“Had it not been you”…

As mentioned in my previous post, my steps towards “Randomness” wouldn’t have been so firm “Had it not been you!” Yes, I am kinda acknowledging the ones who got me closer to my dream track. Who helped overhaul this fear and gave me confidence to stride ahead…

Like all acknowledgements, I’ll start off with my parents. What I got from them is blend of support and resistance. On one hand, their support helped me gain confidence on my decision their resistance helped me collect myself together and have a critical look at the decision that I am taking. You know at times we tend to get overly optimistic about future and this is where criticisms like these come into picture. Along with so many things that I have learnt in the last couple of years, I have also learnt how to take and respond to criticisms positively.

Next in queue, are my classmates from my engineering days. They were of two types, one who seemed to have that unflinching faith on me and my capabilities and they did communicate it to me frequently and then there were people somehow believed I am too capable of doing things and made sure that they innovate ways to tie me down. While the type 1 inspired me the type 2 always kept me on my toes. Type 1 always told me what I am worth and Type 2 always told me how ugly can politics get. But both of them taken together, in their own funny ways, ensured that I don’t get settled down with a “Commoners’ ” lifestyle. And how can I forget my lecturers!!! Their constant mentoring outside class and patience (with my dozing off after lunch break) inside were priceless!

Now it’s the turn for “My Group” that I made during college days and which is still holding strong. These 8 people (including a lecturer) have been like a family to me. I can’t tell you the number of people we have surprised just by demonstrating the strength of our group. They are the closest confidants that I have in this big bad world. The most peculiar thing about this whole group is we may forget to congratulate each other on achievements, forget the birthdays (And at times shamelessly wish a day before due to memory issues!). But come bad time and see how we regroup! This group has attributed to my decision making process in so many ways that I can’t just account them. All I would say is “indispensible” is an understatement for them!

Finally, I would talk about the “catalysts”(personified) who actually helped me zoom past the “procrastination” phase and actually get me on start up track. These weer the people who never got tired discussing business with me (and they still don’t). They stuck to me when I was giving fancy ideas (non feasible ones too!!!). Slogged their a*** preparing mockups and presentations for my fancies without ever asking back for a favor. To worsen it more, I did not use any of the mock ups and presentations made by them! Cause only after huge much amount of effort from their side, I was able to see that the idea has no value! And guess what, they still feel that my ideas were great. You know what, they were the ones to lend “Wings to my imagination” and see today finally I look like taking off!


I dare to make yet another understatement… “Thanks” to all of you!

Firm steps towards “Randomness”

It’s an amazing feeling, as I traverse from a world of conventionality and alignment to an entirely new world of “Randomness”, a world of enterprise! Yes, My own “Venture”. Sounds exciting right? Ya it definitely will, to every onlooker. I myself have got several pats on back for such a bold decision. But then there lies a fear deep inside my heart as to what if I mess it up!!! Till now (And for two more months, i.e. the notice period at Cognizant) I was being supported by a back up cushion, a steady support that gave me an assurance, a security and a guaranteed growth story! But two months from now, I’ll be open to big bad world without this support. Sounds menacing right?




This “Tight Rope Walk” feeling is scary enough to hurry you back to the pole from you started. To top it off you need to convince all the stake holders i.e. people getting directly impacted from this decision. Just think of the plight! No wonder why people who once get into jobs are never able to come out of it. They complain, they cry, they adjust, they compromise, they hate what they do, they dream of doing what they want to do, but they never dare to venture out! After all, why be foolish enough to leave such cushy and posh life for heat and dust of startup!



Well I guess I have an answer to this. (As I say this, I am also trying to convince myself with this write up!). I am getting into this not because I am frustrated from the job or for that matter the limitations associated with it. In my near three years of career as a SE, I have really given above average performance, never failed a deliverable, never upset my managers and never remained stuck in an issue for more than a day… I am getting into this because of a recurrent inner call. A call that has sustained within me since ten years! And this call was coupled with a tremendous opportunity to make a difference. That’s it.

I believe at all stages of your life, you will come across a split road. One that leads to easier but less rewarding track and another that’s tougher and “Supposedly” more rewarding. When in job, every time I make or achieve something, I get appreciations. But in reality, the impact created by this achievement is too miniscule when seen in the larger scheme of things. No wonder why, even the best of achievements fade away with time and you really don’t see much of an impact in your life or on society. Now take another scene. Your venture, your enterprise, that is being run by you! Here every decision is close to make or break situation. Every second moment you feel adrenalin rush about the things you do and every little action (It may or may not be an achievement) has a major impact in not only your’s life but the life your company’s associates. Howz that for starters?



Well, if you ask me, I can come up with many more such “Pious” analogies; after all I have lived with this call for ten years now. I put my papers in yesterday and the moment I clicked submit button for resignation a strong sense of fear rushed through my heart! I think that was the first “True Adrenalin Rush” that I ever had and I believe I am gonna have them every moment for the rest of my life! But what overpowered the fear in a blink was the faces of all those who believed in me and my capabilities and always told me that I’ll do something big someday. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to live up to their expectations, but I definitely know that I have started. I am gonna call them soon and give them a surprise by telling them that I have off boarded the train of conventionality and taken altogether a different route!



I am no Steve Jobs, but definitely I would love to conclude with …

“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!!!”

Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast

Copy Paste from the mail!!!! An interesting management article from Dr.YLR Moorthi.


Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast!


Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?


Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the
above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not
cameras but cell phones.


Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone
cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera
outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sony’s and Canons are
taking note.


Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is
HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that
play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by
selling music albums (that run for hours).


Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service
provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor
is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have
identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia
and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from
truth.


Nokia confessed that they all but missed the Smartphone bus. They admit
that Apple's I phone and Google's Android can make life difficult in
future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If
these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is
not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?


The "Mahabharata" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is
tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a
palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big
battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – "who is my
competitor?"


Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says
"What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get
the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from
the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into
their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as
a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony
think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak
defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as
"digital."


In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between
going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films
and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in
both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for
tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it
from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet
is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to
bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's
competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.


In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India?
Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are
better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and
others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence
services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT
executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use
videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad
scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in
2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They
were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think
that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I
would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no.
Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is applicable
besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the
prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to
one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from hundreds
of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then
telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As
it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!


India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly
different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The
filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans
who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket
or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed
into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was
reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor.
On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners
requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang
on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is
likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with
IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are
called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films
out of the market.


Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When
did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain
pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above
is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the
typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came
the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys
like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are
nowhere to be seen.


One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them
up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a
monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day
to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you
up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker.
They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do
we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of
clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch
companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your
competitor is hiding!


On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing
machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a
Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon
Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary!
The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal
called competition. He said "Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast"! That sums
it up rather neatly.


—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management
Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and
a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore.