The business of terror

This is about the 5th or 6th time this year that terrorists are striking on Indian soil - Bangalore , Ahmedabad, Delhi, Hyderabad and now Mumbai. The latest attack on Mumbai leaves the earlier ones in a shadow as far as audacity is concerned. When 20 terrorists can get down on Gateway of India waterfront with machine guns and grenades and start occupying hotels and cafes, it makes you wonder if this is for real or just scenes from Die-Hard series.

Emotions are running high right now. And they ought to be. The biggest learning from this terror attack is clear : India is completely ill-equipped in its Anti Terrorism effort. Forget about stricter laws like POTA or Guantanamo like facilities, the most important missing element is MONEY.
US set up Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 and created an entire eco-system including government agencies, businesses and intelligence think-tanks. India must do the same. The government must start working on a sophisticated survelliance network using the latest technologies.

There is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to create businesses which can help incubate this network. A simple example is jammers. On getting the first indication of trouble, the security agencies should be able to switch to a dedicated security spectrum and rest of the spectrum should be jammed ( preferably in a restricted area) . Ditto for Wi-fi , cable and any other connectivity. Similarly, one could create robots which can tackle this kind of hostage situation or employ them for survelliance. The possibilities are endless. But who will take the lead?

Pro opinion

Proopinion is a company which pays you to fill online surveys ( a dollar for 10 opinion points). They identify niche groups and stay connected to them through multiple media. It is a classic example of incentive driven permission marketing. If you are a brand champion, your opinion matters and the brand should pay to get that information from you. Similarly, if you saw an advertisement, the client would like to know if you liked it and what exactly you liked. This will lead to more robust metrics in measuring ad performance.

I think this is a brilliant model and one that can change the way market surveys are done. The old methods of filling in forms or even online surveys ( as annoying popups) will soon be redundant simple because of "information overload" and "lack of incentive".

I haven't seen any Indian company trying to use this model for mobiles given the reach of this medium. Mobile web will definitely not reach majority and SMS/MMS is not suitable for survey format. How about a survey application ? What do you think?

Airtel Telecom innovation fund.

Bharti Airtel , India's leading mobile operator , has launched an INR 200 crore innovation fund targeted to early stage businesses with a business model built around telecom and telecom services.

This is a much needed boost given that early stage capital in India is hard to come by. Hopefully, we will see some good ventures getting traction.

Finally on Twitter

You can follow me at http://twitter.com/bipinsingh.

Twitter is a micro-blogging service launched in 2006. It has now moved on from early adoption phase and folks in India are using it as well. Basically , it allows you to update status using 140 characters. Not very different from status updates on facebook and orkut. You can follow people or have them follow you.

Bill Me Later gets acquired

Follow the news here.

Bill Me Later is a novel payment mechanism which uses your credit history and your unique info ( social security number/birthday combo) to make cashless/cardless payments. Payments can be made for online stores as well as B&M stores. Bill Me Later sends you a bill every month for all the purchases you made using their service. How do they know you will pay ? Answer : Thats the business they are into. Verifying you and your credit history before you can use their service. They are a bit like post-paid mobile talk plans in contrast to pre-paid mobile plans.

Advantage : No credit card info to remember or share.
Peers : None ( Paypal requires you to register your card with them)
Result : Ebay acquires it for 820 million USD. Nov 7th,2008.
India : CIBIL ( Credit and Information Buraeu of India Limited) is creating a database of users and their credit history. It will be used by banks and Financial institutions. There could be a business model lurking in there.

Networking your startup in India

Over the last one year or so , I started connecting with the startup ecosystem in India or whatever existed of it. 2008 has definitely seen a mushrooming of atleast one part of the ecosystem - "the regular networking opportunity". I get mails every week about this club or that , doing its bit to bring together entrepreneurs, industry folks , speakers and time pass junta looking for a meal and pepsi. I have written a concise algo to find such a

1) Take the set S with following words { "National" , "Open" , "Club" , "Startup" , "Entrepreneur" "Network" }
2) Create a subset of S and do a union with set I where I: {"India"} . Call the resultant set G
3) Search for G in google minus the double quotes.
4) You get an idea of what i am talking about. It might take you a few passes to get what you are looking for.

I know a few of them listed below :

1) Open Coffee Club ( Bangalore , Delhi and maybe one or two places)
2) Startup Sunday ( or is it Monday , frankly who cares)
3) TieCon ( any entrepreneur who spends 10k to attend a networking opportunity does not understand risk. Or maybe he doesn't know the cost of Jack Daniels)
4) Proto.in ( this won't show up as my algo's result)
5) venturewoods ( this is only a blog i reckon but pretty useful gathering of brains)
6) NEN ( National Entrepreneurship Network)

I have not been to too many of them but I think its good in a way things are atleast moving in the Indian startup world. Will write more about them soon.

A neat problem

First of all, apologies for being out of radar for so long. I have been working hard on creating something new and it is close to where I want it to be. Details on that later.

For now, let me stimulate your grey cells with this smashing problem a friend at work posted to us who travel together in the evening cab. Last Friday, we spent an hour trying to make the just the first moves to solve this problem.

There are two guys and two numbers. Guy1 knows only the product of the numbers while Guy2 knows only the sum. Both numbers are known to be between 2 and 99 inclusive. The following conversation ensues:
Guy1-> I don't know what the numbers are.
Guy2-> I know that you don't know what the numbers are.
Guy1-> Now I know what the numbers are.
Guy2-> Now even I know what the numbers are.
Question: What are the numbers?

And here's the solution.

Enjoy!

Sounds weird as the title of a post , isn't it? Let me explain.

If there is one single word that an aspiring entreprenuer should know how and when to use - it is the word "NO" . At most times, the word "NO" is actually not used as is. This is because a startup situation is very fluid. A "NO" yesterday could be a "YES" tomorrow. Take investors for example. There might be a bunch of folks ready to pump in money into your venture. But you need to decide when to take and how much to take and from whom. Startups often need to chop and change their business models. That is why I don't have a formal business plan yet although I have figured out how I will make money.

However, there are situations which demand a clear "NO". This could be doing something unethical/illegal/immoral. The legal part is common to everyone but ethics and morality are subjective. For example, it might be unethical for someone to develop software for playing cheap lottery on the internet or on the mobile. For someone else, it may not be. These are deeply personal decisions.

How to say "NO" is often very critical. A startup needs as many friends as possible. Some entreprenuers like to be brash about saying "NO". I think this is not the right way. Be humble, Be polite, Be firm and Be genuine. This shows strength of character. Also, when you know its a NO only for today , make sure the message gets across that it could be a YES tomorrow. This is easily said than done. Many folks who hear "NO" are bound to take it personally. Again, make it explicit that it is the idea or the proposal , not the person, that gets the "NO" .

Getting started

This is my first post in more than a month. The standard excuse is that I've busy. The truth is I've been lazy.

For a couple of months now , I have been trying to put the pieces together for a new venture. You could say, once you've started you're a startup. However, I have arranged my goals such that I prefer to "become" a startup the day I get that "launch". Before that, I am zilch.

For this new venture, a lot of things are happening in parallel. I've tried to rate where we are..

1) Investor interest - 3/5
2) Product definition - 4/5
3) Product development - 2/5
4) Partner traction( BD) - 3/5
5) Legal - 0/5
6) Office/location - 0/5
7) Business plan - 0/5

We are not in a hurry because we are doing something which has not been done before and have a product definition which is simple yet outstanding.
Stay tuned in : I will try to revisit these in a month's time and see where we stand.

The Indian mobile juggernaut

The Indian mobile penetration just rolls on and on with no letup in sight. We all know that India is adding highest number of mobile subscribers per month anywhere in the world. What we perhaps don't realize is the sheer historical significance of what is happening. It may be the greatest revolution ever in history - far outstripping the industrial revolution of the 18th century and the semiconductor revolution of the 90's. Last quarter of 2007 added 20 million new mobile connections. Thats more than half the people in California, the biggest state of United States, added in one quarter!

If this growth rate continues, and it is actually increasing, India will add 100 million subscribers in 2008. Yes, a 100 million!

I , for that matter, any single individual or group is not equipped to fathom the implications of such growth on India and the world. Yes, it means the cellphone makers will sell billions of dollars worth of cellphones. It also means there is a huge opportunity for companies which make backend telecom equipments. But most importantly, look at this unprecedented expansion as the enabling of 100 million people. Can you imagine what these 100 million new connections can lead to? Can you imagine what new business models can become feasible just based on sheer volumes?

I will show you a glimpse. Imagine a rural hamlet in Chattisgarh -a small state in central India. A hot afternoon. A deserted village square. Where are the villagers? Answer - They are busy making calls to rich professionals in Delhi,Mumbai and Bangalore urging them to buy a personal loan from HDFC.

The one lakh wonder

There was a time last year that I thought that if I become a proper successful VC, I would have achieved it all. The events of past one week have changed my perception. I think I will still be a VC long term, but I wouldn't have achieved everything by becoming a VC.

Ratan Tata has done what no sane VC would have bet its money on. Yes, there are those valley VC's who bet on companies like Google but those were bets. The concept of rupee 1 lakh car (2500 USD) was not a bet. It was an accurately calculated risk to failure. That's what every one from auto industry said.

To come up with success against such odds is the sole prerogative of the entreprenuer. If the entreprenuer is a game shooter ( only fowl please!), then the VC is one who sells the gun. In this case, I think, Ratan Tata was motivated not by the profit but to leave a world class legacy behind. As they say in hindi , " sunehre aksharon mein itihass likhna" = writing history in letters of gold.