Virtual Scientist

Building an Organization

2011-12-08T21:32:00.001+05:30

Reposted from article written for our alumni magazine

I was wondering on what I should write about. The alum team approached me to write about my entrepreneurial journey straight after NITIE, however I felt it would be nice if I write something that is of interest to many. I decided to write about my learning's during the attempts in building an organization.

It’s been just about 30 months of bootstrapping experience and fewer attempts to build an organization, which is far negligible compared to magnanimity of this subject. I am just trying to pen my thoughts and understanding of what it is.

For a quick intro, I moved out of NITIE to take up fulltime job as the business that I had started while I was a student. During early 2009, recession came as an omen for me to take up the entrepreneurial journey, and I got my winter internship papers ready and moved out of campus without informing Pundir sir, our placement dean (frankly I did not have courage to tell this to him). It’s been a wonderful experience since then, growing from a 100 sft. space and 2 employees to a recent brand new 2000 sft. OFFICE and a 15 member TEAM.

Early out of college, during my stint with the Non-Profit - BHUMI (www.bhumi.in), I realized, identity of an organization came always from the people it is represented by and the culture it holds. I felt, the reason for me to business was not just making money and rendering my services, but to build an organization. I did not want to be a freelancer delivering out of my creative brain, but wanted to move ahead and bring together a great team that would bring and implement wonderful ideas.

The quest of understanding how organizations are built began. I wanted to take up this challenge on building an organization. I started reading, discussing, observing, and experiencing how people and organizations behave, and here are few quick that came as learning for me:

Defining Values & Culture
The first question for me was what kind of organization I wanted to build? What would its values / culture be? I wanted an organization that’s formed by people who are passionate, highly motivated, and do things for themselves, as of their own. Place where people rejoice their work. In simple words, the one full of ownership and responsibility.

This was a challenge! Ownership and sense of responsibility needs freedom & flexibility. I decided not to have any kind of monitoring system. Not everyone was ready to accept unbound freedom, many of them wanted to be monitored and looked into. With its abuse, projects got delayed and it affected deliveries. This was probably also the reason for why my partner decided to move out. I believed, it would take consistent and conscious effort to help the team to “handle” freedom. It’s just a matter of time, and needed another element called “motivation” that brings in the “responsibility”.

It’s still a struggle, every time a new person joins and also within me, but will soon be the culture of the organization.

Sharing a Story
For an organization / team to work together, it needs a string that binds them - a reason. Few call it a vision, and I call it a story. It’s a story that you believe in, and now embark on a journey to make others believe in your story. Every person in the team needs to have a reason to be a part of that story.

It took us about 5 failed attempts with various set of people to really get a team that believes in our product idea, before we made our first sale. And it was important for the team to believe it for it to come to life by itself.

Dealing with ambiguity
This is what is feel one of the most important challenge for both people and organizations. It is a paradox between having a clear set of instructions, expectations and deadlines versus being told everything, routine work & laxity. It’s always exciting to maintain a balance between both the aspects. I realized people left me for I was not able to maintain the balance neither was able to help them. As an organization what we are to do is build a culture that can balance! People find it easier to deal with ambiguity.

There is a lot more I wish to share, will do sometime later, and so much of learning with just 30 months, I am excited to see that the life ahead has in store of me lots of learning and experiences.

So, where are we today? We have a team of 15, fully motivated and passionate, wanting to work together and owning and building the organization. We have successfully built our first product – Vaave (an alumni engagement platform), started two more products, and by the time you read this article we would have shifted to our new office on Road No 10, Banjara Hills, an upscale location in Hyderabad. Kudus to all our team for their relentless effort.

Seeking all your wishes and blessings.

Warm Regards
Paresh Masade
Class of 2009, PGDIE

You may follow us at www.fb.com/morethanjustcreativity

Spiritual Entrepreneur

2011-04-29T09:49:00.002+05:30

Satya Sai Baba! People who believe him call him GOD! Few tag him as fake... Few others Say, he did good despite controversies.. Some say he did no harm... I am not sure, i probably was never got a chance to get closer to peep into his life even... so wish to restrain and play safe!

What struck me when I was going through newspapers was... he built an empire of Rs. 40,000 crore! I don't know why, i quickly relate things to business and here are a few thoughts i could collect...

Entrepreneur solves "needs" of people, and creates a market..... for me he is no less than an entrepreneur who capitalized on the innate need of people - "Belief". We often fall short of belief in ourself and seek external support to reinforce it... More often its either GOD or people whom we feel are near to GOD! Trusting someone you feel is more powerful as it removes fear and gives us power!

So this (holy) man "May" have used various techniques to tell people that he is near to GOD. Spent money on projects to attract more funds... anyway religion and GOD is a complex topics! I would not wish to touch it with my limited knowledge!

What I really liked is the godly man is a really great entrepreneur... Built a 40000 crore completely tax free empire just serving a simple innate need of society - "belief".

Please don't curse me if you are a follower... i just put what i thought!

Perspectives of Nation Building

2010-07-10T16:49:00.001+05:30

For last couple of weeks… I was caught up in much of a debate with my fellow mates at BHUMI and few others who knew about Freedom Under Construction.

The discussions was mainly around points raised by my dearest friend Rakesh Dubbudu, An ardent RTI Activist (you read about his work in newspapers once almost every couple of months) and one of founding members of BHUMI. He raised simple and most valid questions that every citizen need to think on...Plenty of discussions already on the facebook page). One question that struck me was…

Why are we doing things that Govt. is supposed to do?

Here is my attempt NOT to answer the question… but just wish to express my thoughts on them...

Are we supposed to do them? Govt. is supposed to do in first place; we need to remind the responsible authority and get things done. NGO’s just do all the work that Govt. is supposed to do… (NGO’s I mean all those emphatic people who take up activities feeling sorry about the situation)

The questions were very appropriate and sound logical to me… and so I dwelled on question, why do NGO’s and an altogether a parallel framework exist? Is there really a need for us (citizens) to take up activities that Govt. is supposed to do but not doing?

The viewpoints though looked contradictory; both converge at one thing - “Call for action!”.

They seemed to be just different schools of thought

Some take up protest, show the authority elected what they need to do and get things done.
Some work on them as much as they can without any direct protest… but taking as little help they can get from people who are supposed to do.

Both feel it’s their responsibility as citizen to do something and at the end they do it.

Is it a debate to find out which action is right or wrong, which way will get you sustainable results/ which one will quick results… I feel it is inappropriate. Everybody is contributing whatever they feel is best and in the right spirit, and every effort is needed. Right or wrong is just a perspective relative to the reference of time & circumstances axis. People view it from different coordinates and so have different perspective images. :)

Looking through our past, our freedom struggle… is it Gandhi’s non-violence movement that brought us freedom or is it activism of Azad and Bose… it’s difficult to say, and it’s even difficult to measure. Definitely a combination of every effort put in various forms for about 100 years resulted in freedom from British.

If you find a robber in your home… What should you do? Call police/ fight yourself / Shout for help/ leave him to rob (else he will harm you) and take action later? I can’t say… but I am sure... you will do whatever you feel appropriate at that point of time. That's it all about.

I feel it’s not worth to discuss which way is right… It like asking which cell in your body is keeping you alive? Cells take birth, do the duty they are supposed to do and die, and new cells take birth… they evolve and that’s how they made you man from a monkey. That was a result of each cell’s feeling to evolve as something better. The question, “which is better, monkey or man?” can again attract different perspectives and debate… fact is that they co-exist. Every cell wants to evolve to better, so do every human, and that’s how a nation is formed.

The most appreciative thing in both kinds of people is they were the people who wanted to TAKE ACTION in whatever way seemed appropriate to them. And that’s what makes the difference!

My Childhood Love

2010-06-22T18:12:00.002+05:30

I go to bed with her every night!
And sometimes when the sun’s shining all bright!

She teases me, by trying to clasp …
Every time I have to work whole night!

Teases again when I am obsessed with her
Moving away like the mirage in a desert!

She used to come along in every class,
And played the game of hide and seek

After a hard day, I reach home from the work,
She quickly embraces me and relieves all the stress.

She does not leave me a single day,
And I cannot live without her.

I know she loves me the most,
And I love her more than anyone on earth!

My girlfriend envies her, but loves her more than I do,
for she too cannot leave without the "Sleep"

-------------
I was inspired to write this when Kiran asked a question of FB - "What is your relationship with Sleep?"

Emotional factors that spread AIDS

2009-12-01T14:22:00.005+05:30

I am revisiting my blog post on AIDS on this day Dec 1st. 2009 :)

Two years ago on this day i wrote a post "Fight Against AIDS" as an attempt for spreading awareness. I sent it out as a mailer, and was most happy when 2 months later I received the same mailer forwarded by one of my friend.

Here i am today to just with the thought of what actually causes AIDS...

I did not get answers, but more questions came to mind... is it really the virus that causes AIDS? or is it our personality that spreads AIDS? If we look at evolution, The virus was just created for what it was meant to do... and it is doing its duty.

Though there are several technical reasons on how the virus spreads and a campaign is on, for creating awareness, what i realized is, they are mostly the emotions and attitudes that cause the spread of HIV, and there is a need for awareness campaign on emotions and attitudes that spread it...

I just listed a few I got to my mind, please comment on to add more.

Instant Gratification: Most of the times this is the reason which makes us weak in the moment, and closes our thinking capability for seeking Instant Gratification.
Making Assumptions: The attitude of assuming that someone or something would not be carrying the virus is making an "Ass of U". Here I don't mean to say be cynical of everything, it just being careful. Precaution doesn't mean lack of trust, its just being cautious.
Impatience: It just asks for protection! If we don't have time to protect ourselves, we would not have time to live. :)
Overconfidence: Confidence that you will not get infected just gets you "Over!" and Murphy's law are always active.

Again the mantra to be safe is very simple "Be Consious" . As an optimist, i feel the virus was born to make us stronger, to increase our will power to "Control our Emotions"!

So.. lets start spreading the awareness on these factors, Share on Facebook

Please help me adding more emotions that cause the spread..

References:

Previous Post: http://virtualscientist.blogspot.com/2006/12/fight-against-aids.html

Wiki on AIDS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS

Journey of 9 Months

2009-11-12T00:42:00.008+05:30

After the resolve to write my blog regularly, here I am… with my first post on "my pursuit of happiness"

About 9 months ago I made the decision to move out of placements looking at the recession, which came as an omen, not to put 'corporate job for one year' even as an option.

The omen goes like this…
The placements at NITIE that usually took 3 days showed no signs of settlement even after 30 days. The 100% placement record since inception seamed to break with our batch. The two Business Plan contests I won just preceding the placement season augmented to my bank balance, providing seed capital for 8 months sustainance. Mujeeb (President, BHUMI) had come to mumbai and the 2 year old plan to set up "Lazeez" for bhumi's sustainability moved out of shelves. Dad seamed very supportive and wanted me to find a job in Hyderabad! and that’s it :)

I got my 'internship at BHUMI' letters ready… and I moved to hyderabad without informing our Placement Dean.

Frankly I came down to Hyderabad with no concrete plan... All i had was about 50k in my bank account, 6 ideas fully evaluated and thought given, and one almost sick registered partnership firm. With lots of excitement and energy, i started working on 4 of them together... most of them on ground evaluation kind of... I wasn't even sure of which idea will work on ground, what i really want to do.. and where am i going to get funds from.. absolutely nothing....

As the beginners luck started appearing, within a month i found many leads, each lending their helping hand. Got lots of projects to work on, and lots of new ideas flowing in, and showing new opportunities almost every day. But slowly things settled... I was stretching myself very thin on my energy taking up everything on my way. I spent almost 6 months working on everything i was excited about and everything i loved doing.. what i gained everyday was a new learning.... I wish to share a few of them.

First, I realised No idea is bad, we need to constantly make it appropriate to target customers. Even the goods carrier owner makes more than a software engineer of one year exp.
Ideas are likely to fail, and new ideas will come day in and day out (bcoz its integral part of your thought process), we just need to make choices(right or wrong doesn't matter) and persist.
Most important thing what I leant is dealing with ambiguity, working in most uncertain situations where you don't even know how to go about. I now find it very easy to look beyond any problem and try to figure out solutions, rather then get boggled down with challenges.
Also… I may sound pessimistic but its that we can only work on one thought with complete heart for it… rest all the multi tasking works can only be task driven.

Now after 9 months, my thoughts have almost settled.. I am back with a team of 7 (6 working fulltime) and a new office… working on the product idea that I was holding for 18 months and 3 different teams failing to pull it off…. and looking forward to spend 2 years in the learning journey even before wanting to see success.

The best thing about all the 9 months is I am happy doing what i wanted to do, than regret of not doing something I knew i wanted to.

Enthusiastically waiting to see what life as in store for me?
Thank you everyone for the wonderful support.

I would like to make a special mention of few souls that have inspired and influenced me, Prof. Prasad, Harish Reddy, Mujeeb, Kadambini and my team mates Sreenivas & Chandu also Sandeep Reddy and Danny.

I have a long list of people whom I wish to extend my gratitude:

My Mom & Dad, and my brother.
BHUMI gang for giving me constant energy ( Papiya Bannerjee, Shilpa, Purushottam, Arun, Ashwin, Pallavi, Abhay, Rakesh, Bharath, Mohd Ali, Rahul, Sravanthi, Joanna, Swathy, Mahesh, Sam) - I dare not miss any name - bug me if u are not here.
My NITIE frnds Vikram Malladi, Sudeep Macha, Pavan Pandrangi, Aditya, Venkat, Dola, Sandeep, Vikas, Naveen Durgam, Vinod Durge.
My Mentors Karon Shaiva, Gautam Nayapati, Kavita Gulati.
Lots of others truly inspiring people Ranga Prasad, Yashwant,Kanti, Lakshimikant, Lalitha, Tejaswi, Divya, Gitanjali, Bharath Nimmala, My Cousin Mahesh…

I know this list is Never ending :) I ll keep updating this… Break for now!

Back to Blogging!

2009-11-10T14:15:00.004+05:30

Dear Friends, a big Hi!

It has been a long time i had not update my blog! Always wanted to share my thoughts with the world but never it came on priority! Now after completing silver jubilee of my life I am here...

In this blog i would like to share.. thoughts, experiences, discoveries... and anything inspiring that i come across... before that as every product should start from customers needs.... would like to know from my friends what usually interests them the most.

would soon hit with a post!

c ya..

What matters in an examination?

2007-03-05T22:46:00.000+05:30

In the past few years of my life I have been facing examinations as everyone must have in life. These examinations have taught me of what matters in an examination. I penned down a few of them...

Its not about knowledge, its about concentration.

Its not about how fast you can do, its about how patient you are

Its not about how many hours u study, its about how effectively u study.

Its not about how much you can remember, its about how much you can reproduce.

Its not about how confident you are, its about how truthful your thoughts are.

Its not about how intelligent you are, Its all about grace.

Its your turn now to add more things.

P.S. the rhyming its not about… its about… is borrowed from the movie. “Bulletproof monk”

Fight Against AIDS

2006-12-01T11:11:00.000+05:30

Today is world AIDS day....... so let me Share little i know about AIDS with you......

Most of us till date, must have known how HIV spreads, the 4 common ways (credit: media and govt), now lets look beyond that..........

1) HIV may take about 10 yrs to show the symptoms of Aids, Lets recall that Srinivasa Ramanujan died at an early age of 32, a true example of wat can be achieved in a shorter time. So never loose hope.

2) 40 persent of those infected are in the age group of 15-25 years. So greater probablity that you can come across a person effected with HIV. Be Cautious!!!!

3) HIV doesnt spread by affection or day to day activities, and even by kissing. So, lets spread love amonng our frnds infected with HIV

4) HIV doesnt spread through mosquito bite.

5) There is till date no permanant cure for AIDS. But nutritious food and healthy habits can surely delay the symptoms of aids.

So frnds lets get together and fight against AIDS.... and remember not against people effected.

The Simple rule to avoid getting infected is "BE CONSCIOUS"

What did BHUMI give me?

2006-09-28T16:29:00.001+05:30

Many at times my friends, colleagues and relatives ask me this question what do you get by doing social service... this is meant for the people who have well settled in their lives... have much time to spend and so do social service to pass their time!!!

“you first settle in your life, build up your career then do service to society” is what every one advices me... this made me think, think again and again... that made me to question myself “what did BHUMI give to me?”

First thing what BHUMI did was... it made me to think! It made me realize “what I am and what I want to become”... In short it made me realize my true potential;

‘Paresh’ a year back was a procrastinating guy, used to watch movies first day first show, spending most of the time either chit chatting or roaming along the roads; though I used to study simultaneously, Life was never so interesting.

BHUMI taught me how to handle things in critical situation... coz, for the whole time I had been with BHUMI, life always came up with new problems... sometimes how to manage a group of people, sometimes to speak before of a crowd with my poor communication skills (this forced me to work upon it) , sometimes unable to meet deadlines in college/studies due to work at BHUMI (This taught me to be punctual and work overtime, otherwise work cannot be done), sometimes it brought me to situations to convince people of views diametrically opposite to mine... but situation asked me to work with them and accomplish the task...

In short BHUMI has taught me the real meaning of life... it always came up with problems and made me to search for the solutions...

It also proved to be a platform for people who wish to learn, It gave me an opportunity to design a its website (www.bhumi.in). For amateur web designer it’s a great learning experience and really boosts my confidence, when I see it, it reminds me that i can complete any given task.

Finally it gave me an opportunity to meet wonderful people who made me a part of their lives...

It taught me how to rise high even after a million failures... what else can a ordinary guy in early 20’s ask for?

What Bhumi means to me is now not just an organization, but a passion...

I wont ask you to join BHUMI, but if you wish... you can at www.bhumi.in

Helmet is For head not for your bike

2006-09-05T11:16:00.000+05:30

Compulsory Helmet!! ya most of us may have brought one . . . . . . . . . . to avoid penalty! . . . . . . . then what is it doing on bike, safely locked at the back!

hey put it on your head!

Is it meant to wear only when you sight a cop with a book in his hand?

Driving with a helmet is bad, cannot hear horns and cannot easily turn your head back,
but Without helmet its WORSE

If you still hadnt brought one........ Congrats you have put Either 5,00,000 or your
life at risk . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Helmet is For head not for your bike, wear it today call your self a responsible citizen.