Startup...a love story

When my VC friend did not like the idea of my business plan, I was deeply hurt. It was like not receiving any comment on your child’s first photograph at your Facebook page from any of your 1000 friends. It was like receiving a regret letter from your first crush. Well, it was almost like failing the driving test. It was an inexplicable emotion when you want to look up to the night sky and say “those who were dancing were thought insane by those who couldn't hear the music”.

I told my father that I want to do entrepreneurship after graduate school. He agreed that economy has not recovered yet and I need some more time to find a job. I made a faint attempt to make him happy by explaining him the fancy title I gave myself in my company. He finally smiled when I told him that Steve Jobs and I have exactly the same bank balance at the beginning of our entrepreneurial journey.

Few friends at my prior job, that were vegetating in large fat organizations congratulated me for taking the bold step and I suddenly felt, in their mind, I represent the freedom, they never had. My old boss was happy that he no longer needed to manage a spoilt brat. Some of my friends, mainly the ones with underdeveloped listening skills, started avoiding me when I started sharing “my big idea” with them at groceries, restaurants, swimming pools and at bars. I did not care.

My girlfriend asked me about my salary. I replied fearlessly”Salary now or salary after seven years when we go public? ” Her confused face reminded me the moment I proposed her the first time near her high school gate. However, I assured her that we need not defer our engagement till we get our first customer.

Every time I got together with my other bold and equally naïve teammates (dreammates), we had this strange feeling as if we were on a mission to moon. During our strategy session at Starbucks, others used to give us a suspicious look as if we were planning the next the twin tower attack. But we were lost in our own little world. We believed that the future of the world rests in our hands. We wanted to make this world a better place. We thought, if not us, nobody can.

When we met our first customer, I relived my moments of first love. Both parties felt that we were made for each other. The emotion changed when we started the pricing negotiation and became a little bitter when we delayed our first shipment by a few weeks. But we were married to each other by then and switching cost was more than Brad Pitts-Angelina Jolie divorce settlement. So we stayed with each other as not-so-ideal married couples do in their late forties.

We are still smaller than Google. Our company shows up in the third search page if you Google us. I still am a few billion dollars away from Steve Jobs. My kind wife has forgiven me for all the nights I did not spend with her on our anniversary days during the past five years. I think she considers entrepreneurship to be a lesser sin than an extra marital affair.

My son has asked me several times why I could never attend his parents-teachers meeting like other fathers religiously do. But when he grows up he will probably understand that his father made an honest attempt to change the world. And in this process I had to make tough choices.

But I hope my son would never feel shy to take the path, less traveled in the journey of his life . He would try to find a meaningful purpose and pursue that with passion.

Despite the things I do not have in my life, I lead a regret free life. Life is probably too short for regrets. Actually,the VCs and the angels do not give you enough time to relax,reflect and regret.

I just finished writing my second business plan. I felt as if I fell in love, yet again….

By Mrinmoy Chakraborty, VP Petari Inc(yet another guy trying to change the world)

Dare More, Be More

It was the final Strategy class during preterm session at Stanford. After discussing corporate strategies of several successful world class companies, Prof. Leslie took the last few moments to express his views on the strategy of life. He encouraged us all to “Be Bold” in our career and in life. His advice made me reflect on my personal life and the lives of men and women that dared to be bold.

Boldness is the attitude that makes the difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. With my personal experience as a typical middleclass boy (if you know what I mean) from a suburban town in India, I can relate to the feelings what it means to be playing safe in life. I always preferred to sit in the last row at school – my perceived zone of safety in that environment. I always chose not to ask questions in any open forum lest my ignorance gets exposed to the crowd. By suppressing the dumb question in my mind, I might have looked intelligent (?) in that moment, but I also chose to remain ignorant forever, as they say in a Chinese proverb. I do not know whether it was my wrong understanding of the meaning of failure or the fear of looking different from the crowd that made me defensive in my approach to life. My tendency to seek approval from people around me in my thoughts and actions in order to send across a message “I belong” made me live somebody else’s life. At some point, I even convinced myself, I should actually be the person others want me to be. I believed that to be the recipe of maximizing social acceptance. Well, after a couple of grey hairs I realized nobody really cares. But I know I am not the only one leading somebody else’s life.

Later in my life, when I travelled abroad, I was particularly impressed with people that took themselves less seriously and tried new things, constantly. Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think. The bold approach to life does not let one bogged down with unwarranted feelings of fear while trying new things. People who make things break a lot more things. Making things is a journey and breaking is a path to reach there. One of my friends from China read a book on mountaineering, bought a few travel aids and started his journey – alone. On the way he met somebody who turned out to be a professional mountaineer. They became friends and my friend learned mountaineering from him.

When I went to Israel for a business trip, I was curious to notice every building in the city had an underground basement. My sales colleague explained that is where the residents take shelter during bombings. He also told me that if there is a bombing in the morning the coffee shop across the street is open no later than 5 P.M in the evening, the same day. The good moments in life are too short to be missed due to fear of past or future bad moments!

Recently, I chose to give myself a lot more freedom to be just me and do what I think is the right thing to do to express my truest self. And, “I am loving it”.

Yes, life is short and the biggest risk of life is probably taking none. One man I know who made the most from his short but meaningful life made sure he always did three simple things everyday- something funny, something generous and something risky.

Being bold is a culture that shapes the culture of society, organization and nation. The culture of an organization is the extension the personality of the leader. When a risk averse leader leads an organization, the strategy for the company is generally to follow and not to lead. It is no wonder that top business schools focus so much on the diversity or breadth of experience of candidates in the admission process. People, dare more, do more and are bound to be more.

I was babysitting my two year old son, Priyam the other day, and I counted in two hours I told him 43 “Don’t”s and 13 “NO”s. Next day, I came up with a radically different kid management strategy. I allowed my son to break a few things, at the risk of a verbal duel with my wife. But I dared to take a chance. My son had a “home alone feeling” under the supervision of the new and improved dad.

But the short term consequence was not an enjoyable experience for me.Total empowerment of a two year old was not perceived as a great idea. I failed to convince my wife my long term vision and the concept of innovative parenting. But I felt good (I know she follows my blog), that it was my honest attempt to do my bit to make the next generation of kids bolder so that they lead a richer life with a more diverse set of experiences.

When my son grows up, I will probably offer give him just one advice which I learned from my marketing professor Michaela at Stanford – “Go Big, or Go Home”. I hope he makes a lot more things than he broke the other day in future and prove his dad right-for once!

In search of a brighter world

Ujjwal and I met at the entrance of the corridor at NITIE- our MBA alma mater. Both of us arrived a day before our first day at school. It was a rainy gloomy monsoon morning in Mumbai. Ujjwal was a tall, thin, bespectacled man, with a hard-to-miss smiling, innocent face. His traditional kurta and a pair of sandals gave away his Bengali origin. He asked me for direction to the student hostel. Ironically, five years later, as the executive director of an NGO , Ujjwal is currently providing directions to thousands of less privileged children in their pursuit for a brighter future.

Ujjwal led a quiet life at college. At B-school, it was important for most of us to hold official positions of responsibilities in various school committees. These titles looked good in resumes and were perceived as proofs of our leadership skills by the prospective employers. Ujjwal was officially responsible for “nothing”. However, he was involved in all class events and always gave his best for all team events- silently. He was however a member of the rotary club and organized vaccination camps and blood donation camps for the entire school community.

After graduation, Ujjwal joined TCS, one of the top services companies in India. His father had retired by then and Ujjwal had to bear responsibility for his family. But deep inside Ujjwal did not want to join the IT bandwagon. His passion was to create direct impact in the lives of ordinary people. He realized that his IT career would take him away from the real world. Moreover, Ujjwal did not feel the career urge for an overseas career like many of his friends and colleagues. Immigration stamps in the passport are still viewed as proofs of career success in India. To Ujjwal, “West Coast” meant Mumbai and he decided to choose Mumbai as his workplace. After a three year stint, he quit TCS and joined an NGO that teaches street children, as a human resource manager.

Many of us “hope” to give it back to the society when we are either tired or retired. Ujjwal made this decision when he was 24. That speaks volume about the honesty of his desire to serve his personal mission in life. However, Ujjwal soon realized, he needs a bigger platform to create a substantial impact. And life offered him an interesting opportunity!

In 2008, “Times of India”, the most popular media publication in the country came out with a nationwide talent search for the next generation leaders in India. Reality TV has changed the world quite a lot in recent times - for the better or for worse. I do not want to comment on how I feel while switching channels between most reality shows on TV. But “Lead India” contest always reminds me of at least one example of media creating a huge positive impact. It created Ujjwal, the leader.

Ujjwal had the good sense to nominate himself. Leaders and non-leaders from all segments of the society participated in this contest. The contestants went through several rounds of interviews, debates and public voting. Ujjwal emerged as the youngest candidate among the eight finalists in the Lead India contest. When I saw his picture in the morning newspaper, my heart erupted with joy and pride. I feel socially obliged to express happiness at others success. But this was one occasion when I felt no external pressure to “feel” happy. Loving Ujjwal is so damn easy! I felt the “urge” to reconnect with Ujjwal after several years and he seemed almost embarrassed over the phone with his newly found fame. He enquired everything about my life he would have done on a normal regular conversation. Nothing changed. My respect for this man grew tenfold.

Ujjwal did not win the contest. His views about “socialism” and “quota system” did not resonate with what some of the judges wanted to hear on TV. Ujjwal expressed his original and innovative ideas on inclusive capitalism. This idealist demanded contra-vote bank ideology of absolute meritocracy at every level of the society. He believed socio-economic problems cannot be solved in isolation and education is the most powerful tool to fight against the most pressing problems in a complex nation like India.

One of the judges in the Lead India contest, Mr. Anupam Kher was a popular cine star . A social crusader himself, Mr Kher spotted Ujjwal’s talent and offered him the role to run his foundation that creates programs improving the capabilities of schools in areas of alternate pedagogy, teacher capacity and better classroom management practices. Ujjwal has to even plead to the parents in the slums to send their kids to school, everyday. The problem is compounded by age old confounding government policies and lack of good teacher training institutes. In recent times Government of India has taken some serious steps to change status quo. But there is still a long way to go.

The frenzy after the Lead India contest has died down. Ujjwal is back to real world and is currently fighting a lone battle. Providing mainstream education to under privileged children is a herculean task. Ujjwal needs support - beyond emotional support from friends. We can no longer express solidarity just by sending him an SMS vote. He needs our support with our ideas, time and money. We all need to stand by him, before he asks help. Even if he does not, we must, because this time if Ujjwal does not win, India loses.

My Ten Cents on Leadership

1. Head, Heart, and Spine – Three Critical Leadership Organs: Competence (Head), Compassion (Heart)and Character (Spine) are the building blocks of leadership. You need a Head to think and analyze data and complex situations in order to make logical decisions. You need a Heart to “listen” (not hear) and understand other person’s point of view. You can win in relationships, both professional and personal only when you have developed the capability to think like the person you want to win over. You need a Spine to stand for what you believe in. If you do not stand for Something you tend to fall for Everything.

2. Ask Both “Why” and “Why Not” Questions: It is important to wear dual hats of a manager and a leader in a corporate environment. As manager, it pays to be paranoid in order to assess risks of business environment and manage the details. Hence you need to ask a lot of “Why” questions to get into the heart of situations and execute flawlessly. As a leader, you need to create a vision for the team and constantly challenge them to a higher level of performance by asking “Why Not”?

3. Take Accountability for Problems: Success has many fathers, but failure is, more often, orphan. However, both success and failure definitions are merely perceptions of individuals and both can only be judged by the impartial verdict of Time. True leaders take a little less share of success and little more share of failures than they actually deserve. Why don’t you challenge yourself by adopting a “perceived failure situation” and try making a difference? Remember, the quality of your life is defined by the problem you choose to solve in your life.

4. Empower Yourself: Power is the freedom you choose to give yourself to do the right things in life. The power you derive from your titles is transient and should not be relied upon. Real power comes from knowledge and the ability to take responsibility and accountability for your actions. Hence Power is earned, and not derived. Only You can empower Yourself, nobody else can. Power is not a means to satisfy one’s ego. Power should make you humble and responsible. If it does not, you are no different from the infant obsessed with the newest toy (power). Toy breaks and so does power, if not handled carefully.

5. Develop Healthy Respect for Yourself, Team and the Organization: Some people have so much respect for their bosses that they have very little left for themselves. But leaders must have healthy self‐respect to stand by their beliefs. You can only develop passion at work and become successful, when you genuinely respect the core‐values of your team and that of the organization.

6.Learn to Defocus: To focus on the “real job”, it is important to defocus from the non‐value adding, low impact, seemingly urgent (but not important) tasks. Motion without action is more dangerous than complete inaction. Do not get into the trap when you artificially make yourself too busy to take care of important things such as customer and people issues.

7.80‐20 Rule of Focus: The ROI of playing to your strength is more than focusing too much on your weaknesses. Typically, one should spend no more than 20% of his/her time on the weaknesses and focus 80% of time in developing on one’s strengths. Given the limited bandwidth of life, why spend time on your weaknesses alone and become average when you have the option of strengthening your strengths and achieve excellence by doing what you love? However, one must correct one’s flaws to an extent where those do not become fatal. You can develop a team with complementary personal competencies so that the team completes each other.

8.Tell the Truth: The ROI of honesty is undeniably immense. Dishonesty is much worse than incompetency because the latter is a correctable evil. If you are honest, you have to remember fewer things. Honesty will give the confidence to face any challenges at life and work. Moreover, the Truth “comes out of the closet” anyway. Resisting truth is delaying the eventuality artificially, ineffectively. Credibility is No 1 quality of a good leader. Credibility is earned by telling the truth, every time, no matter what the context and cost is.

9.Remember Names, Stories and Return Gestures: Develop the habit remembering people’s names and the story you and him have created together. These little experiences, significant and apparently insignificant ones, added overall, make your life. If you want to be remembered, remember others. Give something back, in your own way, when your turn comes.

10. Be Passionate and Dispassionate Simultaneously: Too much passion, at times clouds your vision from truth. As a leader, you need to make unbiased and objective decisions based on logic, data and intuition. You can do that only when you dissociate yourself from the problem and treat yourself as an “outsider”. Sometimes, you need to remind yourself that you are merely a custodian of your title/job and not the owner. Do not let your title define who you are.

Everyday Leaders,Real Heroes

There are ordinary people. And then , there are extraordinary ordinary people.

Sometimes, the second category of less ordinary individuals "practice" leadership

(often by chance ,but always by choice) and become Extraordinary Ordinary Leaders(EOLs).

The EOLs lead a regular life - do groceries, watch blockbuster movies, attend reunions, get occassional driving tickets and fly budget airlines. They take notes and sometimes doze off when others speak aloud in meetings.

But, when the high pitchers are suddenly quiet and confused, the EOLs take the first step towards change and speak up.When it matters most,the EOLs inspire others and create hope

The EOLs have an unconscious competence of making the world a better place, silently, daily.

They bring in sunshine , joy and happiness in lonely faces. They love to give it back to where they belong - the organizations they work for, the society they live in. They do it all unconditionally. Recognition embarrass them. Limelight make them run away to solitude.

They seldom ask for "airtime" in this high-decibel world.

EOLs do not mention their deeds in resumes or in MBA application essays(well, sometimes)

Thankfully, they are uncorrupted and unaffected by 15 minutes of fame. They never attend reality shows and most importantly, never blog:-)

I am fascinated by EOLs and their humble ,yet powerful impact on the world. Hence, I decided to brag, well blog , about these everyday leaders in this forum. I believe in this process of knowing and understanding the EOLs, someday I will become one!

I will continue blogging till then....