[pradeep.mats]

Hey xcool,

NM is in the verge of starting its incubation center for entrepreneurs. Presently it is encouraging business plans which are small scale in nature. so do we see you putting in your business plan at the incubation center?

Originally Posted by xcoolaryan

Yeah "why we want you to be rich" is a good book.

Another one of my fav is Cash Flow Quadrant.

Btw, naga25french I have PMed you my email id along with list of books I am looking for.

[xcoolaryan]

We are conducting the Marketing 101 for startups, entrepreneurs and companies. This workshop aims at arming individuals with the tools to market themselves, their companies and their products without hiring or deploying expensive marketing resources. Marketing 101 will broach topics such as market research, market sizing, branding, corporate identity, marketing planning, digital marketing and getting funded. Date: 11th September, 2009 Time: 9:00 to 18:00 Venue: The Royal Orchid, Bangalore. To know more details about the workshop, please visit our website Altius Consulting- Marketing Research, Viral Marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing Planning, Brand Management /register1.html or call Chandini Atmakur @ +91- 9740512783 Arjun Vaidyanatha @+91-9916920261

Disclaimer :This is not advertisement. I got this msg on my linkedin group. Posting link does not work, so I copied this msg. I am not related to above program in any way.

[dushyant bhatia]

Ssssup guys.. been months since I've looged onto PG.. Was shocked to see pages full of banner ads.. looks like its become a hardcore business now..
@nikhil aka xcool - Howz u dude.. been a while.. so what u upto..

Guys I'm not sure how many of u remember but I started a website called www.blogertizeworld.com a year ago and yesterday we officially launched our first service - i,e, www.bwjams.com - a micro blogging service. Just wanted to know your thoughts on the same.
Also would be great to have some suggestions as to how I market the same since my target market would be global audience and not restricted to any particular geography

@nikhil - u've done an amazing work of keeping this thread alive.. will try to be active from now on..

Cheerz

[xcoolaryan]

Hi Dushyant, it's nice to hear from you again. How your exam goes? Are you planning to join any college this year? Would love to meet you, let me know when you will be free?

@ micro blogging service - site looks clean and nice, excellent design

@www.blogertizeworld.com - refreshing look, site looks stunning

We would like to to hear much more about your first venture. like what kinds of problems you faced? Share your experience, we all will have something to learn from it.

[xcoolaryan]

EBay has launched global easy buy program where anyone can shop directly from Ebay US website.
Info - EBAY

What interesting here is all the transcations are being carried by an international reseller called i2c world Inc. I googled and found this half-finished website.

Now if this becomes successful, it represent a tremendous business potential, both for EBAY as well as for i2c world Inc.

I am just trying to point out that there are numerous unexplored areas exists outside IT sector.

e.g. I been looking for trustworthy international mail forwarder but I am unable to come across anyone whom I can trust.

Then there are website such as www.20north.com which offer shopping facility from US to India. I believe there are lot of space for more of this kind of service providers.

I suggest everyone to read following book The Rising Indiapreneur: Instilling Entrepreneurial Skills

The book talks about how one can use global network to build a huge business india with very little capital.

[junoonmba]

Participate in the entrepreneurship events in School Of Management,IIT Bombay's Fest

www.sjmsom-avenues.com

[xcoolaryan]

Young, Fearless and Fed Up

How many of you dread Sunday nights because you know that the next morning you have to show up for a job you can't stand? How many of you have a boss that you know you’re undoubtedly smarter than? I am sure there are many of you out there that feel this way. I felt that way while working at Lehman Brothers in New York City back in the early 1990's.

[xcoolaryan]

I have a picture in my head of what the average entrepreneur is like. I’d guess pretty young (think Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) living the red beans and rice lifestyle and working 80+ hours a week and sleeping under their desk. On some parts, I’m probably right — but on many, I’m flat-out wrong. This is demonstrated by a recent report from the Kauffman foundation for entrepreneurship. The report is titled “The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur”. It’s based on a survey of 549 company founders across a variety of industries (that’s my first mistake, as it turns out entrepreneurs start companies other than Internet software companies — who knew?)

For full article, click here.

[dushyant bhatia]

Originally Posted by xcoolaryan

Hi Dushyant, it's nice to hear from you again. How your exam goes? Are you planning to join any college this year? Would love to meet you, let me know when you will be free?

@ micro blogging service - site looks clean and nice, excellent design

@www.blogertizeworld.com - refreshing look, site looks stunning

We would like to to hear much more about your first venture. like what kinds of problems you faced? Share your experience, we all will have something to learn from it.

Hey buddy.. sorry couldn't reply earlier.. was busy with a couple of things.
Well - I've decided not to do MBA.. not taking CAT this year.. Currently I'm pursuing CFP (Certified Financial Planner) and CIIA (Certified Int'l Inv. Analyst)

About my first venture - well I've had my share of ups and downs... since I'm not a techie.. I had to outsource all the web dev work which was mighty expensive.
Apart from that since I'm the only one running this site... if I for some reason am not active for a day or so.. I lose out on a lot.
So bein active for atkeast 10-12 hours a day 7 days a week is quite necessary if one is not spending much on marketing the site.
As in case of all online startups, if u're alone - u have to take care of marketing, finance, tech dev etc and do all the montonous work which you wouldn't have done if u were workin for a MNC

Its been a good experience so far.. Am hoping things are positive from here on. BTW after BWJAMS - I've launched BWJABS - Just another Broadcasting service - last week. Do check it out whenever u hv time

Cheerz

[xcoolaryan]

Here is some real grounded experience speaking on "consumer" Vs "Enterprise".

Long, but worth reading!

From 2006-2008, I built a startup for Intel (as an intrapreneur) which
developed a hardware+software platform for small retailers in India.
For various reasons, Intel finally decided to spin this out and we
were lucky to find our software partner (a small company from Chennai)
that wanted to take it over. This company is one of the pioneers in
SaaS model based verticalized ERP solutions for various sectors. I
got to learn their business also. What I learnt about SMEs (and
selling to them) is as follows. BTW, this can be a long discussion
and if enough people are interested, I will be happy to go over all my
learnings in detail in a small gathering:

1. Indian SMEs are *extremely* savvy, much more so than their American
counterparts (I lived in the US for 20 years, so have seen many of
them there as well).
2. Unless your target customers are BOP, they are more likely very
'value-conscious' than 'price-conscious'. We had Kirana store owners
from guts of Mumbai, coming to us and plonking 50K for our solution
even when they had never used a computer before. That's only because
they understood the value.
3. Feet-on-the-street marketing and selling is extremely essential.
Before I outsourced the marketing/selling, I made the first 10 sales
myself. I dreaded walking guts of Mumbai in April-May but went
nevertheless. It helped me a lot to understand their POV, the sales
dynamics, the questions etc. I had no previous sales/marketing
experience, but I still believe that an outsourced marketer/seller
could not have been as effective as I was, simply because I had
studied their problems *A LOT* and could anticipate and address most
of their issues.
4. Which brings us to the next point of *REALLY* studying the market
before you develop anything. Anything in India can also be a victim
of the so called 'Chinese Math' (if only 1% of Chinese bought my
widget, i'd be rich!). Studying doesn't mean just their problems and
needs but also many unsaid things such as their work-flows, attitudes
etc etc. I had hired an ethnographer to help me with this.
5. Leading in thru someone with an established relationship helps a
lot. In my case, I piggy-backed onto Proctor and Gamble's
distributors to lead me into the store and make a pitch.
6. Your solution is going to replace a workflow that the guy has been
using for probably decades (and his forefathers did the same before
him). Your solution better address the transition issues up-front and
ensure his workflow with your solution is going to be better. And the
transition period can be very long (they have to run their business
while phasing in your solution plus they have all the fear/learning
curve issues). How you handhold them during that period is very
important.
7. Needless to say (but often overlooked) but you must sell a
'service' even if you are a 'product' company. You need to sell a
'platform' even if you design/manufacture a widget. For example: we
designed a great Point of Sale software for them but then realized
that Indian market introduces an average of 3 FMCG SKUs **EVERY
DAY**. We had to develop and provide a service so that we'd keep
their Point Of Sale software updated ASAP with new product SKUs/
Barcodes remotely added.
8. It may not always work but it helps to sell into a 'generational
handover' business. That's when younger guys are taking over from
their parents and they are much more open to try out more efficient
things.
9. Forced peer interaction helps. We invited 500 kirana retailers to
a marketing presentation (it helped to go with P&G). About 30% showed
up. The presentation and discussion was very lively. There were
people raising all sorts of issues and questions and there were others
who were directly addressing them. If you believe you have a good
product, you will find a few supporters in a large enough group who
will do your selling (at least initial mental barrier-breaking) for
you.
10. Needless to say, it's very important how you articulate the
benefits of your offering. A customer's biggest concern is that you
want their money and they want to ensure they get value for it. If
you focus on how they can see money 'coming out of your offering' as
opposed to only 'going into your offering' you get them to listen much
more attentively. That money coming out may be tangible (eg: our
offering will help you sell more of X) and/or intangible (eg: our
offering will reduce Y which is equivalent to additional Z rupees in
your pocket). Instead of (or atleast in addition to) a 'cost-benefit'
pitch, you need to make a 'cost-profit' pitch.
11. I have found that the SMEs (especially non-techie) are both 'in
awe of' and 'dismissive' of techies. The last thing you want to do is
to use the wrong language in front of them. Saying something like
"Our offering will increase your efficiency beyond your imagination"
smacks of tremendous arrogance and (often) ignorance. Most of these
guys can eat you and me for lunch when it comes to business acumen.
They are proud of their accomplishments. They know their business
much more than you do. You need to acknowledge that in you demeanor,
words, and actions. In our marketing pitch, we first talked about how
the world was changing (big retail coming) but how the SMEs have been
historically resilient. Our total approach was that of an assistant
rather than an expert to solve their problems. I had innumerable
kirana shop owners who have told me they had never expected such
humble words from a guy from Intel.
12. Many people here have said SMEs are resistant to change. In our
marketing presentation, we used to say this openly to our prospective
customers ("People say Kiranas never change. But I see changes
everywhere. Over the years, you guys have moved to electronic scales,
better planograms, cellphone based orders/deliveries, offering other
services such as billpay, keeping stores open longer, aggregating
services etc. If this is not change, what is?"). When I said this,
you could literally see them nodding in agreement and beaming with
pride. It's primal. They know you're a techie, so you're smart. A
simple acknowledgment of the evidence of their willingness to change
is not what they expect from you but if a smartass like you do, you
score some major points. BTW, all these changes are true and happened
only because they saw 'value' in it. When electronic weighing scales
were introduced, they often cost upward of $500 or more. Yet, the
adoption of weighing scales in kirana shops almost showed a hockey-
stick curve. And some are intangible values (eg: keeping stores open
longer or home deliveries).
13. It's important to understand your eco-system: customers,
complementers, competitors etc. That's a no-brainer. But it's also
important to understand other complementary and competing ecosystems.
And then work with as many of them as possible (within and outside
your ecosystem). Talk to them, form alliances, look for win-win deals
etc. Then go to your customer with an ecosystem to back you. Easier
said than done, but essential nonetheless.

There must be a few more that i don't recollect off the top of my head
but this should be a good start.

In summary, I believe that SMEs DO bite. But it takes a lot of effort
to understand, design, deliver, install, and support a 'solution'.
Like in any other field the world over, each market goest thru an
adoption curve. If you're in a new market, you need to identify those
early adopters. If the value proposition is there, the rest of the
market catches up. If not, you had a dud to begin with.

Our chennai partner has a restaurant automation solution on the SaaS
model. They have big customers (Cafe Coffee Day, Little Italy) and
also small guys. Would you believe that there's a small restaurant in
Chennai that uses handhelds to take orders and their process is
completely automated? Would you believe that a Vada-paav chain in
Mumbai uses GPRS based POS devices to automate their entire ERP on a
SaaS model? Would you believe that a small chain selling clean 'baraf
ka gola' on the streets uses a similar solution on a SaaS platform?
Would you believe that a small Masala manufacturer uses GPS based
tracking for its sales and fulfillment staff, again based on a SaaS
platform? And we had many Kiranas using our solution (and more were
waiting in line), people who had never used a computer before.

Things are changing. You will always find many people unwilling to
change. But you will also find quite a few wanting to change but
sitting on the fence. That's true with any market, American or
Indian. The real question is how are YOU going to convince them and
does your 'solution' deliver on 'value' while being humble, empathic,
sympathetic to their pains/cost of changing etc.

Sorry for a long post. Hope it helps.

It's not my intention to toot my horn. I definitely benefited a lot
because of Intel's name. YOu without big name backing will
undoubtedly have a harder time. But the basic behavioral approaches I
mentioned are universal and should help. Besides, it's easier to be
humble when you're a joe-blow and not a big co.