clever? No. Clear.

i think the single best innovation that has happened from the time i was in college to now, for a young guy is simple - the availability of coffee shops. Simple affordable coffee shops that are open for just hanging around. When Jasmine and me were going around, the single biggest issue overtime was - khan jay. Where to go? Right from 91 till 00, the big question was where to go to get some private conversation going. Where do two love birds go for sitting and staring into each others eyes. Where do they hang out, by themselves or with their friends, where do they while away the most part of the day. 

Jasmine and me used to try and be with each other all the time when in college. The problem was simple - we could be in college till a point of time - after that where could we go? Where to go for some privacy, some conversation, or simply to just hang out and chill. Where? Often we would search for new places - a garden perhaps (yuck), some restaurant but they would want you to leave after eating and finally the movies. Movies at least gave you 2 hours of together time, but cant really talk and know each other in a movie theatre,; you are merely spending time with each other, not ‘knowing’ each other!

We ended up seeing a lot of movies with each other. It was the best of times and watching movies wit each other has given us the most amount of joy. of course i was perpetually broke and we had to rely on Jasmine’s tuition fees to keep the romance funded! There is no cheap place for romance.

So when i saw the first coffee shop open in India, it was well after my marriage. It was in the year 2001 i think where i first experienced the coffee shop in the form of Barista. It opened its outlet near Sterling at VT. I clearly remember my first time there. We had gone with jasmine and a friend. I also remember ordering a cappuccino which i thought was awesome and a great drink. I remember enjoying it and thinking that this is a great concept. And the fact that one could simply spend hours at the place simply enjoying the coffee and the experience. Th idea of working from a  coffee shop, meeting at a coffee shop, talking at a coffee shop. I remember ruing the most - the fact that these things were not available to me while growing up with Jasmine.

But still, i am not complaining too much. First we used to sit often at the Barista outlets. Even as a married couple - one of things you need the most is spending quality time with each other. The ability to spend time talking, reading and discussing things is good but most important feature is the change of environment. With Jasmine sitting at home the most part of the day, it was a welcome change of routine and scenery when I got home late evening. this was after Jipsa was born and things got sour at home with mom and Jasmine. Mom and Jasmine would not know how to get along and Jasmine would be dying to get out. So we would take Jispa and go out for a walk and invariably land up at the Cafe Coffee Day outlet near our house. V-inu was also staying in Matunga at the time and so he too would join in. At one time our third friend from college days, Dinesh was back from Paraguay and so all four of us would step out for a coffee with Jispa in tow. The coffee shop gave us an environment to escape from it all and give us a chance to just simply hangout. I remember it being the best of times. It gave us immense joy.

Barista has long faded away - i dont know if its still in operation… Cafe Coffee day is there but somehow the quality doesn't stick and then we briefly tried the Costa but now Starbucks for some reason is winning hands down. I love this place. I have no clue why. I come often to just hang out at Starbucks. In my last job there was a Starbucks that opened near the office. From the first time i went there, I knew this was my place. I have been here so often that i have my own set of memories here. the best Starbucks ‘feel wise’ has to be the Horniman Circle outlet. The one near my new office at Bandra is also one crazy hot bed of activity. It is huge but is stuffed whenever i visit it. But still this cute one near my old office - the Starbucks at Prabhadevi in Century Mills Building has to be my favourite. There is something about the vibe of the place that is hard to beat. I am not a big believer of vast - in fact i wouldn't care too hoots about it. But there is something i feel nice about when i come here. I like the people, the atmosphere, the lay out, the fact that its on the first floor, everything. I think at the end  - every place is about the memories. here i have the best memories. In my last job, i was doing great, i had achieved some real big stuff and all without any strong support from the management. In fact i was completely gainfully unemployed. Whatever i did, I did with almost half a day to spare every day. I face a lot of criticism, ignorance, lack of understanding , cynicism etc. People had no clue what great stuff was happening. Whenever i wanted to escape it all, i would go to this Starbucks. typically with a team member, i would run away and have a nice conversation with them. i built my relations with them at this place. I remember running away from all the issues and getting joy over a cup of coffee in this place. Even now, i like to come here from time to time. I like to have the coffee here. One staff knows me well and makes for me my cup of coffee. She knows exactly what i want - one cappuccino, soy and dry. Its the best place for me to be. Its my space.

Of course its got nothing to do with the coffee (almost nothing). Someone told me once that the lighting at a Starbucks is designed to give you corridors and spaces of privacy in an environment thats fundamentally public. Sure - there is a warm feel to it. But i think the most of all - its is what you experience. So far I have experienced nothing but joy and escape from drudgery here. And this is what i associate from this place and hence there is an emotion. 

Brands must realise this and recognise this and keep it close to their hearts. Every small thing matters. The menu design, the pricing, the lights, the crowd you attract, the service, the quality of the people serving. Barista was awesome but in the end it had too many owners and no one person to spearhead the experience and keep it sacrosanct. The coffee quality changed and then the atmosphere. The last time i had been there - the place was full of stupid monetising schemes run by the head office - there was a counter put by red bull (i think) and then by a chewing gum company and then they wanted to sell t shirts and merchandise and other crappy stuff. Everything that could be used to crowd the place was used and then it degenerated into a chaotic environment. Monetising the place may help in the short run but is stupid to do in the long run. people will see the chaos, they may not complain but they will feel it and slowly the crowd dwindles. I have seen it happen over and over again - one small charge levied, one small feature removed, one small change just to be clever. Who will notice - lets do it and then - it will slowly fail! people notice more things than what we give them credit. Small things matter. We keep cutting corners and disaster strikes over a period of time. We have this one year concept in firms for accounting. This accounting logic will dictate the bonus we pay our people - the kind of work we do in one year is the amount of nous we receive. When the life of the business is supposed to be over a 100 year period why should bonus be yearly. How will what i do this year help the firm in the long run. It may not necessarily be right for now but will be right after three years - who accounts for that?

In my last firm i steadily built the foundations of the digital practice that will pay dividends for years to come. Even if i have left the firm it will keep paying dividends. While everyone might acknowledge the benefits of the same - doing it does not give any benefits to me beyond the value it adds to me as a professional.

The solution I think is for the firm to give yearly and three year bonuses. The three year bonus has to be for steps taken in the long run. It forces people to think for the long run. People should wonder what is it that I have done that will impact the firm in the next three - five years. What is it that will make the customers happy. What steps I will take that will come back to bite me in the bum and make the firms’ image poor in the eyes of the stakeholders. 

Now working in a start up funded by VCs there is an even greater problem. Quarterly numbers. People have to meet quarter in quarter numbers. People are running every quarter. Quality businesses are not built by the quarter but are built by the years of being in the business doing the right thing. When you think quarterly how can you build for long? People will simply think about flipping a deal, passing the buck and letting the incentives just matter for the immediate. Who will reward long term business decision taking? I understand the speed is important. A firm that cannot build of speed is extent but this quarter on quarter business planning will kill viable good businesses before they get a decent shot at success.

Recently a lot of start ups are in the use for going bust. The growth was simply not sustainable. Giving free money away and playing the game of incentivising customers cannot run forever. Even good companies start wilting under pressure. A lovely food  rating app that does really well was in the news. It raised money on the back of projections that they will sell ad space on the app. Possibly here we are talking about restaurants who advertise on the app promoting their meals. The CEO wrote a letter to all employees blaming the sales team for not delivering upto promise. That letter leaked and caused havoc on social media. The app was doing well simply growing its user base and getting people to use, rate and browse the app. Its a good app. Then possibly an over committed number was used in a business case presentation and then that became the number to live and die by. Or possibly the sales guys genuinely underperformed. the young CEO was possibly a great guy to design and manage an app but really sucked at managing a sales team. Whatever the reason - the sales did not happen and the blame fell on them. IN any case - whats the role of the CEO? writing stupid mails to the entire team and showing his displeasure or simply folding his sleeves and getting to work with the sales team, region by region. Either improving performance or simply recalibrating the target to be more real and rooted. Writing mail helps none. I don’t know why CEO’s have this grandiose notions of writing mails to all staff. It helps none. i can understand that in case there is an immediate controversy or that the firm is being slammed in media, but beyond that this mail writing culture is stupid. Very large organisations sometimes need it as the CEO cant really talk to tens of thousands of employees but if you have a good management team in place, you normally dont even require to do this. Just talk and solve the problem.

In start up environments there is a lot of hero worship. Everyone who religiously follows another start up head. They are all insecure. They are constantly raising money, constantly trying to outdo the other in PR and constantly trying to be in the limelight. I think this culture of writing mails comes from some other startup CEOs writing mails to all employees that get viral. So if a CEO of a successful start up writes a personal mail to all - then I must as well. 

I feel entrepreneurs are crazy - they are crazily optimistic people. They see everything with rose tinted glasses. I don’t think practical real people can become entrepreneurs. These guys dream all the time. They equate themselves to other people who have made it and believe that can pull it off as well. Not all will make it. In fact a crazy small number of people will really make it to any real scale. But everyone believes it is them that will do it and they are really that smart. They seem to discount their shortcoming and have a super sized view of themselves. But seriously - they really really believe in how everything will just unfold and work out for them. They know it and they sell it. they sell it all the time. I think its just their own ability to believe and sell it to other smart people who join in, led by their vision, is the major reason that they succeed. Only a hyper enthusiastic sales man can convert a sale, regularly.

So thats our man.

Coming back to the first point - yup the coffee shops have been amazing for me and for a number of other people. It has become my oasis of calm and frenzy at the same time. The place is just beautiful. In so many cafes there are people sitting check by jowl, someone working, someone flirting, someone interviewing, someone chilling and someone at a kitty party. Its amazing. Also with the com boom now - someone is sitting and pitching to an investor or someone else all the time. Its a lovely environment and as far as I am concerned, simple companies that focus on the core experience and keep it uncluttered like Starbucks, are the ones marching a steal over the others. People will come to your location and walk a little more, but the atmosphere matters. I don't think any coffee can really pass a blind taste test. No one coffee is seriously superior in the average customers mind frame as long as you don't really botch it up by downgrading or varying your blend. All you need to do is to keep your core proposition clear and stick to it. I remember reading the biography of the Starbucks CEO, where he developed it and passed it on to others to run it, only to come back and clear things up. Starbucks started losing it till he came back and refocussed the company on the core service. The simple message being: Don’t try and be clever - be clear!

Can I proudly say that I am .... humble?

Normally forwards on the email are really boring stuff. Either they tell you a joke you have heard or haven’t found funny, or they give you sentimental bull shit that you must forward to a billion or so people or else face bad luck. Very rarely does some one send you some insight that you have not known of or care for.
Yesterday I received one rare forward. This was in the form of an essay “How Will You Measure Your Life?” by Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School. He wrote a lot of interesting stuff. A lot which I knew about or agreed to. But one thing he wrote struck me harder as it seemed to give a solution to something that has been vexing me.

I have met some seriously humble people and some seriously arrogant behaviour. Humility is a virtue that is taught in school in moral science class. It is a virtue to have. But it is taught or rather it is understood wrongly. Till now also I never really understood humility. I think my natural instinct is arrogant and self assuming. I have a mighty high view of my self. I have tried always in the past to some how keep this in check. Self deprecating behaviour was one strong way to do it, as I saw it. tel your self that you aren’t that good. That there are many better and you are just not able to see it. There so many higher goals and standards for you to achieve. That I thought tried keeping my arrogance instep.
But something was somehow still amiss. Something did not connect. Was I still arrogant but only slightly more balanced about it. Yes I am good but there are ways to get better. Would this help me treat other people better or would my arrogance finally play out. Would I unknowingly upset people by my huge self confidence and inability to see counter points of view? Suppose I get the point soon enough, do I insult people by telling them that I got it and they could carry on. Was hunching my shoulders and sitting in a submissive pose just an act that went against my grain and really helped no one. What is humility and how to achieve it? Honestly I can ask all this in hindsight. Till now I think self deprecating behaviour was helping go …. No where. While I genuinely manage to control my thoughts and made me achieve to higher standards by believing that everything can and must improve, I don’t think it did anything for my humility quotient (or lack of thereof).
The answer is in what the author writes

“humility was defined not by self-deprecating behavior or attitudes but by the esteem with which you regard others. Good behavior flows naturally from that kind of humility. For example, you would never steal from someone, because you respect that person too much. You’d never lie to someone, either.”

That is humility. It is not seen by how we treat ourselves; its essence is in how we regard others. Not treat others but genuinely REGARD others. We can treat other people nicely but then think we are such nice people that we are able to treat other people well. It would flow from our own high version of our self. But if we genuinely regard others well it would not occur to us to treat others better. We would naturally treat them well.

I see light. If I were to think through and analyse the people I have met, the humble ones are the ones who regard others. They are so beautiful that they genuinely love other people and they have no self concept when they interact with others. The genuine intent comes through so strongly that it is easy for people to love them and regard them in return. They don’t ask for it and don’t want it, but are always there. Prem and Rajesh were two such souls that have shown me such light.

I have always wondered – how I am seen as humble with some and arrogant with others. I am the same guy, why would this happen? Till now I have thought that those whom I work with closely have been able to see the real me and the others just need to dig deeper. I had made significant progress with my self deprecating attitude, but at some time it hit the wall. What is wrong?
The answer is elsewhere. Do I have genuine regard for others whom I don’t work closely with? The problem is not with others, it is with me. The day I realise that I have made a great step forward.

There. Today I took a significant step forward.

Now I will look at the email forwards with a little more ‘regard’

PS: Hey – a-ha moment…. I think I do better with my students as I have genuine regard for them. I love their abilities and try my best to work with them. That’s why I tend to work better wit them. Yes. It is not about me. I have always maintained that the students love to learn, it is only that we as teachers have failed to teach. I have maintained that if we respect them and ‘regard’ them well they will automatically love and respect you. Yes. Shit … the stuff is so dam true.
It has also worked where I have tried to tell myself with every subordinate – this one is good and not let me think that anyone is bad. That’s helps me work with them and improved my relationship with them. It has failed as well but the successes have been more than failures. Hmmm….
Can you see me now? I have a halo behind my head. It is a little light and is fast disappearing, but its there somewhere… look closely.


One more interesting thing he wrote: The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.

connection

The few days my blackberry device did not work I realised what I had suspected all along. I am now sure of its true use to me. Nothing much besides – deleting unwanted mails. I use that all the time. Deleting spam, rubbish mails and reading mails that are marked to me for no real reason. My job is to be marked on them. It’s only my name they require on the email. There is no action that I do on it. I am merely a cc, a statistic, no… not even that. My name must be having the power either to get work done or give assurance (albeit false) to the sender that work will get done. Or a collective responsibility in case something happens, which does not really work. Or it’s something that is merely done with hope. Someone, something might propel movement. Someone will give in. Something might transpire. Hope, ummeed, tis’ what makes the email go around.
Besides reading and marking it as read and deleting shit, there is no real use. Sometimes it helps in catching issues before they snowball. Then in a sense it is an insurance against blow ups or a bunker that helps contain the blast. Sometimes it useful as a diary with you all the time. But then not having it won’t really kill you.
So there. I figured out what it is by it not being there. Sort of negative learning’s, if there exits such a phrase.
Now I realise that I like checking the mails on the blackberry often enough, purely to keep my inbox at work as clean as possible. So while I might look and behave the part, spare judging me. Its not that I want the umbilical connection.
Now there – that’s sound logical enough. I almost believed myself for a minute.

But what I really missed – my gmail access which is banned in office and hence the blackberry is a saviour and of course google maps, which helps me in case I am totally lost, which is many times these days on the road.

read this

I have started a new thing which seems to be doing decently ok. But when you are teaching you really don’t know. I started sending and provoking thoughts over the emails. Allowing people to send mails with their opinion to all. I thinks pretty cool and allows for general discussion with me getting into moderate only when necessary. This allows for the thoughts to sink in and then taking their answers I can push or correct or close the arguments. Its good fun. And I hope they end up understanding a little more.
Here also it’s obvious that those who are interested and willing think and respond more than the others and the rest are just silent spectators. But then I can only hope. It also lets me bring in interesting observations from my life and share it with much faster and easier. Just email blast the dam thing and 50 students are in the know.

There is only one problem though. I can understand some of their responses. No, it not their thought process, its their typing. Dey dam rit in shtrt cod. Try as I might its pretty tiring to decode every word and den mk sense of it all. capitals at the start of every sentence is long forgotten. It just goes on like a rant, with thoughts flowing anyhow and its feel lyk I am reading some long chats. Their names on the email id’s look like this - ^be@ut!fu~ ^s0u! bladerxrz. Now samle this – “And m nt sure wat neha's trying to say about the device bein wireless... cz its nt... i kinda c d wire connected to it....” wht wud dis mean? Cn u knw wht 2 do… ne1?
Huff puff generation gap.

the big Q meets the big A

I really need some creative release. While one of my collegues for searching for a job, she came across this start up company on a job portal trying to be really cool. They posted this job posting which got me interested. I might be just the right guy for the job. The job description fits well. Marketing sales distribution financial services are the correct key words. She applied online only to get an email from them, asking for answers to longwinded questions. What does a man need in life except a challenge? So I decided to answer these friendly blokes myself. It’s nice to do interviews when you are not really looking for a job isn’t it?

So here is the mail I sent them. The Q are the questions they asked and the JD: precedes the answers I wrote. I myself was surprised by the wisdom I exhibited in some answers. Some of them were so deep. They also helped me clarify my own thoughts on some topics. The best part about this is that it is all true, or what I believe to be true
Don’t get me wrong. This is not one upmanship and I really think the guys are genuinely trying to do something different. It’s good for them. Boring stuff gets you boring results. I hope they get some good guys frustrated by trying to beat the systym that is tacked against them.
So if the interview guys actually read my mail and looked me up on google… here is a big thank you and kudos from me.
----------------
The answers:-
------------------------------------
I am tired of inane disclaimers that financial service companies throw at customers at the last; that to in illegible fonts and if you are on the radio, at incomprehensible speed. May God make you big enough one day to inflict the same on others. In other words (duh) may you grow to spend money on above the line marketing.
Disclaimer: a cocky tone with the backing of seed investors (other people’s money) probably appreciates or expects one back…

QUESTIONSQ1 Have you been in a financial products distribution role before? Yes/No

JD:
Oh you betchya…

Q1Y If you answered “Yes” to Q1, then please tell us more. Anillustrative list is -- the kind of product, the distribution channeldetails, the turnover (+ the growth attributable to you), theincentive structure (for you as well as your distribution channel),any extraordinary achievements/contributions (e.g. record breakinggrowth, convinced a particularly difficult but important customer(s),new/innovative ideas you contributed) + any other detail you thinkrelevant.

JD:
I was in looking at Mumbai and Pune as a territory for selling online trading accounts years ago. October 00 to November 01 to be precise. Those numbers were gobsmacking awesome. Oops, did I use a hyperbole. Retract – rephrase – Compared to today’s day of lakhs of account I could only manage a couple of thousand. We weren’t a startup driven by racking numbers to please a seed community. We were owned by a shrewd seasoned business man who only threw money after you got money in. So with a limited sales force and a deeply immature market, that was industry shaking. To give you a perspective, google was just about more than a Stanford project at the time.
Selling internet broking was tough – Sensex was at 2k and internet was the haven of fraud (at least in the customers mind) and to add to that, our dear Mr. Ketan Parikh, decided to play party pooper. You know the guy?
Let’s get back to numbers – our trading volume around the time was 5 cr a day and I was directly attributable to around 3 cr. Not bad considering we had an ‘all India’ presence. But then, was that my over performance or the other idiots at the branches just decided to sleep on their jobs. The Bangalore guy was called Mr. NASDAQ as he always ambled to office at around 12 noon.
Difficult customers were part of the party. If you think difficult customers who were on the threshold of joining are painful in financial services, you aint seen nothing yet. Wait till they join and make a few losses, having their margins cut in a fall and now try recovering money from a dude in bhayendar, who happened to be the local NCP rep. Oh, does that mean I did that. You bet I did. All of the above to multiple people and yes, the bhayander story is true. Now that you reminded me let me dig up that card. I’ll probably frame the dam thing. An, numbers again – the recovery from the NCP guy was around a frightfully low five grand.
Innovative ideas bit – lotsa – we wanted direct sales agents. One poor guy walked in from Pune to start a broking coaching institute. I made him the largest sales agent in India. He is still a large guy there. Now I can happily give you his reference. A year into the job then, he might not have been a happy reference.
Then my company did the silliest thing they could. Took me out of sales (a promotion they told me) and put me in centre. Wow. Now I looked at broad sales strategy (fart), marketing (more fart), product (loud fart), customer service (fart of the highest order) and corporate strategy (beyond just fart). Hung around for a couple of years and left. Did some nice things. Conned a few websites into paying per lead generated. Those were the days of cost per thousand impressions. Google was in its nappies remember, and they hadn’t yet plagiarized the adword model yet.
Got customer service up to mark. Did simple things like design and implement software to track and manage queries as well as – wow – classify customers into buckets based on trading volume. I practically ran out of the cabin naked, shouting Eureka, eureka…. Good thing they don’t have bathing communes in fashion these days. But what’s so hot about implementing a software? Loading a CD can’t be that much tough. Errr… this is the embarrassing part. We decided to build this stuff in house. Ya… I know… my sympathies with me as well.
Incentive structures in those days for the core team was not directly variable a math model. The company made money and hopefully end of the year, they like you enough to give you a bonus. For the direct sales guy, it just was a cash incentive. Innovative stuff was done there in the form of mid month 3 day schemes to get rid of month end bottle necks and stuff like that. Nothing rocket science but a staid financial service firm like ours… boy was that tough getting through.
Record breaking growth – you tried a nice one on the percentage versus multiple growth bit “fairly frightening habit of looking at targets as “Multiples” rather than “Percentages””. Very cool line but would fail to impress anyone who was worked in a fresh company in a fresh industry. Of course you grow in multiples, that too monthly. You have a ridiculously low base. Are any of you the hallowed IIT IIM combos?

Q1N If you answered “No” to Q1, doesn’t matter (well, it might perhapsmatter, but not very much). Please tell us your approach on creating,nurturing and growing a financial product distribution channel. Pleaseremember that on a “Ceteris Paribus” basis, good ideas can be worth asmuch as (if not more than) good experience.
Two hints for you in this connection. The first hint -- our ad clearlymentions that like most startups we too (though we have a Seedinvestor in place) are resources-poor; meaning no advertisement based(or other expensive) strategies or other expensive strategies please.Whatever money we have, we would prefer to spend it on your salary,the office overheads, and most importantly, our villa in Switzerland(just joking). The first hint – Though we are achievement-hungry, wedo generally tend to ignore strategies of the type “give me ‘n”people, each will handle ‘m’ customers, each of these customers doingon an average ‘l’ amount of business annually, so I will give you‘nml’ amount of business in all”! Mathematically impeccable but then…..

JD:Well all other things being equal, while pardoning the latin or is it greek translation, your question here indicates an answer that the earlier question fails to address. So here goes nothing –
Why financial distribution, all channels follow the same logic. Plenty of hard work and sweet common sense. You keep the relationships equitable and work with the partner, you got it going. The amount of consideration that is typically the bone of consideration (eeks, bad English), roots from an imbalance created from an understanding of power. To make things simple –if the distribution owns the customer, you pay high; if you own and hence pull customer – you pay low. To validate the hypothesis, speak to your nearby kirana.
And as far as hiring people goes, it works directly in proportion to the investment you think your firm can afford. People always work well in sales. Feet on street is well – feet on street – forgive an other rubbish aphorism. But if you are like my super boss who believes that, spend money only after you see money, good for you. I have seen enough to see that both strategies are great. Though for a start up that promises growth, stock, valuations and other scary words, conservation might not be the chosen path. After all the swiss villa is calling. And it’s never been cheaper. Thank you subprime.

Q2A As you know, the distribution of financial products is a fairlyfragmented business. There are the national level distributors andthen there are many smaller (but important in their regionnevertheless) players as well. Personal equations are important. Sohow would you assess your existing senior level (decision takinglevel) contacts among the financial products distributors to sourcethem for us? If you do not have any contacts (e.g. you are from adifferent line), then how do you propose to (i) create the databaseand (ii) also acquire the relevant senior level contacts

JD:Having databases is one the surest and smartest way to short circuit the growth process in this industry; but given the wonderfully inadequate innovation in this industry I an assuring you that these databases come with a heavy cost. The cost is invisible… the cost is the mindset of the guy who comes along with it. He comes with existing preset ideas (if you call them that) and the baggage of his current employment (promises made, big talk given).
In my experience if you have a kick arse idea and service, you need a fresh guy with eager brains. If yours is a me-too product, then hire the database.
A small part of my current work does work with people who have names of distributors, and they can be leveraged. But I still can’t fathom the need for this. This industry is small and fairly friendly. A few calls here and there will get you the list.

Q2B A linked question. Once you have the database + the contacts(either because you already have these or you acquire them somehow),how would you then go about keeping it updated?

JD:uhh. That’s a tough one. Will an excel sheet help?I also assume you have budgets for people to travel (not Mallya style of course) and for people to make calls. Is STD enabled on the cell phone? That would help for sure. A greeting card sent by courier might also tell you if the addressee has moved. See. Greetings cards always come with an ulterior motive.
(Is mallya one of the seed guys… then that line just got me screwed, metaphorically of course)
Ohhh now I get it. You were talking about getting more people on it. I must be so thick. .. But if that’s your core job, you kinda just do it. Right? You keep looking, you keep talking and you keep buying them off. The last is the worst thing and must not be done, but so is infidelity. Go on – remember ‘the tiger’. As in woods? Ahhh, my sense of humor must be sickening. Imagine having someone like me around your start up.

Hint:- Please keep the “resource-poor start-up” point in mind whileanswering either of these questions (Question 2A or Question 2B).
JD:Got that loud and clear. What you hiring morons that you need to repeat this stuff?

Q3 An easy question. Please tell us something about your sellingtechniques. The answer length is at your discretion. It can be onesentence or multiple pages (coherently written, of course). And by theway, no “cut/copy + paste” jobs from Phillip Kotler etc please.

JD:PERSISTENCE

I wanted to cut that at one word, but since I seem to be suffering from typititis, here is one cut copy paste from the dictionary. By the way, who’s that kotler chick. Haven’t met her? Does she do handstands? You sure, you not from some IIM?

Main Entry: persistence Part of Speech: noun Definition: steadfastness
Synonyms:
constancy, doggedness, endurance, grit, indefatigability, perseverance, pluck, resolution, stamina, tenacity
Antonyms:
idleness, indifference, indolence

Q4 You would no doubt recall from the advertisement that we arethinking of keeping a part (maybe a large part) of your pay asvariable (incentives disbursed on a monthly/quarterly basis as well ashalf yearly and annually). And that even bigger rewards can hopefullycome your way through stock in our company (amount of stock given isof course performance linked).So what are your salary breakup expectations with us? On one extremeyou could say 0% fixed and 100% variable. Shows a lot of confidence,doesn’t it? On the other hand, you could say 100% fixed and 0%Variable. Without getting into a judgmental mode, don’t you think thisshows a lack of confidence?

JD:Try and answer this
If there was a $100 bill lying on the ground and there were (A) Santa Claus, (B) A dumb blond, (C) The Easter Bunny, and (D) A confident bloke who agreed for fully variable pay standing there, who would pick up the $100 bill?

(B) The dumb blonde. The rest are all fictional characters!

Just pay a guy his true worth and let him overachieve for bonus. Bonus does not run the house. It helps you buy the second car, the club membership and if your company is really cheap – a pair of ray bans. Variable pay to fulfil basic needs is like keeping a dog hungry so that he does tricks with food as the motive when your friends come home. Zoo zoo. As another bad maxim goes – when you pay peanuts you get … yaa.. you know that… some one…duh… Monkeys!

-- Now that the two extreme points have been discussed above, pleasego ahead and let us know your preferred breakup in percentage terms(Fixed component vs Variable component).

JD:Go figure…
Good try on the mental marking though. Dan Ariely would have been so proud of you.--

Within the Variable component, what proportion would you prefer toreceive in stock basis and what proportion as incentives(monthly/quarterly basis as well as half yearly and annually). Theincentives are in concrete/hard money so that is the obviousadvantage. But on the other hand, the stock incentives can potentiallybecome “x” times (“x” being hopefully > 10K, we pray to God), so youcan retire as a Crorepati or as a Multiple-Crorepati. What would beyour preference?

JD:The more you break incentives into multiple months of shorter duration, the more you encourage short term behavior. People will sell the dream to get the best sales for now leaving your company with empty promises and bad reputation. So go, keep a plan in place to reward employees who stuck around irrespective of performance. If you are a start up, everyone there who trusted you must get their fair share. That’s the fun of being a family. Asking people to bet on something they don’t know is such a mean trick. Give them their due. Give them bonus for great work. And give them stock for being with you. So that they too care. If you keep giving stock that requires them to stick around in the future you might just get a whole bunch of people staying around not because they love the place but because they want the stock. I always get on board people who work because they want to not because they have to. And then reward them for working for you. Stock must not be used as a carrot but used as a means for showing you care. You care for your granny not because she has to make her will, but because you care. And if she puts you on the will along with another brother who visited her less than you, you don’t crib.

-- Please also let us know your earlier (existing job or last job, ifcurrently between jobs or unemployed) breakup in terms of Variable vs.Fixed.
JD:well if you do want to know – we have fixed pay and variable in a good year can be as high as x or as low as zilch like last year. Stock – this is a complicated thing, designed to confuse. We are the financial engineers you see.

Q5 How comfortable would you be as an one-man (or one-woman) armywhich is what you would be initially?While answering the above, please do remember that you are an integral(in fact, probably the most important) part of boot strapping thecompany’s growth so initially you may have to really go out (even alone) and get us the business (see Q2A and Q2B above). This is thefirst (and likely to be the most important) phase of your career with us. Once you have done this successfully, then comes the easier andmore fun part -- setting up the marketing department, having multiplelayers below you, multiple number of subordinates reporting to you,putting your feet up on the table while others go out and get thenumbers and generally basking in the gentle glow of your achievement(+ in the context of the incentives + stock options discussed earlier,watching your bank balance grow).

JD:Is this a trick question? Is this a Miss Universe contest? And what’s with the disclaimer after the question?

Q6A What excites you the most about this job opportunity?
JD:Another trick question… you guys are good. You hire a psychologist for this stuff? This time ask Miss congeniality. No, not Sandra Bullock, but then… you sure want a lot of bullock in any case… eeeeks another horrible use of the pun. Yeh bolne ke pehle main mar kyun hani gaya.

Q6B Conversely, what are your biggest apprehensions about this jobopportunity? Please do not write “none” or “nil’ or any suchequivalent word, phrase or sentence here. Please let us know at leastone apprehension -- unless of course you are a real-life edition ofthe emotionless “Terminator” robot in which case we will certainlykeep your CV on file for the future (in case we ever need your unique“Termination of Humans” services).

JD:Now that’s a good question. Give your psychologist a bonus for this one and your copywriter a kick for the ugly ‘terminator’ idea. It is so passé. You might as well have said ‘aasta la vista, baby’. Getting the monotone though aka arnie, might take some doing.So answering the apprehensions:-
Any guy writing the job requirement in this way either is too cocky or too egoistic or too fresh or a really cool bunch. One on four might not be a great odd. But the fear here comes in terms of large ego clashes which are typically responsible for the shit we see. Especially in start ups. I have worked in a few to see it coming. If you guys are good, which I assume you are, your biggest problem is ego. If it is a one man show, then even more so.
Other apprehensions
– Will my pay come on time?
– How big is my cabin?
– How come it’s smaller than his?
– How long before I get my secretary and my big fat company sponsored credit card?
– Where’s my car?

Q7 Any other points you deem relevant.JD:errr… melody itni choclatey kaise bani?In conclusion:-We are really looking forward to hearing from you.
JD:So bless me lord

da email

I can’t get over this. Jasmine sent me a mail from jispad@gmail.com saying that this is Jispa’s email id. Firstly I thought it sucked. I mean what a boring dam id. It should have been something weird. jispasleeps@gmail.com, jispapad, or whatever. But hell she will create her ID based on her own ID later I guess. But I could not reply something as mundane as congrats or welcome to her. It was my first email conversation with her. It had to be inspirational; it had to be something that she would look forward to. It had to be something that she could hang on her wall and sleep in the bask of its security. It had to be something that she could turn to in times of difficulty.
Allow me to tell you a lovely story on inspiration or is it – direction?
(but before you read more, may I urge you to write mails to her. She might enjoy your mails. No forwards, spam or chain mails wishing her luck please.)

When the world was still young and the newly created beings—the Divas, the Asuras and the Manusas—were groping to understand their place in the world, they all meditated for true knowledge from their creator Prajapati, who was Brahma Himself.After a long time had passed, the Divas went to Prajapati and asked for His wisdom. “Lord, please tell us what we should live by.”Prajapati looked kindly at the Divas, who were endowed with great character and who had God-like intentions, but He simply uttered a single letter of the Sanskrit alphabet, “da.”The Divas pondered over what they had heard until Prajapati gently asked them, “Divas, do you understand the meaning of what I said?”The Divas stated, “Yes, Lord, we understand. ‘Da’ stands for Damyata—control. You want us to live a life of restraint.”Prajapati said, “Yes, you have understood it. Be self-controlled.”Next, the Manusas, who were humans, went to Prajapati and reverentially asked for His wisdom. “Lord, please tell us what we should live by.”For a few minutes Prajapati observed the Manusas, who had great intellect and passion but who were weak in body and petty in their dealings with others. He again pronounced the same letter of the alphabet, “da.” Prajapati paused, allowing them time to reflect over His answer. Then he asked them, “Manusas, do you understand what I said?”The humans grasped the meaning quickly. “Yes, Lord, we fully perceive what you said. ‘Da’ symbolizes Datta—give. We should be generous. There is great joy in sharing.”Prajapati was pleased with their answer, “You have understood. Go and live accordingly.”Lastly, the Asuras went to Prajapati and asked him for His wisdom. Although the Asuras were created in darkness, they were still His children. Prajapati looked at them carefully. The Asuras were strong in body and in their determinations. They were the rivals of the Divas. But once again Prajapati stated only “da.”The Asuras mused over what they had heard until Prajapati inquired, “Asuras, do you understand what I said?”The Asuras clearly discerned the message of Prajapati. “Lord, when you said ‘da’ you meant Dayadhyam— compassion. You want us to be compassionate.”Prajapati smiled, “Yes, you have understood it. Live a life of compassion for others.”Prajapati rose up and vanished in the clouds in the midst of a loud thunder—“da,” “da,” “da.” And the three races repeated, “damyata,” “datta,” “dayadham,” and went their separate ways. The divine message is often repeated by the clouds as they thunder, “da,” “da,” “da,” as if to remind all beings of the lesson learned by the three races at the very beginning of their journey—be self-controlled, be generous, be compassionate.Prajapati did not instill wisdom, nor did He offer to show the right path. Prajapati accepted the three different interpretations of His message because the Divas, Manusas, and Asuras recognized their own frailties and interpreted His Message accordingly. One can perceive wisdom only at a level of one’s cognizance and consciousness

Hence I too wanted to send a message to her of equal status and meaning. I am sure this also serve as insipartion to you as well. Here is what I wrote to her.

Dum chik chick bum bum
What a funny bum bum
Why have you bum bum
When there is only one bum
Dum chik chick bum bum

philosophy has its uses

Five years back when Jispa was born, a friend of mine (Ashutosh) remarked that “the birth of the child is the death of the father” apparently quoted by the great poet Kabir. The statement has great significance. As he explained to me, that once the child is born, the father will do anything to save the child from harm. If it means putting his life for the child he will do so without hesitation. So in a matter of speaking the father’s life is not his own, he has already given it to / up for the child, so in other words he is already dead. Now that’s an interesting thought.
We were holidaying in matheran the other day. I got some hot soup for Jispa. I then got a two litre mineral water bottle and placed it on the table and turned. As I turned I heard a commotion and I turned back to see the bottle toppling over and hitting the soup bowl. Normally one sees this in slow motion. Not this time though. I saw this in super warp speed. The bottle hit the soup bowl and the soup tippled over and was falling on Jispa. My only reaction was to extend my palms as wide as possible in between Jispa and the soup bowl so that the impact of the hot soup was maximum on my hand and minimum on Jispa. Successful - Jispa only got a drop on her pants and I bore the brunt. I jumped around a bit and luckily it did not burn me much. But I realized what I did and what Kabir meant.


The other day the stupid IT guy in the office (they all are) decided to break a hole in my table and put the printer plug point inside my cupboard. This incensed me to a great extent. I tried reasoning with him but he just would not understand. The next day I realized the business at risk issue and wrote a mail. Result – the plug was dutifully removed within 24 hours. Here’s the mail. You decide.
The cast though – Nagraj – the IT guy, Shama – the admin, Vareena – the HR.
My next fight – get that bloody hole repaired.


SUB: Business At Risk

In my cupboard where I keep my books and papers we suddenly have an electric point!

Where there is an electric point, there you will have sparks (invariably). Even Jispa knows that. (if you don’t know who Jispa is, I don’t know you). When spark touches paper, it burns. Remember your 6th standard science class. When paper burns, more paper next to it burns. This leads to a chain reaction where the entire desk catches fire. Desks are predominately wood and what have you here? A catastrophe waiting to happen. Nero fiddled while Bakhtawar burned. Who is Nero? I dunno, ask him. Who him? Ask Nero for all I care. So it might be the boy who cried wolf, but who knows; if it looks like a wolf, feels like a wolf, behaves like a wolf, it is not likely to be a kangaroo. Jispa knows that as well. (what? you still don’t know who is Jispa? get outta here)

So kindly remove the point from there (the electric point, got the point?) and please can I have my desk back. Its missing me and the feeling is mutual.

How did this get about:-

I ask Nagraj, Nagraj tells me that he tell Shama, Shama obviously does it because Nagraj told her. Who gave Nagraj authority, well he spoke to Vareena. Why did Vareena say yes, well because Nagraj told her. Why did Nagraj get it done, beacuase Vareena and Shama said so. In excel parlance this is called circular reference. So where does the buck stop. You silly goose, the buck cannot stop – it’s a circle and it’s twisted, so that makes it’s a mobius strip. A mobius strip has no start no end, its just keeps going around. So much so that some scientists have hypothesized that if it does not start or end it does not exist. It is not even there.

A mathematician confided
That a Möbius band is one-sided,
And you'll get quite a laugh,
If you cut one in half,
For it stays in one piece when divided

So who has the hole in the end:- my desk. I am not sure about anyone’s mind yet. Hope this burned a hole in your mind as well.

While at the topic – does putting a hole in my desk require my permission? Oh ya – the circle has decided on its own I guess (the circular reference circle). It’s like a snow ball and it’s got sufficient momentum on its side. So, GET OUT OF THE WAY! But while putting the hole in, musn’t you remove my stuff so that it does not get dirty? GET OUT OF THE WAAAY, SNOW BALL IS SNOWBALLING. But….AVALANCE..tttttt.

I have just been exterminated. Exterminated employees need not feel anything. Especially motivation, desire to call the place your own, belonging, clean perhaps. Anything. Just work. But I have just been exterminated – so what? Those exterminated are transported to the netherworld – where you just work. Well at least you don’t burn here. Well the place night burn down, but you might as well might be saved. Should I feel grateful. I should.

Thank you

Yours truly

Do I need to add my name? is the email id enough? Sombody answer, someone pull me out, someone show me a sign that I am alive. Someoneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…………………………….aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa