My father or my MBA

I have spent all most 25 years telling everyone who asked me what my qualifications are about how working with my father was like doing a MBA, starting today I share the stories (short for sure) my father made me learn working under him, on this special day, his birthday - 23/05 

Kandnery Mohammed Moosa (joined me spiritually on 13/8/2008) was his name, very typical Muslim name and with looks doing complete justice to his name, but for what ever reasons, there was never this one person who would ignore him, make him feel a mis-fit or not listen to him, he always got his way around things and people, so till the point you are done readying these serious of blogs, you would surely know how to get things your way and more.

Here starts my very few but important learnings I will carry all my life from him. Today's blog is for Trusting Yourself.. 

The day he called me to his office for the first time, and just asked me to jump into the car beside him and drive down to Chennai, my journey with him in business started from Chennai and so here I am sitting in Chennai on his birthday, writing this blog. He spoke about his product, a fuel stabiliser for internal combustion engines (could not understand a word what he said) followed by the fact that he was as of now making me the Managing Director of his company (I was exactly 18 years 4 months) and I kept looking at him and was fine it, after all it was just a post under him, I was cool with it. He drove down to IIT-M and in an auditorium full of faculty from mechanical department he put me on the stage announcing I was the MD of his company and will now talk in detail on his upcoming product. I wanted to kill him, myself, that very minute. So here I was on this stage, with no clue on what I am going to speak and I looked at him, my eyes to his, "Dad, I will ruin your chances you or your product have over here in this campus" and he looked back, "it's your dad's product to screw it up, no body else's" I knew he wanted me to do anything which I felt was right, trust myself and never to look back, what ever the outcome be. I did exactly that and I cannot deny that the talk went really well and we signed a R&D contract with IIT-M in not later than a month of that talk, but it's been 26 years and I have never let go of that learning, this is the reason you will never see me fear anything in life, you will never see me hesitate trying out something new, you will never see me doubt myself ever. 

So do that to yourself, trust yourself because the biggest and the most important asset you have with you is yourself and if you doubt that for start, there will be nothing in this world you will ever trust. Move ahead today and never look back and what you carry along with you is THE TRUST YOU HAVE ON YOURSELF..

Next one coming soon... 

How do u know if you're on the way to build the next big Startup?

How do u know if you're on the way to build the next big Startup?

After spending a decade between startups, hearing those beautiful stories of all the Facebooks, Apples, Whats app buy outs, Airbnbs and the list continues, I would always think, whats is it that our startups are missing out on? why does it feel like, it would never be the case with any of our entrepreneurs? There were moments when I would question our mentoring, our approach, our strategy, our suggestions and at times, sit back to consider if even continuing with this as our profiles. 

Then came across these two participants, totally unconnected with each other, for our annual event in Startups Club, DemoDay2014, Khuzema from Chennai & Arjun from Vellore. Both, no way similar to each other. On one side was this young, super aggressive, super naive and super loud and on the other was this young, super clear, super sensible, super passionate, super driven, super experienced in tech and I looked at both of them, as they got mentored to pitch their own ideas to the panel. I noticed them in various mentoring sessions, some together.. some in groups and they really did not look any thing similar.. their attitudes, their approach, their ideas.. The only three things common about them were 1. they both were young 2. they both wanted to be successful entrepreneurs 3. they both loved being associated with us.

Today, 1 year down the road, from those thoughts, long hours of discussions, longer hours of fights, unimaginable hours of working things out, we, the two young entrepreneurs and us, Prudence (Vivek, me and our team) are the three founders on board of this food related startup. Now, as I write this, I can clearly answer my question, will one of our Startups be the next BIG THING? Oh yes.. definitely it is and in fact we can see it happening already...

Lets see how, may be you could get the formula of making a successful one and if you do, don't forget to let me know through comments;

1. Team - not perfect, no way from the same age group, not from the same back ground.. BUT.. a team which is never ready to let go of the reins to make the progress. There is always this one of us who will always ensure the things move ahead. Trust me, we have taken turns.. all of us, at some point of time.

2. Idea - Idea was completely different from what it is today, but what we have today, is what our food lovers wanted & felt was missing, we were able to connect with our users at a very.. VERY early stage of the journey and get their problems, understand their needs, talk to them in person and make them realise that solution is on the way.

3. Fear Factors - Still exists, blogging here, just 1 day to go for the Beta (Soft launch) at 3:15 am, just saying a good night through a whats app message to the Tech Director, who had his whole team in Chennai sitting with him till now working on the website, we fear, his last message to me was.. "I am nervous" and just couple of hours back, my message to him was the same. So this has been on and this will be on.. but we are sure that at times one of us are at that point of time where we fear things ahead, the others will pull us up, so we know and are confident, that we will fight our fears.. that is the reason fears exist right? to fight them out.

4. Investments - Woooo.. this is one word.. which just typing the word out, gives me some crazy thoughts of all the time we have changed our strategy, thanks to this one word. There was a point of time, some 6 months back, the complete initiative had seen a dead end, if it was not for the youngest student founder who pulled us all back together and took this up, maybe this blog would never have been written.. So, yes, Investments has and will be one of the issues but then, do you know what we believe? if there is no need for investments, we would not be going ahead anywhere, the fact that we need funds is a proof in itself that we are progressing.

5. What now?? - We do not know, it is the bloody truth.. You can ask us all together or ask us individually, we would have the same answer to this question, we have no clue whats going to happen, but we are happy at the place we are in, that matters to us. We have our users waiting for the launch, who are joining us for the launch on 15th May at 5 pm, our HomeChefs cooking for all the foodies, we have not come across one person who heard us talk about our Startup, say a WOWWWW.. we are getting stronger by the day as a team and we are progressing, that is all matters to us for now and what lies ahead of us, is left on our hard work and our users, so why break our heads on that.

So, here it is, just 5 things which could come to me for now, but by the end of this, I am so glad to write that I am so sure, clear, confident and aware that we are building the NEXT BIG THING in Startups.. 

Give your thoughts or try our HOME CHEF's yummy foods by being our FOODIE on...

www.kuixine.com 

Why do Startups talk less?

Meeting around 100 startups on weekly basis, one question which always haunted me was, Why do Startups measure how much they speak? What stops them from talking about what is theirs after all?

Reasons, understood, through some close interactions, some heated discussions, some through understanding their actions and some through long late night discussions with entrepreneurs who have become close friends with time.. I have to warn you, because if you are a person who does not respect other's opinions, it is now time for you to close this blog now...

Lets start with the REASONS....

1. They are just reasons, entrepreneurs love giving reasons all the time...

2. Fear failure, failure of getting what they actually are looking for, fear of faulting, fearing others to copy what they have created. If its yours, why fear, if its not, why do it? Plain and simple FEAR..

3. Expecting the whole world to be able to do it for them. Thanks to the growing eco-system of startups, every category of work which a Startup needs to do is converted into a business model and for some reason most of the startups feel that, that service provider will take care of their talking. If the startup themselves don't talk, then how in the world can they expect others too.

Finally, Startups talk.. they surely do.. but they talk less and what little talk they do is surely not what will bring them to what they are looking for.. Don't fear mistakes, MISTAKES, make you what you will be tomorrow, it will teach you to do exactly the opposite to the time when you failed by your mistakes, so you will surely succeed...

So.. talk.. let the whole world be.. U JUST TALK.. & WATCH THE FUN.. 

Europe & Me

Work and responsibilities takes up so much of our time in life that we always stop to think what is that which covers most of our inner most thoughts.. l have realised mine is Europe.. I was destined to be there... I was destined to spend most of my best years there.. but other elements came in force. Others played a key role in keeping me away from where I was destined to be, not one but many years.. It took me lot of struggle, lot of fights, externally and internally to fight the demons and get the way cleared to where I belong. At this point of my life, I feel I have cleared those demons well enough for me to carve the path towards MY DESTINATION...

Why do we do that to ourselves? why do we make it a point to let other play our game? why do we feel its important, others take the decisions for us, even if it is going to be the worst for us? Why can't we be us? Why can't I be I?? Just I???

Saying that, I am sure that many have tried and succeeded, many have tried and failed.. which is okay?? but not trying at all.. is a sin.. Something which is unforgivable. You have been gifted with one life, if you don't dare.. who will?? Don't go down without a TRY...

Find your place... your destination.. a place on earth where you feel ur complete, does not matter with or without anyone... U r U.....

Europe... France.... more specific... South of France... is that special destination for me... How??? Why??? When???? just does not matter.. It is..

Every time I feel.. I have done enough and have had enough or just feel I have not connected with that ME, you will find me searching Lufthansa... Mariott.... Costs.. Budgets... Timelines.. I am doing it again and you will find me doing that many more times again.. If you try to find out why I do it, you will never come to know why, if you try to reason it out with me, you will never get me to give you any practical valid reason for it.. But you will find me there.. All very comfy.. coz it is for sure my DESTINATION..

Why do i love France??? Ohhhhhhhh its FRANCE.... Its me.... Love you 

DO STATISTICS SELL?

We have heard brands so many times pitch statistics to customers on how the industry is growing, how the product is performing in the markets they are in & etc, but lets give a thought.. does these statistics actually sell? I have always wondered that and I am sure we have direct, indirect marketers who have also thought of this. Ya, this is another topic of blog which I will cover in the next coming weeks, WHO IS NOT A MARKETER?

For now, lets run a reality check on the Q if Statistics Sell....

My Club, Startups Club is having its annual event in a month and I have been using every strategy in my book of strategies to ensure maximum participation. The pricing is to its lowest and the is totally sellable, an easy product to sell, its about entrepreneurship, its investors, its validation and BP pitch... you do not need a more sellable product. So, we have a winner in hand as a product. Finally the reach, ok, I am being humble when I say, I have a reach to around 40k souls across the world, all first connections. So we have the reach as well. So in this coming 1 week, all of us (meaning those who have read this Blog and are following it) will know if Statistics Sell.

I have just today checked out the exact number of tickets sold till this minute and have posted some exact statistics across my connects.. will be talking about it also in chats and blogs (such as this) for 1 week. Post the week, till the date of sales, that is 18th in Chennai, we will see, how many tickets gets sold in actual. I will conclude this blog on the 20th on the number of tickets sold through this presentation on Statistics. So, are we all in??? 

Here goes the Statistics for you as well...

Dear Members/ Friends/ Associates,

Very Soon, on the 18th of July, we will be in Marriott Courtyard, Chennai & 26th July in Hyderabad, for our Open House meetup, but most importantly, it is on that day, that you can come over and save your Rs.100/- and also lessen the chances of missing out on the availability of tickets for DemoDay coming up next month on the 9th. This a note to tell you that there are huge chances of you loosing on a great event, if you dont pick up the DemoDay tickets on the 18th itself. some fact;

1. The GRT Convention Center can accommodate only 150 people comfortably, and we have until now sold out exactly 27 tickets for the event, paid and confirmed.

2. We will have 10 Participants, so we will be mailing to the 10 participants that they can pick up the tickets for their family, friends and team members, last year the statistics show that each participant took around 2 Visitors pass, so that leaves us with 47 tickets sold.

3. Plus, it is also a tradition that the core committee team keeps around 50 tickets for last minute desperate requests and sudden walk-ins and their friends & associates. Last year DemoDay in Bangalore had 107 walk-ins apart from around 86 on line purchases. so that leaves us with a very small number of 53 tickets left.

4. We have a total of 78 RSVPs on Meetup from Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. We usually get an advance booking and on line purchase of tickets of around 20%, that means around 20 tickets could be purchased on line in the coming days by members. leaving us with just 33 tickets in hand for any pick-ups from all of you, who are sure that they will be apart of this event. 33 TICKETS MEMBERS...

So, if your having second thoughts or doubts about what this events going to be, it is not a regular monthly event by Startups Club, its our annual event for which we count down all our activities into this month. Its a whole day event. know more on www.scdemoday.com

The Startups Club FB group story - 1 to 1001

It had been 2 months since the core team of Startups Club had started the group in meetup and had around 200 members and core committee meetings were considered very important by the core team.. We had no idea what we had started off, was it just another run of the mill thing, just another meetup group, just another reaction which will die with time or something good.. Nothing great for sure.  After all, we were all a set of 5 strangers who knew each other just from 60 days.. We met at 6 pm.. Raining cats and dogs and we still did meet at Barista, Koramangala and we laughed and chatted for something.. Every one had just one thing at the back of our heads.. We are all fools.. We are making a hill out of a mole, instead of going back home and hitting the sack, here we were at a coffee shop in a rainy dreadful evening, traffic jams when we hit the road back home was a bigger problem for us than anything else.. Niladri.. Always the person other than me to start business talk in these meetings starts off.. All try to pay attention.. He says we are doing good.. Startups Club has had one successful meeting at Mr. Beans with 38 attendees and 200 members and counting and we had to now at least have some presence other than meetup.. I as usual, the attention seeker in meetings barges in and says "we do have a FB page and we have some 40 likes" very proud of myself.. He and the others are really happy and suddenly we all very interested to know things and our very own technically more qualified core team member Najmul comes up by saying we need to go on LinkedIn as it has serious business people and our marketing expert.. All fun guy Arnab jumps in saying it must be Twitter as it enables a lot of fellowship and within minutes we had all 5 of us talking together and loudly, trying to make our own point.. Just not aware or not caring about people around us, the rain, the time or our own urge to head back home.. Finally, the coffee shop boy cuts in to ask if we would order something (maybe that was his sweet way to let us know how noisy and chaotic we all were) that put all of us to silence, we brushed him off by lying to him and saying we were waiting for few other.. He was even more shocked to know that there were few more like us coming. We all sat silent and Vivek, our most intelligent and person with a knack for numbers, spoke " this Club is for members so that they could promote and reach out other members and a FB close group would be the best" immediately every one started speaking.. How many things can we handle.. Having is not the problem, managing is the thing, leaving it dead will even more demotivated our members blah blah blah.. Finally.. I do not know who spoke this but a line went like "WE CANNOT MANAGE A GROUP, AFTER HAVING A PAGE, LINKEDIN & TWITTER" that was it.. I looked so shocked that all thought I would faint.. The CAN'T word was used and I could not take it.. I proposed to the core team that we would try the FB group out if it does not catch momentum and it does not grow, we leave it and for some reason - no one opposed, maybe all wanted to go back home.. We parted off from Barista and headed home, long, wet and traffic clogged drive.. Vivek driving the car and I acted as if I was asleep but all I wanted to do was reach home and make that group of Startups Club.. How can anyone say we can't.. That was like sin, like the end of the world.. I kept playing a plan.. Reached home, did not even remove my foot ware, pulled out my system and there I was.. Created the Group.. Put a googled picture on networking as my group picture and then there is was.. 1 member.. ME.. Must I send an invite to the core team?? Would they be pissed off.. Would they feel I challenged them, I loved them all and my intention was not to hurt them but I had heard the CAN'T word.. I was helpless.. Anyway.. I decided that I was happy that I had created the group and would just share the link on my timeline and not invite any body and would talk to my core team and then do the rest.. I went to my room to change and freshen up and I heard 4 notifications came by on my phone.. My dearest core team.. All of them had sent a request to join.. I knew even more today why I loved them all so very much.. We stood beside each other for everything that is good for the club.. In 5 minutes we grew from 1 to 5. We had no plans, no SEO, no keywords.. All we, the core team did was just communicated to all our 200 members on meetup, our friends and contacts on FB and slowly it kept growing in numbers.. Every meetings we would tell our members, "please join our group & the page, and the Twitter & the LinkedIn".. We at times would feel so bad to make so many announcements..  Promote ur offerings there... Every day and every meeting.. Most importantly, even today.. What the group does to you is let's you talk about yourself, your idea, your offerings to a set of people who at times read it and at times just brush through but also at times who end up being your co-founders, ur customers and your trusted associations. 

So, this is the story of your Startups Club.. Your platform for your selling.. Your voice to the 1001  & counting pairs or eyes who could be one and all to you.. Love you all people for giving me this opportunity to share this little story of that rainy evening, the loud talks between trusted associations and the result got today and the great future for all of us.... 

Journey of a Startup

1980s.. Startup as a word did not exist, there were companies being formed, ideas being implemented, breakthrough inventions happening, big names turn to dust and new names become a trend setter overnight but the word Startups did not exist, there did not exist a need for a mentor or a guide to sit you down to tell you what you need to do for your growth. We had our parents, teachers, friends and fools who would always advice us on how to go about, we would listen to them and move on to do what we felt was right, so heres to the journey of Startups, the speed, the hurdles, the highs and the lows...

SPEED... When we begin the first step towards becoming an entrepreneur, we start to believe that we are on a flight, we are the pilots and we just have to fly and fly fast, we never stop to ever think that it is now that we need to be steady, slow and careful about the steps we take ahead. Lets take an example of everything we do regularly, slow and steady has actually won races but we forget that, very easily.

I experienced the same urge for speed in a aspiring entrepreneur who has just started her journey. With all my mentoring hours spent with her, we have become good friends and I am able to know, why she says things she says and she as well knows when she has really pushed me over the edge with her questions. So, as friends as we are, Satamita calls me up exactly after 3 days of her decision to go ahead with the new found idea and tell me that she needs to travel for a month in January and she needs the business up and running before that.. She is surely not abnormal or wrong, there are many out there like her, in fact, just few years back, I was exactly like that, my co-founder suggested to me that we must get into hospitality marketing as we were associated with few boutique resorts being set up and the next thing I do is, register a website and put a count down for 20 days down the line for it to go live.. check out www.exoticexplorers.com it did happen, we also made sales, in 20 days, we had the strategic tie-ups, we had the website, the operations and processes going but what we did not have is the TIME.. Business Mentoring is our core services and we just let that idea be, and moved ahead with our core interests. 

So, as we move ahead with our journey, we the startups need to remember that the first steps are the most crucial and you need to take them slowly, carefully and understand each and every thing you get your hands into.. Not stop completely but move ahead.. Structure your plans, put the first things first and also get down to doing it. If you plan to put the complete end to end plan perfectly, it would never happen, so put a plan which looks more feasible and practical and proceed with it.

HURDLES... Now, is that word familiar or what? Have we not come across that in everything we did ever. Going back to the teacher who hated you, to your parents who never allowed to take up what you wanted to do in life, to your girl/boy friend who would always seem to need something different to your needs. So, now why are the hurdles in the journey of making your idea into a practical business considered a huge issue. Hurdles are meant to happen, to sharpen your views, to strengthen your visions, to make you a better entrepreneur, so welcome it with open arms, take it as it comes, face it with a smile and come over it with confidence. See, how much you will learn from each of the experiences of overcoming your hurdles. 

Another example is one of my client again, who just launched his healthcare product on the 16th November, Anshil, not to forget, he is also a good friend of mine (the question I always ask is, do I make my client, my friends intentionally or it just seems to happen all the time), has had so many hurdles he has to over come, that I cannot imagine that an 8 month old startup and also an 8 month old entrepreneur could have ever overcome that. He has had to handle his financial crises, his father's expectations, his best friends and their tantrums, his mentor's anger :), his girl friends fights for not giving her time, his desire to booze in the night with friends and sleep late on weekends, you name it and he has got it all and he has faced all of it and he moves ahead. Clear in his mind and sure about his vision. Even as I write this, I get a call from him to update me on the progress and tell me that he has a another small war to win, I am confident he will and plus, he is confident he will see me beside him if he needs our services as his mentors. So, my dearest entrepreneurs, hurdles are a gift to all entrepreneurs to make them into the best ones the industry every produced.

Finally, HIGHS & LOWS of your life and mine.. It is we who make the high points and the low points of our entrepreneurial journey. Is it hard to believe? It is always the case when the world decides that we have had it very easy, it gifts us with all the low points in life and when we make up our mind; "Fuck the World" and move ahead, we gift our selves with High Moments.. So, are you ready to create your high moments as you move ahead?

I am, I was very low today morning when I read the news about Paul Walker, someone I adored and drooled upon. It just took him a drive to end it all and I suddenly felt, "Y am I working so hard to build something when it takes just that much?" and then, it happened, I said exactly the same, Fuck the world and logged into my Club's website (www.startupsclub.org) and there it was my HIGH MOMENT.. we had crossed 1500 members just in all most 10 months... I won.. again...