Entrepreneur Musings

Letting go of people

2012-02-09T12:36:00.001+05:30

This year was off to a bad start. So far I've had to let go of two people in my team. One was let go for disciplinary reasons. And the other was let go for performance reasons. However both those were some of the hardest decisions to make and even harder to execute. For a small company, the greatest asset is its people. It is the team that can make or break my business. As such we need a team with amazing talent and a killer attitude. The first person I had to let go had an amazing talent. But his attitude sucked. He started off great, but ended up becoming pretty negative about everything. As a small company, we didn't have a lot of policies in place. We were pretty flexible when it came to most things. And we expected this flexibility back from the team. The guy started off being ultra flexible and went off to becoming ultra rigid. We tried talking to him, even gave him a raise as he felt he was not appreciated. Accommodated his requests to work from home to even the type of work assigned to him. And when all that failed and wasn't generating the expected, we had to make the decision to let him go. He brought it upon himself. It ended up being not worth the effort we put in. The second guy was quite the opposite. His attitude was ok. But his skills sucked. There again we tried to cover for him. But in the end he ended up being too much of baggage to carry. He was the slowest of the pack and often that fact hindered our work. He never finished anything on time and his work had a lot of flaws. I resisted letting go of him earlier because we wanted to see him improve. When no such improvements were forthcoming we made the decision. In terms if building a team I've gone the full cycle. Fro. Hiring to firing. My attrition rate is pretty good considering the fact that none of those I hired have left, except for being let go. And if I thought hiring was tough, firing is the worst.

Taking time off

2011-09-16T23:22:00.000+05:30

When you are running a start-up, holidays are the last thing on your mind. With so many things on your plate every day, and having to wear so many hats, you end up running out of the number of hours you can afford to work on a day, to get the things you want to get done, done. And unlike some founders, who are single, I have a family, and a very young one at that, who constantly fight for their share of attention from their father. And the thing with kids is, they get what they want. If asking nicely doesn’t work, they will bring the roof down.

The last month was their school holidays. It also happened to be one of the busiest months for me work-wise. We had the biggest project we’ve undertaken coming to an end (well, it’s still not done and its not a fault of ours!) and a couple of very aggressive small projects falling on our plate (we were not in a position to refuse any work, due to the cash flow issues we were facing). This resulted in me not being able to take the kids out on a vacation during their school holidays.

I think they saw less of me than they did when school was on. Because on school days I usually drop them every morning and at least a couple of days pick them after school. But, during their holidays, I was sometimes out of the door while they were still in bed and on a few occasions turned in after they'd fallen asleep. Now their schools have started, but they didn’t have much of a vacation, other than doing nothing and playing all day, at home.

Upon spotting a deal on a groupon clone in SL, for a hotel stay in Eastern Sri Lanka, my wife, bless her soul, bought into a two night vacation. So I am taking a day off, I don’t remember since when, to go on a vacation!

I am determined to make the best of this vacation. My work has kept me working most of my waking hours, My time with my family has been about 2-3 hours on a weekday. And probably about 8-10 hours on weekends. And on this vacation, I am going to be with them for 72 hours, at a stretch. Leaving aside the activities, I am determined to make the most of the journey (travelling time), take the drive leisurely and enjoy the company.

Secondly, I’ve never been to the East of Sri Lanka. Even after the war ceased, I never got around to going to the North and the East of the country. So this is my first venture out to that region. And I am looking forward to seeing that part of the country, which I haven’t been to during the 35 years of my life! And I hear the beaches in that region are pretty awesome.

Hopefully, I will get to spend quality time with my family, visit a part of the country that I’ve never been to, and recharge my batteries for more hectic times ahead!

Are you a pig or a chicken

2011-09-14T22:14:00.001+05:30

An interesting article at onStartups.com called Why Venture Capitalists Invest In Pigs, Not Chickens. Although I am not interested in raising venture capitol for my startup projects, it made me analyze my approach.

And the result, well I ‘m a chicken. My startup web project has been, is still, and likely remain for sometime, a side project. And by being a side project, it is not getting the attention, energy and marketing push it deserves.

I am pretty proud of the solution, the features and functionality we built into it. And I honestly believe there is a pretty good market out there for it. Similar solutions ideas were tossed around in a few forums that I’ve been to when people were discussing web start-up ideas.

But my outsourcing operation has been my primary focus always. And I’ve only been able to work on my side project, when I have downtime. And sadly, the last couple of months had been hectic beyond description. To make matters worse, what’s left now to do, is not my forte either, which is giving it a marketing push.

Getting back to the topic of chicken and pigs, right now, I am not in a position to become a pig on my start-up application. I cannot afford to waver my concentration from my outsourcing business. It is exactly not sailing on smooth seas. We’ve just passed a pretty rough patch, and the path ahead is not clear either. It’s a bit foggy right now and I, being the optimist, am hoping for some bright blue skies ahead.

Come to think of it, I am a pig on my outsourcing business, and a chicken on my start-up project.

Misguided online banking by Sampath Bank

2011-09-01T17:55:00.001+05:30

I have been a customer of Sampath Bank for over 20 years. I’ve used them almost exclusively when it comes to personal banking. And I’ve been a using their online banking application ‘SampathNet’ since its inception.

Following this preference when I started my business, I opened up my accounts with Sampath Bank and immediately applied for online banking facilities. This is when I started to realize the short-comings of their online banking solution. Now some of these restrictions, as they say, are due to regulations.

Since I we are in the out sourcing business, which gets categorized as an export business, when I wanted to open a USD denominated account, I was asked to open an export account. This was seamless. All they wanted was the standard documentation and a declaration. Then I wanted to have the ability to transfer funds between this account our LKR account. For some weird reason which is beyond my comprehension, I cannot do this online. I need to always either send a physically signed letter, or make a request through the SampathNet’s mail facility, after which they make this transfer manually.

What I cannot comprehend in this whole scenario is, when I am the authorized signatory for both the accounts, why I am not allowed to do this transfer through the online banking portal. What ever transfer I enact is a legally binding transfer. Adding further to this confusion is the fact that in my personal accounts, I am able to transfer funds, through the online portal, from a USD account to a LKR account!

Secondly, I do not have an online feature to transfer funds to third party accounts, even from my LKR account. This prevents me from enacting the salary transfers online for my staff. I have to revert to the old school method of sending instructions in a letter, either physically or through the SampathNet mails.

All these would have been less painless, if the SampathNet mails happened in real time. They have a funny way of handling these instructions. When ever I send a mail, it goes to a Relationship Manager who is assigned to my account. The funny part of this RM is they only check these mails ONCE a day, in the morning. And that too pretty early in the day. So if I send some instructions, say around 9.00 AM, this reaches my bank branch, only the next day!

When I think of online banking, I think of real-time. Not with one day’s delay. And to make matters worse, the last set of instructions I sent to them on Monday afternoon, only got executed today, which is Thursday, because my RM didn’t turn up for work on Tuesday and Wednesday was a bank holiday. If you ask me, that I pretty crappy online banking.

SampathNet in fact was probably one of the pioneers in online banking in Sri Lanka. When they launched, they were unrivaled and they were above the rest for sometime. But their problem was, they are resting on their laurels. They are still on the platform that they launched probably 10 years ago. They need to upgrade their technology, have smarter security (I read someone speaking about their password change procedure and the password recovery procedure), and off load as many services as self services so they do not have to spend man hours doing mediocre things.

Sampath Bank, over to you!

August: turnaround month!

2011-08-31T23:59:00.000+05:30

I wrote previously about the cash flow issues my business was facing. And this resulted in me having to delay the salary payments for my staff by 2 WEEKS in the short history of my company. And it was funny in a way that it happened at the same time my first employee was completing his first year with the company.

But August was a turn around compared to the previous months in the sense, I didn’t get stuck in paying the salaries. Having the previous salary delaying by two weeks only left me two weeks to get the cash flow going to meet August salaries. And it is such a relief to be able to pay my guys on time.

Also, we have managed to land some more deals, ending the drought we were facing. Up until two weeks ago, I had at least one guy idling, because there simply wasn’t enough work to for everyone. And this was the time which made me seriously question my decision of hiring full time employees. Had I hired people on freelance basis it would have lessened the pressure on me to find work above all the pressure of the obligation of paying the salary!

But now, I have people swamped with work. I knew there were some projects that were waiting to start, but somehow they kept getting delayed. And this week, three of them started. So now we’re swamped. I’m back to 12-14 hour work days! And hopefully, pretty soon these hours will turn to $$$ and we would have enough money on the bank without having to exist hand to mouth.

Oh, and we did launch our online product. But we’ve got no users so far. It’s free, but still we’ve got no one signing in. Its time that I brush up my SEO and marketing skills.

Launching a new online solution

2011-07-21T23:10:00.001+05:30

I am gearing up to launch our first own web solution into the world. And it is opening my eyes to a whole new world of promoting a web site. This is going to be a rocky ride simply because I am new to this whole thing. All this time I’ve left this aspect of running a web site to the clients. Once we deliver a web application it was upto the clients to promote them, gain traction and stand out. I just had to worry about delivering a slick, bug free and fast web application.

Now reading up on promoting a new web site, I am learning new things. I am not talking about things like SEO alone. I think SEO is just a part of the solution. SEO would only bring the customer to the front door. It takes a whole different ball game to entice a user to sign up to your application and in the long run, to convert them to paying customers (hopefully)!

I am reading up on things like Minimum viable product (MVP), and lean start ups, customer development process. I am also planning to pick up my copy of ‘Rework’ by Jason Fried and DHH soon and skim through that again. I will also need to use all my social media connections and networks. And hopefully drive some traffic into the site.

One of the factors that will make me work hard promoting the application is the fact that it is not a general purpose application that everyone will find a use for. It is geared towards a niche market and hopefully if I can find ways to reach these niches, the site will enjoy success.

One of the things that made me ready before I hoped I would be is getting exposed to the MVP concept. I had tons of features that I wanted to build before I launched. But getting exposed to MVP made me realize that there is no guarantee that those features will find adoption. More and more features were going to complicate the product as well as the development effort, but I had never tried them in the real world. So I ended up cutting down my feature list and ended up with a feature list which I think is what is needed at a minimum. Well a little bit more than the minimum because by the time I came across MVP, I had developed a few more features beyond the MVP. But instead of working on more and more features and complicating my product I concentrated on finishing up the nearly finished features, testing and fixing issues and slight improvements to workflows. And fix the holes around the system.

Earlier I was concentrating a lot on building subscription plans to the system. But it was one of the first things that I decided to scrap. I had some functionality that was built in. But instead of concentrating on payment gateway integrations, little nitty grities on the subscription plans, I just concentrated on the features.

So I am looking forward to launching this product and developing it along with the people who will use it. Rather than conjure up features my self, develop features that users will ask for (I think that is a bit against Rework lessons).

Cash flow can kill a business

2011-07-01T00:02:00.001+05:30

The cash flow woes of my sole client seems to be continuing. More than that, he is now running out of projects. So we are heading towards a permanent death of cash flow and it seems that with that my business might also wind up! My client hasn’t landed any new projects and the ones we are working on are coming to an end. This puts him in a position of no work in a couple of months and even now I have only a 50% utilization of my resources.

I’ve spent a significant time this month going through the accounts and figuring out where I stand. My main worry is I have some outstanding statutory payments pending which may put me in a legal quandary. And I don’t have enough cash in the bank to meet them. I’ve been pestering my client for the payment at least to cover these statutory payments but that payment also keeps getting postponed. As of now, I have two and half months full operating expense invoices pending for the company and three and a half months worth of my salary pending.

Thankfully I received a partial payment a week ago that enabled me to pay my staff’s salaries. Maybe I am being a bit unrealistic by not sharing the actual financial situation of the company with them. I’ve thought long and hard about being frank with them, but being the optimist I am, I am hoping for some good luck that will keep us going and at the same time I have started my search for other clients and projects. I do not wish to see my enterprise fail. If only I had some cash in the bank, I would have used this as an opportunity to build some of the application ideas I’ve been toying with. But due to the cash flow situation, I am forced to sell the services of my team.

On a personal front I was also asked to cut down the hours I was billing him. It was imperative but hearing it was hard. Less hours means less pay for me so I had to find a way to supplement my income. Luckily I managed to find a short term gig that I can do on the side. Hopefully it will last a couple of months.

I have also been actively bidding on work for the team as well. The rate I am bidding for is a very competitive rate for the clients and at the same time a more profitable rate for the company than the fixed rates that my developers are being paid for currently. It’s just that on the risk vs. profit equation I preferred to take less risk and less profit at that time. When I agreed for the terms with my current client, I declined the option of working on project basis as I feared that in such an arrangement he would simply have to pay us only if there is work. My assumption that he will take on the burden of paying the team when the work becomes low, was simply an incorrect assumption.

Because lately, we’ve had discussions about preparing for the worst, which means that when the projects run out, we are simply going to get cut out. So in this light, had I opted to work on project basis I would have earned better margins and would even be in a position today to sustain the team for a while.

So now, if I do manage to find work on better terms, I am simply going to give priority to such projects. That should increase the profitability of the company. I can simply pull the people from the payroll of the my current client and place them on more profitable projects. But I will have to manage this pretty openly and diplomatically as it was he (my client) who paid for them all this time including the infrastructure costs. But I don’t see an issue in doing what I am hoping to be doing as it was made pretty clear to me that it is me who is responsible for the staff and will have to face the consequences of letting them go (in the view of outstanding statutory payments). And it is my company and as the director, I , will be left to sort them up. So I will have to look after the interest of the company and my self personally, before I look after the interest of the client.

I am pretty emotionally charged and tensed right now as I write this. It is hard to watch your dream and desires (in this case my company) going down. So I am not going to watch idling. I am going to do whatever it takes, to survive this storm. This storm of cash flow woes. And the risk I knew I was running all along. Being dependent on a single client. So these woes should result in my business becoming more robust and vibrant.

A customer report on the Kia Sportage 2011

2011-05-29T17:12:00.001+05:30

I've been driving my Kia Sportage 2011 for about two weeks now. I thought o recording my first impressions of the vehicle before it grows on me and I take the new features for granted.

Amazingly I put my money down without test driving. So you can say it was a love at first sight over it's looks. Peter Schreyer's new design had won a customer who didn't bother to see how the vehicle drives before ordering it. But I did do my research and while I was not expecting a sports car, I expected it to drive well.

And I am happy to say that the Sportage didn't dissapoint me. It packs a nifty 2.0l engine (yes this part of the world gets a 2l instead of the 2.4l that America gets) under the hood which gives enough punch for driving and overtaking in the city. Most of my travels are within the city and they tend to be pretty short ones averaging around 4-5 kms per trip. The in-city performance of the sportage is satisfying and stress free. It didn't appear underpowered to face any condition that I faced so far. Even with a load of 5 adults it performed effortlessly on the city roads.

One of the things that attracted me to the Sportage were the amount of features that it offered as standard. Even though I went for the lower spec edition with FWD it packs all the creature comforts that are required. And I am in love with the Blake interior and am happy that I held my ground when the agent tried his best to push a gray interior. Black with the red interior lighting is a nice combination.

The other thing that I am really happy about is the roominess of the interior. Even with the front seats pushed fully back, there is plenty I leg room fo the rear passengers. In fact at times there appears to be too much of room at the back as therenks room or the kids to stand at the back even when someone is sitting.

The only thing that was a surprise in a negative manner was the fuel consumption on my first tank full. My calculation tell me it has done abou 4.2 km's per litre which works upto about 19 MPG. But I was expecting it to doaround 7km's per litre. But I guess all the traffic during the wesak on the road was probably the culprit. In my second tankfull, it seems to be doing better having done over a 100km's with the meter still above the FULL mark. (I think this time the pump attendant pumped atleast 15 litres after the indicator reached the FULL mark and the pump lock automatically disengaged. If it does anywhere around 7kms or above for a litre would make me a happy driver.

Oh and I live the fact that it is a triptronic and a 6 speed one at that. One of the reasons that I was forced to sell my previous car was the fact that it was a manual and my wife cannot drive a stick shift. But I personally live the stick shift. With this we both get our own preferences. Of course a triptronic is not a pure stick shift. It still doesnt shift up when I want to. But at least it gives some control over the shifting.

It suffices to say that I am happy with my choice. I am glad I went for the Sportage instead of a car. Only thing I would like to have in it are the rear spoiler and a reverse camera. Other than that and a tint I would keep the rest stock.

Next is to see how it ages and how reliable it is over time. In Sri Lanka we dont get the legendary 7 year Kia warranty. Instead we get a 3 year/60000km warranty. But I am planning to stuck with the vehicle for a minimum of 5 years as my lease runs that long. So the reliability is to be seen.

PS: if anyone wants to get a sportage in Sri Lanka and doesn't want to wait for 4 months as the agents suggest drop me a line. I will let you in on a secret to get your hands on one within 4-5 weeks. I only waited 5 weeks from ordering to delivery.

Some relief, finally.

2011-05-21T22:46:00.000+05:30

There is some relief, finally. My client is getting a small payment and he is going to make a partial payment to us as well. This is some relief. As we get towards the end of the month, one day at a time, my tension also goes up! The pay day is the last Friday of the month and that means I need to have money in the bank.

Apart from the salaries, there are other pending bills to pay. Starting from June, there is going to be a new monthly payment on the company account for an asset we acquired on a lease. And I don’t plan on falling behind on the salary or the lease.

I had one card up my sleeve. One card that would have allowed me to make the salary payment and the lease payment only. But that would still leave a couple of more payments past due. Some of them are payments that I cannot drag on for so long. For example Internet and electricity both get disconnected when the bills are not paid on time. And I cannot run the company without either of them.

I have already started some cost cutting measures. One of the biggest areas that I can save costs is on the electricity bill. I am asking my guys to conserve as much as possible. One is to make sure to switch off the computers at the end of the day. The next is to not to leave any un-necessary electrical appliances running, including lights and AC’s. I am going on without my AC most of the time. Everything else is more or less of a fixed cost for us.

Personal improvements

2011-05-21T15:29:00.000+05:30

Professionally I have improved myself over the years. From the start of my career to where I am now, I’ve come a long way. It’s not a journey of sitting tight and hoping for things to improve. It is more a story of taking risks and branching out, looking out for the next opportunity and taking some with open arms.

But as a person, I am not sure whether I have made such vast strides. While I have been pretty interested in personal development and had been reading up quite a bit, the application of those things that I have learned into my personal self has been pretty inconsistent. While I may have tried and practiced certain things, looking back, I cannot recall internalizing anything into my life fully. I think I am basically the same person I was then, just with a certain level of maturity gained with age. Sometimes I wonder whether I read for the sake of reading these personal development books, rather than to actually gain something personally.

I have never really planned my life in detail. This is a point that often drives my wife crazy. She likes to plan things out and live life according to a plan. I am more of a come as they may I will spend my day kind of a person. While the hours I bill are guided by the requirements and work on the projects and I do spend sometime thinking about improvements to my company, I don’t think such planning is done, on my own, on my personal life.

While living spontaneously has its thrills, I find that at times my holidays are spent aimlessly. Such aimlessness is sometimes required to recharge our batteries to face the work life with vigor again, I wonder whether it does justice to my family. As it is now, I spend most of my waking ours at work, and spend very little time (comparatively) with them, and if I spend most of the family time also recharging myself for work, where does that leave them?

One of the key reasons that I got back into freelancing was to find a balance between work and ‘life’ but I find myself again at a point where ‘work’ has become ‘life’! Having taken the decision to transition my freelancing career to the next level by starting a company, I find doing more and more everyday! Being a start up we are understaffed and over worked. We have too many things on our plates and are running tight deadlines. I work during my day and spend my evenings in meetings with my clients. I generally clock in about 12 hours of billable hours a day! That’s a lot more than I used to clock when I was working for others!

This is one area that I need to spend my effort on. Improving the ‘life’ aspects of my life! And maybe its time to dig up those books once again and time to put into practice what I read.

Running out of cash!

2011-05-20T00:54:00.000+05:30

My (sole) client tells me that the next 30 to 45 days are going to be bad, he has run into a cash crunch and he probably cant make the payments.

And I am not in a position to do anything about it because more than a client we are partners (in business) and I’ve seen this coming since a mile back. I have two and half month of invoices pending. I have pending electricity and telephone bills for the past two months. The only utility bill I’ve paid last month was for the Internet, and that too was because my ISP is prompt in disconnecting when the due date is passed.

I was behind on the rent for 2 weeks and just paid it. I am behind by a month on payments for the ETF and EPF for the staff. I’ve bought tea and coffee for the office out of my personal credit card and I haven’t settled it!

Every entrepreneur runs into a cash flow issue at some point or the other. If you have met someone who has not, then (s)he’s one of the very few lucky ones. I’ve had it pretty good for the last two years and I am facing probably the worst cash crunch of my career and my company now. To make matters worse, I have staff, making me responsible for their salaries.

In Sri Lankan law you cannot lay-off people as easily and simply as in the US, which seems to be the first thing they do when run out of money. We have tougher labor laws and even if they were lenient, it’s the last thing I would ever consider doing. Laying staff off will bring about a dark cloud and a negative psyche to the company which will be very difficult to lift off. And I personally feel responsible for the careers of my team as I lured them away from jobs that they would have had still, had I not lured them.

On paper, my company is currently profitable. My profit and loss statement shows a healthy profit. But my bank account is near zero. At which ever point that I get paid my bank account will be pretty decently rich.

One thing I’ve managed to do all this time is to shield the cash flow issues from the staff. I do not want burden them with such worries and bring about doubt and worry to their minds. I don’t want anything affecting their work as we are running pretty tight deadlines on our projects. And I need them to concentrate on the deliveries 100%.

I am also trying to keep as much of the worry away from my family as well. I do not want to bring about undue worry on my wife. But it is becoming pretty hard as this is the start of a new school term and that means fees for school and extra curricular activities of my kids are now due. I’m putting them all off for next month but putting them off beyond that is not an option.

I am keeping my options open and doing my best to manage the situation for the next 30-45 days until the cashflow improves. By the looks of it I can probably survive another 30 days and beyond that it is not going to be an option. Unless some windfall comes my way!

Improving quality through refactoring

2011-05-19T15:07:00.001+05:30

The human existence is all about progress. Companies, governments and societies and people spend countless hours, effort and money in a bid to find better ways to do the things that we do now.

As individuals, we too always strive to do things better, with less effort with time. Sometimes it’s called experience. Having done something before, having made the mistakes and having learned the lessons, we become good at what we do. This is normal for our day to day activities including our work.

But how many of us make a conscious effort to better ourselves. Experience come as part and parcel of our daily activities. But how many of us, actually challenge our comfort zones and attempt to come up with better ways of doing things?

Now I come from a back ground of programming. When writing a piece of software, for the first time in a new language or a platform, there are tons of things to figure out. You have to figure them out in order to get your program to work. So you figure them out and get the thing to work. Usually a software project lasts a while. And during the life cycle of the project, your knowledge of the new tools and technologies that you used improves. How many times do we actually go back and try to improve what we have done in the beginning?

I have had instances where I have gone back to previous projects I have done, specially after a few more projects and mastering the tools and technologies better, and become quite embarrassed by the work I have done. Now with the experience I know better and more robust and advanced ways of doing things and suddenly the previous ways I have done things seems pretty primitive. I would love to refactor, if the time and priorities allow it.

The basic rule of thumb I use is if it is a project that we will build and maintain, during maintenance it is worthwhile to spend time refactoring, as it will improve the maintainability of the project in the long run. But what if it was a one off project that you did? What if the project was already completed and handed over to the customer and you are not contracted to maintain it? In such cases, no matter how much it affects my programmers pride, I have to let it be, as it doesn’t make sense in a monetarily to spend the effort to refactor.

But the best way to improve the quality of a project is when you can afford the time and the effort during the life cycle of the project to refactor. But not many projects can afford this luxury. Most projects run on very tight deadlines and very tight budgets. Most project owners are interested in cramming more functionality on to the project rather than improving the quality of the internal workings. They assume that the quality of coding should be inherent in the first go itself. There is really no room for continuous improvement. Just a thought!

Getting stuck and losing steam

2011-05-16T23:11:00.001+05:30

I am not as good a finisher as a starter! That’s a fact!

I have three projects that I have started, all of which have progressed and currently at different levels and here I am dreaming up yet some more solutions rather than finishing these ‘in-progress’ ones. Sometimes I amaze myself! If ideas were worth anything I think I would be pretty rich. But with ‘ideas worth nothing and execution worth every penny’ I am not a rich man, until I sort out my execution shortcomings.

I manage to stay pretty exited and and spend sleepless nights in the ‘exploration’ stage of a project. I am good at running things through iterations of planning and exploring and zooming in on the features. Then I spend the time in sorting out the technical challenges of implementation. I would start coding and immediately move on to the challenging areas and concentrate on getting elaborate and elegant solutions rather than settling on crude ‘tied together with glue tape’ solutions that may still work. So ‘test early and test often’ becomes distant as I get buried under the technical elegance.

Once these challenges are sorted out, I lose steam! I think I am more of a dreamer than a doer. But yet, I still insist on doing everything myself, well at least now because my team is busy on client projects. And somehow whenever I seem to get the energy to work on my own projects, some urgent ‘we have to get this done today’ task falls onto my lap, so I end up spending that energy on the emergency project.

I think it’s long enough that I have been putting my pet projects off. It’s time to get cracking. Get cracking some code!

End of the first financial year for my business

2011-04-13T00:55:00.000+05:30

It's almost mid April. New year is just a day away. And we have wrapped up the first financial year for the company. Well, not a full financial year. We've been operational for eight months of the financial year. That's 2/3 of the year.

While my accounts are not yet ratified by my auditors, thanks to the online accounting solution that I started to use a couple of months ago, I know where I stand. Now what I need is for my accountant to tell me that I have recorded the expenses and income under correct accounts. I think it's gonna be more of a ratification than any drastic change from the picture that I am seeing.

I am looking forward to making the first tax payment and becoming a responsible corporate citizen. There are some taxes that are in the due, but which I was unable to pay as my accountant wanted to wait till the end of the financial year to figure out whether we would be profitable to make a tax filing.

I'm elated to finish the year with a decent profit and look forward towards the new financial year with eagerness!

Goals for 2011

2011-02-20T17:47:00.000+05:30

February is almost over and it’s a bit late to be publishing the goals for this year. But as it happened, these goals were there on my mind, just that I never got around to putting them down in writing.

For the last year, in January 2010, I laid down some targets (wonder why I didn’t call them ‘goals’ back then). And it gives me immense pleasure to look back and realize that they have been achieved! I think putting them in writing has some effect in the realization of the goals, although you may not actively refer the goals regularly. So I am going to put down some goals for this year.

One major difference this year, that has a great impact on my goals is the realization of the last years goal of starting a company. I am no longer a freelancer! I am now a proud entrepreneur with a team of my own! And hence, this years goals are going to center around my business, instead of centering around me as a person!

Growth/Expansion Goals

Last years goal was to make the company operational. That goal was achieved in August with my first employee. Then in December 2010, we moved out of my spare bedroom in my home to a new office premises. And the team has grown to six! This is beyond my wildest dreams as of January 2010. So I start 2011 with a bullish sentiment and hope to grow to greater heights!

I am currently relying on one client to give me all the work. My hiring and expansion was to cater to his work and it was all funded by him as well. Technically, all the equipment and the lease of the premises, though in the name of my company, belongs to him as they were paid for by him. While I am thankful for this assistance I cannot forget the risk of having all my eggs in one basket. I don’t have any suspicion of my client. I am part and parcel of his company as he solely relies on my company to deliver the projects that he undertakes. We are essentially his exclusive offshore development center.

But, it would be good to have more clients and not rely one a single market. There may be market conditions that may only affect his market. In such a scenario I am also susceptible to those market forces. If I diversify my client base then I can reduce the risk of dependency on a single client and a single market.

Since most of the projects we undertake are startup projects themselves, one area that I am planning to pursue is to signup for maintenance services where my client has direct conflicts to sign them up. There is already one project which we are winding up which is planning to go for a round of funding and if they become successful in raising the funding, then we stand a good chance of signing up with them for continued development and maintenance with a dedicated team.

Another area that I can look into is to serve the local market. While there had been some inquiries which were made, but I brushed them aside as I am currently running at full capacity. But if I can beef up my team a little bit more then I can look into taking up local projects. Even better still is if I can sign up with a larger company to take up their spill-over work. That will take the marketing and selling efforts off my plate.

But in terms of where I want the company to go is to develop our own online products. I have been toying with a couple of ideas that I think will earn a decent recurring income if done properly and marketed to the right niche audiences. Both the products are online services for small and businesses or startups or freelancers. Ultimately, I would love to have at least one of these products to be launched within this year!

Financial Goals

With the current agreement that I have in place with my sole client the company in itself does not make a massive profit. The client more or less foots the expenses and I earn a salary, which for various reasons I am keeping untied to the company accounts. However there is a small operating profit that the the company generates. Though the company doesn’t generate much of a profit, this operating model allows me to pay above industry salaries to the team and to maintain a pretty decent working environment. We recently upgraded the developer environments with second monitors and they have top of the spec development rigs!

Financially I would be happy if the company does not face any cash flow issues or doesn’t go into the red. But that is not much of a goal, is it? Hence I am going to set a goal of a revenue of $100,000 and a profit of $10,000 for the year. With my current revenue and profit margins this is going to be off by a significant amount, but I am going hoping that some of my growth and expansion plans will chip in before the end of the year to meet these goals.

Personally as well I am looking to upgrade my personal income target. I think 2011 should see an increase of my rates. I have tried to renegotiate my rates a few times but have been unsuccessful due to the costs my client has been footing in setting up my company. But the good news is I have looked at bidding on a few projects for my personal services and have managed to find clients who were willing to pay 25% more than what I am currently being paid. With that in view, I am setting a personal financial goal of $50,000 for the year, for my income for my services!

In conclusion,

2011 should be a great year for the company and for me personally. And I am looking forward to growing and consolidating my company!

What is your primary motivation for working

2011-01-04T09:57:00.000+05:30

Came across this short survey on Lifehacker.com which was trying to determine the popular motivators. After filling up the option, I was shown the results and apparently a lot of people are working for the money in jobs they don’t like.

Thankfully I am one of those people who are working on a job/gig that I actually like doing, with the freedom and flexibility I want (one of advantages of being your own boss) and getting paid well (another advantage of being in business for yourself). But it made me wonder, if my team feels the same way.

I was wondering about ways to gauge their satisfaction and motivation levels with their jobs. I would primarily suspect that they are in it for the money. I have the motivation of doing the work well as it is my company and I want to build it up. But does the team feel that way? How can I make them feel the same way about the company? Give them the feeling that it is their company as well?

I would like to think that I am paying them well. I ended up offering all of them more than they asked for. So in monetary terms I exceeded their expectations. But that will only last a short while. Once they get accustomed to getting that salary a few months, that motivation will wear down.

So the next and more sustainable thing is to get them interested in their work. I think some of the operational management and work design principles will help here. Like not keeping them stuck on one project forever and rotating them in projects and maybe allowing them to work on an open source project, keeping them abreast with new and latest technologies, etc. And I would also like to start building a web application with the team and give them an equity share and so ~~if and~~ when someday if when it makes money, they will also make money.

It is a conversation that I should have with them sometime or the other. I would really like to find out what motivates them and then feed that motivation. Hopefully, it will be something related to work itself!

Why work doesn't happen at work

2010-12-17T17:18:00.001+05:30

Watched this interesting TED talk by Jason Fried of 37Signals fame, author of Rework (which I am in the process of reading). He is one of the guys who is not afraid to say out loud what he thinks, even if it is against the conventional wisdom.

My intention with this post is not to explain or transcribe what he said in his TED talk, but to evaluate what I have been doing so far as a manager and a business owner in managing a team and getting work done and also to explore what I can do differently based on his observations.

First, I wish to place it on the record that though I am a big fan of his work and his style of doing things, I do not think it should be followed blindly. I am more of an copy and adapt person who would like to experiment and take on things that are more in line with my style and level of comfort.

Basically Fried says that for each person there is a time of a day or a place where they are usually productive. And that time may not necessarily be between traditional office hours and the place may not be the office. It may be some other place, their homes, a coffee shop, etc. And the fact that people are consistently getting disturbed in office, by office gossip, a co worker tapping them on the shoulder to clarify something, a ringing phone and worst of all, by managers, whom he identifies as people who have nothing particular to do so they keep disturbing the people who do the work.

I can identify with some of the things. And quite honestly I might be guilty of checking up on my guys from time to time. But let me put things in perspective.

First of all, let me say that for starters we are not very strict on working hours. It is true that our guys come to work around the same time and leave office around a particular time, but we are not clock watchers. We are not promoters of burning mid night oil. We do work our butts off at times, but that is when the push comes to the shove. Otherwise, we plan to have each guy work a decent amount of hours a day.

Then we are open to remote working. If there is something that needs to be done, and it’s gonna take the guy more than what he can do before he needs to go off, I usually give them the option to finish the task from home, if that is possible. Secondly, we already tried allowing one of our guys work a week a month from home. While we may not go for full time tele-workers any time soon, once a guy puts in some time in the office and we are familiar with each others work, we are certainly open to allowing them to work from home partially, if the need arises. But we want to have them in one place, specially at start of projects since we value one to one collaboration at initial stages.

One thing that we do not have is private offices for each person. I personally believe that coding is a team effort, although a person writes his or her code individually, there is much collaboration that needs to go on. So the risk of them getting disturbed by one another is there. But what I have observed is, that though they spend time socializing, when they need to concentrate they usually put their headsets on (headsets are given by us) and play some music and get on with their task. So apart from me who sails to the room from time to time, and tap them on their shoulders to ask how things are going, they manage fine without getting disturbed.

One thing that I want to point out about me checking up on them is that it is not done with the intention of managing them, but more with a intention of collaboration. If they are stuck with something, and are lost with ideas, I can, maybe, bring in a fresh perspective and offer a solution. Not to boast, I have unstuck the guys when they are stuck, quite a few times.

And finally I must say that we are very much interested in developing ‘whole’ software engineers. We try to develop if there are any areas that they are weak in. The idea is to develop them so that they become fully fledged ‘software engineers’ who are conversant not only with technology, but in general areas as well.

While our strategies are not as radical as those Jason Fried suggests, we sure are taking the cues from his philosophy where it fits our way of doing things.

Hiring from previous employers

2010-12-14T10:17:00.000+05:30

When I started out my company I has this un-written principle, where I said I was not going to hire from the companies that I previously worked at. Since I was still in very good terms with the management of those companies I didn’t want to create any frictions in those relationships by getting their people.

But as we grow as a team and as we are constantly on the look out for the best and the brightest, there is going to be a time when some of those people in those companies, who were there when you used to work there, are going to apply for advertised openings in my company. Some may apply knowing who I am, but some are simply responding to a job advertisement that is publicly posted.

I am facing such a dilemma now. I have a position that I had advertised and one of the top candidates that had applied is from one of my previous employers. This is a guy who has joined his current company (my previous employer) after I left that place. But I know him from another previous employer, where both of us used to work.

Since I never approached him directly and enticed him to join us, I really see no issue as such. I don’t think there is an ethical conflict as I never head hunted him. He applied to us. If I don’t recruit him, chances are, that he may move to another company.

And he and I never worked at his current place of employment at the same time. I just know him from his previous place of employment, where we both used to work.

But if I do hire him, I am going to be frowned upon by the company where he works now. I can still drop by that company and and chat up my old friends when I pass that way. But that will have to come to an end, if I do get this guy. Because afterwards, if I drop by that way, they may think that I have come to steal their employees.

I am searching for a solution that would allow me to still hire the best people out there while maintaining a good relation with my previous bosses. Any ideas or suggestions on this regard are gladly accepted.

What makes a company a great company?

2010-12-13T18:06:00.000+05:30

This is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately. I am in the process of building a company, and I want to build a great one at that. And I am going to be honest. I am clueless on how to go about it, technically.

So, the approach that I am taking is to build a company that I want to get up and come to work everyday. And the hope is what works for me would be at least good enough for the others as well. And if there is a disjoint on that front, I will have to tackle it as things pop up.

So what would be the things that would work for me?

I want to have a great pay

This is something that everyone wants, I guess. After a certain point in life and career pay may no longer entice you, and if the company is a crap hole it isn't going to hold people together as well. But a decent pay is a basic necessity. And I think we are doing more than good on this front. We have set salary scales but it seems they are above the market rates. And I know this for a fact from what people ask for, in terms of a salary at interviews. We've so far managed to exceed their expectations.

I want a great team

This one is really important and it is why it matters to see if your new hires are a cultural fit to your organization. But still it is something that you cannot scientifically quantify still. People need to click. And they need to be able to put up with one another. And if there are frictions among team members, then it is going to effect the work of that team most and then the whole company as a whole. So we are paying great attention to figure out the cultural fit of new employees.

I want to work in a great office

If I were working for a company, I want to work in a great office with a great atmosphere. I used to work in a place which was a bit of a drag. The place was not modernized for a while and the furniture and the equipment was ancient. The sad part is, the place could have been livened up with a bit of fresh paint and few tweaks but the way that company was run, it was hard to make any suggestions for improvements. I got tired of the place very fast and it was a drag to get my self off the bed to get to work. I don't want to run a office like that. So the office atmosphere, the look and the feel, the creature comforts are high on my list. We are getting them fast developer rigs and at some point will get them all dual monitors.

Improving the facilities in the office is high on our agenda. We want to spend, even our whole profit in improving the facilities. We serve lunch on the house. Right now we are fetching it from a nearby place, but as we grow, we will look into getting a caterer serve a gourmet meal in house.

And I am a big fan of spaces with natural lighting. And luckily the new office of ours is in placed with windows on East and West. So at all times through out the day we have plenty of natural light. And the we also have enough space, even more than we need right now. So we are in an airy, well lit up office.

I want to work with latest technologies

Keeping themselves up to date with the evolving technology space is foremost in any software engineers mind. The last thing anyone wants to do is to get stuck with a project that is not getting upgraded to a new technology. But we are in luck. We have a very few projects that we are stuck with maintaining and even those few, the project owners are extremely flexible to proposals of upgrades.

We get enough new projects, which we always do on the latest technology available, to keep everyone on the edges of their learning curves. As a policy, we would always do any new project with the latest technology stack available. It is usually up to us to propose the technology stack and architecture on a new project.

I want to have a great boss.

This one is directly on me. I read a saying which read: "people join companies and leave their bosses". And I don't want the reason for a persons leaving to be - ME. And I've personally had some great ones and actually ones that I left, the sole reason being the boss. So I have a pretty good idea of what a good boss should be like. And since this time around, I am my own boss and I have a owners stake in what I am building, I have all the more reasons to be a good boss.

Of course you can be 'liked' but not be effective from the point of view of the company. So the trick is to be a good boss in all fronts. That is what I am striving to be.

Conclusion
The above were things that I came up with on the top of my head. I think creating a great company is an on going process. And I would like to see the company outlast me. Culture is of paramount importance in this aspect. This is something I hope to write about in the future.

We moved to our new office

2010-12-08T21:48:00.000+05:30

I have blogged about us getting a new office. And since last Thursday, we've been there.

We have a small office warming function. We didn't invite a lot of people, just had the team and family. We had a small religious blessing at the start and then we kicked off our work. We were all settled in and work started smoothly for all of us, except for me. I didn't have my desk in place. I had ordered a desk but it only turned up in the evening of the day of the move. So I kicked off the work on a couch.

The place is pretty cool. I think the guys like it in here as well. There is plenty of space, a far cry from the 10*14 home office that we were all sharing previously. And one luxury that I got is an office of my own. I am a big fan of shared workspaces, but there are certain things that I need to do, which need some privacy. For starters it was odd to conduct an interview in our previous office as the candidates felt a bit nervous to face an interview when there were other people working in the room. Also, I think being in the same room prevented the team members from talking to me privately, if they so required.

Though I am in a separate room I try to spend as much time as possible with the team. And I maintain an open door policy even if it means that I have to go on without AC.

We also wanted to serve lunch for the team. So far, we have managed to get that done. But still it is being done as a daily order. Hopefully, we will find a caterer soon who is willing to deliver lunch for a small team.

One thing I dont like about this place is the traffic. From 12.30 pm till about 3.00 pm the road in front get's jam packed. The reason being the popular schools around this area. And this it next to impossible to go and come, specially in a car.

We are still getting things set up around the office even now. It will be a while to get the place fully done up. But above all, right now the place is a bit too big for us. So I am keen to get the place filled with more people, with more great people!

Setting up a new office

2010-11-27T00:25:00.001+05:30

AS I had mentioned in my previous posts we are setting up a new office. I am now a veteran in setting up offices. This is the third office I am setting up from scratch, and the second one for my self. So it makes it much more pleasurable.

Now that the lease is finalized (I mentioned we settled for a house) and the conversion of the house is almost complete. I have got the house wired for 15 people. Finally I am going to have an office room with a door that closes. So no more awkwardness's when conducting interviews.

I decided from day one to keep the conversions to a minimum. But electrical wiring was a necessity as no house comes with even placed electrical outlets every four feet!

But for the network connectivity it was going to be wireless all the way. And I was expecting one wireless router and a maybe a couple of access points to have the whole building covered. But I managed to locate the wireless router and the indoor unit for the broadband connection right on the middle of the building and even with a normal ‘g’ router I get a decent wireless signal throughout. And once I swap the ‘g’ router with a ‘n’ router, the signal will be much better.

Next on the card is some furniture that we need and things like a water cooler and crockery and cutlery, a coffeemaker, cleaning equipment, etc., which I will have to purchase over the weekend.

Finally, I have to arrange the janitorial/cleaning, and a security alarm. Then we are all set for the move. I am looking forward to the next week. It’s going to be the start of a brand new chapter in our business.

Diversity

2010-11-26T16:46:00.000+05:30

We are getting into hiring mode again. The whole reason behind our decision to set up a new office was because we wanted to have more space to get more people in.

Looking back at my team one thing that is pretty obvious is that we lack diversity in certain dimensions. I mean, we come from different back grounds and are of different ages, have studied in different schools and universities and have different martial statuses. But there are a lot of common factors.

To start with, we are all guys. I had no qualms of hiring a female developers. I think, they make pretty good developers, on par with the males. Its just a pity that we don’t find that many ambitious females in development jobs these days. But the fact that we ended up with a all male team was purely due to the fact that at that point of time, the best candidates we had were males.

Secondly, we are all from the same ethnicity and religion. This once again was pure coincidence. I never discriminated against any candidate.

So now that I am going through the hiring process again, I some resumes from female candidates. And I see some more resumes from candidates of different ethnicities and religions. I am short listing them based on the merit of their resumes. I have so far short listed females as well as candidates from different ethnicities and religions. But proportionate to the total number, they are less. Hence, mathematically, they stand a lesser chance of getting in.

I have read a few articles lately about the diversity of teams and how that affects the quality of the team simply due to the fact that a diverse team has a richer outlook on issues. But, what I am not sure about is, should we bend the recruitment criteria simply because we want to add diversity in the team. Specially, when the recruitment criteria is purely based on merit (skills/experience/expertise/cultural fit)? I am open to any ideas.

Founders many hats

2010-11-25T16:16:00.001+05:30

Being a company founder is one of the most diverse roles I have come to play in my life. This is simple because, being the founder requires you to make sure that everything goes on smoothly for the rest of the team and make sure the products get built and things do happen and make sure that the company complies with all legal obligations and attend to all the banking and funding and make sure the office and the toilets are clean and make sure the company culture is inculcated on to the team and…. you get the gist, the list goes on.

And since we are in the middle of an office move, I have to play some more additional roles such as a mover, cleaner, etc as well. The most time consuming part of it all is getting things set up prior to the office. Things like getting the place painted, wired, Internet connections setup, arranging movers, arranging security, are all falling on my shoulders. Since we have to move office with minimal disruptions to the normal workflow with minimum loss of productivity, I do not want to enlist the help of the team members. Apart from all these things to be done, there are a daily list of development/management tasks that fall on my shoulders which I am required to deliver at the end of the business day, in time for the start of the US business day!

Not that I am complaining, I am loving every moment of it. But nevertheless it is still hectic. I do get the support from my family. My wife and my father in law have been helpful beyond their limits. But still there are things that I have to do as I do not want to tax them too much amidst their busy schedules.

Where we stand now, it doesn’t make much sense to hire an admin person to take care of these tasks. We are going to hire some more people in to the company once we move. Hopefully one of them would be a person to run errands for the office. I am hoping to find a person who can wear many hats like janitor, helper, runner, cleaner. But until I find hire that person, I ‘m going to have to wear all those hats.

Office hunting–commercial space vs. converting a house

2010-11-24T15:28:00.001+05:30

We have reached a point that the home office that we have been operating out of is no longer enough for us. Me and my team are currently cramped in there and it does not have any more space for any more people. And we are in a dire need to get more people or we are all going to work crazy hours for the next foreseeable future.
Moving to a dedicated office was not something which we planned to do anytime soon. A couple of months ago we had a plan to plan the move to an office in the second quarter of 2011. We never thought we would have the finances or work that would be required to have a dedicated office.
But as things moved rather well for us, and we beat our own prediction, we decided to advance the search for a new office to ‘now’. So the past month was spent hunting for an office.
One of the immediate decisions that we had to make was whether we were going to go for a commercial office space or find a house and convert it to an office. In Sri Lanka, you can convert a house to an office in most of commercial areas, if you can find a house that is, as long as you don’t disturb the neighbors. So our first decision was between an office and a house.
Both these options has their own pros and cons. And we wanted to make a fact based decision. I am going to share some of the things we considered and what made us reach our conclusion eventually.
Pros and Cons of a Commercial Office

Pros	Cons
Large open space	Higher cost per sq. ft.
More versatility in layout	Needs partitioning
Shared resources like janitorial/security services	Less privacy due to shared spaces
Higher availability of Air Conditioning/Back up power	Some expenses have to be borne like public spaces maintenance whether you like it or not.
Availability of high speed Internet in the building.

Pros and Cons of converting a house

Pros	Cons
High level of privacy. Ideal for a stealth mode start-up!	Conversion cost
Lesser cost per square feet	Backup power and central AC less likely
Your own parking/garden space	Have to have your very own security and janitorial services
You have private offices in the form of rooms	Depending on the location parking may be an issue
Pantry/Kitchen facilities	Depending on the location high speed Internet may be not available
Homely!!!	All landlords will not like to rent to an office
Can host office parties pretty easily.	Neighbors may complain
Bath/Showers are available if the staff works late.

Looking at the list we came up with the conclusion that we liked the pros of the house conversion better and that we can actually avoid certain cons, if we find the right building. What we wanted was house located in the central location, close to public transport and other amenities, which has a decent amount of reserved parking space available and with a small backyard (so we can have a company BBQ), which would be in s secure neighborhood so we can be pretty safe, probably which has AC fully or at least partially, and which is fairly big enough so we have room to grow and hopefully can accommodate us for the next 3 to 5 years at least.
For our luck, we found a location that met most of these criteria and had plenty of space to arrange in which ever way we wanted. Actually the house we found was a little bigger than what we needed, but it came at a price point which is something we can afford and we liked having the extra space for future expansion and staff recreation needs. We want to create a nice office atmosphere with some creature comforts for in house recreational facilities and this house has plenty of space for that.
It is in a secure neighborhood, so we wouldn’t have to worry about security initially. And it has all other amenities within walking distance. The best part of the deal was a very amicable landlord. He agreed to our terms and was very supportive in getting the place ready for the conversion.
So now we are in the process of getting the place ready and hopefully we can move the operation to the new office starting from December.

Managing Growth

2010-10-22T16:12:00.001+05:30

Maybe it is too early to talk about managing growth for a young company. After all, we are barely starting up, and still in the process of getting things in order. We are still working from a room in my house and haven’t even got a proper office yet. But, it is something worth while talking about as it is something that can make or break your success as a start-up.

As a young web development company, which is barely turning profitable, we are lucky to get our hands on any projects. I mean you say yes to any work that comes your way. The phobia of not landing enough work, and the approach you take towards it, if successful, can leave you cornered against a pile of work and run the risk of not being able to deliver most of them on time! Guess what, we are already there.

It certainly is a good problem to have, a problem that you can should consider yourself lucky to have. But nevertheless it is still a problem. And the approach you take to solve the problem will play a key role in determining the success of the company.

As for us, we decided that it is the quality that matters over quantity. Therefore, we decided that it is time that we put a hold to new sales and concentrate on delivering the existing projects and do a proper job of delighting the customers and exceeding their expectations. This, for us, is far more important than blind growth. We want our customers to be happy with us. We want them to come back to us without hesitation. Once we win a customer, we want to be able to build a long term relationship with them.

We do build great relationships with our customers. We put is a great effort in understanding and identifying their requirements and where they are coming from. We then propose a solution that most of the time exceeds their expectations. We have a great start. Then we start the journey of execution.

This is where we make a few mistakes. To be honest, our QA function can improve heaps. Not having a dedicated QA is also one of the reason. But generally our team is overbooked. And this leaves very little time for testing. We have to make progress on many projects on any given day. And personally I am responsible to review each developers work prior to them going through to the customers and I have not been doing a proper job of it.

Sop now we have made a decision that all of that is going to change. We are going to make time to do a proper job. With the team growing in size this will result in a decrease for the workload for each developer.

Secondly, we are not going to take up any new projects for a couple of months. We are going to solely concentrate on the current projects. we are going to tie the loose ends and make them proper. Now that should make our customers happy.