Entrepreneurs in 2012

With the year 2012 coming to an end, I have been thinking for quite some time about entrepreneurship now. In fact, currently I am thinking about bootstrapping my own setup with a friend. Having said that, it is interesting to note how entrepreneurship has changed its face in the society.

There used to be a time when having a government job would automatically include you in the elite of the society. Every family would aspire to raise their son to have a government job. To know that you are going to be having your own business would mean years of hardship and minimal chances of making it big ahead.

However, as the License Raj has come to an end and the government has slowly liberalized over the past decades, entrepreneurship has changed over a new leaf. It has started becoming synonymous with capitalism and everyone who goes to the IITs or IIMs dreams of starting their own firm and making it big one day. I share that dream – a dream which I hope to make real some day.

The infographic below shows how entrepreneurship was in the year 2012. Almost half of the entrepreneurs who had managed to survive and scale into becoming SMEs are optimistic about the year ahead. Yes, 2013 is going to be a good year.

DNA-infographic

But being optimistic does not mean taking inadvertent risks. It means being prepared … being prepared for the good, and being prepared for the bad as well. Yes, it means insuring against the bad, and thinking along the lines of business insurance.

The thing about start-ups is that many firms do not realize the sheer amount of business risks they face day-in day-out. All these risks are called as operational risks. The risk we face in day to day operations. It could be a simple thing such as forgetting to file the taxes, or neglecting to buy the software license of some critical software that you require. In India, start-ups do tend to cut corners … not to make the quick buck, but to avoid the load of paperwork that comes with it. I am sure that would be the case in other countries as well.

Take a look at this infographic I found through Hiscox Business Insurance. It was here that I learnt about the myriad of business risks. Now the question is, why entrepreneurship is the road to success? Well, take a look at the top internet billionaires list. Almost all of them have touched their first million in the past to years, and their first billion in the past 5. That clearly displays the power of a good idea can launch a start-up to stardom.

These things cannot happen without proper preparations. Take a look at the top 4 billionaires on that list, 3 of them work for Google, one is the CEO (the man with the plan), the two others are the founders. A good idea will attract funds, yes … but a good idea requires excellent execution skills and proper risk mitigation tactics to avert calamities. So entrepreneurs, dream big and prepare for the worst!!

Happy Dussehra

Here’s wishing all of you a very happy Vijay Dashmi and a Happy Dussehra.

When we were kids, we often used to say – Happy Dussra, Haath Paay pasra :)

Today, is in essence, just that. It’s a holiday and everyone is relaxing. In Maharashtra, we have this tradition of exchanging leaves from the Shammi tree. Apparently, Dussehra is also the day that marks the end of the Pandava’s 14 year exile (yes, even Pandava’s had an exile like Ram).

On that day, the Pandava’s had hidden their weapons in a Shammi tree, and that is why the leaves of the tree are more precious than gold itself. Hence the exchanging (I am sure some stingy old person might have thought of this lore to circumvent actual gold exchange :-)).

Financial Services: A sunrise sector

In any developing economy, the one thing that’s always on the rise is the GDP, the expenditures and yes, the expendable income available with an individual.

Over a period of time, the same individual realises that keeping money in the bank is the same as wasting that money away. This is due to the high inflation rates that developing economies have. With a saving interest rate of 5-6% and an inflation rate of 11%, the opportunity cost of keeping money in the bank is a whooping 8% (give or take a few basis points).

Soon, this individual will start looking at a portfolio of financial investments to get better returns on his savings. Depending upon the risk appetite, he will choose between vehicles such as Mutual Funds, Bonds, Commodities and more. These are Financial Services … a rising sector in all developing economies.

In fact, with a rising economy, you will find a host of international firms looking to set-up shop in that country. With international firms come top-paid jobs. In this case, jobs in the Financial Services sector. Careers in some of the top financial institutes of the world.

Needless to say that such specific and specialized knowledge work requires specialized people to find the right people for the task. Of course there are sites such as Monster, et al for your normal run of the mill jobs, but what about specialized portals for financial services?

I came across AP Executive, which does executive recruitment for some of the top financial institutes in the world. Recruitment is a big cost driver for many companies and most organizations have a clear cut recruitment policy. In the past 6 months or so, we have seen recruitment on the rise, even in developed nations. Sectoral growth leads to higher recruitment, better players, more competition and finally a better consumer experience.

After what happened nearly 4 years ago, it is great to see this growth in the past year or so. Put the right people behind the wheel and there will be success. Financial Services as a sector shows great promise and increasing dividends … but only if the right people are in the leadership positions.

Indian politics: A conundrum of choice

This can also be titled, why I do not bother to vote any more. But lets keep that aside for the moment.

Here’s the thing, there are basically only two major national parties (yes there are others who claim to be national parties, but who are we kidding). The Congress and the NDA. There are other small time players which keep on switching sides as they see fit.

Over the past 15 years of my conscious life, I have seen the rules of both the parties (sadly more of Congress and less of NDA … but that really does not matter).

Both the parties have proved that they are corrupt and have some really royal scams to their names when they were in power. Both the parties have similar agenda. Both the parties hardly live upto expectations (however there are some exceptions to these, but they will never make it to the top of the pyramid).

Another facet in this conundrum is the fact that the Constitution of India mandates that all political parties declare themselves as upholding the socialist values of the country (at least on paper that is!). I don’t know how Mamtadi has a communist party which is against the constitution, but when have politicians really adhered to rules? So lets not bark up this wrong tree.

The point here is that the constitution more or less forces all parties to uphold the same ideological values (if any!!). Add to it that many MLAs switch sides to get something more for themselves from these two parties.

So at the end of the day, instead of debating on ideological differences, we end up seeing a simple mud-slinging campaigns between the two parties. Look they swindled x thousand crores and look how corrupt they are. At the end of the day the party going to rule is going to swindle. And that’s the sad moot point.

To the common man, it really does not make any difference whether Congress or NDA are the ruling party. All initiatives taken are so miniscule in nature that they end up being money making schemes for the ruling party (and in some cases for the opposing party as well).

So I hope the conundrum is pretty clear here … which party to vote for? The end result is the same. Choice is just an illusion.

Customization in Retail Fashion

Back in the year 2006, when I was working for eYantra (which is a firm specializing in brand merchandise for corporates and corporate gifting), the buzzword in the merchandising industry was customization.

If it was a good looking merchandise, then it’s value rose by nearly 30%-50% if you could customize it to the customers needs. That was the time we got into a narrow niche of branded merchandise. Everything from iPhones to t-shirts used to be branded by the target corporate’s brand logo (as defined by their marketing team’s brand logo guidelines).

The going was good, and soon we had acquired our series A round of funding. This obviously attracted other players and companies based completely on customization were formed – companies such as Myntra.com (whose ads you see even today). Needless to say that Myntra has grown beyond customization and is now almost a full blown e-commerce portal.

It’s been almost 6 years since and I had almost forgotten about the retail and fashion industry. That was until I came across this smart company – they specialize in providing woven labels with the text customized as per your needs. You can check this site out – look here. The thing is that woven labels is not a new idea, in fact they have been around in Britain (in Coventry) for more than a century now.

The cool thing about these labels, is that you can order any amount you want and have them customized right there on that site. There is almost zero manual intervention in the order placement process and that’s what makes a strong case for customization in the retail markets.

If this kind of technology and business processes were there in India, then it would have taken the branding and merchandising market by storm. In a developing economy wherein almost everything needs to be branded, having a custom made woven label takes the branding experience in retail merchandise to the next level. The good part about developing economies is that they have ready access to the developed markets to look at successful business models.

In fact this idea is so awesome, I won’t be surprised if I start seeing a Label Yourself outlet in India within a few years!

Torchlight 2

I had started playing Torchlight back in 2010, when Blizzard was sitting mum about Diablo III. During those days, there was a huge gap in the RPG space … a gap that needed to be filled with different Diablo clones. A gap which was completely satisfied by Torchlight.

So with the impending delay in the release of Diablo III (as always with Blizzard and their releases), I was glad for the release of Torchlight 2.

Unlike it’s predecessor, Torchlight 2 is not only restricted to the city of Torchlight and the many dungeons underneath. It’s not your classic dungeon crawl, but instead it features an open world, where the adventurer can stumble upon other random dungeons for additional loot.

estherian enclave

Torchlight 2 takes off right where Torchlight stopped. The plot picks up from the pace and throws you, the adventurer right in the middle of the story. The Alchemist (supposedly one of the heroes from the earlier series), has been infected by the ember and is trying to end all sources of ember in order to stop his infection. Our job is to stop the Alchemist and his nefarious plans.

The good part about Torchlight 2 is that the game play which we all loved has been retained. The awesome part is that the classes have been streamlined into four different classes – the melee Berserker who relies on Dexterity as a main stat, the melee Engineer who relies on Strength as a main stat, the ranged Outlander who relies on Dexterity as a main stat and the ranged Embermage who relies on Focus as the main stat. I am using the term main stat only loosely here, since all the different stats have different uses for all 4 classes.

berserker critical
A berserker scores a crit

What I liked about the classes, is that all four have distinctly different game playing styles. The trees and skill differences are also so distinct that it sets each variation apart.

That apart, the game can be played solo, on a lan or on the internet. All you need is a login with Runic Games. I have not really tried my hand with multi-player on this one yet, since I always (ALWAYS) like to finish the game first on solo and then go for the different variations.

Believe me, right now I am having much more fun than grinding/farming the different Acts in Diablo III. That’s a huge plus!!

Car Customization

In India, the moment you say the words car customization, the name Deepak Chhabria automatically crops up. DC used to be the pioneer of car tuning and modding in India. Back then, changing the looks of your car was not considered as the “in thing”, and people almost always made do with the factory settings.

With the successful launch of the Need for Speed series, the Indian market has slowly warmed to the idea that even cars can be customized and do not have to be kept in their pristine form in which they had been shipped from the factory.

Yes, we have finally started tearing away that smelly plastic from the upholstery and consider sticking on cute little dog stickers on our bumpers as well!!

The really elite ones do the smart thing and get a better looking car from abroad, and then go ahead and get customizations which are worth that car! In the digital era, almost everything that you purchase has a little CPU of it’s own … yes, even the fridge knows when to milk goes bad! Then it comes hardly a surprise that most cars are also smart cars. And smart cars require smarter customizations and mods.

This is where brabus comes into picture. Brabus is a German company which absolutely rocks the customization scene. Especially if you own a Mercedes. In fact, in the past the BBC has covered the brabus in their automobile show, Top Gear. An excerpt from one of their episodes,

It’s unlikely, but should you find the standard Mercedes SL600 wanting in the power department, mentalist German tuning firm Brabus may have the answer. By throwing away most of the standard Merc’s motor, adding new turbochargers and fiddling with the many onboard computers, it’s created the most powerful convertible car ever.

Now, why would I recommend that you definitely get this for your Mercedes? Well, if you can afford to get a custom made car through customs, then it has to be either a Mercedes, a Ferrari or better yet, a Maybach. Interestingly enough, Brabus do tuning for all these brands. So the next time you are thinking of car tuning, don’t say DC … say Brabus :)