Building an Enterprise - Team Dynamics -I

The first 2 formation years of an startup is very critical as it lays down the road map of how the organization is going to evolve in the next 5-10 years time span. This is the time when you know whether your organization would become a Global enterprise or merely exist as a lifestyle business.

Now what do you do in the first 2 years, you formalize your service offerings, identify your market segment, identify and close your first n customers and most importantly you look for funding options.

In midst of all these perhaps we all tend to ignore a critical piece, a piece which can make or break the organization in the long run, TEAM

To start with you have your core team, a team which has 4-10 people depending on the nature of the organization, they are the nucleus of the organization and mostly are people who have very strong association/linkage with the organization. The sample profile of these people would be Co-Owner/Share Holders, Evangelists, Academician, Advisors, Tech/Marketing Gurus , Industry stalwarts, Angel Investors. This group brings in a lot of experience/exposure/innovation to the table and it's extremely important that you handpick this team based on how you want your organization to evolve.

As with any other aspect of life we need to take some measures to see that this group is aligned and connected. It is not important that they all think in the same line ( of course not we are talking of a multi discipline team not robots coming out of assembly line ;) but it is definitely important that they share the same Vision.

Regular tractions, participation in common forums, involvement in common activities is the key to ensure that this group is working in tandem towards building a world class organization.

Even a small questionnaire could help at times to do a quick check on the common goal part

for e.g.

1.) Describe the organization in 10-20 words
2.) Who are you in the organization, what is your role and how do you think you are linked with the other people in the organization
3.) When you think of your org now you are ( Content, Excited, Worried, some other feeling)
4.) If you get 4 Crs in your hand right now , how would you spend it for your organization
5.) What is the worst nightmare you have regarding your org
6.) Describe the organization 5 years from now in terms of all the aspects ( Resources, Spread, Revenue, IPs) etc

Float this and you would be surprised that how often we fail to instill a common goal and trust me that hurts once the organization grows big.

Bye for now...

Strategic Thinking - The key to success

A lazy day today, great weather ( my favorite) coupled with some very long wait to get a few customer approvals to start new engagements was tickling my neurons...

I was thinking of one key parameter which differentiates between a top notch executive and a mediocre manager and according to me it's 'Strategic Thinking' or ability to see the big picture.

Whether you are a CIO or a Business Development head or a Entrepreneur the key differentiator is how big/deep can you think/visualize and then of course you need the capability ( self/team) to draw an measurable implementation plan based on that thought.

I know of a person ( a very close friend of mine) who own a company which has an offering on the Infrastructure space . I was generally discussing about his vision in terms of the product/company and to which he mentioned that in the next 100-150 years the amount of data which will get generated will surpass any storage technology available today and so if we can leverage this need we are in the game. The beauty of his answer is in the 'Big Picture' thought which talks about a period where neither he nor his next successors will exist but then thats what depth thinking is all about...

Just like any other capability of human beings 'Big Picture' thinking also needs to be nurtured, groomed, protected and exercised and it's very important for people who aspire to make it big in their life.

To end this blog with an incident which happened very recently where a person whom I know personally had invited me and then realized that he had forgotten keys to his home. He then said you know I don't remember where my keys are because thats an information which is of no use to me and I would prefer keeping that bit of brain free to absorb something which is meaningful

Thanks.....

Scary Thoughts - Hope it is just a nightmare

suddenly Woke up at 4 in the morning. It was a horrifying dream. In my dream I saw that suddenly all my thoughts, insights, secrets have become publicly known to everybody. Even before I do anything or speak any stuff people know what the content or idea would be. In my dream I had a sweat attack.

But is it just a nightmare, just the other day I was thinking that it would be a good idea if I can do something in my free time and I don't even recall discussing that with anyone. Suddenly I got an sms which said ' wanna earn a few bucks sitting at home '. That was a mere coincidence may be.

I was evaluating a accounting software on the web and I din't like it and the next day I had a marketing brochure of a accounting software provider company having the exact feature which I had desired.

Sometimes I get scary thinking that a single force/power is controlling this entire information highway spread across the web and all our interactions ( 1000s per day) are getting filtered through a powerful BI engine and finally your creativity, personality , thoughts , desires, secrets are getting persisted for the entire world to access

Seems like I have been watching too much of sci-fi or is it.....

Validation - Key to success

The last 2-3 months leading to your entrepreneurial journey are very critical ones as thats the time when you need to go all out to validate your concept, the business model and should at least have a rough sketch regarding how the organization will shape up in the next 5 years

Today with the advent of platforms like Google Ad words, social media , business forums it has become much easier to attract a larger crowd to put their comments on the viability of your model. Along with that meet/talk/chat with as many industry people as possible to dry run your model from different aspects.

The most important part is to do your homework right, draft a basic model which highlights what you offer, why are you offering that, why do you think you can only offer that, what are the risks and what are the numbers and then just put that in front of as many people as possible

Be discreet on the how part but never feel that someone can take your idea just by hearing it. If that happens return back home happy thinking that you had a very loose business model and good that you didn't start anything with that

Remember the key to your success is a strong business model which can't be replicated easily and which can give you a long term market advantage.

More in my next blog

Cheerio
M

Learning to drive a car / Building an organization

Sitting in CCD ( an Indian version of Starbucks The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary) I was trying to think the various phases which an organization grows and how we can map different strategies like ( Deal Space, Negotiation, Customer Acquisition etc) to the stages of the organization. In the process I could see an interesting analogy with the way we drive or learn to drive .... :)

Stages of Organization life cycle

1.) Conceptualization and Planning Phase-> The process of selecting a car and doing estimation in terms of 'cost of acquisition' vs the benefits; excitement, dreams ....

2.) Inception Phase-> Driving the car with 'Learners' tag; fear, inhibition, frustration, bootstrap

3.) Sustain Phase -> Driving the car removing the 'L' tag and surviving any major crash; learning the nuisances of driving the rules, the people, the road...

4.) Stabilization Phase -> Driving the car with Music and AC on; enjoying long drives, loving the journey

5.) Growth Phase -> Switching to a bigger model or getting a chauffeur to drive; innovation, funding

The challenges are both at the micro and the macro level, to successfully cross the various phases and also knowing upfront the checkpoints for jumping to the next stages

More in the next blogs

Cheerio
Mitul

Bootstrapping your business - Part I

I have been through a lot of seminars and conferences on 'Start-ups' and 'Entrepreneurship' and it seems everywhere there is an agreement that 'You need to run your business for a period , validate your concept/business model and before you can approach for funding'.

The key challenge lies in terms of keeping your offering small ( in terms of the capital/operating cost) yet affective and accelerating it through a very aggressive Sales model.

So it's very important to nail down your concept/idea in terms of 'Revenue Projection' and 'Expenses' and then see how much you can spent vs how much you will get.

Searching for ideas which can generate investors interest right at day 1

More in the next blog

Understanding the 'People' mind

While we move forward in the Sales and Marketing journey, one key differentiation comes from the power of reading minds of people. with time you have to grow a very strong observation power, will need to have the ability to create complex decision trees and most importantly will have to be a good judge of people behavior.

I had a very interesting episode very recently, we were trying to negotiate with a very senior person and the call went very bad but somehow I had this feeling that this guy is in our favor and is just trying to create his weight. we kept an watch and within a week we got a call from that person and the deal was through.

No this is very challenging and it needs a lot of people interaction , a lot of reading ( books like can be of big help) and most importantly going through such real life situations.

Cheerio