Because of my poor knowledge in wordpress, I’ve deleted many comments in this blog before. Today I found some of the older comments in “Spam” folder and approved them.

Sorry for unknowingly deleting your comments. Will take care from now on.

Thanks and regards,
Virupa

I believe in ‘planning’ since my childhood.  That’s why I started my venture “HomePLANguru.com” where I do PLAN for my customers who wish to get their dream home.

When I started my venture, I also prepared a Business Plan.  But even after 3 years, none of the ‘action items & outputs’ that I defined in that matched my ‘actual action items & outputs’.  Even when my action items matched to some extent with the actual, my ‘planned output’ and ‘actual output’ didn’t match even 5%.  Then I had this discussion in Twitter and hence this article.

I wanted to analyze this objectively rather than subjectively.  Let’s start with the basics of planning.

Any plan has three things: INPUT , ACTION and OUTPUT.  For a given input if you do some actions you may get some output.

During my college days, I used to first take the syllabus book and ‘PLAN’ how to go about reading.  I’ll plan to read the ‘toughest chapters’ first and easiest at the end.  In between I’ll plan for revision of completed chapters.  This plan really worked during my college days because INPUT (i.e. syllabus) was very clear, ACTION (i.e. reading during the available time) was very clear and OUTPUT (i.e. marks in examination) was obvious.  I got distinction in my B.Tech. ”UNKNOWNS’ were almost nil during my college days.

During my ‘regular job’ days, I used to plan my work with a diary.  The inputs were almost clear, action items were also to a great extent clear and Outputs were 90% clear to me (the remaining 10% was dependent on many external factors which I didn’t have control over).  I was successful in my ‘regular job’ (i.e. got promotions & increments at the right time) as I followed my plan.  In a regular job, the ‘UNKNOWNS’ were very very less because almost everything was clearly visible even before planning.

During my entrepreneurial journey now, almost everything (i.e. INPUT, ACTION and OUTPUT) is unclear.  One may be surprised and may ask me, “Why the heck did you start your business when everything is unclear?”

There are two types of business: “Predictable Business” and “Unpredictable Business”.

Having a grocery shop is “Predictable Business” (to a great extent).  The reason is, you know what to buy and keep in the shop, what the customers are buying, change the inventory based on demand, sell the goods at a predefined price and get a predefined margin.  Total success depends on location of the shop, how long you keep the shop open, how nicely you talk to the customers and understanding the inventory items which sells most. For example, a grocery shop guy near my locality is selling water more than grocery items because the demand for water is more now.

Many of my friends from ‘regular job’ who started their own venture are into “Unpredictable” business because ours are innovative concepts which doesn’t exist in the market.  Many of us are changing all the three parameters  (i.e. INPUTS, ACTION ITEMS and OUTPUTS) every now and then.  There can be no single plan to which we can stick to for 6 months at a stretch.  It changes almost every month.  The reason for this, I believe is that, even though we can plan for the INPUTS and ACTION ITEMS, the OUTPUTS doesn’t match as planned.  Because of this, we keep changing the INPUTS and ACTION ITEMS.

Then I realized one thing:  Instead of spending time on updating/modifying the Business Plan, if I focus on action items; one day the Inputs, Action Items and Outputs will become more predictable and then Business Plan for such a ‘predictable’ business will make sense.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t have any plans and work completely in a random way.  We have very short term plans.  The model is different during this start-up stage and hence the “Business Plans” are not very helpful during this time (other than showing it to VCs for funds).

I can think of this curve which contains effort for preparing Business Plan on Y-axis and Stage of the Company in X-axis.

I believe that during start-up stage and ‘very-big’ stage, very less effort should be put in preparing the business plan (and NOT zero effort!).

PLEASE NOTE: I may be totally or partially wrong in my opinion in this article.  But better to explain what is in my mind and get inputs from experts who read this, isn’t it?

Once there were only few Universities in India and people literally fought for a ’seat’ for professional courses.  Soon, people from Middle-class and Upper-middle class won’t talk about ‘merit’ because they will be carried away by the ‘New Universities’ which may offer some attractive courses at a huge cost (which these people may arrange for some educational loan and repay after they get placed in a good company).

What these “new educational reforms” have failed to do is that they never made “education” as a thing for “knowledge”.  Also they never made a person “learn naturally” but just memorize and reproduce in the exams.

I’m just waiting for the day when:

1. A student learns a course out of his/her own interest.

2. A learning atmosphere prevails in the classroom (similar to The Physics Society classroom conducted by Prof. Ananthan)

3. Job & Education are de-linked from each other.

4. Talented person can shine in his/her field of interest.

5. The current “memorize & reproduce” exam pattern is changed and replaced by “understand and write” exam pattern.

The rise of Universities in India may help me achieve these things listed above or it may become ‘yet-another-business’.

When I started my company M/s HomePlanGuru.com, I was not sure about how to do the pricing.  I was providing all the plans (viz Floor Plan, 3D Plan, Electrical Usability Plan, Plumbing Usability Plan, etc) at a flat Rs.20/- per square feet.  This means that if a customer intends to buy/build 1000 sq.ft home, he should pay Rs.20 x 1000 = Rs.20,000/- for all the plans I provide.  For first six months, I was not able to sell my concept at this rate.  Then I realized the mistake in my pricing model when I heard about ‘The Bottom of the Pyramid’ model by C K Prahalad.

In India (and many other developing countries, I guess) people don’t have the habit of planning their dream home.  They find it as ‘waste’ expense to do planning.  Not only that, the architects used to charge anywhere between Rs.25,000 to Rs.1,00,000/- for the simple drawings.  This was another reason for people not going to Architects and plan for their dream home.

I changed that model through my new venture HomePlanGuru.com.  I understood that people won’t mind paying in small amounts.  If they are happy with the initial plan, then they won’t mind paying a bit more for the plans.

I priced my services in such a way that even a lower-middle class person can afford a simple plan.  For example, my service charge for a 2D Floor Plan is just Re.1/- per sq.ft which means for a 1000 sq.ft. home, it is just Rs.1000/-;  for 3D Plan it is just Rs.3/- per sq.ft which means for Rs.3000/- one can get a basic 3D model of their dream home with all the furniture, fixtures, etc placed in 3D which they can walk-through from their own PC/Laptop using FREE Google Sketchup tool.  I also took a bold decision of publishing my service charges for all the services we do in our website because of which the customer feels confident about how much they would have to spend for planning.

Thanks to C. K. Prahalad who helped me understand the ‘Pyramid’ model to price my services.  It is unfortunate that he is no longer physically with us though he is there in our minds.

When there was only Doordarshan (DD) in India offering TV broadcasting services, I used to even watch and enjoy agricultural programmes (‘vayalum valvum’ in Tamil).   Today, though there are several channels, I don’t enjoy TV as much I did in my childhood.

I still remember that we watched 5 to 6 movie songs on Fridays in ‘Oliyum Oliyum’ programme (in Hindi, it was ‘Chitrahaar’).   Today there are several music channels which I come across only while scrolling up and down in my remote to watch some other channel.   I don’t have the patience to watch even one song in TV.

I was wondering why I changed.  I guess the answer is “too much is too boring”.

When I was in my regular job, my monthly income exceeded my  monthly  expenses by at least 7 to 10 times.  It means, I was able to  buy anything at anytime.  Today, since I’m having my own company and expenses are more than income, I don’t have the same luxury of buying anything I need at anytime.   But the most amazing thing is, even if I spend one penny today, the joy is very high compared to what I used to feel during my regular job days.

This made me realize one thing: “If you have too much of anything, you may not enjoy it fully and vice versa. “

While I was doing my graduation, I was a member of an youth association in my locality called “Ever Yours” where we used to conduct FREE classes for 10th, 11th and 12th students on all Sudays .  We also used to conduct yearly event with various competitions for the school students in and around our locality.

While I was ‘for reservation’ system in my country (though it was personally affecting me negatively in my education), the President of that association was against reservation system.  We had several debates about this and we never withdrew from our stand.

When I had enough experience in the organization, I was allowed to participate in the ‘Prize list decision meeting’ for the annual competitions where very few senior members took part.  In that, I found that many students from the same school used to score very high marks in all the competitions.  But while deciding the prizes, first prize went to that school student and second & third prizes went to other school students (who scored poor marks).  When asked about the logic behind the prize list, the President told me, ” Viru, if I give prizes to all the students from the same school, then from next year there won’t be any participation from other schools.  Also this prize will encourage students from those schools which doesn’t have similar environment as that of the ‘top performing school’.  We need to encourage those students to participate by giving some prize.”.

I understood his logic and accepted it.  It helped me easily explain my stand on ‘need for reservation system’.  But he was not willing to accept my logic (though he understood it).

Today, I attended the 7th session of Knowledge Community Chennai (#KCC7). For updates about that, please check Twitter

In this, I’m going to discuss about the participation for such sessions (and not about the session itself).

Today we had around 34 participants. The Wipro Office in Chennai was kind enough to provide us a 250 seater auditorium for conducting this event. Last time, HCL Technologies provided the venue and the strength was around 50.

Why is that the strength is so low for such KM sessions?  Aren’t people interested to gain knowledge from various sources?  Or is it that the people believe that they could gain knowledge from Internet and newspapers?

My understanding is that people are reluctant to ‘learn’.  They are interested in going home as soon as possible after completing their ‘regular’ work at office.  They don’t want to spend some extra time (even once in a month) to gain some knowledge and network with ‘real’ people.

When the atmosphere changes in the corporate world where people seek knowledge from various sources, the progress will be tremendous.   The root cause for the existing atmosphere in every institution/firm is, I believe, the ‘Education System’ of the country and nothing else.  If the education system had made the students to seek knowledge, it would have continued in corporate world also.  But it just helped the students to get a degree which was used by the corporate world as a ‘qualification’ for entry into their firm.  “As you sow, so shall you reap.”  Isn’t it?

Infosys’ Narayana Murthy(NRN) recently has told “IT industry needs to pay higher taxes and does not need Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) extension any more”.    This is the reason behind this article now.

Well, I had seen many companies following some illegal and unethical practices during their start-up stage.  To ‘grow’, it was absolutely necessary for such start-up companies to adhere to ‘normal practices’ due to the current political system in the country.    I’m not suggesting here to be illegal.  But practically it is very difficult to be 100% legal in the current scenario. For example, people from top IT companies travel on Business visa to work in US because of the complexities involved in getting work permit.  If they don’t send their team on business visa, they won’t get further revenue for their offshore center.

While I was working in a MNC 13 years back, we used to ‘photocopy’ books from the office library.  After few years, once it became ‘affordable’ for the company (this is the perception I got, may be wrong), they formulated a rule that no photocopying of books were allowed. 

With the ‘legal’ aspect removed in the above example, NRN’s statement looks similar to me now.  Infosys has grown to a great extent that they can afford to pay huge taxes.  But think about small and medium companies that wish to become ‘another Infosys’.   How can they afford such huge taxes?  Shouldn’t they also enjoy similar tax benefits which Infosys enjoyed for more than 25 years in India?

What I feel is that there should be some ‘tax slab’ for each company.  For the first slab, there must be lesser tax or nil tax.  Then it should increase gradually like the individual income tax.  If NRN meant that statement this way, it would be really great.  I wish he meant that way because I’ve great respect for him and his team.  I learned about ‘ethics’ only from his company while I was working there.  Also, no one should comment that, ‘You can be legal and ethical when it is affordable’.

When I used to read the results of “Best companies to work for” in many business magazines, I used to think that apart from the parameters mentioned in the survey result, there must be one more parameter “Number of Entrepreneurs from that company”.  Here I’ll explain why this parameter must be added.

While talking to few of my friends in my old company I asked them whether they had any plan to change their job or start their own business.  Most of them said that they were very comfortable with the company and never wanted to leave it till their retirement.  One friend told me very frankly, “Viru, I am not extremely happy here.  But what will I say in my next interview if I wish to leave this job.  I really don’t know.  Also I’ve taken so many loans for which I need to pay a major part of my salary.  If I wish to start my own business, who will pay my EMIs every month?”

His answer made me think that some ‘big & famous’ companies mould their employees in such a way that they become ‘unemployable’ in other companies.  Also they never offer ESOPs to their employees to become financially stable (if not rich) to start their own business.  Those companies can easily appear in “Best companies to work for” list as they keep their employees ‘happy’.

In my perception, if you want to call a company as “Best company to work for”, you must also judge it by the number of ‘Entrepreneurs’ it has generated. If this number is more, it means that the company had given enough confidence (both technically & managerially) for their employees and did help them to be financially stable to start their own company.  Which survey will add this parameter?

(Please Note:  I’ve started a website http://exinfoscions.com/entrepreneurs to list the entrepreneurs who worked at Infosys for more than 8 years.  It will be ‘UP’ soon.)

Once I had to come by bus from Bangalore to Chennai.  I boarded a bus and was waiting inside along with other passengers.  A person with bag full of some plastic items and oranges boarded the bus and started giving a demo of his product.  He took a piece of lemon and a small plastic item.  He squeezed the lemon with the plastic item and collected the juice in a tumbler.  He then took an orange, pierced it with the plastic item and showed us how he was able to collect the juice effortlessly with that ‘gadget’.  There were 40 passengers in the bus and four people bought it because it was just Rs.20/-.

I already had bought that plastic juicer for Rs.20/- and it never worked for me at home because I had to use very high pressure (with my hands) to extract the juice from the lemon or orange.  But I started thinking about his business model.

The plastic gadget may cost him only Rs.3 or Rs.5 (let’s say Rs.5), orange and lemon may be Rs.2 or Rs.5 (let’s say Rs.5).  So, for an investment of Rs. 10/- he was able to get a profit of Rs.10/-  From a crowd of 40 passengers, he was able to sell 4 which means he made Rs.40/- as profit.  It took him just 15 minutes per bus.  If he boards 30 buses per day (7.5 hours of work), he would have made at least 30 x Rs.40 = 1200 profit per day.  If he works for 25 days/month, then his monthly income is Rs.30,000/- (without any tax).  It’s the salary of a software engineer working in an MNC company.

What is the secret behind this guy’s success?

I guess the answer would be, “He works very hard, is able to manage the perception of customers very well and his business model to share his by-product (i.e. juice) with the bus driver.”

Yes, he has to apply very high pressure every time he squeezes the lemon/orange without people realizing it so that it would appear as if the juice is flowing easily from the gadget.  He didn’t lie or cheat.  He showed a live demo where he managed the perception of the customers very well.  He was allowed to give a demo in all the buses by the drivers because he finally gave the ‘orange juice’ to the driver (win-win formula).

Shall we say that ‘Marketing your product is in your hands’?