money on them.
For example, the market price of the book i bought was Rs 150 but I got it at Rs 101 including free delivery. Flipkart probably lost money on the deal but I guess someone is some business function consoled themselves with the fact that they had acquired a new customer.
What really surprised me was their seeming lack of a strategy and plan for converting new customers into repeat customers.
During this entire episode, nobody from their CSR team:
1.) Called me to confirm if I had received the book within the SLA or 2-3 business days
2.) No one called for feedback on the ordering or delivery experience or any other issues I may have faced.
They just assumed that I was a happy customer since they did not hear back from me (because despite the delay, I did not write to their CSR or call them or post on their fb wall for various reasons).
Flipkart has rolled out television advertising but it seems to me they will just be compounding their problem more as part of this marketing initiative: More customers = more issues on account of sub optimal backend systems.
They are at an inflexion point of growth it might do them some good if they spend a portion of their marketing budget on analytics for new customers so that they turn into happy repeat customers.
As for me, I will probably give them another chance though it wont be without any misgivings either.
This video is guaranteed to leave you speechless. Its definitely one of the most amazing innovations I have seen in a long long time. I almost had tears in my eyes at the end of it
See what an empty plastic bottle can do. Just goes to show that ‘necessity really is the mother of invention’.
What’s surprising is that even though the video shows a pepsi bottle being used, Pepsi hasn’t really taken any initiative to support this. Might be a great opportunity to do some good and get some social brownie points too.
I know this is out of the blue but GreenCover needs your vote and support
We are one of the ‘spark’s at the Mahindra Rise competition and a large number of public votes will give us a shot at winning a grant, which in turn will help us make GreenCover a reality.
What is GreenCover. Its basically an org which aims at increasing the amount of trees and green cover in our cities via gifting of trees. More about the concept at www.greencover.in
So how do you vote. It takes less than a minute and here is the process:
1.) Visit this site: http://www.sparktherise.com/projectdetail.php?pid=3398
2.) Login with your Facebook id (Its easier than creating a manual profile)
3.)Click on the green ‘Vote’ button at the top right hand of the page.
A few weeks ago, I had gone to the office of a pretty prominent politician in New Delhi with a friend. He was there to discuss some work with them and I had tagged along just for the heck of it.
While we were waiting, another regular looking gentleman in a plain white shirt and black trousers entered the room. He was introduced to us briefly but I didnt quite catch his name and designation.
Soon after, we went out for a smoke break while my friend hung around to talk to him.
10 minutes later, my friend comes back beaming. It seems he had succeeded in getting electricity to a remote village in one of the larger states in India.
Turns out, the non descript gentleman was a Member of Parliament and the village in question fell under his constituency. My friend had visited this village sometime back on some work and had been very warmly welcomed by the local residents. On finding out that the village did not have any electricity, he had it in the back of his head that he would do something, someday to ensure that the village got electricity.
Who knew that a chance encounter could trigger such a change and it really opened my eyes to the power of politics and the potential it has to change our world. (Of course I still need to wait to see if the said gentleman keeps his promise)
I also realized that ‘politics’ is not all that bad. While there maybe a few rotten apples from the old guard, there is a fresh new breed of politicians on the ground who are working to bring about incremental change. They are young, smart, well educated and are slowly but surely changing the face of politics while doing good work.
Now if only they did a better job of communicating their achievements to a wider audience, it might encourage more people to join politics along with promising hope for a better future for India.
Its been almost 10 day since i moved back to India and a majority of that time has been spent house hunting. Its been harder than i thought it would be and the end doesnt seem to be near either.
Its been interesting however and here are some observations over the last 10 days:
1.) The heat is not as bad as i thought it would be. I guess if you come with an expectation of stepping into a burning oven but are greeted by stray showers and a pleasant breeze, 105 F doesnt feel that bad.
2.) Traffic is still a bitch and everyone is in a mad rush to get somewhere. While there is chaos in Gurgaon, its an absolute pleasure to drive in Delhi (thanks to the infrastructure buildup on account of the CWG games)
3.) The larger the car, the larger the chance that its driver will violate traffic rules (read, drive on the other side of the road, cut you off, no blinkers, and attempt to get into any space they can find to get ahead. )
4.) Most SUV’s seem to be owned by politicians or their ilk
5.) Stuff has become incredibly expensive. (e.g. a coconut on the roadside costs Rs 25, a plate of momos at Galleria market – Rs 70, etc etc)
6.) Craigslist does not work here for finding an apartment. There are 3 major real estate portals and almost all have the same format and listings by the same agents…almost none of the owners post on their own and nobody posts any pictures of the apartments. You have to go through a bevy of agents to find an apartment.
7.) The definition of a ‘good’ apartment varies from agent to agent and the decent ones are ridiculously priced( e.g Rs 35,000 for a 2 BHK in Richmond Park)
8.) The ‘good’ apartment complexes have ‘clubs’ – where there is a pool but it is usually non functional and a gym which is a small room with a few treadmills and some exercise equipment – And this is for a complex which has a couple of hundred apartments.
9.) 3G speeds on my phone remind me of the dial up era ( and i thought ATT was slow in NYC )
10.) The malls are a circus on the weekends and all the eateries seem to be doing brisk business
11.) Its easy to get used to a morning routine of chai and newspapers (the physical kind. Yes, newspapers are still alive and kicking and doing really well unlike the NYTimes)
12.) The amount of dust is unbelievable on account of the constant construction going on everywhere.
13.) FM radio stations are dime a dozen and they all seem to go on a commercial break at the same time (which can be quite irritating)
14.) The food somehow tastes better…e.g. the papayas are amazing here
15.) There are a large number of BMW’s and Audi’s on the road…and mercs seem to have become common place.
Now that i think about it, living in America can really spoil you.
Despite all this, i seem to be strangely at peace with myself. While it can get frustrating at times, it definitely does feel more alive here to be out and about. Lets hope this optimism continues
P.S: Regarding the title of this post, its because that genuinely seems to be the case. The ‘rich’ have the power to influence and improve the overall external conditions but they seem to be perfectly content living inside their gated colonies and air conditioned cars while the roads crumble, trash lies everywhere and the common man carries on.
