Entrepreneurship 2009: By Rajesh Jain

Best of 2009: Entrepreneurship – By Rajesh Jain

Table of Contents

Venture Investing...................................................................................................................................... 1

Numbers Discipline ................................................................................................................................... 2

New Ideas.................................................................................................................................................. 3

100X Disasters........................................................................................................................................... 3

Telling a Story............................................................................................................................................ 4

Navigating NetCore – The Past Year ......................................................................................................... 4

Navigating NetCore – The Past Year (Part 2) ........................................................................................ 5




Quarterly Targets and Reviews................................................................................................................. 7

Entrepreneurship in India ......................................................................................................................... 7

Venture Investing

October 15th, 2009

I can’t but help think that we are missing out on creating a deep-rooted start-up culture in India because

we do not have the first two stages of the investing pipeline: angels, and first round investing. In the

Indian context, angels should typically invest 1-2 cr ($200-400K) to give enough money for the company

to get started and through to the early product prototype. First round investing (typically by a venture

firm) should be between Rs 5-15 cr ($1-3 million) for products focused on the Indian market.

What we do have are plenty of Indian funds willing to invest Rs 25-100 crore ($5-20 million) - ideally into

companies that are profitable and looking for growth capital. At this stage, the company is expected to

be profitable.

The net result is, as someone put it to me: VCs in India act like PEs (Private equity funds), and PEs act like

banks!

So, is there a way out from this?

What we need in India to get more start-ups created and more importantly, create the environment for

them to succeed is a combination of an Incubator and Venture Capital Fund. This is something on the

lines of what Kai-Fu Lee is doing in China or perhaps Y Combinator.

There needs to be a core team at the Incubator that can explore new ideas, and see their potential in

them becoming companies. In India, one thing I have seen is that start-ups require a lot more hand

holding. That is where an experience team at the Incubator can help nurture companies (teams) through

the difficult early days. Venture capital funds typically don’t have the bandwidth to spend more time at

many early stage companies.

So, think of a multi-stage to create the ecosystem needed for driving innovation and entrepreneurship.

Start by creating an incubator which can seed tens of ideas and teams with say Rs 10-50L ($20K-100K).

This needs to be a continuous process. Then, pick a few from there for the next stage of funding, which

can be 10X the initial funding, with a third stage to get some companies funded with 5-10X more capital

(a few million dollars). The fund size should be about $60 million, with about $10 million set aside to

build a top-notch core team of peoplewho are committed to helping build the companies over a 4-5

year period.

Many ideas and companies will fail, but it is out of these failures that the successes will emerge. India

needscompanies that can create billions of dollars in wealth over the next decade. We have starting

talent, but we need to do more to fill in the gaps that exist. An integrated incubator-fund helps bridge

these gaps.

Numbers Discipline

October 14th, 2009

I have written on this topic in a different context in the past but it probably is worth repeating. Every

company, however small, must develop a “numbers discipline” when it comes to revenues and costs.

For much of my business life, this is not something I bothered to do - and so am assuming that there are

plenty others like me! Hence there is a need to reinforce this point.

I used to think that (a) small companies could not estimate accurately about what numbers they do each

month or quarter since business is generally unpredictable, and (b) it didn’t really matter whether we

met whatever targets we set or not. I was wrong on both counts. And habits once formed become hard

to change. Over time, missing numbers becomes an acceptable thing, and that culture then sets in -

both on the sales front and on the expenses side.

It took us a long time even after we started to instill the discipline of meeting numbers. There used to be

big gaps earlier, but the past six months have seen a dramatic change - enough to deliver for ourselves

two cashflow positive quarters. Now, we need to make sure we maintain the momentum.

New Ideas

October 13th, 2009

The one thing I cannot stop doing is coming up with New Ideas. Nowadays, I also try and note the trail of

how a particular idea could built up. There are three elements which I have found are particularly useful

in the ideation process:

• Talking to people and listening carefully to the questions they ask

• Writing or doing a presentation - helps in structuring it

• Deep thinking for an extended period of time

Of these, the third is perhaps the hardest to do. There are so many things that need our attention - now!

It is easy to lose oneself on answering emails, randomly surfing the web, or reading through Facebook

status updates from dozens or even hundreds of friends. In other words, it is easy to get lost in the data

streams that exist all around us. At times, it is very critical to step back and force a deep think -

imagining what the future can be. That requires a few hours of uninterrupted thought — easier said

than done.

One thing I have realised is that even not-so-good Ideas can be moulded over time with enough thought

and interaction with others. One needs a base framework to begin with - and the courage to share half-

baked thoughts with others! And then let things simmer fora while to make magic happen.

100X Disasters

October 7th, 2009

We see them every so often in business (and perhaps in personal life): disasters which we could have

avoided had we made a decision to spend 1% of the time or money on an earlier occasion.

We had one such 100X disaster in the company recently when one of our persons in the billing team

took suddenly ill. She used to single-handedly manage the billing for our mailing renewals. And as it

happens, there was no backup or written process — there were just so many things in her head! She

was amazingly efficient at things, so until she had to take leave for an extended period, we didn’t wake

up to the extent of the flaw in the internal system. It would have taken little for us to have an

understudy associated with her, but we had not even thought about it — one of these things that

slipped through the cracks.

It boils down to “no backup” — either of a person, or of a process. The question to really aske very so

often is: which one thing are we not doing which could cause a blow-up that can hurt? Of course, one

cannot take it to an extreme, and duplicate every person or process. But there will be a few such things

that we can do (insurance, Plan B - call it whatever) which can save embarrassment at a future point of

time.

Telling a Story

September 25th, 2009

Over the years, I have realised the importance of being able to tell a story of what one is doing in a

manner that is simple and compact. It doesn’t always start that way. On my recent US trip, I had a slide

deck talking about NetCore, what we want to do, and discussing the assets we have created to help us

build the future faster. I worked a lot on the slide deck. It took about 5 versions to get it just right. Each

version took about two hours to create on successive days. To tell a story that others can understand in

10 minutes took 10 hours of hard work.

It is not easy telling one’s story. My natural inclination is to be comprehensive rather than compact. I try

and fill in all sorts of details. That doesn’t work, as I realised quickly. In meetings, one has about 15-20

minutes to deliver the key message. And that has to be done upfront. It is not easy, but it can be done if

one focuses only on the Most Important Point. Each story has one key message, and the focus should be

on delivering that with maximum effectiveness.

Working on this through the early part of this trip reminded me of the two-minute pitch I had given at

PC Forum a few years ago for the $100 PC and Novatium. It took many hours of work to get that two-

minute talk right. It was the same this time around with the story.

Luckily, I had a lot of help to get the story right. After the first few times I did it (not so effectively), I

would analyse with those who heard me what I was doing right and what wasn’t going well. I then kept

working through to get it just perfect. We will know when we get it right by just watching the reaction of

the people in the room who are listening.

Telling a Story is a key attribute that every entrepreneur, manager and sales person needs. However

good an idea, if it cannot be communicated well, then it has a lesser chance of succeeding. Passion

combined with a Perfect Story can be a winning combination.

Navigating NetCore – The Past Year

August 24th, 2009

Running a business is exciting and challenging at the same time. There are many decisions one has to

make and live with the consequences if they turn out to be wrong. In the past year or so, we at NetCore

have faced many such decision points. I want to share some of these moments and the thought process

that went into each of those decisions. Hopefully, this can be good learning for entrepreneurs and

managers.

Last November, we faced a moment of truth. The burn rate (revenue minus expenses) was very high.

And one of our revenue streams (mobile ads) slowed down dramatically. October was our highest

revenue month, and November was our worst month. The next month wasn’t looking good either. And

all around, there was talk of the impact of the economic slowdown hitting India.

Continuing on the same trajectory would have meant that the burn rate would have gone higher, and it

would have put a lot more pressure on the other revenue streams. While we had a certain business

plan, it was time to re-evaluate quickly and do a significant course correction. Else, we could just end up

becoming a black hole for investment money (which in this case was my own).

Navigating NetCore – The Past Year (Part 2)

August 25th, 2009

It was then that we made a decision to focus on bringing the business to cash profitability in a year or

so. This meant that we would have to bring down expenses and work harder to grow the existing

revenue streams faster. It would also mean eschewing newer ideas to bring a stronger focus on the

things that were working. This was especially hard for me because I always like to experiment and try

out new ideas. But the need of the hour then was different.To reduce expenses, we first focused on the

two biggest cost heads - staff and SMS costs. We asked a few people to leave (less than 5%). We worked

hard to manage our SMS costs better. And on all the other costs, we introduced tighter controls. At a

company meeting, we explained our decisions to all the staff.

We also postponed a few projects to put more resources on those projects that would pay off quicker. It

was a sudden change of gear, but we managed it quite well. In April this year, continuing in the same

vein, we reduced salaries of top management, put the sales team on a higher variable pay, and froze

salaries of everyone else for six months. All of these cost management exercises helped us fix our

expenses at a figure which was 15% lower than what it was a year ago.


August 26th, 2009

To ramp up revenues, we pushed harder on the enterprise messaging services in both mailing and

mobility. There was a lot of interest for our high-volume mailing product, and made sure our sales team

pushed that harder, given that we had some unique technology advantages.

On the enterprise mobility side, we created a separate team internally to focus on our top customers,

thus increasing the attention and service that we gave them. In addition, a new stream in the form of

database marketing was added to the mix and helped compensate for the slowness in mobile

advertising.

Although we had set our hearts and minds to being a consumer-centric company in the mobility space,

we recognised that it would take time to get there. Therefore we increased focus in the short-term to

using our enterprise messaging and marketing services to bridge the gap. Now, with the Digital Services

Operator business, we are re-focusing on the consumer mobile space, but with a different idea

(consumer pays rather than being limited only to advertiser pays).

All of our efforts over the past year have paid off well, and the burn is now a small, manageable fraction

of what it was a year ago. We expect to be cashflow positive soon as a company. The next step will be to

make the mobility business profitable on a standalone basis.


August 27th, 2009

Over the past few months, I have also started doing what I should have done a year or two ago - going

out and meeting customers. If there is one learning that I have from the past couple years, it is that

customer interaction should not be delegated to the sales team only. While building businesses based

on breakthrough ideas, top management has to lead from the front by interacting closely with potential

and existing customers.

I used to meet customers a lot when I was running IndiaWorld during 1995-1999. Later, since there were

others to do that bit, I would only do it occasionally in NetCore. Now that I have resumed meeting with

customers I realise that I had made an almost-fatal mistake by not going out earlier. New ideas are sold

on a vision of a different way of doing things. One has to understand a customer’s problems, and

package the tools that exist in the form of a solution. The actual solution doesn’t necessarily exist in a

perfect, replicable way. Besides, customer feedback about what is missing and what needs to be one

leads to new ideas.

Personally, going out and meeting customers has been something I have liked because it enables me to

use the mix of passion, vision and on-the-spot ideation to open opportunities for us. That is what had

helped us in IndiaWorld when we were a fledgling start-up. In NetCore’s early days, I forgot my past

lesson.


August 28th, 2009

Our goal this year is to consolidate the enterprise business streams so we can create a foundation that

can grow 75-100% year-on-year. This business generates ideas, revenues, customer relationships and

profits. In parallel, we are also building out the consumer business - something we had slowed down

over the past year. This is something that I am personally driving.The shift of focus to the enterprise

business is for the reason of sustenance of business in the short-term

and not necessarily the ultimate goal (though it will continue as an important contributor even in the

long run). Our passion still lies in consumer business which means both advertiser pay and consumer

pay. Both of these will take time and that is a reality we have accepted. The name of the game is

constant re-think yet continued efforts to make our original plans (consumer monetisation) ultimately

successful, even though in a re-jigged format.

During our last Board meeting, we asked one of our Board members about the ups and downs we had

faced. His response was that unlike some other companies, we had adapted quite well to the changed

environment. We had recognised that a specific strategy (consumer monetization through ads on

mobile) wasn’t working well, and instead of just sticking to it because “it was part of the plan”, we

changed our approach and built out the enterprise mobility business. Now, we were ready, from a

stronger base, to take another look at the consumer business with a modified approach.

For me, every year as an entrepreneur is one to be savoured because of the learnings. Just because I did

something right in the past does not guarantee success in the future. Building a business is hard. There

are moments of joy - but there are many more moments of pain. However experienced one is, situations

are different and have to be dealt with accordingly. More than anything, one has to be optimistic and

keep the big picture in mind for what one wants to do. It is that vision of the future that keeps the

enthusiasm and morale high even during difficult times. For me, the journey matters as much as

reaching the destination.

Quarterly Targets and Reviews

July 9th, 2009

At the end of every quarter, in NetCore, we do a formal review (sort-of Board meeting) with two

external people. This helps us in multiple ways: it instills a “numbers” discipline down the line, it makes

all of us accountable to numbers that we commit, it forces us to review ourselves every three months

with people other than ourselves, and it also gets us inputs which sometimes we have failed to see

(perhaps being too close to the issue or problem).

We have been doing this for about three years in NetCore. These quarterly reviews where we and each

of the business heads presents to the Board are something that have been a useful and essential part of

the process of ensuring that even as think long-term, we recognise the importance of keeping on

delivering in the short-term also.

This is something which every company should do. Listed companies of course are obligated to do so.

Even private companies should instill in themselves this discipline of quarterly targets and reviews.

Entrepreneurship in India

February 10th, 2009

Sramana Mitra wrote to me saying that Forbes has requested her to write a series on Entrepreneurship /

Innovation in India, and she was keen to get more inputs from me and Emergic’s readers. Here is a

discussion on her blog about the theme.

My thoughts:

• Entrepreneurship is happening in India, but there isn’t enough of it and there isn’t enough of

capital being invested into early-stage companies.

• There are two issues: lack of angel funding (whatever little was there has now almost dried up)

and lack of the first-round funding. Ventures need about Rs 1-5 crore to get started, and about

Rs 5-15 crore in first-round funding. Most VC funds in India are either not investing in tech-

focused cos. or need to invest $5 million (Rs 25 crore) given their fund size and the

commitments they can make. India needs smaller funds with smaller overheads, with more

operationally focused partners to mentor and guide early-stage companies.

• The digital opportunities in the Internet and mobile space both have challenges. The Internet

cos. are dependent entirely on advertising (which has stagnated) and the mobile cos. are

hamstrung by low revenue shares from mobile operator payouts.

• I continue to believe that the big opportunity in India is in building direct-to-consumer cos. in

the mobile space, but this requires courage and capital.

• Also, exits in India are few and far between. M&A needs to be part of the process and that is

simply not happening in India.

• Result: we have lots of small companies (since one can start) but few achieve scale. That is what

needs to change.

Business

Entrepreneurship 2009: By Rajesh Jain