There is a general tendency of we humans to compare whatever we can. One thing that gets compared first when someone joins a new company is the “Company Culture“. Culture becomes SO very important especially if you are a startup.

Just came across quite an interesting presentation that describes NetFlix‘s winning culture especially focusing on it’s core points which are listed below:

Thanks to JoeManna for the tweet

In continuation to my previous article , today we would look into another interesting topic from my current read What Self-Made Millionaires really think,know and do. Due to my association with an early stage startup, the current article on “Successful Entrepreneurial Qualities” looked very much relevant.

Well, I should agree that I could really feel the things during the process of writing this article Though, Qualities and Execution may sometimes seem disjoint , it is only when they get married; a successful business is made !!!!

A sense of mission :
Successful entrepreneurs set out to improve the lives of their customers.They do not simply set out to make a big pile of money.They are workaholic and love working hard at something that they love doing.

Self-Belief :
They believe that they will be successful.They expect to be successful.Even when bankrupt, they still believe that one day they will be successful.

Acceptance of responsibility :
Successful entrepreneurs are found to accept responsibility for themselves and not to blame others.

Resolution to pay the price :
Entrepreneurs understand the price that must be paid to achieve their goals, and they resolve to pay the necessary price.

Commitment to success :
Successful entrepreneurs have a 100 percent commitment to becoming successful.They focus and concentrate on their area of excellence.

Judgement :
They are not necessarily clever with words,arithmetic or mechanics.However,they have developed social skills, intelligence and judgement.

The helicopter view :
Entrepreneurs can see the big picture, acticipate trends.They have foresight in that they always look to the future, understanding that the rest of our business lives will be spent in the future.

Leadership skills :
They set goals, have high expectations of themselves & others and listen carefully.They have the ability to draw extraordinary performance from ordinary people.

Excellence in selling :
Entrepreneurs generally are excellent at selling.They focus on benefits to the customer, satisfying customer desires and relieving customer fears.They make excellent presentations and show the product or service in its best light.

Managing time effectively :
They develop the ability to focus on the 20 percent that brings in the 80 percent of success, and delegate the 80 percent to others.

Excellent communications :
Successful entrepreneurs tend to be excellent in private discussions, conducting meetings, giving presentations and submitting reports.

Persistence :
Successful entrepreneurs persist.They understand that it takes time to make it really BIG !!! They are prepared to go the extra mile and do that little bit extra for which they do not get paid.

Related Article
Money – A startup Killer

My apology for not having been active on Thoughtsprevail , was held up in activities that kept me away from my blog This week, I picked up a book titled “What Self-Made Millionaires really think,know and do” which has some exceptional content on business.Though reading the book won’t make me/you a millionaire but it would definitely help in understanding business in a much better sense !!! After reading a few chapters from the book, I came across a very interesting topic that focused on BUSINESS FAILURE and this article would be a GIST of that chapter.

The reasons are split across four categories, namely:
a) Specialization b) Differentiation c) Segmentation & d) Concentration

Note:
Though many of these reasons might be quite common, but it is important to keep them in mind since , most of the times, we forget the so called COMMON THINGS

SPECIALIZATION

1. No mission, no clear goals, stated OBJECTIVE to make a pile of money.
2. CUSTOMER not perceived as a top priority.
3. Loss of momentum in sales, poor SALES performance.
4. Impatience, trying to get RICH quickly.
5. Operating outside own area of excellence, diversification into UNASSOCIATED BUSINESSES.
6. Failure to focus on PRIORITIES, failure to focus on 20 percent that brings in the 80 percent.

DIFFERENTIATION

1. Failure to establish COMPETITIVE advantage, failure to be better, cheaper, faster or nicer , trying to sell a commodity.
2. Product not suited to customer REQUIREMENTS.
3. Poor QUALITY of product and support.

1. Failure to IDENTIFY CUSTOMERS.
2. REACTIVE rather than proactive SELLING.
3. INCOMPLETE marketing STRATEGY, poor sales performance.

CONCENTRATION

1. POOR LEADERSHIP, lack of integrity and COMPETENCE of KEY STAFF, lack of commitment & persistence.
2. MISMANAGEMENT of working CAPITAL.
3. Failure to analyse and respond to trends, CHANGES in MARKET PLACE.
4. No BUSINESS PLAN.
5. Inadequate financial records, POOR BUDGETING, poor cash control.
6. Action without planning, FAILURE to collect the RELEVANT FACTS.
7. Paralysis by analysis, TOO much ANALYSIS, not enough action.
8. Poor RELATIONS with STAFF and employees, poor communications, command and control mentality.

As this book is a great resource hence, the next series of articles on Thoughtsprevail would be focusing on such interesting topics[from the book] that relate to business, hope you enjoy them !!!

There is always a debate over PRODUCT and PROJECT management and the responsibilities of each of them.Just came across a very informative presentation by Mr. Olsen of Olsen Solutions which was presented at Web 2.0 Expo, San Fransisco.

Time management is a very important factor; consider your work, personal life or anything related in your day to day life. May be that is the reason we have post-its, diaries,hand-held gadgets etc. that come to our rescue Effective time management[coupled with proper priority scheduling] leads to better productivity !!!!

To explore more on productivity, we have a guest writer – Heather Johnson, who would give us some insights into what best practices would make an Entrepreneur[and his/her team] more efficient & productive.

Ten tips for becoming a more PRODUCTIVE ENTREPRENEUR:
Being self-employed is both a blessing and a curse at times. Without a boss standing over your shoulder every hour of the working day, you might find it difficult to always stay abreast with your daily tasks. Time really is money, however — especially when you are solely dependent on your own work performance. If you would like to change your lifestyle in order to become a more productive entrepreneur, follow the ten tips given below:

Thanks Heather for these simple and wonderful tips , since simplest things are the ones that we take for granted and your tips would definitely help many people[not only Entrepreneurs] to be more productive !!!!

Have been pretty busy off late and hence , not been able to blog much and in the process have been missing many interesting events happening in Bangalore and Chennai

Few days back, I came across this article in LiveMint, which focussed on an important discussion from the perspective of a startup – Hiring the RIGHT kind of employees for a startup.Needless to say that every employee in a startup should have that KILLER GENE to make HIS/HER startup successful.Very important to note the term HIS and HER in the previous statement, which indicates that these employees are very clear about their basics – “If they fail, the startup fails and if they succeed , the startup succeeds“.

But there are many issues in finding this perfect set of people for your startup and even if you get you MR/MISS RIGHT, it would be a much bigger challenge to retain them !!! This was the topic of discussion in the April edition of the Open Coffee Club, Chennai. Below are some of the excerpts from that meet.

[Thanks to Siddartha Govindraj for the minutes of the meet].

1.
The first step is Hiring good employees. Good here means that they should have the attitude to learn and grow with the company. Better having someone who wants to work with you and then train them , rather than get someone who may have better skills but who doesn’t have the attitude and would leave you, when given a better offer. Best is the right combination of attitude and the skills.

2.
Once you get your right set of people , the next big challenge is to Manage them.Freshers can’t be left alone because they need someone to guide them, so you need to continuously interact with them, help and guide them.This would help in boosting their confidence , so that they can take up more challenging roles in future and be a valuable asset to your startup.

3.
Experienced people can be left alone, but many of them who have worked in larger organizations may not have the attitude of working in a startup. So, there are two things which are possible in this case – either they get frustrated or they get accustomed in doing all the work by themselves.

4.
Generally, experienced people are good for high level strategy/marketing/advisory positions, and fresher/intermediates for development kind of work [but there has to be someone to nurture them & guide them). But if you get experienced people with the right attitude for startups, then thats great in any position

5.
You need to interact with everyone continuously, so that they know where they stand. In case someone is not performing, you need to bring this to their notice.This should not be done in a confrontational way, but rather you can mentor them ,so that they can perform better.But if there is no further improvement than you need to tell them that either they are not right for us or we are not right for them.

6.
Different people are good in different roles, so you need to keep an eye on mismatched roles. For example: Someone might be good at learning new stuff but may not be detail oriented, this kind of person might be good for research/prototype projects, while a detailed oriented person might be better for client production products. If they take up opposite roles, than it would be a complete disaster for your startup.

7.
Avoid a situation when you hire some people and then don't interact much with them.In this case there would be a series of confusions about their role, their expectations, your expectations; which may subsequently result in a drip in their performance.This would in turn be a cost to your company and there is no time for such confusions in a startup !!!

8.
At every moment of time, we should remember that the motivation level of the employees would always be different from the motivation level of the founders of the company hence, as discussed before[during the start of the article] always thrive the OUR attitude from the beginning.As long as your employees remain motivated and enjoy the work , they would stay and if they are not, you can be sure that they would join your competitor

9.
Sometimes whatever you do, your employees would leave you…in which case, you need to check your attitude, hiring strategy and other important aspects which may lead to such serious decisions. Always remember,”One person might be wrong in judging you, but if there are a series of people who follow their footsteps, than it is high time, you raise the ALERT signal and get your officials to discuss this issue“

10.
There are many proactive people in the crowd who would follow you and your startup from the day your startup was born.Always keep an eye on such people, since they can be future partners or employees in your company.You can always use the Stanford Shopping Center test to get your MR/MISS right in your company.

Being from Mumbai and having spent most of my time traveling in the local trains of Mumbai, life was always difficult. But even during these tough times, when there was so much crowd in the trains, you would always see Gandhi-Topi people also called Dabbawalas [or Tiffin Carriers ] , who are trying hard to serve food to their customers on time; or should I say give an On-Time Delivery

One of the most impressive things about them is the cycle that they use, the same old famous Hero Cycle and the same tradition still continues…nothing has changed yet their delivery-cycle still remains the same. If you check them out on any station, you can learn “Team Building Lessons” from them !!!.

So many dabbas taken everyday, yet very very few errors, this is the amazing story of “The Mumbai Dabbawalas” who have become a WORLDWIDE BRAND yet their work is not affected with the newly branded Image

While reading about them, there was an amazing presentation that came to my notice on their website….Yes, they are also changing with times, but the presentation titled “Management Lessons from Dabbawalas” would surely teach “Too much change is also bad” !!!

Management MANTRAS from Dabbawalas:

1. Keep the operational costs as low as possible.
2. Keep capital investments bare minimum.
3. Just serve your customer – nothing else.
4. Customer is not the Raja, but the Maharaja.
5. Complexity opposes compliance.
6. Never deviate from your core competency.
7. Don’t be over dependent on technology [surely not applicable to a technology company] .
8. Flat organization, Fast decision making.
9. Co-operation inside, Competition outside.
10. Keep extras for Full Tolerance.
11. Commitment matters.
12. Keep the implication of failure.
13. Build your ideas around existing infrastructure.
14. Abandon bad customers.
15. Strike means suicide, labor means life.
16. Penalize employees for non-compliance.
17. Do not transfer your employees very often.
18. Keep your employees emotionally united.
19. High salary alone cannot retain employees.
20. Be humble and don’t boast your success.

You can view the complete presentation from here

Three key LEARNINGS Dabbawalas:

1. Open Culture is the key:
When you come to work, you can have only two reactions – “Either you feel, you have come to a work (indicating you are bored with your work) or party(indicating you are enjoying your work) One of the key drivers to this is “Open Culture”.Culture has become an integral part of any organization, try building it from day one !!!!
Gone are the days, when you can say that “I manage a team of XYZ people“, now have to refine this statement to : “We are a team of XYZ people“. Well it sounds the same, but the difference is huge !!!

2. Turn your Customers into Evangelists:
Even though there was not much money spent in their[Dabbawalas] marketing , they still managed to become a household name” and I am sure the first person who might have given the dabba had played a major part in this !!!
This customer was the one who acted as a evangelist for them so, create a long lasting impression from the beginning and soon your company would have a large no of evangelists !!!

3. Use the Keep It Simple Stupid[KISS] principle wherever possible:
Even though Dabbawalas don’t use technology, they managed to clinch Six Sigma. 85% illiterate people, no technology yet so few errors !!! The answer is to ask the question : “Do we really need XYZ simply because others are using XYZ?”.For example: If you are a startup, your main focus should be great software and not great office/furniture (which would follow soon after the success of your product/service).
So evaluation of an option becomes a key, so as the KISS principle says:

A very straightforward approach may seem less glamorous and less dramatic, but the trivial approach should indeed be taken. Surprisingly, the very obvious approach is often the best.

Do not miss to have a look at the various other articles on Dabbawalas Official Website

Other articles on Dabbawalas [covered on Thoughtsprevail]:

Dabbawalas, Building lasting success based on values
Dabbawalas – Straight from the Gut

Indian Institute of Technology ,Mumbai (IIT-B) will celebrate its Golden Jubilee this year.Shailesh J Mehta School of Management,IIT Mumbai celebrates this occasion with Avenues 07, its Annual International Business Festival.

It is the season of Business Competitions and this time , we have Vista & Lakshya[on the same days(12th-14th) in the month of October,07].

Vista – IIM Bangalore (IIMB) Annual Business Summit:
Vista is IIMB‘s business competition that would be showcasing the latest trends in industry over the years. The theme of Vista 2007 is ReBusiness. The theme highlights the paradigm shift in manner of conducting business and the same would be reflected in the events hosted during Vista 2007 – to be held between October 12th and 14th,07.

You can find more details here and here
[Thanks Alok Padhi for this information]

Lakshya – NITIE(National Institute Of Industrial Engineering) B-Competition:
As mentioned on the Lakshya website:

Organized by PGDIE students of NITIE, Lakshya aims at broadening the outlook and honing the skills of practicing managers. The middle level managers present live industrial projects which brought significant change in the performance of their organization.

You can find more details here and here

No wonder why “We have so many websites where people can post ideas or pitch online”