Building brands - Lessons from TFA

I did not know about TFA (Teach for America) until I started researching business schools for my MBA. While browsing the jobs database of the one of the so called top schools , I saw their job postings. How does an organization motivate MBA' from top business schools, arguably the top aspirators in the topmost capitalist society, to devote 2 years of their lives working for peanuts?

Answer : Branding

TFA is highly selective, rejects a high percentage of applicants. Teachers from TFA are regularly hired by top investment banks like Goldman and top consulting firms. Candidates flaunt TFA experience in their resumes for admission to top business schools.

What TFA offers in two years is a challenge of a lifetime, teaching kids in under-priviliged inner city neighborhoods in America. Anyone who has read "To Sir with love" knows how difficult this job can be for experienced campaigners, let alone fresh graduates with no teaching experience.
TFA gives rigorous training to its hires before they start teaching. Teachers are paid a stipend/salary, so it is not voluntary.

Wendy Kopp proposed the idea of TFA in her thesis at Princeton in 1989. Obviously it had no takers then and even as late as 2000 , TFA faced funding problems. But TFA's success shows that if an idea has enough takers in the people who matter, funding can't be a deterrent. And in this case, the people who mattered were the graduates from top American universities. Looking at TFA as an alternative to careers in number crunching ( spreadsheet modeling/presentation making) , the response has been amazing.

TFA is a powerful concept in social entrepreneurship. Can it replicated in India?

National Do Not Call register

NDNC register is a database of numbers maintained by the government. The owners of these numbers do not want Unsolicited Commercial Communication(UCC). It is a strong step in safeguarding consumer interests in the Indian telecom sector. There are illegal and unauthorised consumer databases used by almost every telemarketer and they are readily bought and sold.

A telemarketer now faces a fine of upto 500 rupees for calling a number registered on the NDNC. The advent of NDNC is also generating new business models built around permission marketing.

This site shows how the process will work.

If you reside in India, please register on the NDNC and save yourself from spam and unwanted calls.

Ginger or Garlic?

We all know copy-cats exist everywhere, including the world of startups. But this copy is destined to take the top award. Not only does it copy the business model , but also takes a dig on the original's name.

Original - mginger

Copy - mgarlic

The copy is currently down, trying to make a more exciting paste for your curry.

Does it get funnier in the world of startups?

Of golden triangles and lost cities

My first road trip through the golden triangle of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur , covering 700 kms in less than 3 days , was as exciting as the the first and only time I sky-dived , head first, from a 12 seater Fokker in California wine country. The feelings were all the same , adrenaline rush in the beginning followed by a state of bewilderment and ending in a sense of resignation.


To be fair, the road infrastruture has definitely improved , especially the Indian highways. However, the road sense remains pretty much the same, on or off the road. Some of the things that you see on Indian national highways are probably so unique that , as a tourist, you would even pay to see them.


1) Tempo vehicles carrying 25 people, about 10 of them clinging for dear life while cars and trucks whizz by.

2) Cattle ( Yes, no fencing)

3) Overtaking - Keep a lookout on your left and right. You never know who decides to overtake and when.

4) Tractors and bullock carts - They have right of way and no rear view mirrors. Overtake them at your own risk.

5) Processions and bandhs - For some strange reason , every group which is demanding something from the government decides to block a section of the national highway. This is a form of protest unique to India. It definitely sends the message across.

Inspite of these problems, the quality of NH-2 is excellent, road signs are all there including emergency numbers , traffic is handled decently in case of blockages and speed limit is 90 km/hr. 200 odd kms from Agra to Delhi took me 4 hours. All slowdowns were due to points noted above.

The Alwar-Mathura highway(?) is a neat example of a road that makes you cringe and curse yourself. You start regretting why you ventured out of the comfortable confines of a metro city. 5 hours for 95 kms at an astounding speed of 19 km/hr. The road also threw up some surprises, like the heritage city of Deeg where a magnificent fort and palace lie rotting away. From the moment you enter the city, you realize it is god-forsaken , the dusty winding roads , the forlorn look on the faces and the ruins. There is not a single dhaba ( eating place) along the way. There is not even one place to buy water. At one place, a state roadways bus had got stuck in a narrow stretch running through a village. Another state roadways bus was trying to pull it out using a rope and was blocking the entire highway in the process! At another place, a woman had covered half the width of the highway to bathe her children. Mind you, the entire road is an arc 150 odd kms from the national capital. So much for 9% GDP growth.

Startup cheatsheet(s)

How does one get information about building a startup from an idea in a particular geography? I read a lot of generic stuff about entreprenuership but still haven't come across , what I may call , a " startup cheatsheet" .

A cheatsheet, for the uninitiated, is a documentation of steps to quickly accomplish a task without understanding all the details. For a unix novice, it could be as simple as a set of commands to create a directory structure of required format. The steps you see on the printer dashboard when paper is jammed is another example of a cheat sheet.

Cheat sheets make life easier by saving time and effort on tasks where the result is guaranteed to be repeatable by following the steps. As I think today about launching a startup, I want to focus on two key areas : a) building the product/service and b) strategy for getting customers . I imagine everything else could be documented in a cheatsheet. This could include basic legal stuff, setting up the basic infrastructure like office, industry specific hiring strategies, promotions and so on. Sure, the startup's mandate would be to typically go beyond these but trust me , for someone who hasn't started one in a particular vertical in a particular geography, this kind of information would be a huge support mechanism.

Google checkout

Google checkout is a payment gateway offering by Google. For merchants, it offers easy integration and theoretically zero transaction cost if merchants spend 10% of sales money on Adwords. Without an adwords account, it costs 2% + 0.20 USD. This is close to or better than other offerings. It is totally free till January 1,2008.

It is available for merchants in US/UK only as of now but buyers from 140 countries can use Google checkout to buy products online.

These days, the most interesting page that you should read when using an google product is - privacy policy.

Sample this :

Transaction information - When you use Google Checkout to conduct a transaction, we collect information about each transaction, including the transaction amount, a description provided by the seller of the goods or services being purchased, the names of the seller and buyer, and the type of payment used.

Or this :

Google cookies - When you access a Google Checkout webpage, we send one or more cookies - a small file containing a string of characters - to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service by storing user preferences and tracking user trends. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. Please note that you will not be able to access Google Checkout if your cookies are disabled

Google has had skirmishes with privacy issues in US. I think the issue of privacy has to be seen in the context of how confidential information is used. Customized ads suited to your preferences might be welcome to most online shoppers but people , especially in US, do not want to share private info with a third party. This is something Google , as a brand, will have to manage properly given its motto of " Do No Evil".

If you overlook privacy concerns, Google checkout looks like an admirable product allowing small businesses to launch online efficiently and quickly. I am waiting for it to launch in India where its transaction costs will easily be the lowest and the google brand will hopefully convince more Indian buyers ( worried about fraud/security) to shop online.