Startup Madness

(This article is jointly written by Sameer Guglani and Nandini Hirianniah)

In recent days, while working with the MVP portfolio companies and reflecting back on the days of madhouse, we have identified this phenomenon we are calling ’startup madness’.

It’s visible and present from the time when you start thinking of your million dollar/world changing idea to the steady state point (personal satisfaction, acquisition, IPO or maybe shutdown). Things that you do, don’t make any sense to outsiders and they are like ‘This guy is crazy’ and even when you look back at that period you think “what was I thinking when I did this?”

Looking back at the time when we got the idea to start madhouse, we did not know anything about business, we were just two 27 year old kids (later three of us, with Ankur joining us). We had tried a variety of things in our lives and had managed to do reasonably well in whatever we put our hands into, may be that’s what gave us the stupid confidence. Very importantly we were quite ignorant about ‘real business’ and hence came up with our own take on every business problem we faced.

This streak of startup madness showed at various places:

• We did not hear NO: not from vendors, not from people we were trying to hire, not from investors, customers, no one. A NO just meant we had to come back with new ideas and try again.
• We would never get tired of talking about madhouse and we could talk to any one about it. Most times the other guy did not give a damn :-(, for him/her it was just a blabber
• We just worked non-stop for three years , not even a day off (except when forced by illness)
• Other than work everything else was just plain unimportant : sleeping, eating, meeting friends, attending social functions, family, watching TV, movies, newspaper - all of this had very little place in our lives. We just filled all our day with work with average working day of 16-18 hrs all thru.
• We worked out of anywhere and everywhere. Our tools were a Fujitsu laptop and a CDMA phone which could be used like a modem. Restaurants, inside a car / train / auto rickshaw / bus, out on the road, in the park, bedroom, living room and the loo, locations stopped to matter, where place was work place.
• We did not need a lot of money to live and we were happier than ever (no purchases of over 1000 for 3 years, eating at economical places, shamelessly staying with friends / relatives / acquaintances in cities we visited on work )
• ‘The world impossible was missing” - we just did not believe that there was any problem that we could not solve or anything we could not do. Our minds were one track - focus hard, think hard, work hard and just do whatever it takes.
• We had access to this inhuman energy that allowed us to just keep going - “never get tired” or “never run out of steam”.
• Each time we met a new person, we were constantly thinking of how this person can help our venture, . Everywhere we went, we explored if there was something there that could benefit our startup. Frankly we were classical ‘opportunity hounds” and quite shamelessly so
• We were basically “stuck” in our own world in which we could not fail. While we adapted like crazy, we sort of forced business to work the way we thought it should work, without caring a lot about the outside world.

This madness is the essence of start-ups; it signifies the purity of a startup. It makes the startup tick and makes it successful and enjoyable. The same madness makes you innovate, over perform, challenge your skill set, think out of the box or even out of the world, take 28 hrs out of a 24 hrs a day, it gets you to focus but does not let you blindly focus!

Its also important to figure out how can you keep re-fueling the desire, the madness, so that it lasts forever, not just for days, weeks or months, start ups that click need to be at it for years. For an individual or team to succeed as a startup, having the startup madness is a must.

If you are an entrepreneur look inside you and make an honest assessment. Do you have the streak?

• If yes, great.
• If no. But you think you can build it - nice, go ahead and do it at the highest priority.
• If you don’t have it and you can’t build it - I am not sure you should continue being an entrepreneur.

On that other hand, if you are not yet an entrepreneur you should also look inside you and make the same honest assessment. Do I have the mad streak?

• If yes, you fool, leave your job right now - the world of ’startup madness’ is calling
• If no, it would best for you to avoid the path of entrepreneurship, until the ‘madness streak’ gets to you

World Diabetes Day - Did you check your blood sugar today?

The "age factor" compels you to do a few things, one such in my case is the urge to shed that extra fat and stay fit. So, i've been at it for a couple of months, but have always had a problem measuring my efforts towards that end.



Last week, Namit, Varun, Himanshu - founders of LifeMojo, one of MVP's portfolio sent me a test link to their B2C platform - www.lifemojo.com. Here you can not only assess your current body and lifestyle "health", but also plan and track your diet and exercise schedule. These guys are in a pre-release mode and will open to users shortly... i'll update my blog when they release, its a great tool to try out, if you are health conscious, a health freak or just concerned about over-weight. I know that they are also going to add tracking tools for preventive healthcare, such as diabetes and blood pressure.

Anyways, the best thing i liked about these guys is that even if they are in pre-release phase, fixing bugs and all that - When i logged onto www.lifemojo.com this morning - i was totally impressed. I saw a little note on World Diabetes Day on the homepage. When i logged in it also showed me a little reminder about getting my blood sugar tested... So, lo and behold - i promptly got to the hospital near my house in the morning and gave my blood sample to get my sugar levels tested! This, i have been procastinating for a while, though my doctor had suggested i get it tested, considering the family history of blood sugar there exits.

Thankyou LifeMojo!

Annoucement: MVP-Batch2-2008

Morpheus Venture Partners Announcement - Kick off: MVP-Batch2-2008.

VP Engineering for Crederity: Apply now

Role

Looking for a core team member, VP-Engineering to lead the design and implementation of all the products at the company. The ideal candidate has extensive experience designing, building, and deploying public consumer facing web sites. We seek an experienced technologist that loves technology, thrives in a multi-disciplinary collaborative environment, and doesn´t mind rolling up their sleeves to code. The successful candidate will be one of the senior employees/partners and will help shape the company from the ground-up.

Responsibilities

Lead the architectural platform design and release products; Design, build, and test applications; Help to build & lead the development team; Be the first to help us get to the market.

Be a visionary, an evangelist, an entrepreneur & an innovative individual to lead the change…

Requirements

Extensive and demonstrable experience architecting, building, and deploying large multi-tiered consumer-facing web applications; Experience building scalable, flexible, robust, and secure architectures for high traffic applications; Driven by agile methodologies and test-driven development; Willingness to “own the code” and build pieces of the system; Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and technical team management; Solid knowledge of .Net/SQL/HTML/ XML/CSS/Javascript/Ajax/Flash, web application architecture, scalable deployment

Work experience: 8+ years. Should have relevant experience - been there done that or willingness/vigor to work diligently on gaps..

Compensation: Willing to take risk- salary based on experience/skills + equity.

Basically, we are looking for a smart, capable, and most of all a person who has entrepreneurial mindset to run it as business.

More:

To know more about Crederity go here. Write to careers AT crederity DOT com to apply.

The start-up mentor

Liffy Thomas from the Ergo, The Hindu has written about morpheus venture partners.

The start-up mentor

Start-ups don’t need just the funding. What they need in their initial years is the realisation that their idea is workable, that hiring is not difficult, that one can break even and that wealth can be created in the process.

Two young entrepreneurs, who created waves with their debut firm Madhouse Media (later acquired by DVD rental company SeventyMM), are out to prove that with their latest Bangalore-based venture, Morpheus Venture Partners. Click here for more...

Morpheus Venture Partners

Like a rolling stone, I’ve been rolling along gathering experiences. I’ve been on a roller coaster ride ever since I can remember – innovating and making a difference to anything I opted to do, along the way gathering all the experiences that life could offer me. At times I have been immensely successful and at times I have failed and learnt from my mistakes.

Right from my early days as a free lancer which I consider my initial days as an entrepreneur – coz for a free lancer it’s the connections, the work and the marketing of oneself as a brand is what helps succeed; till now – experiences have always prepared me for the next big thing that was to come in my life.

As someone who has always questioned the obvious, tried to innovate out of mundane situations and boot strapped all the time, founding Madhouse helped me put those previous learning to use and I got to learn many more things, that only starting a venture will give you and no words can explain it.

With all the experience I have gathered, I am now ready for the next big thing in my life – Morpheus Venture Partners. With a mindset to support, encourage and help entrepreneurs in India, I set out my journey as a founder / partner at Morpheus with Sameer Guglani (who was also the other founder at madhouse media). We set this journey out with a few objectives in mind for Morpheus, which will redefine themselves and become more relevant to the current Indian start-up scenario as we work more closely with start-ups as part of Morpheus.

At Morpheus we want to:

· Work with teams of young / bright entrepreneurs who have the ability to listen to the customer and are open to morphing their ideas for the customers and have the innate ability to constantly innovate and be on top of things.

· Work closely with start-ups in India. Start-ups / young entrepreneurs who have a great idea, an idea that has the potential to solve some of the greatest problems for the customers.

· Work closely by mentoring young entrepreneurs helping them define their business, getting started, reaching out to customers, redefining their product for its customers, etc.

· Create an environment that allows young entrepreneurs interact with experienced gurus with relevant knowledge in specific domains.

· Create a platform where young entrepreneurs / startups can learn from each other.

· Start a revolution that will help balance the skew in the system – where entrepreneurs are chased by all else in the system.

And thus, I set out on another journey of mine, with all you - my friends – who I derive immense energy from. I thank you all for making me realize that all people are good people in this world, like you – who support, help, criticize – all for the good, for the betterment of my experiences.

My parents always told me: If you believe in something very much, just go ahead and do it. The outcome of everything is the experience!

Entrepreneur, a breed of its own!

Four years into the journey as an entrepreneur and founder, as someone who meets fellow entrepreneurs, founders of startups – young and old, I have realized that it takes to be something else to spearhead a startup. I think, it’s a breed of its own, a species that’s called the entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur is someone who actually takes the effort of thinking up an idea. When the large part of this world is happy or complaining – safe in their respective jobs, here’s one person who actually puts some effort and THINKS, thinks about the need, thinks of making a difference, even dreams about making it big and becoming a billionaire. In all, he is the one who makes an effort to THINK UP AN IDEA.

An entrepreneur is the one who takes the risk, makes the first move of translating that idea into action! With an idea in mind, this is the person who mulls about it, discusses it with people, gets feedback, tries to make it relevant to the current conditions, evaluates it… makes the first move. He either sells this idea to another, who becomes his teammate or just pulls things together and starts off. This is the person who takes the plunge, takes the risk – he is the one who ACTS.

An entrepreneur is the one who holds guard. He is the one who takes the risk, the utmost. Through success and failure, he is the one who is facing the criticism, speculation of arm chair speculators, wild predictions of the media, cynicism of the critics…. He is the one who has decided to dedicate crucial time and energy into what he believes is a good idea - he is the one who has a HIGH APPETITE FOR RISK.

An entrepreneur is the one who has SELF DISCIPLINE, who is SELF MOTIVATED and motivates others, who LEADS BY EXAMPLE, who takes criticism HEAD ON, who is turning every negative into a CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK. An entrepreneur is someone with high self esteem, someone who never gets discouraged by failures, a person who has the guts to do it, Fail, and learn from mistakes and rise – like a phoenix, that’s re-born from its own ashes!

So, the next time anyone of you meet this special breed – the entrepreneur, make sure you take sometime to interact with them – they will have something to impart. Make sure you consider all the efforts that go behind creating a startup, before you hastily criticize – you may actually appreciate them for what they’ve done. Who knows, the next entrepreneur you meet may inspire you to take the plunge and convert you to a real entrepreneur from an enthusiast. Someone who’s always wanted to do something of your own, but never got to doing it!

If you are an entrepreneur reading this post – Celebrate, celebrate the sheer fact of your being an entrepreneur… it takes a lot to be one, salute!

Quote: If you continue sitting, you just warm the bench! ~ Anon

Definition: Entrepreneur – a person who has started a venture or a startup, otherwise called founder.

Startup Disco

All you startup people... entrepreneurs and enthusiasts... Its the time to disco!
Ashish and a couple of other guys have started this great concept.
Overloaded with work at your new venture? Tired of tweaking that presentation for the VCs or exhausted before the funding has come by? Are you just suffering from a entrepreneurs block? Looking for like minded people to interact with?
Get inspired, unwind and party at the Startup Disco.
Date: 23rd May, Friday
Place: Taika pub, Bangalore

Get more info. here

Seeya all there!

Proto: The Startup Event, Delhi July 18-19

Startup Essentials: If you have an idea, tell it to a 100 people

This post was jointly done by Sameer and Nandini

Many entrepreneurs working on new ideas, seem to live with this assumption that Idea Sharing = Idea Stealing. That is, if I as an entrepreneur share my idea with others, they will steal it and make it their own. Garnering this notion, they fail to share details of their project, about what solution they are building or which the real problem they are solving. This does not give an opportunity for the person on the other side, however competent he is, to give constructive feedback or be the devil’s advocate. Hence, entrepreneurs may land up working on their idea in vacuum.

This approach leads to a lot of lost opportunities, such as, missing out on opportunity in getting:

• any relevant information
• useful contacts
• feedback, approval or criticism

or even a missed opportunity in creating a genuine relationship. All of the above are fairly important for an entrepreneur working on a new idea.

Here is another and better approach, which as entrepreneurs we believe in and propagate:

• Just an idea is not worth any value

• True value is derived out of the team that works on the idea, the planning, knowledge and the final execution.

• As founders and the core team, the secret lies in your strategy. However, this needs validation and refinement from various kinds of people:

o Potential investors: They can give us feedback from the investors’ point-of-view, thus helping us refine our idea or pitch. Also, since these guys, interact with a lot of young companies and entrepreneurs with ideas; they are in a position to tell us if our idea will work or if any such thing already exists.

o Entrepreneurs: These are the guys who are brimming with ideas and who will always have a word of wisdom or two. They are well networked and update about the startup world. These guys can help in validating the idea and refine the thoughts.

o Potential customers: Who best to learn from than the end user?

o Other people: People in general, who do not have the domain knowledge about what you are doing. Try selling your idea’s power to them. That experience will surely teach you a thing or two.

You can always choose not to talk about some sensitive/confidential parts of your business. Other than that, the more you talk about your idea that much more refined the concept / pitch will get, as we tend to improve our pitch with each sharing. It is a natural mending method that helps crystallize our thoughts. So, all you entrepreneurs with idea; share them!

Got views, comments, agreements, disagreements? Please post them, would love to see a trail of thoughts out here!

Here are some good posts about why “VCs don’t sign NDAs”, before entrepreneurs share the ideas:

• http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2006/02/why_most_vcs_do.html

• http://www.sethlevine.com/blog/archives/2008/01/why-i-dont-sign.php

Are advertisements that look good; advertisements that bring results?

Recently, we bought an ad. package of 4+4 (you buy 4 ads. you get 4 free) in HT city at Chandigarh. Almost 2 years into the movie rental business now, Chandigarh remains our lab to test and try things out. Our members in Chandigarh are the ones I really need to thank, for they have helped us in shaping our service and fine tuning it to suit the general population.

Coming back to the package we bought, we decided to publish one ad. each Friday. It made sense as that is the day when new releases are listed, and if our ad. was present beside the ad. of a multiplex, the chance of our ad. catching a movie buff’s eye was high.

We had 8 ads. in all, to publish over 3 months (almost). We planned a print schedule based on the inputs we had about what time during the month do people make purchase decisions, when are they pre-occupied with other things, etc. For instance, during diwali people have other things, such as buying Gold, preparations for puja, card parites, etc. on their mind and they may not bother too much about movie releases. Therefore, it made sense to skip an ad. during Diwali.

We thought we would plan an ad. series, with each ad. talking about one USP of ours and culminating with an ad. that highlights our features as against competition in the market. After some thought, I concluded that 8 different ads. spread over three months is too long a time for our audience to remember individual ads. Therefore, it was best that we chose specific messages we wanted to send across and repeat these messages over and over.

Repetition is for recognition. If a person saw my ad. last week and it did not initiate him, if I repeat the same ad. this week, it will help him recognize our previous weeks ad. and will initiate him this week. Therefore, I proposed that we limit the number of ad. designs and repeat each of them over and over again.

Here are some stats related to the ads. we published:

1. Ads that spoke of Madhouse as the largest video library in the region saw 35-40 enquiries with 50% conversion rates.
2. Ads that had a message about our low rentals again saw 35 – 40 enquiries with 75% conversion rates.
3. The one ad. that highlighted all our features, over the competition, saw 7 enquiries and 2 conversions.

Surprising, since most of us really liked the ad. that highlighted our features. Many friends and family noticed the ad., they commended its aesthetic excellence. We all thought we had a winner of an ad., expected enquiries to pour in. But, nothing like that happened. Contrary to all our assumptions, we hardly got any traction to that particular ad.

It is important that we identify the key features of our product, which our target customers relate to and use our communication to sell those features. In madhouse’s case, low rentals was a sure seller, leader in a particular region was a good selling feature too.

For any new product / service in a market, especially so a startup such as ours, it is of utmost importance that we use the marketing channels intelligently. One could spread themselves thin by indulging in expensive above-the-line channels and gain nothing from it, except for a burnt pocket.

Focus on the target customers, their profiles, means to hook them to your service and innovative methods to reach them are vital. Not glamorous Page 1 advertisements, no fancy campaigns, no frills. Just pure entertainment. By way of a satisfying movie rental service in our case.

Finding good hires for a start-up

The last two years of my career, as a co-founder of Madhouse, a media & entertainment startup, I have interviewed and interacted with innumerable kinds of people across the organizational spectrum.

Personally, for Madhouse, it was a dilemma finding good talent to hire when we started the company. Considering the fact that we choose to work out of non-metro, smaller city, there were a few challenges to deal with.

Typically, in a metro or a larger city, one solution for hiring needs is an external agency. As I went about exploring that route, I realized that I had only a handful of agencies to liaise with. Three of which were large agencies with regional offices in my city. Two of them were local, small time firms.

While the larger ones demanded huge amount of deposits even before they could sit for negotiations; the smaller ones who were ready to work on per-transaction basis, were unprofessional producing below-standard candidates to interview. One of the local agencies I choose to liaise with also indulged in unprofessional, fraudulent activities. They encouraged a candidate to lie about her experience and pay package; to earn a quick buck. I was surprised at the foolish, yet brave act of this agency; I terminated our relationship with them immediately after and my word-of-mouth about them is definitely not positive.

One way to hire good talent, I found, was through reference, reference of employees, friends and family. People I hired through this route were dedicated and hardworking. This helped, but only up to a certain point. Soon, I was again looking for avenues to find good talent.

www.naukri.com was one good find. I was apprehensive about the results initially since we were in a smaller city, but to my surprise many of the local talent are present online. For us at madhouse, www.naukri.com is a trusted brand to hire good talent, today.

Currently, we are looking at hiring for positions higher up in the management structure. We floated the job description through friends and acquaintances as job postings in e-groups of top business schools in the country. We were apprehensive that the talent we are looking for may incline towards an established brand and may be start-up averse. Surprised, we were to see resumes pouring in from freshers to experienced top talents in the country.

For a start-up, especially those in the pre-funding stage (as we are), it is very important to be frugal and innovate in its approach. At Madhouse, we are now very used to thinking up innovative, cost-efficient, and effective avenues. For companies like ours it is important to hire talent that believes in the company philosophy and is in sync with the company culture. It is more important to have people who are aggressive, have the passion to think beyond the normal, innovators in their own little way.

When I see the madhouse team, as varied as they are in their backgrounds, all of them are vital stars in the constellation called Madhouse. Stars, those shine better by the day, to enhance Madhouse’s position in the vast Indian market. I am confident that as we expand we will add more such and better stars to the Madhouse constellation. And, I am also confident that there are avenues where I can find that talent.