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Entrepreneurs in 2012

October 25, 2012May 6, 2018 Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

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.

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!!

Jaundiced

September 28, 2012January 3, 2017 Prasad Ajinkya1 Comment

Down with jaundice and malaria … Been advised two weeks bed rest. Its going to be a long two weeks!!

Jinx’s awesome service

September 16, 2012February 4, 2017 Prasad Ajinkya1 Comment

I have always been a fan of Diablo, and even better cool Diablo T-shirts that I can wear at work. Jinx, is one of the few online e-commerce fronts which provides such products. This is the story of their service, and what makes this entire event worth mentioning!

Prelude

It was the 6th of June, and my family wanted to gift me some clothes for my birthday which was in the next month (9th July). So after great deliberation and going through their broad choice of shirts, I finally decided to purchase 4 shirts and opted to ship them to India using the basic shipping method, that’s USPS.

Now, for those of you who have not shipping anything from abroad, keep in mind that USPS is the US equivalent of the Indian Post Office (I certainly was not!!). What this means, is that they are as efficient as their Indian counterparts!

Eternal Wait

I ordered the goods, and the expected date of delivery was after 20 odd days. Great, no problem. After a good 20 days, the dispatch was yet to arrive. So I started tracking the dispatch. Turns out that USPS does not provide tracking of the dispatch once it leaves the American shores. That means, its pretty much lost in the darkness!!

Thus, started my period of eternal wait. Everyday I would try following up with different agencies – USPS customer center (as bad if not worse than their Indian counterpart), Indian Customs Office (try find their number online, even Google fails!), Indian Postal Office (who keep directing you to different numbers).

Re-Shipped!

With the d-day close, I got in touch with the folks at Jinx and informed them about the lack of tracking. The support was understanding and they immediately shipped a second shipment. This was due to arrive in India by the end of July. The shipping was still the same, USPS, which meant that I would face the same problem tracking the shipment. As expected, tracking shipment was an impossible task (we visited the GPO, the local PO, the Customs Office), no luck.

Now I was getting pissed off, and quite disappointed, two shipments dispatched and not one was being tracked. I gave up hope and did not follow-up for another month.

And there shall be Light!

Finally, in the month of August (near 25th or so), I dropped the support person a mail, and asked what can be done regarding this issue. This time around, they verified my shipping address and informed me that they would be using the premium shipping method … whew, I was glad to be rid of USPS service!! Or so I thought, the premium service used USPS in the backend as well! Contacting them was even more futile and I had more or less given up all hope of those 100 dollars that I had spent 3 months back.

It was the first week of September, when I received a call from my wife, and she informed me that a shipment had indeend arrived and it was from Jinx! I was elated .. finally the package had arrived!!

Thank you Jinx!

Not only was this service patient and understanding, but also they were willing to go the extra mile and provide me outstanding service. The package delivery was not exactly their problem, however, they owned the delivery and ensured that it finally was delivered. Good show on you folks!

48craft.com

July 26, 2012May 6, 2018 Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

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.

Insuring a Close Shave

July 19, 2012May 6, 2018 Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

It was raining heavily the other day, and I was stuck in traffic. The road which other-wise would take me home in under ten minutes, was jammed with traffic. The incessant rain combined with braking every single meter was a cocktail for disaster. I was slowly losing my patience and was considering parking the car and walking home getting drenched in the rain.

Let me tell you about traffic rules in such cases … Mumbai is generally a well behaved city in India (if you consider the traffic) … but once monsoon hits, then the rules get flushed the drain and the roads become a battlefield of cuts, swerves and brakes! That day was no different.

I was slowly manoeuvring my 7 year old Wagon-R through the traffic, literally inching my way to my home. At that moment, an idiot chose to cut past me and get in his Honda before my car. In a fit of frustration, I tried to stop his cut by nosing ahead in the traffic and pushed frantically at my horn … HEY YOU ARE BREAKING THE CODE!! The Honda went right ahead and put a dent in my car … a light dent on the nose … had I gone a little ahead, then it would have struck the door!

A small dent on both of our cars was not a big enough matter to come out shouting in the rain. In fact both of us will not even report it to our insurance companies … why? Well because in India, the cost of repairing a small dent is lower than the additional premium payment that I would have to pay. In the developed countries, this exploit is not there, for accident claims UK you can see for yourself, the sheer thoughtfulness that has been put into creating a simple service for accidents claim is an inspiration for insurance companies in India. In India, a lot of processes are paper based, and the thoughts of having a paper-less office are still being dismissed off as impossible. Although the companies in the UK are also still debating the feasibility of the paper-less office, it is already being put in practice in a lot of companies.

The point is, would you go ahead and insure a minor accident, if you knew its going to increase the premium payment? In the developed nations, this approach is far more mature. Will the insurance companies in India think of a new insurance vehicle where close shaves and minor accidents can be covered?

Co-operation in Capitalism

July 18, 2012May 6, 2018 Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

If I have ever met you in person (or if you have frequented this blog for some time now) then you would know that I often extoll the virtues of the selfishness citing Ms. Rand and her essays on Capitalism.

In fact I at one time have had a heart to heart conversation with the founder of an organization whose heart is based on contribution and co-operation, stating that the philosophy behind Capitalism is different from a contribution oriented nature. It’s a muddle anyways, in fact the more you think about it, the harder it gets to really identify between the dark and light. There are ample examples where co-operation has been utilized for filling the coffers of different capitalists.

As a point to prove his case, this founder asked me to read a book … the Evolution of Co-operation. If you think game theory is fun, then you should definitely read this book! It’s highly recommended. I did read through the book, but I think it has taken me a bit long to fully understand it … just around 2 years or so!

Today, as I was reading a blog article on a news article based on that very book, a blog article by CFA Institute, I realized what the founder meant to say. That Co-operation can exist within a capitalistic system. The problem with most systems (and this is possibly the places which Ms. Rand glosses over) is that they have a tendency to go corrupt, to go weak. Socialism and Communism suffer from it and this was faced by Ayn Rand all through out her life.

But the solution to that problem is not Capitalism (as suggested by Ms. Rand), a corrupt Capitalistic system is worse if not the same as a corrupt Communist system.

However, that’s not the point of this post, the point is simple. That competition can occur only if there are implicit co-operative signals within the market. Signals such as agglomeration wherein competitors flock together at the same place such as an expo, exhibition or a khau galli to sell their goods.

Another personal lesson learnt – ideals are just that … ideal. In real life, you have to deal with corrupted ideals.