Starting Up

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.

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?

My First Angel Investment

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls and Children of all ages, I proudly announce that I am now officially an Angel Investor. I made my first investment (tiny by all standards) in a friend’s venture. He ~~is quitting~~ has quit his plush job to start a business that he and another friend first discussed three years back. Its an online business that attempts to sell things that people cant live without. Its nothing new to be honest, there are 4-5 direct competitors in the market. For these guys, their edge is their confidence and impeccable focus on execution.

It couldn’t have come at a better time. People are warming up to using Internet to buy all kind of things, they dont mind using credit cards and they are ok with the concept of ordering things without touching/feeling the material.

As an Angel Investor, I understand that my role goes beyond merely being the Uncle Scrooge (and providing with monetary support). The job is more about helping the business grow with expertise in a certain domain and contacts. I am not too sure if I have either but I can try for sure. I may not be good with marketing but when it comes to brainstorming, I believe I can contribute well. I am also good at situations that requires one to draw lessons from multiple disciplines and as the cliché goes, connect the dots. I am hoping that these guys can make good use of whatever limited skills I have.

In terms of measurable contribution, I am supposed to help them with marketing their service and help them reach their target audience. The good part is that they have been able to define their target consumer in so much detail that I can see her walking down the street. The bad part is that we dont really have any money to reach our target customer. But like they say, what is life without a good challenge. This is the first new thing that I am doing in 2013. Wish me luck.

And if you think you can help with giving me ideas on how to market the product, please do let me know, I would be happy to share more details.

The Eco Mode

I keep saying that whatever I know about life and things, I learnt it all at MDI. Take, Eco Mode for example. I define Eco mode as a time when you stop splurging and live on base essentials. Ofcourse none of the academic courses taught us the Eco mode. I learnt it while I was playing Counter Strike for 7 hours on the trot, night after night, for two years.

So Counter Strike is a simple first person shooter team game where you are part of either a terrorist team or a counter terrorist squad. If you are a T, your objective is to keep a guard on hostages or blow up a designated site with a C4. If you are a CT, you need to rescue the hostages or prevent the bombing. Each team can have as many players but the game is best enjoyed as a team of 5. The game is played in rounds where each round is a mission and you need to complete a designated number of missions to win the game. Each game requires you to buy weapons that come in all shapes, sizes and costs. Often, the kind of weapon you are carrying makes a big impact on the game play. And to make things more interesting, you have certain amount of money when you start and you warn money if you kill opponents, achieve objectives etc. A very common strategy used by teams is to not buy anything at all for a few rounds so that they may save up for important rounds later on. This mode, is commonly called the Eco Mode by the gamers.

When I played counter strike, most of the times, I loved playing as a frontrunner where I get a shotgun or a rifle and blast through enemy defenses. There were a few times however when I played as a Sniper. And that meant buying the most expensive gun. That in turn meant that I had to go Eco for multiple rounds before I could buy the Magnum, the gun of choice.

So, the decision to go Eco was preceded by expectation of a big round where you had to perform well to have a better long term impact on the game. Compare this with life. When you are expecting that the next few month/years would decide how you end in life, the wisdom from CS tells you that you need to go Eco. Eco in real life would mean stop spending on things that you are not required to survive. For example, all the expenses on fancy gadgets, expensive clothes, magnanimous hobbies, things to show off and pieces of comfort need to be completely stopped.

And that’s where I am. I got into the Eco Mode on 1 Aug 2012 and it shall remain enforced till I save enough to last me 18 months. If I was to put a number, I think it will be about 30K a month for next 18 months. About 5 lakhs. If I could stay in the Eco mode, I think it would take about 18 months to reach this goal. There we are. Eco for 18 months. Looks unlikely since I have to anyways make some capital expenses every six months, on things like clothes, computers etc.

Back then, when I played Counter Strike, somehow Eco Mode always worked out. A couple of us would go to the Eco Mode and save enough to get ourselves Magnums. And then once we had the fancy guns, we would shoot better and get more points. It would become a positive feedback loop that allowed us to do more with more and spiral into awesomeness.

So let’s see if this Eco mode lasts the 18 months and if the lessons that I learnt with Counter Strike hold true in real life!

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

Creating Communities – Online and Offline

Ashish says that you “enable communities” and I think you “create” them. And since it’s a serious challenge to my understanding of social behavior, let me defend my position.

By the very definition,

a community is a group of individuals who are brought together by force or they come together because they share a common interest.

Classic examples are community of slaves working on erecting pyramids and users flocking pluggd.in because they are interested in start-ups in India.

Keywords in the definition are group, individuals and together. A group that is useful to the individual and together the group and the individual make it worth sticking to.

When I say that you create communities, it implies that you bring all these people together (by force, by coercion, by advertising, by showing them advantages of being a member, by hook, by rewarding participatory behavior or by showing that everyone but you is a member, or any of million other ways). Once there is a group, you share ideas and vision on what could become of this group if everyone participates. And when they start participating and everyone is in sync with the collective vision, the group become a community.

For a community to thrive, there needs to be a connecting thread – a reason for members to believe in. A selling proposition. An answer to “Why this community” question. This reason can again be provided by force (if you don’t work, you will be killed) or by prestige associated by just being a member (I am member of AsmallWorld.net – are you? I have access to GMail – do you have it? Etc.).

Second part is that the community as a whole should be useful for the members. No one would want to just give and not take anything in return. People don’t join communities. People join groups hoping that the group would be useful to them. Moment a group becomes useful for individuals, or that user, the group transforms from a group to a community.

When you are starting a community, you HAVE to bring together people. You will have to hand pick people who are committed to this binding thread with or without the usefulness of the community. These are the people whose actions would make the community useful for subsequent members. In case of pluggdin, for example, Ashish would have started writing about start-ups in India. He would have posted the link at relevant places, would have sent emails to friends and family who are interested in start-ups and slowly and gradually people starting coming in. He thus created a community. One member at a time.

On the other hand when you talk about enabling a community, you assume people already know why they are there. You assume that they

know what is common between all of them.

know why are they not a directionless herd.

know what is purpose of their group.

can see a larger picture.

know how is group useful.

This all might happen in an ideal world and I refuse to agree that any heterogeneous or even homogeneous group of people can answer all the above-mentioned questions. And if you are just enabling the community without holding their hand, telling them what to do and what actions to take. In my humble opinion, they will be as lost as kids in the topless bar :D.

And with this your-honor, I rest my case.

Regards,
Saurabh Garg
www.saurabhgarg.com/thoughts

P.S.: And I agree that your group/community should be empowered enough to recommend and make changes. They should be empowered to remove things that they don’t like. They should be empowered to freely add on to the community. They should be allowed to explore. They should be given the tools to be themselves and create new things for the community. 😀

Image Credits: Sifah via Flickr.

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.