Interview on entrepreneurship

Quite some time back (when my blog used to be anonymous) I'd done an interview with the folks over at Voice of Ambition (VOA). Now that the blog isn't anonymous, I thought it would be a good idea to link to that interview in case anyone wants to hear it. Here are the details:

"K. K. Mookhey founder of NII consulting tells us how he quit his engineering and started his own company. He answers questions like where did he get his capital from? What was his business plan? How much was his initial capital? How he registered his company? How much it costs to register a company? What sectors provide an opportunity for new entrepreneurs? Who is their first client? Who is their biggest client? Is he willing to provide advice for new entrepreneurs? And much more."

Direct link to the episode is
http://www.voiceofambition.com/voa/component/option,com_remository/func,fileinfo/id,28/

(Almost) all your income tax queries answered

I just chanced upon an excellent blog that has answers to quite a few interesting income tax queries. I don't like the layout of the site, but the content is quite good. Check out Tax Worry.

Insights of the day - building a core management team

I happened to attend another excellent TiE session on building a core management team. It was headed by Parag Paranjpe, Director, HR at ICICI Venture. Some of the key takeaways from the session based on inputs from Parag, and the other attendees were:

• Talent looks out for opportunities for that talent to be harnessed. So your key USP has to be what opportunities do you provide for exploiting potential.
• Star employees look for autonomy and freedom - an equal stake in the organization. They want to make the organization bigger and share in the wealth that they help to create.
• Every leader must aim to make himself/herself obsolete in order for the people working under that leader to reach their full potential. The leader must then redefine his role and responsibilities and work to achieve a different set of goals.
• One of the most important attributes to look out for in a candidate is personal integrity. And the best way to determine this is to check for references and learn to read between the lines when the references respond to your queries. Parag gave an example of ICICI Venture contracting an international firm to do a background check on a candidate they were hiring for their Zurich office. And they looked at the huge fees paid to this firm as an investment that would pay off. But he said, that was only reducing the risk, we still would never know for 100% sure if all that we were told by the candidate is correct or not.
• Also, while hiring try to determine whether the employee is joining you for money or for a higher purpose. Does the candidate seem to buy into your vision or is simply making the jump for a better pay package?
• The past history of a candidate is the best indicator of future behavior. Dwell into it, and ask deeper questions based on the candidates previous profile. Everyone promises great things in the future, but have they delivered in the past?
• Try to determine as accurately as possible the real reasons why the candidate is leaving his previous company and joining your company.
• Another important aspect is the cultural fit. How well do you think the candidate would fit into your existing corporate culture. If your existing culture is open and autonomous, does he or she have the ability to work and excel in such an environment or is he/she a very hands-on micro-managing type leader?
• Other ideas were to ask candidates to write down their answers on questions such as achievements, failures, goals, and dreams, rather than ask them to answer verbally.

Insights for the day - V. S. S. Mani from JustDial

I just came back from attending a very insightful personal session with V. S. S. Mani the founder of Just Dial, which was organized by TIE.

JustDial was started somewhere in 1995 after a lot of false starts by Mani, who was earlier director at Ask Me services. Started with a capital of Rs. 50,000 it is now a Rs. 100 crore company with a valuation of over Rs. 500 crore. From days when they were selling wedding planners to generate revenue to today where PE's and venture capitalists are being rejected because they simply don't want any more funding. Here were some key takeaways:

1. When the whole world and its aunt was harping on about the dotcom boom, Mani decided to continue his information services business through the telephone model, and not chuck it all away for an online model. He profited at that stage by selling part of his stake to a US investor, but didn't spend truckloads of cash on building a dotcom and promoting it. He says the Internet infrastructure was so pathetic in 2000-2001, that there was no way that a dotcom business would possibly work well.
2. The key to a successful business is scalability. If you can tell a story to your employees, your partners, and your investors about how you're going to be scaling up the company, how you're going to grow and expand, then you've got a winner on your hands. If your business doesn't scale, do it differently, or do something different.
3. If possible do a short course on financial accounting, and learn the basics about accounting, balance sheets, profit and loss, and cashflow. That is essential, because if you take financially bad decisions your business will crumble. It is like a baby that needs proper care and nurturing.
4. He doesn't stick to any office hours, but does not believe in delegate and forget. He is not operational, but when he delegates, he follows up - every day! He says, in India, your managers and employees will start nodding their heads about how they've understood what needs to be done, but won't do it, or won't do it right, until you follow up and oversee them.
5. When you are growing your business, don't be pretentious. Don't try and show off that you're doing great. Investors don't necessarily want to see great infrastructure, they want to see the virtual reality world you are going to build and that you are asking them to invest in that world. Not the world you live in today. He started off with a small cubicle in Nariman Point, before moving to a 300 sq. ft. shop in the suburbs, and then adding two more shops of 300 sq. ft. each. And that was his situation even in 2000 when the US investor decided to pump cash into his business.
6. When asked about the importance of branding, he said the most important branding is excellent executions. Happy customers will build your brand much better and much bigger than anyone amount of advertising or PR will. Word of mouth is the best publicity you'll ever generate.

Married to your idea?

I just had an epiphany of sorts a few days back.

I was attending a TIE forum meeting, when Manak Singh, the convener of the forum and I began exchanging notes on business in general. And he told me that at an earlier TIE conference, they had invited Vivek Paul of Wipro. One of the key things Paul said was that the problem with a lot of Indian entrepreneurs is that they often get married to the idea with which they start their business.

They first decide that they are going to sell a particular service or product, and then go out to look for a market for that service or product. The way it should ideally work is an outside-in approach, where you first see what the market really demands and then try and deliver that, instead of an inside out approach.

The entire discussion started when Manak Singh asked me about scalability, and I said pure security consulting services does not seem to have the ability to scale - the market demand does not enable the kind of growth that I would ideally like.

I then took this discussion to our annual bootcamp, where once a year we all meet and present on various topics, and throw ideas around. When I presented the vision for the next 3 years, the teams started to question our ability to achieve the numbers based on pure consulting services, and then the suggestions started to pour in. We need to go beyond just pure advisory services, get into implementation, product reseller-ship, and maybe even into network and system integration.

I'll keep posting on how the expansion plans work out, but I got a good feel about this. Although, we might have been earlier leaving money on the table by not aggressively pursuing other projects, it won't be the case any longer!

So maybe a key question that an entrepreneur needs to ask is whether they are the only buyers of their idea. And maybe even more importantly this is a question that entrepreneurs need to keep asking throughout the lifetime of their companies. I could quote a couple of very interesting examples here: Nokia started off as a wood-pulp unit, then was bought over by a rubber manufacturing company, and then merged with a company manufacturing telephone cables. This fusion company was manufacturing paper products, bicycle and car tires, footwear (including Wellington boots), personal computers, communications cables, televisions, electricity generation machinery, capacitors, aluminium, etc.

Another intriguing example is 3M, their most popular product being the Post-It notes. Very few people would know that the name 3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, which went through a financial crunch, got out of the mining business, and became what it is today because the people running the company did not feel that they had to remain "loyal" to the original idea! Read about its fascinating history here.

Funding your business using credit cards?

I just came across an article about using credit cards to fund your startup. Although, the article is for the US environment, I think this is a patently bad idea, especially in India. The current interest rates on credit card debt are close to 2% per month, which is 36% per year! If that is not usurious, I don't know what is. It might actually be cheaper to go and raise money from your neighborhood money-lender!

The rules in India allow the directors to pay for certain expenses of the company from their own resources, and to then get reimbursed a few months or maybe a year or so down the line when the company has started generating enough funds. Knowing that fewer than 5% of new ventures actually succeed, why take such a huge risk and be saddled with debt and surmounting interest costs?

In any case, rolling over credit card debt, or switching from one provider to another just because you're exceeding your credit limits on the first card, means that you're spiraling way down a debt trap. Doing this, when trying to get your business up and running is a horribly bad idea. So don't fall for the temptation of abusing your credit ratings you might have built up by religiously paying off your credit card bills while you were in a regular salaried job. Your income when running your business is going to be close to nil for the first year or so. It is far better that you work harder at building up the funds yourself or rallying family and friends around to the idea of supporting your business.

Choosing my problems

One of the biggest challenges of being an entrepreneur is the fact that in most cases you've got to fight your battles alone. Some of us have mentors, some of us come from a family with a business background, and maybe some of us have an excellent core team. But for a lot of us, the problems that we face in running a small-medium business are more or less entirely ours to face and resolve. Whatever be the case, one has to accept that problems will occur. There is no business, or for that matter no serious activity, which is not beset by its own unique set of problems.

The trick is to accept this fact, and to face most of your problems with as much equanimity, humility, and introspective ability as you can. In most cases, I find I can manage all these virtuous qualities in some measure or the other. Cash-flow issues - we've faced them earlier, and have managed to come through. Plus the receivables list does tend to give one comfort that sooner or later the money is going to come through. Client issues - some clients are generally painful, most others have genuine grievances. Nothing that cannot be resolved by openly asking them what they would like us to do, negotiating the extent to which we'll go, and then delivering on it. As long as they see we are sincere in our commitment, they'll usually stop being adversarial, and start looking at how they can work with us to solve the problems at hand. Lack of a strong pipeline. We've faced that situation earlier as well, and usually the lull lasts for no more than a month or so. A weak pipeline also means people sitting twiddling their thumbs. But constant communication, research projects, and trainings can help keep them productively occupied. Employee performance issues - again set targets, agree on them, measure them, and if they consistently under-perform, ask them to leave.

The one problem where I can simply muster up no equanimity is attrition. And we usually have waves that come in about once a year, when the level of attrition can quite simply be called an exodus. Each time, I try and introspect what we could have done better, and we try and do it. And each time it seems as if we're building a castle right near the shore, and a huge wave comes in and washes it right away. Last time around we introduced incentives and a team structure to help curb attrition. I also reduced my own involvement in project execution. This time it seems we need to dig down deeper to find out what we need to do, to get ahead of the attrition ratios that plague us. What hurts about attrition is the feeling of loss. You spend time building a relationship, investing in people's learning/training, you see them grow in confidence and technical skills, and then one day it's pretty much all over. I can tell you the worst day in office is when an email with the subject-line "Resignation" or "Sign-off" or whatever term is vogue lands up in my inbox.

So if I had to choose my problems - I'd say give me anything except attrition.

Due diligence of Indian companies

Came across an interesting paper on what investor should look for when investing in small and mid-sized Indian companies. It is an important read, because for a small business entrepreneur it gives you a lot of ideas on what your company should have to be able to impress a potential investor. The full paper can be downloaded here.

Here is a summary of the key points from the paper:

Operational legitimacy - is the company running a legitimate business, or are the bulk of its revenues coming from front-ending operations. There have long been rumors that a number of small and mid-sized IT companies serve as fronts for small to large amounts of money laundering.

Quantitative Criteria Matching - most investors have specific criteria which the target company needs to match. These are typically in terms of turnover, profitability, number of years in operation, etc. If your company does not meet these criteria - say $2 million in turnover - it would naturally not be in contention.

Leadership & Management - the investors will want to see who is in your core team, or even if there is no core team, they would want to evaluate your skills in terms of management ability, leadership, vision for the future, principles and values you espouse, your track record, and experience either working for other firms or successful ventures in the past.


Growth potential: How quickly can your product/service lines grow, and if they cater to specific market segments, are those segments by themselves also poised for exponential growth in the overall picture of the country's economy? What is your business plan, and what strategies have you envisaged to achieve your targets, and your degree of innovation.

Possible exit strategies: At the end of the day, all investors want to see returns on their investments. And investors in small- to medium- firms are usually taking a much higher risk, and consequently would expect much higher returns. Especially, since only 10-20% of their investments actually pan out.

Market reputation: What do your customers, your partners, and your employees say about your firm? As a small business it is unlikely you will have achieved a lot of press publicity, so your reputation almost completely depends on the people who know you or your company on a one-to-one basis.

NEN - an interesting resource for entrepreneurs

I was recently contacted by the NEN - the National Entrepreneurship Network - to take a look at their website and what they do. I quite like the resources available on their website, and would recommend that you may read up on some of the more interesting articles and interviews. They also have an Ask The Expert section, where they have experts address various aspects of entrepreneurship.

They claim to be non-profit, so I guess they will continue to provide as many resources for free as they can. Some of the links I would like you to check out would be:

• Ask the Expert. The current link features Pradeep Gupta who answers questions on Angel Investing
• The Weekly Startup. This section looks at promising and successful startups and can be a good source for ideas and inspiration.
• Resources. All the rest of the resources on the website packaged together

So let me know if you liked the website, and I'll check and see if there are other such websites out there.

Worst VC Investments

Here's a very interesting list of the top 20 worst VC investments of all time. My favorites include Pets.com, CueCat, and Procket.

Really, makes you think when's a good time to sell off one's firm if the valuations can go up and down so dramatically. Also, with Sabeer Bhatia back in the news it makes you think whether the $400 million he sold Hotmail for was the right price, considering its worth a few $billions now. But in a recent interview he said something very straightforward, "When you've got $5000 in the bank, and someone offers you $400 million, the choice is pretty simple". Especially, when the first offer he got from Microsoft was a measly $160 million.

Running/starting a business - frequently asked questions

Q. What will be the tax structure for a sole proprietorship?
A. As a proprietor, you will create a profit-and-loss account of your business. Here you have the advantage of putting in a lot of your business/personal expenses into the P&L account. This should ideally be avoided as you grow, but initially you can reduce your tax burden with this. The tax you will end up paying is only on the *profit* of your business, and not on all the income. If you accept income directly on your name, you will have to end up paying tax on all the income. So proprietorship is the smarter choice.

The other tax component you need to be aware of is Service Tax. If your revenues exceed Rs. 8 lakhs per year, you are liable to pay Service Tax every quarter at the rate of 12.36% on the income. For this you will need to obtain a Service Tax number by registering yourself at the local excise office. This is for services. If you are going to be selling products, you need to register for Sales Tax or VAT (depends on the rules in your particular state). For this as well you need to check with your local excise officer. More information on Service/Sales tax is available here
http://cexmumbai3.gov.in/


Q. How do I start from scratch?
A. Good to hear that you're looking at becoming an entrepreneur. There are basically two approaches to starting your company:
1. You could plan, map your strengths, product offering, and then see whether there is a market need for it, what resources you would need, how much funding you would need, and then build all of this into a business plan.
2. You could jump right into the deep end of the pool, and follow a 'shoot-from-the-hip' kind of cowboy style of doing things

I adopted approach #2, but wouldn't always advise it. The important common points in either approach are:
1. You have to offer something that the market will pay you for
2. It has to be something you would love doing irrespective of how much you get paid for it

The current economic and business situation is such that you could start off on an experimental basis while you are still working. And then you could quit and begin full time. I was slightly advantaged because I started at 20-21 and didn't have a family to support. Those sorts of things add responsibilities and must be duly addressed.

I started my company with a Rs. 2 lakh capital, and built it into a 100 times that in about 6 years. My blog does contain posts on how to start your business from scratch. Take a look and see if it helps.

Q. Can you tell me if VAT and Service Tax are applicable for freelance software solutions provided locally and for abroad?
A. Service Tax, yes, only if your annual turnover exceeds Rs. 8 lakhs
VAT would be applicable only if you resell other software products, or you have built your own products.

Q. Do I need a PAN card for a proprietorship firm?
A. No, you can use your personal PAN number. A separate PAN will be required only if you have incorporate it as a Pvt. Ltd. firm. Approach the nearest Income Tax office and get in touch with the PRO (Public Relations Officer) for details.

Q. Do I need to register for Service Tax or VAT?
A. Service Tax, yes, only if your annual turnover exceeds Rs. 8 lakhs
VAT would be applicable only if you resell other software products, or you have built your own products.

Q. Where do I get my seed capital from?
A. As to your funding requirement, I suggest you first list out exactly how much money you need, for how many months, how you intend to earn revenues, how much revenues you are targeting on a monthly basis vs. your monthly expenses to run the company. Basically, try and build a rudimentary profit-and-loss sheet, and see where your break-even point is. How do you intend to pay back the entity who loans you the money.

Taking money from friends/relatives may sound easy, but it isn't always so. What if your venture doesn't succeed as much you had planned. You will damage the relationships also. But if it is a small sum, and you are confident of returning it, then this is the best option. Banks will ask for collateral to give you a loan, and this might be difficult, unless you mortgage some family property or other assets you have.

But first come up with the exact amount of money you need and then try and figure out your sources of funding.

Q. I am currently working at a Pvt Ltd Co. and am starting my own propreitorship firm from my home. Its a services business where I would be launching my first portal soon. I have acquired a gumaste license. Kindly inform me about the other requirements specially relating to taxes. Do I need a seperate pancard for the firm and besides registering for the service tax which other taxes do i have to pay?
A. If you are running it as a sole proprietorship, you can continue using your personal PAN number. For purposes of tax calculation, you need to prepare a profit-and-loss account for the proprietorship firm, and then include only the profit (if any) into your total taxable income computation. But if you incorporate it as a Pvt. Ltd. firm then you need an additional PAN card.

Besides service tax, if you have employees you would have to pay Fringe Benefit Tax on the benefits you provide to your employees (such as travel, food, conveyance, entertainment, petrol diesel, etc.). You also need to register for Professional Tax for your proprietorship firm. If you sell or resell any products, you would also need to register for VAT or Sales Tax. If you have employees, you need to deduct tax at source, and for this you need to register for a TAN number.

Please check with a professional CA and CS (Company Secretary) for the latest laws and regulations in this regard.


Q. Can I have a current account (as the sole Prop) in my name but have an operational business name for website/visiting cards etc. Is it mandatory to have the name registered?
A. Your clients will know you by the name being used on your website and visiting cards. But then when you bill them or ask them to make a payment, it will be a different name. This will create a slightly negative impression in their minds. It is best to focus on brand-building right from the start.

How to register for Sales Tax / VAT in India

Recently, we got into reselling products in line with our consulting work, and also developed a couple of new products. But in order to sell products within India, we need to register for a Sales Tax or VAT (Value-Added Tax) number. This process is pretty straightforward:

1. Locate the office of the Central Sales Tax Office in your city. Being in Mumbai, a simple Google search turned up the location of the office at Mazgaon - http://salestax.maharashtra.gov.in/communicationcenter/contactusShow.php
2. Approach either the Public Relations Officer's desk there, or go directly to the Registration Department and collect the forms.
3. We needed the following supporting documentation along with the form:
• Company's PAN Card
• Director's PAN Card copy
• Two proofs of Director's residence - I used my passport and a phone bill
• Two proofs of place of business - we used our Leave & License agreement, and the electricity bill
4. The form is pretty straightforward to fill, and you need to ask for the one related to Voluntary Registration (VRS). You will need a Sales Tax Professional to sign on the form, and the Mazgaon building also houses the central office of the Association of Sales Tax Professionals, so finding one shouldn't be all that difficult.
   
5. It cost us Rs. 5000 as fees for VRS, and nothing under-the-table
6. The Sales Tax or VAT number is sent across by post in about a week's time

The main thing to keep in mind is that VAT returns need to be filed every quarter, and you will need to get a qualified CA who is capable of auditing and signing-off on VAT returns. My current CA has expressed his reluctance to process our VAT returns, so we are on the lookout now for someone who can do this.

10 ways to get business when bootstrapping

Some of these headlines are beginning to read like the advertising gimmicks from fly-by-night online operators. But when you're bootstrapping your business, and don't have much in the way of funding. And possibly no sales or marketing staff, here're some ideas on how you could get leads. Caveat: this would work best probably only for consulting companies, but then again, it just might work for anyone. Here goes:

1. Subscribe and post to mailing lists: In our line of work, there are a number of mailing lists. Some of these have subscriptions of over 1 million members (Bugtraq). When people send in queries, and if you have sensible answers to give, it helps to put your name out there. If I read someone's reply to a query, which I find useful, I will often check up on that person's website, and see if there is any business potential. Similarly, if you post answers and put your contact information in your signature, it helps to put your name out there.
2. Write articles: Often, when we don't have business in a particular segment of our work, say SAP Security, we'll go ahead and write up on it. If an online or offline journal publishes the article, that's great. If not, we put it up on our website, and sooner or later the search engines will pick it up and send inquiries your way.
3. Speak at conferences - big or small: Within your area of business, there would be a number of professional societies. These would normally meet weekly or monthly, and quite often they invite guest speakers. If you take membership of these societies and take an active role, you're very likely to get noticed. They are also often short of good speakers, so if you can play it to your strength then you would again be able to put your name out there.
4. Write a blog (not an anonymous one!): If you post good stuff on your blog, especially directly related to your area of expertise, business is quite likely to come your way. Of course, anonymously blogging like here doesn't help much in the way of getting business, but then again that was not really my objective :)
5. Call up the bigger fish: In any line of work, there are bound to be the big guys who would be more than willing to send business your way, especially if you specialize in a niche area. For us, initially our area of expertise was (and hopefully still is) penetration testing. The big consulting firms were more interested in large audit projects, and were more than willing to offload the smaller ones to us.
6. Call up existing clients: Asking for referrals is one of the best ways to get business. In fact, why just clients. You could call up everyone you know - vendors, suppliers, friends, ex-employers, etc. It doesn't hurt, and most of our large deals have landed up in the most unexpected fashion.
7. Get your website listed: Build a cool-looking website and get it listed in a number of online directories which may be specific to business in your area. Both Yahoo! and Google have directories and you could try and get it listed there. There are also online Yellow Pages-style sites and you could try getting listed there
8. Drop flyers in your office complex: This might be a slightly desperate measure, but what the heck. Get one-page flyers printed and post them around your office complex or in buildings next to the one you work in.
9. Put up hoardings if possible: Where we work, the law of the land allows us to put up a hoarding outside our office. And thankfully for us our location is right on one of the busiest roads in town. So everyday thousands of people see the hoarding. Not that we've gotten a lot of direct business from it, but every now and then we meet someone who's seen it and it helps create recall value.
10. Do work gratis: This is probably the last resort, but if a large client is willing to give you a letter of appreciation or recommendation for some free work, then you might as well do it. When starting out, we did a few free assignments, but this must be avoided to the extent possible.
    

10 Questions with a woman entrepreneur - Shibani Jain

Shibani Jain is the CEO of Craftsbridge India Pvt. Ltd. A first generation woman entrepreneur, she has stuck through a lot of ups and downs to build a very unique and inspiring business – bringing India’s traditional crafts and arts to a wider market, using the Internet and direct marketing as tools to ensure the craftsmen get their right recognition and dues. I interviewed her online a few weeks ago, and gained some significant insights into a woman’s entrepreneurial journey.

1. Could you brief us about your company's main offerings?

Shibani: We offer designer and special skill products which map current corporate requirements. We work with special skill groups across the country and our sales help these small rural urban groups to generate income.

We offer corporate promotional and motivational products like desktop products and office accessories.

We arrived at this focus after a lot of trial and error. We tried many other things at first – home textiles which we were exporting; retail sales for domestic markets (garment apparels, etc). We even had our own stitching unit. But then, we realized its not possible to do so much; especially since they were all virtually different businesses – with separate infrastructure requirements, different markets and different production bases. We decided to cut down and we focused on the business where we had the strongest market traction.


2. Since your website is one of the primary marketing channels, what strategies would you advise to promote one's website and make it more productive in terms of customers and revenues?

Shibani: Our website is only 7% of our total business today. I would advise the following for similar ventures:

1. Unique offerings
2. Decent strategic tie-ups/partner sites to ensure you get the eyeballs
3. Constant renewal of offerings and content

The web site is more a promotional tool for us, today than bringing in real business. But we find it useful to refer our customers to our site.

3. What prompted you to begin your current venture? What thought process led to this idea, and what initial challenges did you have to face?

Shibani: I was a web and multimedia designer and always interested in handicrafts. We thought that we could make a difference to this business (even if it was done in a small way to start with) with our ability to understand current market norms, design and bring in professional inputs.

We were also excited by the concept of "customized crafts". Being handmade product, it is relatively easier to customize a product with a special message or specification or color, even in small quantities. We thought of how a "grain of rice" can be packaged nicely with a hand written message and magnifying glass and sent off anywhere in the world.

And we were excited about the fact that we could be the one middle point between the end buyer and the end producer. It was exciting to visualize a situation where we could be the bridge between the rural/grass roots producer who has no market access and the end buyer who has no idea about the craft producer and their stories. It was interesting from a social and creative perspective.

We felt this was possible with a dot com model - with producers on one end and buyers on the other. In fact, we were incubated as a dot com. We made it through incubation funding, but were late in the dot com boom. The bust ensured that no one even heard us out as a dot come investment. The choice before us was either to shut down or change the model. We changed the model and started selling directly to corporate buyers.


4. When the chips are down, how do you deal with those kinds of situations?

Shibani: We have had many times when the chips were down. And we persevered. I did not give up. We evolved and sharpened our model in terms of cutting costs, reducing overheads, sharpening our focus, building systems and processes. We had to go through really tough transitions, like when I closed down the home textiles exports business – it was a harrowing time. We had to let go of trained staff, say no to customers who had started initiatives with us and manage all excess raw material fabric stock which was left over. At this time we simply stuck to our guns, gave ourselves a time line and swallowed our losses on this.

Another transition happened when my partner who headed the corporate business suddenly decided to quit after 5 years of managing this business. We then had to transition and learn many things afresh. The knowledge of the business went with him. We had a huge struggle just to re-educate ourselves about our customer requirements, vendor capabilities and issues and so many other things. But this transition actually resulted in us moving from a one man show into a 'team' approach. We built a team and dependence on one person is much reduced today. We also focused on more documentation, systems and processes at this stage.

5. What plans do you have for the future for your company?

Shibani: We have many dreams – of them one is that of having our brand recognized in the form of retail stores of our own. The other picture is to take our gifts offerings to foreign shores.

6. If you had to do it all over again, what would you differently?

Shibani: We had very high costs when we started up - manpower, office, etc. I would now start like a garage operation if I had to restart. I would also focus, focus and focus from day one.

7. What drives you to work everyday?

Shibani: The thought that there is so much more to do, that we have only scratched the surface. The fact that I have something new to learn every day some new idea to pursue.


8. What three things would you advise aspiring women entrepreneurs?
Shibani:
1. Be courageous. Do not worry about the fact that you are a woman and chances are that others will not worry about it either. Very often the problem is not external if it’s not internal.
2. Find and use external support. Today women entrepreneurs have a lot of external support- special funds, working capital loans, network groups- find them & use them well. Am not exactly aware of which ones, but banks like SIDBI, women's cooperative banks are women friendly. To be honest I have not had to find one myself- but they are there- on the net/banking community/funding groups.
3. Manage your guilt well. If you also have a family to look after. Guilt is not good for you/your family/your business. You might as well realize that this is what you love to do and your family might as well realize this too! Honesty is the best policy here in more ways than one!



9. What books or events have inspired you the most?
So many books! From Ayn Rand (We the living, The Fountainhead) at 16, to Herman Miller (Siddhart) at 20 to Celestine Prophecy (colin wilson?) To Conversations with God recently.

I was also influenced by books like "All paths lead to gold" and "Winning" by Jack Welch.

On events – I did a course in Vipassana meditation in the mountains of Igatpuri- this is a 10 day silent course- and it changed my life. It taught me to view life in perspective- and the fact that mind control is the most important control to have. The mind must not dictate you- you must control your mind.

Also every time I see street children in India, I feel compelled to do something. Anything to alleviate the suffering that so much of mankind seems to have. I feel outraged that so little is done and about the unfairness of it all.

I feel sad when i see beautiful, skilled products, sold in a shabby way, at shabby prices and in a shabby manner. I feel bad that the artist who created such a beautiful product is not getting his/her due- neither price nor recognition. I just feel that it’s all a criminal waste.

10. What advice would you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in general, and women entrepreneurs specifically?
1. Out of 10 start up businesses only 3/4 survive. The trick is to persevere and to believe in your picture.
2. Being at the right time and at the right place is important when you start- a good idea is not enough- a hard look at viability is a must.
3. Being an entrepreneur is very tough- it’s even tougher if you are trying to do something different/not done before/charting a different path. I would advise all young people trying to start a business to go in with their eyes open, but also with dreams in their mind.
4. For women I would say- your job is even tougher- like it or not, the family looks at you to keep the home fires running-but the flip side is that you may not have to be the bread earner! Enjoy this freedom and do something that you truly want to do. This is not to say that your success is not important- it is just as important, but you may have the option to choose!
5. For women I would also say, that consider the logistics of your life as a serious matter - like how far is your office from home? How much support do you have (family and otherwise), good help at home!!! These are small, practical and according to me imperative tips for the women entrepreneur. I could never have run Craftsbridge, if these logistics were not in my favor.


Intrepid: Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into answering this long list of questions! Would it be OK, if readers of this blog wanted to get in touch with you?

Shibani: Sure, they can email me at shibani@craftsbridge.com

Common errors in technical writing

Today I attended a session of the Mumbai chapter of the Society for Technical Communication . The first session was by Gurudutt Kamath, who is probably the most well-known figure in the tech writing community in India. My interest in attending the session arose cause someone I know was also speaking there, and also because a lot of the work that we do involves a significant amount of technical writing. So while, we may not be professional technical writers, consulting does require us to have excellent written communication skills.

Guru (as he is popularly known) was speaking on common errors in technical writing. I think many of these errors occur in daily business communication as well. He made it a pretty interactive session, so the other tech writers also piped in with the errors they have seen occur most often. Here's the list we came up with:

1. Not identifying the purpose of the document. Each document should have a set of objectives and a context in which it is being developed. Is it a user manual, or a marketing collateral, or something else. This leads us to:
2. Not identifying the right target audience. If you don't know whom you're writing for, you're quite likely to miss the mark in terms of getting your point across. You could come across writing increasingly dumbed-down documents, or your writing could be so filled with jargon that it would be impossible for the average reader to understand. Having identified the target audience, you need to be sure that the next error is taken care of:
3. Not getting the right sample audience to review your document. The right reviewers can make a huge difference in the final quality of your writing. I have often had non-technical editors review some pretty technical articles, and miss out on stuff that a more technical reviewer would easily have helped improve upon. Some of the better journals have a peer review system, so you ensure that a wider sample audience reviews your writing. A lot of the times, we end up submitting stuff without review - which is almost sacrilege!
4. Inconsistency. Whether it's your formatting styles or your use of numbering systems, or your choice of words (British English or American English or apna Indian English), you have to be consistent. This also applies to:
5. Not selecting the right examples. Guru gave the example of an article, which was about choosing relevant examples, and was woven around Amercian baseball. Now the author might have written the original article for an American audience, but by the time it got syndicated, it was published in other regions, where most of the baseball metaphors fell completely flat.
6. Common grammar and spelling mistakes. "It's" vs. "Its". Not pressing the F7 key. Enough said!
7. Wrong references. In larger documents, references to sections or figures within the document can go wrong when the document changes. For a book, that I was recently co-authoring, I had to keep changing the references to snapshots and figures as I kept inserting more, requiring me to renumber the earlier ones, as well as change references to them. Apparently, the right way to do it is to add a reference field, and point it to the location within the Word document, so that when the referenced section changes, the reference changes with it.
8. Cookie cutter nightmares. Ok, so we've all done this. Opened up a previous proposal or report, and simply pressed File Save As, and the old client name pops up in the most embarrassing places. We once failed to get a customer reference, because during the closing meeting they brought up the point that they had been put off because an old client name had cropped up in one of the documents we had submitted in the project. Based on the inputs from the other participants in the session, this happens to the best of them.
9. Use of cliched graphics. Using the MS supplied clip art in Powerpoint presentations, not getting the graphics done professionally, and using irrelevant graphics. Of course, Powerpoint gaffes are a whole thesis subject by themselves.
10. Punctuations errors. I am most guilty of these, especially with mis-placed commas. Just don't seem to get them in the right places! Other errors include inconsistent quotation marks, misplaces colons and semi-colons, the use of ;&amp instead of 'and', etc.

Guru recommended "The Elements of Style" as a good first book to get your technical writing in good shape. Others also recommended the "Microsoft Manual of Style" and the "Chicago Manual of Style". Guru also has a whole series of articles on common errors on this website.

Changing chartered accountants

I keep harping to everyone about getting a good CA when you start your business. Looks like I should have been taking my own advice.

When we started out, the first CA we got was someone who came in through family contacts. He had been doing the income tax returns for some family members, and we thought it's a good idea to give my company work to him as well. When we were running a small operation, and ledger entries were a dozen a month, it was all good. But as we started to grow, this person proved unequal to the task. Minor hassles such as taking all our files and papers over to his office suddenly became major hurdles in getting the work done. What used to be one box file, was now a dozen and then some.

We started to look around for another CA, and just when we found one, we were told that we needed a no-objection certificate from the first guy in order to start dealing with the new one! Sheesh! Now this was a really delicate matter. Not only was the first chap doing my accounts, but he was also doing those of many more family members now. This meant he was privy to a lot of accounting information.

Anyways, the break came recently and in a very unexpected manner. We moved a couple of family member accounts away from him, since he lives at one end of town, and we at the other. That was an excellent reason to tell him that the entire process of dealing with someone who rarely visits us at home or office was proving to be too cumbersome. The next day he called us to say that he was upset at this decision, and had therefore decided not to do the rest of our accounts either. Of course, this decision comes at a very precise moment - 31st October is the last date to file our company income tax returns.

Thankfully, we have a good accountant working for us. Recently when doing the returns for my father, his insight into some of the laws related to stock investments resulted in a significant tax savings. This was something the CA should have been doing! Again the fees of a CA or the salary to an accountant is usually well worth it in terms of the savings they bring in and the accounting discipline that helps keep a better handle on one's cash flow.

The same situation occured with the Company Secretary. After promising to bring our documents up to date (we had been very lax on this front), and even taking half his fees in advance, he never showed up again. This is the same guy who had done our initial registration. Finally, we got a new CS to work for us, and filed in all our returns with the Registrar of Companies, and ended up paying a lot of back arrears and penalties as well. Yikes!

HP's boardroom scandal - update

I had posted earlier about the HP scandal that forced its chairperson Patricia Dunn and Chief Ethics Officer Kevin Hunsaker to resign. In the post I mentioned that it would have been best if HP had made a clean breast of the entire issue at the first instance, and not waited until things got muckier.

The latest news is that the California Attorney General has indeed filed criminal charges against Dunn, Hunsaker and the others. The most interesting note is the use of computer forensics to unearth much of the evidence in this case. Although, one accused is reported to have destroyed his hard drive with a hammer - pretty effective I must say. I'll go out on a lark here and predict that the new HP CEO, Mark Hurd might have to end up resigning too, because its quite likely he knew pretty much enough about the whole "pretexting" investigation to make the call that they were indeed crossing the line.

CNet News has a comprehensive coverage of the entire story, which promises to reveal a lot more about what went on behind the scenes at one of America's largest corporations.

Another related item on corporate ethics is Steve Jobs' apology to shareholders where certain stock option grants were pre-dated so that they were shown as being given on an earlier date when the share price was lower, thus bringing immediate benefits to those who received them.

The simplest SEO formula - it still works!

Whenever I speak with any budding entrepreneur, I cannot help but stress the importance of search engine optimization. Over half our business comes through enquiries generated through our website. In fact, in the first four years we never had a dedicated sales/marketing team, and still managed to earn 6-figure revenues through consulting.

About a year ago, we shifted our domain from a .co.in to a .com. And also changed our branding to reflect our global aspirations. As a result, all the SEO that we had done on our original domain came to naught. Our Google page ranks for the new website were less than 3 on most pages, and our website was simply not turning up in search engine results. So obviously, business enquiries almost suddenly dropped. We took it up on priority to boost our page ranks and get back to the levels we were on with the previous domain. And from that emerged vindication that our SEO formula still works, and is as simple as this:

• Build a nicely designed website - everything is logically structured and your services, products and company profile are well presented
• Add good content to the website. Ours carries a lot of articles that our team writes, and a couple of blogs
• Identify the keywords that you think potential customers would search for
• Add these into your title and meta tags
• And the key to it all - have other high-ranking websites link back to you. This is main challenge, and you got to put up great content, which people will read because it's interesting, not because you're trying to sell it to them directly.
  

A couple of days ago, the latest Google crawls had just finished - our page ranks were 5 or 6 on all the pages, and we were figuring in the top 5 results for most of our identified key words and phrases. And the most significant proof - business enquiries through our website have gotten back to their previous levels! So if you're getting into business - any kind of business - pay attention to SEO, and you'll go a long way in aiding your sales and marketing efforts.

Asian Women Entrepreneurs Fair

This seems to be an interesting event - the 3rd Asian Women Entrepreneurs Fair. However it is being held in Bangladesh, and seems a slightly politically hued event (what with a Minister for Commerce and Water Resources inaugurating. But very much a step in the right direction. If nothing else it would be an excellent platform to network and grow business. I wonder if anything of this sort happens in India?

Communication disorder

This article by Wired News laments the sorry state of affairs with regards to our ability to communicate. While cellphones and emails have increased the amount of communication we do on average, it has greatly killed the art of communication. A survey quoted in the article, conducted by Yahoo! and OMD shows that the average family is doing 43 hours of multi-tasking work in one day!

Look all around at the emails and SMS's we receive and the horrible spelling and grammar of it all. And how frequently people will end up chatting on IM with someone who is in the very same room! I hate it when someone who could have picked up the phone and spoken to me about an issue would rather send me an email or worse still chat with me on IM. Chatting has to be the #1 communication killer, especially when other options are easily available.

While email would ensure putting things on the record, I'd personally prefer the following order of communication:

1. Meeting in person. Especially in business, a face to face meeting can have far greater positive outcomes than simply email or phone communication. It is quite likely that a client or partner may be more convinced about doing business with you if you go visit them than if they have only spoken with you or emailed you.
2. Phone call. It is extremely tedious at times to give an explanation of an issue over email. And how often do we feel tempted to resort to emoticons to convey the emotion behind our message, even in formal emails. Because very often the text of the email simply fails to communicate the tone of the message. Just pick up the phone and talk! There's nothing like the sound of a human voice at the other end of the line to change the way the other person perceives you.
3. Emails. Compared with the blasphemy of doing business or personal communications over SMS's with their 160 character limits, I'd prefer email any day. Also, when doing business internationally, emails are one of the best means of communication, unless you use Jajah.
4. Chatting. It's cheap, but it's horrible in terms of actually getting one's point across. While I might be mid-way through answering the first question, the other party is already onto their next point. Grammar and spelling are usually the first casualties.

Sidenote: The one mode of communication that simply defies logic is the scrapping that happens on social networking sites such as Orkut. Intimate, personal conversations all out in the open, and a nightmarishly clumsy way simply to keep track of conversation threads. Maybe I am a bit old-fashioned, but send me an email instead of a scrap...