Cactus Chords

Ive not done my MBA though would love to do it someday. In marketing there are the four basic P’s. Guys who already know this, please excuse me if I am stating the most basic concept you are aware of. But to me, marketing and selling lies between the first P and the last P and ends right there. I do not want to know anything else.

If you have the four P’s namely Product, Price, Place and Promotion figured out, then its fun. But if you do not have it figured out, it is even more exciting because you get to work on it. It is like surfing through a wave tunnel. Though you have a vague idea when the wave is going to come crashing down, you still are doubtful about reaching the other side. But one thing you are sure about is, even if it comes crashing down, eventually you have to surface and try and try till you sail through the tunnel to the other side. What are the things that constitute the 4 P’s and what all did we have. I sat down and did some research and found out the following;

Product – Functionality, Quality, Appearance, Packaging, Brand, Service, Support, Warranty or Reliability in our case

Price – List price, Discounts, Financing, Leasing Options, Allowances

Place – locations, Logistics, Channel members, Channel Motivation, Market Coveraage, Service Levels, Internet, Mobile

Promotion – Advertising, Public Relations, Message, Direct Sales, Sales, Media, Budget

Now out of these aspects what all could we harness at Spurr at this time, just 2 months after soft-launch?

Product - Functionality (check, but always room for improvement), Quality(check), Appearance (check, but we required more user beneficial content as well as information on the site), Brand (we were trying to build it, so that was a NO), Service (check, when we start out, that is the only thing we can promise, service. Without good service you will not last in the industry), Support (check), Warranty or Reliability in our case (check)

Product was taken care of and was in good shape. Phew phase 1 complete

Price – List price, Discounts(check, we were ready to give it out for free), Financing (Hmmm…being a self funded firm, money was flowing out of my pockets like anything. We were managing), Leasing Options (currently no, but we could go on a license model later), Commissions (check, we were ready to give out commissions to those who were willing to help us out. That is how it works anyway, initially till we gain traction in the market)

Pricing was  a major issue for us as we were the first in this business approach and we did not know how much to charge. We had wasted a lot of money, effort and time. But then we also had to think from the students point of view and the college’s. I thought, if it was me, let alone pay for it, I would not even use it, unless there was something useful in it for me during exam time which would be there for sure. So that was our next aim, CONTENT. We had to source content from different places somehow or the other. But how?

But regarding the price, we thought we could get away by charging whatever we wanted. We decided an initial set-up fee from the college and keep it free for students as you know they are the essence.

Phase 2 – Believe me, we couldn’t have been more wrong about our notion.

Place – Locations (check, we decided to target the metropolitan cities), Channel members (none), Channel Motivation (none), Market Coverage (check, we were looking at the whole nation), Internet (check, we had created pages on facebook, twitter and spread the word), Mobile (not yet, but was in the pipeline)

Phase 3 – Not impressive at all, but we had to start from somewhere

Promotion – Advertising(couldn’t afford it. But printed some posters, then decided we will use it at a later point in time), Public Relations (way out of budget), Message (check, we knew what we had with us and how it can benefit its users), Direct Sales (check, this was our only option), Media, Budget

Phase 4 – Our promotion phase had to wait a little while more. We wanted to prove our model first.

And so set-out for meetings with a lot of balls, stories and more stories. Met at least 4 of India’s biggest institutes (biggest from a wasting-money-for-branding-the-institute point of view) and told them about this. Two of them showed interest and are on hold now and the other two shot it down that moment. Out of the two who shot it down, one of them went to the extent of saying, “What have you made? Do you think this will ever work? I highly doubt it” and went on criticizing www.eduvis.in

He told me on my face. “See Mithun, all said and done, the reason why I do not see this of any use is because, we can not brand our college with this. We do not care about what the students get from this. We can not pay so much for just uploading videos of our college on a website. If students do not get a chance to do their labs, experiments, it is their fault.” I was fighting a lost cause. I just kept quiet and listened to him with a smile. Because, you cant say which idiot might say something that can help you in future. I believed in my product beyond anything, but maybe from his point of view, it was useless. While he was telling me this and that, the office boy got us a plate of samosas, tea and chips.

As it is, the bum had told me my product was useless and once when I lose interest, I don’t care how shameless I come across. I devoured every bit of it with the same smile on my face. To buy some more time to finish the chips I asked him what else does he think is useless in my portal and that rodent went on giving me more drawbacks. One thing that made me wonder was, “Does he even think before he talks? In the initial presentation, I gave him, I had just mentioned all the answers to his questions and here he was phrasing those questions again, but this time as a drawback”. Bid him farewell and left. But I am looking forward to that day when that very college will come and register with us. Hope it happens. If not, what dya know, that guy was right afterall.

The trip across 4 states was the worst I have ever had. To keep costs at a minimum, I took buses instead of flights. Trains were not available on such short notice. I forgot to pack my warm clothes and I step onto Jaipur soil from a heat of 25 degrees in Pune to a 2 degrees. My nose went numb and my lips went dry. I cursed myself for not listening to Aayush. He had warned me in Pune. The incidents in Pune, Mumbai, Jaipur, Jalandar, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Gurgaon can cover a book in itself. It was the most horrible trip of my life, incidents wise with accidents, delayed bus trips, kids puking, food poisoning and many other cute little “shit”uations one might not want to be in while traveling.

to be continued…..

image reference: http://www.netmba.com/images/marketing/mix/mix.gif,

Pain in the ass… So many things going on, I do not know what to concentrate on. My processing power is a bit too slow …I make a trip and visit my saviors Shoban and Sreenath in Kerala to decide on the upgrade. We have a round of 3 lengthy meetings where we decide what the site should look like and the new layout. But we did not have a design. So we turn to a professional firm for help with the layout, design (Graphical User Interface) GUI. Nisha who is a master at research starts her work and finds out 6 firms that could be of help to us. After a round of group research and discussions, we narrow it down to one firm as the rest were way too overpriced. How wrong could we be? We discuss with two of their employees, who love the idea and want in on it on a passion perspective than a project point of view.

Being a start-up exactly what we need, people who can work for future benefits that short term costs. Eventually, we finalize on the new design and we get the quote from the new firm…..I nearly popped my bloody balls looking at the quote INR 117,000/- Yes, you read right, one lakh seventeen thousand rupees. I didn’t even bother looking at the detailed proposal they sent and turned it down that very instant. Another moment when you realise that, finding a team that will stick by you and share your dream is a boon. Everyone works for money. All are puppets to the bills. No one works for free, no one works for passion unless they actually feel it is worth it.

These guys though said they were really excited to work on it, didn’t mean it. What the hell. What next? Look for a designer.

Who do I turn to? Nisha. She was amidst launching her own label as shes a fashion designer. Amidst all her work she, without a word she gets to work and within no time we have a brilliant design ready. But since she was not a professional website designer, the CSS part had to be done by someone else. I ring up Arun, another friend of mine who helps me out with quick development jobs. If there is anything Arun hates, its CSS, but the poor guy helps me out anyway and sends the files to Sreenath. A classy design along with some technical layout is a perfect portal. We went to work the very next day and decided to launch the upgrade on the 1st of December. Sreenath is on it, toggling between a part-time teaching job, he ensures that the new portal is up and running by the 27th of November to leave 3 days of day and night testing by 10 professionals. We were working round the clock, reporting bugs, fixing them, re-testing them and testing the portal again.

Everything looked fine and working well other than a few minor technical glitches which could be solved within a couple of days. All that was left was the sales part. We had EOIs from institutes like Symbiosis and IIPM and several engineering colleges in Bangalore. This interest by customers kept us going. At least we were sure, people wanted it or at least were curious about it.

Like they say charity begins at home, I went and approached my college to see what they would say R.N Shetty Institute of Technology. They listened to the whole presentation, fired a few questions, discussed amongst themselves and got back to us within two days with the cheque. They loved it and purchased it. But purchasing alone will not do, they had to upload content onto it. So we aided them to upload videos of lab experiments and the campus etc. All this with the first simple design we had. For a new user, it was not a catchy website at all. But when WE look at the hard work we put into it, it was the most beautiful site.

So far, we had our first client, content on the site, more clients interested. Meetings lined up with well known group of institutes, what and how else could anything go wrong? Keep following my posts regularly to see how life gifts you with the weirdest of opportunities and craziest of circumstances. No matter how beautiful life is, there is always something waiting for you that will turn the whole thing around. So make the most of now, so you can sail through the bad times for there are no regrets. Live your life to the fullest…….

to be continued……

image reference: http://www.gftgroup.com/Petrana_presentation.jpg, http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/group_discussion.jpg

Devdutt Patnaik, the Chief Belief Officer (never knew that designation existed eh?) of Future Group (owner of the retail chain Big Bazaar) gives us an insight on the vast difference in the mythologies of the east and the west.

How various myths and legends end up in affecting the business methodologies and ways. He delves deep into the fathoms of how mythology in the west preach about ONE and the mythology in the east preach about INFINITY and also a possible explanation to how Indians might have come to invent the number 0 (zero).

In this gripping discourse, there isn’t one moment that you would wonder what he is talking about as every topic and line he touches is executed with the utmost finesse. This video will be a treat for those who have a taste for mythical trivia, facts and theories

I hope you all enjoy this video and gain something from it, after all, we all from the east and we know exactly what the hell he means.

Cheers!!!

At last, the basic product was ready.  We could have colleges register, students register, upload videos, view videos etc. The design was very plain. White background and a hint of blue here and there. The site was barely a portal but we had the functionality up and running. A few questions kept bothering me all the time.

- Now how could we prove this model to the market?
- How many of them will buy this?
- Will it be as useful as I thought it would be?

All these thoughts kept bothering me. I was beyond nervous. My last two posts were about how problems and challenges just don’t stop coming. Check this out….weeks before our soft launch, one of my partners decides to bail out as he had just gotten married and did not know whether he was up to the task. Though the whole team expected it, we were kind of taken aback on the sudden decision he made as he was the one insisting to join us in the first place. It does harm when you actually feel like you have a team to help you fulfill your dream and wake up to see that one member has decided to leave. Friendship and business are two separate worlds and the sooner people understand that, the better. We are still best of friends, but will never do anything professionally. Re-working the agreement, his resignation, re-filing of agreement and all the formalities took a good 2 and a half weeks and till then I could not start a bank account owing to all the changes in paperwork.

Eventually September 12th, we do the soft launch. We had nothing more than 2 technical guys (Shoban, Sreenath) and 3 marketing guys (Nisha, Aayush and myself). We did not know where the hell it would go, what was going to happen and whether we are going to be laughed at or embraced. I contact Aayush, the marketing backbone of the firm to fix up meetings with institutes in Pune. He does a swell job and within no time,we have met colleges in Pune and they loved the idea. The students praised us as they were looking for a portal to upload their work. We also had features in the platform that the colleges thought was a myth and thus welcomed us. But something was missing. Money…..

Even though we impressed upon the institutes, the money was not flowing in. People were waiting for someone to start using this portal to its hilt to see whether it is actually useful. You know one of those things…..The technical team, who has been with the previous venture of mine and seen no results starts to get impatient. They wonder if this will ever work out.  Making people buy your product is the hardest part of business.  I explained the same to the technical team and they were more than supportive. I do not blame them one bit. If I were in their place, I wouldn’t join them in the first place. But they still did, that shows passion always lies a step above money. It is hard to actually ask for a team that actually understands you and in fact sees the company as their own as much as you see it yours.

So the product is out, people like it, but there are certain factors that we have to incorporate before we can go big. We had gone a good month and a half with the soft launch and gotten a good response. A new design, more features. Till now we were just a video sharing site for educational institutes, but we needed something more for educational institutes that matter like pdf, presentations, images and audio etc. Bloody hell, we didn’t have time for that. That meant changing the whole architecture yet again. Why didn’t I think of it earlier? But I guess this is how we get to learn things. Only once we released the product will we know what is missing so we can upgrade it just as Guy Kawasaki said. So what’s next? Upgrade…..

to be continued……

image reference: http://www.fineartphotoblog.com/wp-content/uploads/the-show-is-over-say-good-bye-800.jpg,

One of the greatest challenges while working in a start-up is funds. Money is always, always a nightmare. We did not have a server to host the portal initially. To purchase a server, I had managed to accumulate some funds, thanks to my father and friends who were kind enough to loan me some. But we needed a credit card. That, unfortunately landed on a weekend and thus made it hard for us to find one as none of us broke bums had one. Who would give me a credit card? I was jobless, no income, penniless.

We finally managed to purchase the server to find out that one of our crucial modules isn’t compatible with the server and is creating problems. Another couple of nights of tension, phone calls, cigarettes, air castles tumbling down. Amidst all the tension and heightened haste, the technical team manages to find a way out. Something I have learned with time, there is nothing that can’t be done with technology. If it is done before, it can be done by us. All that separates us is the fund involved and thus the time.

The tech team also did not have a proper working internet connection to work with. The torrential rains ensured that there was no power when you needed it the most. They had to work offline most of the time. We could not coordinate with each other through phone as we ran out of balance after 2 to 3 conversations. The internet was out due to rains and power kept fluctuating. Kudos to Shoban and Sreenath.

3^rd September 2009, we run into some major technical issues during testing of the platform, which could be solved, but would pile on an extra two days to the soft launch. I don’t know why I worry so much. I felt like everything slipping away. The tech team took the role of a shrink as well as assured me it would be rectified in no time. What you need most at such times is moral and mental support. Blessed I am for my supportive parents and girl friend who never left my side and ensured my tension was kept at bay and for a team that is more of friends than work mates.

The problem was slightly more serious than we had expected it to be and thus it piled on a good 4 days to the soft launch. Alls well that ends well, the tech team rectified the problem and we decided to push the launch date by a week to be safe. We subjected the platform to heavier testing. Thanks to all my friends who helped me out in testing the platform thoroughly.

to be continued……

image reference: http://cactuschords.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Money-stacks.jpg