Apr 19, 2007

Pull it over

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta
These three words are scary when you have an idea; just leaving your comfortable position to pull it over. It happens with all of us but seems like you just need to dive when you have the right ammunition. Right? Isn't it a relative term? Of course it is and it prevents us to make the first move. Then whats the key to make an Idea successful? Lets figure out -

  1. Getting right people in the team
  2. Doing an exhaustive market research
  3. Figure out uniqueness of Idea
  4. Blah Blah
I am sure that we all can find all these theories at million places but I want to know from you a unique feature that can make an idea successful.

My vote is just a spirit to pull it over as I believe that idea contributes to only 10% to a venture's success.

What do you think?

Apr 16, 2007

Chasing west with unfair calculations

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta
What matters more? Earning $5000/month in US or earning 50000 INR/month in India. Same job salaries are these only in US and India respectively. Theoretically speaking, these two salaries are one and the same as Price parity ratio between US Dollar and Indian rupee is 1:10. As long as you are earning in India and spending in Indian products this concept works fine but as you go and buy US companies' products, difference comes into picture. Sounds weird - Consider a simple example -
Levis 32'' jeans cost 2000/- in India and $40 in US. 4% of our monthly salary in India and less than 1% of our salary in US. Products like clothes, Electronic items are cheaper if bought by earning in dollars but does this mean that we should go to US to take advantage of this unfair conversion rates. Most of the people do that and I am not saying they are wrong or right. It is their personal choice and let them go with it.
I would like to make everything in India at 10000/- that US makes for $1000 and then the PPR concept will work fine. There might be products in Indian market that are made locally and are sold for 1/5th the rate as US product.
I would like to say that I am a fool if I am earning in INR and spending in dollars. Either move to US if you are dying to be called 'Made in US' or develop the same product in India at 1/5th rate and let people come to same standards. Solution is simple if we stop chasing west with unfair calculations or make them chase with fair calculations.

Apr 2, 2007

Is there a perfect way (time)?

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta

Ideas, when come to our minds, afresh, carry a lot of potential and enthusiasm but with time, its freshness fades away and so our mind’s interest in it. But does this mean that we should just fly with the idea from day one and jump in the market to explore it or shall we prepare well to dive with a hope to succeed but eventually lose our interest in the idea & see our idea getting outdated.

Welcome to the Psycho beam balance game, where we can’t go to the extreme of either sides for success. If we go extreme left, we are unprepared to execute the idea and on the extreme right, we are over-prepared & miss the opportunity (or lose the interest). It’s a game along time and knowledge dimensions to determine when and with how much knowledge we should enter the market (i.e. deciding the time from day one when idea clicked in human brain and with the knowledge to execute it). Seems like an easy game but people who have missed the chances with brilliant ideas would have understood the complexity of the game. Most of us just keep on figuring out the perfect way (perfect time) to enter the market. We just keep on going to workshops, meeting VCs and other entrepreneurs to know how they did it. It is hard to realize that there is no perfect way for success; we just need to figure out our own way.

Ways are relative i.e. they vary from person to person and so the answer of this question but if we ask any successful entrepreneur, he/she won’t have unique answer to this question. Everyone tries to explain it in his/her way. But, if we think logically, there are two ways to solve this mystery; one is that we just dive in with our idea and deliver our 100% along with learning and gaining experience, to see what we can get from the world. We may succeed, we may fail but we are going to learn a lot through this way. Going through this way requires lots of guts and some people think it unwise (immature) to go this way but as my previous blog mentioned that success speaks, and hence if we succeed through this way then we are role model for millions. There is no exact way of going in the market or executing the idea. We may need to gauge our risk appetite, our strengths and accordingly decide what is best for us. Will going this way solve the purpose for us or not? If not, then look for alternatives.

Other way is to prepare well, do all the homework and then dive in the market. This means that we have gauged the potential of the idea, estimated the competitor’s strengths and figured out uniqueness of our idea. Going this way seems to be a right way as we have been always taught that if you have done your homework then you will succeed. But, many people, after working along an idea, lose interest in it and start thinking over new ideas.

Some people feel that they should just dive in the market with the idea as they fear that they might lose interest in it with time. But if we have a fear of losing interest in the idea along with time (i.e. while preparing) then we should just wait to lose it because if we lose the interest in midway then we will be trapped in the storms of thousands of unanswered questions. Trust in the idea is required to sustain with the bad times of the business.

We can start with writing down the idea and discuss it with our close friends; survey the market to gauge the potential of the idea and then go ahead, but there is a trap here too. With this approach, we may go into endless discussions about the idea and idea, in itself will lose the enthusiasm required. There are thousands of traps but you need to figure out the right way for you.

So, diving in at the right time with proper knowledge about the idea and competitors is another way of succeeding with the idea, but is there a unique way, perfect way, I don’t know. I will speak when I succeed because success speaks.

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