The Startup Journey

From Mukund Mohan's post There are 3 primary parameters I have seen used when people hire folks to determine their salary. 1. Experience – usually measured in # of years working on relevant and related technologies. A rule of thumb I have seen is 1.2 to 1.5 times the number of years of experience + starting salary of a fresh graduate at 2L ($3K) per year to 6L ($10K) per year. For example, if you are looking to hire a developer with 5 years of experience, then you will pay 5 years times 1.2 plus 2L per year if you are a startup that’s not funded. 2. Type of technology – The more arcane the technology the more you can expect to pay for it. For example, you can expect to pay much less for a person who knows PHP and more for someone who knows Android app dev or Ruby on Rails. Some common technologies and your base times multiple is below. I am assuming php developer is the base at Rs. 1. All others are multiple of what you’d pay the php developer. I dont mean this to think of php...

From the post by Eric Ortiz, founder of Moblish (emphasis mine): The only way to build a company with staying power is by doing – by rolling up your sleeves and getting to work . Every day is a series of micro wins and micro losses. Some days you are up. Some days you are down. Some days you pull an all-nighter. Some days you pull back-to-back all-nighters. Some days you are sick. Some days you are tired. Some days you are discouraged. But you keep showing up. Seven days a week, 365 days a year. There are no breaks for startup entrepreneurs. Parents know the feeling. When you want to sleep in and your toddler wakes up at 5 a.m., sleep time is over. Your kids are counting on you to feed, clothe, shelter and buy them stuff. As an entrepreneur, the startup is your other child. And you keep showing up. The same temperament is required when finding a UX designer takes weeks, not days as you thought it would. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the...

  The diagram seems to implicitly point out that that the best way to Getting the Best of All Worlds (the #Win zone) is through Entrepreneurship. How else can one "Live a Dream" and get paid massively for it? If things don't work well in that zone, the Entrepreneur can most probably move to the "Rich but Bored" zone! :-) Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

Cross posted from the Entrevista Blog Interview with Ganapathy Subramaniam, Founding-CEO of Bangalore-based semiconductor tech company Cosmic Circuits. (Cosmic was acquired in early 2013 by Silicon Valley-based, Nasdaq-listed electronic design giant Cadence.) The interviewer is fellow entrepreneur Chandu Nair. The Podcast can be downloaded from here . (Use Right Click > Save As to save the file to your desktop) Highlights Reading the Wind How Ganapathy, as part of visiting customers in October 2012, realized that Cosmic Circuits could no longer remain an independent company. (Its customers and partners wanted a strong Number 2 player in the segment to provide a balance to the Number 1 player, Synopsis.)  Making the company Due Diligence ready How Cosmic's decisions to rope in a Big 4 audit firm (just five years into its existence) and go in for an ISO certification, stood it in good stead when it came to due diligence at the time of its acquisition. ...

Cross Posted from the Entrevista Blog In this audio interview ("podcast"), Palem Srikanth shares his amazing entrepreneurial journey - from a Stanford educated logistics executive with Hewlett Packard to returning to India and starting a Dosa restaurant chain to the tough lessons from making cross-border acquisitions to the recent sale of the logistics software business (to US Private Equity firm Francisco Partners-backed Kewill) for about Rs.275 crores.   The Podcast can be downloaded from here . (Use Right Click > Save As to save the file to your desktop) Highlights : Importance of Financial Strength in the Enterprise Software space How persistence and investing in technology (to ensure Four Soft's products  were cutting edge)  provided the maximum return - much more than the expensive acquisitions the company made  Managing the confidentiality of the transaction involving a listed company - so that there is no misuse of insider in...

    Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

The only tip I'm ambivalent about is "doing easiest things first" (that would be email!). Some experts suggest just the opposite. See http://vientrevista.blogspot.in/2013/09/email-vs-productivity.html Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter.

John Morgan has a nice post on why "keeping close tabs" on the competition is often a waste of precious time: Competition produces copycats. You start copying them, they start copying you and next thing you know the marketplace is bored! Additionally you’re comparing yourself against something unknown. You don’t know what their life is like. It may suck. I once ran a full page ad in a magazine that cost me a few thousand dollars. The ad didn’t convert at all and was a complete failure. But it did look pretty, and because of that in the next issue not one but TWO of my competitors knocked off my ad. They copied it because I did it. They had no idea the ad didn’t work. Don’t play their game. You lose your initiative and innovation when you’re copying others. … You can break out of this trap by focusing on yourself and your own initiative. Be so busy you don’t have time to know what the competition is up to. You don’t want to succeed for the sake of beating...

From the Business Today article : Credila started operations in March 2008, two months after DSP Merrill Lynch invested in the company. From March 2008 until HDFC bought out DSP Merrill, Credila had disbursed only Rs 20 crore. Since then it has sanctioned more than Rs 2,000 crore and disbursed nearly half that amount. The big surprise was in 2012 when Credila received more than 90,000 online applications for a cumulative loan amount of over Rs 8,000 crore. "It was more than we could handle," says Anil Bohora, Chief Operating Officer at Credila. The company looks at applicants' credit worthiness, the repaying capacity of parents, collateral, and the institute they are applying to while scrutinising loan applications. ...In some ways, Credila mirrors HDFC's own journey. HDFC was founded by Deepak Parekh's uncle, H.T. Parekh, in 1977. It had the first-mover advantage as there was no other mortgage lender in the private sector at the time. But this wa...

From an ad by financial services firm Shriram City Union (in Businessworld issue dated 9 September 2013) Hello, Boss Here's to those who never needed to have someone down the corridor telling them what to do. Here's to those who never delegated upwards. Here's to those who only served one boss: Their Passion. Here's to those who never found themselves a job, because in a job they would have never found themselves. Click Here to download and view the original advertisement (scanned pdf ).  Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs and Interact with Peers. Includes the Free Deal Digest Weekly Newsletter: India's First & Most Exhaustive Transactions Newsletter....

Bruce Kasanoff has a great post and slide show on LinkedIn If you are an entrepreneur - or intrapreneur - your first question needs to be: am I the right person to bring this idea to life?  If you are a marketing professional who doesn't understand code, you are not the one to "leapfrog Google" and launch the next generation search engine.  If you always take a three-week vacation in August, and two weeks at Christmas, you are not the one to "take down Oracle." (They are fierce warriors compared to you.)  If you are a genius at coding, but you can't work with an interface designer or pick a font to save your life, you are unlikely to create a top ten consumer app.   Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors,...

Cross posted from the Entrevista blog at http://www.entrevista.in Interview with Ratish Nair, Founding-CEO of Interactive Avenues (IA), the Mumbai-headquartered, Sequoia Capital India-backed digital marketing agency which was acquired in March 2013 by US- and Europe-based ad agency Interpublic. Interview focuses on the company's founding (5 co-founders who earlier worked at another digital agency Mediaturf); Angel Funding (from Anupam Mittal of Shaadi.com); VC Funding and relationship with Sequoia Capital; and, of course, the Exit (how IA ran the process, the role of the VC, the role of the intermediary, internal dynamics, etc.). The interviewer is fellow entrepreneur Chandu Nair . (Chandu earlier founded, successfully raised venture capital for and exited from Scope eKnowledge, one of the earliest KPO firms in India.) The Audio (podcast) version can be downloaded from here   Other Highlights Synergistic Co-founding team How, having worked together in the past (a...

From an article by Avery Augustine in The Daily Muse: 1. They Have the Numbers to Back Them Up ...I’ve found it helpful to have some sort of tracking measure in place to stay aware of employees’ performance, like a spreadsheet to keep track of project closures and client feedback. This will allow you to see patterns emerge (e.g., “Jennifer always manages to exceed her sales goal during the last week of the month”), so you’ll be able to immediately pinpoint the employees who should be on track for promotions. 2. They Don’t Clock Out at 5 PM ...Pay attention to the employees who are willing to jump in wherever (and whenever) they’re needed. This doesn’t mean they always need to stay late—but it’s nice to know that in a pinch (and when given more responsibility), they won’t leave you or their clients in the lurch. 3. They Voice Solutions Instead of Complaints ...In doing this, your employee is proving that he or she is ready to step up and take responsibility for what goes on with ...

From a post by Mukund Mohan of Microsoft Ventures: Given that the effort over several years to create a $10 Million outcome at your startup is the same as one that has a $1 Billion outcome, why dont we focus on the large opportunities? Is it fear of failure? Is it that we are “happy” and content with even the small things? Is it that $2 million is such a large change in our lives that the $1 Billion does not seem worth it? Is it that we really don’t aim big? Notice I did not say think big, I said aim big? Nuance, but a big difference Is it lack of exposure to large markets? Is it that we are not hungry enough? Or is it something else? Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private company transactions, valuations and financials in India. Click Here to learn about Venture Intelligence products that help entrepreneurs Reach Out to Investors, Research Competition, Learn from Experienced Entrepreneurs ...

The "work ethic/culture" of initial employees at a startup is often a crucial determinant of the success of the venture. I have also often wondered how much of work ethic/culture of an employee is determined by "nature" (i.e., individual specific) versus "nurture" (organizational level stuff like vision & mission, work culture, etc.). Personally, at my first (and so far last) job, I used to break down my salary to a "per working day" number - to be used to ask "Have I done justice to that number?" at day end. And, if the answer was No, to try harder. I therefore found it quite interesting to read about the employee credo at ratings & research firm Crisil in the book "Doing what is right: The CRISIL Story" . Extract from Page 92-93 (describing a pre placement talk at an MBA school by early employees of the firm):     "What is the work culture at CRISIL? What is your management philosophy?" It was a bespec...

From Source of Insight : In his 30 second speech on work-life balance, Brian Dyson (CEO of Coca Cola) gives us a powerful metaphor for thinking about what bounces back, and what does not: “Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the Air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four Balls - Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.” Aside from the rubber ball metaphor, the take away he gives us is … work efficiently during office hours and leave on time.  Give the required time to your family, friends, and have a proper rest. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading ...

Dave Kerpen of Likeable Local has a great article in Inc . 1.  If you take it, you own it. No matter the seniority, the person at your company who takes a complaint is fully responsible for following it through to a resolution. Don't pass the buck. Make sure it gets fully resolved. 2. Act quickly. Here is your chance for the company to shine. Look at the complaint as a gift, a moment to show off the brand--that is, the part of it that makes people satisfied, not the part that messes up sometimes. 3. Validate. Let customers know--in the immortal words of Bill Clinton--that you feel their pain. Let them know that you empathize with what they are going through. Say, "I understand how upset you must feel." Who can argue with that? This will work for you even when you've done nothing wrong. You are not necessarily agreeing with the customer or apologizing, when you say it. You're just walking in his shoes. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intel...

Smart CEO has an article by Adam Leipzig where he describes how Disney and Dreamworks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg handles his team's successes and failures. The Monday after the big box office opening of the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids": We were all full of laughter, high-fiving each other and passing around compliments when Jeffrey strode in. He took his customary seat at the head of the long table and looked around the room. “Congratulations,” he said, simply. Then, with barely a pause he said, “Next.”Next? That wasn’t what we wanted to hear. We wanted to hear praise for the next hour! But no, it was back to business. I thought I understood the meaning of “Next” that morning: we shouldn’t focus on our success or we’ll become complacent and self-congratulatory. But there was a deeper meaning, and I didn’t learn it until months later. We assembled for another Monday morning meeting, this time after we had opened a movie called An Innocent Man....But the movie d...

In an article for Economic Times , K Sudarshan of executive search firm of EMA Partners International draws out some lessons from the "Mr.Cool" of Cricket, Indian Captain M.S.Dhoni. 4. Managing success: Dhoni dealt with his early success with a lot of maturity with his feet firmly on the ground, which eventually led to his elevation. It requires a great degree of level headedness and humility to handle fame and money at an early age. In a corporate context, early success need not lead to brash behaviour towards colleagues and customers. We have seen that, at times, young managers who see success early lose their balance and face early career burnouts. 5. Managing pressure: Ability to stay calm and keep his cool with a seemingly uncluttered mind is Dhoni's greatest gift as a leader. This soothes the nerves of the rest of the team and ensures that they stay focused and continue to believe in themselves. Dhoni is a lesson for all leaders in terms of their ability to ...