Phoolosopher

Proudly Made In India - Without the Swadeshi Bullc**p

2016-08-04T16:59:00.001+05:30

5 GOOD REASONS

My company, Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd., makes, among other things, Prosthetics and Orthotics. Some frequent questions that potential customers ask me are;
"Why should I buy your product, when I can buy the Chinese product cheaper?"
or
"If I need top Quality why should I buy from Ushtara and not this German company?"
or
"What advantage does buying from Ushtara offer me over buying from an importer of Chinese products?"

This is my attempt at giving you 5 reasons to buy from an Indian Company, especially one like Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd.

5 GOOD REASONS. Not some meaningless Gandhian-Ideological mumbo-jumbo like "be Indian buy Indian"

But first; a little competition analysis,

THE COMPETITION

We are competing in our mobility related endeavors with two types of manufacturers.

On the one hand, we compete with giant European and American firms like Ottobock and Ossur, some of them a century or more old.

On the other hand there are literally hundreds of Chinese manufacturers, like these guys and these guys, offering products of widely differing quality and price.

There are also others in this sector, like the state owned Artificial Limb Manufacturing Corporation of India and the Jaipur Foot Organization, but their products are either heavily subsidized or donated, so technically we are not competing with them.

A CASE STUDY

This is the Prosthetic Polycentric Knee that we manufacture;

It's called the XR2501. The Maximum Retail Price is INR 28,500. A comparable Chinese product costs INR 4,000 Ex-Shanghai and retails for about INR 6,500 in India. A German or American product with similar functionality costs INR 70,000 in India.

SO WHY BUY FROM USHTARA?

Here as promised are 5 good reasons;

1. COST

Typically my customer, who buys the product from Ushtara, is not the end user. Rather my customer is the organization or technician who fits the prosthetic to the user.

Here are some of the costs you will incur if you buy a foreign product albeit one with a cheaper retail price;

i) Inventory costs:
The price quoted by many foreign companies especially Chinese companies, is for a certain Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ), which means that you probably have to buy more pieces of product than you have current orders for.

Because it takes 20 days to 6 weeks to ship to India from Europe / America / China. You are going to have to predict your demand at least that much in advance.

If you make a decision to buy from Ushtara, you have a lead time of only 3 working days on small orders.

ii) Quality Costs:
If you end up with a defective Chinese product, at best, they will replace it for you and you will have to bear the shipping and the cost of the additional time. At worst, you will have to absorb the entire acquisition cost.

As for the dent in your credibility...that's a cost few could carry.

Ushtara will replace defective products in 3 working days.

2. Accountability

i) A common legal framework:
How do you take legal action against a foreign supplier who reneges on his promise? Is it even worth the trouble?

Because Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd., is a Company registered and located in India, we are subject to Indian Laws and Jurisdiction. Our contract with you says as much.

ii) A common ecosystem:
Ottobock supplies millions of components to the whole world. Chinese companies are powerhouses of cheap manufacturing. Compared to their total sales, your purchase is peanuts.

Because Ushtara works in a common ecosystem with you. We care about what you think. Your opinion has a direct impact on our future revenues.

iii) Common standards:
With every purchase that you make from Ushtara, we will supply you material chemistry, mechanical properties and dimensional inspection reports. These reports are clearly traceable to relevant Indian standards.

Do you even know what Chinese standards look like? here's a clue; they're in Chinese.

3. Indian Solutions to Indian Problems

i) Environment:
The story goes, that the Indian army bought a whole bunch of BMP troop carriers from Russia in the late 1980s.

But when they were testing them in the deserts of Rajasthan the air conditioner came on and started blowing warm air into the troop compartment. Because that's what the Russians needed on the Siberian Steppe!

Here's how we solved a uniquely Indian problem with German Technology

German prosthetics don't use these bushings, because most places in Germany are not dusty. Also Norwegian amputees don't go around planting saplings in the paddy field. Indian amputees do.

As a side note; the Chinese products have hardened steel bushings instead. Guess how long they took to rust in the torpid humidity of Chennai ... Wait for it...4 HOURS!

ii) Usage:
I am Indian, our engineers are Indian, our machines are Indian and most importantly our technology is Indian.

So what does this mean for you?
Here's an Indian solution to an Indian problem,

No European or American Product has the range of motion of the Ushtara XR2501. That's because Indians squat. The French don't.

4. Accessibility:

If you have a problem with you Samsung TV, can you call Lee Byung-chul? No way! You get an irritating phone message that says " For registering your product press 1..."

Simply put, I head Ushtara Engineering private limited. And you can talk to me about problems or suggestions regarding our products DIRECT!

I speak English, Hindi, Tamil and Kannada fluently and Punjabi, Bengali and Telugu badly.

Don't believe me;

Here's my number : +91 99020 00483
Here's my email: sunil@ushtara.com
Here's our physical address:
Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd.
No.9, Kempaiah Garden
14th Cross, Peenya Industrial Area
Bangalore - 560058

Contact me and I WILL respond, promptly and courteously!

5. Flexibility:

i) Scale:
Need just one component or sub-assembly? We'll give you just one.

Need to borrow the knee to run a few tests? We'll gladly lend it to you for a month.

Need urgent supplies to cater to a recent natural calamity? We'll scale up with you .

We're flexible that way. We're Indian you see. Swalpa Adjust Maadi!

Try getting Ossur to respond to your time varying needs like that. Different story.

ii) Design:
Christian Medical College, Vellore, a customer of ours needed an extra long Pylon to meet the needs of an exceptionally tall individual.

Our response time: 1 working day.

Agreed, that was a fairly simple request, but the fact is we're willing to make design and manufacturing changes to meet your every need.

There you have it. 5 good reasons and 10 sub-reasons to buy Indian!

Christian Medical College, Vellore has adopted the Ushtara Polycentric Prosthetic Knee XR2501

2016-06-13T08:12:00.003+05:30

Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore has adopted the Ushtara Polycentric Prosthetic Knee XR2501 and the associated Trans-Tibial assembly. They are using them as an alternative to more expensive European and American imports.
This comes as a huge endorsement for the capabilities of this new product.
Both technicians and the patient are satisfied with the performance.
Here are some photos (used with permission)

Want to Start a Business? Be good at your job.

2016-05-10T13:49:00.000+05:30

A lot of people I talk to, especially people who are in a job, but trying to start a business, seem to think that there are two distinct kinds of people. One, the Entrepreneurial kind and the other, the employee kind.

They talk at length about why they can't become business owners, because they lack a certain something. Some of them call it risk aversion, some call it lack of drive, whatever. They seem to believe deep in their hearts that they are not qualified to start a business.

Well here's the low down;

The skills required to succeed in business are EXACTLY the same as the skills required to be a good employee

This is so important, I'm going to say it again, but this time in a dark shade of blue;

The skills required to succeed in business are EXACTLY the same as the skills required to be a good employee

Now I understand that this might fly in the face of everything you've heard before. From your parents, your teachers, your colleagues and your friends.

Even a lot of business owners I know will disagree with this, but they're probably just trying to reduce the competition ;)

But I'm going to attempt to prove to you that the skills to succeed at being an employee are no different from the skills required to succeed at owning your business.

But I'm going to go about it a little obtusely. I'm going to try to demonstrate that the factors that people see as obstacles to being a business owner are the very factors they are overcoming as good employees.

Here are some of the main challenges that people perceive on their route to entrepreneurial success;

"I can't afford the risk"

My experience working with Government Owned companies like BEML and HAL are that their employees are rewarded not for being right, but for NOT being wrong.

The top guy in the company is usually the guy who has never made any mistakes. But what are the stakes?

A small but steady government salary, a small increase every few years and gold watch when you retire at 58.

If these are things you value. Don't read further. You and I can never be friends:)

If however, you want the best that life has to offer, the freedom to live to your full potential, get a job in a company where employees who take risks are rewarded higher. Even though they sometimes fail.

Marissa Mayer was offered both a teaching job and consulting job at huge and well-renowned institutions. Instead she took a job with Google, then a small internet company. Was that a huge risk? of course it was. Did it pay off? She's now the CEO of Yahoo. Although neither she nor anyone else looks like they're going to be able to fend off Yahoo's inevitable downward spiral, she's not going to end up too badly. All because of a risk she took with a young company in 1999.

Every day you go to work in your job, you are undertaking risks. The risk that they will not be able to pay you the salary they already owe you. The risk that the company you work for will close down before you have a chance to search for another job.

So in the end, it's only perception. The risks that you take as an employee are no greater than the risk of being a business owner. With similar consequences both negative and positive.

"I don't have drive"

When I worked at GE Capital, there were three grades in the appraisal system.
The lowest grade was NEEDS IMPROVEMENT. This meant that you were not doing your job well enough to keep your job. If you were graded NI three times in a row, you were either reassigned or sacked.

The second grade was MEETS EXPECTATIONS. This grade meant that you were in fact doing just enough to keep your job. That the metrics of your performance matched some predetermined numbers and that perhaps you might get a small pay raise to match the inflation.

The highest grade was EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS. This grade meant that you were doing more than was expected of you. In other words, that you were helping your colleagues and ultimately the whole company to be more productive and profitable. Exceeding expectations was the only way to qualify for a large pay raise and/or a promotion.

If you are boss, what kind of subordinate would you prefer? One who can take charge and get things done or one who is constantly asking for guidance and support on how to do things?

If you're like me, you would want the people reporting to you, to broadly interpret your wishes and finish tasks assigned to them without too much help. And then go ahead and do some more things simply because they need doing.

Well this is exactly the same skill that a business owner needs too. Except that the boss is the customer.

"I don't have money"

Let's get one thing straight. Hardly any business owners start businesses with their own money. Any business owner worth his salt should be able to attract funding. Loans, equity investment whatever. This means convincing enough people to open their purse string and part with their money.

Asking for money is no different than asking for any thing else.

No matter which level you are employed at, you need to ask for things. If you are a janitor, you need to ask for better cleaning supplies. If you are purchase manager, you need to ask your suppliers to reduce prices. If you are the CEO you have to ask your board for permission to run the daring new campaign that you have envisioned.

In the end it's all about asking and asking right. As an employee you have to ask for stuff. As a business owner you have to ask for money. It's the same skill.

"I can't do sales"

Everything which you have in life. Everything which you will ever have is given to you by other people. The more people there are in your network. The more they each give you, the more you have. It's that simple.

When most people think of sales, they think of the realtor or the insurance agent or the aunt who is part of multi-level marketing network trying to hard-sell you on stuff.

But that's not all sales is. Sales, simply put, is positioning concepts in such a way that potential customers see the value in them. That's something you are probably already doing in your job. You are already selling ideas to the management. You are already selling a pay raise to your boss.

To be a good employee or a good business owner, you need to be able to convince people to invest their money and time in your ideas. That's not negotiable.

No matter where you are in life. No matter what you do, you have to learn to sell. To your boss. To your investor. To your customers. To your peers. It makes no difference.

"I'm not a crook"

It's a commonly held belief, around the world, but especially in developing countries like India, that in order to be a successful business owner, you need to have a somewhat ambiguous moral compass.

Now I don't want to generalize, but I won't deny that I've met my fair share of business owners who wouldn't be beyond offering a bribe to get a prized contract or calling in some political pull to reduce the service level agreement in a purchase order.

But by far, the most corrupt people I've encountered are purchase managers and they're invariably employees. The larger the company they work for, the more corrupt they tend to be.

Want my advise?

DON'T BE CROOKED. PERIOD

Crime NEVER pays. It might look like an easier route to get what you want. It might appear harmless or 'victimless' but by far the best policy is honesty and being transparently above-board.

A good employee is not amenable to being morally corrupt. Neither is a good business owner.

"I'm not a natural leader"

Most people believe that leadership is a mixture of charisma, charm, public speaking and a certain undefinable quality which you are either born with or without.

In my opinion, that's rubbish. To me leadership has a single sentence definition;

"Exhibiting strength of purpose and providing encouragement and direction to others"

Any time you delegate a task to subordinates and ensure that the task is carried through to completion, you are a leader.

Any time you convince a supplier to reduce price and increase credit periods. You are a leader.

Any time you choose an option which is better rather than easier. You are a leader.

Whether you are a business owner or an employee if you have strength of purpose and and providing encouragement and direction to others, you are a leader.

till next time

Ushtara Polycentric Knee XR2501

2016-05-05T15:59:00.002+05:30

Run your business on AUTOPILOT

2013-03-15T13:28:00.000+05:30

I have always wanted to mess around with machines, getting my hands dirty and having a lot of fun in the bargain.

So while I was working for Mphasis in 2004, I rented a 500 square foot shed in Banaswadi, Bangalore, to mess around in.

I had wanted my very own lathe since I was thirteen years old, so I pitched in all my savings (scrimpings) from working at Mphasis and OfficeTiger bought one;

and then I had a life changing epiphany;

I suck at manual work!

I was pretty good (my opinion) at conceptualizing and imagining stuff and designing on the computer, but when it really came down to making something using my hands, I was REALLY bad at it.

I had two choices. Either work at it and get better at manual work or hire someone who was good at it. Because I'm lazy, I chose the latter.

I interviewed a few machinists/fitters and hired Chandrashekar. My first and oldest employee.

Two words: MAGIC HANDS.

So since I had a lathe, I thought I'd go out and get some orders for it. The orders needed some drilling operations, in addition to turning, so I bought a couple bench top drilling machines.

But then, I needed people to operate them, so I hired some more people

and then Ajay Fernandes joined me and we founded Ushtara Engineering Pvt. Ltd., and then we got more orders that needed milling, so we bought a CNC vertical machining center

and hired people to operate it.

And I quit my job and became a businessman full-time.

Then we got more orders so we bought more machines and hired more people until by 2010, our team looked like this;

But if some one had asked me about processes at Ushtara, I would have been like;

PROCESSES HAH!
Who needs processes when you have a Gazillion Terabyte supercomputer between your ears?

I knew every part number, every machining specification, every heat-treatment tolerance, every coating-thickness and surface-finish requirement for every part made in my shop.

I could tell you the manufacturing status of every single part at any point in time, day or night.

I was spending 16 to 24 hours a day, in the factory. Stopping only to sleep and brush my teeth.

I watched everything like a hawk. Nothing, escaped my notice.

AND THEN I GOT SICK
A searing pain in my right leg was diagnosed as Sciatica, caused by a herniated disc pressing on my sciatic nerve.

Long hours of sitting on my office chair, no exercise, minimal rest and an irregular diet had taken their toll on my body.

Two months of bed rest with minimal movement was what the doctor ordered.

When I got back to work after 2 weeks of lounging at Ajay's house (thank you Danni) and another month of rest at my parents' house in Chennai, Ushtara was in shambles.

Parts sent to customers had been rejected because of operations not having been carried out or faulty operations.

Machines were idle while people were loafing about.

Schedules had been missed.

The shop floor was in disarray.

Customers were on the verge of finding alternative suppliers.

Simple things like paper in the printer and tools in the machines had not be bought simply because no one knew how or who was responsible.

All this in a month and a half!

This would not do!

That's when we decided that we needed processes.
Processes that would tell people what to do and how to do it and when to do it.

In other words;

PROCESSES WOULD REPLACE ME
Processes would dictate when material was bought.
Processes would guide people on how to manufacture the parts and how and when to send them out.
Processes would show people what to do when we got a new order.
and so on.

If the word process in this context sounds confusing, here's the low down;

Processes are things happening in defined ways

That's it!

Define a standard way of doing ANYTHING. Then make sure people do this thing in this standard way. Now you have a process.

The obvious outcome of this, is that people will know what to do ALL the time and so you don't need to be there to tell them what to do.

When an organization does this kind of standardized work, you can get a certificate that says so;

It took us a long time and a lot of effort to implement our processes.

The quality of our parts became consistently good.
Parts went out to the customer on time.
Customers were happier because they could rely on us
We made more money because we wasted less time and resources.

Perhaps most importantly;

PROCESSES FREE UP MY TIME
I can do important stuff like go to the movies on a Wednesday afternoon with my wife :)

And also stuff like envisioning the future of my company, networking with potential customers, learning about microcontrollers from this guy and this guy and programming from this guy and sharing my knowledge on my blog.

And I can do all of this, secure in the knowledge that it's business as usual at the factory.

WHEN TO GET IN YOUR PROCESSES' WAY
But it doesn't end there.

Nothing is so good that it can not be improved.
Periodically, I go in and mess up a process, just to see whether it can get better.

But then that's a process too. We have a defined process for continual improvement!

Till next time

Sunil

Do You Have what it Takes to be A Business Owner?

2012-11-21T16:02:00.000+05:30

While no set of personality traits assures success in business, all of us have the following traits in some measure. Take this quiz to help you define yourself and your potential partners.

This quiz is part of a post on finding partners for yourself in your business.

Personality Traits – Aligned.These are personality traits that Business Partners need to share in equal measure. Imbalance in these traits often leads to conflict.

Scoring: Choose the statement that describes you best. If you are a 1 or a 2 in any area, get partners who are a 1 or a 2 in those areas and vice versa.

CAN YOU ACCEDE CONTROL FOR THE COMMON GOOD?

Absolutely. I realize that others might be better at some things than me
Yes. If I'm convinced
It's difficult for me to do
Nope

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH AMBIGUITY?

Yes. Life is shades of grey
Don't like it, but I can deal with it
As long as I have 90% of the facts
Hate it!

CAN YOU BE DESCRIBED AS TENACIOUS?

Yes. I never give up. EVER.
Sure, as long as there's light at the end of the tunnel
Well, sometimes the odds are stacked against you...
If it's not happening, might as well do something else

ARE YOU A FAST LEARNER?

Gimme 2 months and I'll learn Korean (fill in some other language if you ARE Korean :) )
I've mastered what I do at work everyday
I have to work really hard at it
I already know everything I need to.

HOW OPTIMISTIC ARE YOU?

The silver lining is so big I can hardly see the cloud!
I'm up beat more than 90% of the time
I think I'm what's called a realist
I'm not learning anything from this quiz

Personality Traits – Opposed.These are personality traits that business partners need to have in complementary quantities. For example, if you are very pragmatic, your partner should be more idealistic, for the good of the business.

Scoring: Choose the statement that describes you best. If you are a 1 or a 2 in any area, get partners who are a 3 or a 4 in those areas and vice versa.

HOW PRAGMATIC ARE YOU?

I pride myself on being level headed
Most of the time
I prefer to see possibilities rather than realities
My wife/husband/friend/brother is the down-to-earth one in the family

ARE YOU DETAIL ORIENTED?

Extremely. I am a perfectionist
Yes, but I realize that the last 10% consumes 90% of effort.
Hate it but I can knuckle down to it when required
I prefer to delegate

CAN YOU BE DESCRIBED AS AGGRESSIVE?

Absolutely. I have HUGE goals and limited time
I am more aggressive in thought than in action
I prefer the word assertive. Aggressive is, well,...too aggressive
I hate aggressive people. Just let me be

ARE YOU GREGARIOUS?

Haha. I'm the life of the party. ANY party
I have 800 friends on Facebook and I know them all personally
I can smile at people I don't like but there better be a good reason
These people on Facebook with 800 friends are so FAKE!

WOULD PEOPLE CALL YOUR REBELLIOUS?

You really think you can slot me into some kinda box with your stupid quiz?
Deep down I have pink hair and a ring on my nipple
I'm comfortable with the system and I can manipulate it
People with pink hair and nipple rings are FREAKS!

HONESTLY, ARE YOU CHARISMATIC?

When I talk to a room full of people they listen with mouths open
I am generally able to build consensus in a group
Charisma can be learned
Why do I always end up doing things I didn't want to?

go to the blog post on finding your ideal business partner

or take the quiz on essential Business Owner Skills

Like this post? Now pay me ONE DOLLAR ! :)

Find a Business Partner

2012-11-15T19:48:00.001+05:30

When I started Ushtara , in 2002, I started it as a Proprietary Concern. At the time, it seemed the best thing to do, because, I had complete independence to do anything I wanted. I was the lord and master.

But I realized after a while that the business could grow much faster if there were other people involved.
some of my reasons for feeling this way were;

a) Running a business is a multi-skill undertaking. Although a business owner needs to have a wide range of skills, from finance to product/service expertise to HR, there are times when you will need people with special expertise in some of these areas.

b) It is physically impossible to run a business single handed. It is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week job.

c) Brainstorming with competent people of varied specializations, brings out better ideas than you can generate, by yourself.

What most new business owners, when they want to bring in another person into the business, is to approach their closest friend, to become their business partner.

I decided to go a different route.

FIND A PARTNER AND MAKE HIM YOUR FRIEND
I decided that the business' and my own best interests would be served best if I could find a business partner, who had all the skills I lacked.

I met my business partner, Ajay Fernandes, in 2004. He is a perfect fit for me and for the business.
Soon after we found each other, we became very good friends in addition to being equal partners in the business. Together, we have grown as individuals, grown as a company and grown as friends over the course of almost a decade.

I feel fully confident that we will continue to be friends as well as business partners for the rest of our lives.

When I tell people this story, they tell me that I'm very lucky to have found a great business partner/friend.

I Agree.

But I don't think it's all down to luck. I followed a systematic process to find a business partner. And so can You.

ANALYSE YOUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESS AS A BUSINESS OWNER
When I was looking for a business partner, I first had to look inside myself to find out what I lacked.
Have you ever played Tetris?

Well Business Associates are like that. Each of them has some some high points and some holes. The high points are like your strengths and the holes are like your weakness. When the right business partners meet, they compliment each other perfectly (they might have to re-orient themselves sometimes, again, just like Tetris).

When this happens, you and your business move to the next level.

Take this Business Owner Skill Set Quiz. It will help you analyze who you are, in terms of being a Business Owner.

Remember that your strengths and weaknesses change over time and so do your business partners. So you will have to carry out this analysis over and over, periodically over the course of your business career.

MAKE UP AN AD FOR YOUR IDEAL BUSINESS PARTNER
Now that you know who you are, you know who you are not.
Finding your ideal business partner just got one step easier.

Finding yourself a spouse, has never been easier. Just write up an advertisement, describing the ideal person, personality, physical traits, ethnicity...
Then post this ad on any or all of a hundred different dating and matrimony sites and hey presto! specialized algorithms find your ideal life partner.

That might be a little optimisitic :), but the advantage of writing an advertisement is that it forces you to think about EXACTLY what you want.

Finding a business partner is similar to finding a spouse. With the same kind of close interactions and potential conflicts. This is why I recommend that you write out an ad for your ideal business partner.

Once you have made up the ad, tell EVERYBODY about it. Your friends, family and acquaintances. Put it up on Facebook and Linkedin. EVERYWHERE.

In the due course of time you will find your ideal business partner.

PARTNERS CONNECT ON MANY LEVELS
In addition to core business skills, the personalities of the business associates and the interaction of these personalities is critical to the success or failure of a business.

You can never have enough of certain personality traits in a business, like tenacity and optimism. It is advisable that all the business associates have loads of these traits. If not, all of the associates should have these traits in the same measure. When these traits, that I call Aligned Personality Traits are very different in the associates, conflict is frequent.

On the other hand another set of personality traits, the Opposed Personality Traits, work differently. These traits should occur in complementary pairs, for example, two business partners, both highly pragmatic, can ruin a business by being overly concerned about day to day realities.

Take the Business Owner Personality Quiz, to see what your business personality is like and what your partners should be like.

A STORY ABOUT SKILL SETS AND PERSONALITIES
In 2007, we bought another company called Nuetech CNC Machining Solutions Pvt. Ltd. The company was in a similar line to us and the selling price was low, so it made sense to buy the company.

The company was owned by 3 guys, who used to be peers at Hindustan Machine Tools. They had resigned their jobs to start the company.

Within 6 months of starting in business, they started squabbling. Within 2 years, the situation had become so bad because of their internal strife that business had come down to zero. So they decided to sell the business.

So intense were their hatred for each other that they couldn't even come together for the purpose of selling the company, and the sale had to brokered by a third party.

Why did this happen?

They had exactly the same skill set. They were all Engineers with a background in machine tools, from the same organization. None of them knew anything about other aspects of business like Finance or the Law.

They had opposing personalities where aligned personality traits are called for like tenacity and ability to learn.

They had similar personalities where opposed personality traits are called for like, pragmatism and attention to detail.

Their downfall was inevitable.

Till Next Time

Sunil

Business Owner Skill Set Quiz

2012-11-15T19:05:00.000+05:30

A particular set of skill or personality traits in a business owner does not guarantee success in business. However, any business NEEDS a certain number of specific skills. Working with what you have, you can then partner with others to complete the multi-skill team required to make your business a high-flyer.

These are some skills that all businesses need. It is impossible for any one person to have expertise in all of these areas. However, it is important for any business owner to have to have a working knowledge of all of them. An ideal business, should have at least one expert in each of the below areas, with all of the associates having a thorough comprehension of every area.

This quiz will help you define yourself and your potential partners.

This quiz is part of a post on finding partners for yourself in your business.

Scoring: Choose the statement that describes you best. If you are a 1 or a 2 in any area, get partners who are 3 to 5 in those areas and a 1 or a 2 elsewhere. Simple!

HOW GOOD ARE YOU AT YOUR CORE PRODUCT OR SERVICE?

1. I am an acknowledged expert on the subject

2. I have worked in a business in a similar industry

3. I have some knowledge of the the product/service

4. Still learning

5. Don't know don't care. My expertise is different.

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW FINANCE?

1. I am a chartered accountant. I know even the loop holes

2. I have an in-depth understanding of finance even though I have no formal training

3. I am able to work with an accounting package and understand credits and debits

4. I can balance my check book

5. Finance is for nerds. My expertise is different.

HOW CONVERSANT ARE YOU WITH LAWS RELEVANT TO YOUR BUSINESS?

1. I am a lawyer with years of experience in business law and contracts

2. I am able to independently draft, review and ratify contracts

3. I have an understanding of relevant laws but I am no expert

4. I don't know any thing about the law

5. Laws and legal matters are scary for me. I prefer to avoid anything to do with them

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HR?

1. I am an HR professional. I have created hiring processes, contracts, the whole deal

2. I have worked in an HR role, hiring people, but I am not an expert

3. I have worked in a leadership role, often participating in HR activities

4. HR is about people. What's not to know?

5. I don't want to work with people. My interests lie elsewhere

HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MARKETING?

1. I have independently created the design and implementation of successful marketing plans involving a large number of people and resources

2. I have been a part of a team implementing successful marketing strategies

3. I have done some marketing as an individual

4. I realize that marketing is different from sales

5. Marketing is just another name for lying. I do something else really well

WHAT IS YOUR LEVEL OF EXPERTISE WITH NEGOTIATION AND SALES?

1. In my previous job role, I successfully institutionalized negotiation and sale across a large team

2. I have successfully negotiated and created win-win situations on large deals

3. I have closed sales, but I'm not good at negotiation

4. I am very poor at sales

5. My product / service is so good, it sell itself

CAN YOU DO CUSTOMER RELATIONS?

1. I have created customer relations processes involving both statistical control and soft skills across a wide variety of industries and products

2. I have been part of a team planning and implementing customer relations processes

3. I have successfully retained disenchanted customers through my own skills

4. I know that customer relations are important to my business' growth

5. Customers come and customers go. I don't care

HAVE YOU DONE INVESTOR MANAGEMENT?

1. I have successfully brought in and retained large investors into a business for years

2. I have brought in some investors but I don't really know what works in keeping them

3. I have created business cases and plans, but not got in any investors yet

4. I have talked to many bankers and investors and I know how they assess businesses

5. My business doesn't need investors

CAN YOU DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT BUSINESS PROCESSES?

1. I have headed the business process implementation and team of a large organization

2. I have worked in a team implementing business processes across functions

3. I am able to envision processes as flow charts while being aware of the fact that they depict people

4. I have a feeling that having processes can improve my business

5. What processes? We make the product and customers buy it. That's all my business is about

go back to the main post finding your ideal business partner

Or take the Business Owner Personality Quiz

Keep Your Day Job and Start A Business

2012-11-11T18:42:00.000+05:30

When the Entrepreneurial Urge takes you, its easy to get washed away in the waves of optimism and euphoria and quit your job. This could be worst mistake of your business career.

A break even analysis of your business will tell you approximately how much time it will take for you to start generating money. You should be prepared to stay in your job while running your business, for at least 3 times this period Why 3 times? Because for start-ups, projections are inevitably wrong.

In the early years, your business is almost synonymous with YOU. You will have to carry it on your shoulders, until it becomes mature enough to support itself.

Unless you have limitless funding, which includes a salary for you, don't quit your job before your business starts making enough money to support itself and you.

IF YOU GO BROKE, YOUR BUSINESS WILL DIE
Asymmetric was an advertising consultancy in Bangalore. It's owners, Ryan and Angelo, were perhaps the most talented individuals I have ever met.

After some years at other advertising agencies, the two decided to strike out on their own. They quit their jobs and opened Asymmetric The orders came flooding in and two months into the new venture, they had to hire more people.

Within a year, the company was closed and Ryan and Angelo had gone back to jobs. What happened?

THEY RAN OUT OF MONEY.

Here's something that new business owners don't realize about Business: there's a lag between delivering your product or service and getting paid for it. And in that interval, you still have to keep running the company, keep running your life. The money required to keep going until you get paid is called Working Capital.

In the early stages of your business, when everything depends on you, your salary will act as your personal working capital.

The Buddha once said, that you can not follow Dharma on an empty stomach.

Remember, that being a business owner, is a higher calling. A person who is waging a daily struggle for survival, can not be an effective business owner.

If you are unable to meet your rent, food and other basic needs, you will not be able to run your business.

YES, YOU WILL HAVE TO WORK MORE HOURS
In case you were wondering. You will have to work like a demon. Putting in 8 hours at your job and then working at least 8 hours at your business.

How do you do this? You just do.

there's no simple solution. You just have to harden your heart and soul. Make the new year resolution of the century and just do it.

When I started Ushtara, I had to keep my days free for my new business, so I got a night shift job at Mphasis BPO. I worked all night at the call center and all day on my business.

I slept 4 hours a day. For 3 years.

That's the price you have to pay.

YOU WILL BE MAKING COMPROMISES AT BOTH
If you thought you could get the highest grade in your appraisal at your job while trying to run a business during your non-job hours, forget it.

If you think your business is going to do really well, with a founder-leader who also works another job, to stay afloat, Not gonna happen.

This is is the reality. Face it. You are going to be doing half justice to both aspects of your life.

But think about it, isn't running a business with a lot of compromises better than not doing it at all?
Isn't it better than running your business for a few months and then shutting it down simply because you weren't able to pay your electricity bill and buy food?

As you become a business owner, one thing you will realize, is that again and again you will have to make compromises. Get comfortable with that.

GET A JOB THAT GIVES YOU FREEDOM TO RUN YOUR BUSINESS
Many jobs don't require you to be at a certain place (read "office") for a fixed number of hours (9-5). Some examples include sales representative and field technical expert.

In such jobs, your boss will not know at any given time, where you are. As long as you meet your assigned targets, he won't even care.

Some jobs at companies like IBM, allow you to work from home. There are certain conditions like getting your work done on time and not working for any other company. Since your long term goal is to be a business owner, you need not be overly concerned about these conditions.

Think how much of your day in the office is wasted, doing nothing productive between bursts of activity. With a flexible job, you could now divert all of that wasted time toward your new business enterprise.

MAKE YOUR EMPLOYER YOUR CUSTOMER
Many successful business owners start their business in an industry related to their job.

A friend of mine worked in a bank. His role in the bank is to source collection agencies that can collect payments overdue to the bank.

He decided to start a collection agency. He knew the opportunities, he knew the ropes. And when he had to outsource the juiciest collection cases, guess which agency he chose?

After 3 years being a customer to himself, he quit the bank and is now running the collection agency full time. He supplies collection services to his old employer as well as other banks who need them.

There are often legal issues like conflict of interest, when you decide to run a business that caters to your employer. Seek legal counsel and talk to your boss before taking up this strategy.

Till Next Time

Sunil

First Steps in Business

2012-11-10T13:09:00.001+05:30

Taking that first step from being an employee to being an business owner can be really REALLY scary. People will come up with almost any excuse, to not have to take that last step off of the cliff.

I have to take care of my wife / parents.
I'm too young / too old to do this
I don't have enough money
I don't have time
The bank won't lend me money
I'm waiting for the killer idea
I'm waiting for the economy to improve
I can't afford to lose my job
I don't have enough knowledge

here are some things you can do to help you get over those last few obstacles and take off in your new avatar as a business owner.

TELL EVERYBODY YOU MEET ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING BUSINESS
And I mean EVERYBODY. At work, at home, at a party, literally everyone you talk to.
Why do this?
While your ideas are bottled up inside your head, they are nothing but day dreams. When you let them out, they become somehow more solid, more substantial, more real.

Here's the thing, not everybody will be sympathetic to your ideas. In fact many people will find you boring and some people will ridicule you outright.

You can take strength from this and start and run a successful business just to prove them wrong.

The vast majority of people however, will be curious about what you are trying to do and mildly envious that you are about to embark upon an adventure that they themselves would never have the guts to.

Telling EVERYBODY about your business also has another bonus advantage, you just might run into someone who will actually be able to help you get your business of the ground.

BECOME AN EXPERT IN YOUR LINE
Before I started Ushtara, I spent 3 years understanding and learning everything about manufacturing.

Even before I started, I knew a great deal about
CNC Machining
Computer Aided Machining
Computer Aided Design
Metallurgy
Casting
Forging
Surface Treatment
Heat Treatment
Machining tolerances

and so on.
This knowledge would serve me in good stead once my business was up and running.
It helped convince investors that I knew what I was doing. It helped my first customer to believe that I could actually execute their order.

Perhaps most importantly, it was the one firm rock in the shaky path that of starting a new business.

TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE WHERE YOU WANT TO BE
I realize this can be daunting, but it's something I've actually done.
Here's the way to carry out this activity.

Find business that are offering a similar service or product to what you want to offer. Preferably they should be close to your geographical location. A search on Google should bring up some results.

Find out who founded the organization. You can take a look at the company website to find these details.

Call up the company and ask to speak with the founder. Ninety percent of the time, you won't be able to speak to her, but it doesn't matter, because you only need to speak to about 15 people. If you are able to get through, make an appointment to meet them.

Here's what most people don't realize about successful people. THEY LIKE SHOWING OFF.

When I was starting out, I would visit at least one successful business founder, whom I admired, a week. I would say something like "In twenty years, I want to be where you are, so tell me how did you do it."

The reminiscences and pride would flow like an unstoppable stream and all I had to do was listen.

Carry a notebook and pen and keep jotting whatever you feel is important. Remember I said you only need to speak to about 15 people? That's because when you speak to that many people, you'll start seeing patterns.

Keep in mind that many of the successful business owners will not want to waste their time talking to you, but the many of them will.

Once you start seeing the patterns, you will be better prepared for your own business venture.

PRACTICE PITCHING YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE
You are convinced that your discount voucher business is the best thing that ever happened to mankind.
You know that once you set up your business, customers will come streaming in.

But before you take the Big Step, why not take the concept for a trial run?

Pick a fake name for your company and cold call 50 of your potential customers. See how many of them are excited by your offerings. See how many actually take the bait and are willing to pay good money in exchange for your services. Obviously you don't deliver anything because your business is not up and running yet.

Granted, what I am suggesting is a little wrong, selling a service that you can't deliver. But don't worry, compare the wrongness with the amount you will learn about the business you are going to get into and it's totally worth it.

By practice pitching your product or service, you can fine tune not just your offering but also your marketing model and business model.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND DIVE IN
So you've talked to everybody about you business idea.
You've become a subject matter expert on your product or service offering
Talked to people in the industry that you admire and
practice pitched your product

So what next?

Go for it. Just leave behind your fears and take the plunge into the exciting world of business.

Till Next Time
Sunil

Liked this post? Now pay me ONE DOLLAR ! :)

Continue on to the Next Chapter

Running a Franchise to learn Business

2012-11-09T20:51:00.002+05:30

Sam Walton's book Made in America, is a book that anybody wanting to start a business MUST read.

Before going on to start Walmart, Sam Walton was many things, including a newspaper boy and an army officer. Walton knew from an early age, that he wanted to be in the retail business, running successful retail stores.

How could an army veteran with no background in retail selling, go on to found a retail empire and one of the biggest companies in the world?

When Sam left the army he had,

no contacts,
no knowledge of the retail industry,
limited capital
no idea how to run a Business
no mentors
no big investors

Sound like anyone you know?

Understandably he was hesitant to risk his entire life savings on a retail shop, that he had no idea how to run. Yet he wanted to learn how to run a retail business successfully.

What he did next through design or accident was the best decision of his life.

HE GOT HIMSELF A FRANCHISE

In 1945, soon after the second world war, Sam Walton met Butler Brothers. Butler Brothers was a successful retail company in southern USA. They ran a chain of retail stores called Ben Franklin, which they were franchising for a moderate franchising fee, with certain conditions.

Walton decided to take on a Ben Franklin franchise and put up a store in Newport, Arkansas.

Everything Sam Walton learned about the retail trade, was pretty much because of the Ben Franklin experience.

Running a Ben Franklin store taught him,

How to source stuff cheaply and efficiently
How to display merchandise in such a way that it would be attractive to the customer
How to keep overheads down and maximize profit
How to treat customers so they would keep returning

The franchise also taught him;
Accounting and finance: with no other knowledge of accounts and finance, Walton continued to use the Ben Franklin accounting formats even after he had stopped being a franchisee and started the Walmart Stores.

Processes: Walton was able to see first hand, that strong processes lead to scalability. He used many of the processes from Ben Franklin in his Walmart stores.

Moral of the story:

GET A FRANCHISE THAT DOES THE SAME THING YOU WANT TO

Granted, every industry does not work on the franchising model, but chances are some where in the world, some one is doing what you want to, and is willing to franchise it.

Apart from the ones you have probably heard of, McDonalds, Subway, Dominos, there are others in every possible industry;

White Tiger, a laundry service

Paradise Juice, a juice and smoothies franchise

Novatech, an education and training franchise

and on and on. This site will show you a number of companies that want to franchise their business model.

Looking back, I wish I had taken this route, before setting up Ushtara. This would have saved me a lot of time and effort learning stuff which others have already figured out. The franchising fee is the price you pay to reduce your own learning time

But remember that Franchising has its limitations. You will have to keep paying the royalty as long as you are a franchisee. There are also other restrictions like the kind of products or services you offer, where you can source your input materials from and so on. A little research will show you which is the best franchise for you.

LEARN THE BUSINESS AND THEN GET OUT
Continuing to be a franchisee once you've learn the business, doesn't make sense. Treat your franchisee experience as a paid apprenticeship where you invest a small amount to learn the ropes faster. But your end aim must be to get out, once you've finished learning.

Being a franchisee can never get you to the really big stakes game. For that to happen, you must break out on your own.

Who knows, one day your successful business model might be one that franchisees are willing to pay a royalty for.

Till Next Time,

Sunil

Continue on to the Next Chapter

Which Type of Company is Best for You

2012-11-09T14:33:00.002+05:30

After deep thought, you have decided what your business is going to sell. You have decided how much you will charge for it, and how much money it will make for you in a year. You have even decided what your company is going to be called.

Now you just need a bank account to cash the checks.

Now you could just tell you customers to write the check in your name, but you start considering various question like,

Would my business look like it's just a one-person show?
What if I want to make my friend a partner? Would she be OK with the checks being in my name?
Would customers be more comfortable dealing with a professional sounding 'company' rather than a person?
What if I want to have more than one company, all doing different things?
What if I need funding? Would investors be happier investing in a company rather than an individual?

You my dear, budding business owner have just had an epiphany;

A BUSINESS IS SEPARATE FROM IT'S OWNERS

Now that's not always strictly true in a legal sense, as you'll see in a bit, but the thing is if you cash checks in your own name, that makes you self-employed, not a business owner.

Take a look at this video in which the Rich Dad Poor Dad guy defines self-employed and business owner;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfWPnftm2kQ

Basically there are 3 types of business entities that most (civilized) countries in the world have.

They all have important advantages and disadvantages. At different stages in your business, one or the other business entity might be appropriate for you.

In the course of my business life, I have started all of these entities.

PROPRIETORSHIP OR SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP

This is the simplest type of business entity. Simply put this type of business is not different from its owner in a legal sense.

With this type of company, you as the business owner would be solely responsible for all decisions taken in the company. You would have a right to all the profits that the business made.

You would also have to bear all the loss that the company made and be personally responsible for repaying any debts that the company incurred.

It is really difficult to get any type of funding into this kind of entity and impossible to take on more partners. On the other hand, the good thing is that the paper work involved and regulation of this type of enterprise is minimal.

Probably the only thing you will do with a proprietary concern is cash checks in it's name.

This page gives you the documents you need to open a bank account in the name of a proprietorship. This is pretty much the same for every other bank.

Assuming that you have the proof of identity and proof of address, the only thing you will need is to get certificate of registration under the shops and establishments act.

That's really simple too.This form is for the applying for registration under the shops and establishments act in Karnataka, but every other state has a similar form available on it's department of labor website. Just fill up the form, submit it along with any fees to the labor officer closest to your address. He will give you a certificate of registration of shops and establishments.

For any new business owner, a Proprietorship is probably the best kind of entity and this is the one I would recommend you start with.

PARTNERSHIP FIRM

If you want to form a business along with someone else, like your friend, wife or husband, you may want to start a partnership firm.

This page will tell you a lot in terms of what a partnership firm is. A partnership firm, like a sole proprietorship, is the same as it's partners in the eyes of the law. So you will be personally responsible and liable for repaying any money owed by the firm. Not just that, you will also be responsible for any actions of your partners.

A partnership firm needs to have a minimum of 2 partners and can have a maximum of 20 partners.

Like a proprietorship, a partnership is easy to form and has minimal regulation from the government. Also, like a proprietorship, a partnership is not perpetual and ceases to exist in certain situations, like the death of a partner.

Although not mandatory, a partnership firm usually has a Partnership Deed, which lays down the rights, duties, profit share, etc. of each partner.

You might want to engage the services of an advocate to draft the partnership firm. I would recommend that you use this one, which is my sisters company law firm. They can give you the legal advice you need to draft the appropriate partnership deed.

The partnership deed is registered with the Registrar of Firms and societies. This deed is also required to open a bank account.

A partnership is ONLY required if you want to bring in someone else into your business. My advice would be to avoid this kind of entity all together. Start out with a proprietorship, and then go on to form a limited liability company which I talk about below;

LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY

Eventually when your business grows, you will want to form a company. Basically a limited liability company is an organization where the owners' liability is limited.

For example in a private company limited by shares (Called a Private Limited company in India), no matter what the company owes, you only stand to lose what you have invested in the company. Your personal assets, like your house or car can not be taken away by your creditor.

In the eyes of the law, the company is a separate entity from its owners. It has rights and duties similar to a person. If that concept is difficult to understand, you are not ready to form a limited liability company yet. Read up some more starting with the Wikipedia page.

Talk to a chartered accountant or an advocate who deals with company law.

This is the type of company that get really REALLY big, like the ones listed on the stock exchanges. This is the type of company that will eventually make you very rich but it comes at a price.

Limited Liability are subject to a LOT of government regulation. There are also a lot of procedures that need to be followed to setup a company. This page will help you get started.

You should also be ready to have your accounts, ownership details and everything else looked at by ANYBODY, because all of this stuff will be up on a website that anyone can see.

Anyway, to round things up start your business as a sole proprietorship, and when things start getting serious and the money starts flowing, setup a limited liability company.

Till Next Time

Sunil

Continue to the Next Chapter

EVERYTHING You Need to Know about Business

2012-11-08T18:34:00.001+05:30

In 2004, I quit my job with Mphasis.

Enthused by seemingly glorious life of a business owner ahead of me, I took the plunge. My last salary been credited into my account. And true to my resolve I lived frugally.

How hard can it be? I thought to myself. People who I know to be dumber than me are running successful businesses. So it shouldn’t be a huge deal for me to make money out of mine. I gave myself 6 months. (Turns out it took 3 years.)

Frugal though I was, my money ran out.
First my spending money.
Then my savings.
Then my investments.
All gone.

The end of 2005 and was probably the worst period in my life, financially speaking.

I didn’t have any money at all. Literally.

I hadn’t paid my house rent, I hadn’t paid my cell phone bill. I was about to run out of food in a week.

What I did to survive and what happened to me have taught me pretty much everything that I know about business today. And here are those lessons.

SURVIVAL INSTINCT IS THE MOTHER OF CREATIVITY

I needed to come up with a plan quickly. Or I was going to sink. My landlord would throw me out of my house and I would starve.

At this point, I was on the verge of begging my old employer to take me back. What stopped me? Just my pride I guess. Instead I decided to ignore that option completely. I decided to think like a businessman.

I decided to come up with a business that met these criteria;

a) What can I offer RIGHT NOW?
b) What can I offer with no investment at all?
c) What can I offer that has a reasonably large market?
d) What can I offer that will earn me money NOW?

I had been a corporate trainer for GECIS, the first BusinessProcess Outsourcing Company in India. I trained fresh hires to do their job. At the cost of sounding immodest, I was rather good at it.

I decided to approach companies that were hiring fresh graduates vigorously and sell them on the idea of a College to Corporate transition training. Basically I would train them on the etiquette of working in a corporate environment. How to communicate, how to get ahead by acing your appraisal, how to make a professional looking presentation and so on.

If I hadn’t been in such a tight spot, would I have been able do something like this? Maybe not.

YOU DON’T NEED MONEY TO START A BUSINESS

My cell phone bill had been due 3 days ago. The woman from collections would call me twice a day to ask if I had paid it. Twice a day, I would lie to her that I had. I knew that the good folks at Tata Indicom would cut off my outgoing calls ten days after the due date on the bill. I had seven days to make a sale or starve.

I wrote a pitch and started dialing numbers. I picked out companies that were looking for fresh graduate on the monster.com. I figured if they were hiring, they probably needed to get those hires trained.

I would call the company and talk to the training manager then send them a follow up email pitch.

It took me five more days to make a sale. LogicaCMG hired my services for 8 sessions, with the option of 8 more, of the College to Corporate Transition Training.

Must have been something about my desperate situation, but those were some of the best sales pitches I ever made. Billy Mays Ha! You ain’t seen nothin’.

I learnt an important lesson: not only do you not need money to start a business, it’s probably better that you don’t have any.

As Ushtara grows, I hope that I never forget this lesson. The only way to run a business is as if your life depended on it.

When people tell me that they aren’t starting a business because they don’t have money, I just smirk at them. You don’t need money to start a business. You need desperation.

BUSINESS IS A JIGSAW PUZZLE

In December 2005, a Bangalore girl was raped and killed by her driver.

By March of 2006, the outrage had risen to fever pitch. Employers and employees alike were clamoring that something needed to be done.

I decided that my training company would run a short self defense course for women. In the first part of the training, we would talk about how to avoid getting into a bad situation in the first place. In the rest of the training the trainees would learn easy to master martial arts moves that they could use if they got into a bad situation anyway.

I created an email pitch and started sending it out to the security managers of every company in Bangalore. The interest generated was tremendous, but every company wanted to witness our training first hand before they would hire our services.

How could they witness our training when we weren't even running it?

I hired a psychologist and a martial arts trainer on a paid-per-training basis under the condition that their first session would be free of cost to prove their abilities.

I then told LogicaCMG, to whom we were already supplying other training services, that I would run one session free-of-cost for their employees if they would let some guests sit-in.

I invited the training and security managers of half a dozen companies to sit through the program. After seeing the program, 3 companies hired our services for 4 to 5 sessions each.

I offered a can of pepper spray to every participant free of cost and then built the cost of the pepper spray into the cost of the training.

If you think about it, any business operates only amalgamating a whole host of things, People, Money, Products, Services and so on. When even one of these pieces is missing, there's nothing. When they all come together, it turns into something beautiful.

MARKETING IS A MUST-HAVE SKILL
When I was marketing to the self-defense training to corporates, I wrote an email pitch, as a follow-up to cold calls.

Instead of writing about the training, I wrote about the feeling of helplessness that a victim of mindless feels. I looked inside myself, to understand what value I was really offering through the training.

The pitch vibed strongly with the market. It helped us differentiate from a host of companies offering similar trainings. Even though we were slightly higher priced than every one else, our customers perceived us as being the best choice to fulfill their needs.

I learned a very important lesson: You might have the best product or service in the world, but the only way you can get your customers to buy it, is if they see it as fulfilling their unique needs. This is a skill that can be learned and honed. I will talk about this again and again in other posts.

FINANCE IS THE LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS
When I closed my training company in 2008, I had achieved something which most people would consider impossible;

With essentially no money invested, no employees on the rolls, no physical building, no investment in intellectual property, working an hour or two a week, I was generating nearly $50,000 dollars in revenue a year with a net profit margin of approximately 60%.

Sweet right? So you ask, why did I close the company?

2 reasons;

a) It was not scalable. My analysis showed that to achieve each 20% growth in revenue, the contribution margin per training would need to be 10% higher to offset the additional overhead. This would impact our competitiveness.

b) A DuPont analysis to analyse the return-on-revenue achievable from the training company vs. investing the same money in Ushtara revealed that Ushtara would be better in terms of asset turnover ratio, profitability, tax efficiency and leverage. So my money and time was better invested in Ushtara.

If you don't know what those things mean, don't worry about it. I didn't either, until someone taught me.

Why do you think they speak Pashto in Afghanistan and Albanian in Albania?

I think it's because the language that people speak in, has evolved to meet the one-of-a-kind requirements of its speakers.

Finance is the language that business people speak in. If you want to be a business person, you MUST learn this language

Till Next Time

Sunil

Continue on to the next chapter

Self Defense Training Pitch

2012-11-08T18:01:00.001+05:30

What do you do?

If you are like me,

You have had your fair share of fights, but these fights were civilized.

Maybe you said angry words.

Maybe you sent a nasty email.

Maybe they said bad things about you to your colleagues or your superiors.

But no one got hurt.

Physically that is.

If you are like me,

You believe deep inside that everything can be solved by dialogue.

That people behave in well understood ways.

That violence is something you read about in the newspaper.

That you will live out your life in the relative safety of a well policed society.

If you are like me,

No one has ever punched you in the stomach really hard.

You have never had a fist fight in your life.

You have never had a knife pointed at you.

You have never had someone come at you with the intention of hurting you.

What do you do?

What do you do when these beliefs, these life experiences are no longer valid?

What do you do when the unthinkable happens and some one is trying to hurt you?

Discover-101 believes that, the question deserves a two part answer.

Semper Paradus

(Latin for “Always Alert”)

The Discover-101 Self defense training program

Discover-101 is happy to introduce Semper Paradus.

Our program on;

4 Physical Conflict Avoidance

4 Basic Self Defense Techniques

Semper paradus is a two part program. Roughly two-thirds of the program is about how you can avoid getting into a violent situation in the first place. The other one third is about what to do to get out of a violent situation that you are in.

Part 1 – Physical Conflict Avoidance

Content

Studies show that certain people have a bigger chance of being in a violent situation than others. This 4 hour session is all about what makes attackers think that they can attack you and what you can do to change that.

You can consciously choose to avoid or resolve situations which could turn violent.

§ What factors determine your likelihood of being in a violent situation?

§ What behaviors are typical of those likely to be aggressed?

§ What behaviors can you exhibit to avoid violence?

§ How do you spot a situation that is potentially violent?

§ How can you avoid a situation where your physical safety might be compromised?

§ How can you diffuse a potentially violent situation that you happen to be in?

These activity driven, self exploratory modules explore these questions and more to change the way participants behave and view themselves.

Takeaways

At the end of this session participants will be:

ü More aware of the impressions they are creating in the minds of potential attackers

ü Able to spot and walk away from potentially violent situations

ü Know what to do when a situation is about to turn violent

Part 2 – Basic Self Defense Techniques

Content

All right, so now it’s happened. Somebody is attacking you. What can you do?

You have no weapons. Just your wits and some training.

This two hour what and how session, conducted by a martial arts expert teaches participants;

§ How to break a strangle hold

§ How to stun attackers long enough to escape

§ How to use nails, teeth and stationery as weapons

§ How to use an attackers weight to your advantage

All modules are in show-and-tell format with the instructor demonstrating moves while the participants pair-up to practice.

Trainer Profile

Takeaways

At the end of this session, participants will be aware of techniques to;

ü Escape from attackers

ü Injure or stun attackers

ü How to use pepper spray

What Business Should I Start?

2012-11-05T17:34:00.001+05:30

Undeterred by the mountain of data against starting a business you have decided to go forward anyway.
The hard work and struggle involved leave you unfazed.
Instead you are terribly excited by the thought of the limitless possibilities.
Your heart races ahead contemplating the admiration of your friends and peers. For a single wild moment you can actually see your self on the cover of Fortune "The Youngest Billionaire Ever" screams the headline.

And then your left brain tugs you back to reality. And you ask a simple question.

WHAT BUSINESS SHOULD I START?

You should be pretty sure of what business you want to get into.
If you don't, you are not ready to start a business yet.
In a previous blog I wrote about the three reasons that you would start a business. What category of business person are you? What business you should start depends on why you want to start a business.

YOU WANT TO BE IN BUSINESS BECAUSE YOU HAVE SOMETHING UNIQUE TO OFFER FOR WHICH THERE IS A LARGE MARKET
This is probably the easiest kind of decision to make. Just put your unique product or service on the market and watch the market lap it up. That might seem a little simplistic, but apart from details like HR, Finance, Production and so on, that's really all there is to it.

A business associate of mine has a small but healthy company that makes the hardware like this;

and software for radar applications. Their products are used in radars that gather meteorology data. Is that niche or what? Do you know anyone else who does that? Chances are you don't.

Apparently his customers don't know any one like that either, because he's not able to produce enough products to meet the demand.

Think of the different kinds of knowledge that this guy has;
Software
Electronics
Mechanical engineering
Heat flow
Wave theory

All of that in one place is certainly rare confluence of circumstances. Combine that with strong demand and little or no competition and you've got a winning business.

Sure he's really smart but I'm sure he also put in a lot of work to develop that kind of expertise.

If you don't already have a such a unique product or service, I strongly encourage you to get one. This is the best kind of business there is.

Until someone comes up with a better, cheaper product to replace yours. By then of course you would be comfortably retired in the Bahamas.

The flip side of this type of business of course the product is as niche as the market. Do you make radars? (correct answer: no). Know anyone that needs RF splitters for meteorological radars? Unlikely.

Moral of the story: The business model is strong but can not grow indefinitely.

YOU WANT TO BE IN BUSINESS BECAUSE YOU SUCK AT JOBS

This might sound weird but up until a couple hundred years ago, every body was an independent businessperson. Huge enterprises employing hundreds or thousands of people did not exist. Every farmer sowed his own crop and harvested it himself. Sold it and lived with the profit or loss.

If you balk at the thought of a 9 to 5, 5 days a week job, that maybe because for thousands of years people lived free of that kind of schedule. In other words, you are human.

But more importantly, if you have, like me, burnt your bridges, you no longer have the option of going back to a job. That thought might give you just that tiny extra bit of grit which is needed to succeed in business. You will succeed because you HAVE to. You don't have a choice.

So if you are this type of business person and you ask me;
What business should I start?
My answer is: THE EASIEST BUSINESS FOR YOU

When I started Ushtara, it was not able to even support me for the first few years.

Things got particularly bad around the end of 2005. I hadn't paid the rent for my house. Nor my cell phone bill. I desperately needed a second source of income.

Not having the option of going back to a job, I racked my brain for a service that I could deliver without any investment. Without any effort even.

Years ago, I used to be a corporate trainer GECIS. I taught new hires how to do their job. I knew that this service has a ready, if fluctuating market. Using nothing but a free gmail address and my cell phone (with just a few days to run before they cut it off), I called up various software companies that I knew were hiring and offered my services as a corporate trainer.

I landed a training contract on the 8th day and the crisis was staved.

Determined to prove that you can run a business with nothing but a free email address and a cellphone, I successfully ran the training firm with no overhead whatsoever, for 3 years, until Ushtara started making money.

This is my advice: Offer whatever you can do RIGHT NOW. With whatever you have. With whatever you know.

YOU WANT TO BE IN BUSINESS BECAUSE WANT THE FREEDOM AND GLORY

If you look at the Fortune 500 list of the biggest companies in the world, you will see an inordinate representation of Finance, Petroleum, Retail and Automotive companies.

Broadly speaking two kinds of companies are indefinitely scalable;

a) Companies that offer the one thing that every body needs (Think Petroleum, Electricity, Operating systems for PCs, Cell phone services, Search Engines, Social Networks)
b) Companies that offer anything that you could possibly want (Think Walmart, Aldi, Carrefour)

Now you could aim at being the next Google or Facebook or Shell. But the odds of success are almost non-existent. Look at this list of search engines:

http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/

How many of these do you use? (Hint: one)

You might as well try to be the next Jesus (Statistics show that there has been on average 1 person every 376 years for the last 5000, whom more than a million people believe to be a messenger from God or related to God (s))

Take a look at this company;

http://www.semco.com.br/en/

Now tell me what does Semco do?

Everything or more specifically ANYTHING

The same goes for the Virgin group

(Incidentally, both of these groups have very dynamic leaders (1 and 8 on this list ), but more on that later)

Business is, in itself a specialization, independent of the underlying product or service. Once you have learnt BUSINESS, you can run any business.

Herein lies your best chances of success. Wild, Flamboyant, I wish I were you kind of success.

Till next time

Sunil

Continue to the next chapter

So You Want To Start A Business

2012-11-05T13:16:00.000+05:30

You are sick of working long hours with no apparent result.

The rat race. The maze. The treadmill.

It goes by many different names but it is the feeling that you are running as hard as you can, just to stay still.

You hate your boss. She doesn't appreciate you. No matter what you do, it's not good enough. She has her favorite blue eyed boy and you know that come appraisal time, it is he who will get the highest score and you'll get a modest 15% hike.

You know that the harder you work, the richer the owners of the business get. And what do you get? A salary. Peanuts.

You hate the fact that you can't pick your subordinates. The company has a dedicated hiring team that hires people like a mass production factory. And when the company needs to ramp up the hiring numbers fast, the quality of people hired drops. And guess who gets stuck with the latest bunch of baboons? YOU!

AND SO YOU DECIDED THAT THE WAY TO GO IS TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

With a business, the harder you work, the more you earn.

More freedom. You are the boss. You can come and go as you please. No one can question you. On some days, maybe you don't feel like going to work, so you DON'T.

Business owners are the rockstars of the new world. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, The Google Guys, The Yahoo Guys, The Facebook Guy. These are the people you look up to and dream of being like.

Imagine the joy of not having to wait till the end of the month to see if your salary is credited to your account. You are the boss. You can just reach into the till whenever you want and take what you need.

YOU THOUGHT LONG AND HARD AND DECIDED THAT IT'S TIME TO MAKE A BOLD MOVE

You haven't talked about it with anyone yet, except your closest confidante. Not even your family knows this move that you are considering.

But you know that you have to do it.

You have waited a long time. But now it's time to make the move. You have written and re-written your resignation a hundred times inside your head. Now you want to type it into a word file.

But just for the heck of it, you Google "How to start a business" or "How to be and Entrepreneur". And that's how you landed up on my blog.

YOU ARE ALREADY DOING GREAT

If there is any way in hell you can just hang in there, do that. Keep earning a salary.

You have steady job where there is no immediate threat of you being fired or downsized or right sized.
You have access to broadband internet connection, which is how you are reading my blog.
You are already better off than the biggest chunk of the world's population.

Read this;
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

80% of the world's population lives on less than $10 a day.

If you are able to meet your current monthly requirements, including rent, food, clothing, bodily security, gainful employment and other basics that make up the bottom of Maslow's heirarchy of need , consider your self truly blessed. Fate, or God has chosen you to be among the cream of human society.

If after spending enough to maintain a decent lifestyle and putting aside 20% of your salary in savings and investments every month, you are going to be a millionaire.

MAYBE MORE MONEY WILL SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM

Most problems in life can be solved by throwing money at them. A friend of mine kept complaining about his job. The work environment sucks. The boss never gives me any credit. I don't feel rewarded. And on and on and on.

Long story short, he resigned, the boss offered him a hike to stay on, he accepted.

Read this guys blog;
http://www.paulstips.com/brainbox/pt/home.nsf/link/04052006-How-to-get-a-job-paying-more-than-100000-a-year

Find a way to earn a higher salary either at your present job or at another one. This way, at the worst times, when you wonder why you take all that bullshit, a look at your bank balance will bring the smile back to your face.

GET A HOBBY

I want to get paid for doing what I love.
My job is not fulfilling me on a spiritual level.
Do what you are passionate about and the money will come.
What's the point of earning a lot of money if I'm not happy?

If this is you, then maybe you need to get a hobby. Consider this;

How long can you do what you love doing?
I love Gulab Jamuns. They are sweet and syrupy and yummy. Every chance I get, I scarf them down until I get a sugar high. Could I eat them for every meal? Every day for the rest of my life? NO!

You might love doing something but doing it all the time is quite a different animal. Not sure? Try doing it for 3 hours everyday for a month. EVERYDAY. Without skipping. See how it feels. If you don't love it anymore, make it a hobby. And keep your day job.

Passion doesn't always translate into money

What makes money and what doesn't is more about a confluence of circumstances than anything else.

What happened to expert horse carriage makers when the motor car came around?
What happened to everyone in the whale oil industry when petroleum became the fuel of choice for energy
What would the Google guys have been doing if the internet had not been invented and if it had not been so popular?

You have to be positioned in the right place at the right time for your passion to turn into a successful business. Frankly, the odds are against you. The world is doing just fine without your particular service or product. So don't expect them to come running as soon as you put it on the market.

If what you love doesn't readily translate into a business model, you can keep doing it in your spare time and use the income from your day job to fund it.

As a business owner you'll spend a lot more time doing things other than what you love

Some of the things all business owners have to spend time doing and thinking about are;
Finance
Human Resources
Marketing
Legal Issues
Government Regulations

If you become a business owner, I guarantee that you will be spending the majority of your time on these. If these are not what you are passionate about, don't bother starting a business. Make your passion, the safe place that you go to. Make it a hobby. Everybody is happy.

IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING STARTING A BUSINESS, MY SINCERE ADVICE IS...DON'T

Consider some data;

Statistics show that 95% of all small businesses fail within the first 5 years. Of the rest, 90% fail within the next 5 years. That's interesting right? I'm going to put that in bold, red letters.

ONLY 1 OUT OF 200 BUSINESSES LAST THE FIRST TEN YEARS

What happens to the rest?

They go broke.
The promoters lose their nerve.
The business owner decides to call it quits. He or she decides that they are not cut out for business. They get bored of waiting for money that never comes. Employees that incompetent. Customers who don't value their services.

Once enthusiastic business owners now go back to a job. Now reporting to the people who were their subordinates, because of the 5 years they wasted trying to start a business.

SO WHY START A BUSINESS?

Because you can
You are lucky enough to be in the center of that unique confluence of circumstances when what you can deliver is what the market is craving for. What you have to offer builds on the past failures of others who have nonetheless paved the way for you. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. Nor was he the first to have a commercial automobile. But he knew what would succeed because he knew why others didn't

You have a unique highly valued skill set which will help you deliver enough value to your customers to make a successful business out of it.
Ever heard of Oprah Winfrey?
Sure you have.
Can you talk like her?
Sure you can.
Can you become as rich as her hosting a talk show that caters to women in all age groups?
Probably not.
Why not?
She has a special something...

You have access to money, advice and even political pull to get your company of the ground and flying high. You can quickly and easily garner a large portion of the market share and retain it near monopolistically.

OfficeTiger was an India based outsourcing company founded by two harvard graduates. Joseph Sigelman and Randy Altschuler. Both Jewish New Yorkers. (Randy is now running for Senator). On the board was the nephew, Knut, of the second secretary general of the United Nations , Dag Hammarskjold. They raised $18 million in funding from Mountgrange Capital and Elwin Capital. They raised a further $50 million dollars in funding from Francisco Partners. When the company was sold to RR Donnelly for $250 million, no one was surprised.

Because you have to (This is probably where I fit)

If you don't play well with others.
If you are rebellious by nature.
If you pathologically incapable of suffering any form of authority
If you have no special talents.
The only way you can make a living is by starting a business

Because you value freedom and glory more than anything else and you are willing to pay the price (This is where I like to think I fit in)

The story goes that when Ernest Shackleton was preparing for the his exploration of the antarctic, he place an advertisement in the newspaper;

"MEN WANTED: FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. SMALL WAGES, BITTER COLD, LONG MONTHS OF COMPLETE DARKNESS, CONSTANT DANGER, SAFE RETURN DOUBTFUL. HONOUR AND RECOGNITION IN CASE OF SUCCESS.”

Everything has a price.
When starting a business, paying the price does not ensure success. It does however ensure that you have a shot at success.

How many years will it take for you to succeed? I can not say
If you keep at it will you succeed for sure? I can not say

SO SHOULD YOU START A BUSINESS AT ALL?

Probably not.

SO WHAT IS THIS BLOG ABOUT?

If you have read this far, It's probably time for a little introduction.

My name is Sunil Sundar. I am a business owner with a growing company. Looking back, I think that I could have saved myself some of the struggle and heartache, if I'd had a mentor.

If you are taking your first shaky steps to starting a business, I want to be there to handhold you and help you as best I can.

In this blog I will tell you about things that I did right, things that I did wrong and the lessons I learnt from them.

Till Next Time

Sunil

Continue to the next Chapter

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