From bootstrapping to brand building, witness the memorable journey of Indian entrepreneurship in these excerpts and stories! StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous post here). Share these 35 gems and insights from the week of August 16-21 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights!

You need to check only two things – whether speed is essential for survival and whether you can maintain this speed?

– Vani Kola, Kalaari Capital

Never be afraid to conduct your own experiments.

– Nikhil John, growth hacker

The local services space is a $ 50 billion opportunity and an extremely difficult problem to solve.

– Sanjay Jesrani and Subram Kapoor, IAN

India’s search and recruitment market is USD 1 billion and it is growing at 20 per cent CAGR.

– Tarun Davda, Matrix Partners

The Indian real estate sector is witnessing tremendous growth and traction but it is still highly unorganized.

– Rajat Kothari, HomeBuy360

No one has tried to help autowallas minimise their dead inventory headache.

– Samar Singla, Jugnoo

The biggest problem is we need entrepreneurship no matter how big we are.

– Ma Huateng, Ten Cent

The promise of the internet is discovery.

– Rajesh Chokhani, Sweet Couch

In this age of the internet, we think anyone can learn anything anywhere.

– Shaun, Xperienceunlimited

Proliferation of digital consumer technology has made tedious jobs seamless and quick.

– Saurabh Singla, LazyLad

Startup success lies in executing the idea, not the idea itself.

– Pardeep Goyal

Be ready to work for a house on fire!

– Aditya Rajgarhia, Instahyre

The dream of making every story matter is phenomenal.

– Shradha Sharma, YourStory

There is an urgent need to spread success stories and positive messages to all.

– Rajesh AR, LabourNet Services

Freedom and encouragement come from your environment.

– Richa Khetawat, Family Counselling India

I only think solutions, actions and ‘what next’, not about problems or challenges.

– Subhra Bhardwaj, Ferriswheel Entertainment

While services taught us the nuances of enterprise sales and gave us a mindset for running a profitable business, the model only scales at a linear pace.

– Piyush Rawat, Hyve

The only challenge is finding creative ways to earn your prospective customers’ trust without a face-to-face meeting.

– Lakshna Jha, sRide

Social Media must be in the company’s DNA, now!

– Dhruvil Sanghavi, Loginext

Most entrepreneurs go through a roller coaster of highs and lows.

– Rutvik Doshi, Inventus (India) Advisors

Building a brand is ultimately an expensive exercise.

– Kartik Hosanagar, University of Pennsylvania

While you are designing a certain app or product, it needs to work well within all the inefficiencies of the existing systems.

– Rajesh Razdan, mCarbon

Competition is definitely there but we would rather like to look at it as something that will drive us to innovate ahead of our peers and gain an edge.

– Deependra Singh, Geekscraft

I had simply started up with the intention of earning some decent money but with time it has become a full time and profitable business.

– Anugya Vardhan, Grab-it-o

If not now then when, if not us then who.

– K Sreelakshmi, ChangeTerra

Bootstrapped businesses allow their teams to maximize their potential, since they have the entire creative freedom at their disposal.

– Sunil Patro, SignEasy

We could have used funds from only one VC, however it was the need for all round mentorship that made us sign-up the others.

– Kedar Kulkarni, HyperVerge

With the increasing cost of care, the need of the hour is to shift focus from curative healthcare to preventive healthcare and wellness.

– Gurpreet Singh, RoundGlass Partners

Learning is a continuous process. You have to be on the driver’s seat and never lose focus.

– A. Nandini, GlobalLogic

If waste is processed at source, it can not only give immense environmental benefit, but also economic benefit to the waste generators as well as municipal bodies.

– Nirmal Bhogilal, Batliboi

The city has soul; it just needs a helping hand for people to connect with the soul.

– Manjit Singh Hoonjan, Calcutta Photo Tours

Indian examples or desi metaphors rarely feature in creativity conversations, which are central to igniting the innovation journey.

– Vinay Kanchan, ‘Lessons from the Playground’

India is a young nation with immense capability; hence the startup ecosystem is bound to grow only exponentially.

– Umesh Yadav, cricketer

We in India call ourselves a democratic republic, but in reality there is not an equitable distribution of opportunity in our country.

– Anant Majumdar, Thuni Seed

India today needs a stronger social empathy build-out.

– Atul Satija, Nudge Foundation

India’s such a crazy rich, and diverse canvas – I’ll take four lifetimes to soak it all in.

– Merlin D’Souza

I’m lucky to see that what I started off has brought change in my own lifetime. There is a sense of satisfaction.

– Bindeshwar Pathak, Sulabh Shauchalya

My advice is to follow no advice.

– Shila Ghosh

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).

The sounds and silence of the jungle is the first thing that struck me when I was at a national park. A plethora of experiences hit your senses when you enter the world of the wild – smells that are fresh and unique, sounds that are new and different, even the air tastes different.

Many times, I end up writing about these experiences or just sharing it with my friends after. But being a travel enthusiast, I’ve always felt the need to share the experiences with fellow travellers or friends. It was a similar shared love for wildlife, nature and travel that got MBA graduates Tanmay Keshav and Maulik Desai together. The met in 2006, and have been on close to 10 trips covering most national parks across India.

The trip that changed it all

“On nearly every trip, we lamented over the lack of other travellers with whom we could share our costs and connect over wildlife. Several times, we discussed the need for a platform that would connect travellers like us. Finally, in 2013, after an evening safari during a trip to Kanha National Park, we made a firm decision to create this platform -The Safarist – in order to, above anything else, solve our own problem of meeting like-minded travellers,” says Tanmay.

The duo set onto creating a website by pooling their resources. After several sessions spent mulling over a name, they zeroed in on ‘The Safarist’ (safarist means anyone on a safari).

Tanmay says that brand building was a challenge, but they were aided by the fact that from the onset they were making a platform to solve their own problems. He adds that ‘The Safarist’ stands for the nature or wildlife lover in all of us, responsible travel, making travel related to wildlife and nature more accessible, keeping in mind the need for conservation.

Image Credit: ShutterStock

What does the community do?

The Safarist is a wildlife community that travels together. Through The Safarist, the duo has tried to address the following problems:

1. No one platform for wildlife enthusiasts to connect and travel together: Tanmay says that although wildlife travel is largely passion driven and expensive, almost every associated cost can be shared. He adds that they thought the solution was to build a community of wildlife travellers, where people could travel together. “On the website, verified users can create a trip or join any of the trips floated by fellow travellers. Members have a wishlist of places they would like to visit and get notified automatically when someone creates a trip for a destination on their wishlist,” he says

2. No wildlife and nature–focused community: The Safarist has specific features that allow people to share photos, view and filter sightings across categories and destinations. There is also a feature through which travellers can chronicle all their past wildlife trips at one place along with a forum. “We have identified specific features including a trip report section, checklist of species, a system through which travellers can review destinations as well as the other travellers with whom they share trips,” says Tanmay.

3. Lack of information about places and booking procedures: There are 160 national parks, and over 500 wildlife sanctuaries and countless birding and trekking destinations. Besides for the more prominent destinations, there is lack of information and awareness on other destinations. By connecting like-minded travellers and through a community-based approach, The Safarist leverages the vast experience travellers themselves have, and puts lesser-known places on the travel roadmap. “We have content concerning 50 destinations in our ‘destination discovery’ Our vision for this section is to create a comprehensive database of all such locations with inbuilt intelligence that can aid discovery based on one’s location and preferences,” adds Tanmay

Challenges

However, according to Tanmay, the challenge lay in the process of gaining early users who had faith in the idea and could test what they were building. Additionally, conveying the concept to the larger audience proved to be difficult.

“Travelling together involves connecting people from diverse backgrounds and with varied interests. Building trust in such a platform is of utmost importance. Keeping in mind the number of dynamics which come into play for successfully executing such an idea, it has taken quite a bit of iteration and feedback to come up with a system,” says Tanmay.

To combat these challenges, the duo created a landing page campaign on Facebook which gave them the opportunity to engage with people from the target segment right from the initial phase. Based on their feedback and after assessing the market, they developed an initial website, made live with a closed beta version.

Traction and future plans

“Currently, we have about 300 users and continue to add more on a daily basis. Within the first month, more than 40 trips have been floated by travellers across India, of which 13 have been successfully joined by other travellers. The trips have been to various destinations across India and has seen participation from all around the country, across ages and from both genders,” adds Tanmay.

In the immediate future, the team intends to focus on user acquisition as well as in continually refining the platform and adding more specific features catering to the target segment.

“With entire trips being conceived on the platform and a community catering to a niche traveling audience, we believe that there will be significant scope to benefit the entire ecosystem and earn revenue in the process as well,” says Tanmay.

Being a point of aggregation for travellers, the website will be beneficial for the entire ecosystem, especially stakeholders who depend on tourism, like homestays, wildlife lodges, naturalists, photography mentors, equipment rental companies, car rental companies and others. The model could be booking these services on a standalone basis, a lead-based model or through custom ads.

The market and growth

 Hari Nair, Founder and CEO, HolidayIQ, has said that experiential and leisure travel is fast growing in India. According to HolidayIQ, out of the one billion domestic trips that Indians do every year, about 250 million are in the leisure travel segment. This is said to be growing at 11 per cent for the past few years. “After China, the Indian leisure travel segment is possibly the largest growing tourism segment,” adds Hari.

According to Tanmay, a 2014 survey by Thrillophilia shows wildlife and birding accounting for 38 per cent of all activity-based travel. Globally, there is a shift in travel preferences towards experiential trips.

The wildlife travel market in India is one of the fastest growing segments in the travel sector. There is currently no platform which caters to wildlife travellers in India or at a global level. The top 20 national parks get in excess of 1,50,000 tourists every year. For quite a few of these destinations, wildlife tourism is the only major avenue for livelihood for town folk living nearby.

Website

There are so many companies in the foodtech space providing you ways to find delicious food in your city and innovating ways in doorstep food delivery.

I came across a small restaurant in my city Chandigarh that is innovating on quality of food. Located in a neglected part of the city, tiny Chinese food parlour Café Jade has become a favorite with foodies owing to its quality adherence, tasty food and its use of technology.

At first sight, a casual observer can be fooled by its miniscule size as Café Jade operates on a “delco” model. ’Delco’ is the term used in the food industry to describe a restaurant that operates on a ‘delivery and takeaway’ model. On the contrary, Café Jade is quite popular with not only Chandigarh residents, but also food lovers from city outskirts like Panchkula, Mohali, Zirakpur, and Kalka, who drive up to enjoy its special sauces and salads served with its Chinese and Thai style food.

There is a large chunk of people that love Chinese and Thai food, but are forced to stay away from it as they are allergic to various food items. Located in Sector-38 in the city, Café Jade is probably the first Chinese food joint in India that offers gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, nut-free Chinese and Thai dishes. It also has low-calorie Chinese and Thai food for those who are eating light.

Customers residing in Chandigarh and Mohali order food from the comfort of their home and get doorstep delivery of the choicest Chinese and Thai food items. They have the option of paying online through partner food-tech companies or making payment in cash at the time of delivery.

Also read: Why are Indian VCs salivating over food-tech startups?

PK Khurana

Café Jade has been started by PK Khurana, a former director of marketing at a newspaper group, is a passionate entrepreneur with vast experience in the public relations domain. He left his job in 1999 to start his PR consultancy and accumulated experience and courage for a risky venture.

Khurana’s love for Chinese and Thai food brought him to the concept of healthy Chinese food. He wanted to offer similar taste to everyone and the chance to sit at home and order it.

Our mantra has always been to focus on quality, quantity, taste and hygiene. Café Jade is cleaned every single day in a manner akin to worship. We religiously follow strict standards of cleanliness and hygiene. This has made our customers come back again and again. Jade’s food has always been delicious; we just had to scale up the operations to include all sectors of Chandigarh and Mohali for delivery. Simultaneously, we added the required workforce, arranged training sessions for the staff, did some online and offline marketing and the business became profitable.

Small sessions of counseling coupled with relevant training to the staff members brought the business on the auto mode and there was no more requirement of Khurana’s physical presence at the cafe. He has introduced many new ideas to cater to a larger pool of customers, besides catering to customers with special requirements and has been instrumental in innovating food processes and keeping the team and the customers happy.

“I get a kick when customers tell our people that they love our food and service,” said Khurana.

He shared one interesting incident:

One of our regular customers, living in the neighborhood, always insisted that the delivery boy should not come wearing Café Jade T-Shirt on a Café Jade branded bike. He made large orders but insisted that the delivery be made by a person who comes by foot (and not Café Jade bike) and with no other Café Jade branding. When we probed, he turned out to be the banquet manager of a local five-star hotel!

Café Jade has the requisite number of people to serve the patrons efficiently. Tiny company it may be, but it is tech-enabled and profitable and has plans of setting up an e-commerce website and an app soon to serve customers through online orders and payments.

Café Jade is in the mode of scaling up operations but is not seeking funding immediately. It is, however, offering franchise opportunity to those who are geared up to offer support services to the potential franchisees.

Khurana explained his plans to scale up the business,

Most of the big businesses run on auto mode, and the money makes money for the owners. I wanted to replicate this with a small set up and have been successful. Now my money gets me money without the requirement of my physical presence at the cafe. Despite being a brick-and-mortar kind of business, the systems enable me to open and run any number of outlets without requiring my physical presence at any of the outlets.

He is a tech-savvy man, if not a technology person. He knows how to use system, processes and manpower. He belongs to the old school but is open to new ideas of modern technology & businesses.

He shared his views on the exit plan,

People start businesses or invest in startups with an aim to make money and exit. I belong to the other category. I believe in milking the cow, and not just feeding it and then butchering it. Why eat the chicken that can lay eggs on a daily basis? Most of the startups are bleeding profusely. They grow not on profits, but on funding. Initial investors make money but others follow to be butchered. This is not a healthy trend as this category of startups will leave an overall negative imprint on the domain and drive away future investors. Ignoring the profitability will bring the bust closer than it might happen otherwise. I request investors and startup entrepreneurs to be careful about the bottom line.

Also read: 8 food tech startups to watch out for in 2015

Most entrepreneurs need guidance and constant inspiration, especially when they hit a wall. Here’s an exhaustive list of little over 50 books that entrepreneurs should read: 

1. The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups From Their Founding Entrepreneurs by David Kidder

In this, Kidder interviews hundreds of glorified founders asking them about their path to success and how they managed to build their multi-million (or billion) dollar enterprises. Going insider to insider with unprecedented access, Kidder, shares the hard-hitting experiences of some of the world’s most influential entrepreneurs and CEOs, revealing their most closely held advice. (Read More).

2. Zero to One: Notes Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

PayPal founder Peter Thiel offers 12 useful tips for entrepreneurs based on his own experience in startups and investing. Aptly called ‘From Zero to One,’ his 210-page book makes for a quick and useful read, with lots of case profiles gathered along his Silicon Valley journey.

“A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future,” Thiel defines. A startup sits at the sweet spot between a lone genius and a large bureaucratic organisation – size allows it to execute on ideas and smallness helps with agility. (Read More) 

3. The Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth by James Altucher

Many reviews say that this book is not for the fainthearted and is a bold one by James Altucher. The book is a sort of revelation of the author’s personal ways and methods of making money. Altucher, in this book, answers those looking for a ‘new’ fix. In this book, Altucher says that one cannot play by the old rules in a new world. Lauded as an eye-opener the book is a guide to becoming wealthy the new works way.

4. The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

As the name suggests, this book is all about starting up. The first version of the book was released in 2004 and early last year, Guy Kawasaki released the second version of the book. (Read More)  

5. Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition. The truth is you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses. (Read More) 

6. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

You’re either a Purple Cow or you’re not. You’re either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice, Seth Godin writes. The checklist of tired ‘P’s marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed – Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few-aren’t working anymore. There’s an exceptionally important ‘P’ that has to be added to the list. It’s Purple Cow.

7. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

This first-rate book by Eric Ries addresses a key problem in the innovation ecosystem: most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable, and Ries draws from disciplines such as lean manufacturing in the automotive sector to come up with his “Lean Startup” approach to devise new metrics and success criteria for startups. (Read More)

8. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore

In his book, ‘Crossing the Chasm’, Geoffrey Moore has used the word chasm to refer to the gulf between two marketplaces encountered by a product startup in scaling up. He has demonstrated that the first marketplace is an early market dominated by early adopters and insiders (a few visionary customers) who are quick to appreciate the nature and benefits of the new development. The second one is a mainstream market representing “the rest of us,” (predominantly pragmatists) people who want the benefits of new technology but who do not want to “experience” it in all its gory details. (Read More)

9. Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim

The phrase refers to ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, a business strategy book (2005) by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, suggesting that organisations should create new demand in an uncontested market space (‘Blue Ocean’), instead of competing in ‘Red Ocean’, where the market space is known and crowded.

10. Good to Great by Jim Collins

Jim Collins in his celebrated 2001 book “Good to Great – Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t” identified seven characteristics of companies that went from “good” to “great”. The first and most telling characteristic relates to people and what he calls “Level 5 Leadership” which simply put is all about quiet confident humility and driven to do what is best for the company as opposed to being lauded and heralded as the “greatest” or “ iconic”  – or some other similar – leader.

11. The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clay Christensen

In his book, Christensen suggests that companies that put too much emphasis on customers need will fail to adopt and will fall behind. He adds that it’s important for organisations to have disruptive innovation to stand out and succeed.

12. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson

A famous autobiography by the Founder and CEO of the Virgin Group – Richard Branson, it traces the journey of Branson from Rags to Riches. The book goes ahead to detail the extraordinary and different choices that Branson made in his journey so far.

13. Nail It then Scale It by Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom

This book gives the secret winning sauce to all those struggling startups. In the book both Furr and Ahlstrom explains that the Nail It Then Scale It method recognises those patterns and principles that most successful entrepreneurs use.

14. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

Even after decades since it was published, this book is full of wisdom and ideas that every entrepreneur could do with. This book has been a top-seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. (Read More)

15. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, PhD

People skills are very important for an entrepreneur to succeed. For that he needs to master persuasion. Getting people to say yes is one of the most challenging tasks an entrepreneur has to undergo. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion explains the entire psychology behind why people say yes and how to make them say it.

Also read: 20 must watch Bollywood films for entrepreneurs

16. Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker

 Though the book had been written way back, the fundamentals for starting up a venture which are mentioned in it, find relevance even today. It talks about the dos and don’ts which should be kept in mind before being an entrepreneur. As Drucker is recognized for his clairvoyance, a fast read is suggested. (Read More)

17. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

 While every other business and startup books talk about how to start up, Ben Horowitz‘s book talks more about the realities of the entrepreneurial journey. The book as the name suggests focuses on hard things like hiring and firing, war time and peace time CEO and other practical lessons for entrepreneurs.

18. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

This is one of the best books that will help you assess your aspirations and strategise. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines the causes of why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, how The Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in human history, how Joseph Flom built Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the most successful law firms in the world. (Read More)

19. The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

As compared to the dozens of books addressing corporate innovation or technology startups or small/medium businesses, The $100 Startup has a refreshingly different focus: the ‘solopreneur’ or individual entrepreneurs who strike off on their own or with small teams, and convert ‘passions into profits’ through micro-businesses. (Read More)

20. ‘The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon’ by Brad Stone

 Brad Stone has written for ‘Newsweek’, ‘New York Times’ and ‘Bloomberg’. The book captures the tenacious spirit and disruptive innovations of Jeff Bezos and Amazon, who have transformed and accelerated entire industries via e-commerce and cloud computing.

21. Jugaad Innovation: A Frugal and Flexible Approach to Innovation for the 21st Century, by Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu and Simone Ahuja

Leading companies around the world such as GE, Google, PepsiCo, Philips, Renault-Nissan, Siemens, Facebook, Suzlon, Tata Group, and Yes Bank are practising various principles of jugaad or frugal innovation and are learning from grassroots innovators in emerging economies such as India, according to the authors of this informative book. These principles are also being adopted by many NGOs and governments around the world. (Read More)

22. Startup Leadership, by Derek Lidow

Entrepreneurs succeed not just by creating a good product or an innovative company, but also by developing. Entrepreneur and author Derek Lidow explains that emerging companies have specific leadership requirements, stage by fast-moving stage. Each stage calls for different kinds of skills, not just ideation or management. Startups succeed if their founders can create a personal leadership strategy based on self-awareness and driven by a broad-based focus on evolution and adaptation. (Read More)

23. Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind, by Biz Stone

 In his book, Biz Stone, the Co-founder of Twitter, discusses the power of creativity and how to harness it through stories from his remarkable life and career. Stone is known as the creative, effervescent, funny, charming, positive, optimistic, altruistic and yet remarkably savvy Co-founder of Twitter. His book Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind spans 224 pages and 18 chapters, and covers the pivotal and personal stories from his life along with lessons earned and learned the hard way. (Read More)

24. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig

 This book by Robert Prisig remains the top read when it comes to philosophy even decades after getting published. A must read book when it comes to philosophy and life.

25. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High Book by Kerry Patterson

 Conversations are the soul of every communication we have. In this book, Kerry Patterson gives us the important tools that are needed to have those difficult conversations. Especially with those ones with high stakes, emotions and differing opinions.

26. A Never-Before World: Tracking the Evolution of Consumer India, by Rama Bijapurkar

 Five years after her bestseller We Are Like That Only, Rama Bijapurkar takes stock of India’s economy in her new book, A Never-Before World: Tracking the Evolution of Consumer India. She urges businesses and entrepreneurs to focus not just on how much money people have, but on their aspirations, pain points, community context and media usage. (Read More)

27. The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene

This book blurb begins with saying : The best-selling book for those who want POWER, watch POWER, or want to arm themselves against POWER. Amoral, cunning, ruthless and instructive, this piercing work distills three thousand years of the history of power into forty-eight well explicated laws. These are ancient laws of power, Greene goes ahead to explain that these ancient laws hold true even today.

28. Recasting India: How Entrepreneurship is Revolutionizing the World’s Largest Democracy by Hindol Sengupta

 “India is being recast, remolded and redefined,” says Hindol. There are two kinds of democratic activities – measured (as with periodic elections) and experienced (as in day-to-day business and political life). Entrepreneurs in India today are thinking, building, creating, sharing, protesting and pushing against the old corrupt and lethargic political order. (Read More)

29. India Land of a Billion Entrepreneurs by Upendra Kachru

 In this book Kachru believes that entrepreneurship and self-employment is what leads to faster economic growth in India. The book goes through ways and means that make successful entrepreneurs.

30. ‘The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life’ by Alice Schroeder

 Alice Schroeder was an analyst, writer and managing director at Morgan Stanley. Entrepreneurship is as much about creativity as wealth management, and Warren Buffet is a legend in the world of investment. The book provides insights into the genius behind Berkshire Hathaway. (Read More)

Related read: This is what top VCs and entrepreneurs read and recommend

31. ‘Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days’ by Jessica Livingston

 For those who prefer shorter reads about entrepreneurs, ‘Founders at Work’ is a collection of innovator profiles of Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal) and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail). Author Jessica Livingston is a founding partner at Y Combinator.

32. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

 One of the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs face is building an organisation that has a remarkable culture and commitment. In his book Delivering Happiness, Tony Hsiech gives lessons from his personal journey on doing the same.

33. ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson has been chairman of CNN and managing editor of ‘Time’ magazine. The book on legendary innovator and Apple CEO Steve Jobs is based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors and colleagues.

34. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

 Blink is a brilliant book by Malcolm Gladwell which talks about intuition and how it is developed after several years of intense practice. It also talks about how our brains work in different situations and why some people succeed by following their gut feeling in certain situations.

35. Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

 While most of the decisions in our daily life are logic driven and often we feel the need to logically justify them. Predictably Irrational takes the reader through a different ride of behavioural economics and shows us the subtle factors which heavily influence our decision making process. (Read More)

36. Conquering Chaos by Ravi Venkatesan

 In this book Ravi Venkateshan gives India specific advice of overcoming the different and unique challenges that only Indian entrepreneurs face. He argues that success in India is essential because it’s a litmus test that organisations face. It gives the ability to succeed in emerging markets.

37. ‘Alibaba’s World’, by Porter Erisman

In his book Erisman gives us first and evidence of how Jack Ma a humble schoolteacher, who had failed in his college entrance exams twice, built Alibaba – one of the world’s largest e-commerce businesses.

38. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

As the name suggests this book is all about what makes some ideas tick and others not. Dan and Chip dissect the ideas and determine the reasons that make them stick.

39. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, by Chris Anderson

 In this book, Anderson talks about why the misses sometimes are more important than the hits. It’s about that endless curve of misses that entrepreneurs reach.

40. The art of War by Sun Tzu

 While an ancient Chinese war strategy, The Art of War makes sense to even the present days and times. One of the most popular themes for business practices and strategic thinking, The Art of War is a must read for all entrepreneurs.

41. Why We Buy by Paco Underhill

 Underhill in this book decodes the different trends of online retail and what they’re doing right. It gives lessons on how every retailer can continue to do better than they already are.

42. The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox

This book is actually written in the style of a fast paced thriller. The story revolves around Alex Rogo a plant manager who has less than 90 days to save his plant or it will shut down. The Book revolves around his story and the decisions he makes. 

43. Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono

 A lateral thinking approach, this book helps assess all ideas, facilitates creative thinking. It helps open different principles.

44. Permission Marketing – Seth Godin

 With the thousand different marketing messages consumers receive today, Seth Godin says that to grab a consumers attention, you need to get their permission. “By talking only to volunteers, Permission Marketing guarantees that consumers pay more attention to the marketing message,” he writes. “It serves both customers and marketers in a symbiotic exchange.”

45. Venture Deals – Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson

Outlining the essential elements of a venture term sheet, this book gives entrepreneurs the tips to cracking a fair deal while fund raising.

Related read: Top 8 biographies every entrepreneur must read!

46. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

 This book summarises economics Nobel Prize Winner Kahneman’s research he conducted.

47. The 80/20 Principle – Richard Koch

 This famous principle outlines tips of how to achieve more with less. It talks about how thinking and focussing on the smaller yet important things can change the course of businesses.  

48. The Design of Everyday Things – Donald Norman

 A usability engineer and a cognitive scientist in his book, Norman talks about the importance of design and how it serves as a great communication tool with the consumer.

49. Your Money or Your Life – Joel Dominguez & Vicki Robin

In this book the authors give essential tips that boil down to the principle – Your Money or Your Life. It gives the needed help to do the required emotional and mental commitment to create a cleaner financial life. 

50. The Personal MBA – MASTER THE ART OF BUSINESS by Josh Kaufman

This book gives the principles needed to create a successful business.

51. The Facebook Effect: The Real Inside Story of Mark Zuckerberg and the World’s Fastest Growing Company’ by David Kirkpatrick

 Journalist David Kirkpatrick was formerly at ‘Fortune’ magazine, and runs Techonomy Media, a tech-focused conference company. The book profiles Mark Zuckerberg and the meteoric rise of Facebook from a Harvard dorm room to today’s social media giant.

52. Startup Asia: Top Strategies for Cashing in on Asia’s Innovation Boom by Rebecca Fanin

 Startup Asia is a good regional introduction to the startup buzz in China, India, Vietnam and Singapore – but the title of the book is misleading, there is no coverage at all of startups in other countries of Asia such as Japan and Korea, or Malaysia and Indonesia. (Read more)

(With inputs from Abhash Kumar)

Ratings agency Crisil said the upcoming payment banks (PBs) will largely focus on the underbanked areas like the East, Northeast and Central regions, and the existing lenders should not worry about them.

“We do not expect them to significantly dent the business of existing banks given that their services would largely focus on the underbanked areas,” its chief analytical officer Pawan Agrawal said in a note two days after the Reserve Bank issued licences to 11 such players.

The agency added that existing banks stand to benefit out of a partnership with a PB through increased access to unbanked and underbanked areas in a cost-efficient manner. Citing its proprietary data, which point to under penetration, the agency said pockets in the East, Northeast and the Central regions stand to gain the most from the new banks.

In one more step towards the era of differentiated banking or having specialised banks, the RBI had on Wednesday accorded in-principle approvals to 11 out 41 aspirants to start PBs, including entities led by industrialists Mukesh Ambani, Kumarmangalam Birla, Sunil Mittal and Dilip Shanghvi, Anand Mahindra among others apart from the Department of Posts.

Higher volume of transactions, nimble but technologically superior cost structure and ability to generate fee income will be the key points for the business model of a PB, the agency said. Fees from domestic remittances, spread on savings deposits, fees from acting as business correspondents and transaction fees through e-commerce and debit card usage are the specific revenue streams, it said.

“Even if payments banks are able to gather around 10 per cent of rural savings deposits from areas that have banks, and from unbanked areas served by chit funds and other non-banking channels, the opportunity to attract savings deposits will be in excess of Rs 1 trillion over the next five years,” its business head,large corporates, Raman Uberoi said.

The commentary comes even as the largest lender State Bank has flagged concerns over the entry of PBs, which had to be quickly allayed by the Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan.

Image Credit : Shutterstock

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Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Huston said, “You only need to be right once.” Hritesh Lohiya suffered through an embarrassing deluge of wrongs before stumbling onto the idea that would eventually make him a multimillionaire. “I started a textile chemical factory and then a stone cutting factory, manufactured and sold washing powder, began a stock market business, et cetera. I lost huge amounts of money in all these ventures,” he rues.

Hritesh Lohiya

Venturing into garbage recycling was not a business savvy idea; it was literally the only choice left. Hritesh says, “After losing all our money in these bust businesses, we could not afford to invest in anything new. The only legacy of those failures was the string of garbage strewn around our old factory. There were old gunny bags, drums of chemicals, various bits of plastic and so on. We tried to sell some of these for our bread-and-butter, but no one would buy them. Out of desperation we started thinking about how we could generate any kind of revenue from these waste items. Thus, Priti International was born in 2005.”

Hritesh was quite superstitious when christening his umpteenth effort at starting up. “My wife Priti is my rock. She is very lucky for me. I believe that all my earlier startups failed miserably because there was no part of her name in their nomenclature. This time round, I didn’t make that mistake.” Or rather, this time round, he got it right.

The firm designs and manufactures various handmade products out of waste materials. “We make handbags from old gunny bags, cast off military tents, denim pants, etc. We are also into producing furniture from waste tins, drums, old military jeeps, tractor parts, waste machine parts and lamps from old scooter- and bike-lights. These products are then exported to various countries like China, USA, European nations, and Australia. We are now India’s biggest exporter of waste handicraft products, and the only one in India to export to China,” he rattles off.

“At present, our current turnover is around $8million. Our customer base is in 36 countries. Our production facilities are spread over 3 large factories, with around 400 people working for us. Our focus market is China, where there is huge customer potential; the new generation is veryfond of using our products to decorate bars, cafés, pubs, restaurants etc. We are planning to expand our production facility and scale our venture to $20 million by 2016,” Hritesh beams proudly. “We have recently started a retail showroom in Ningbo, China for selling our products in retail.  This is just a test showroom, but the response has been heartwarming. Now we are planning to open 12 more showrooms across China exclusively, for our products.”

While scouring through garbage was once a mode of survival for Hritesh, it is now the most exciting part of his day. “Ours is a purely design-based business. We have to think over each waste product we come across, and design it to make a useful product out of it. It’s a very exciting job! Every day we find new waste products, and brainstorm new ways to turn them into something people would like to own.”

India figures prominently in Priti International’s expansion plans. “In regard to India, the potential for our products, due to the rise of online shopping, is immense. We are in talks with several online retailers, like Pepperfry and Flipkart,about selling our products online here.” Priti International’s popularity shows no signs of plateauing. “We are completely booked with our export orders for the year 2015.  In 2016, we are participating in various international exhibitions, like China’s Canton Fair and International Furniture Fair, Shanghai. Recently our unique products’ success story was filmed by Discovery Channel for their segment titled, ‘The Liquidators.’ Our work comprises an entire episode, and is scheduled to be telecast in 140 countries around the world. This is a big landmark for us,” he exudes.

Priti International is self-funded. “We have taken no loans from banks or any other financial institution.” The core team comprises only two people, Hritesh and his wife Priti. “It is a labour of love for us. It’s just the two of us and we are hands-on with every aspect of the firm,” Hritesh explains.

For Hritesh, the hardest part about being an entrepreneur was the lack of self-confidence that stemmed from being a serial failure. “After failing in several ventures, it becomes very difficult to start from scratch with yet another new idea. We pitched our idea to many investors, but no one took us seriously. In serious need of money, we started selling my wife’s jewellery for the seed fund. We would make samples, take photos and upload them online and then market those pictures to prospective customers around the world. It took us around 2 years to get our first order. Those two years were the hardest part.”

Priti International’s future is aglow with possibilities. Hritesh chirps, “We are growing at the rate of 25% annually.” He has had no mentors and doesn’t believe in the concept. “I only have faith in ‘Aham Bhramasmi” (Sanskrit term meaning ‘The core of my being is the ultimate reality’). Work hard enough long enough and you will spout your own miracles.”

PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In this showcase, we feature some of the innovators at the InnoFest 2015 in Bangalore, along with the ministers who spoke at the festival!

In the earlier 50 posts, we brought you a wide range of creative photographs from an art fair, world music festival, painting fair, telecom expo, art museum, mobile showcase, math museum, social hackathon, bookstore, co-working space, sensorium, international design week, flower show, outdoor ads, startup roadshow, computer museum, startup T-shirts, business cards, art therapy, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, Vesak, jazz festival, modern art gallery, ecopreneurs, painter-poets, health activists, eNGOs and digital innovators.

A festival of innovation: Held on August 22 on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, InnoFest was truly a celebration of innovation. Organised by iSpirt, the event featured a young innovators zone, power panels, and interactive ‘townhall’ sessions with the founders of high-profile startups such as Practo, InMobi, RedBus, Portea Medical, FreeCharge and PayTM. There are plans to take this festival to other Indian cities as well.

Beyond the eye: BITS Pilani Goa Campus students have built a Virtual Reality headset called Tesseract under the company name Absentia VR. The prototype headset works along with content created or stored on a laptop; more recent ones work with mobile phones as well.

Healthy fast food: Bhukkad was started up as a ‘natural fast food’ chain by Aruj Garg (right) while he was a third-year student at National Law School, Bangalore. Eating healthy food means you don’t need to make appointments to see doctors, joked Shashank N.D. (left), whose company Practo does exactly that – help patients make appointments to see doctors!

Take a moon shot: Meet Team Indus, who won the $1 million Google Lunar XPrize this year for their progress in working towards building a robot that can safely land on Moon, travel 500 meters, and send Mooncasts.

Frugal Innovation 1: The Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology has launched a centre for frugal innovations, which has come up with prototypes such as a washing-machine powered by children playing on a see-saw.

Frugal Innovation 2: Students of the Srishti school have also developed grassroots innovation designs (GRID) for street workers – such as this bicycle-powered street cleaner with mounted brooms.

Hackteria: Welcome to the Hackteria (hackers’ cafeteria – or bacteria for hackers?), where learners can experiment with electronic tools and components to study biology using open source methods.

Look within: Veinus is a medical product developed by InfraEyes to help doctors and nurses quickly and accurately locate veins below the skin. The use of infra-red scanning helps detect the right points to inject drips and probes, and avoids the pain of unnecessary skin piercing to locate the vein.

An extra pair: Looksphere has developed a small slender viewer (Google cardboard) which can be used for 3D images of drawings. Target audiences include gamers, designers, architects and urban planners.

Enter the drones: A number of organisations are teaming up to develop drones and examine use case scenarios, including IISc, MIT Media Lab and Infosys. The Netra drone has already been used in traffic management, disaster relief and defence.

Whiz kid: Eleven-year old Nihar Thakker has developed a range of gizmos: a cap which actually uses solar energy to cool you off, a speaker amplifier using a soda can, and a robot which can manipulate Rubik’s cube!

Smart glove: R.V. College of Engineering student Basha has developed an electronic glove for sign language and speech conversion. It uses Bluethooth and an accelerometer to map and analyse communication patterns.

Sound everywhere: Plugzee, developed by Nagarjun Kinare, is a device that turns any audio speaker system into a Bluetooth speaker. The device plugs into the 3.5 mm audio jack of the audio speaker and lets you stream music wirelessly by Bluetooth pairing with a smartphone.

Democratic manufacturing: Global 3D labs, a unit of Additive Manufacturing, has developed a range of 3D printers. The target audience is engineers, researchers, manufacturers and students.

Virtual touch: vSkin is a wearable glove that creates a sense of touch on the users’ fingers in a virtual setting. Using haptic sensors, the user can almost feel that a piano is being played or the gun trigger is being pulled.

I, Robot: Land surveys by architects and urban planners can be speeded by the SurveyBot – an autonomous land surveying unit (ALSU). Once configured properly, it can carry out surveys at a much more accelerated pace and accurate rate than the manual method.

The real thing: Koramangala-based Crossworks has developed the HoloBox, a 3D projection platform that can display 3D animated objects floating in the air with stunning graphics and visual effects. It can be used by animators, designers and product developers.

Rural IoT: KisanRaja, developed by Vinfinet Technologies, is a range of IoT-powered solutions for managing motors in rural areas. These could be used by farmers to turn water pumps on and off, receive voice alerts about power cuts in remote areas, and detect tampering or theft of machinery.

Eye on the pulse: The SwissNex pavilion featured the company SmartCardia, which has developed a range of wearable sensors. They can detect, monitor and report on indicators like heartbeat. The reports can then be sent directly to doctors and medical institutes.

Upgrade, Upgrad: UpGrad is a 15-week rigorous online entrepreneurship program with live lectures, case studies and group assignments. There are also startup insights from Zomato, MakeMyTrip, JustDial, PepperFry and Saavn. The board of advisors includes Jaideep Prabhu, co-author of ‘Frugal Innovation’ (see my book review).

What’s a festival without music? – Bangalore band Imaginary News also played at InnoFest, adding another creative element to the mix. Their releases include the tracks ‘Time’s On Your Side’ and ‘Lucky Summer Day.’

Power shift: A live CNBC interview hosted at the festival featured Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Finance, and Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO of Paytm. Government jobs were popular after independence, then big company jobs in the 1980s, and now startup jobs, observed Sharma. Whether or not new payment startups win against incumbent banks, the citizens of India will ultimately win, he said.

New heroes: The concluding panel featured Sharad Sharma (iSpirt), Nandan Nikelani (ex-Infosys and UIDAI), Mohandas Pai (Manipal Global Education), Jayant Sinha (MoSF), Kshatrapati Shivaji (SIDBI), Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (Biocon), Anurag Kumar (IISc) and Babul Supriyo (Minister of State, Urban Development). “The heroes of India are the new entrepreneurs,” said Pai, setting targets in the trillions of dollars for the Indian economy.

Dream, do: The new wave of innovation in the country will solve the problems not just of India but of five-six billion other people in the world, said Minister Jayant Sinha, who was earlier with McKinsey and the Omidyar Network, and is a graduate of IIT Delhi and Harvard. “I dream of a healthy India and a clean India,” he said.

What’s a good Indian event without a touch of Bollywood? – Babul Supriyo is Minister of State for Urban Development, and for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. He has also been a playback singer for Hindi, Bengali and Oriya films! The ‘Minister from Bollywood,’ dressed more like an artiste than a minister, closed the event in fine style with four of his hit songs. “This government will show you things you have never seen before,” he joked, to a standing ovation.

Got a creative photograph to share? Email us at PhotoSparks@YourStory.com!

See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’ accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.

“So, what do you do?”

“I’m a blogger.”

“Oh, that’s cute. And professionally?”

If you are a full-time blogger, the above exchange of judgments disguised as pleasantries is probably perched right on top of the list of perils of meeting peers.

Blogging used to be considered to be anything but a career- a mere hobby, a last resort for failed writers, even. At best, a vent for the passion harboured by bored middle-aged people, stuck in loveless marriages with their jobs because they had secretly always dreamed of consummating their relationships with their quills.

The scorn has eased up now – thanks to the digital revolution,which has been uniting even the quirkiest of subjects with an interestedaudience. And Digital India put the final nail in the coffin of all those who scoffed, by completely legitimizing a career in which your keyboard is your CEO.

There were some bloggers, though, who anticipated this eventual turn of events in their favor and invested their blood and sweat into building a virtual reality of their world. And together, they lead the charge with robust blogs and websites already up and running, even as the rest of the world scurries to get a grasp on how to digitize their operations. The puritans, I like to call them – who know nothing else but the internet. We had the fortune of speaking with five such companies who have been blogging since way before it was cool, who kept at it, and have, now that their ventures have become popular, earned some serious cheddar. Here are their spectacular journeys:

Kunzum

A travel blog with a heartfelt ideology, Ajay aimed to build an entity that would become synonymous with anything travel. Thus was born the umbrella brand Kunzum: at first, a travel blogger’s diary, then, the wildly popular website which led to the opening of Kunzum Travel Café, and now,Kunzum TV, their very own online channel of travelogues.

The idea:

“Kunzum started as a social enterprise. I wanted my blog to do its bit to sell the India travel story to the world at large, promote tourism, and create sustainable livelihoods,” says Ajay Jain, travel-buff-turned-entrepreneur.  A blog was the obvious way to vent his heart out, until one thing lead to another, and – in a rather serendipitous turn of events – he now sits atop a mini-empire.

Why it was unique:

He really only wanted to show the world how splendid traveling is. The way he did somade all the difference, though. He not only created a popular place to find exquisite travel content online, but also built a great spot offline, the Kunzum Travel Café in Delhi’s HauzKhas Village.

Ka-ching:

“Being an entrepreneur in spirit, I could never stop at just writing content. I ventured into Kunzum as if I were on a journey, and allowed myself to be surprised at every milestone. And this is how Kunzum the business evolved.”

And evolve it did. While the blog reaches a network of over 70,000 subscribers, and a whole lot more through shares and social media, the travel café is making some ripples of its own. The space is a haunt for like-minded vagabonds who quench their insatiable desire to learn about new places and people by spending a day in this happy space,swapping experiences with strangers.

Popxo:

Priyanka Gill, an experienced lifestyle journalist with a flair for style, andNamrataBostrom, a management consultant who always spent a few hours a day staying up-to-date with the fashion world, were both looking to build something in the digital lifestyle space.

The idea:“The glossies were focused only on print, and there were only a handful of digital-first content websites that explicitly spoke to the young urban Indian women. And these women live their lives on social media and on their mobiles. We decided to create content that reached women where they were, and so we started POPxo.”

Why it was unique:

“Good content is the most effective means of curating products,” she said. Her content resonated with every woman out there, and helped many solve mundane everyday problems that weren’t so insignificant after all.

Ka-Ching:

POPxo has crossed more than a million users in its 7 months of existence, and gets more than 4 million pageviews monthly. Hussein Kanji, along with Google India Head RajanAnandan, CaratLane’sMithunSancheti (via Chennai Angels) and others, became angel investors when the venture was 7 months old – recently. The website raked in threecrores as a result.

The Malini of Miss Malini fame:

MissMalini is a paparazzo who everyone looks to for thelo-down on entertainment and showbiz. Not too many know that the pretty face on the website’s logo isbased on a real life MaliniAgarwal, the founder of the website. But Agarwal is not complaining- having her company and brand becoming an entity of its own, bigger than herself, is a delightful problemindeed!

The Idea:

In the entertainment journalism landscape, ruled as it is by big corporate houses, a website bringing insider news, posing as one of us,was bound to create a greater connect with the readers. She counted on cashing in on that innocent voyeuristic pleasure ofthe common people, andtheir interest in having one of their own getting them the dope from the inside.  “There was also the element of luck and good timing, as I started blogging just as digital and social media started catching on in India,” says Malini.

Why it was unique:

Malini also felt there was a major gap in the market for content that represents and reflects the modern India she lives and breathes. Moreover, she saw a serious dearth in positive and happy reporting about the showbiz universe. Tired of the bitchiness and the sass that was the default tone of articles at the time, she decided to create happy content.

Ka-ching:

Since 2010, MissMalini.com has grown from a readership of 10,000 unique monthly visitors, to over 500,000 monthly visitors today. Their investors include prominent angel investors in India and the US, including RajanAnandan from Google India, the founders of Chegg.com, Match.com, SherSingh/Exclusively.in, the Asia Director of TA Associates, and other successful entrepreneurs, professionals and investors.

Style Fiesta

A tomboy at heart, MasoomMinawala stumbled upon the world of fashion, and, instead of learning its rules, decided to change them and make some of her own, onherhomegrown blog. This soon turned into a store and consequently, a reference point.

The Idea:

Initially, she just put up snippets of her own wardrobe as she dabbled around the frontiers of fashion, until she realized that her connect with her audience was solid enough for her to define fashion and trends herself, and slap her own filter on the way the world consumed style.

Why it was unique:

As she startedyoung, she spoke to the average girl not like a too-fancy-for-my-pants fashion magazine, but like a friend, a peer, with the same social life as them and the same needs as them. Also, she started documenting her fashion savviness way before most other bloggers fashioned this blog-business-model.This made her a pioneer, and the one brand one could instantly recall, by virtue of being the only mainstream one on the block for long.

Ka-ching:

Turning opportunities to action is an entrepreneur’s biggest virtue, and Minawala did just that. Starting an online shop of all her favorite jewellery was her next leap into the big game, and among the first few leaps taken in the field of e-commerce in general. The amalgam of both resulted in a diversified platformthat basically spells out what’s hot and what’s not in fashion for the youth!

Ipleaders.in

iPleaders.in has identified and fixed a problem that affects everybody who is anybody in the corporate sphere–it helps them keep lawsuits at bay by completely taking over the structuring and policies of the company, and ensuring they are compliant with everything they must be from a legal standpoint.

The Idea:

iPleaders was started with the vision of legal liability management, which strives to identify and eliminate risks from a business model so that one does not face legal problems. Apart from consulting, theyhave developed technology and risk management courses for startups and social sector entrepreneurs.

Why it was unique:

Aside from being crucial to any business, it also happened to be a one-of-a-kind concept. “When I started blog.ipleaders.in, there were hardly any visitors. We assumed no one wanted to read our blog posts,because we write on legal issues that may not interest the masses. However, thingsturned around soon. We now realize that people are very curious and have a great need for information when it comes to law,” says Ramanauj Mukherjee, founder of iPleaders, on how the platform finally took off as people saw the invaluable service they were offering.

Ka-ching:
By following good blogging practices while helping people with an issue they are genuinely concerned about, the traffic on theirportal has been seeing double-digit growth every month!

“Most visitors come from organic Google traffic,” reveals the founder-blogger Ramanuj Mukherjee, letting on how garnering readership is a mix of good content and strategic placement. Besides, they are also on-hire legal experts, willing to take over the complete legal to-do-list of your brand – and that’s got to mean big money! Besides, part of their opportunism is that they is that they fabricated a diploma program in Entrepreneurship Administration & Business Laws  at National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, which only adds to the scope of their legal prowess.

Entrepreneurs as well as established giants tend to fail for a common reason: the inability to pivot or reinvent themselves. While it is a common tendency to rest on prior successes, it is important to be open and willing for transformation due to factors like new competitors or external changes.

“Reinvention is more than a good idea: it’s an essential practice,” says Josh Linkner, in his new book The Road to Reinvention: How to Drive Disruption and Accelerate Transformation. He draws on his own experience as a serial entrepreneur, jazz guitarist, venture capitalist and author. His book provides a range of illuminative examples, methods, checklists and motivational advice. Linkner’s earlier bestseller was Disciplined Dreaming.

See also my reviews of the related books Unrelenting innovation (by Gerald Tellis), Invent, Reinvent, Thrive (by Lloyd Shefsky), Frugal Innovation (by Navi Radjou and Jaideep Prabhu) and The Idea Hunter (by Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer).

Long-term success depends on having an ongoing process of reinvention deep in the DNA of an organisation. Reinvention happens not just in the product or branding but also in operations and at the workplace, and even applies to your own career.  Here are my 10 takeaways and tips from this useful 260-page book.

1. Understand why reinvention is important

Creative hunger is the key to not just get started but stay ahead in the tough global economy. “Reinvention isn’t a single event, it’s a way of life,” says Linkner. Reinvention helps deal with emerging threats as well as in entering new uncontested territory. “Creativity is the new, most effectively sustainable competitive advantage; it’s the one thing that no company can outsource,” he says. Big companies can learn a lot from startups in this regard: how to be nimble, have fire in the belly, work with a sense of urgency, and have everyone contribute regardless of role (see also my article ‘15 innovation tips: how large corporations engage with startups’).

Examples of such business reinvention artists include: Tony Fadell from the iPod and iPhone teams, who left Apple to launch IoT startup Nest Learning Thermostat; Samsung’s assessment of the market to make the leap from low-quality goods in the 1990s to high-end smartphones today; Jessica Mindich’s launch of Caliber jewelry from recycled weapons; and Whirlpool, which expanded from washing machines to garage products. Companies which could not make such a leap include Borders’ Books, K-Mart and electronics retailer Circuit City.

2. Embrace the eight principles of reinvention

Linkner identifies eight principles that define the reinvention ethos: let go of the past, encourage courage in the company, embrace failure, do the opposite of current market players, imagine the future possibilities, compete with your own current offerings, reject limits, and aim beyond. “Reinvention is born in the imagination,” he says, and flips “Believe in it when you see it” into “Believe in it and you will then see it”. This calls for lifelong learning, grit and tenacity against naysayers.

Examples include: Nike’s culture (‘be like a sponge,’ ‘always offer something new’); entrepreneur Beck Besecker pivoting his startup multiple times till he hit a sweet spot with the retail app ShopWithIt; Dove’s Real Women ad campaign; IBM moving from computers to tech services; and Western Union changing from telegrams to money transfers.

3. ‘Cannibalise’ your own offerings

Software product companies are experts at rolling out ever newer versions of their software which supersede earlier ones. Other companies can also learn from these examples, via trendspotting, idea hunting, makeovers, and expanding to larger or smaller categories. Otherwise, agile competitors can outflank your portfolio and strategy.

Examples include: HP’s combination of a printer with fax machine; SNUBA moving away from scuba diving to raft tanks; Veronika Scott’s design of parkas doubling as sleeping bags for poor people; Ashifi Gogo privoting from food authentication codes to pharmaceutical verification (Sproxil); and Ford’s re-tooling to avoid bankruptcy (unlike GM and Chrysler). Disruptors reinforce the rule here: Zipcar was launched by a startup and not Hertz or Avis; Red Bull originated independent of Pepsi or Coca Cola; and Prezi’s graphical presentation software is often regarded as better than Microsoft’s Powerpoint or Apple’s Keynote.

4. Retool your operations

Reinvention is not just about products or services, but process reengineering for internal operators and workplaces as well. Outdated “cannonballs” should be identified in a “friction audit” and swept away in a wave of operational innovation.

Examples include: Quicken Loans moving its mortgage service offerings online much faster and better than its competitors; Michael Abrashoff using stainless steel fasteners on his warship instead of sub-standard ones; and Michael Dubin’s Dollar Shave Club with a subscription model and viral marketing videos. Earlier examples include Toyota surpassing GM, Dell beating IBM, Walmart besting Sears and Kmart, UPS launching a B2B logistics offering, and Berry Gordy who built Detroit’s Motown Records into a one-stop for artistes and promotion (eg. for Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Temptations).

5. Creative vivid experiences

A vivid experience should connect to customers across all five senses, be manifested in all touch points, and deliver a sense of surprise and delight. Consistency and inspiration should go together.

Examples include: Doug Dietz re-designing GE’s MRI scanners and hospital rooms to make the experience child-friendly; Hendy Ford Hospital’s design like a five-star hotel; Robert Stephens’ design and branding of computer repair services as the sleek Geek Squad; and Whole Foods’ cross-merchandising in aisle design so that gifts bags are positioned next to wine bottles.

6. Tell a memorable story

A range of effective story types can be used to tell better business stories: quests, strange lands, love stories, rags-to-riches and even revenge. Stories should be simple, clear, brief, memorable and action-oriented; a sense of humour also helps. Internally, activities like a weekly huddle, competitions and awards can keep the storytelling machinery humming.

Examples include: YoReciclo’s depiction of the future of children’s lives in its campaign to increase recycling in Mexico; Stewart Resnick’s branding of clementine fruits as ‘Cuties’; Lululemon converting the fallout of faulty yoga pants into a commitment to excellence; Nick Friedman’s branding of junk removal services as College Hunks Hauling Junk; and Detroit’s reinvention as an opportunity city. The most successful exemplars are not just of brands but “firebrands” ranging from Martin Luther King Jr. (social change) to Starbucks (coffee culture and ‘third’ spaces).

7. Overhaul your culture

Culture “resets” can happen by recalibration of vision, effective internal branding, defining new core principles, organisational rituals, 360-degree feedback, and aligned training – though change management is not always easy even with a sense of urgency. Passion, momentum, persistence, creativity and courage will be needed in large doses. It may even be necessary to purge the old guard, especially if they put their interests before the company’s and obstruct progress.

Examples include: Apollo Tyres of India setting much higher goals and eventually becoming one of the Top 15 tyre companies in the world; RackSpace’s approach of “fanatical support” for its cloud computing customers; graphics firm Fathead’s weekly storytelling huddles for lessons learnt; Australian software company Atlassian’s 24-hour creativity burst sessions; Gregory Boyle’s Homeboy Industries which builds teamwork among ex-convicts and rehabilitates them; and Sushi Yasuda paying employees full salaries and benefits instead of below-minimum levels.

8. Reimagine your customer

Fresh insights can come from customer immersion and connects, segment analysis, category expansion, and clarity of offerings. Purchase habits and peer networking activities among customers keep changing, and companies will need to explore new distribution channels – sometimes borrowing ideas from other industries. Even seemingly mature segments can be disrupted or reinvented with a creative approach. “Twenty-something entrepreneurs racing with rabid fervor to dislodge your leadership position can disrupt distribution models overnight,” Linkner predicts.

Examples include: BirchBox’s subscription model for monthly cosmetics delivery (“discovery commerce”); Ikea’s furniture assembly kits for budget-conscious shoppers; SodaStream’s aeration machines which let consumers make carbonated drinks in their own bottles at home; Harley Davidson’s Owners Group communities; LegalZoom.com offering legal services online; Bella Sky Hotel’s women-only floors to better target women professionals; Diane Heavin’s launch of the Curves gym only for women; Roar Motorcycles designed only for women riders; and launch of Linkner’s Detroit Venture Partners to target startups in Detroit instead of the already-crowded Silicon Valley.

9. Transform your career

Reinvention applies not just to companies but individuals as well. Planning, trendspotting, reflection, learning and a sense of adventure can help reinvigorate your career. Working backwards from a future desired state, conducting a personal SWOT analysis and roping in mentors can help stay focused and committed.

Examples include: Mona Bijoor who left a wholesale fashion buyer to launch her own e-marketplace Joor; Sophia Amoruso who left home at age 17 to “dumpster dive” and eventually launched the fashion site NastyGal; Charles Best, a history teacher who launched DonorsChoose.org to fund school projects and eventually grew it into a USD 30 million educational sponsorship site; Jim Jannard, whose Oakley glasses firm began with motorcycle glasses and then expanded to ski goggles, sunglasses and eventually Red digital cameras for Hollywood; and Ruth’s Steakhouse chain launched by a single mother to provide employment and livelihood to other single mothers.

Earlier examples include jazz trumpet legend Miles Davis who kept reinventing his music style and pioneered bebop, cool, blue, hard bop and electric fusion genres; Bill Gates, who reinvented himself as one of the world’s greatest philanthropists and even roped in other billionaires to collaborate in the Giving Pledge; and J.K. Rowling, a struggling single mother on welfare who submitted her Harry Potter manuscript to 12 publishers who rejected it, and only then found success with the best-selling book series and blockbuster movies.

10. Forge your legacy

What do you want to be remembered for after you die? What do you need more of, and what can you do without? Where is your biggest impact, and what are you good at? Answering these questions will help you understand how to forge your legacy, and work towards it starting now, one step at a time (see also my review of the book Kaizen by Robert Maurer).

“True success comes from the ability to do well and do good,” explains Linkner. Business success need not come without social satisfaction and spiritual bliss. Decide whether you are happiest with a job, a career or a higher calling. Higher order success and satisfaction comes from cultivating compassion, empathy, courage, positivity, discipline, creativity and grit.

In terms of available resources, the ideal time to reinvent is from a position of strength, at the height of success, but that is also where corporate politics, cultural inertia or individual lethargy can set in. “A systematic, disciplined approach to the necessary process of continuous reinvention helps prevent false starts and flameouts,” he says.

“We’re living in a world of endless possibility,” concludes Linkner.  Greatness can’t be a debate, it’s your destiny.

Each chapter of the book begins with an inspiring quote, and it would be appropriate to end this review with some of these quotes:

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. – Lao Tzu

Monotony is the awful reward of the careful. – A.G. Buckham

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. – Mark Twain

There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. – Dennis Waitley

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. – Christopher Columbus

A ship is safe in harbour, but that’s not what ships are for. – William Shedd

It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark. – Howard Ruff

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. – Steve Jobs

Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture your heart. – Native American proverb

About the Author:

Josh Linkner (Twitter: @JoshLinkner) is CEO and Managing Partner of Detroit Venture. He is Founder and former CEO of ePrize, a leading interactive promotion agency, and founded three other tech startups before that. He has been on the board of over 40 companies, and raised over USD 100 million of venture capital. Linkner has won awards such as Ernst & Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ and as a President Barack Obama ‘Champion of Change’ Award. His articles have appeared in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times.

According to Jayanth Jagadeesh, VP BD and Marketing, eLsys Intelligent Devices Pvt Ltd, India is among the nations that have the highest number of road accidents in the world: one person dies every four minutes. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his radio address to the nation, too, has expressed the strong need to build a national emergency system/framework to manage, analyse and avert road emergencies,” he says.

Jayanth, therefore, calls it a wonderful coincidence that his company has been working on solving the same problem for the last year-and-a-half. “Our vision is to revolutionise how Indians call for help, and how India responds to road emergencies,” he says.

Bringing road safety through IoT

Through its product Raksha SafeDrive, eLsys aims to leverage the power of IoT (Internet of Things) devices, telecom revolution and cloud technologies to create an integrated road accident management and analysis platform. The device is capable of automatic crash detection, two-way call connectivity, GPS tracking, engine health monitoring, and smart panic button.

Genesis and foundation of the core team

The idea to leverage technology to avert and manage road accidents better came to Prasad Pillai in 2013, after narrowly averting an accident himself. “Most drivers on Indian roads experience a close shave every week. We thank our stars, curse the other commuter and move on. It is important that our accident preparedness and management is not so unorganised. Our passion is to apply technology in making roads safer and drivers responsible,” says Prasad.

Jayanth and Prasad

Jayanth, on the other hand, is an avid biker, and has even completed a 5,000-km solo motorcycle road trip from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. The duo met through a common friend and their passion for road safety got them to work as a team. “Travel and exploration is meant to be fun. Road trips are supposed to excite people and make them come alive. But most people do not dare to explore. Raksha SafeDrive answers most of the ‘what-if’questions,” he adds.

What does the product do?

Jayanth says Raksha SafeDrive is capable of automatically detecting an accident and proactively calling for emergency care assistance. The team claims that it has leveraged multiple technologies to devise an intelligent road accident management platform that can detect, alert, notify and perhaps even predict driver behaviour that may lead to an accident.

Raksha SafeDrive follows the subscription model for revenue. The revenue comes from the one-time device cost and a monthly/yearly fee for continuous accident monitoring and human assistance for emergencies, roadside assistance and parking location retrieval.

Challenges and future plans

Jayanth says that Raksha SafeDrive is a complex electronics product complemented by IoT, telecom and cloud technologies. Unlike a software product, the successive iterations in designing, building and testing a stable and sturdy product is both time and resource consuming. The team has invested two years of research and development to come up with the product.

“Currently, the company is sustaining its operations from the founders’capital investment. We are exploring the possibility of an angel funding to accelerate our go-to market plans,” says Jayanth.

The team would like to build an effective and technology-assisted accident management and analysis system in India. It has also initiated a ‘Road Safety Consortium’, a platform for organisations that care about making roads safer and minimising accidents in India. It is reaching out to car manufacturers, emergency care providers, roadside assistance providers, NHAI (National Highways Authority of India) and other government and NGO entities to join hands in making the roads safe.

“Raksha Safedrive can be purchased as a standalone unit by individual customers and/or as a customised set (in tens or hundreds) by fleet operators. We are open for preorders at www.raksha.me” adds Jayanth.

Ajit Babu, who has cerebral palsy, said no to his father’s advice about taking a job under the handicap quota, and instead founded three startups in Bengaluru.

This is his story.

A little history

Roughly 26 years ago, in the month of July, a baby boy was born. It was not yet time for him to come, but he was in a hurry to see the world. The preterm child, who weighed 1.4 kilograms at birth, was kept in the incubator for over two months.

Soon the doctors realized he had cerebral palsy, as he did not grow as much as the other children his age.

Today, Ajit is just about five feet tall, and walks with a slight limp, but he studied in one of the better schools in the city, with constant help from the Spastics Society of Karnataka. He grew up to love journalism, psychology and English Literature, which is why he opted for those subjects when he joined Kristu Jayanti College.

Unable to cope with lab work, which was part of psychology class, he dropped out of college in 2008. But none of this stopped him from doing the things he loved.

His two startups in the media space

“My love for journalism and media egged me into beginning my first startup. I could write, I could speak, and the whole of South India was doing in-film advertisements, so I thought I should try my hand at it,” said Ajit.

He, along with his best friend, Harish Narayan, started Dream Click Concepts in 2009. They also simultaneously founded another startup, Street Light Media, which made TV shows, music videos and advertisements for clients.

“We are very passionate about the two media companies we [Harish and Ajit] have built. We are both huge movie buffs and love shooting photos and videos,” he added.

After three years, Ajit decided to do something in the entrepreneurship space.

“In 2012, I started doing consulting on branding, and began teaching people how to run startups. I gave motivational speeches. I was even making some money. Then, the idea for LifeHack Innovation struck me,” he added.

Eureka! moment

When the Nepal earthquake happened early this year, Ajit realized how difficult it was going to be for the country to rebuild itself from scratch. He bought some solar lamps and decided to send them over to Nepal. Meanwhile…

“I was sitting outside in my favourite café, where all the smokers sat. There are no power points there for charging. Everybody borrows each other’s power banks to charge their phones. I looked down at the solar lamp in my hand, and it looked like a power bank. So I thought, why not make a solar-powered power bank?” says Ajit.

Birth of the startup

Over the next six months, he remained confident about the idea, but he needed the money to build the first prototype and run the company – seven lakhs’ worth.

“I thought money would be a problem, but no. All I had to do was post on Facebook and offers for help poured in. I just said that I was building a renewable energy company, and random Facebook friends asked for my number, talked to me, and gave me cash,” said Ajit, who crowdfunded the money from around 15 to 20 friends.

He quickly gathered a five-member team of techies and legal associates, and founded LifeHack Innovations in July this year.

What does LifeHack Innovation do?

He also realized that sustainable energy was going to boom, and that the biggest challenge was to bring these sustainable and renewable energy products into everyday life.

LifeHack’s first product is the solar and wind-powered portable power bank, which also can be charged with electricity. The product will be available for purchase by October 2015.

The startup, which is incubated at the VelTech Technology and Businesss Incubator, Chennai, will be working on over 45 products (and patents) over the next three years.

He took a third leap, is he a serial entrepreneur?

Yes, he is a serial entrepreneur, but with strong opinions on entrepreneurship.

“Starting up is overrated, and calling me a serial entrepreneur is too much. Startup founders try to incorporate all their knowledge into one startup, and sometimes it doesn’t work. So they think the next one can be better, and start another. This goes on till they figure out their true calling,” said Ajit

What about the future?

“I will study more. I will finish journalism. I will even do a Master’s, maybe from Columbia too! After all, this field is the only one where you can make money out of the freedom of expression!” said Ajit.

When asked about his fundas in life, he says in a serious note,

When you have a choice between do or die, it’s easy to choose die. But when you wake up in the morning and you only have the option to ‘do’!

Before the Mumbai-Pune express highway was constructed, I remember road trips involving passing through some towns and villages and, as a habit, we would stop at this dhaba called Joshi Wadewale. The morning breakfasts there would, without doubt, be scrumptious. Cut to the present day, and Joshi Wadewaleis hidden in the older highway in a smaller city, away from Pune. Now, the easiest way to get a bite of delicious poha or vada pav is by ordering in. At least that’s what most foodtech startups from their experience have come to believe.

After going bullish in metros like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, these startups are looking to capture the massive chunk of the market in the Tier II and Tier III cities. And this just isn’t the case of foodtech businesses; several reports suggest these cities today have an improved demand appetite. It is also predicted that by 2026, the market size of these cities will grow from USD 5.7 billion to USD 80 billion.

According to the IAMAI, mobile internet penetration in rural India is growing at close to 58 per cent YOY. Several reports also suggest these regions account for close to 40 per cent of the country’s middle-class income group with increasing spending powers.

The growing market

The food industry, in general, is eyeing this market. Domino’s records its second highest sales in India from Kanpur. Sri Harsha Majety, the Founder and CEO of food ordering and delivery startup Swiggy says, “These regions definitely are our next target. Some of the top purchases seem to be happening from Tier II and Tier III cities. The spending capacity in these regions is increasing”.

The food delivery market in India is worth USD 1.6 billion, growing at 30 per cent a year. But, less than two per cent of the orders are placed online. Over 430 million citizens out of India’s 1.2 billion population are between ages 10 and 29, a ripe market for e-commerce growth.

Ashish Taneja, Managing Director, Growx Ventures, says, “I definitely see a shift of the bigger foodtech guys moving into Tier II and Tier III cities in the next 12 to 18 months. Everyone wants to have a first-mover’s advantage in these untapped markets”.

Increased demand for gourmet cuisine

Faaso’s is operational already in 10 cities – Gurgaon, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Indore, Ahmedabad and Baroda – and plans to open shop in 15 more cities. All current cities are up to speed on local as well as central sourcing.

A recent survey conducted by Pune-based food delivery startup Tastykhana suggests that over 15 per cent of its online orders are placed from these regions. Tier II cities, according to the survey, brings in 57 per cent and Tier III a close 43 per cent. And what more, close to 60 per cent of these are from high-end restaurants.

Shashaank Shekhar Singhal, Co-founder and CEO of Bengaluru-based foodtech startup Dazo, says,

More than just delivery, I personally see more pure food and gourmet businesses growing in these regions. With the increased spending power parity, people from these cities are going to be demanding more gourmet food”.

Sumer Juneja, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners says that foodtech generally caters to a younger generation and crowd. He adds that today, the Tier II and Tier III markets are big spenders and have an untapped younger segment of the population.

Density of restaurants and food joints

“While there will be a demand for delivery, we might not have the range of options in a Tier II and Tier III city. So we may have to increase our range of deliveries,” says Harsha. This also means that the first-mover’s advantage will be much stronger with Tier II cities.

“The offline food industry will have a great advantage: their rent will be cheaper but selling prices remain the same. The towns are smaller; the delivery areas are therefore smaller as well,” says Sumer. He adds that a regular pizza joint in Tier II and Tier III cities may be a great place for casual meetings and celebrations. “Unlike in a city like Bengaluru, you will not have many fine dining restaurants in such places,” he adds.

Prateek Agarwal, Founder of Gurgaon-based foodtech-logistics startup Bite Club, says “While presently we are not looking at these regions, I believe there is huge opportunity in these markets and that’s not just in terms of foodtech but even regular offline business”. He adds that the food delivery business will also pick up faster in these regions.

While foodtech businesses are eyeing these untapped markets, will they be having a different approach? Ashish says it is important to do so even while targeting different metros. “Each market requires a different approach and efforts, as the consumers and their behaviour patterns are different,” he adds.

Funding in Tier II and Tier III cities

Will VCs invest in food businesses that already exist in these regions? There are a few smaller players like Sandwedges in the space but investments seem to be slow or non existent in these regions.

If you look at most investors and VC firms, they’re based out of larger cities, so they tend to support organisations there. Also, if you make it big in the bigger cities, the chances of successfully replicating it in smaller cities are much higher,” says Ashish.

Sumer, too, believes that investors will tend to invest in businesses from bigger cities. He says that there isn’t a business model that looks specifically at these regions. The brand needs to be pan India or at least look at targeting the top ten cities of the country.

There might be local favourite restaurants, but investors will look at businesses that are most likely to become billion dollar companies,” he adds.

They add that while it’s possible to replicate models that are initiated from Tier II and Tier III cities, it’s more likely for a startup that’s successful in a bigger city to be successful in the smaller ones.

Flipkart and Snapdeal, the two largest homegrown online retail firms, have become the face of not just Indian e-commerce but also of the country’s startup ecosystem. It is the impressive risk capital war chests the two competitors have built and the stunning valuations the two command that have kept everyone enthralled.

Bengaluru-based Flipkart has raised over $3.5 billion in 10 rounds of funding and is backed by investors like GIC, DST Global, Qatar Investment Authority, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, ICONIQ Capital, and T. Rowe Price Associates. When it raised funding of $700 million in July 2015, its valuation stood at over $15 billion (see graphs for sourcing). Just as a comparison, Indian Oil Corporation’s market cap is a little under $15 billion.

Gurgaon-based Snapdeal has raised almost exactly half of what Flipkart has raised. The latest funding of $500 million, announced on Tuesday, brings Snapdeal’s total capital raised to $1.7 billion. Backed by investors like Alibaba, Foxconn, Softbank and Premji Invest, Snapdeal has crossed $5 billion in valuation (see graph for sourcing). This is comparable to Yes Bank’s market capitalisation.

While these companies are admired, questions have also been raised on the logic behind these stupendous valuation numbers, the likes of which have not been seen in the Indian startup world until now. Both are loss-making entities and while the two competitors have made noises of a public listing, neither seems close to actually going public.

However, the valuation numbers begin to make sense when correlated with their gross merchandise value (GMV), which is the total value of goods sold through the sites.

YS Research worked with American Appraisals, a provider of valuation and related advisory services, to understand this link between GMV and valuation. We have also compared the two top global e-commerce players Amazon and Alibaba to give greater context.

How are e-commerce companies valued

Aviral Jain, Director at American Appraisals, says companies are, typically, valued on the basis of income (discounted cash flows) and the market (trading or transaction multiples) approach.

E-commerce companies usually have a longer gestation period and this results in investors focusing more on the topline in the immediate term

says Aviral. However, this changes as the companies mature and growth stabilises. Profitability then becomes the critical metric to reach the valuation.

Why GMV?

The Indian e-commerce industry maybe young but is growing rapidly. At the start of the current decade online retail was a billion-dollar-industry. A Goldman Sachs report released this year pegs the industry size at $7 billion at present, with an expectation of reaching $220 billion in FY 2030.

Companies are registering triple to four-digit growth in sales annually.  “Flipkart’s GMV has increased about 50 times in the last three years.  Hence, this becomes an important parameter in evaluating the company’s performance and the resulting next-round valuation,” says Aviral.

Flipkart’s valuation over the last three years has grown at a combined annual growth rate of 150%. In the same period, the eight-year-old company’s GMV has grown at 250%. Flipkart, according to reports, is targeting $8 billion in sales by end of 2015.

Source: Venture Intelligence, Crunch Base and Media; Note: Implied Valuation is based on issue of preferential shares and may not reflect the common equity value

Source: Media Articles

Snapdeal too has a similar trajectory in its valuation and GMV growth. Its valuation over the past four years has grown 145%, while GMV has grown 566%. The GMV growth of Snapdeal has been more dramatic, compared to its larger competitor, as it pivoted from a low-turnover group-buying model to the high sales e-commerce marketplace model in late-2011.  At its current rate of sales, the company will reach $3.5 billion in GMV this fiscal.  Since we do not have reliable information on the latest valuation of Snapdeal, we have not included the latest fund-raise details ($500 million raised in August) in the graphic below.

Source: Venture Intelligence, Crunch Base and Media; Note: Implied Valuation is based on issue of preferential shares and may not reflect the common equity value

Source: Media Articles

For online marketplaces, GMV is almost the only yardstick of performance right now, as these companies are not profitable. “Investors usually track the current level of Net GMV and the growth in Net GMVs to understand the sustainable commission income and the profit potential in future,” says Aviral. “This helps in determining an appropriate EV/GMV multiple…”

GMV Multiple

This is where the correlation between valuation and GMV becomes clear. When we look at the early years of fund raising, Flipkart’s and Snapdeal’s valuations might seem small. But when we compare their valuation with their GMV we see that it is now, at the higher absolute valuation, that the two numbers are trending close to each other. For instance, Flipkart’s implied valuation in 2011 was $164 million and GMV $11 million. So the valuation was almost 15 times GMV. Flipkart’s valuation in May was about $15 billion and GMV was $4.5 billion. That means the valuation is now only a little over three times the GMV. With GMV projected to grow to $8 billion this multiple is set to get lower.

Similarly, Snapdeal’s GMV multiple has come down from nearly 20 in 2012 to under two in FY2015.

Source: American Appraisal Analysis; Note: We have utilised Equity Value as a proxy for Enterprise Value (EV) because of limited financial information available in public domain

In the early days, the expectation of growth was high, hence the higher GMV multiple. If we look at the GMV chart and look at the triple-digit-percentage growth the two registered, it is clear why investors feel the valuations were justified. As the two become mature companies and growth has begun to stabilise that multiple has come down.

Amazon vs Alibaba

At this point in our analysis it is fitting to look at the two international benchmarks when it comes to e-commerce—Amazon and Alibaba. The enterprise value-and-GMV multiple of these two giants have been trending in the 0.5x to 1x range since FY 2011, says Aviral of American Appraisals. This is the range that Flipkart’s and Snapdeal’s GMV multiple is trending towards.

But why is Alibaba’s enterprise value-GMV multiple lower than that of Amazon, especially when Alibaba’s GMV is much higher than that of its American competitor? Alibaba’s GMV was almost $400 billion in FY 2015, as compared to Amazon’s GMV of $165 billion for calendar year 2014 (US companies follow calendar year and not financial year). Amazon’s GMV has been estimated by dividing fulfilment cost by the fulfilment cost as a percentage of estimated GMV. Aviral says:

Alibaba’s EV/GMV multiple (~0.5x) has been trading at a discount to Amazon’s multiple (~1x) due to lower profitability.  Alibaba’s EBITDA margins (on GMV) is about 1.5% whereas Amazon’s margins are much higher at about 2.5%.  This results in higher EV (enterprise value) for Amazon vis-à-vis Alibaba, resulting in higher EV/GMV multiple too.

Source: Company filings, analysts reports and media articles

Source: Company filings, analysts reports and media articles

The upward trend in Amazon’s profitability is due to operating margins increasing from 3% in 2014 to about 5% in 2015. The North America region contributes more than 50% of its total global revenues.  Another area where Amazon is seeing high growth and margin improvement is the Web services business. “Higher margins typically result in analysts pricing the stock at a premium sales multiple vis-à-vis industry,” says Aviral.

Source: Capital IQ; Note: EV/EBITDA multiples are based on FY for Alibaba

The analysis of enterprise value-to-Ebitda of the two majors shows that they are trending close to each other. This enterprise value-to-Ebitda comparison is important, says Aviral, “For listed companies, analysts typically track the trading profitability multiples of listed companies to understand a stock’s potential for any over- or under-performance vis-à-vis market.”

YourStory’s Take

Coming back to Flipkart and Snapdeal, it will be interesting to see how much more risk capital funding Flipkart and Snapdeal will raise when the GMV multiple is not as attractive. The analysis shows that the growth these two are seeing is stabilising and, as we see with Amazon and Alibaba, finally it all comes down to profits. With both companies getting closer to the stage when a public listing becomes inevitable, profitability and margins will become imperative. So will the two Indian e-commerce biggies finally talk profits?

It all began with a funding announcement by Practo that set the digital healthcare ecosystem in a buzz. But this wasn’t just another funding announcement: it was a USD 90-million Series C funding, led by Tencent, with participation from Sofina, Sequoia India, Google Capital, Altimeter Capital, Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, and Yuri Milner. These names in themselves are enough to stop you and get your attention. But Practo is looking at this investment as just another step to become great and ‘do great.’

In all its announcements, Practo talks about bigger product lines, market expansions and more acquisitions. After raising USD 30 million earlier this year, the company acquired digital fitness solutions startup Fitho in April and Genii in July. However, this isn’t the end of the line of acquisitions for this digital healthcare player. Shashank ND, the Co-founder and CEO says that by the end of FY’ 15 there will be half a dozen more acquisitions.

Acquisitions in line

“Currently, Practo has created a search platform for doctors, healthcare and diagnostic centres. We’re now looking to make Practo the Google for any information needed in the space of healthcare. Whether you need a doctor, surgeon, dentist, veterinarian or a diagnostic checkup, we will have it all at Practo,” says Shashank.

He adds that the company is also looking to move into fitness and wellness segments and preventive healthcare. Looking at the larger segment of healthcare and its subsets, Practo will be acquiring organisations that are aligned to their vision and goal.

Shashank says that ‘Practeons’ look at acquisitions in a different way. He explains that the idea isn’t to just acquire a company but about the team and product they’ve built. “It probably would be a product that we would have built ourselves, but when someone has already built it, we want to work and collaborate with their team. If we join forces we can build something greater. This feeds our idea of culture of ‘startups within startups’,” he adds.

What kind of acquisitions will Practo make?

Shashank says Practo is looking at products that are in sectors not part of its platform yet, while still maintaining the culture of startups.

“When you become a large company it’s important that you don’t lose the speed and agility that you’ve had as a smaller company. Internally, we are designed in such a way that these startups can work in their independent and different styles,” adds Shashank. He says that they are looking at two key things when acquiring organisations:

1. The alignment of the vision. This, according to Shashank, is a very powerful tool to change the game. He says that Practo is working towards changing the way the healthcare industry works.
2. Products that are part of the healthcare ecosystem and can be of strategic importance to Practo. Citing a hypothetical example, Shashank says that the information systems that pharmacies use could be powered by software. If these information systems are connected to the Practo platform, then the innovation in the pharmacy space can be taken to a new level.

The time is ripe for acquisitions at the global level too, especially in the healthcare segment. GE Healthcare has made several technological acquisitions in the past year and is expected to make several others.

Shashank says the company follows an inbound approach when it comes to acquisition strategies.

We believe that as long as you’re doing great work people will notice you. We’ve never written to a VC or a media house on our own, we’ve just done our work and that has been appreciated and noticed. We’ve let everyone know of our intent in aligning with people and organisations of the same vision, so we allow them to reach out and if they have the intent then it’s a great symbiotic relationship,” adds Shashank.

Market expansions

While speaking of newer market expansions, Shashank says that Practo will be looking at markets with similar healthcare needs like the Indian markets. Elaborating, he says that the technology penetration in healthcare is not just emerging in markets like Southeast Asia, but even in the Middle East and Eastern European markets.

This is rather interesting to note as 2012 reports suggest the total spending in the segment accounted for only 3.9 per cent of the Southeast Asian GDP. Shashank also adds that the region needs a stronger penetration for healthcare technologies. The other markets include Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America, as they are similar to India with regards to out-of-pocket spends, private spends, healthcare, internet connectivity, and mobile penetration.

Building a single Indian global brand

Of the company’s business strategy, Shashank notes: “We are building a global product with a global platform for the world’s leading platforms. The team intends to build the product and scale out of India, while merging the culture of the new market by creating local teams there.

The company has sent a few people from India to seed the new geography and begin setting up the team and the offices in the new markets. “We ensure that people who are recruiting there have recruited people in India, before” adds Shashank. He says that while looking at building the local teams, the Practeons ensure that the people selected are aligned to the vision of the organisation. “The operations and sales happen locally but they will be following a standardised protocol,” he says.

“We have clear and straightforward brand positioning: the health app for all health needs. And we will follow this in all geographies. India has built a few global products and we are looking to build a great global product from India. So it will be one brand and product scaling across geographies,” he says.

Practo is open for acquisitions and acqui-hires in newer geographies, if it opens the markets for the brand, and aligns to the companies’ overall vision. But the team is more focused on the Indian market for acquisitions.

Several reports suggest new technologies in telemedicine, Big Data in healthcare, mhealth, healthcare delivery and wearables are catching up in these regions. The markets are open not only for new players but even the consolidation of the existing ones. There seems to be a fair amount of funding and traction in the healthcare and technology space in this region.

Tier II and Tier III expansions

While Practo is focused on expanding horizons in the global markets, the team is also focused on its expansions in Tier II and Tier III cities in the country. Shashank says the data from these regions look very promising, contributing 30 per cent of the traffic. The mobile app traffic is two times the web traffic in these regions. Additionally, the engagement numbers from these regions are three times the engagement numbers on the Practo website.

Shashank says that while India is home to great healthcare and pool of doctors, there is no even distribution: the quantum of quality healthcare in Tier I cities is more than that in Tier II and III cities. Practo helps bridge this demand-supply gap in these regions.

Shashank ND, Co-Founder and CEO, Practo

In many instances, patients with complicated illnesses from Tier II cities travel to Tier I cities. Having an app in place will ensure that they can place an appointment with a doctor at a Tier I city. We’ve also developed a product for our Tier II expansion which enables users to pose questions to doctors, who can reply as well. So a doctor from Bengaluru can answer the question of a patient from Vidarbha,” Shashank explains.

With metro markets reaching saturation levels, most organisations are now looking to break the Tier II and Tier III markets. According to the IAMAI, mobile internet penetration in rural India is growing at close to 58 per cent YOY. Several reports also suggest these regions account for close to 40 per cent of the country’s middle-class income group with increasing spending powers.

Newer segments of healthcare

Practo is now focused on providing complete consumer experience in the healthcare segment. “So far, we were focused on finding a doctor and fixing an appointment. We are trying to complete that experience with the consumer,” adds Shashank.

The team is looking to further enable the technology layer that helps all players in the ecosystem. Additionally, there is strong focus on preventive cure. “We are working on several products in the preventive space, which will aid users stay fit and think of health holistically – covering mind, body and beauty,” he says.

There seems to be a global shift towards focusing on preventive cure and wellness segment. International health tech players are already penetrating the wearables, bio devices, and fitness segment. Even technology giant Apple has begun to take notice of the growth in the segment. In India, the preventive cure and wellness segment is growing at close to 30 per cent YOY and is currently estimated to be USD 490 billion.

Big data and its uses

With the penetration of the Practo platform and a stronger B2C model, there arises the question of Big Data. According to Shashank, data plays a significant role in ensuring great customer experience. “We use the patterns of customer usage to enable him make better decisions,” he says, adding that there is a huge opportunity in using the pattern recognition data in creating better products.

It’s believed that the healthcare systems as we see them today will soon become archaic. With the quantum and quality of data that is generated on a regular basis, the healthcare industry has the opportunity to create better data analysis systems and determine patterns.

Late last year, it was reported that Intel will be working with Michael J Fox Foundation to conduct research for Parkinson’s disease. This initiative is aimed at using the data mined from wearable devices and detect disease progression patterns. Almost every equipment in a healthcare setup can be looked at as a data-mining machine and as means of improving disease detection.

The healthcare ecosystem is changing fast, and Practo claims to be on top of the game. We now just have to wait and see how it will continue to impact the healthcare ecosystem.

Website 

While the Indian and Pakistani governments were bickering last week about who sets the agenda for NSA talks between the two nations, it so happened that we were having a heart-to-heart chat with some of the stakeholders in the Pakistani startup ecosystem to get an inkling of what is driving the young entrepreneurs there.

Aspiring entrepreneurs at LUMS.

What started off as a curious urge to find a startup with Pakistani and Indian co-founders to feature on Independence Day, soon turned into a treasure hunt of sorts with the discovery of one startup after another poised for takeoff.

We found seasoned entrepreneurs who are putting their money where their mouth is by seed funding young startups because no one else will do it. We found a school dropout who is an auto and travel enthusiast and is now instrumental in building the startup community from ground up. We found MBAs from top schools in Pakistan preferring to remain in the country and make a difference, to Cornell graduates who have come back to their country to startup. We found four prodigious talents who have taken the ‘dhaba style’ business and modernised it into a money-spinner. We also met some mentors and leaders, convinced that this is just the beginning of a new Pakistan story.

Says Sahr Said, Founder of BeautyHooked, “I believe Pakistan’s e-commerce sphere is going to create a huge opportunity for tech disruption. There is growth in our Internet penetration, online payment initiatives are mushrooming, and there is growing trust in the online storefronts. It is estimated that by 2017, the size of our e-commerce market will reach over $600 million from its current size of $30 million spent on online purchases annually. So now is the right time to build tech products that solve problems because opportunities are endless if ideas are executed right.”

Sahr Said (in olive green) with her team

Looking beyond the threat lens

“We are at a tipping point,” says Khurram Zafar, entrepreneurship evangelist, and Executive Director of the LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship at the prestigious LUMS University, over a late night Skype call from Lahore. He says, “I see it happen sooner than later. We have 120 to 130 million people on mobile, 3G growth is remarkable, and the smartphone population is expanding. The girl, who works in our house, had downloaded Viber on her phone so she could talk to her brother in the village. Today, a lot of vendors are selling smartphones on installments, making it easy for people to own one.”

He points me to his recent blog on why investing in the local economy makes sense. Khurram writes, “This is a great time to enter Pakistan. Equity in technology companies is relatively cheap, assets are portable (predominantly intellectual property) in case one gives too much weight to country risk, operations are already on cloud platforms outside of Pakistan for many, and exit opportunities exist globally. The fundamentals of the on-ground businesses are already very strong. The Karachi Stock Market index has been growing north of 40% for the past few years (30%+ in $ terms) and broke the highest ever 32,000 KSE 100 index points barrier a few days ago. Most of that is driven by foreign investment into rock solid businesses by investors who can see past the FOX news propaganda and realize that the nation, that is often deemed to be on the brink of extinction since its founding in 1947, is as resilient as it is resourceful!”

Khurram Zafar

According to Muhammad Raza Saeed, a seasoned entrepreneur, and Co-founder of PakWheels, which raised the highest funding in its day of $3.5 million, “For the ecosystem to develop you, of course, need to have entrepreneurs with ideas, you need to have capital, and you need to see exits to complete the circle so that when people see more exits more people come in with money and ideas and the ecosystem gets stronger. Interestingly, when we raised this funding, it was the largest disclosed funding round in any Pakistani startup! Yes, $3.5 million was the largest round! And now compare that to India where $100 million was poured in auto portals in a span of a few months!”

Likening the Pakistani startup ecosystem scenario to the one in India in 2010/2011, Raza feels Pakistan is on the same trajectory. Says Raza,

In India, most of the global VCs have set up shop. Softbank and Tiger Global are investing heavily there. But in Pakistan, there is no single VC firm. The scenario can change overnight if the Sequoias, Accels and other venture funds were to open offices here as well.

Raza says that if he were to recall how many Internet startups have raised more than 10 million dollars, his answer will be zero. “If you ask how many have raised more than a million dollars, the answer will be in the range of 10 to 20 startups, the number is still small.”

A techie with a CS degree, Raza, who runs a 300+ people services company, Confiz, in parallel to PakWheels.com, has been helping young entrepreneurs with seed funding. “I had a few exit offers, so one of the options was to take up an early exit and set up a couple of million dollar fund. But I think I am young enough to run for myself a bit now and am not in the mood for retirement, but yes at some point of time if I get some liquidity I would do this because there is so much excitement and opportunity here. In India, it is getting so competitive. There are many startups in the same space be it real estate, auto, e-commerce, food, travel, and other niche players. Compared to that, Pakistan has a green field.”

Raza, who loves visiting India for Nasscom and other networking events, is in constant touch with some entrepreneurs here. Says Raza,

Given the raging tempers on both sides, one thing that an entrepreneur craves is an ecosystem. You feed off other people’s energy. In India, there is a lot of inspiration around which you need when you hit a wall. I have been in touch with many in India, especially Mohit, CEO of Carwale, who really helped us close the funding round. I have met Quickr CEO as well and I find it extremely helpful to seek help from India.

Ripe for investment

In May, Standard and Poor upgraded Pakistan’s credit rating from stable to positive. Moody’s Investors Service upgraded Pakistan’s sovereign credit ratings for the first time since 2008, citing improving foreign-exchange reserves and the government’s economic overhaul under an IMF program.

In an article in ‘Forbes’ in August this year, title: ‘Pakistan: The next Colombia success story’, writer Daniel Runde says, “Pakistan is the world’s 26th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. Its national economic growth plan, Vision2025, aims much higher. With 90 percent of the country employed through SMEs, Pakistan has one of the most entrepreneurial economies in the world. Complete foreign equity is permitted in the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors, helping drive FDI to $1.45 billion in 2013, a 76 percent increase over the previous year but still far too small for such a big country.”

Being the sixth most populous country (200 million population) , Pakistan’s startups’ obvious focus in on consumer based products and services, education, healthcare, job portals, and real estate as opposed to enterprise solutions.

There are startups like interaCta, a startup incubated at the LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship, Lahore, which has developed tech to make all TV and radio broadcast interactive without the need of additional hardware, just requiring smartphones. Eyedeus Labs, another team of LUMS students, recently raised money from Kima Ventures. They are looking to disrupt online video advertisement market by introducing non-intrusive advertisement methods in the videos that do not distract the viewer. Then there is Savaree, BizClout, JewelryDesignPro, P for Plan, King Kashmiri Tea, BeautyHooked.com, RepairDesk and many more. All of these are great investment opportunities seeking capital.

Some growth indicators, according to Khurram

• Fast Internet adoption at present estimated to be 25 million Internet users and 15 million mobile Internet users.
• Cheap smartphone devices costing under $50.
• Growth of 3G and 4G.
• Massive amounts of marketing and media spend by companies like Rocket Internet, Schibsted, and Naspers that’s targeted to make Pakistani consumers comfortable transacting online.
• Slow but steady investments flowing into startups at seed (e.g. Kima Ventures investment into Eyedeus Labs) and early stage (Frontier Digital Venture’s US 3.5 million investment into PakWheels) from local and foreign angels as well as early-stage funds.
• Some exits happening in the tech space are gradually building investor confidence. Although service companies, TRG, NETSOL and most recently Systems Limited have had local IPOs. Product companies like Mixit and Gameview Studios have provided exits to their investors and founders through global acquisitions. GenITeam and Tapinator provided exits to investors through OTC trades.
• Development of incubators like The Foundation at LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship, Nest/IO, and Plan9 that are supporting passionate entrepreneurs during their formative years.

Lahore leading from the front

The conversation with Raza digresses to topics related to food, TV serials and films (how can one avoid these while chatting with a Pakistani!). Coming back to the topic, Raza points out that the IT professionals who came back to Pakistan from the US around 2007-2008 and laid the foundation for the new tech startups, mostly returned to Lahore. Hence, Lahore has a better ecosystem in place today with the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) the focal point of most tech disruption. Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, is more of a trading hub with traditional businesses and banks.

The LUMS Centre of Entrepreneurship that Khurram runs, was established in March 2014 and offers four-and-a-half month programme. In the past two cohorts, 14 companies have graduated. Points out Khurram, “Once you get in you have to earn your right to graduate. It is quite competitive.” Of the 14 startups, 13 are still running and have generated close to 500 direct or indirect jobs, together they have annualised revenue (based on last month’s numbers) of $400,000, have raised $600,000, and have a combined valuation $5 million dollars. “It is small, and nowhere close to what is happening in India, but a healthy start,” says Khurram.

“Most people are coming back for family reasons — either their parents have become old or their daughters are getting older. One of my friends, who runs an e-commerce platform Shopistan, is the man to watch out for. He was with eBay and could well be building Pakistan’s Snapdeal, who knows. He has raised a few hundred dollars in funding and will be raising his next round soon,” says Raza.

Ali Aziz, who runs Shopistan, is oblivious of such a burden bestowed upon him, but is certainly the man VCs should be watching. A graduate of Lahore University in Computer Science, he has worked around the globe from Belgium to Arizona when he was in Amazon and got insight into the e-commerce business, to the UK with eBay where he received the global innovation award.

Shopistan team with Ali Aziz in white in the centre

He came back to Pakistan in Oct-Nov 2012, against the wishes of his British wife, to set up an e-commerce business. “It was a difficult decision. I would talk to large retailers and set up e-commerce sites for them. Simultaneously, we were pitching to VCs also, and we got France-based angel investors Kima Ventures to fund us. Because of the foreign funding, we were able to convince the largest retailers to also put in money on the same terms as Kima.”

Challenging time

According to Ali, there are rumours that Alibaba and Naspers will invest in the e-commerce space in Pakistan. He says,

If politics between India and Pakistan were better, the best capital sourcing could have been from Indian VCs.

The other challenge facing the tech entrepreneurs is finding experienced people to help build the business as the Internet industry is nascent and there are very few people who have gone through the full cycle like in the US or other well-established markets. Says Raza, “Most of the Internet companies in Pakistan are in the early stages. There are no InfoEdges (Naukri) or JustDials or Flipkarts or Housing companies in Pakistan that have really “made” it.”

Ali feels hiring is very difficult. People do not understand the startup culture; they are only looking at higher salary. Ownership is generally missing and so is the entrepreneurial mindset. “We are now looking for follow-on funding and have noticed that people are happy to put money only if someone else is putting in. On the other hand, international VCs ask who our local investors are. It is a chicken and egg problem.”

Development Team at RepairDesk with Usman in stripe t-shirt

According to Usman Butt, Founder of RepairDesk, the major challenge he faces right now is people’ resistance to change. They want to stick to their old ways and resist coming out of their comfort zone to try something new and extraordinary. “Many of the clients that are introduced to my services just resist the change it brings despite realizing the change will be for their betterment.”

Jehan Ara, President of Karachi-based P@sha (Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITES) India’s equivalent of Nasscom, and its incubation centre NestIO, tells me, “I am very excited about the startup scenario in Pakistan. Recently, we had 15 startups graduating from our first batch. Out of these, two to three startups are in their final stages of funding negotiations all of them within Pakistan from people who are themselves IT entrepreneurs. The risk capital has to come from them. With investment must come expertise, mentoring and opening up opportunities for them.”

Though several banks have started payment gateways, in the absence of biggies like PayPal, young people are looking at Bitcoins to handle payments.

Kids are not going to wait till the system sorts itself out,

says Jehan Ara.

Jehan Ara with a guest at Nest/IO

She says the aspiring young tech entrepreneurs today want to make money but also want to do some social good, adding that many of them meet their counterparts in India online and collaborate.

So even as political tempers flare across the border scuttling any dialogue between the two countries, it is the power of the Internet that is helping create conversations that will hopefully stick.

‘Why am I not successful? Why is it not happening for me? Why is my life all messed up?’ Do these questions haunt you every day? Are these the questions that keep you awake at night?

I have been in this situation,and it’s not at all pleasant. You begin regretting,and shaming yourself for not being able to do what you love, for being stuck in the same job and not being able to leave it for a thousand-odd reasons, even though you have the potential to make things happen, and above all, be happy for yourself.

There are several reasons for your current situation in life. Here are a few of the important ones:

1. “Sabse Bada Rog, Kya Kahenge Log?”

Each one of us has suffered from this for the most part of our lives.And many of us are still suffering. We care more about what people will sayabout our actions and our decisions than we do about our own selves.  We work at the same job, holding onto the same place, restricting ourselves to mundaneness, just because someone or the other close to us doesn’t think that it’s the right thing to do, or that it’s not the right time to do it.

Don’t let other people make decisions for you. People have always got something to say about everything. Stop listening to people and do what you are truly passionate about. Do what you love.

“Intuition is the best life guide you can ever have. Don’t let opinions blur your path.” 

2. Fear of failure

We fear failing. There are two possible reasons for this; either we are too accustomed to winning over small things/goals, or we don’t have the courage to risk all that we have achieved till now for something with an uncertain future. People fear failure primarilywhen they have low self-confidence, and a lack of faith in their own efforts, skills and the opportunity.

Every entrepreneur, at one or another point in his startup journey, has to take a leap of faith. You can’t always take calculated risks.  Sometimes you have to jump off the cliff and build the plane on your way down.

You can overcome fear of failure through the following ways:

1. Thoroughly studying the opportunity
2. Believing in your intuition
3. Having strong faith in your efforts, skills and resources

“Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is the execution of actions in fear”

3. Self-doubt

Self-doubt is a battle that goes on withineach of us. It’s the little voice inside our headsthat tells us we can’t do something. It affects us at both personal and professional levels. It keeps us from trying new things, thereby sabotaging our success and growth.  Self-doubt stops us from grabbing new opportunities and exploring new options.

In a moment of self-doubt, the best thing to do is to recall all your victories in the past. This will boost your confidence. Do a positive self-talk daily. Practice self-compassion.

4. Habits

Yes, habits! Our success is, to a great extent, determined by our habits. You can’t expect to put food on the table by doing nothing. Similarly, you have to work on your habits to be someone you desire to be.

Discover the habits of successful people, and think about why they may be responsible for success. Understand these habits, and the people’s personality traits.  Once you know what made these people what they are, you should decide which of your habits need to change. You must also figure out what new habits you are going to develop.

Take feedback from people who know you well, and you will figure out what you need to change.  Make sure you take feedback from people who are successful in life. Create habit trackers to regulate new habits and remove unwanted ones.

5. Lack of Motivation

Every great deed in the world is fueled by unwavering motivation. Motivation is what keeps you going during tough times. It is what gets you back on your feet after you fall flat on your face. It’s the fuel you need to make a successful entrepreneurial journey. Many of us, sadly, don’t have any motivation in life. Such people accept life as it comes, and do little to achieve anything. They are laid back folks, who do just enough to fill their bellies.

As an entrepreneur, you must know your “why”. You must know why you are doing something.  Your ‘why’ will motivate you to take risks and bold steps. It will help you to make decisions in tough situations.

6. Excuses

Many of us have the habit of giving excuses and blaming others for our situation. Every time we fail, or something goes wrong, we blame something or someone else for it.  Excuses are the temporary shadethatweak people seek in tough times. What excuses give you is an easy escape from reality. They make you cheat yourself.  And that’s why you will never grow and succeed in life.

Be honest to yourself and face the situation with courage. This attitude will help you learn many things about yourself and the world. Stop giving excuses!

7. Your past

Many of us live too much in the past. We hold on to our sorrows and losses. This blinds us to the opportunities that the current moment presents. the past is a learning experience, and should be used to gather wisdom.  Unfortunately, many of us hold on to it, continuously, obsessively pondering what wecould have done to change it for the better.

Respect what you have gone through, and learn, and prepare for the opportunities that future holds. Dream big, dare boldly and act consistently.

I would like to hear your opinions and thoughts on this topic. Gratitude! Let’s share and grow together.

(image credit: ShutterStock)

Storytelling is a powerful communications tool, and it is becoming more and more recognised in the business community. These stories go beyond speech openers or ice breakers, and are a good technique in addition to the usual rational, objective and linear corporate presentations. 

Stories about end-users are already integrated into disciplines like design thinking. Entrepreneurs and leaders can effectively use stories for internal, organisational and external change, via online and offline channels.

“Technology dumps so much information on us. We now need a new conscious process to translate that information back into the human brain’s inborn format for understanding the world: into story,” begins management consultant Annette Simmons in her new book.

The 2015 edition of her bestseller, ‘Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: how to use your own stories to communicate with power and impact,’ offers useful tips in storythinking, classifies stories into six types, and describes the art of cultivating good stories. Her three other books include ‘The Story Factor,’ ‘A Safe Place for Dangerous Truth’ and ‘Territorial Games: Understanding and Ending Turf Wars at Work.’

See also my book review of ‘First-Time Leader: foundational tools for inspiring and enabling your new team’ and my author interview with George Bradt and Gillian Davis. Tips on story graphs and story pyramids are also offered by Austin Kleon, and Daniel Pink provides storytelling advice for sales pitches.

“Learning how to tell personal stories teaches you how to deliver the sense of humanity in the messages you send,” says Simmons. The “source code” of human emotion is experiences, via memory and images. 

Storytelling which draws on these experiences can convey new points of view and even change people’s behaviour. Simmons defines a story as “a re-imagined experience narrated with enough detail and feeling to cause your listeners’ imagination to experience it as real.” A story is a co-creation in the minds of narrators and listeners.

There are six kinds of stories that lead to influence, imagination and innovation: Who-I-Am, Why-I-Am-Here, Educational, Vision, Value-in-Action and I-Know-What-You-Are-Thinking stories. 

1. Who-I-Am stories reveal personal details about yourself – perhaps your childhood, your first workplace experience, or family. The intimacy of these stories draws listeners closer to the narrator and strengthens bonds and authority.

2. Why-I-Am-Here stories talk about your motivation and objectives, sometimes beyond professional – even personal – reasons. They should convey to the listeners what’s in it for them, and how it may be possible to work together.

3. Educational or Teaching stories share lessons learned from experience, usually about conveying a moral, principle or better way of doing things. They go beyond formal textbooks or guidebooks.

4. Vision stories engage listeners with the bigger and broader picture, and inspire them to overcome obstacles and achieve a grand goal, or make a noble dream come true. But such stories should not mis-lead or over-promise.

5. Value-In-Action stories use anecdotes to stress the importance of values over temptations, but should not come across as hypothetical. Metaphors play a useful role here. Integrity and humility are more useful in these stories than bragging. Stories can get interesting when they talk about how core values can come in conflict and the narrator almost did not do the ‘right thing,’ adding twists and turns to the plot.

6. I-Know-What-You-Are-Thinking stories help set and match expectations, build trust and dispel potential objections. They validate assumptions and frame contexts in relevant manners.

It is important to mindfully tell stories to bring about change and impact, which blend formal and informal, and with a mix of broad strokes and small details. It is possible to develop recording methods, practise techniques and natural habits that make new stories easy to spot and tap. 

“Storytelling is as much a function of story finding as of storytelling,” Simmons advises. At a macro level, a culture itself is a collection of stories. A good storyteller can connect to these macro-stories as well as to daily news, events, trends, books, movies and the like. Personal details to pull in include times of success and missteps, and gratitude towards influential mentors in personal growth. Tone, gestures and timing are other creative elements to weave in.

Where possible, the story should connect to all five senses of perception, and evoke strong and memorable emotions. Storytelling is a good way of aligning expectations and energies in an organisation, and activities, like sharing of employee and customer stories about the good, bad and ugly of life and personal experiences, can help here.

Good feedback also helps, but not in a way which prunes the story too early. Photos, sketches, plant/animal metaphors, and videos can augment a story, along with digital tools and formats. “Great storytellers are compulsive story listeners,” Simmons adds. “Listen for stories. They are all around you. Finding stories is its own reward,” she says.

Good storytellers sharpen their “perceptual agility”, to visualise and understand different possible story impacts. In pairs and in larger groups, storytelling and interpretation can be explored and enhanced. 

Examples of good stories include Kennedy’s Vision story about aiming to reach the moon, Charles Dickens’ Teaching stories in ‘A Christmas Carol,’ and Royal Dutch Shell’s Vision stories through scenario planning in the oil industry. History and technology’s great storytellers include Martin Luther King Jr. and Steve Jobs. SAP now has a ‘chief storyteller,’ and Microsoft has a senior director of storytelling.

There is even a Centre for Digital Storytelling in California. A number of experts offer workshops on story techniques for co-discovering wisdom and co-creating collaborative experiences, and a wealth of online resources and podcasts have mushroomed in addition to TED talks.

Simmons’ 234-page book is packed with actual anecdotes from her own experience in storytelling coaching and consulting. Effective stories do not need to be long-winded, they can even last for as little time as ten seconds. The key is developing and refining the art of picking the right story for the right moment, and accepting the fact that different contexts can change the impact of the story.

But storytelling is not just for founders or leaders – it’s for everyone. “People don’t realise how their life experiences can become incredibly compelling stories,” Simmons observes. Facts may help people think, but emotion controls behaviour – and that is the power of a good story, she concludes. 

Post surgery is an extremely critical part of the recovery journey and this especially applies to patients suffering from ailments in neurology, orthopaedic, cardiology and oncology. Most times, homes are not properly equipped to take care of a patient recovering from a major surgery. This is where Suvitas comes into the picture.

Suvitas provides a home like environment for transition care and is equipped to help a patient get back on their feet with adequate help.

Talking about the centre,Flt Lt Bipin Pendala the Founder & Director of  SuVitas says,

It takes anywhere around two months to six months for patients to recover from a major surgery,  thats where transition care can be of excellent care because in a very hygienic environment, very home like environment the person can come here convalesce and understand what happened and what lifestyle changes they need to make when they go back home, recover reasonably well and then get home when they are ready to go home.

Some of the in house services that Suvitas provides are skilled nursing care, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, counselling and in house medical services. Their first centre is based out of Hyderabad and has state of the art facilities. Apart from just the medical care and recovery exercise regime, the facility also has recreational rooms for the patients.

Some of the main aspects SuVitas focuses on are effective post-operative care, prevention of future complications, personalised diet plans, suggested lifestyle changes, psychological assessment counselling, personalized physiotherapy, exercise, activity plans and interaction with other patients.

The company is still boot strapped and the goal of the venture is to build about 1000 bed capacity in the next two and half years. They are also looking at managed bed capacities with other hospitals, which essentially would mean SuVitas will manage a transition care unit within the premises of a hospital. Theyalso aims to start highly focused physiotherapy clinics.

SuVitas currently operates only from Hyderabad but is looking to spread its wings to Bangalore and Mumbai soon.

Cameraman: Rukmangada Raja / Editor: Anjali Achal

Zomato has had a busy last year. The company’s CEO, Deepinder Goyal, admitted on a blog post last month that the rush even postponed their annual pause to look back at things. “Between July and December, we welcomed MenuMania, Lunchtime, Obedovat, Gastronauci, and Cibando into the Zomato family. In January this year, we acquired Urbanspoon to make our entry into the US and Australia markets,” wrote the CEO. The company’s traffic grew three times after the UrbanSpoon acquisition; the number of restaurants listed grew seven times, and the number of cities it covers crossed the 10,000^th mark. Zomato is now in 23 countries. Although a little late, Zomato unbundled its mobile app and started food delivery in India with the launch of Zomato Order.

International operations

Zomato has two main approaches: one is building its presence from scratch, which it has done in a few countries and the other is going the acquisition route. It has acquired MenuMania in New Zealand, Lunchtime in Czech Republich, Obedovat in Slovakia, Gastronauci in Poland, Cibando in Italy and UrbanSpoon, mainly for the US and Australia. As a new brand in a country, the growth is pretty much organic but when growing via acquisitions, more complexities are involved. For instance, how big is customer loyalty a factor? There have been mixed reactions after Zomato killed the Urbanspoon brand in the US and Australia, but it is still too early to conclude anything.

In markets where there wasn’t any dominant player, Zomato seems to be doing well. A recent blog post by Denis Bravenec pointed towards some of the things Zomato seems to be doing right:

• Penetrating quickly: Zomato has entered 23 cities within Czech Replublic whereas global competitor Yelp is only present in Prague (here’s what you need to know about Yelp)
• Adapting content to local markets: Zomato has always been able to catch attention with its content, be it text or graphics. It seems to have done a good job with localising content.

Zomato has not provided any data about its traffic or growth in international markets.

Let’s talk food delivery

Zomato has always spoken about owning the entire communication channel between restaurants and customers: right from search and discovery to ordering and now also delivery. In India, it has acquired MapleGraph, a point-of-sale product for restaurants (here’s how the startup got acquired) and in the US, it has acquired NexTable, a restaurant reservation and table management company.

When it comes to online food ordering, Zomato has been late in the game. It decided to enter the space only in February and then launched Zomato Order, a separate app in May 2015. Mumbai-based TinyOwl has raised over USD 20 million, Bangalore-based Swiggy is also heavily funded and there are many other players in the game. Even globally, the market is filled with activity in this space. US has been the trendsetter, with companies like Sprig and Munchery, while Germany has been Europe’s big battleground for food delivery.

In an interview with Mint, Deepinder Goyal had said, “We do not have the team or bandwidth to do last-mile delivery on our own; it’s a completely different business.” Instead, Zomato plans to buy small 5-10 per cent stakes in food delivery startups. “If we make these investments, they will be just like the seven acquisitions we made one after the other in a very short span,” he said. A week later, Deepinder told Times of India, “We are working on it and we may do it via an acquisition or partnership. Also, we might end up doing it on our own.” The answer is still not clear but Zomato is certainly thinking along these lines.

Having raised USD 113 million so far, futher investment should also be pretty easy to raise. Deepinder has always maintained that Zomato will raise small amounts as and when needed. InfoEdge has a majority holding in the company, but in an interview with Medianama, founder Sanjeev Bikchandani said that InfoEdge may consider bringing its stake below 50 per cent. For financial year 2015, Zomato had reported an EBIDTA loss of INR 136 crore. This figure was at INR 41.39 crore for FY2014. In 2014, Zomato had an operating revenue of Rs 30.6 crore which rose to INR 96.7 crore in FY2015.

A 22-year-old IIT Delhi student has been named as the most Promising Young Entrepreneur at a business competition in Singapore. Chiraag Kapil, led a team of five from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in the 8th Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition and won the award prize of USD 5,000 last night. “I feel brilliant. It is one of the most exciting things that happened in my life. (I am) very privileged to be called Most Promising Young Entrepreneur”, Chiraag told PTI after receiving the award.

Chiraag’s team Leaf from IIT Delhi also won the second prize of USD 12,000 for its revolutionary smart pendant called SAFER, which together with an app, serve to enhance the safety of women. When a woman feels threatened, she just needs to press SAFER twice. An alert and her location will be sent to the people she had pre-designated as Guardians, as well as nearby SAFER users who will be able to track her location real-time by navigating on maps.

The SAFER app is installed on mobile/cell phones for transmitting messages. SAFER is developed by five co-founders of Leaf Innovation Pte Ltd, a start-up from IIT Delhi which is seeking USD 500,000 funding to expand its jewelry-embedded app product globally. About 50,000 SAFER-embedded pendants are worn by women in India and Turkey, with another 10,000 pre-orders from India and Europe, said Leaf team leader Paras Batra who along with Chiraag received the awards last night.

“We will be expanding to South East Asia and the United States in one year”, said the 22-year old Batra, who along with Manik Mehta, Ayush Banka, Avinash Bansal and Chiraag have started on the path of entrepreneurship. Team BLITAB from Austria’s University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien took the first prize of USD 36,000 after beating five other finalists in the entrepreneurship awards. The team has developed the world’s first tactile tablet for the blind and the visually impaired.

BLITAB is a next generation, affordable and multi- functional device for braille reading and writing that displays an entire page of braille text without any mechanical elements. Pictures and graphics like maps and building plans can be presented on the device with tactile relief, opening a completely new world of content to the visually challenged. Team Life Collar from the Institute of Business Administration at Bangladesh’s University of Dhaka won third prize of USD 3,000 for their cervical collar for accident and work-related injury victims.

Using bamboo as the main structural base, along with cane and wicker strips, the collar is less costly than neck braces which are not easily available in Bangladesh. The other finalists were Team caneTin from Bangladesh’s University of Dhaka, Team Hajj Guider from Pakistan’s Comsats Institute of Information Technology, and Team NutriMilk from Bangladesh’s University of Dhaka. The teams were awarded consolation prizes of USD 500 each. This year’s competition received 185 submissions from 445 students studying in 140 universities across 44 countries. Named after Singapore’s founder Prime Minister, the late Lee Kuan Yew, the biennial award was incepted in 2001.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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