Tag: Personal

As the World Ends

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

Today is the D-Day, the day when the Mayan calendar runs out … and thus, leading us to think that the world has ended. What were they really thinking?

In almost all civilizations, this day has been predicted. We Maharashtrians have an end of the world known as pralay. This literally translates into the great flood (Noah! Where art thou?). Interestingly enough the reason for this is pretty much the same across civilizations, that mankind has become decadent and corrupt in its glory and technical superiority and the gods have decided to end all mankind. Think about the mythical continent of Atlantis and how it ended. Yes, it’s a myth … but stories are told to enforce beliefs.

Another source of media supporting this idiotic notion is Hollywood movies. With movies such as Deep Impact, I am Legend, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Day After Tomorrow making big bucks, it simply makes sense to talk about the end of the world to get attention in the media (like this post for example!).

I still have not seen the retail brands out there taking advantage of such an event. If I were the owner/marketing manager of a retail brand … I would declare a sale and call it the End-of-the-world Sale!! Yes, its an original thought!

So, what are you going to do to handle the end of the world? I just celebrated 4 years of happy marriage with my wife yesterday. I intend to continue doing so for the next 40 years to come! End of the World … phhh … not for me. I use Google Calendar.

Entrepreneurs in 2012

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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!!

48craft.com

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This is an open letter to all of you.

It’s a bit personal and the subject at hand is very close to my heart. It’s about start-ups and seeing a company slowly bleed its way, somehow so stuck in day to day operations that we cannot immediately stop the bleeding and start the recuperation process.

A friend of mine, Vamsee had quit his campus job post an MBA, and started a company in the e-commerce area. Coming from the culturally different region of Andhra Pradesh (the region is a fusion of 3-4 different cultures, correct me if I am mistaken!), there are a lot of local handicrafts makers in and around this state.

Typically, artisans are local people focused on day to day sales in order to fill their bellies with a days worth of food. They do not have access to larger markets (and certainly do not have access to international markets). The site was created to primarily help these artisans reach out to bigger markets.

That in mind, 48craft was created. You can take a look at this handicrafts site here.

With a lot of work from different professionals, the 48craft was hand-crafted lovingly. As the site’s popularity grew, so did it’s product base. Today within a span of two years, 48craft hosts thousands of products and has to maintain an equally large inventory.

So if you are passionate about start-ups or handicrafts, then head on to 48craft.com and check out some of their cool ethnical stuff.

The Mistake

Prasad Ajinkya1 Comment

This is a navel-gazing post. Yes, that means I will be talking about my life, and an event which is probably the dumbest mistake that I have made! There is no wisdom or moral at the end of the story, so you might as well stop reading now … but if you want to read about absent minded-ness, then feel free to read on.

It was a good friend’s wedding reception, and he had already followed-up with me about getting the tickets for both the wedding and the reception. The wedding was in Kolkata and the reception in Delhi. I opted in for the reception. Delhi is so much easier to reach by flight, has more frequent flights and I can also work on parallel pet projects in that city. Anubhav knows how I think, so he followed up 3 months, 1 month and 1 week before I bought the tickets. A round trip ticket to Delhi cost me around INR 12000 and it was well worth it.

The interesting thing about travel is that in the past decade of my life I have done so much of it that the anticipation during the entire prelude and climax to the travel has more or less vanished for me. I remember, when I was a child, we used to be so excited on the eve of the day we depart that we hardly ever slept! These days a 2 day trip is almost a routine activity and I have a bag planned for such trips. This means that I hardly ever bother about packing. My cavalier attitude towards this is one of the reasons why my wife gets extra stressed during these times!

On the D-Day, I was all ready, packed and set to go. I met Amit at the airport and we checked in. The Kingfisher airhostess asked us to wait at Gate 8, so without even taking a discerning look at our boarding passes, off we went to the designated gate. There was still time for the flight (we were an hour early), so I went and got myself a good book to read. We had met after quite some time, so we were talking for quite a bit of time. After what seemed like ages, Amit had the good sense to look at his boarding pass … there it was written Gate 10! Horror of horrors …we were waiting at the wrong gate all this while! We rushed off to Gate 10 … only to discover that the staff was closing up there and the flight had left without us!

Kingfisher staff must be used to such mishaps, because there was a standard op that was being carried out here … we were summarily ferried out of the airport and into the main waiting room where we could either collect our luggage and go home, or get onto the next flight. The problem with getting onto the next flight is that the previous ticket was non-refundable and it meant that 2 new tickets would have to be bought.

Simple enough, buy the next flight and reach Delhi. However, the prices were all inflated to INR 9000 – INR 10000. At that point, we decided to cut our losses and cancel our trip. What saddens me the most out of this trip is missing opportunities to attend the reception … due to the colossal act of stupidity. This post is also going to serve as a humble reminder to me to double check all documents.

After reaching home, the amount of explanations that we had to do, and the tum dono se yahi expect karna chahiye remarks still sting :) <—this smile is the smile of weary person who just wants to put this behind him and move on.