Entrepreneurship

Introducing Open Office Hours with SG

Credits: Canva

So, Open Office Hours with SG essentially means that I will spend my free time (which is increasingly rare these days) working with young artists, entrepreneurs, students and others. On problems that YOU need help with. And if nothing else, listening to things that you may wish to talk about.

In one line, think of a me as a coach. Of course unlike coaches that have no skin in the game, I will put mine on the line.

Here are some details.

What are you doing?
I will spend 1-hour chunks with people who need a bouncing board or an advisor.

I can talk about host of things. An incomplete list include advertising, badly formatted documents, blogging, branding, communication, consumer behaviour, design thinking (not design), entertainment, events, marketing, music, growth (not growth hacking), life, philosophy, purpose, poker, relationships, travel, writing and other things.

I know its a long list. Trust me, there is nothing as cool as being able to see things from multidisciplinary lens.

Who am I? What makes you think that you can dole out advice?I am Saurabh. I run C4 Events (a corporate events agency) and AWSL (a strategy and marketing consulting agency). More about my work is at my LinkedIn.

I have a MBA from MDI, Gurgaon (class of 2006). This means that I have been working for 12 years now. My work has taken me to more than 20 countries and I have worked on some of the biggest brands in the world.

Apart from this, I am an author and a blogger. I enjoy playing poker and pool. And the three things that I will do before Jan 1, 2026 are: Climb the Mt. Everest, create a personal networth of USD 1 bn and impact a billion lives.

Oh and I am on this constant pursuit to be better. Read this post.

What makes me believe that I can give advice?
Nothing. But I want to. You know what they say? The teacher appears when the student is ready. Are you ready?

Why am I doing this?
Few reasons.

a. Working with young people helps me become better. This is thus a selfish endeavour. In fact to become a better marketer, I need to continue to practise my skills. And working on your marketing or growth problems will help me grow. Plus the sheer variety of problems that I will get to work on and the kind of people I will get to see will be an experience in itself.

b. I wish to give back. Thing is, when I was growing up, I was super lucky to have access to a lot of people that helped me without expecting anything in return. This is an attempt to emulate them and help others.

c. Like Steve Jobs said, old must give way to the new, this is my attempt to help the new usher in faster.

How does this work?

Most weekends, I have spare time that I can either spend watching the next season of Narcos or I could sit with young ones that could do with some counsel.

How much does this cost?

Zero.

Serious. This is an experiment. Lets see if I get any takers. There are no hidden costs. Promise.

How do you book my time?

Fill in this form and I will be in touch.

More details?

More about me is at Linkedin or Twitter. The best way to reach out to me is on twitter.

Questions? Thoughts? Inputs? Comments?

I am on twitter at @saurabh.

Thanks!

First published on C4E blog.

E. Entrepreneurship.

This is the fifth post in the A to Z Challenge. My theme is my Bucket List. Read more about the project here. The other things on my bucket list are Ancient Ruins, Book, Coffee Shop and Date a Supermodel.

The one thing that I am probably most desperate about, the thing that I really want to do in life before I hang my boots is to be able to launch a business and run it successfuly. By successfully, I mean I want to make money from it (so much that I dont have to work ever again). It means that I want to be an employer of choice (the way Googles and Facebooks of the world are). It means that I want to be an industry leader in what I do (not in terms of revenue but in terms of thoughts et al). It means that I want to create things that users love. It means I want to leave a dent. Cliched. Over used. Abused. But I really really want to.

Steve Jobs.

I have no clue why I want to be an entrepreneur. I do love the freedom that comes with it. I do love the excitement that comes with it. I love the grind that it requires. But I dont know the real reason, something that comes from deep down in my heart. I have no clue. But I merely know that I want to be one. Someday. In fact I have tried in the past and have failed. On atleast two occasions. Both times, I put in time and money and effort and I failed. I had partners that were better than me and I failed. I am assuming that now, when I try again, I would be better. I sincerely hope so.

I am going to take another shot at it very soon. As soon as a couple of months. This time, for a change, I have the luxury of an investor who believes in the idea and is willing to help me with it. Lets see how it goes. Apart from the book, this is the second biggest thing I am going to work on this year. And I am geared up for it.

I’d talk more about it as I get closer to doing it. Inshallah it would happen. Like they say, if you want something real bad, the entire universe conspires to bring it to you. Dear Universe, please do your conspiring act and help!

To end this post, until I can create a company, until I am an entrepreneur, I shall continue to try. Till then, here are a couple of videos that I think every aspiring entrepreneur must see as often as they could!

Thats about it. Please go see the vids and thank me ;P

C. Coffee Shop.

This is the third post in the A to Z Challenge. My theme is my Bucket List. Read more about the project here. The other things on my bucket list are Ancient Ruins and Book.

C is for Coffee Shop. Not a chain. A few outlets maybe.

Let me hazard an opinion. A coffee shop is one of the most important inventions of the current era. Why? Not because they sell overpriced beverages. But because the coffee shops give us those proverbial third places where we all can chill. First place is home, second is office. Third place is an in-between where we could choose to remain anonymous and seek asylum whenever we want. Atleast this is my definition of a third place. Of a coffee shop. This to me like a modern reincarnation of those salons that thrived in the last century.

So, one of the things that I want to do in life before I die, is to be able to create, own, manage and run a coffee shop that is loosely modeled on these salons.

I dont intend to make money off these salons but I want to sort of curate culture and change at these place. And if it could become a self-sustained venture, nothing like it.

Imagine a place where you could go without any inhibitions or any obligations as such. Where you have other great minds to chit chat with, where you could exchange ideas and where you create things. Think of a mashup of a co-working space, a coffee shop, a library, a school, a movie theatre, a laboratory and a barcamp. I would call it Acme Labs (inspired by Pinky and Brain).

Imagine is a place where you could come up with ideas, you could find co-conspirators to work on ideas, you could get an audience to showcase your ideas and then another audience to talk about your journey from ideas to execution to customers.

In fact, the modern coffee stores are very close to my ideas of Acme Labs but then they are for-profit operations and thus they cant allow a lot of freewheeling. I wish they could. I would not move out of such places. I could even live at such places. The other thing with these coffee shops is that they are more of watering holes without alcohol and most banter is social, rather than cerebral.

Anyhow, someday when I have figured out shit in life, I would really want to put money towards creating atleast one such edition of Acme Labs. Its not a question of if. But a question of when. There is no question about that. However, I have a question for you dear reader. Would you want to come to Acme Labs? To have a coffee and get into conversations about ideas? To translate these ideas into great pieces of art or business?

Branding 101 for Digital Brands

In this post I shall talk about brands as I understand them and as they are applicable to digital brands. Please note that this list is still in beta and will evolve with time. Your feedback would be really appreciated.

This is required because we need to stop looking at startups as just startups but serious businesses where branding plays a vital role. Often, the way you look at the business makes a lot of difference to way you work.

Coming to the point, I think there are three principles. Utility, Emotional Connect and Relationship that goes beyond just one product.

A: Utility

Customers never talk about a brand they are going to use. They talk about the action they will perform. What problem does the brand solves?

I need to book and air ticket. I will use Cleartrip.
I need to upload slides and show them to friends. Let me use Slideshare.

The brands that can make themselves synonymous to utility invariable become the leaders.

Can you Google the data on number of Internet users in India?
Can you Slideshare your presentation please?

The utility could be functional, mechanical, emotional, psychological or any of those –al things.

Using Twitter helps me stay in touch with friends on the go.
I use FB because the elite Internet users in India are on FB.

B: Emotional Connect

A customer will use a brand that he can associate himself with.

I like Apple products because they stand for innovation, user interface and simplicity.
Google stands for open culture. I am an open source evangelist and hence I will use and promote Google initiatives.

If possible, the association with the brand should elevate the status of the user.

Google could have invited everyone when they launched Gmail. Limited invite was a way to get traction. All limited launches are like that.
Alltop gave away batches like “featured on alltop”. People displayed these batches because it was a way to show off that you belonged to the best of the category (as rated by alltop).

C: Relationship extending beyond single product

The relationship should start with one product and when the company launches more products, I should be aspiring to buy them too. This is very important for creating sustainable businesses that go beyond one time relationship.

My relationship with Apple started with an Ipod. I have already bought a MacBook and have pre-ordered the iPhone.
I started using Google as a search engine. Then I started using groups. Then it was Gmail. And then calendar. The list continues.

Which one of the three things are valid about your brand? If it does only one, how can it do other things?

Please give your feedback to me at saurabh.garg+digitalbrands@gmail.com

Startups and Youth – 5 Questions and Answers

Vivek posted a very interesting post on Venturewoods and here is my comment on the same.

Hi,

This post could be true for me I could change the location to Mumbai.

Comments by other people have been really interesting and here are my 2 cents on the same.

1. How do you balance the pay packet for a potential employee? Please give two scenarios – (a) You are self funded. (b) You are financially backed by an angel or a VC.
A: If I was self funded I would not have a lot of money to give away. I would be forced to look at things like equity or just share in profits. If it was a VC funded, I would have made adjustments for employee costs in my business plan and hence I would have money. Also my understanding tells me that most VC funded startups HAVE a lot of money.

2. Would you consider the prior experience of a candidate from a different domain, or would you simply consider him/her to be a fresher from your company’s perspective?
A: Tough one. I think depends on what person brings to the table. He could bring his experience, his learnings, his background, his perspective, his contacts, even things as intangible as his enthusiasm. If he brings something that I desire, I will make sure I will recruit him.

Talking about fresher or experienced, in a startup personally I dont think I need to have that kind of categorization for people. I want people for skills, not for showing off. Moment I start talking like that I become a lazy, slow moving company.

3. What kind of commitment would you expect from the new hire? What kind of notice periods/bonds would you look at?
A: No notice period. No bonds. Commitment – believe in the idea and evangelize that.

4. What are the legal aspects which you would look into before hiring someone? Would you do extensive background check on the candidate or rely on references or just hire him/her for what value they can bring in?
A: I would want to hire without checks. For me checks waste a lot of time and for a startup, time to market is really crucial. Once we start working, we can always figure out in due course if the person was appropriate or not. And if at a later stage, he is found inappropriate, we can easily part ways.

5. Would you have an age criteria to hire? In other words would you believe that a 21 year old could be as valuable as a 40 year old?
A: No age criteria. Yes a 21 year old can be very valuable. How? You just asked 5 questions that a 40 year old would have never asked. And when you are 21, you are not scared to ask those questions. And thats a huge things to have. There are more areas like understanding of the market from a teenager’s perspective, contacts with more fresh minds and top of everything else enthusiasm and confidence that young people have.

A picture is worth 1000 words: Success.

Success.

Please click to enlarge.

Podcast with Sumir Chadha

Sumir Chadha is the MD of Sequoia Capital in India and over the weekend I got this podcast from Iinovate with him.

It was interesting to say the least. He talked about a lot of generic stuff but these are my takeaways from it.

What kind of companies do you like?
• Large market opportunity – a lot of people should be ready to use your product/service
• The management team should have an exceptional customer understanding.
• 100 mn in revenues, cos we want to make 10 times the money we invest (these are ballpark figures)

What Indian IT lacks?
• Product Management
• Marketing Skills
• Technology markets are in the west
⁃ But this will change over the years
• Research and entrepreneurship are treated differently whereas in US, researchers create companies based on their original research.

Why Entrepreneurship?
• Change the world
• Revolutionize something
• Making money – Money is always a byproduct rather than the primary objective.

He also adds a lot of other things like a startup should be geographically close to where their customers are, Importance of learnings and open exchanges, research and entrepreneurship.

As always good to hear people from the industry talking. Not a very good podcast but certainly worth the time.

Guiding principles for a company

Symbionese Liberation Army was a terrorist organization based out of USA.

Their philosophy came from the seven principles of Kwanzaa (a seven-headed snake), with each head representing a principle. They are: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity) and Imani (faith).

I think all these are awesome principles to create a company on.

Thoughts on entrepreneurship

I was reading this presentation made by Axis Holding’s Kuntal Shah at VCCircle’s event at Pune.

One of the slides had this quote …

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon…if I can. I seek opportunity…not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say: This, with God’s help, I have done. All this is what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Although I dont agree with God part but I couldn’t have said this better. And re-affirmed my belief in entrepreneurship. Something to cheer up post reservation news.

Kishore Biyani – Future Group – India Tomorrow

Kishore Biyani is a model businessman at least for me. He is sowing seeds into a lot of interesting businesses and when the time comes, he would reap rich rewards. He is displaying the true spirits of entrepreneurship. In the process of building his companies, he is helping his customers realize his dreams. His way of creating a company is dreaming big, getting the right people on the board and backing all efforts with solid research and relying on intuition and insight.

Lessons to be learnt? Get the right people on the team, let them take risks, invest in the future and try to empower your customers.

Today in Economics Times article, he made clear his thoughts when he said,

…we want to create a strong sectoral play to capture the transition from a savings-led economy to a consumption-led economy.

Now this small piece of comment has a lot to say about Mr. Biyani and his thought process. He has identified, at the right time, that Indians are changing the way they live. There was a time when they were saving more than 50% of their earnings and living on basis necessities. Now slowly and gradually they are living lavishly and often spending the entire monthly earnings before a month is over. They are now more confident about opportunities and their economic well being.

I can easily see Future Group leading the new India.

And by the way, look out for BCCL (NO, not the cricket board but the Times of India group) and TV18 group also in times to come.