Uncategorized

November 14, 2013

Getting the hang of it all – The lean way!

Image

What does it mean to attend a #StartUpBootCamp?

Yes, that’s the question we always had and we felt will remain a Pandora’s box till the end of the 2 and a half days that we were to spend on an otherwise-smeared-in-work-yet-lovely November weekend.

Au Contraire!

Reverse just happened. And we are floored with the brilliant outcomes the bootcamp gave to the community of startups that attended the event. I am talking about the 60-hour Lean Startup Bootcamp  organized by 91springboard in Delhi from 8 – 10 November, 2013. And this post is a culmination of the experiences we had; the learning we gathered, the relationships we are honored to build and the laughter we shared.

Being based out of Delhi and not the so-called startup bay of India; it’s always difficult to relish the benefits of a bustling community of likeminded doers. Couple it up when you are working on your own venture where you are hard at work to figure out what’s brilliant and what’s terrible! The Lean Startup Bootcamp was the first of its kind in many aspects that we had never really witnessed coming to life in the startup community – least of all – in the rather scattered community of Delhi based startups.

Structure or lack of it. The beauty of the bootcamp was engrained in the entire structure / pseudo structure of the camp. Yes, there was a very loose structure to the entire 2 and half days. As compared to the mundane reality of attending series of lectures from biggies; the bootcamp was about ‘your challenges’ and ‘their solutions’; not ‘how-i-achieved-what-starters-like-you-only-dream-of-today’ lectures from biggies. Few sessions – interspersed at the right intervals – all hanging around the challenges of starting up and the hacks / pro tips on applying lean startup philosophy for ‘your business’ were enlightening. The big demon of market sizing (Yes, we call it that at GetEchoed Team coz we understood heck of it before we attended the event) delivered in a crisp talk on ‘Competitor Analysis and Market Sizing’ (Amit Lakhotia, GM – Payments at Paytm) ; that crazy thing called web hosting : hands-on talk on ‘Lean Prototyping using cloud’ (Amit Sharma, Solution Architect – Amazon Web Services); the obvious hassle of being design challenged in your venture and how to sort it out – brilliantly brought to life on the talk – ‘Design for the Lean Startup’ (Kshitish Purohit, Founder – Paperkite); and finally the hacks of lean prototyping tools to ensure you don’t run out of resources – delivered in ‘Lean Prototyping tools’ (Rohit Agarwal, Founder – Framebench)were all explained.

Most part of the camp; teams were left to discover their challenges; brainstorm in their groups; encouraged to go-out and talk to their customers seeking inputs on the most pressing challenges / riskiest assumptions made in their business models and so on. It was all about being lean – not by the books but by action!

We were all there. The camp had an aggregation of college students contemplating on the journey of starting up; seasoned folks who understand the dynamics; failures and sweet successes of handling ventures as well as early starters like us – the team of GetEchoed; having recently begun the journey. All questions that otherwise seem too business-oriented or too technical to handle for those lacking the know-how; were explained and addressed in the simplest yet sophisticated forms. Better yet, all the sessions were close to life.

It was not a hackathon. And that was brilliant. We spent most parts of the day interacting with different teams and discussing each other’s challenges. This may seem like the yet-again-another-non-geeky-thing to do.  Nope, it wasn’t. It was fun. Sheer fun! Why so, if you ask. Because that’s where a lot of learning happened, relationships were formed and all the startups team were able to develop relationships at their own pace and benefit of their mutual experiences and leverage experiences. We understood challenges in scaling up location specific business when setting up in a new location, transforming modus operandi from people intensive to process intensive; communicating with customers who don’t understand your offerings and how to communicate with them.

And it was about brilliant hosts. The organizers of the event went the last mile in every aspect. Anand Vemuri and Apurv Agarwal – are two phenomenal folks helping fostering the culture of fearless entrprenurship in the Delhi / NCR region in their amazing ways. They never made any of us realize that we were meeting them for the first time and all of us were lacking expertise in some areas or the other. Basking in our small achievements and struggling in our crazy ways; they were around till the wee and the early hours ensuring all kinds of support; most critical product and business inputs were provided to all the startups in the most entrepreneur-friendly way. GetEchoed team received some of the most critical inputs and some very affirming good words from the 91springboard team over the bootcamp. And yes, not to mention the happiness of sharing round table networking over dinners and tea breaks! Yes, they do happen innocuously and are facilitated by these folks in the most subtle manners.

The brilliant experience and the fair treatment meted out to all of us is articulated hence. I encourage of you startup fellas to definitely take a break from the daily imperatives of your startup. As impending and critical as they are; your learning from interacting with heterogeneous group of startup folks; incubatee startups and the amazing folks at the 91springboard will definitely be worth hours of team brainstorming and much beyond.

Say cheers to starting up. Cheers to lean camps and cheers to Delhi!

gangotri

 

This post is written by Arpita Chakraborty, straight from her laptop – sharing learnings and experiences of working across startups for years now. She is a social media geek and loves to question things at GetEchoed. Tweet to her about anything @arpitaambition

October 26, 2013

Price of that extra hour…

You know it is well past six, then you look towards your boss’s cabin & you see him sitting there. Your heart instantly declares a strike against your mind about sticking any longer in office. You pack your bag & leave for the day.

Next morning you find yourself part of a light-hearted discussion with your colleagues where your boss makes an indirect comment about non-seriousness of employees who leave office ‘on time’. It is quite normal for you to take that into your stride. From that day on, you diligently stick your ass on the seat till your boss feels you are ‘serious’ enough about the job. Gradually, you get into the habit of replying to official emails during odd hours, as weird as 3 A.M! Well, that is definitely being prudent enough for the ‘kind-of-growth’ you are aspiring.

Image

I do not have a single issue in accepting the fact that I might not be an expert of working conditions outside India, but the above stated points are a cumulative result of talking to more that 1,000 young MNC professionals across cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Banglore, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad & Chennai.

If given a chance, I would like to arrange a national debate on the interpretation of the word ‘growth’. Is it moving from i20 to Fabia ? Or is it getting a hike of straight 175% on your present salary? This question is purely subjective but what is objective is the price you pay for all of this! Staying up late in the office is a completely voluntary decision, & if you find that the impetus is EXTERNAL, you must think on the path to catch it on the other side of the road.

If it is about your bread & butter, earn enough to just have ‘bread & butter’. There always exists a job in this world that would grant youthat much. What lies ahead & what should matter to you — are you getting enough time to follow your PASSION?

Not everyone under the sun is lucky enough to fall in love with their work. Some eventually give in because they have wasted long enough to think about an alternative, others keep struggling to achieve‘happiness’ till eternity.

But do you fall under any of these categories?

If no, make use of time to follow what you love doing, even if it is doing nothing! It is like a relation that matures only with time & with sustained efforts you discover the real ‘you’. Do not be disappointed if you end up having nothing; that ‘nothing’ is only mass-stupidity to cover up the uniqueness of an individual. Trust me, you will discover some precious gems!

Get back to reading your favorite Batman comics, or taking your bike to unexplored places of the city, or joining knitting classes in the vicinity. From the point I see it, you might end up starting your online comics rental, or starting a viral travel blog or launching a winter-ware range! Else you become famous enough to carry a reputation in the like-minded community. None of them seems bad to me as you would have cherished every moment of walking up to that point. And that for sure matters more than owning up a 3BHK flat in suburbs or a swanky car(of course on EMI!).

I can literally go on for (p)ages on this, but my motive is to just give you a ‘push’ for yourself. You will always find people who will enjoy walking with you, that is far better than amassing a lavishness of herd-mentality crowd. So for now, close this browser(not without sharing it with one you care for!) & get back to what your heart says. The first step is always small, what matters is that you started!

IMG_4865

 

This post is written by Kumar Dipanshu, Co founder at GetEchoed. He handles product design, being the creative think tank and being resolute about his opinions! He loves poetry and mountains. Tweet to discuss anything with him @kdipanshu

October 24, 2013

Hey girl! Don’t screw your relationship because you’re #StartingUp

Begin the selling and pitching with your guy!

You are 25, you are done working in a big organization OR have had enough exposure working with different startups and its time to get into something of your own

Brilliant thought! You should.

You believe you can think smarter than peers and want to figure out better ways to solve problems — you are at the right spot.

But then, there is the relationship!

You have a relationship to give time and attention. Relationships are beautiful till the time they get messy!

Chances are ‘at 25′ — you are doing good at day job; have a stable fitness regime and have a guy who ‘understands you’. Sadly, with starting up as a thought — you are at a very vulnerable stage in life. The security is far from gone. And your time is no more at your own beck and call. But, still you want to do it because you know its now or never!

Image

And yet, ‘The Decision is taken’

So how do you take it from here…

When do you quit your job? What do you explain your guy ? How will you make time for your relationship while building something from the scratch? What about your male co-founders? And then there is the uncertainty — if this is your 1st venture — chances of major hurdles are high as well!

Will your guy understand?!!

Ahh… Life ain’t so tough when you know where to begin

Image

Begin with your partner. Begin the pitching and selling with your partner. My partner did not believe in my first idea — and i failed to scale it. I was inexperienced, among other things i was inexperienced in convincing that my idea was awesome. I sucked at it.

Your partner is your first customer.

If you cannot make your partner believe your venture is awesome; bleak are the chances — anyone else will believe — least of it your customers

For my second venture, I began with my partner’s buy in. He was my first customer and my most difficult customer! And this time around, i did a better job at it.

Understand your partner’s perceived pain point with you starting the venture. Paucity of time, frequent changes, ambiguity, probable delay in your future plans, and even worse things. Think of the worst #fear.And figure out alternatives from that point. I began with the security aspect and it worked reasonably well for me

Explain your finances. Explain your goal. Make your partner believe in the leap of faith you have in your idea / business. Show how things fit together in the larger scheme of things. Show your partner how your mutual goals fit together in your aspirations. Do not try to manipulate intentions as it wont take you very far.

However, just so you know…

Most of your assurances and calculations will be falsified with time. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Such is #StartingUp.

So, ensure that you don’t just convince your partner for the venture. You must try to get the complete “buy-in”. Enroll your partner and figure out ways of collaborating with your partner. Better yet, if you bring in equal ownership. Problems with failure stand moderated when you are #InItTogether. That’s what i did for my 2nd venture. And i consider that to be my first partnership — one which was built on trust.

Image

I need not begin to count the benefits of working with people where trust and emotional compatibility is already established. You only need to understand the professional boundaries and set in the culture of equal and complete responsibility from Day 1. Mitigate risks and be strategic about the key decisions that you take. Have a metric for your relationship — at the personal and professional front. Mutually decide when you would spend time together as a couple and when you will spend time together as cofounders. Investors prefer to work with teams that have been through shit in the past and have stood together. Who else but both of you can prove it for each other!

Oh yes, it does come with its own baggage of challenges but that is something you shall have to face with your cofounder in any case.

Chances are co working may not work for you. In which case, ensure your partner knows what to expect and what not to expect when you begin to work for your own venture. It will not be a cake walk and make sure you communicate the same. Play honest so that you really don’t screw up things later

If you still feel #StartinUp is a threat to your current priorities — high time you do the weighing and prioritizing girl!

Your Breakup and StartingUp — Are not directly related.

Share your experience of pitching your venture to your partner – your learning / trivia / thoughts – absolutely anything. Lets get the talks going!

gangotri

This post is written by Arpita Chakraborty, straight from her laptop – sharing learnings and experiences of working across startups for years now. She is a social media geek and loves to question things at GetEchoed. Tweet to her about anything @arpitaambition

October 19, 2013

Of roadblocks, disagreements and life ahead…

Its the journey of three friends — from varied walks of life; united by the vision yet separated from their life experiences and skill sets.

What’s the vision?

Yes, three friends wanted to build something of their own that they felt could change something in the world; make lives wee bit simpler.All of them enjoyed building stuff! Hence the ‘three-mid-twenties-something’decided after few pints of beers; well ‘starting up’ would be a good start to build a billion dollar business!

dali_face_mustache_cat1960

What’s the challenge?

Heterogeneity!

Easier said than done. Decisions based on beer pints are impulsive and emotional. Yet, better than being non decisive — next morning after hangover was rather settled; was the time to execute the decision

Thus, started the non glamorous and less talked about ordeals of founding a startup. Building a business is not a skill you gather working some years at a corporate organization. And the best friends need not necessarily be the best cofounders; not even closest siblings

Reason?

We believed we had completely complimentary skill sets as a team — we had a full-stack-developer, sales-and-marketing-geek and a psychology-management-consultant-product-geek. Call it ‘achievers-all-through-career’.

However, as was the heterogeneity; there were also heterogeneity in our operating styles.

Now that’s a moment of truth!

truth

Building a startup is all about ‘leveraging’ and cultivating ‘synergy’.In the initial years of a product, uncertainty is the only certainty one has and people are the only asset you have. And you need to learn to make peace with it. Help your co founders careen through such times…

Yes, the hoopla of a ‘great team’ is actually a reality!

We had our share of disagreements on what should the MVP do, what level of scalability should we look at, when do we seek mentoring, how much to develop, which feedback to consider and when was early-yet-not-late-enough to seek feedback; whom to hire, whether to outsource or develop in house and many more. While there were differences; there were enough and more learning we gathered through the way.

So what’s a co-founder equation really like?

  • Adapt,learn and iterate your operating style — Yes, operating styles can and need to be flexed and optimized. Two people are not similar.
  • Have complete alignment in goals — your single most never failing compass for deciding on your co founder relationship. While we were able to figure out our *alignment on goals* before writing the first code and talking to the first customer — the alignment in operating style developed over months of learning and adapting to each other
  • Understand the motivations of your co founder. Just the way an investor, a customer, a shareholder, or for that matter any stakeholder have their own motivations to get attached with your product / startup; so does your co founder. Passion does not speak the same language for every one alike
  • Define your roles extremely well and *understand* them even better. You should know where not to poke your nose and where you are completely accountable for every bit of results. You have to work at this demarcation — time and again — especially if you are a first time entrepreneur.
  • Be utterly clear about whats happening in each and every aspect of the startup. If you dont know coding, you should know why are you building your website on RoR v/s PhP. If you are a coding geek, you should know why should you leverage Pinterest v/s Facebook — in light of the nature of your product / business

prod

  • Take constant feedback on what are your comfort areas and what are your typical demons. Build a culture of honest and critical feedbackearly on in your startup days. Even when we were a garage team of 3 people, we made it binding on us that we shared honestly when we felt the other was not getting out of the comfort zone or was not focusing enough. (Yes, there will be times when even with all the passion and the zest, you will lack the focus!)
  • It takes efforts to nurture a productive and meaningful relationship with your cofounder. You will have harsh discussion, blames will be shifted, questions will be raised and results will be challenged. The earlier you understand boundaries of your relationships; better will you be able to work being cognizant of them.
  • Respect your co founder. There has not been any bigger learning than this in my startup journey. Every action — active listening, understanding their shortcomings and appreciating their small achievements — is a communication of celebrating the co founder relationship. Do that more often!
  • While there are operational details that have an equal share of challenges and that bring to life the intricacies of business; those are details that will be handled later. For everything else, there is always *beer pints*What has been your experience in co founding your startup? Let me know…

gangotri

This post is written by Arpita Chakraborty, straight from her laptop – sharing learnings and experiences of working across startups for years now. She is a social media geek and loves to question things at GetEchoed. Tweet to her about anything @arpitaambition

July 24, 2013

Dahlia…

“Mom, Kathy says I waste too much time on my ‘Dahlia’. She fought with me for not going to the park with her today.” Alec said in a bewildered yet amused manner; seeking answers from his knowing mother.

I could not understand how to cheer up a 10-year old kid who was too busy shuffling through gardening magazines & journals. I ran my fingers through the dense, brown hair and tried to initiate a comforting conversation.

“Is Kathy not interested in your ‘Dahlia’? I believed she loves your gardening skills.” I tried to sound as soothing as possible.

“I don’t know. Maybe she likes going to the park more than Dahlia.” The deep, cold sigh was quite evident from Alec’s tone.

“Don’t be depressed son. Invite Kathy tomorrow evening & we will go the amusement park. Maybe you can talk to her then. Now go off to sleep, it’s quite late”, I said.

A faint smile ran across my face while switching off the light & watching Alec slipping inside the quilt. Childhood is so innocent. That’s all I could think.

Next morning I was surprised to see Alec waiting at breakfast table; all dressed up & ready for school.

“Hey! That’s a real surprise son! Are you fine?”

“Yes mom just got up a bit early.” And he flashed a thousand megawatt smile. After Alec left for school, I went to his room cleaning up. I was surprised to see a large poster hanging with “8-weeks Deadline” written in bold & cuttings from various magazines pasted on below it. The postings read:

  1. Humus-rich, well-drained soil in full sun
  2. Protect from the wind.
  3. Dedicated plot in rows
  4. Avoid  wrinkled or rotten  tubers
  5. No overwatering 
  6. Insert stakes
  7. Show Kathy

I don’t remember for how long I kept on staring to that poster. For some unknown reasons, few drops rolled down my cheeks. For the first time in life I felt a very different kind of joy, a fulfilling elation which completely engulfed me. I could not wait for the days to come to watch Alec living his ‘deadline.’

Almost 8-9 weeks have passed. I was unable to control my excitement as I collected the framed picture of Alec & Kathy in front the ‘Dahlia’ flowers. I had already planned to replace the ‘deadline’ poster with this frame. Alec would love this. Image

July 18, 2013

Happiness..one task at a time…

I was not worried, but was definitely disturbed at the thought put forward by my better-half. I looked at her under the shadow of the night-lamp. She was calm but I could find answers to the questions I had not asked in three years of our marriage.

“We should think of planning our family. Your mother had a long ‘discussion’ with me.” She said to me. More than anything else; I was not able to digest that three years of marriage had passed by in the most routine 24 hours.

Having married a working girl, I believed living a ‘happy’ married life was what 24 hours spared us with beyond working and daily chores. Having breakfast together, leaving for office, calling each other during the day to inquire about house-hold chores, taking a couple of holidays, attending family events & everything else – was my definition of happiness in marriage.

What we really ignored was striking a ‘conversation beyond these routine affairs’. I had started feeling the dearth of words beyond the routine things. I could not blame anyone but me to have ignored this all these years. I was determined to achieve the ‘comfort of communication’.

It was not difficult for me to leave office on time from next day – I had a reason. I had set out something I wanted to achieve. Returning home early gave me about one and a half hours before my wife arrived. And frankly speaking that was enough for a sustained effort of three weeks to learn few Italian dishes my wife loved.

– Research pertaining to understand different types of cheese, identifying basil, bell peppers, Arborio rice, etc. was done during the office hours – Check

– Equipped with knowledge (gained from internet); first week went into learning how to chop, grind & take appropriate proportions of ingredients – Check

– Second week learning went into infusing life into the raw materials – Check

– Final week was dedicated to perfecting the taste & presentation of the dish – Check

Finally the D-Day arrived. I took a half day & put together all my learning into the act. I was shivering with excitement at the prospect of the outcome. Not to mention the minor changes that I did around dining table to set the ambience. And obviously, I do not have words to pen down the initial reaction of my wife. I uncovered the lid of the pizza that I had baked, & it had a topping which read, “How have you been?” This time her calmness came with a smile.

Setting a deadline to achieve something like this worked wonders! And I also learnt to erase evidence of manhandling the kitchen! I had stories to share with my wife that evening how I made things happen – one step at a time. And oh Boy! She was hell impressed

 

July 15, 2013

A musical Sunday evening…

It was a relatively cooler evening. Enjoying the breeze, I took out my guitar for practice. While testing the strings, I ran my gaze across the flat just opposite mine. As expected, my neighbour was standing in his balcony with the very familiar expression of intent and interest. I had shifted to this flat just a week back, & it was a bit amusing as well as curious the way my neighbour used to make it a point to stand in his balcony to witness me practising. So, I decided to end the confusion & waved him a friendly ‘hello’. The response was prompt. I signalled him to come over & within minutes the doorbell buzzed.

It did not take much time for us to hit off. A loving husband, caring father, dedicated son, lost somewhere in the milieu of responsibilities, was trying to re-discover his interest in music. The stretch has been long, a lot of time & situation changed since the time it used to be his ‘passion’. I never asked why could he not pursue what he loved, more because I had seen many dreams being buried under the ‘necessities’ of life. I considered myself lucky to have been encouraged by my parents to go after my heart. We really had a long chat. I was really impressed with all what he discussed about ‘C’ major. After a two-hour long conversation, I mildly asked him to join me from next day for the practice. It was the best I could come up with. The reply which came to me sent me into a state of unending thoughts that night, “It’s fine. I need to be free to help my son in his homework. Also, this is the only time I can help my wife in bringing groceries or helping in house-hold chores. I will definitely keep dropping in for chit-chat.” I was speechless. Following night I was trying hard to balance passion against bringing groceries & managing house-hold chores.

The week flew with its pace. Our interaction thickened & he introduced me to his family. They were really very sweet, closely-knit folks. Finally, Sunday came. I was glad to see him with a brand new guitar in his hand. I did not show any sign of excitement. We practiced for long that day. While leaving, he paused for a moment near door, turned towards me & said, “Thanks. My wife told me groceries & homework can take care of itself. I hope you have not said anything to her.”.

I smiled and replied, “No, not a single word.”

“I know. My wife is cooking your favouriteImage dish tonight. Make sure you are there for dinner.” I closed the door humming the tune that we composed that evening.