The Makings of a King: The Early Years of King Gillette

He had spent his entire life tinkering with ideas, most of which the rest of the world would call him crazy for. It was not until King Gillette was in his 40s that he would patent and begin to sell his disposable safety razor. It was an invention that made him a household name and revolutionized the shaving industry in the process. Today, Global Gillette continues to rank as one of the most dominant brands in the industry.

King Camp Gillette was born on January 6, 1855 in the small central Wisconsin town of Fond du Lac. He had three older brothers and two sisters. His parents, George Wolcott Gillette and Fanny Lemira Camp were both inventors in their own rights. As a result, the Gillette kids were encouraged to be inquisitive, to be hands on, and to take things apart to learn how they work.

When Gillette was four years old his family moved to Chicago, Illinois in the hopes of achieving a better life. His father opened up a hardware store, but its promise was soon destroyed. In 1871, the great Chicago fire devastated the business and forced the Gillette family to move once again.

This time, they chose New York City, where Gillette’s father became a patent agent. Conversations around the Gillette family’s dinner table always revolved around the various inventions that had come across his desk during the day. With each passing year, the young Gillette was growing more and more inspired to invent something of his own.

At 17 years old, Gillette left school and began making his living as a traveling salesman. Although it was a far cry from his dream job, it provided a steady income and also allowed him to flex his inventor’s muscle; with each product that Gillette sold door-to-door, he tried his hand at improving them in some way.

By 1890, Gillette had become increasingly disappointed with his life. He had four patents to his name but none had achieved much success. “They made money for others, but seldom for myself, for I was unfortunately situated not having much time and little money with which to promote my inventions,” he said. On top of that was the dissatisfaction of knowing his parents were much more successful than him. His mother had even published the “White House Cookbook”, a compilation of her own recipes which remains in print to this day.

Gillette’s disappointment was such that in 1894, at the age of 39, he published a book called “The Human Drift.” It was an anti-capitalist rant in which Gillette set out to criticize big business and competition as the root of all evil. As an alternative, he outlined his own ideal of a utopian, socialistic society.

By his own admission, Gillette was at rock bottom. He needed a new idea, something that would make him the success he had always dreamed of. But what, he wondered. At 40 years old, what single idea could take him to the top?

Source :- The Makings of a King: The Early Years of King Gillette

Reid Hoffman (Linked In) Tells Charlie Rose: “Every Individual Is Now An Entrepreneur.”

Reid Hoffman is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur. He worked at Paypal, founded LinkedIn, and invested in dozens more.

Last night, he appeared on Charlie Rose, where he talks about the rise of social networking in general, and LinkedIn’s success in particular (it is adding one million professionals every 17 days and is emerging as a “low cost provider of really good hiring services”).

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10128

Kalpana Saroj - India's original Slumdog Billionaire

You could call her India's real life slumdog billionaire. Kalpana Saroj, a Dalit woman who broke social shackles and left her ramshackle home in the poorest part of her village 26 years ago to begin life afresh, today heads a Rs.3 billion (Rs.300 crore/$60 million) business enterprise.

From the daughter of a Dalit police havaldar in Vidarbha's Akola district to chairmanship of a Rs68 crore company, it has been an eventful journey for Kalpana Saroj. To her credit is the revival of the defunct Kamani Tubes Limited.

Today, Saroj presides over her building construction, sugar, steel and brass-tubes manufacture business. She has no elitist education or background to speak of, yet the wall behind her table has photographs of her with international celebrities. Among them is a photo of her first meeting with the Dalai Lama.

Her life is indeed a saga of struggle, hard work and resultant success. Married off at 12 to a 22-year-old man, Saroj fled the violence of abusive in-laws within months of her marriage and returned to her parents in village Ruparkheda. She resolved to complete her schooling and "make something of her life".

She tried joining the police force at age 13, but failed. Downcast, she tried her hand at nursing, tailoring and other odd jobs but only succeeded in antagonising the villagers by these attempts 'to step beyond her social boundaries'.

Finally, at 22, she left Ruparkheda for Mumbai. She married again, but in 1989, her husband died. All that she inherited was an ailing steel-cupboard manufacture business. By sheer dint of effort, the mother-of-two revived the sick firm. One thing led to another. Saroj dabbled with politics, started a construction company, made profits, bought sugar and steel mills and determined her own path to prosperity.

In 2002, she saw workers at the defunct Kamani Tubes Limited dying of poverty and sickness. In March 2006, she bid for and bought the company with accumulated debts of Rs160 crore including unpaid wages of Rs 50 crore.

"I have seen poverty. I have risen out of it myself. So I was confident I could improve their lot," says Saroj.

"The government had given Saroj madam three years to pay our accumulated wages of Rs50 crore. She paid them off in three months and added an ex-gratia payment of Rs2.40 crore towards PF and wages till date," says Govind Khatmol, secretary, Kamani Kamgar AU Sahkari Society.

Knowing that money paid in instalments was no good to anyone, Saroj convinced a group of financiers to pay off the workers' dues at one go. "I thought if each man received a lakh or two, he could put it to good use," says Saroj, who is as earthy as they come. Her only concession to vanity is gold ornaments which set off her no-nonsense attire with élan. Saroj has done her share of social work. She speaks with obvious pleasure of her visit to Kargil to encourage the jawans. "Saroj was ready to join the war, but it ended the very next morning. She became the good-luck mascot of the Maratha Regiment," says Manu Gore, her friend and business partner.

Saroj draws her strength from her roots, her painful past and simplicity of Buddhism. "Buddhism says, find your own path. Experience, and then accept it," she says.

Turnaround tale

In 2002, Saroj offered to buy the sick Kamani Tubes Private Ltd, once a brand leader in non-ferrous tubes.

The company had suffered since 1975 with internecine feuds and litigation. Working long hours at half pay took its toll on the 566 company workers. The company finances deteriorated further. In early 1997, Kamani Tubes ceased production. Ninety-three workers died of penury.

On March 21, 2006, Saroj bought the company. Between June 15 to 18, 2006, she paid off workers' dues and provident fund claims and even gave them ex-gratia payments.

Teenager techie set for his fourth book release

One of India's youngest cyber wizards and "ethical hacker" Sahil Khan is now getting ready for the release of his fourth book. Sixteen-year-old Sahil has achieved a lot. He has invented nine computer games and written three books on computer sciences, making him one of the youngest people in the country to have published on the subject.

"My fourth book 'Tricks of Email Hacking' is ready for release this month," Sahil said.

Sahil, nicknamed 'Indian Einstein' by a section of the electronic media, invented nine computer games when he was 13 and wrote his first book on computer hacking a year later.

"When I made my first game at home I told mother, but she was not excited, thinking it would just be a petty thing. Later she realised when my teacher told her. Soon the school formally announced it and I got an award from Newspapers in Education (NIE)," Sahil said.

Sahil, a humble and soft-spoken teenager, did not attend any professional course in computer science and he also did not own a personal computer until recently. His first interaction with computers began when he learnt internet chatting with his father.

"Since then he got interested in gaming on computers and though we did not have enough money to buy a computer, soon somehow I managed to buy him a PC on instalments," said Sahil's mother Atiya Suleman.

Sahil, a student of Class 10 at Harcourt Butler Sr. Secondary School, however, doesn't bask in his achievements and feels that every person has some special quality which needs to be pursued at the right time. What are his plans for the future?

"For now my main focus is on board examinations and then I will try to get into an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and become a cyber expert of repute," Sahil said.

Sahil's first book "Hackers and Crackers", which was published by ABC, was launched by Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal.

The second part of "Hackers and Crackers" was published by Diamond Publications and was launched by Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury.

"We have published two editions of 'Hackers and Crackers' in 10 months. This is a very helpful book and we have been getting an overwhelming response; so now we are translating this book into Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Tamil. The other book 'The Anatomy of Computer Viruses' has been a favourite among people," said Narender Verma, owner of Diamond Publications.

Sahil has also come in for praise from computer experts.

"Sahil's books give great grounding for any common man to understand the problem of computer viruses and computer hacking. This book can be a great help for the readers to protect their computers from virus attacks and hacking. Computer viruses are, however, a very vast area of study which has a number of complex aspects and some of them are not included," said Ahmad Kamal, a lecturer in computer science at Jamia Millia University.

Sir Richard Branson in drag – Virgin America lands in Boston

Marketing genius, Branson, still manages to have fun!!!



Check out the video above and the photos below for all the delightful hoopla. Virgin will be flying three daily roundtrips between LA and Boston and two daily roundtrips between San Francisco and Boston with Wi-Fi on every flight and fares starting at $109.

The Crossword Bookstore story

In the late-1980 s, a college student threw caution and a destined engineering degree to the winds and landed a job with the Landmark bookstore in Madras. He thought he would last there for all of three months. But as the line goes ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans’ , and he went on to build one of India’s most successful bookstore chains. In the case of R Sriram, the former founder CEO of Crossword, fact is stranger than the fiction that lines the bookshelves at Crossword.

Today, the chain that he helped set up is perhaps India’s biggest book retailer . Before Crossword, there were well known bookshops — HigginBothams in Bangalore, Strand in Mumbai, Om in Delhi to name but a few. However none of them had a national presence.

The chain was born from the recognition of the fact that like many other categories in those days, even this had plenty of potential. Says Sriram, “Book retailing had served, underserved and unserved customers. We saw a huge opportunity in the underserved and unserved segments.” Today that goal has been achieved and standardisation is one of the biggest reasons for their success.

Sivaraman Balakrishnan, marketing head, Crossword points out that today a consumer irrespective of the city that he visits will be treated to the same shopping experience . He says, “Across formats our brand experience of educate, entertain and enlighten are the same.”

Back then, though, in a scenario where books were sold through outlets that were tiny and consumers bought them much like they bought medicines at drugstores (going with a prescription), there was a lot of ground to be covered. Attractive display was a far-fetched concept and the only bookstores that gave customers room to free their arms were the ones in five star hotels.

To be successful, therefore, a national chain would have to reinvent and remarket the very idea of a bookshop as consumers saw it. Luckily for Sriram, he found a backer for the concept in publishers India Book House putting the seed capital and more importantly give him real estate in the form of their vacant first floor office space in Mumbai at Mahalaxmi.

The name was supposed to be Crosswords , because it signifies fun and learning. However legend has it that a numerologist said that the name was unlucky and there was talk of a name change. Sriram though intervened and suggested the dropping of the ‘s’ , and so the name Crossword came into being. The store was launched on August 15 in 1992.

In many ways, right from its inception the chain broke the rules. The property was not on the ground floor, not easily accessible, no parking space and was a ‘U’ shaped space with many pillars. The entrepreneurs decided to look at the advantages rather than moan about the deficiencies . It was on the same street that housed iconic Mumbai stores like Amarsons and Benzer and hence likely to attract upmarket shoppers. It was decided that consumers would be treated to unique shopping experience in a shop that was trendy and hip. The bookstore decided to appeal to mothers and children.

It set up dedicated sections for children, a concept that was unheard of in the bookstores that were around. That risk paid off, with children contributing about 35 per cent of sales and 25 per cent of the volumes. The store also took some innovative steps like keeping the children’s section at the farther end of the store.

As a result, parents accompanying children would end up viewing the entire range of offerings while taking children to the section . Also introduced was the concept of book reading sessions for kids. The investment has paid off and today the kids section has grown bigger and better . Says Sukanya Kripalu, CEO, Sukanya Consulting, a Mumbai-based brand consultancy, “With other avenues like television and gaming fighting for the child’s attention, there’s a feeling among mothers that reading has got compromised. By addressing concerns like these, the brand has become much more than a bookstore.”

It also was the first bookstore to have seating spaces where customers could actually sit and read an entire book with no questions asked — a welcome break from the surreptitious reading at bookstores that customers were used to. To ensure that customers spent more time, Crossword set up a coffee store within the outlet and also provided space for rest-rooms . And on the customer’s bill, it offered a term that surprised many: ‘Books once sold WILL be taken back’ .

Over the years more innovations have taken place such as free home delivery, flexible gift vouchers (consumers could get credits on the remaining amount of their gift vouchers) and a thriving loyalty program. As a conscious policy, the store does not offer discounts , other than at the time of its annual sale.

It further put its neck out with the ‘Sriram recommends’ (now called Crossword recommends ) section, wherein consumers could buy the book and avail of a refund if they did not like the book, no questions asked. Book reading sessions with authors have now become commonplace inside the store. All this summed up in creating a brand experience that could be solely associated with the brand. Now, with Shoppers Stop owning a majority stake in the chain, it’s now spread across 12 cities with 52 outlets in three formats.

So while it does have a national footprint, there is still some distance to go before it can emulate say a Barnes and Noble. “The concept and the execution have been good. The trick is how to bring scale to this model,” says Kripalu. Crossword for its part is innovating on store size to gain further ground. While the flagship store of Crossword in a city is above 12,000 sq ft, brand stores are in the 5,000-7 ,500 sq ft range and corner stores set at gas stations are in the 500-2 ,000 sq ft range. It has also chosen to set up a shopwithin-shop inside Shoppers Stop outlets .

Balakrishnan believes that the various formats help the brand get closer to consumers. He points out that a market like Mumbai has 17 Crossword’s , while Pune has 11 stores. Says Balakrishnan, “The formats make Crossword a neighbourhood store.” Market observers however feel that there is still some way to go. They argue that Crossword has to offer more than one flagship store in big markets like Mumbai as the belief is that the brand’s equity among customers shopping at the flagship store might be quite different from others shopping at the suburban outlets. One could also argue that in cities like Kolkata and Chennai, it’s Oxford and Landmark respectively which are the big boys of the bookworld. Either ways it would seem that we are a long way from reading the last word in this book saga.

Lessons From Barack Obama

President Barack Obama the 44th United States President. From a relative unknown law professor, community organizer, Illinois State Senator and U.S. Senator, Barack has captured the hearts and minds of the nation's electorate. With no money or grass roots organization, he has went from State Senator to U.S. Senator to President-Elect in four years! That is quite impressive.

Here are some of Barack's presidential accomplishments:

• Raised $700 million dollars in donations (the most money raised ever in history)
• earned 64 million votes nation-wide
• achieved 364 electoral votes and 54% of electoral vote
• earned 14 million more votes than President Bush in 2004
• won 66% of Hispanic and youth vote
• captured 50% of suburban vote
• won 17% of the republican vote
• won nine states that previously voted republican
• recruited 4.1 million campaign volunteers

Barack overcame the challenge of popular U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination and beat U.S. Senator John McCain to win the U.S. presidency. So, how did President Obama do it? What can business owners and entrepreneurs learn from his victory?

What made Obama successful? It was a combination of his vision, message, uniqueness, personal story, communication skills, organization, endorsements and testimonials, strategic alliances and partnerships and embracing the power of the Internet. With politics aside, let's review the Obama campaign and discover what sales lessons we can learn and apply in our businesses.


1) Barack's Vision and Message

President Barack's vision was simple:

• Build a grass roots organization young, old, rich, poor, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, democratic, republican and independent across the United States.
• Offer a democratic candidate against the war in Iraq.
• Project a moderate image promising a tax cut for the middle class, national health care and access to educational opportunities.

"Change", that was Barack Obama's message. The vast majority of people wanted a change and a new direction. His goal was to offer that and differentiate himself from President George Bush and his policies of the past eight years. Barack offered change for a better America. His message of hope and promise was inspiring and produced crowds in the hundreds and thousands across the nation. Obama's message of change generated new enthusiasm not seen in recent political campaigns. He wrote two best sellers: Audacity of Hope and Dreams of My Father. His message connected with many people. Time was critical. He had to win the the majority of the Democratic state primaries, capture the Democratic nomination and the U.S. Presidential election in less than a year! Barack was quite successful. Consequently, his candidacy produced millions of enthusiastic volunteers and new voters. His mission was clear:

• win the majority of the votes in the democratic primary
• win 270 electoral votes on November 4, 2008.
• Set up a grass roots organization in every state.
• Utilize the Internet to promote Barack Obama,
• generate campaign donations and enlist volunteers and
• win 270 electoral votes on November 4, 2008 to win the U.S. presidency

U.S. Senator Barack Obama won the race and became president of the United States January 20th 2009.

Action:

What is your vision for your company? What is the target message for your best prospects? How can you improve to increase sales? Your vision and message must stand out, be unique, authentic, interesting and inspiring. Ensure that your vision and message really address the needs and concerns of your top client prospects . Use it to connect with them. It should grab their attention and encourage them to want to talk to you and learn more. If it doesn't light your prospects' eyes and generate curiosity, your vision statement needs improvement. Also, make sure that it is quantifiable. It should have a defined time-line. For example, your vision can be to generate 100 clients and produce annual sales revenue of $1 million dollars by 2010. Additionally, ensure that your opening selling statement connects with your potential clients and gets their attention and has punch!

Unsung innovators: David Bradley, inventor of the "three-finger salute"

David Bradley says he has accomplished many difficult feats in technology over the years, but becoming best known for inventing the so-called "three-finger salute" -- Ctrl-Alt-Delete -- to soft boot a computer wasn't part of his original career plan.

"In the grand context of the development of the PC, it was a tiny little thing. It happened to have been valuable ... but it has been blown all out of proportion," says Bradley, one of the 12 engineers on IBM's original development team for the IBM PC. His cult-icon status never fails to surprise him. In November 2002, "it was even a final Jeopardy question," Bradley says.

"I don't mind it, but wow. In a 30-year career, people remember those five minutes?" he says, pointing out that in the scheme of things, the three-finger salute seems pretty unimportant.

It wasn't even designed with end users in mind.

"When we were doing the original IBM PC -- and consider this was a brand new hardware and software design -- it was hanging all the time," Bradley says. The only option engineers had to continue the work was to turn off the computer and start it again. That required at least a minute to boot back up because of the Power On Self Test (POST) feature that was built in. To this day, all Windows computers do a POST when they reboot; it's built into every ROM sequence.

But back in those early days, the need to reboot "would happen a lot," Bradley says. "Depending on what you were working on, that could be daily, hourly, even every five minutes if you were working on a particular shortcut."

Dave Bradley, father of the 'three-fingered salute.'

So Bradley came up with the Ctrl-Alt-Del keystroke combination -- three keys distant enough on the keyboard to make it virtually impossible for someone to hit all three accidentally and simultaneously. "So, if you hit those keys, instead of taking a minute to start up the PC again, it would be much quicker -- the equivalent of turning the machine off and on without running POST."

The combination escaped from IBM labs and hit popular culture when application developers, in the days when programs ran on diskette, decided to publish the combination to help users start their applications faster.

After that, end users got used to it, and the rest is, well, history.

At the 20th anniversary of the unveiling of the IBM PC -- that was in August 2001 -- Bradley appeared on a panel featuring Bill Gates and other industry luminaries. "I thought we were there to have fun," Bradley says, remembering the moment that he joked with Gates about helping make his combo so well known.

Bradley laughs when recalling the joke. "I said, 'I may have invented it, but Bill [Gates] is the one who made it famous.' " In return, he received a glare from Gates.

Nowadays, Microsoft Windows intercepts the Control-Alt-Delete key combination and displays a pop-up window that allows users to shut down the PC or shows what programs are running.

Bradley muses that it's funny "that I got famous for this, when I did so many other nifty and difficult things." Among the Purdue Ph.D.'s accomplishments: He developed the ROM BIOS for the first IBM PC, led the development of the ROM BIOS and system diagnostics on the PC/XT, and was project manager for several PS/2 models. In 1992, he began working on higher-performing IBM systems built around the PowerPC RISC CPU.

Retired from IBM since 2004, Bradley has received engineering awards and will likely be immortalized as being part of the original IBM PC team. But like it or not, his place in computer history as the father of the three-finger salute is here to stay.

Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)

Written by Bernard Lunn

We all love the David and Goliath story. What about David vs two Goliaths? That is the improbable story of Zoho, the Web Office startup competing head on with both Microsoft and Google. On top of that, Zoho is from India and who ever heard of a product company from India? Indeed Zoho has only 10 people in America, yet it is winning really big enterprise accounts in head to head evaluations with both Goliaths. What's more, they have not taken a dime of external money - having bootstrapped it from the start.

At Web 2.0 Expo in New York this week I met up with Raju Vegesna, one of Zoho's founders, to find out how they're succeeding despite the odds.

Defying Conventional Wisdom

Everything about this story is improbable. And gloriously old fashioned. When I met Raju Vegesna, I kept on thinking this was some kind of time warp. Zoho has simply ignored much of the conventional wisdom. Consider:

1. Product breadth. Look at the range of products they sell. This defies the conventional wisdom that you should focus on one thing only. When I put that to Raju, he replied that the 'one thing' model "works if you are building to sell the company". That's right. The classic model is to build one product that slots right into the acquirer's portfolio. In Web 2.0, when speed is everything, even products take too long and so you just built features. The hierarchy is: features go into products and products go into companies. But Zoho is clearly building a company.

2. Building to last. Every startup says they are build to last, publicly. Nobody advertises that they are building to flip. But Zoho looks like they really are building to last. They don't have VCs on board with an exit compulsion. Nor do they need VCs. They can finance internally and make money personally the old-fashioned way, from dividends, knowing their equity value is also building every day.

3. They run their own data centers and buy all their servers. No, they don't use Amazon Web Services or even conventional hosting vendors. They run 1,000 servers in two data centers, one in California and the other in New Jersey. In a SaaS world where performance/reliability are differentiators, running data centers is a core competency. They have the cash flow to buy their own servers!

4. They charge real money for their software, with no advertising. But the price is really low. This is like WalMart. This is like Basecamp, reasonable prices for great software. That is so boring! In branded consumer goods, buying expensive conveys status. In software, buying expensive when there is an equivalent at lower cost, simply conveys a willingness to burn money.

A Serious Contender

Do you still think that Zoho cannot possibly be a serious contender? GE, after a vigorous evaluation including Google and Microsoft, selected Zoho. That is 400,000 desktops up for grabs worldwide. GE is a master at taking costs out of established processes, they do it relentlessly and continuously and they know how to evaluate and manage the risk of working with start-ups. Where GE break a trail, others are likely to follow.

Jason Fried's Advice - Follow the Chefs

At the Web 2.0 Expo in New York last week, Jason Fried of 37 Signals, another company that has done well by defying conventional wisdom, advised entrepreneurs to "follow the chefs". He meant that great Chefs give away their recipes. That just makes you want to come to their restaurants even more. Particularly if the recipe looks complex. And Zoho's looks complex.

So I hope they won't mind me giving out the recipe they revealed when I met with Raju Vegesna, one of their founders, last week. I noted 3 major ingredients:

1. New ways of competing for talent

2. A related cash cow business

3. Pragmatic, non dogmatic approach to winning business

New Ways of Competing for Talent

If I had to select one "secret sauce" in Zoho's recipe, it would be how they recruit. Zoho (with parent company, Adventnet) has 700 developers. All the developers are in India, specifically Chennai.

India is a ridiculously competitive market for developer talent currently. I see parallels with Silicon Valley in 1999, when average developers got inflated expectations and inflated paychecks. Attrition is problem # 1.

Developers see their career path as managing other developers. Your mojo is based on how many people you manage. Managing 1,000 makes you ten times better than managing 100 and so on. This is the reverse of America where a developer will drop custom service work as soon as it is possible to work on a product.

This is a terrible environment for a product company to compete for talent. How does Zoho compete for talent in this market?

1. Hire from school. Yes, school, not college. So they don't compete to hire from final year of College or in the even more hot market of developers with a few years experience. Great code is typically written by young people - which explains a lot of the "college drop out makes $ billions" stories in America.

2. Pay one year of college fees. This is a salary, not a loan, with no strings attached. According to Raju, 90% join Zoho at the end of that year, but there is no obligation. This gives Zoho an edge with the brightest at school as they have an unusual offer.

Zoho's philosophy is that 4 years college when you are young is not right for many people. Better to have life-long learning but get real world experience early and get some cash while you are at it. This gets a big "yes" from parents paying college fees!

Zoho have their own Zoho University. This is not uncommon for big employers in India. It is a necessary complement to hiring early.

Related cash cow

Zoho has a related cash cow business that enable them to fund Zoho. This is not unlike Google. Microsoft's problem is that their cash cow - Office - is the one that both Google and Zoho are going after. That gives them one nasty Innovator's Dilemma.

Zoho's initial cash cow business is selling network management tools. This has been profitable for 12 years. Zoho itself is due to be profitable next year.

The network management tools business is doing the same as Zoho - products at least as good as the competition for a fraction of the price. This business also gives Zoho a capability for running large data centers, which is a core competency for a SaaS business.

Pragmatic, Non Dogmatic Approach to Winning Business

By all accounts, Zoho won GE's business in head to head competition with Google. GE wanted to cut cost and enable collaboration, which meant Microsoft was less of a contender. Google was the obvious "you never got fired for choosing" winner. Why did GE choose Zoho? There are two likely reasons:

1. Zoho allowed GE to run the software in their own data centers. GE has the economies of scale to run their own data centers and clearly prize the control that this enables. Zoho specified the hardware, but GE bought it and deployed it. Is a "Zoho Appliance" far behind?

2. Visual Basic Scripts in Spreadsheets. Current tech orthodoxy frowns on VB, but if you have thousands of existing Excel spreadsheets running VB that would be a show-stopper.

Moser Baer

While coming back from Dalhousie last year, thanks to a cancelled flight, Deepak Puri, the chairman of Moser Baer, was forced to take a train. At Pathankot, two push carts were selling his CDs. Business was brisk, and they managed to sell quite a few. A few months later, at an upmarket store in Delhi’s Khan Market, Puri discovered that the shopkeeper stacked only two of his titles. The reason: he would make a fatter margin—Rs 150 on a Rs 300 CD compared to Rs 8 on Moser Baer’s Rs 28 CD.“To make the same margin, I’d have to sell 18 of these CDs”, he told Puri.

Back in office, Puri immediately called his marketing executives and decided to restrategise. This involved selling his CDs in push carts in high-cost low-space areas, a model that has become a success. This ability to adapt and innovate in real time makes Moser Baer agile.

After proving its success in the optical storage business ($500 million), the company is now aiming for the sun—it anticipates its three-year-old solar photovoltaic cells business to be as big, by year-end. It has revolutionised the entertainment space through its low-cost CD and DVD-based movies, priced between Rs 28 and Rs 35, while also foraying into IT peripherals and film production.

Deepak Puri, 66 and Ratul, 37 Puri are optical storage manufacturers with a current turnover of Rs 495 crore

Puri has come a long way. A mechanical engineer from Imperial College, London, he started with a time recorder unit, moved to manufacturing floppy disks and is now the world’s second largest optical storage media manufacturer. His initial investment—a loan of Rs 50,000 was taken on a collateral which was nothing more than “the shirt on my back and a passion to do business”. The journey has not been without its challenges.

Whether it was fighting anti-dumping cases imposed by the European Commission in 2003 or dealing with plummeting prices and market capitalisation, thanks to a global glut of DVDs in 2004, Moser Baer has managed to emerge victorious. Even now, the company has reported a net loss of Rs 104 crore in the first quarter of 2008-09, thanks to the adverse movement of foreign exchange.

Success mantra: Never think small. The effort or the pain is the same, whatever the scale of business. Biggest victory: Contributed to the decline of piracy because of its low-priced movie CDs and DVDs Personal take: The company’s logo was modified and its addresses always add up to 6 or 9,due to Vaastu reasons

But Puri believes for every problem that seems insurmountable, there is an alternative course of action. The company is betting on Blu-ray, which is emerging as a dominant optical format, as well as the photovoltaic and entertainment businesses which are expected to deliver significant growth.

“I have never dreamt small,” he says. “The effort that goes in is the same, whatever the capacity.” His son Ratul Puri, an executive director, and a computer engineer from the Carnegie Mellon University in the US, echoes his words: “Scale excites me. I don’t believe in niches.” But where the duo is similar, they are also distinctly different. If the senior Puri follows instinct, the junior Puri is more analytical. Yet they complement each other. “Like kathak dancers,” says Deepak, “we can anticipate each other’s moves.” The Puris believe in Vaastu. Not only was the company’s logo modified—the ‘o’ in Moser became red as did the Baer—but also the company’s addresses have always added up to 6 or 9. Even the address of their upcoming thin film PV plant in Chennai, was changed for Vaastu reasons.

Going forward, Ratul too wants to assume an overarching role in the business. Each of the company’s verticals is run by a CEO, who reports to him. “Every time you double your turnover, how you manage your business changes,” he says. “Initially you’re an entrepreneur, then systems and processes take over and finally you create entrepreneurs within an organisation,” says Ratul. Wise words from a quick learner

Virgin but not so innocent

Sir Richard Branson has been a mainstay of Britain's public relations industry since he made his first million as a teenage business prodigy, and many of us have grown up with the sight of his grinning noggin appearing on our television screens with monotonous regularity, mixing chutzpah and crassness in equal measure.

Whether you like him or loathe him, my feelings about the flamboyant English entrepreneur owe much to his relentless campaign of self-promotion.

Knighted for his services to entrepreneurship in 1999, Branson has had more than 360 companies. His portfolio has included everything from condoms to cola to wine to mobile phones to financial services, with virtually nothing off-limits, even space travel – his latest venture, Virgin Galactic, is a commercial space flight service that might be based at Kinloss in Moray. All his investments have three common themes: low-profile partners who pay through the nose to go into business with him, gaudy Virgin branding and, most importantly, the profile that Branson's involvement undeniably bestows.

Branson has worked hard at building his image as a cheeky chappie willing to take on 'vested interests' or 'monopolies' such as British Airways, BSkyB, Coca-Cola, Camelot, the Government and, just this week, the NHS. In his newest role as vice-president of the Patients Association, he attacked trusts that failed to control MRSA. As he said himself in the neatly titled encapsulation of his philosophy Screw It, Let's Do It: "As far as I am concerned, anything, however outlandish, that generates media coverage reinforces my image as a risk-taker who challenges the establishment."

Although Branson's record label signed the Sex Pistols and the then avant-garde Culture Club, more often the image bears little connection to the reality. Branson attended the exclusive public school Stowe College and his grandfather, the High Court judge and privy councillor Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a pillar of the British establishment.

Branson is every cynic's dream. For every action he takes, there's invariably an exit strategy that enriches him, as per all good entrepreneurs. For instance, Zavvi, which went into administration before Christmas, was born when he sold his Virgin music stores to their management. He's like a Las Vegas card trick where the secret is not to concentrate on all the sound and fury onstage, but to follow the trail to see where the money goes.

Take his wealth. Forbes' most recent list of billionaires tells us that Branson is the 236th-richest man in the world with a fortune of $4.4bn. Yet according to his biographer Tom Bower, last year Branson's holding company lost £3.9m even as its most profitable venture, Virgin Atlantic, made £123m.

To square that circle, it's important to factor in that he makes his money not from operating profits but by using his profile to start up companies on the back of his name and then sell them on, invariably for a handsome profit and often charging a hefty fee for the right to use the Virgin brand.

His Englishness is equally malleable when it comes to profit. He trades on his status as the quintessential English eccentric adventurer, complete with transatlantic yacht and round-the-world hot air balloon, yet these days he is a tax exile living on his very own Caribbean island, Necker. That aversion to paying tax won't surprise those in the know: as Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable pointed out when questioning whether Branson was fit to lead a consortium of hedge fund managers hoping to take over Northern Rock, in 1971 the entrepreneur was charged with tax avoidance to the tune of £40,000, and fined £20,000.

For all his happy-go-lucky exterior, Branson is a man used to getting his own way. As a teenager he boasted about stealing from a telephone company, and as a dyslexic wasn't beyond cheating in exams. "I filled little cards with prompt notes and hid them all over my clothing, in pockets and up my sleeves, and even tucked under my watchstrap," he said, reasoning that "if I want to do something… I won't let silly rules stop me".

Applying the 'what's in this for him?' rationale to each of his schemes is instructive. Take his recent proclamation that "my new goal in life is to work at reducing carbon emissions". This was followed by high-powered summits on global warming with world leaders at Necker Island. Yet Branson owns several airlines and flies all over the world in a Falcon 900 executive jet. And while he hailed as "a historic day" a Virgin jumbo travelling between London and Amsterdam with one engine running on a mix containing 20% biofuel, environmentalists dismissed it as a stunt designed to highlight Branson's move into biofuel.

Many see everything he does through that prism. This week, in his new role as vice-president of the Patients Association, he hit out at NHS trusts that failed to control MRSA, arguing that if hospitals were run like private companies many administrators would be fired. To the public it sounded like common sense; to seasoned Branson-watchers it sounded like a pitch. After all, Branson hasn't displayed much civic-mindedness in the past. He was briefly Margaret Thatcher's litter tsar, but has passed on the opportunity to become mayor of London despite poll ratings which would make him a real contender. It's entrepreneurs and their money that rule the world and can effect change, Branson once said, not politicians.

As a money-making machine Branson has some huge weapons in his armoury, not least a winning manner which attracts others – particularly bankers, high-ranking politicians and joint venture partners – plus his ability to inspire in others tremendous loyalty.

If he has one defining business credo, it is a belief in service, although his time running the West Coast Main Line dented that somewhat. He also has an ability to see the big picture, hence his recent bid for Gatwick Airport, the hub through which so many of Virgin Atlantic's flights operate.

That wider view perhaps goes some way to explaining his latest venture, Virgin Galactic. It will give customers a seat aboard a spaceship that climbs to 50,000ft at speeds of more than 2,000mph, and allows them to experience weightlessness for four to six minutes. It's the perfect high-profile vehicle for appealing to rich individuals as Branson tries to break into the US, while also making him look like an altruistic entrepreneur. After all, he's "making private space travel available to everyone" – at $200,000 a seat.

Bharti Airtel Ltd - Wireless Wonder

In the 1980s, Sunil Mittal was a small trader importing portable generators. When the government banned their import, Mittal moved into push-button telephones. No planner, nor even Mittal himself, could have foreseen his meteoric rise to India's top cellphone magnate. His company, Bharti Airtel, is now worth $40 billion, and it's going global. Just follow his footsteps

Launch strategy and marketing

A niche in the telecom sector

An affinity for foreign allies is consistent with Mittal's formative experiences as a first-generation entrepreneur in the heyday of what was known as the "license raj." The era was so named for the government's policy of closing India's economy to foreign competition while doling out exclusive rights to produce essential goods and services to politically powerful industrial dynasties like the Tatas and Birlas.

Unlike the scions of those great families, Mittal wasn't born to wealth. He was raised in Ludhiana, a manufacturing hub in Punjab, as the middle son of a Congress Party politician. He founded Bharti in 1976 at the age of 18, after graduating from Punjab University, with $1,500 borrowed from his father. At first he made crankshafts for local bicycle manufacturers. Within three years he had set up two more plants, one that turned out yarn and the other stainless-steel sheets used for surgical utensils.

Despite his success, it was clear to Mittal that these ventures would never match the size of his ambitions. So in 1980 he sold the bicycle-parts and yarn factories and decamped to Mumbai, where he reinvented himself as a trader, crisscrossing the nation by train in search of customers for imported stainless steel, brass, plastics and zip fasteners. Business was good, but Mittal's first real break came in 1982 when he parlayed a chance encounter with a salesman from Suzuki Motors into a role as the exclusive India agent for the Japanese manufacturer's electric-power generators.

In Suzuki's home market, generators were a sideline, used mainly to power ice cream vans. But Mittal knew that in Indian cities like Ludhiana, where power outages were part of daily life, generators would be snapped up by ordinary households. Sales boomed. Within two years Mittal had established a national distribution network with offices in four cities.

But then the big boys muscled in. In 1984, with no warning, bureaucrats in New Delhi announced they had awarded licenses to manufacture generators to Sriram and Birla, two of India's largest industrial groups. Never mind that licensee factories wouldn't be up and running for several years. The import of foreign generators was immediately banned. "It was all gone, just like that," recalls Mittal, snapping his fingers.

Desperate for another breakthrough, Mittal scoured markets in Japan and South Korea, eventually landing at a trade fair in Taiwan, where he discovered an extraordinary device: the touch-tone phone. In those days Indians were forced to make do with clunky rotary phones, if they were lucky enough to own a phone at all. One look at the push-button version, says Mittal, and "I knew instantly this was the big one." Within days he had signed a contract with a Taiwanese supplier.

Months later he was selling the gadgets to customers in India under the German-sounding brand name Mittbrau (short for Mittal brothers). But the process took some fancy footwork. Touch-tone phones weren't on the government's list of products approved for import. So Mittal disassembled the phones in Taiwan, shipped the components through Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai, and reassembled them in Ludhiana.Since winning a licence for Delhi, he has signed up 5,15,842 subscribers there, supplying much of the cash used to buy new mobile and fixed licences.Bharti won mobile permits for eight new regions, including Mumbai city and the States of Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat and the western half of Uttar Pradesh. It also added four new fixed licences.

The Company was Incorporated on 29th July, 1985 at New Delhi. The Company was promoted by Rakesh B. Mittal and managed by a board of professionals. The company products were manufactured and marketed under the brand name `BEETEL' for electronic push button telephone instruments.The Company entered into a technical collaboration agreement with companies like Siemens A. G., West Germany, Takachiho Corporation of Japan for supply of technology in terms of complete technical know-how and documentation for the manufacture of State-of-art a range of electronic push button telephone instruments,microprocessor based telephone answering machines and also help in selection/installation of plant and machinery.

In 1990, the Company undertook to set up a plant at Delhi for the manufacture of fax machines in technical collaboration with a Japanese Company and a series of other telecom products. Under this project, two new units were being set up, one for domestic sales at the site of existing plant in Ludhiana and the other for exports at Gurgaon near Delhi.It has a joint 49:51 joint venture with Siemens of Germany - called Siemens Telecom Ltd - which markets both Siemens and Beetel instruments.The Company maintained its position as the leading manufacturer of telephones both in private and public sector and promoted Bharti Televentures Ltd. as a subsidiary of the Company for the purpose of promoting a variety of telecom service projects in India.

Bharti Enterprises acquired 100 per cent equity in SpiceCell. Bharti's acquisition of SpiceCell was part of its plans to seek a nationwide presence in the telecom segment, according to Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman & Group Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises. Bharti Enterprises has finalised an agreement with three leading telecommunication equipment providers - Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola. According to an official statement from the company, the `big three' have bagged the orders for building Bharti's cellular infrastructure in the recently acquired eight circles, as well as upgradation of its existing operations.The exact timing of the listing will only be decided after the company gets the nod from Sebi, according to company sources. Meanwhile, ahead of the IPO, Bharti has decided to issue bonus shares to the company stakeholders. Bharti Enterprises, which had acquired the city-based cellular service provider SpiceCell in kolkata, launched its own brand AirTel in 2001 and also introduced poll update service.

Growth strategy

India has about four phones for every 100 people compared with a world average of 15, and 5.7 million Indians use mobile phones against China's 140 million.

Mr Mittal's growth strategy since the Government first allowed private competition in the industry in 1992 has been to find the most powerful partners and snare the most attractive licences.

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd invested $400 million in Tele-Ventures and its holding company Bharti Telecom Ltd in 2000. A year later it put in another $200 million in Tele-Ventures. SingTel holds a 16 per cent stake in Tele-Ventures after the share sale.

Dealmaker

Mr Mittal's ability to strike a deal, with partners including companies such as Telecom Italia SpA, Telia AB, British Telecommunications Plc, Intel Corp and Warburg Pincus may come from his father, a Congress party activist.

Rivals as role models

Even so, Mr Mittal said his role models were his biggest rivals like Reliance and TATAS, etc.

Present Scenario:

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel : It is the flagship company of Bharti Enterprises.Bharti Enterprises is one of India’s leading business groups having a diverse business portfolio and has created global brands with interests in telecom, agri business, insurance and retail and entertaiment. Bharti has been a pioneering force in the telecom sector and today enjoys a strong nationwide presence.

Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s largest integrated and the first private telecom services provider with a footprint in all the 23 telecom circles. Bharti Airtel since its inception has been at the forefront of technology and has steered the course of the telecom sector in the country with its world class products and services. The businesses at Bharti Airtel have been structured into three individual strategic business units (SBU’s) - Mobile Services, Airtel Telemedia Services & Enterprise Services. The mobile business provides mobile & fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles while the Airtel Telemedia Services business offers broadband & telephone services in 95 cities. The Enterprise services provide end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national & international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand.

Bharti has recently forayed into retail business as Bharti Retail Pvt. Ltd. under a MoU with Wal-Mart for the cash & carry business. It has successfully launched an international venture with EL Rothschild Group to export fresh agri products exclusively to markets in Europe and USA and has launched Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company Ltd under a joint venture with AXA, world leader in financial protection and wealth management.

Recently, Airtel launched its digital TV ie, Direct to Home (DTH) service under Bharti Telemedia Limited, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited. Direct to Home (DTH) enables viewers to receive broadcast signals into their home via a satellite dish.With DVD quality picture and sound, viewers TV viewing experience will change forever with Airtel digital TV. Now witness the magic of television with best and widest variety of channels and programmes ranging from Sports, Music and General entertainment to best on-demand content on Airtel Live.Now viewers can choose from the best movies of Bollywood and the world, listen to radio, play games, along with a host of other interactive features and change the way you watch television.

Netcore

Netcore Solutions Pvt Ltd was founded by Mr. Rajesh Jain (Managing Director) in the year 1998. The main aim of the company is to focus on affordable software solutions for Indian Corporates. Earlier, Rajesh Jain had founded IndiaWorld Communications in the year 1994. From its pioneering start, IndiaWorld grew to be one of the largest collection of websites in India- comprising Khel.com, Khoj.com, Samachar.com and Bawarchi.com. IndiaWorld was acquired in November 1999 by Sify in one of Asia's largest Internet deals for $115 million. Netcore's umbrella brand MyToday - MyToday.mobi, MyTodaySMS and MyToday MOBS provide an array of services to millions of users all over India. Our Mobility division has been creating benchmark mobile products and services. Rajesh Jain has created a revolution in the form of MyToday by making it India's largest Media on Mobile.

Rajesh Jain's vision resulted in bringing out information and communication revolution using mobile as the medium. Netcore has created an impressive client base of more than 1500 Corporates across 800 locations throughout India and abroad. Its mission is to develop products and services for consumers, as well as SMB (small and medium businesses) in India. Netcore's messaging products are one-stop solutions to build the back-end infrastructure in large enterprises including small & medium-sized businesses. From Email to VPN, firewall to bandwidth management, virus protection to Spam filtering, Netcore covers all!

GSMA at their Global Awards Ceremony held in Barcelona, 2008, selected Netcore's MyToday platform as one of the few select winners in the "True Mobile Start-ups" category. MyToday Dailies is a FREE, Direct-to-Consumer Subscription service which puts the user in control by giving user the option of opting in to the fascinating services by MyToday dailies. This unique service has grown to a formidable audience strength of close to 4mn unique users, making MyToday the largest sender of SMS in India, accounting for 4% of India's SMS traffic. MyToday delivers over 350 million SMS each month for over 11 million subscriptions across 50 channels.

Story of an Entrepreneur making 10 K a day

How to make 10,000$ a day

I want to share a success story of a successful entrepreneur. I don’t really fully appreciate some of the business tactics being used by this individual (I will call him Patel), however he is successful and making 10,000 USD a day.

Patel was from Brick and Mortar business and was managing a Motel in a small town of Midwest US. During the dot com boom of 1999, he decided to try his hands at Dot Com business. To make money you have to take risk and that’s what he exactly did. He sold off his Motel at a premium price and arrived in New Delhi India with cash in his pocket. He opened up a web development factory (he uses term factory and indeed he operates the business in the similar way a factory is operated). He got in a few designers, a few content writers and a few programmers. He was a man with the mission. All his focus in life was building as many number of web-sites with good content. He was truly obsessed with numbers. In his first year he came out with more than 100 sites, most of them not making any money at all (that time advertising options were really limited for content sites).

So came time for some fresh thinking. He recruited a few good managers (his factory is manager driven instead of people driven). The managers came out with the idea of diversifying portfolio. They opened up a new division targeted just for Indian community. There they started offering services and products direct. Since they had huge number of content sites, they had traffic. These services included Travel Agent Services (now they have more than 500 travel sites), selling Indian handy craft items, selling chocolates, flowers etc and delivering them everywhere in India. Indeed at that time India was not ready for his vision, still since he played with numbers, he was able to start making 1$ a day from each of his service provider sites. So with volume by end of year 2001, he was making 500$ a day from his venture.

He kept on increasing his portfolio, even went on to extent of combining brick and mortar business to web business. He purchased a hotel at tourist destination Goa. With huge number of sites specifically targeted on Goa, his Hotel was always 100% full. Eventually he stared a full fletched brick and mortar Travel Agency and that was instant hit. Then he started diversifying his portfolio. You cant compete in US market, because its 10 year ahead of rest of the world. He found out a niche of identifying 20 hot tourist destinations (small nations) and started building 20 sites for each destination. At all those places his brick and mortar Travel Agency cut deals with local travel agencies and Hotels to provide them reservations (Outside US, rarely small Hotels are web Savvy). he started making a few dollars (1$ a day each site). So by end of 2003, his total revenue was 1000 USD a day.

Then came the adsense. Now he was a man with another mission. He really started building content sites in bulk and started making good money from adsense. His funda was very simple. If you have greater than 1000 sites and you link them properly, for sure you will make 1$ a day for each newly launched site.

At this point of time, he has a complete assembly line. He got 20 managers. They build the sites in batches of 1000. The top level come out with idea of building 1000 sites. Then each manager picks up 50 sites and do the research. They come out with project plan for each and very site. Now that they got good experience it takes less than a day to come out with plan for any new site. Then these plans are forwarded to Project Leaders in Assembly Line. They got a division of content writers with 50 writers in India and a few in US and UK as well. Project Leaders divide the work in 3 parts. Content writing, design and programming. All these activities happen at different places and left hand doesn’t know about right hand. Once all 3 modules of a site are ready, the product is being shifted to the Launching Assembly Lines. Here the system admins combine all the pieces together and launch the site on the net. Once the site is launched, it is forwarded to maintenance in assembly line. Maintenance guys put ad code. They keep a track on stats. They have a few content writers, a few SEO guys, a few sys admin and some low tech operators in maintenance assembly line. Their task is to maintain each and every web-site being manufactured by the company. It fully automated process and it takes 2 months from the start to end. After delivering the product each department moves on to prepare a new product. They don’t have to worry about the next step in line.

At this time they own 10,000 sites and with conventional calculation of 1 $ a day, he is making 10K a day by minimum. Indeed he got nice overheads, but the cost of overhead is close to 100 K a month. Also not all sites make 1$ a day. He has at least 20 sites making > 5 K a month. Overall he makes a profit of 300 K a month without raising an eyebrow. He never blogs, never writes on forums and for most of the time he is unknown to all webmasters active on all forums / blogs.

Now like most of you already might have guessed, his success is largely dependant upon google for most of the traffic and he had his own share of failures. Google keeps on changing algo and sites will stop ranking at all. Being a shrewd business man, he had started a branch in factory which exclusively deals in selling the web-sites. Their task is to make sure that they find a buyer for the site within 2 years it got started. So they make good money on each site for 2 years and then they sell it off at premium. Once they sell if off, it become responsibility of buyer. If google decreases ranking of the site, it is buyer who suffers. Also most of the time buyers do not have appropriate resources to manage the site. So they in turn even outsource the maintenance of site to Patel’s company. So he makes money even out of that.

So that is the success story of Mr Patel. It gives me lot of inspiration and I hope that it will give some inspiration to all of you as well.