Started mailing these documents to investors one by one. Contacted nearly 15 of them by email, out of which I realize that 9 of them do not even exist anymore. They have either left the previous company or gone underground. I then decided to contact NEN. They were a huge network of entrepreneurs, investors and mentors. I was very apprehensive. After exchanging a few e-mails, they put me through a member of the IAN.

IAN had asked for more details about the project. My heart skipped a beat. Could this be it? Is something actually happening? I could not eat, sleep or think straight. I used to sleep with my inbox signed in and my laptop right next to my bed. Then one morning, I wake up to see a mail in my inbox.

Note: The names in the mail have been changed.

Hi Neha,

Would like to introduce to you Mithun, the founder of this venture. Mithun, a pleasure to introduce you to Neha from IAN.  She wants to schedule a call with you.  Could you kindly take this ahead?  All the best.

Thanks and regards,
Meera

My heart was in my mouth. A telecon? Why not face to face? I was always confident in face to face meetings and presentations than telecons. In telecons, they judge you by the voice and in face to face it is all about body language. The team resided in Delhi and thus the telecon. Replied to the mail, fixed a time and waited for it. Informed only my close family and a couple of friends who have been a good support. Prayers and wishes were flowing, but I was literally shitting bricks. From prior experience I had learned, until the cash falls into the account, never bank on anything or anyone.

I thought I would sleep early and have an early morning, but little did I know, my body had something else planned. I could not sleep a wink until 7 am and the telecon was for 12 pm. Wonderful.

What is the worst that could happen? The worst could be that I miss the god damn telecon by oversleeping……

image reference: debtfreedomblog.info, http://s3.amazonaws.com, http://www.ocha.ru, http://www.eng.upt.ro, http://www.tushar-mehta.com, http://www.blog.taragana.com

We did not have an experienced coder on board to complete the product that was left incomplete by the developer who left us. He just upped and left one fine day. The whole team was beyond cheesed off with him but we had no other option but to move on. But how? I had just INR 30,000/- left in my account with which I had to manage rent, server charges (which at this point in time was idle), electricity, water, food, fuel, phone, internet which would easily shave off INR 25,000/-

I could not ask friends or family anymore, they had helped me enough and there is a limit to begging as well. When you are trying to set-up a business, you will have to beg, beg more than anyone would, beg to people you never thought you would beg to. Is that compromising with your morale? Oh please, if I hug onto my morale, I will be buried underground along with my dream in this wicked world of business. I had to find a way out somehow. What could we do? We had two options, rather, I had two options. Either beg some more from different people whom I had just met, but were sweet enough to lend me 10,000 here and there OR try and raise funds from Angel investors. The latter seemed to be an option which we hadn’t explored yet and why? I frankly, do not know. Maybe, we had to see all this before we could muster courage to reach out to these angels.

So I got to work, re-doing the complete business plan, financial projections, presentations, every little aspect starting from idea, how, when, why, what, development, initial set-up costs, overheads, investment so far, from where it came, investment required, disbursement of the same, how long till I break even or make profits, revenue sources, competition, current financial situation, current product standing, marketing and sales strategies , strategic partnerships, other revenue sources, team background etc.

How the hell do I do all this? I did not have the slightest clue. There were a million templates online on how to make a successful business plan, articles on what Angels look out for in a business plan. Some said, Angels realize that you are a start-up and it does not matter if you make mistakes or do not know how to make a business plan or financial projections, they need to see how much you know about your product, the business, the competition, the differentiators and entry barriers, how you will make money and how you plan to grow which I realized is not completely true. All the good Angels are hidden somewhere and you would be just lucky if you find them. Other ones that are there either, ironically, would not be interested in the same domain or say that we will wait for a bit until you prove the potential of the product. Ahem!!! isn’t that why I am approaching them in the same place, so they give some money and help me prove the potential of the product?

But it was a fact and I had to face it, either my product was just shit and would not work whatsoever or i was just not lucky enough. I tried to force myself to believe in the former, but I just could not. I had nearly all my time and money invested in this to think it was useless. Could be a great mistake or a brave move. We would have to wait and see. So I sat down to think what would happen, in case I did not get any investors. Scenarios kept zooming through my head, people making fun of me behind my back, start looking for a job, get into the rat race, running away to someplace far and live my life.

One thing you never run out of is emotional support, everyone you know will say, “go on man”, “you can do it”, “you are smart”, “it will work out” , but financially, not all. Of course, why would they. Even they have their expenses and why would they bank on a once failed entrepreneur?  I myself wouldn’t. Entrepreneurs become really selfish and self centred when it comes to building their businesses. They wonder why people can’t see the obvious potential of the product. But that is where the difference lies and the reason why you are a budding entrepreneur and they are seasoned businessmen. They have seen the in and out of business and can weigh a proposal by just brushing through it.

All said and done, I had to forage for myself. But this emotional support itself can replace financial support for a while because it is all about not giving up. I nearly thought of shutting shop as everyone around me connected to my life directly was getting weary. My family slowly started dropping hints, how long do you want to try? do you still think this will work? My younger brother was bombarding me with mails everyday asking me to do my MBA abroad. But for that too, you need close to 20 lakhs. We couldn’t afford anywhere close to that now.

My father was the only blind support I had who kept telling me, go ahead, if you think this will work then try, do not give up. After every rejection, he used to say, what’s the use if things came easy? You need a success story and not an easy story.

Keeping all this in mind, I decided to approach angel investors, Venture Capitalists (VCs) were out as we were too early to be funded by VCs. Made a list, researched and mailed them. This was it for me, make or break.

Either get funded and do well and get out of the hardship that I have been trough the past 3 years non stop or make a drastic decision to shut shop and get a job and earn some steady money. The mere thought of it sent chills down my spine. But I had no other choice but to do my part, believe in my product blindly and give it my best shot.

image reference: http://filingbankruptcyinsouthcarolina.com/images/bankruptcy.gif, http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad218/GangFights/Walking_Away_From_Everything_by_vam.jpg, http://www.symposiumz.net/wp-content/uploads/marketing.jpg, http://www.offprint.co.uk/Images/revenueRising.jpg, http://mamco.in/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/Team20puzzle.28162911_std.jpg, http://www.thevarguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/channel-profits.jpg

But to save my shame, I luckily knew 60% of the information mentioned here. But the rest of them anyday is knowledge and I, for a fact, felt immensely proud to be an Indian.

If this helps you in the same way then go ahead, spend 2 minutes and read this completely. For the ones who know everything mentioned here, keep it up

Facts about India

Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard (hp)?
A. Rajiv Gupta

Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today’s computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm

Q. Who is the 4′th richest man of the world?
A. According to the latest report on Forbes Magazine, it is Mukesh Ambani

Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world’s No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia

Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli

Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika

Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Vikram Pandit, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

- We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America , even faring better than the whites and the natives.
There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,
38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are! Indians.

Some of the following facts may be known to you. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA .

1. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.

2. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

3. The world’s first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects.. The University of Nalanda built in the 4 th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

4. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.

5. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.

6. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.

7. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word ‘Navigation’ is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.

8. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have (1999) officially published that Budhayan’s works dates to the 6 th Century which is long before the European mathematicians.

9. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India . Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11 th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 10 53.

10. According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.

11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.

12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

13. Chess was invented in India .

14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was well known in ancient India .

15. When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley ( Indus Valley Civilisation).

16. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

Quotes about India .
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
-Albert Einstein-

India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition.
-Mark Twain-

If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India .
-French scholar Romain Rolland-

India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.
-Hu Shih-
(former Chinese ambassador to USA )

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG, THE LIST COULD BE ENDLESS.
BUT, if we don’t see even a glimpse of that great India in the India that we see today, it clearly means that we are not working up to our potential; and that if we do, we could once again be an ever shining and inspiring country setting a bright path for rest of the world to follow.
I hope you enjoyed it and work towards the welfare of INDIA .

Say proudly, I AM AN INDIAN.

image reference: http://navvis.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/indian_flag11.jpg

Alright, so we were waiting for the result of the meeting with one of the top most group of institutes in the nation. The meeting though went well, we were faced with a lot of queries that were unexpected and frankly speaking utterly useless. Some of the queries like

Q: Why would we want to share even some of our study material with any other student in any other college?
A: What could we possible say to this? We told them we give you the option of choosing to share or not which led to the next question.

Q: Then why do you have a feature like this in the first place?
A: Duuuuuuh…for the ones who want to share something!!!

Q: What is the difference between your portal and a portal that we get developed from another company with the same features?
A: The fact that, you hadn’t thought of any of this till now, until we walked through the door and now since you have the money to invest in building a whole new thing just like ours but for yourselves alone.

Q: What about copyrighted content? What if one person takes one line of matter from a copyrighted document and adds it in his document and uploads it?
A: We just smiled at him. I did not want to waste my breath on answering such arbid and baseless questions. Pull out a line from a document and use it in his document? Jesus Christ. Unless it is a quote, there is nothing we can do about it. But I had to say something. I replied, “with all due respect sir, if we find a solution to that, we will be the first ones in the world and that is kind of impossible to track down one line from a document that has 50 pages.” To which his reply was, “Then please go ahead and find a solution to that.” This is when I realized that, he was toying around with us.

Q: You said this initiative is to make content available to those less fortunate students in other areas, what about rural areas that do not have internet?

A: Now, is this guy for real? Just because there is no internet in rural areas did not stop any other company from inventing products, does he mean we should only launch this when there is internet in every nook and corner in India or does it mean that he is not satisfied with our vision? This time, I looked him dead in the eye, shook my head, smiled. I wanted to say, “Thank you for your time sir, I wish I had had this meeting with you a few months earlier, it would have saved me a lot of time and effort.” Instead, I just said, “Thank you for your time sir” and walked out.

There were a already 2 institutes of Symbiosis using our portal on a trial basis and the students were registering, but when it came to the whole bunch, then problems started. He made it clear to us that, what we had has never been done before and also can be a success, but he wanted the one thing we did not have, TRACK RECORD. He asked us, “Say, I purchase your product and use it and it crashes, then the 19 institutes will call me an idiot for purchasing it. What can you do about that? Do you have any colleges who are using it on a daily basis?” The answer to this was obvious,we did not have anyone using it on a daily basis as it had been less than 2 months since we launched it. So, we gave him an option to use the portal for a period of 3 months on a trial basis and to see whether it works, to which his reply was, “But what if it crashes then?”

At this point in time, he was playing with a paper cutter and flicking it on his chin as he spoke. I felt like getting up and jabbing that paper cutter up his hairy nostril. I contained myself and replied, “Isn’t that the whole idea behind the trial period? If it doesn’t work, you are free to trash it and not purchase it SIR.” He looked at us for a while and said ok fine. I will have to discuss this with the rest of the colleges and we can not take a decision until July as we are really tied up till then.

After that meeting, I did not know if I was to be happy or dejected. Somehow, I was content, not because we did not get the deal then, but because we got to meet the head of the decision making board who was a jerk of the nth order. And this was not just my opinion, even the guys who worked under him who pushed our proposal ahead said he was.

They told us not to worry and they would try again. But we did not push it. We thanked them and walked out. So all the months of waiting and nail biting came to a grinding halt. But looking on the bright side, we had, from stupid questions, some features that we could integrate to our portal. But this was pretty much out. Aayush was the most dejected and was cursing everything that he could think of, even the dogs on the road. But we just couldn’t give up. There would be so many who put you down. I had set out to do this and I would till it fizzed out completely and I had nowhere to go. Otherwise what is the use of all that I worked for all these months?

So Pune trip kinda froze there. Had to concentrate on smaller institutes. This made us realize that our target market had now shifted from tier 1 institutes to tier 2 and tier 3 institutes because that is where this would be useful. There, they did not have funds to maintain a platform like this on their own, or have a technical team. So we started working on that. We had lots more to learn and had the eagerness and energy to learn.

Now, when I sit and write this blog, trying to track back the smallest details of what happened and how far we have come in such a short time, I feel proud of everything we have achieved. None of this would have been possible without the help of the team.

So we had a team meeting to see what was the next step…. and the advice one of our team mates gave just turned the whole thing around. That is why I am so glad that I don’t feel like am surrounded by idiots, but instead I feel like the idiot because of all the brilliant minds around me……

image reference: http://zipline.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/stupid1.jpg, http://smspitara.com/upload_image/questions1.jpg, http://www.filetransit.com/images/screen/38018248b89fc8538c792db719ea689d_3D_Matrix_Screensaver__the_Endless_Corridors.jpg,

Ok, so now I get back with a couple of interested clients and a couple of not so interested clients. But what the hell? we had someone interested in it. You know what? In a way I am glad the other two said they were not interested. Though I felt dejected for a while, I thought, if everyone had said it was interesting it could mean 2 things;

1) Either I had a technology that was really innovative and ground-breaking (which I also know ain’t true. My product merges existing technology and uses it in a different approach to make education more interactive than boring and a vision to create a quality, user generated, knowledge database)

2) Or they were just saying it to make me happy and get me out of their office soon (more likely).

But here, there was a balance; some liked it and some didn’t. That showed that, there existed a market. Of course every product has a market, but we could make out the potential our product had.

Aayush calls me one morning and says, “Got an appointment with the IT heads of one of the top most group of institutes in the nation and they have expressed interest post reading our proposal.” I swallowed my saliva hard; it felt like a rock going down my throat. If this worked out, it was close to a dozen institutes going live on Eduvis or at least 1 of them. Bad deal? Not at all I would say. I quickly brushed up on a few things on presenting our product, opening line, sensitive points, institute history, points that would probably make the audience agree with me etc. Packed my bags and a couple of days later, I was in Pune. All set….we “suit-up” to cover up the tattoos, clean shaven, spikes disappear and side partitioned, combed down hair, piercings disappear and good boy look comes on.

My laptop and phone were in the worst shape possible. My laptop did not retain its charge for more than 5 minutes so it had to be on charge all the time which would prove to be a problem for me during meetings. My charger was on the last strand of wire. Whenever I looked at it I felt sorry for it. It was as if, it was alive and kept itself functioning just until I could afford a new one before it gave away. My phone an E-61i had stood the test of time (3 years) as well as the four elements earth, water, wind and fire, need I say more? When I realized that my laptop was gonna slip into permanent silence without warning and my phone’s display started flickering; it was time to change them before it was too late. So I turned to Nisha again for help, she would find me the best deal. As expected within 2 days she told me that, if I can get hold of a Citibank credit card, I could buy a brand new Dell with the best configuration on EMI. The best part was that, there was no down payment, only INR 3900/- per month for a year. That was the sweetest deal I could ask for. Sold my laptop to a bakra for INR 15,000/- bought the new E72, went and swiped my uncles credit card and gave him some senti stuff and told him will pay him per month and got the new laptop. Half my tensions were done.

We reach the college which was like a good 18 km from where we stayed. We could have taken the bike, but we didn’t want to look gang raped with a dusty face, ruffled hair and a dead look by the time we got there. So we reached a consensus to go by auto. The driver quoted us a good 500 bucks for the up and down trip. I bit my tongue and said, “Lets go”. If this goes through, we will make loads more. It’s not that 500 bucks is way too much money. I would have used that for beer instead , but for one auto ride 500 bucks seems like paying 1,000 bucks for a bottle of water in a dessert. It was a necessity but still poked the heart in some way, you know what I mean. We enter the campus and to our relief we see students all over campus and 7 out of 10 of them had laptops and were working on them. making presentations, pdf  and other documents.

The tension had melted a tad bit on seeing this. We could pitch with this along with the opening line..wooohooo. Right then we get a call from one of the guys we were to meet and they guided us to the conference room. We sit down, start from scratch and go over every little detail. When we saw smiles on their faces and head nods, it gave us all the more reason to go on. In that excitement, I might have gone a little overboard with my talk Midway I glanced at Aayush, he slyly signaled to me to take it easy and slow down. Before stepping in, it was me telling him to chill and take it easy. What excitement and anxiety can do to you. I went onto wrap up my part and sat down; gave him a “sorry dude” look and asked him to carry on. Aayush took it slow and smooth and completed his part of the presentation. By the end of it, they loved it. All smiles and kind words of appreciation were showered. That itself was a gift. They also assured us that this is exactly what they wanted and all that stood in the way of this going live was a signature once it was approved by the council.

There was just one small problem. WHEN? The problem when you are talking to a society that manages over 50,000 students across a dozen institutes is that, there are a guzillion people it has to go through and if one of the guzillion has a problem, that would result in an indefinite delay until it is pushed further. So a delay was expected, which made my stomach cringe. But then, what’s the fun without some nail biting wait. We were optimistic and decided to follow up and wait. And that was the longest wait we ever had. We did not want to divert our attention too much from this deal. Besides, we had users registering on our site on a daily basis and uploading documents here and there. So the site wasn’t idle and that gave us time to concentrate on other important things.

We got back to our drawing boards and started concentrating on the portal because user experience and service was number one and wanted it to be that way for years to come. We dissected and started to work on improving it’s functionality, user friendliness, justice to feedback, constant testing, storage expansion, much more professional at the same time a jazzy design, work flow, user importance, user benefits, quality content procurement, strategic partnerships and newer revenue models etc.

How long would we have to wait and will we get this deal or not?

to be continued…….

image reference: http://www.lttechno.com/images/presentation.jpg, http://rbeale.com/wp-content/themes/thesis_16/custom/images/Borat-Gives-Thesis-Theme-2-Thumbs-Up.jpg, http://419.bittenus.com/JAMESANDERSON/thumbsdown.jpg, http://www.school-of-thought.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/college-students-using-laptops-to-build-a-streaming-media-server-using-adobe-flash-media-server-3-to-develop-applications12-300×225.jpg, http://ecofin.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/bajaj-autorickshaw-4s.jpg, http://www.callback1.co.za/callback_images/businessmen.jpg,

If you have the four P’s namely Product, Price, Place and Promotion figured out, then its fun. But if you do not have it figured out, it is even more exciting because you get to work on it. It is like surfing through a wave tunnel. Though you have a vague idea when the wave is going to come crashing down, you still are doubtful about reaching the other side. But one thing you are sure about is, even if it comes crashing down, eventually you have to surface and try and try till you sail through the tunnel to the other side. What are the things that constitute the 4 P’s and what all did we have. I sat down and did some research and found out the following;

Product – Functionality, Quality, Appearance, Packaging, Brand, Service, Support, Warranty or Reliability in our case

Price – List price, Discounts, Financing, Leasing Options, Allowances

Place – locations, Logistics, Channel members, Channel Motivation, Market Coveraage, Service Levels, Internet, Mobile

Promotion – Advertising, Public Relations, Message, Direct Sales, Sales, Media, Budget

Now out of these aspects what all could we harness at Spurr at this time, just 2 months after soft-launch?

Product - Functionality (check, but always room for improvement), Quality(check), Appearance (check, but we required more user beneficial content as well as information on the site), Brand (we were trying to build it, so that was a NO), Service (check, when we start out, that is the only thing we can promise, service. Without good service you will not last in the industry), Support (check), Warranty or Reliability in our case (check)

Product was taken care of and was in good shape. Phew phase 1 complete

Price – List price, Discounts(check, we were ready to give it out for free), Financing (Hmmm…being a self funded firm, money was flowing out of my pockets like anything. We were managing), Leasing Options (currently no, but we could go on a license model later), Commissions (check, we were ready to give out commissions to those who were willing to help us out. That is how it works anyway, initially till we gain traction in the market)

Pricing was  a major issue for us as we were the first in this business approach and we did not know how much to charge. We had wasted a lot of money, effort and time. But then we also had to think from the students point of view and the college’s. I thought, if it was me, let alone pay for it, I would not even use it, unless there was something useful in it for me during exam time which would be there for sure. So that was our next aim, CONTENT. We had to source content from different places somehow or the other. But how?

But regarding the price, we thought we could get away by charging whatever we wanted. We decided an initial set-up fee from the college and keep it free for students as you know they are the essence.

Phase 2 – Believe me, we couldn’t have been more wrong about our notion.

Place – Locations (check, we decided to target the metropolitan cities), Channel members (none), Channel Motivation (none), Market Coverage (check, we were looking at the whole nation), Internet (check, we had created pages on facebook, twitter and spread the word), Mobile (not yet, but was in the pipeline)

Phase 3 – Not impressive at all, but we had to start from somewhere

Promotion – Advertising(couldn’t afford it. But printed some posters, then decided we will use it at a later point in time), Public Relations (way out of budget), Message (check, we knew what we had with us and how it can benefit its users), Direct Sales (check, this was our only option), Media, Budget

Phase 4 – Our promotion phase had to wait a little while more. We wanted to prove our model first.

And so set-out for meetings with a lot of balls, stories and more stories. Met at least 4 of India’s biggest institutes (biggest from a wasting-money-for-branding-the-institute point of view) and told them about this. Two of them showed interest and are on hold now and the other two shot it down that moment. Out of the two who shot it down, one of them went to the extent of saying, “What have you made? Do you think this will ever work? I highly doubt it” and went on criticizing www.eduvis.in

He told me on my face. “See Mithun, all said and done, the reason why I do not see this of any use is because, we can not brand our college with this. We do not care about what the students get from this. We can not pay so much for just uploading videos of our college on a website. If students do not get a chance to do their labs, experiments, it is their fault.” I was fighting a lost cause. I just kept quiet and listened to him with a smile. Because, you cant say which idiot might say something that can help you in future. I believed in my product beyond anything, but maybe from his point of view, it was useless. While he was telling me this and that, the office boy got us a plate of samosas, tea and chips.

As it is, the bum had told me my product was useless and once when I lose interest, I don’t care how shameless I come across. I devoured every bit of it with the same smile on my face. To buy some more time to finish the chips I asked him what else does he think is useless in my portal and that rodent went on giving me more drawbacks. One thing that made me wonder was, “Does he even think before he talks? In the initial presentation, I gave him, I had just mentioned all the answers to his questions and here he was phrasing those questions again, but this time as a drawback”. Bid him farewell and left. But I am looking forward to that day when that very college will come and register with us. Hope it happens. If not, what dya know, that guy was right afterall.

The trip across 4 states was the worst I have ever had. To keep costs at a minimum, I took buses instead of flights. Trains were not available on such short notice. I forgot to pack my warm clothes and I step onto Jaipur soil from a heat of 25 degrees in Pune to a 2 degrees. My nose went numb and my lips went dry. I cursed myself for not listening to Aayush. He had warned me in Pune. The incidents in Pune, Mumbai, Jaipur, Jalandar, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Gurgaon can cover a book in itself. It was the most horrible trip of my life, incidents wise with accidents, delayed bus trips, kids puking, food poisoning and many other cute little “shit”uations one might not want to be in while traveling.

to be continued…..

image reference: http://www.netmba.com/images/marketing/mix/mix.gif,

Being a start-up exactly what we need, people who can work for future benefits that short term costs. Eventually, we finalize on the new design and we get the quote from the new firm…..I nearly popped my bloody balls looking at the quote INR 117,000/- Yes, you read right, one lakh seventeen thousand rupees. I didn’t even bother looking at the detailed proposal they sent and turned it down that very instant. Another moment when you realise that, finding a team that will stick by you and share your dream is a boon. Everyone works for money. All are puppets to the bills. No one works for free, no one works for passion unless they actually feel it is worth it.

These guys though said they were really excited to work on it, didn’t mean it. What the hell. What next? Look for a designer.

Who do I turn to? Nisha. She was amidst launching her own label as shes a fashion designer. Amidst all her work she, without a word she gets to work and within no time we have a brilliant design ready. But since she was not a professional website designer, the CSS part had to be done by someone else. I ring up Arun, another friend of mine who helps me out with quick development jobs. If there is anything Arun hates, its CSS, but the poor guy helps me out anyway and sends the files to Sreenath. A classy design along with some technical layout is a perfect portal. We went to work the very next day and decided to launch the upgrade on the 1st of December. Sreenath is on it, toggling between a part-time teaching job, he ensures that the new portal is up and running by the 27th of November to leave 3 days of day and night testing by 10 professionals. We were working round the clock, reporting bugs, fixing them, re-testing them and testing the portal again.

Everything looked fine and working well other than a few minor technical glitches which could be solved within a couple of days. All that was left was the sales part. We had EOIs from institutes like Symbiosis and IIPM and several engineering colleges in Bangalore. This interest by customers kept us going. At least we were sure, people wanted it or at least were curious about it.

Like they say charity begins at home, I went and approached my college to see what they would say R.N Shetty Institute of Technology. They listened to the whole presentation, fired a few questions, discussed amongst themselves and got back to us within two days with the cheque. They loved it and purchased it. But purchasing alone will not do, they had to upload content onto it. So we aided them to upload videos of lab experiments and the campus etc. All this with the first simple design we had. For a new user, it was not a catchy website at all. But when WE look at the hard work we put into it, it was the most beautiful site.

So far, we had our first client, content on the site, more clients interested. Meetings lined up with well known group of institutes, what and how else could anything go wrong? Keep following my posts regularly to see how life gifts you with the weirdest of opportunities and craziest of circumstances. No matter how beautiful life is, there is always something waiting for you that will turn the whole thing around. So make the most of now, so you can sail through the bad times for there are no regrets. Live your life to the fullest…….

to be continued……

image reference: http://www.gftgroup.com/Petrana_presentation.jpg, http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/group_discussion.jpg

How various myths and legends end up in affecting the business methodologies and ways. He delves deep into the fathoms of how mythology in the west preach about ONE and the mythology in the east preach about INFINITY and also a possible explanation to how Indians might have come to invent the number 0 (zero).

In this gripping discourse, there isn’t one moment that you would wonder what he is talking about as every topic and line he touches is executed with the utmost finesse. This video will be a treat for those who have a taste for mythical trivia, facts and theories

I hope you all enjoy this video and gain something from it, after all, we all from the east and we know exactly what the hell he means.

Cheers!!!

- Now how could we prove this model to the market?
- How many of them will buy this?
- Will it be as useful as I thought it would be?

All these thoughts kept bothering me. I was beyond nervous. My last two posts were about how problems and challenges just don’t stop coming. Check this out….weeks before our soft launch, one of my partners decides to bail out as he had just gotten married and did not know whether he was up to the task. Though the whole team expected it, we were kind of taken aback on the sudden decision he made as he was the one insisting to join us in the first place. It does harm when you actually feel like you have a team to help you fulfill your dream and wake up to see that one member has decided to leave. Friendship and business are two separate worlds and the sooner people understand that, the better. We are still best of friends, but will never do anything professionally. Re-working the agreement, his resignation, re-filing of agreement and all the formalities took a good 2 and a half weeks and till then I could not start a bank account owing to all the changes in paperwork.

Eventually September 12th, we do the soft launch. We had nothing more than 2 technical guys (Shoban, Sreenath) and 3 marketing guys (Nisha, Aayush and myself). We did not know where the hell it would go, what was going to happen and whether we are going to be laughed at or embraced. I contact Aayush, the marketing backbone of the firm to fix up meetings with institutes in Pune. He does a swell job and within no time,we have met colleges in Pune and they loved the idea. The students praised us as they were looking for a portal to upload their work. We also had features in the platform that the colleges thought was a myth and thus welcomed us. But something was missing. Money…..

Even though we impressed upon the institutes, the money was not flowing in. People were waiting for someone to start using this portal to its hilt to see whether it is actually useful. You know one of those things…..The technical team, who has been with the previous venture of mine and seen no results starts to get impatient. They wonder if this will ever work out.  Making people buy your product is the hardest part of business.  I explained the same to the technical team and they were more than supportive. I do not blame them one bit. If I were in their place, I wouldn’t join them in the first place. But they still did, that shows passion always lies a step above money. It is hard to actually ask for a team that actually understands you and in fact sees the company as their own as much as you see it yours.

So the product is out, people like it, but there are certain factors that we have to incorporate before we can go big. We had gone a good month and a half with the soft launch and gotten a good response. A new design, more features. Till now we were just a video sharing site for educational institutes, but we needed something more for educational institutes that matter like pdf, presentations, images and audio etc. Bloody hell, we didn’t have time for that. That meant changing the whole architecture yet again. Why didn’t I think of it earlier? But I guess this is how we get to learn things. Only once we released the product will we know what is missing so we can upgrade it just as Guy Kawasaki said. So what’s next? Upgrade…..

to be continued……

image reference: http://www.fineartphotoblog.com/wp-content/uploads/the-show-is-over-say-good-bye-800.jpg,

We finally managed to purchase the server to find out that one of our crucial modules isn’t compatible with the server and is creating problems. Another couple of nights of tension, phone calls, cigarettes, air castles tumbling down. Amidst all the tension and heightened haste, the technical team manages to find a way out. Something I have learned with time, there is nothing that can’t be done with technology. If it is done before, it can be done by us. All that separates us is the fund involved and thus the time.

The tech team also did not have a proper working internet connection to work with. The torrential rains ensured that there was no power when you needed it the most. They had to work offline most of the time. We could not coordinate with each other through phone as we ran out of balance after 2 to 3 conversations. The internet was out due to rains and power kept fluctuating. Kudos to Shoban and Sreenath.

3^rd September 2009, we run into some major technical issues during testing of the platform, which could be solved, but would pile on an extra two days to the soft launch. I don’t know why I worry so much. I felt like everything slipping away. The tech team took the role of a shrink as well as assured me it would be rectified in no time. What you need most at such times is moral and mental support. Blessed I am for my supportive parents and girl friend who never left my side and ensured my tension was kept at bay and for a team that is more of friends than work mates.

The problem was slightly more serious than we had expected it to be and thus it piled on a good 4 days to the soft launch. Alls well that ends well, the tech team rectified the problem and we decided to push the launch date by a week to be safe. We subjected the platform to heavier testing. Thanks to all my friends who helped me out in testing the platform thoroughly.

to be continued……

image reference: http://cactuschords.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Money-stacks.jpg