Cyntax – 922

2009: the year that was…

I am at Delhi airport. Waiting to take the flight to Mumbai. Like most thing in my life, there is no agenda for this trip to Mumbai. And like all other things, this trip was planned at the last minute. There are no specifics, no reasons why I wanted to see Mumbai. Only a vague sense of reason and some amount of gut feel. In fact, think of it, most things I do, I do because of these two.

Anyways the idea of the post is recap things that I did in 2009. Mumbai is a different and longish rant. Lets keep it pending for some other time.

So, here is a quick and dirty list of things I did and things I did not in 2009.. In no particular order.

I resigned from my job (July). Second resignation in three years post MBA. GE Money and now Creativeland Asia. Both for different reasons. Both times, trying to chase hope and dream big.
I did Vipassana (Sep). This is the first time I was quiet for 9 days on the trot. Last time I was this quite, it would have been the time when I was still a toddler and hadnt learnt talking. I am told I took 2 years to start talking. No wonder I am catching up on the lost time by all the talking that I do.
I finally took the Mensa test and got the membership (June).
I applied for TED fellowship and I did not get it. I knew and still know that I deserve it as much as rest of the 100 fellows who got it. But as they say, life aint no fair. Shall keep trying.
I started a company with Kunal (Aug). 10 years after we started working together and dreaming about owning businesses. This one is nothing to write home about but our pipeline is full.
I finally started teaching full time (Aug). Although what I teach is inconsequential but it still is addressing a batch of students none the less. And I now know that I enjoy teaching. Need to think more and take this forward.
I started writing a book. A piece of fiction. But left it midway for reasons that I dont know myself. I dont even know where those chapters are.
I realized that I could be wrong. And more importantly, I realized that its ok to be wrong. As long as you tried.
I discovered that I love advertising, media, entertainment, design and technology businesses. Of course I am an outsider, young, incompetent, inexperienced, “un”talented, dreamer, naive et al. Along with these disadvantages and more, I do have all the advantages that outsiders have. I can look at things from unbiased perspective. I can slaughter the sacred cows. I can dare. I can change. I can improve. I am the new.
I moved back to Delhi. Though I do miss Mumbai and all the fun I had in Mumbai. Is it the people that I miss? Or the place? I shall never know. It sucks how friends drift apart with passage of time.
I got my Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 5S (April). I have been thinking of buying it for about 15 years (not exaggerating). And its one of the best decisions that I have made in my life.
I learnt how to fold a paper into a crane (April), juggle three balls at the same time, drive a car, be diplomatic and live with a bald head.
I started watching movies (Dec). Of all the ones that I saw in 2009, the Shawshank Redemption impressed me most.
Met tons and tons of people. I got their contacts from Twitter, Facebook, MDIJFK, friends, family etc. Most have been helpful. Wish they could actually DO rather than just talking.
Discovered the world of Poker (Sep). I am not good as it as yet but I am practicing. Plan to be a part of WPT some day.

And few insignificant numbers (I do love numbers, especially when they are useless).

147 – number of blogposts in 2009 till date. At the rate, I should end the year with 150.
6 – number of years I have been blogging now.
27 – my age
1722 – time on my laptop. My flight takes off at 1820. I need to board at 1740.
2 – number of bags I am carrying.
3 – number of tabs I have open on my Google Chrome.
126, 415 – number of chips I have on Zynga Poker. And that is what I am going to do till my flight is announced.

See you in Mumbai.

P.S.: Now that I am reviewing the post, I should have done this in a chronological order with months adding to the structure.

Escape Perfectionism

Thanks to HN, I got link to this great post on the Harvard Business blog. Extracting a quote from there …

Perfectionists have a hard time starting things and an even harder time finishing them. At the beginning, it’s they who aren’t ready. At the end, it’s their product that’s not. So either they don’t start the screenplay or it sits in their drawer for ten years because they don’t want to show it to anyone.

But the world doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards productivity. And productivity can only be achieved through imperfection. Make a decision. Follow through. Learn from the outcome. Repeat over and over and over again. It’s the scientific method of trial and error. Only by wading through the imperfect can we begin to achieve glimpses of the perfect.

Am not sure if the tips in the blog work but I could relate the note to my personal experience. Am sure many more would be able to. It took me three years to resign from a day job and start working for myself. All this because I was trying to put everything in place before I took the leap. I dint realize that I can never put everything in place without knowing what to put in place. Feedback loop (+ and –) you see. I was trying not to fail. And as a result, I wasn’t even trying.

Any more people trapped in the “perfection” loop, please read the complete blog post. And resign and start up! Remember that shoe company that asks us to just do it?

Crossposted on Cyntax Blog

Competition for Cyntax

So Cyntax is now live. Thought the design is copied right now from a very famous CSS tutorial, we are working on a new one. And the good part (or may be bad part) is that we already are competing with some 6 businesses. I made this post over on the Cyntax blog couple of days ago.

If I told someone that I work with Cyntax, and if they found my pitch interesting, instinctively they would Google/Bing/Yahoo us and dig for more information. I did the same to see what the search engines think of us.

More than what search engines thought of us, I was surprised to know that there are atleast SIX more companies businesses called Cyntax. Yes six. Two of them are tax guys (1, 2), two are web design companies (1, 2), one is a website of a poet and thespian. And then there is a CyntaxGroup as well.

I dint know our choice of name would be this popular. Do you know any more Cyntaxes?

And next up is a post with their logos. BTW we are still looking for a logo for OUR cyntax. Any help?

Common sense and Business sense says that since your name is your identity, it should be unique and rememberable and trademarkable and remarkable and marketable and all the other ables. On the other hand, I argue that even though there are a million people called Saurabh, my identity IS Saurabh and I cant change it. Then why cant I stick on with Cyntax?

And then that guy (Shakespeare) also said,

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

What do you think?

Introducing Cyntax

Finally Cyntax is live. Took us ten years but we did it. Here is the post I made over at Cyntax blog introducing Cyntax.

It took us 10 years. To finally put those cogs together. And give that final nudge to our giant-wheel.

We first thought about Cyntax sometime in 1999/2000. We have been thinking on it off and on. At play, home and work. Officially and unofficially. Frivolously and seriously. Today, we are on.

We are working on the identity, website and service offerings right now. Keep watching this space for more. Subscribing to our blog feed would be a good idea.

And as always, appreciate all the help. Drop a line here and lets talk 🙂

I have spoken about Cyntax in the past on this blog. I am very excited about it. Lets see how it evolves. Please spread word and shower us with comments, work, ideas et al.

Life 2.0. Part 1: Work

So after ab0ut a week of rest/leisure/running-around/buying-computers/explaining-to-mom-why-i-resigned/thinking/procrastinating and hazaar other things, I am back to action. I started work. No, I did not join any company but I started thinking about life and what I want to do next.

Working for myself is way different from working for someone else (GE Money or Creativeland Asia). Let me write them down in bullet points.

Home Sweet Home. While working for self, I work out of home. This means I have to tolerate door bells, telephone bells, courier deliveries, maids and other such sundry things. I also have to be polite to mother India who is trying to feed me with her best preparations. I have to get creative while answering questions from relatives (in some cases lying to them). There, no one wanted to know how much I earned, how bald am I, how long does it take to reach from CP to East Delhi etc. No questions asked, easy life.
Money. Not to mention that constant worry of where that next rupee would come from. After all I am used to an extravagant life style. In Mumbai, I knew my paycheck (not that fat) would arrive by the first week and I could splurge it on gifts, knick-knacks (all those tiny obscure things that I got for P, rruts, random people), pool (lost most of the times to Gandhi and won most of the times from Gawri), restaurants (next time you are in Mumbai, try Caravan Serai) and teeshirts (white/black, one large block on print on chest and thats about it).
Place. While working for someone else, I could concentrate. There was tea/coffee/soup (which sucked btw) on demand. The loo was always clean (ok not always, but mostly). I had a place that no one else could take. My desk. My drawer. Here in Delhi, I dont even have a room to myself. The things that my “almost girlfriend” gave me when I was leaving Mumbai, I dont have a place to put them up (show off). P.S. I hope you ARE reading this and you now know why I haven’t unpacked gift #5 :).
Computer. I did not share my Macbook with anyone. Although it was company property but the company had entrusted it to me and it meant I could customize it the way I want, it had my music on it, my passwords were saved onto it and so on and so forth Here I share my desktop with my dad and my cousin. Thankfully my sis is still in Mumbai. And since they belong to the Garg clan, they are curious by nature and on top of everything else, they know how to access hidden folders in Windows.
Media. I had access to printed copies of ten newspapers, 20 odd periodicals including Wired (which IMHO is one of the greatest publications ever). Now I have to rely on RSS feeds and a electronic screen to know what is happening in the world. I have a fetish for printed material. I dont think as long as people like me are alive, printed media is ever going to run out of business. Here I get three newspapers that I don’t even read. I have no clue why I dont.
Time. Time management is an issue. Not trying to brag but I loved reaching office before anyone and playing my music out loud (Hindi songs mostly). And here, I wake up at leisure, laze around, roll in my bed, dream, snooze etc before I even get out of my bed. Leave alone computers. That sense of discipline has vanished. Though I used to work strictly till 5:30 PM, I somehow had time for reading, writing, blogging, meeting people, coming up with ideas and all that. Here I am always short of time. I haven’t read my RSS in days, replied to my mails, twittered, FBed, Linkedined or even blogging.
Resources. I could use copious amounts of pens, pencils, pantone books, notepads, staplers, post-its and other items of miscellany. Now I need to scavenge a pencil, write on the edges of newspapers, buy my own post-its and keep the use in check.
People. I had access to tons of wonderful people. They had brains, talents, ideas and they were my window to the world. Every individual was special and taught me something. Now, only people I have access to are people I meet for cyntax and thats about it.

There are like another 12,334,233 items in this list but since time is somewhat precious now, I shall not delve on em. And then there is rant on Mumbai vs Delhi. On similar lines. But again, tonight is not the right time. Any thoughts anyone on how to fix these things?

P.S.: While ending, got an idea. I will make this a multi-part list. Since I am effectively restarting my life (and hopefully this is that reset button we always talked about), in each part, I will rant about my life on one specific thing. Today it was on work. Next would be Mumbai/Delhi. Will think about the third when am there.

Moved On.

For the record, I am no longer employed with Creativeland Asia. The decision to move on was a personal and I am glad I am still very good friends with the entire team back at CLA.

The two years went past in a jiffy. Little more than two years ago, I joined CLA from GE Money and things couldn’t have worked out better. While I was there,

CLA grew from a dining table to two offices (thought I dint play any part in that growth),
I was given a lot of room to learn, experiment, make mistakes and grow,
I learnt how is it to work on brands like Frooti, Appy Fizz, Cafe Coffee Day (amongst others),
I made many good friends (and almost found the love of my life),
I travelled and explored Mumbai and Maharashtra extensively
And finally I grew by miles as a person.

I wish I could have stayed on but as they say, all good things, come to an end.

Creativeland IMHO is one of the best places to work at. Apart from coming up with great work time after time for all brands, CLA is a collection of few of the finest minds and interesting people. Everyone is handpicked (even our receptionist – Prakash Jee aka Yogi Bear) and its a lot of fuin being there.

If anyone is keen, I would be glad to setup a meeting.

P.S.: Just for the curious few, I dont know what I would be doing now. Would post here moment something is finalized.

Update – 6th June, Goa, Futility

Been some time since I uploaded this blog. Few things worth mentioning have happened.

6th June happened to me. Do did 9th. And now waiting for the 4th. Its happening too fast and too slow. Its a blur and a dream. Its all there and it isnt.

Then I missed the deadline for TED India Fellows application. No it was not too complex. I was too lazy and I dint have a lot of substance to talk about.

Visited Goa. Went to a casino. Played Mini Flush for four hours. Won few rupees. Beginners luck probably. Saw mental models in action. Going to read more about Casinos, gambling etc. They says its one of those seven deadly vices. What are other six (hint hint)?

Spoke to Neo and Gandhi about life and all. Gandhi as always had no opinions. Neo had some. I could not comprehend most of them.

Thought about Cyntax. Wrote about it. Planning to get a designer to help me with it. Any volunteers?

Felt sorry for being rude and demanding. Said sorry. She was surprised. She said she was used to my tantrums and randomness. I had never said sorry since I have known her (since 2004). Five years is a lot of time.

Sandy getting married. And the future of PseudoSocial is now in a quandary. As if it wasn’t in a jeopardy already. We have run it as an adopted child at best. And then the ever shrinking bachelor club, shrinks even further. More exclusions from the club are being planned as I write this (or you read this). I hope is not Neo or Gandhi.

Miss MDI more than ever. Reminds me of Rabbi Shergill’s Gill Te Guitar.

Want to debate with someone on futility of our actions. And our thoughts. And our emotions. Dont have anyone to debate with. I even have doubts on the futility of these debates.

FB came up with vanity URLs. And the website is that important that I actually planned to check it when they were released. And I was disappointed that I could not get Saurabh. And now am blogging about it. Wonder how these “tools” take so much importance in our lives.

Then half wrote this rant. Even though India is a huge country, there are some things that are so Indian that you will find them in every nook and corner of the country. Buffalos for example. Stray dogs. Then electric wires hanging loosely on the poles. Chai shop. Cigarette shop. Then there are home grown brands like Agarwal Sweets, CCD etc in almost every locality worth living., Amongst them is this Maruti Suzuki service centre called Sai Service. Yes, that place with a blue and red flower logo. Every state that I have traveled to India has a Sai Service. And I am told one Mr. Suresh Kalmadi owns the chain. Now I need to know if he is the same Mr. Kalmadi who is more famous (actually rather infamous) for his role in the Indian Olympic Association. Any answers?

And then there is some more. I cant think of it now. May be later? Another uninteresting, boring, mundane week comes to an end. How many more?

Pricing and Demand

Lets say I am selling shoes. These shoes are not meant for the entire world, but for a select few. Lets say shoes for computer gamers. Something that all gamers would want for sure.

Once I have a product to sell, I have a few options of creating a pseudo demand (and inflate prices). Let me call them models.

Model 1
I create 500 pairs and sell each at say Rs. 100. Like a typical sales process happen.

Model 2
I create 500 pairs. Sell them in lots of 50 at Rs. 50 each. Once each lot gets over, I jack up the price by Rs. 25. I create that “rush” where everyone would want to buy the shoe when its still 50. If lot 1, gets over, everyone knows that if they dint buy it for 75 (and miss this lot), the price would go up at 100. So on and so forth. Also, since these shoes are limited in number, by raising the “price”, I raise the “value” of the shoes that have been earlier purchased. I theoretically sell faster and make more money.

Model 3
Reverse of Model 2. Lets say I want at least Rs. 100 per pair. I create lots. I sell the first lot for Rs. 200. Every incremental lot, I reduce the price. I think this is the worst of all. This is infact the winners curse. The price for other users falls as a result of actions of the winners. But there is something interesting. Moment I slash the prices from Rs. 200 to Rs. 100, I think a lot of people would compare the two prices and use models like contrast and grounding to buy in herds.

Is there a merit in thinking about pricing and economics before you create a business? Which of the three is advisable in the long run if your product is not a commodity? Is there a fourth, fifth, sixth .. way to think about pricing and generate demand.

Thoughts?

Originally posted on Cyntax Blog

Value Add – Price Premium

While creating a philosophy for Cyntax, I have been thinking what kind of businesses can command a price premium. I think the businesses in the value chain that add “unique” value to the end product are the ones where you can ask for money. This is probably as old and as commonsensical as Michael Porter‘s work on value chains, but realizing it myself, was an achievement.

Let me take an example. The tee shirts business. Three most important components are the supplier, the designer and the retailer. The supplier can not ask for a premium. Simply because he is manufacturing a commodity. There are bound to be many suppliers with similar or near similar offerings and only thing that all suppliers can compete on is the price. A retailer, might command premium if he is a large player and has a ready set of customers. Someone like, say Big Bazaar. But over a period of time, with Internet eliminating all kinds of middle men, a marketer would no longer need a retailer to sell his products. Cases in point being zappos (ok, zappos is a retailer), threadless and cafepress.

On the other hand, if you are someone like Tantra or People Tree or Play Clan, you add value to a basic white tee shirt. You add a unique design and print that design. You dont sell just a tee shirt. You sell this design that no one else can do. And you thus ask for a premium. To compete with a Tantra, I wont need the supplier, I wont need the retailer but I would need a designer. Obviously I am assuming that I would be able to squeeze the suppliers and command terms to the retailers and create a fantastic online community (and a shop).

Tee shirt business is ok. What about travel business? Who will command a premium?

Travel chain has two components – service providers (airlines, railways) and agents (Traditional, OTA). Off the two, agents can only sell the inventory that service providers make available. And its a simple business where you add zilch value (online agents add value in the sense that they make available the inventory real time) and hence they cant command a premium. Moment an agent asks for a premium, the user would move on to the next agent. You compete on mindshare and again, cost!

What about HR consultancies? Petrol pumps? FMCG companies? Who do you think commands a premium? What to you guys think?