Archive for December, 2007
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 11 Dec 2007, 11:42 PM - 1 Comment
Last week I was talking to a potential investor about a potential opportunity to invest. After the first sentence, the investor said “Raj, I don’t need to hear more about it. That space is not interesting for us.”
We talked about other companies and one of the companies was of deep interest and we ended up talking for at least half an hour on that one company.
Because of the long-term relationship we had developed, this person was interested in hearing about more than one idea. Fortunately, the idea number 4 made its way through to him.
Of course, this is not common. If I didn’t have a prior relationship with this person, there was no way I could have pitched him several ideas. In real life, most of the time, we get one chance to get our idea across. That idea has to pass through that recipient’s “filter” of what he thinks is a good idea. If it does not, then chances are that you are wasting your time.
In the above example, it was clear to me that I had not done my home work. If I had done my home work, I would not have discussed the first three ideas with him. Discussing those three ideas was clearly a waste of his time and my time too.
In this fast moving world, people don’t have a lot of time to listen to things that are not relevant to them. So they put up filters to avoid more input. What may be gold for you may be junk for them. This may mean that they may not get to hear some “really good” ideas but that’s a price they are willing to pay for the convenience.
Really, what they are missing (“really cool ideas”) should not be your problem. Your objective is to get across your ideas. Understanding the recipient’s filters is a key step in helping you achieve this objective.
How can you understand the other person’s filter?
For starters, you can do one or more of the following:
* reading their blog
* talking to people that know this person
* reading his or her bio
* asking the person directly
or simply speaking
* investing time in learning about the other person’s interests from any credible source.
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Note 1: For the other 183 entries in the “Distinguish yourself” series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic
Squidoo Lens: Distinguish yourself
Note 2: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 8, 2007. Today it is ranked #55. I am overwhelmed by the support for this. Thank you. For those who have read it, I request you to forward the link to others who may benefit from it. Here is the link:
ChangeThis Manifesto: Making the Most of Your Time: Going Beyond To-Do Lists
Popularity: 44% [?
Posted under Distinguish yourself.
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 11 Dec 2007, 9:50 PM - 4 Comments
..And a typical VC on a typical startup
We all know that things change. Almost all of the eight startups that I am involved (in some capacity) have gone through serious changes in business models. Business models evolve and the ultimately the marketplace determines what works.
VCs know this too. This means that, in most cases the original business model (for which founders are seeking funding) will not be the business model probably a year later. However, it is not easy for the VC (or even the founders) to know what the “real” business model is going to be. If the founders did know the answer to this, they would have presented that to the VCs.
If you want to have a good chance of getting funded, best is to present a team that can not only execute “Plan A” but can also execute any reasonable modification of “Plan A”.
Have a great week ahead.
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 10 Dec 2007, 1:10 AM - 5 Comments
Mega projects provide a huge leverage for the company (technology services firm) that is executing the projects. This gets amplified when the projects are executed offshore in locations like India or China.
Mega projects have hundreds of team members and are typically extend for a few years. Services companies love these projects. Some of the reasons for loving these projects are obvious and they are:
- long-term visibility
- profitability
- provide a gateway to get other projects in adjacent areas
- establish their identity to win similar projects from other clients
If you are one of the team members in a mega-project (especially if you are low in the value-chain) be aware of the risks associated with it. Here are some of them:
1. Possibility of being commoditized: This is the biggest risk. You may be engaged in performing a task that can be commoditized easily.
2. Possibility of being part of statistics (only): This is another risk where you are treated as one of the three (or, pick a number) hundred employees working on this project
3. Lack of variety: In your early career, it is best to get a variety of experience. A mega project may not provide this if you are low in the value-chain.
It is YOUR responsibility to mitigate this risk. One way to do this is to aggressively invest in developing yourself by learning the business aspects of the project. Nobody has the time to provide you the big picture and there is no incentive for them to do that. You can, of course, make the most out of this by being proactive. Side benefit from this may just be that you may move up higher in the value chain quickly.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 10 Dec 2007, 12:02 AM - Leave Comment
I read two articles recently – one by Glenn Kelman (Entrepreneur 2.0 article on TechCrunch) and other by Guy Kawasaki (In Search of Inexperience). Please read both the articles when you have a moment. The key conclusions from those two articles were that serial entrepreneurs (those who are in their second and third acts) have a disadvantage in making their companies successful. Reasons quoted include but not limited to: complacency, less drive, less hunger etc.
Disclosure: I don’t know Glenn but I respect what he is doing. I am and continue to be a big fan of Guy Kawasaki, his books and his blog.
I respectfully disagree with the conclusions from both these articles and the rest of this post explains the reasons
1. Search for inexperience: First, I don’t think there is a need to “search for inexperience”. It is available everywhere. We all know that anything that is commonly available and in plenty does not get a premium. In my opinion, there are more people who think they want to be entrepreneurs than the ones that are really “willing to pay the price”. So, since the “inexperience” is available in plenty, there is no one “looking” for it. So urging investors and others to start taking “inexperience” seriously is confusing. It’s everywhere – so where should they look?
2. No statistical support: Of course, there is no statistical support for the claims.I don’t think anybody has done research on startup failures and compared the results based on who started the companies (first-time entrepreneurs or serial entrepreneurs). Since both Glenn and Guy are talking about garnering support for first-time entrepreneurs, it is clear that currently there is not much support for first-time entrepreneurs. That means, RIGHT NOW first-time entrepreneurs have a hard time to get their companies to succeed. This leads me to conclude that there is a lesser chance of success for first-time entrepreneurs.
3. Exceptions are not the rule: Typical examples quoted are Yahoo, Google, Facebook etc. These, for me are exceptions than rules. For every one of these successes, we can at least find a few dozen companies that are in the dead pool.
4. Serial entrepreneurs have more capacity: With every success, people take you more seriously. Take anything in life – if you have done it successfully many times before – people believe that you can do that again. Success in the first company will showcase the accomplishment and helps build the identity for the entrepreneur. Valuable accomplishments and strong identity will increase the capacity for the entrepreneur. Hence a higher chance of succeeding in the next company.
My $.02
There is no need to discount the value of experience: Experience is important. Sadly, the person without experience can’t experience the benefits of experience and the person with experience will see many things as “obvious” and hence won’t see “experience” as a big thing. However, we see the need for “experience” almost on a daily basis:
- Which doctor would you want to get your surgery done – experienced one or one who is performing surgery for the first time?
- Which lawyer do you want on your side – experienced one or one who is just starting?
- Which dentist would you prefer to visit – experienced one or one who is fresh out of college?
- Which teacher do you want to learn from?
- Which teacher do you want your kid to learn from?
In all the cases above, the first-timer may turn out to be just fine? But what are the odds and do you want to take a chance?
Comparing apples to oranges may lead to questionable conclusions:
From the illustrations, let us look at these numbers:
A – Represents successful ventures by first-time entrepreneurs
B – Failed ventures by first-time entrepreneurs
A+B – Represents the universe of first-time entrepreneurs
C – Represents successful ventures by serial entrepreneurs
D – Represents failed ventures by serial entrepreneurs
C+D – Represents the universe of serial entrepreneurs
The right comparison will be between A and C. If we compare A (successful ventures by first-time entrepreneurs) and D (failed ventures by serial entrepreneurs) we are comparing apples and oranges leading to questionable conclusions
Motivation to write this post: I wrote this post for a reason. After reading these articles, I am sure first-time entrepreneurs are more encouraged. I could see that from the comments. However, this or anything like this will not make it easy for first-time entrepreneurs anytime soon. It is hard work for them and there are no short-cuts. Examples of grand successes by first-time entrepreneurs are more of an exception than a rule. The good part is that today the environment (offshore, open source, sotware as a service business model, mashups) is such that entrepreneurs need less capital to build certain types of companies. There is also a lot of help available on the internet. However, the PRICE that needs to be paid by a first-time entrepreneur has not changed much.
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Thu 06 Dec 2007, 8:30 PM - 12 Comments
Earlier this week, I attended the Author Pow-Wow event organized by 800-CEO-READ. When I signed up, I didn’t know what to expect (I had not attended the first such event last year) but I knew it was going to be great. I think GOD saves the best for the last. I have to say that this was by far the BEST event I attended this year.
When the conference ended on day two, the only sad part was that it ENDED.
Here are all the people that attended and my thanks to all of them for being there and giving their best
The Authors
Erika Andersen
Greg Alexander
Jose Castillo
Kevin Eikenberry
Joanne Gordon (not a blogger yet)
Jackie Huba
Joe Heuer (blog coming soon)
Alexander Kjerulf
Steve Little (not a blogger yet)
Ben McConnell
Pamela Miles – (works with Jack Mitchell, no blog or website yet)
Robert Mintz (not a blogger yet)
Jack Mitchell (not a blogger yet)
Susan Quandt (blog coming soon)
David Meerman Scott
Michael Stallard (not a blogger yet)
Dan Roam
John Rosen
Rajesh Setty
AnnaMaria Turano
Bill Welter (blog coming soon)
Steve Yastrow (contributes to Tom Peters‘ blog, with a personal blog coming soon)
Mike Kanazawa
Publishing Gurus:
Ray Bard – Bard Press
Mark Bloomfield – Harvard Business School Press
Shelley Dolley – Leap7
Barbara Cave Henricks – Cave Henricks Communications (blogging at http://blog.cavehenricks.com/, yeah, a blogging PR person! Cool!)
Mark Fortier – Fortier Public Relations
Nick Morgan – Public Words (who also blogs at http://publicwords.typepad.com/nickmorgan/, so he’s another blogging PR guy! GREAT!)
Gerry Sindell – ThoughtLeaders INTL
Les Tuerk – BrightSight Group
Dennis Welch – Cave Henricks Communications
Susan Williams – Jossey-Bass
And, the cool people from 800 CEO Read:
Jack Covert
Melinda Cross – Concepts Content Copy
Sally Haldorson
Jon Mueller
Kate Mytty
Joy Panos Stauber – Stauber Design Studio
Todd Sattersten
Aaron Schleicher
Dylan Schleicher
Rebecca Schlei
Special hanks Phil for all the links and photos
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Wed 05 Dec 2007, 9:32 AM - 3 Comments
The Missing Piece
I was at a writers’ conference earlier this week. The moderator asked for people to list their expectations from the conference. The expectations ranged from wanting to sell more books to building a good network. What was strikingly missing was that nobody said “I want to become a better writer”.
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Note:
1. A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words. Not 49 or 51 but exactly 50.
2. You can download a photographic manifesto of Mini Sagas at ChangeThis. Here is the link – Mini Sagas: Bite-sized Wisdom for Life and Business (PDF, 2.9MB).
3. For a complete list of Mini Sagas, please visit the Squidoo lens “Mini Sagas“
Posted under Mini Saga.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 03 Dec 2007, 2:14 PM - 3 Comments
When I was a working as a consultant (about ten years ago), I used to travel a LOT. Sometimes it would make me feel that I was living in the airports.
My business travel has picked up in the last two months (within and outside the country) but not to the extent of what it was during the consulting days. In these two months, I have noticed that we throw away a lot of food on the planes. Today morning, Southwest folks gave me a packet of food. I didn’t know what was inside. When I opened it, there were three things:
1. Some biscuit sticks with cheese (which I gladly ate)
2. Some thin crisps (I don’t eat chips that much so I didn’t open the packet)
3. A Salami stick (I am a vegetarian so skipped that)
Of course, the stewardess threw away two of the unopened items into trash. It hurts me as I know that there are millions of people out there without proper food and we are throwing away food like nobody’s business.
Here is an idea (hopefully somebody in the airline industry is reading this):
How about taking a recycling bag just before you take the trash bag and request people to deposit food items that they have not opened for recycling. The airlines can then determine whether to recycle those food packets are treat this as a donation and send it to people that need it most.
What do you all think?
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 03 Dec 2007, 2:13 PM - 5 Comments
The morning flight to Chicago was cold. May be they were just preparing us for the weather in Chicago. Few minutes into the air, people were requesting blankets to cover themselves.
I saw a lady (who was sitting alone) get up and take three blankets. Soon there were no blankets left. Fortunately, the flight was not full and I don’t think it was a problem.
Imagine a scenario where you wanted a blanket and it was not available anymore. You don’t have a blanket but someone has three. What would you do?
My answer: Nothing
You can’t change the world on these things. You don’t expect everyone will play a fair game. It is expected that everyone takes only one blanket so that everyone has a chance to get one. However, there is no such rule and some people will use that for their advantage. Blaming them won’t help. Since you can’t change them and the only person that you have FULL (sort of) control to change is yourself, the best option is to think ahead and pick up a blanket (only one, please) for yourself.
Posted under Main Page.
By Rajesh Setty on Mon 03 Dec 2007, 2:11 PM - 2 Comments
Sounds like an oxymoron but it’s not.
Southwest Airlines may have bee the first airline to do away with seat numbers. So they operated like a bus. You were assigned a group (A, B or C) depending on when you checked in. If you wanted good seats, you check-in early so t Ouhat you are in group A. It was that simple.
Recently, they made one more change. Within the group, you are now assigned a number 1-30 or 1-60 and that indicates your standing position in the queue to get into the airplane. It is a big and interesting change.
My first experience on this new scheme was a few weeks ago. I guess it was the first experience for many people. So there was some chaos in the Southwest counter at the Chicago airport. We were chatting about the new scheme with a Southwest person and he calmly responded “It is a big change and we know that it will take a few months before people get used to it. We are OK with that”
My $.02:
1. Changing the rules of the game: Hat’s off to Southwest for changing the rules of the game – not once but twice. One is to change the rules and other is to show brilliance in executing on that change. They are good at doing both.
2. Understanding that change takes time: From the response of the Southwest person on the counter, it was clear that Southwest knows this. Most people don’t. Just because they think something is a good idea, they have a tendency to believe that everyone will think so.
3. To keep costs low, push the costs somewhere else: Today morning, I was boarding a Southwest plane coming to Chicago again. My flight was at 6.50am and we started boarding at 6.34am. The flight took off at 6.50am. One of the reasons (I think) this was possible was because the cost of maintaining the discipline was moved to the passengers.
4. Creating bigger barriers to entry: This was an example of a move where Southwest is changing the way they do business with their customers. They are doing this in the way customers feel that is “for their benefit”. Those that want to get in early in the plane HAVE to check-in earlier than others in the same plane. This means that more people will check-in online. Checking-in online is no longer a convenience. It’s a game. If you want to win, you go first. What is interesting is, whether someone wins or not, Southwest will win as more people will check-in online. Think about it, you can check-in online most other carriers but you do that for convenience. Here you do it for more than convenience. If other carriers have to catch up, they have to do more than just advertise it, they have to change their business model. Southwest is simply creating bigger barriers for other carriers to get in.
Question for you:
At your work, what rules are you taking for granted? Which of those rules are you willing to re-define in the marketplace to gain a superior competitive advantage?
Posted under Business Models.
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 02 Dec 2007, 10:18 AM - Leave Comment
I have updated my facebook page with these audio files:
1. Overview of Beyond Code
2. Learn
3. Laugh
4. Look
5. Leaving a Lasting Impression
6. Love
7. Leverage
8. Likeability
9. Listen
10. Lead
11. Are you memorable – Interviewed by Lisa Haneberg
12. Making the Most of Your Time – Part 1 (It’s Diff Radio Show – Jan 2007)
13. Making the Most of Your Time – Part 2
14. Making the Most of Your Time – Part 3
Here is the link to the page:
Facebook Page: Rajesh Setty
Have a great weekend!
Posted under Announcement, Audio.
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