Category Archives: The Remarkables

Thoughts on Start-up Hiring

Hiring is undoubtedly one of the hardest part of doing a start-up.  Getting the right set of people to work for you is easier said than done and almost every start-up  founder is  in ‘always hiring’ mode.

Despite the fact that there are a lot of cool(and many funded/profitable) startups  run by some really smart folks with a vision, they are unable to attract/find the right kind of talent and end up with mediocre to bad hires.

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Given the dynamic nature of a start-up the last thing founders want is to hire somebody who isn’t sharing the same vision, thinking on the same frequency(macro level) and walking the same path. Not only are bad hires bad for the roles they are hired for, they are terrible for the company culture in general and set the barrier low for other/potential hires and might just end up setting the company back instead of moving it forward.

Traits of BAD Start-up Hires

  1. Slow/Non learners  They are hardly interested in spending time and effort in learning how to do their jobs better
  2. Reactive –   They will only do (a % of) what their bosses tell them to do. They will never be proactive and do things on their own
  3. Micro – They will never be able to think beyond their immediate task list and think about the bigger picture, or even how what they are doing/can do can impact the company in general
  4. Laid Back – Nothing for them is an urgency. They will crawl while they are expected to fly. Most things that will annoy the hell out of founder/core team will not cause them an itch.

As an entrepreneur you must always be thinking about iterating the hiring process and make sure that even if you move to other bigger things, the people who take hiring calls must be on the exact wavelength as you and should not hire people just to fill roles. You MUST make sure that the person who is in charge of hiring should be A class her/himself and is always thinking on how to get incredible people on board and also how to make the workplace best suitable for brilliant people.

I’m particularly rigid about hiring great people and feel very strongly about it as I believe a bad hire can actually undermine the speed and efficiency of one(or more) good hires. Not only will they take up time, they will leave you with bad aftertaste which will last for a while, so it is best to hire people who will not just be at par with your expectations and company culture but are likely to take things to the next level.

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Formula for a Great Hire

Great Start-up Hire =  Smart + Passionate + Committed to your cause

So you should evaluate your hires for these 3 parameters, the ways you choose could be different but it is critical to evaluate them on all these parameters. A fancy yet apt term for some such hires is “Entrepreneurial Lieutenants”. These guys are what I call “Mini-CEOs” who take complete ownership of their respective divisions and run the show mostly on their own. A major thing that I look for is “compliance”, it is very important to make sure that people start following what you tell them almost immediately. Anybody who doesn’t take this seriously won’t last for me.

Some of the ways which I use while hiring are

    1. Smart – Asking them a puzzle or two/Testing their problem solving skills by giving them a situation and asking for a solution/Asking them to do a mental calculation or something which involves logic and requires them to think on their feet.
    2. Passionate – Asking about what they do in their spare time, stuff which they are really into (Anything in which I can ask them anything or stuff about which they feel they’d know more than me) or stuff on which they have strong perspectives (design, visual, usability, scalability or just about anything in the relevant context). Passionate people are inherently curious to figure out how stuff works and how to improve thing around. Asking them to share if they have ever built something is another key question
    3. Committed – I’m particularly keen to learn why would anyone like to join your start-up. What do they really like so much about the small limited resource set up which not many people have heard about or has a certain amount of uncertainty or air of oblivion attached to it. Basically you’d like to find out if the person is really excited about what you are doing or they want to join you because your office is quite close to their home and they expect a job here won’t be as demanding as that in a corporate which is located at the other end of the town or something equally lame.I try to learn what is the real motivation. Some of the best reasons could be

      a) Love for product/service – It’s best to find someone who’s a happy customer and wants to spread your message
      b) Love for domain – Next best is to find someone who is passionate about the domain in which your start-up works. Someone who believes in better healthcare deep inside will come out with a lot of creativity and empathy for your customers
      c) Love for founding/core team – Someone who is in awe of the founders or core team and wants to work with them is another reason.

Another great thing about committed people is that they think “Long Term” which is a huge differentiator. The sheer fact that someone is thinking of spending the next 3-5 years (yes, it’s as long term as it gets in most startups) or more implies that they’ll be motivated enough not only to do their job well but also go out of the way to do things that’ll help the startup become better in various other aspects for which they might not be directly responsible/accountable just like we all do things for our family or friends where we are emotionally invested.

It is painful to see start-up’s not thinking about hiring hard enough and making sure the right hires are given all the freedom and autonomy to weave their own stories. I like how @tarunmatta puts it, if someone would to write a story on your start-up who do you think would be the key characters (except you) ?

If the answer is none or 1-2, you have a huge task at hand. You need people to build upon the vision and spread it along with you. These people are the ones who would be almost as sensitive or paranoid about the big and small things alike and would spend endless hours obsessing about problems your startup is trying to solve and how to come up with beautiful solutions.

I know enough founders who are brilliant but someone haven’t been able to manage to build a great middle level management (for the lack of a better/startupy word). You need driven people who will manage various aspects of the business and relieve you of your routine tasks so that you can solve higher order problems. They will also help in making sure your vision/company culture is embedded in the team at large. Do all you can to hire these folks

If you can get someone who is smart, passionate and committed to your cause, give them enough salary to keep money out of the table for now and next few years to come. Also, whenever possible offer them ESOPs. Incidentally I haven’t heard many start-up founders talk about ESOPs but I am a big believer is offering ESOPs to folks who you think would be instrumental in charting the course of your company. ESOPs in many cases will get you more loyalty than $$ which any other company could offer and with ESOPs (however small) the employee has another reason to push the envelope harder and make sure that the company makes it big for them to benefit.

Recommended Read – The Mechanics of Mafia (Peter Theiel’s Startup Class Notes by Blake Masters)

So, what do you think about ‘Start-up’ Hiring?

 

Lessons in Business from Bala Balachandran

About a couple weeks back I happened to come to know about Mr Bala Balachandran from a friend of mine who also shared with me the printouts of an article titled “I firmly believe that all customers are not equal” that  appeared in Business Standard on 24th December 2002(couldn’t manage to find a link). It’s not often that one comes across this much business wisdom in a 4 page printout.

After giving that article a re-read yesterday, I searched a bit on Mr Bala Balachandran and amongst other things I stumbled upon this series of fantastic videos on everything from Cost Management to Customer Astonishment. This would by far be the best material on business I’ve come across in 2010 and the fact that these gems are hidden from the world is reflected in the fact that these videos had been viewed 2-5 times at max. It’s only now after repeated views from me that these numbers have jumped up :). Also, Balachandran not only shares his business wisdom, he does so in a nice and funny manner. At 72, he has contagious energy and passion.

Only if someone could stitch these  small 2-3 minute videos together would they make into an amazing video.

5th Annual Small Business Summit 2010 Highlights

About 8 months ago I complied a presentation containing best tweets from Social Gaming Summit 2009 which got a good response and appreciation so I thought of doing the same for #smallbizsummit.

Here’s a crowdsourced summary(in form of tweets) of the 5th Annual Small Business Summit 2010 held at NYC on 16th March. Hope you like it

Small Business Summit 2010

View more presentations from Mayank Dhingra.

It’s About Being Remarkable Stupid

I’ve been a great fan of Seth Godin ever since I read ‘The Purple Cow’ early last year. I really liked the book and am re-reading it again

 

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The book talks about how a product/idea needs to be remarkable to able to spread like fire and succeed. The books lays emphasis on how marketing should be a part of product design and not just a follow up process after product development.

Call it a co-incidence that while facebooking I stumbled upon a link that led me to ‘Easy Tiger Corp’.

[Disclaimer: The content below might hurt your senses]

Easy Tiger Corp seems to have taken a leaf from Godin’s purple cow by offering something remarkable(weird?). Easy Tiger Corp (ETC) makes pre-stained clothing that free people from the embarrassment of having soiled clothing by selling clothes that come already soiled and thus making it a personal decision to wear soiled clothing and not a source of embarrassment.

Sounds weird? You are not alone in thinking that. But I wouldn’t get into how good/bad the idea is but I’d like to point out the fact that irrespective of how good/bad it is, it makes people talk.  The product by it’s sheer design has a lot of remark worthy points

1)  ‘Pre-stained’ clothing : When everyone is selling you detergents to remove stains, here come’s a product with in built stains. Readers from India might recall Surf Excel’s ad ‘Daag Acche Hain‘ (Stains are good) with completely opposite stand towards stains then what’s taken normally

2) Sense of Humour: With a product like this, you need a lot of confidence and sense of humour to do business and looks like the ETC folks have got it all. A quick look at the story of how the idea happened on their about us page and the on your face FAQ page confirms the same.

3) Hate all/Love some: Pre-stained clothing is clearly not a mass market product. In fact it’s quite the opposite it’s a product that most people will hate but a selected few will/might love. Then again the chances that those who like the idea or product will on average talk to more people about it.

To get more attention ETC has launched two contests since their inception in July 2009 namely the ETC YouTube Ad contest and the super remarkable ‘World’s Dirtiest Underwear Competition

ETC has been getting some coverage in the blogosphere and it remains to be seen if Philip the guy behind the company would be able to leave his day job and jump into ‘Pre-Stained’ clothing full time. But what ever the case be, the point of this post is to share an example of a remarkable idea and product and how easy it really becomes to market them. Also, keep in mind being remarkable is quite different from being ridiculous.

Is your product/idea remarkable?

Social Media Case Study – Charity: Water

Charity: water is a charity started by Scott Harrison that provides clean water to save lives in poor countries. Charity: water has successfully raised $10 million (most of that last year alone) from 50,000 individual donors, thereby providing clean water to nearly one million people in Africa and Asia.

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Here’s how Charity: water is using Social Media to be more effective

  1. Creating Relationships: Charity: water (CW) is using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to connect with people who share the same concerns as them. CW also adds value by sharing relevant information and content with their friends/followers in these social platforms. Relationships are the key currency for nonprofits and social media is a great way to build and maintain good relationships.
  2. charitywater on facebook (Charity: water on Facebook)

    With social media it’s also relatively easy to ask people for small contributions or motivate them to volunteer for a task or just spread the word by say putting a badge on their blog.

    charitywater on twitter (Charity: water on Twitter)

    2.  Maintaining Transparency: For nonprofits to scale beyond a level, transparency is very important and to some extent the rate of their growth also depends on how transparent they are. In this sense too, social media and nonprofits are made for each other. Charity: water shows donors the specific impact of their  contributions. They post photos and G.P.S. coordinates so that donors can look up their (Charity: water grants naming rights to wells) wells on Google Earth. Come September and they will have a new web site that will match even the smallest donation to a particular project that can be tracked online.

    charitywater transparency
    3.  Experimenting with new things:

    During Twestival (meetup for twitter users in twitter lingo), charity: water raised $250,000 this spring.

    charitywater_6
    Viral video campaigns by charity: water are also a hit among its supporters and play a significant role in motivating people to contribute.

4. High Stakeholder Involvement:

    When was the last time you were asked to by a charity to engage in conversation?
    Hmm…Never?

    But that’s not the case with Charity: water, during Twestival CW invied donors to get involved by

  • Watching four daily short videos of the drilling as charity: water goes from village to village drilling wells.
  • Following the drilling updates via twitter.
  • Asking questions of the local drilling team via email or twitter. Also, The local charity: water drill team answers the top five questions on video

I’d like to end this case study by quoting  “communityorganizer20.com”

Charity: water is giving its donors exactly what they want: success stories, videos of the impact of donations, and  information about financial accountability.

If you know of something else  that Charity: water or some other nonprofit is doing to leverage social media, share with us

Rickshaw Road Shows

Road shows are a common marketing activity in Delhi and rest of North India. It’s not uncommon to find big brands like Spencer’s, Horlicks, etc doing road shows to promote a new store or a new product. Road shows are also excessively used during political campaigns. A typical road show looks like this

Roadshow

While there’s nothing new about road shows, there’s a new(and low cost) variant of road shows that’s increasingly getting popular for doing promotions. Rickshaw Road Show or Cycle Rickshaw Road Show as it’s called consists of a branded cycle rickshaw(regular or a different small one custom built for such activities) with a rickshaw puller driving it within a given area for about 8 hours a day. Driving is the core activity with addons being parking for some time at certain key points like metro stations, bus stops and distributing leaflets/pamphlets .

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(Promotion for a Jewellery House)

xs_rickshaw ( Promotions for an automobile showroom and a satsang)

Ricksaw road shows are generally done at least for a month(2 days monthly off) and they cost anywhere between Rs 8,000 – Rs 12,000 per month ($170-$250). The costing includes rent for richshaw, branding and the fees for rickshaw puller. A rough break up for the total cost would be

Rickshaw Puller:  Rs 4,000 – Rs 5,500
Branding : Rs 800 – Rs 1,500

rest would be the rent of rickshaw and the owners profit.

It’s not just small coaching institutes or local businesses that do richshaw roadshows, they are also being used by brands like Fastrack that are also active on the web(Twitter, Facebook et all)

fastrack

So, what do you think about Rickshaw Road Shows ?

Television Banking: ICICIActive on DishTV

Got this email from ICICI bank yesterday about launch of what they call “Tevelision Banking”.  All that the email contained was this image.

icici

To be honest this is the first time I heard the term “Television Banking” and I found the proposition intriguing.

Just when you can’t seem to figure out why are most banks/branches closed on a sunday ? or why a cheque deposited on a Thursday afternoon won’t be credited till Monday morning ?, this innovative new concept from a bank seems cool and definitely useful.

Here’s a visual walkthrough of what happened after clicking the link for online demo.

Screen 1

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Did you notice the URL for this page?

Screen 2

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Screen 3

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Screen 4
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This gives you fair idea of what “Television Banking” is all about. Also, the ability to pay your dishtv subscription from your ICICI bank using your TV is definitely useful.

While not everyone might need this, but the sheer thought of banking(though limited) on your TV while lying in your bed at any time of the day, wants you to give it a try.

What do you think ?

LinkedIn and The New York Times Team up

In a recent development(or is it?), LinkedIn and The New York Times have joined hands for a tie up. I stumbled upon this while surfing NYT and a few clicks revealed how it works. Here’s the deal for you.

Linkedin members will have an option to be served customized headline feature on Business and Technology article pages of  NYTimes.com that’ll comprise five latest stories from NYT. For ex: someone working in biotechnology sector will be served latest news from that sector.

Here’s the story in a few pics

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via NYtimes.com

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via LinkedIn.com

Linkedin_Newyork Times

An article on NYT

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on clicking “what’s this?” on the right side in

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“five stories” based on my LinkedIn profile