The 2 most critical things to do for Entrepreneurs

What can an entrepreneur do to succeed? Success depends on a lot on factors - some under your control and some outside your control. As is the famous saying - "Success is 90% luck and 10% perspiration" - you can only control the perspiration side of it. It does not guarantee success, but it is the best you can do.

Internet is full of tips for entrepreneurs - top 10, top 20 things to do. But the following 2 things are the most important for an entrepreneur to focus on:

1. Spend at least 70% of your time selling: The core business of business is to sell. Every entrepreneur should make it a point to spend time on sales - selling to customers, investors, employees, family members and friends. 'Sales' does not only include talking about your product/services to bring in revenues, but it also includes selling your ideas, your company, and yourself to others. It also includes changing the way you think about your product - how to better understand customer requirements, how to change features to bring in new revenue streams, how to change your business model, etc.

Entrepreneurs, who come from development background (or think themselves of as 'geeks'), get lost in the development process and completely lose track of sales. Others get lost in day-to-day operational activities. If it happens, alarm bells should be ringing.

2. Evolve: Entrepreneurs should be ready to evolve with time. Evolution can happen on multiple fronts:

• Product or service model
• Business model
• Field of business itself (as dramatic as it may sound, entrepreneurs should not limit themselves to one sector. They should follow any opportunity, where they can play a role)
• Founding team
• Investors
• Employees
• Your own style of work and thinking

If you do not change with time, time will not be on your side.

Thinking like an owner vs. a worker

I have been pushing myself hard to write about my entrepreneurship experience. This is the first post and I hope to post more. Hopefully my experiences and thoughts will benefit somebody out there.

This post is about thinking like an owner. Plenty has been written about the difference between a leader and a manager. Many believe that successful entrepreneurs are leaders, rather than managers. I think that this debate is abstract and does not offer practical solutions/actions to an entrepreneur. Of course, he can aspire to be a leader - but he should survive to have somebody to lead!

In a startup context (and even for bigger corporations), the more important question is - Are you able to think like an owner of a business? Owner's mindset is the foundation on which an entrepreneur can succeed. He can be either a good leader, or a good manager or both. It does not matter. Leader vs. manager is more about personal execution style, rather than mindset. It is also not related to whether you are a core geek or an MBA.

As simple as it sounds, it is not an easy mindset to have. Most of us come from middle class families with little or no business background. Our parents and relatives have been in a job for years. Right from our childhood, the concept of 'ownership' has not been very familiar to us. Let us ask ourselves - 'How many evolving things (includes things like a business or an event, a pet, etc. and excluding depreciating things like vehicle and toys) have we really owned in our life?' Many of us come after doing a 'regular job' - where we do not or are not expected to think like an owner.

I have found some of the best examples of entrepreneurship among small businesses in India. Consider a real estate broker, construction contractor, CA, doctor, or a small factory owner - listen to their conversations very carefully. They will talk about 'my business grew', 'we have grand plans', 'I just opened a new branch' - and compare these to conversations with an employee 'my manager sucks', 'my company did that', 'my bonus was great', 'I got promoted', 'Lifestyle is bad'. The tone is very different.

So what does it mean to think like an owner? What is the difference between an owner and a worker?

1. Owners think about tomorrow, workers think about yesterday and today: Owners always think about future growth, future revenues, future products, future trends, future opportunities. While workers are always stuck in today's work, today's TODO list, this quarterly results, this year's bonus.
Owners think about growth, workers think about survival.
It does not mean that an owner just day dreams about future, or just doesn't care about today. As an entrepreneur you have to be ready to sweat it out daily. But at the back of your mind, are you planning for your future always? Are you trying to be always ahead of competitors and time? Do you spend thinking and action time on future plans?
People just get stuck in day-to-day things. This happened to me, and I have always seen this happen to others. If you are spending >80% of your time on just thinking about today, you need a shake up. You are becoming a worker, not acting like an owner.

2. Owners think about company profits, workers think about their salaries: Owners are worried about company's profitability and cash flow, and not their own salaries, bonuses and increments. When owners think about finance, they start with company's balance sheet and not their own balance sheet.

3. Owners design the bigger picture, workers are too busy in details: Owners know the bigger picture / vision / path of their company and business environment. While workers just want to get the current task done, or achieve the current goal. Owners design a realistic dream of future, while workers think about going home today.

Ever wondered why small mom-and-pop shopkeepers continue to remain the same size for years and generations. I think that one of the main reason is that shop owner himself becomes a worker, and stops thinking like an owner. He doesn't delegate work, he doesn't think about growth - he gets too stuck up in his day-to-day routine.

As an entrepreneur, you need to act like an owner first (and a critical thing for an owner to succeed is to have good workers :-)).

A final point here - There might be no difference between the effort and motivation level of an owner and a worker - the subtle distinction is in the mindset - that's it!

Reading - July 13

Did an analysis of returns from NSE, BSE, gold and silver over the last 20 years. Found some interesting patterns:

1. How much would Re. 1 become now? - In BSE, Re. 1 invested in 1991 would become 20.07 today, suggesting a return of 16%. In NSE, Re.1 in 1997 will become 6.55 today with return of 14%. Gold (1 in 1991 to 7.3 today, returns 11%), silver (1 in 1991 to 7.31 today, returns 10.5%)
   
2. Average 3-year returns: NSE (15.3%), BSE (14.3%), Gold (11%), silver (11.3%)
3. Average 5-year returns: NSE (15.2%), BSE (12.8%), Gold (9.9%), silver (9.9%)
4. Standard deviation on 1 year returns: 0.39, 0.37, 0.13, 0.26
5. Standard deviation on 3 year returns: 0.15, 0.18, 0.09, 0.14
6. Standard deviation on 5 year returns: 0.12, 0.12, 0.08, 0.10
   
7. Negative annual returns: 5/14, 7/20, 3/20, 8/20
8. Bumper years where return has been >40%: 5/14, 7/20, 7/20 (> 25%), 7/20 (>25%)
9. Disaster years where return has been <-10%: 5/14, 6/20, 1/20, 3/20
   

Gold and USD were historically negatively correlated. Now they are turning to be positively correlated. In future, negative correlation is expected.

Read through Nassim Taleb's philosophy of black swan events. He suggests to create a portfolio of extremely safe assets and extremely risky assets, as 'medium risk' is difficult to measure. Will read his books now.

Mutual Funds: Went through primer on moneycontrol.com. Important points:

1. Asset allocation of a fund can be Equity (growth), debt (income), money market (gilt), balanced, sector specific, etc.
2. NAV - net asset value, computing every day by a fund after deducting all expenses.
3. Expense ratio: Expenses/ total assets under management (and not returns earned).
4. Load: Some AMCs have sales charges, or loads, on their funds (entry load and/or exit load) to compensate for distribution costs. Funds that can be purchased without a sales charge are called no-load funds.
5. Open ended funds: Enter or exit anytime
6. Closed ended funds: Redemption can take place only after the period of the scheme is over. However, close-ended funds are listed on the stock exchanges and investors can buy/ sell units in the secondary market (there is no load).
7. Tax benefits: This is important: a) 100% income tax exemption on all MFs dividends, b) Equity funds - short term capital gain is taxed at 15%. Long term capital gains is not applicable. Debt Funds - Short term capital gains is taxed as per the slab rates applicable to you. Long term capital gains tax to be lower of - 10% on the capital gains without factoring indexation benefit and 20% on the capital gains after factoring indexation benefit. c) Open end funds with equity exposure of more than 65% (Revised from 50% to 65% are exempt from the payment of dividend tax for a period of 3 years from 1999-2000.
8. Fund selection: Evaluate past performance and look for consistency. You can diversify into 3 funds with similar asset allocation. Consider fund costs. s a general rule, 1% towards management fees and 0.6% towards annual expenses should be acceptable. Try and avoid funds that have a sales load, unless of course they have a consistent track record of being a top-performer.
9. Use index funds
10. Stay away from mutual funds whose fund managers change often.

Book summary - 'A Random Walk down the Wall Street' by Burton Malkiel

My first proper reading on investments (after living for 3 years without money :-)). Main points are described below, which can serve as a summary of the book too:

Why do we need to put effort and mind in investing?
Beating inflation is the most common explanation given to investing. In recent past, real returns on Bank FDs have been negative. Although the theoretical difference between inflation and FD return is 3-4% (it goes up to 6-7% after taxes), I have a feeling that the actual difference is a lot higher for common household (a separate detailed analysis is required to prove it). So we are losing purchasing power if we invest in FDs. Question is: Is that a good enough reason to lose your sleep by investing? You can react to this question in two ways: 1) Yes it is, and I will go aggressively to beat inflation by investing in high risk-high return assets; 2) More risk-averse reaction could be: Not really, but can I come up with safe and intelligent (or rather unknown as of now) ways to reduce the difference.
Another less talked about reason to invest (due to our age group) is to save for old age. Other reasons could be investing for a particular purpose like kids' education, buying house, etc.
I don't think fun and adventure should be reasons to invest. We have places called Casinos for that.

Investment theory #1: The Firm foundation theory
Each stock/asset has an intrinsic value which can be computed based on present conditions and future prospects. For a stock, it can be computed based on future dividend payouts. There are four determinants of value of a stock:

1. The expected growth rate of dividends: Apparently Einstein described compounding as the greatest mathematical invention of all time. A rational investor should be willing to pay a higher price for a share the larger the growth rate of dividends and earnings and the longer the growth is expected to last.
2. Expected dividend payout: Other things being equal, a company paying higher proportion of its earnings in cash dividends should have a higher price. Stock dividends or splits are not beneficial for stock owners.
3. Degree of risk: Lower the risk, higher the price of a share (and hence, perhaps lower the returns). Blue chip stocks sell at a premium due to this.
4. Level of interest rates: Lower interest rates -> poor returns on debt/FDs -> more money for equity -> higher the price.

There are two important caveats here: 1) Expectation about future cannot be proven in the present. 2) Precise figures cannot be calculated from undetermined data (Excel tricks played by analysts in DCF computation can move intrinsic value anywhere. Just change growth rate or terminal growth rate, or number of years, or discounting factor)

It is the P/E of a stock, not the absolute price of the stock, which determines its value for comparison. PEG multiple (Growth/ P/E ) is a more accurate multiple: For a stock with high growth and high P/E, market has already accounted its growth in its price. Higher the PEG ratio, more attractive is the stock.

It has been seen that markets do follow logic, and the 4 determinants are followed most of the times (thus a stock with higher expected growth rate will have higher P/E). But what is a good enough P/E? We should take long term historical averages to understand how much premium market has given in the past for a particular growth rate/dividend payout/risk/interest rates.

Investment theory #2: The Castle-in-the-air theory
Famous economist Keynes proposed this theory in 1936 - people invest based on crowd behavior and human psychology, rather than sound fundamental intrinsic value. No one can predict future earnings or dividend payouts. So look out for latest 'hot' thing in the market!

Stock prices are in a sense anchored to certain 'fundamentals', but the anchor is easily pulled up and then dropped in another place. Both the above theories work in parallel to result in 'controlled madness' or a 'balancing act'.

How Pros play with above two theories
Technical (Theory #2) and fundamental (Theory #1) analysis. Chartists believe that market is 10% logical, 90% psychological; fundamentalist believe the opposite.

Technical analysis
Author has severely criticized technical analysis. It is trading, not investing to begin with. Trends might be built up due to two reasons: crowd instinct/behavior and unequal access to information. There are logical shortcomings such as any information is already accounted for in price, by the time a trend is noticed.

Fundamental analysis
For its modeling, fundamental analysis can only provide a range or an anchor point. There are three potential flaws: 1) information and analysis may be incorrect, 2) analysts' estimate of 'value' may be faulty, 3) market may not correct its 'mistake' and stock price may not converge to its value estimate.

Using both analysis together
Rule1: Buy only companies that are expected to have above average earnings growth for five or more years. Both earnings and multiple might increase - resulting in double benefit.
Rule2: Never pay more for a stock than its firm foundation of value: Growth stocks selling at multiples in line with or not very much above the market multiple often represent good value. Keep away from growth stocks with high multiples.
Rule 3: Look for stocks whose stories of anticipated growth are of the kind on which investors can build castles in the air.

Does technical analysis work?
Academicians don't like chartists because: After paying transaction costs, the method does not do better than a buy-and-hold strategy. Results reveal that past movements in stock prices cannot be used reliably to foretell future movements. The stock market has little memory. Correlation between present and past price movements is slightly positive. So there exists some momentum in prices, but too small to be economically significant. Flip of a coin can produce the same chart as a stock market. Reading charting patters produces no significantly better results than placebo strategy of buy and hold. Frequent trading in technical analysis also leads to early realization of capital gains tax.
If past prices contain little or no information for the prediction of future prices, there is no point in following any technical trading rule for timing the sale and purchases of stocks.

Does fundamental analysis work?
Past earnings growth cannot predict future growth. Let us consider a naive forecasting model that every company would enjoy a growth in earnings equal to long-run rate of growth of the national income. A study showed that this model would make smaller errors than those used by professional analysts. Analysts did poorly in 5-year growth estimates, and worse in one-year estimates across industries. This difficulty in predicting future can be explained by 1) Influence of random events 2) creation of dubious reported earnings due to creative accounting, 3) incompetence of analysts, and 4) Loss of best analysts to sales desk or portfolio management

Mutual Funds also do not show any consistency in performance. Some funds might outperform the market during a certain period, but not consistently. Good past performance of a fund does not imply good performance in future (in fact, reverse may be true due to law of averages which seemingly works for funds).

Timing the market: Holding on your stocks as long term investments works better than market timing because your gains from being in stocks during bull markets far outweigh the losses in bear markets. A market timer would have to make correct decisions 70% of the time to outperform a buy-and-hold investor.

Thus, random walk theory suggests that Fundamental analysis cannot produce investment recommendations that will enable an investor consistently to outperform a buy-and-hold strategy. Both Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett admitted that most investors would be better off in an index fund rather than investing in an actively managed equity mutual fund.

Investment Theory #3: Modern portfolio theory
The only method of beating the market is to assume more risk. However a portfolio can be created to reduce risk and still generate higher returns (upto a limit) through diversification. Two asset classes with covariance <1 can be combined to reduce risk. If covariance = 1.0, no risk reduction, +0.5 - moderate reduction, -0.5 -> most risk can be eliminated, -1.0 -> all risk is eliminated. However risk can't be reduced indefinitely with increasing returns, and after a point, risk increases with returns.

CAPM
There is no premium for bearing risks that can be diversified away. So to increase returns, you need to increase risks which cannot be diversified away. Risks can be divided into two main types: Systematic (market risk) and asystematic (diversifiable risk). Systematic risk cannot be eliminated by diversification. Unsystematic risk is the stock specific risk which can be diversified away. So market won't pay for this risk. It will only pay for systematic risk (Beta of a portfolio). Thus higher the beta of a portfolio, higher the returns. Note that portfolio might still have some non-diversified unsystematic risk, but there will be no additional premium for it.

In practice, CAPM has failed as it was shown that there is no relationship between beta and returns!

Thus it seems that both technical and fundamental analysis do not outperform markets. The only way to get higher returns is to assume higher risks. But there is no measure of higher risk, i.e. I do not know if I have taken greater risk.

Predictable patterns in the behavior of Stock Prices

1. Stocks do follow momentum
2. Eventually stock prices do change direction and hence stockholder returns tend to reverse themselves: Poorly performing stocks over the last three years may give higher returns. Reversals may be due to economic factors.
   
3. Stocks are subject to seasonal moodiness such as diwali, end of the week, beginning of year: Buy your stocks on monday afternoon at the close, not on Friday afternoon, or monday morning, when they tend to be selling at slightly higher prices.

Patterns with Fundamental analysis

1. Smaller is often better: Smaller companies give higher returns, but it may be due to the fact that only those giving higher returns survive over a longer period.
2. Stocks with lower P/E outperform those with higher P/E: But beware of accounting and real laggards. Results are not consistent over time.
   
3. Stocks having low multiples of their book values tend to give higher returns: Results are not consistent over time. Survivorship bias, not easy to determine book value especially due to real estate,
4. Higher initial dividends (D/P ratio) and lower P/E multiples have meant higher returns:

Investment guide

1. Cover yourself with protection: Invest over long term. So you should have noninvestment resources such as medical and life insurance to draw on any emergency. Go for term insurance. In addition, you should keep at least one year's expenses in safe and liquid investments.
   
2. Know your investment objectives: Determine your risk appetite. In increasing risk profile, bank accounts, money market deposit accounts, money market funds, high quality corporate bonds, diversified portfolio of blue chips, real estate, gold, common stocks of smaller companies.
3. Tax should be considered while computing returns and avoid taxes wherever possible

Guide to investing
A person should look at his attitude towards risk and capacity to take risk. The most important investment decision is balancing of various asset categories at different stages of risk. More than 90% of an investor's total return is determined by asset categories that are selected and their proportional representation. Four Asset allocation principles are:

1. History shows that risk and return are related.
2. The risk of investing in common stocks and bonds depends on the length of time the investments are held. The longer an investor's holding period, the lower the risk: Follow buy-and-hold strategy over long periods of time.
   
3. Dollar cost averaging can be useful: This is similar to SIP. You need to buy more stocks at lower prices to gain.
4. Risks you can afford to take depend on your total financial situation

Typical portfolio for mid-twenties
5% cash with maturity 1 to 1.5 years, 20% bonds, 65% stocks, 10% real estate

Three strategies

1. Invest in index funds: no capital gains, low transaction costs: choose the right index to invest in - for popular indices, stock prices increase just on listing.
   
2. Hiring a professional mutual fund: Choosing funds is tricky. Choosing 'best' funds with high performance has shown to under-perform market, even after ignoring load fees and expenses. So recent performance is not a good indicator of future performance. There are three factors in selecting mutual funds: 1) Risk level - understand beta of fund's portfolio 2) amount of fund's unrealized gains - do not buy funds with high unrealized capital gains due to capital gains tax and 3) fund's expense ratio - should be low
   
3. Pick up stocks as per the following rules:
   

• Confine to companies which can sustain above-average earnings for at least five years
• Don't pay more than intrinsic value of stock (you can estimate a range of the value)
• Buy stocks with the kind of stories of anticipated growth on which investors can build castles in the air.
• Trade as little as possible to avoid brokerage and capital gains tax
  

Why am not I using Chrome?

I am (or was) a big fan of Google's products. As a true follower, I dumped my Yahoo! IM for Gtalk, always used Google search, Google docs, Google alerts, News, and other apps. I was almost tempted to use Google's new browser, Chrome..I downloaded and installed it. Then when I was about to type first URL into it, a strange doubt haunted me. Am I giving away too much to Google?

There have been innumerable reports on privacy concerns and how Google is trying to 'better understand' (in Eric's words) us. It knows which websites I surf, which videos I am watching, all my emails (ok, may be Google does not know it, but there is a program sitting there which is reading my emails). And there may be other ways in which Google might be tracking me.

Now, through Chrome, am I ready to further increase my exposure to Google? I don't think so. May be there is no information or history being tracked, but what if there is one clause in one of those licensing agreements which I click without reading. Should I take that risk? People may argue that Firefox might be doing the same thing. Ok! but at least it is not Google, information at 2 different places is better than 1 single consolidated place.

My decision is not based on logic and facts, but on suspicion and fear. But then remember that fear is never based on facts, but on feeling and intuition, and I don't feel good about Google as of now.

Olympic gold medal: Abhinav's medal or India's medal?

India finally got an individual Olympic gold medal after 108 years! Kudos to Abhinav Bindra for his splendid effort in Beijing and bringing happiness to a billion Indians.
The coverage given by global media to the dismal state of Indian sports is incredible. On the day Bindra won his gold, WSJ had 2 half page articles on 2 topics: "India being missed at Olympic hockey" and "First individual medal for India". My friend told me that CNN had a news item on "Why a billion Indians only have 57 member squad?" on the opening day of the Olympics. I still remember 1992 when India did not win a single medal at Barcelona (now I know that it had happened in 1984, 88 also). There was some usual hue and cry (some media reports, IOC comments, and finally, an "enquiry committee" to end all those war cries). But now, with increasing focus on India due to its economic growth has made world media more worried about Indian hockey than Indian media (I haven't read any article on hockey in Indian press for the last 10-15 days).
I am just wondering whether this medal gives us a hope for medals in future also. In management, we learn "building internal competencies which enable you to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage". In sports, India has not done so. Many of these performances are individual efforts (with personal money) and not really, an output of a well-placed system. I don't see a stream of new players coming up in these sports in future. We are struggling to find replacements for Paes and Bhupathi; Bindra trained on personal money in Germany (as per media reports), shooters still complain of lack on facilities; no comments on hockey; women weightlifting seems to be dying out now after Karnam Malleshwari won an Olympic bronze. Only in badminton, Padukone Academy seems to be producing players at regular intervals (Saina just reached quarters).
With this gold medal, some corporate money might pour into shooting or other Olympic sports. But the fact of the matter is, we can't say that there will be a medal for India in the next Olympics. We don't have any system or infrastructure built for it. It will depend on few individuals who can put in effort and money on their own.
Let's face the reality: India is not a sporting nation. From childhood, we have been told "Kheloge kudoge to banoge kharaab, Padhoge likhoge to banoge nawaab". Rise of a nation in sporting arena has historically been a mix of its economic power and associated national pride. Eastern European countries always fared better than western Europe during cold war times. China has also made special focused efforts to rise as a sporting powerhouse (I don't know how many of those efforts can be applied in a democratic India!). Will it happen for India?
May be it's time for us to not to make a huge issue out of our failures at international sports, and just enjoy individual glories as and when those come.

"Sing is Kiing"- A good skit

With all the hype created around it and the fact that it was being released in Brussels, we could not afford to miss "Sing is Kiing". To give you a summary of the movie, it's a "machau" movie, with college skit level fattas, illogical script (as expected), and a large screen presence of new name of dependability, Akki.
As we entered the cinema hall, we were awed by the number of Indians. I can bet that it was the only packed hall in the multiplex. Indians are everywhere now! Sound system was horrible and seats worse than my small multiplex in Kota.
There is only one purpose of the movie- to make money. The fact that title of the movie came before the script itself (as told by Akki in his interviews) speaks a lot. It has its moments of laughter, the enactment of one of the classic Hindi dialogues "Mera khoon khaul raha hai", treatment given to the 'real' king and Javed Jaffrey's acts. But make sure you don't miss these, otherwise rest of the movie can be quite irritating at times.
Katrina with her stupid NRI accent is simply irritating. Remember, how British actors spoke Hindi in a historical movie of 70-80s. Akki seems to be enjoying his new stature, he does some amazing stunts and carries the movie on his shoulders (it proved to be quite heavy for him too). Javed Jaffrey, as a blind and deaf goon is hilarious. Watch out for his small dancing act. Neha Dhupia shows off her talent pretty well ;-)
Did I forget the plot of the movie? Which plot, which script, which logic? I have found a new respect for our IIT skit script writers. They should perhaps try out in bollywood, they might earn a lot more than Engineering or management jobs.

Indians and visas

One of the biggest frustrations of holding an Indian passport is the difficulty to use it. Damn, Indians need visa everywhere. I am working out of Brussels when my whole team is in London because my UK visa expired. Indians can't go anywhere without visas. Now, even Nepal is considering visas for Indians! (I mean where you would want to go. To find the list of countries where Indians can travel without a visa, visit: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=772153 )
Now why does that happen?
I think the biggest reason is that everybody else in the world require an Indian visa to visit India. These agreements are bilateral and for some reasons, India has not entered into any such agreements.
This treatment is always mutual. Usually Indian embassies in Europe issue short term visas, and Indians end up getting the same 3- month single entry Schengen visas. I don't know who started this. With the increasing terror around terrorism, situation is not expected to get better. Till then Indian tourism industry continues to be hit, and we continue to stand in long lines, filling forms and apply for all the visas in the world.

p.s. Perhaps the Indian passport is the thickest in the world. All the EU/US/Canada passports are wafer thin :-)

Why you would hate living in Europe

It is almost 1 year in Brussels for me. Coming to Europe is always a dream sequence for people all over the world, and especially in India. Indians always flocked in Switzerland to spend their holidays (and to spend their black money!), but since Kajol ran into SRK in the backdrop of swiss alps, grassland, and Swiss cows, things have taken off!
Now, situation changes a lot when you look at Indians living actually in Europe (I exclude UK from Europe, its not Europe, its a colony of the US across the Atlantic). From my experience here, living in Europe can be a real pain at times. Please note that I have just shifted my house and really frustrated, so all my views have extreme negative connotations (but close to reality).

So, why can you hate living in Europe:

1. All shops remain closed on Sundays. Markets close down at 7 during weekdays and at 5 on Saturday. You even can't get bread on Sunday. This is European definition of customer focus! Mindset of a shopkeeper is "You came here because you want something, not because I want to sell something."
2. All restaurants close down at 9 30-1000.
   
3. You need to take appointment from everybody, from government officers to a cleaner (!). Appointment from a cleaning company- can you imagine that! First an "inspector" comes to visit your house and he gives you a quotation. I got a quotation of 350 Euros, bloody hell! Then he sends over 2 persons after 2 weeks. All services are damn expensive!
4. Landlords rule here. You shell out a huge sum to leave the apartment. So-called expert charges you for everything from a small scratch on floor to cleaning of the apartment. You may end up paying 3 months of rent while leaving the apartment.
   
5. You receive all your bills in french/dutch, you ignore and 6 months after, they send you a bill in English with a penalty 3 times the amount on bill.
6. All government processes are extremely slow and bureaucratic. I got my commune card after 2 months of repeated visits.
7. Don't be lured by the EU passport, tax rates can kill you. It can be up to 70%, all for your social security when you get old...so you will have to live your whole life in Europe as you would have nothing to save!
8. You will get nasty looks if you ask for ketch up for pizza. The heavenly cuisine prepared by the Godly chef should not be disturbed at any cost.

Some added by Kunal:

1. It takes 1.5 Euros a minute to call India. Almost equal to the amount you would pay when you bring your Indian cell phone to Europe on international roaming. Even the local calls and roaming within Europe are max expensive.
   
2. Appointment for a plumber takes 3 months. So if your flush stops working, well... Good luck!
3. Normal shops close at 7:30 and night shops close at midnight. Aren't they supposed to be "night shops"?
   

More to follow I am sure as I have more time to go in Europe....

Vancouver- best city after retirement- I

I set my foot in North America when I landed in Vancouver, Canada. I stayed there for about 3 weeks. My first impression of Canada was a relaxed country with lots of open spaces and few people. I got out of the airport and even before I could see few locals, I saw all the Desi taxi drivers. I boarded a taxi and we were off to downtown. Soon I was in a conversation with the Desi driver. First of all, he was now a Canadian citizen, he got rid of his Indian passport 5 years ago (that's a very sensible thing to do given the number of visas required for Indians!). "Ab koi airport par sawaal nahi poochta" was his candid admission. Fair enough!
First experience with a local was with the hotel receptionist who taught me a few lessons of hard core selling. He tried to sell an upgrade to his best, but then he could not get over my strong Desi "never say yes" attitude, and I got rewarded for it too. He gave me a top floor room without any extra charges. I ran to the nearest shopping mall to buy some clothes for next day's meeting. Why? Didn't I tell you that Lufthansa forgot my baggage at Frankfurt! It was so good to see some shops open on Sunday after a long time. Europe really needs to learn customer focus.
First day at work was a complete disaster with meetings on technical details of mining. I did not know even a single detail and was trying to write notes to look intelligent. By 4 PM, things got worse as I was struck by jet lag. That night's dinner with the client was the longest one ever for me.....
People in Canada are amazingly lifestyle oriented. Work hours start usually early, more important reason being avoiding early morning traffic. People usually commute 1-2 hours daily. But by 5, everybody was gone! Simply amazing! I met a guy who used to run 10 kms daily during lunch hours. And he was not alone. There were several groups of 10-20 running during afternoon hours in Vancouver.
Meetings after meetings, and week was over (anyways you live for weekends in a job). Finally on Saturday morning, I got to enjoy the view from my room. It was fascinating with mountains (peaks were still snow clad), port and the river. With sun coming out, it was the right time for a stroll. So like a true tourist, I picked up a map and off I went.

10 most interesting questions about India by videshis

Based on my experience over the last year (includes some personal questions too):

1. Are all Indians vegetarian?
2. What is an 'arranged' marriage?
   
3. Is India really growing?
4. Why are bollywood movies long and have song and dances?
5. What is the caste system?
6. What is the famous 'Indian' marriage?
7. Do you speak Hindu? Do all Indians speak Hindu?
   
8. What is your religion?
9. Why do Indians talk a lot about money?
10. Why are Indians not interested in charity?

An interesting mobile product

"One can now send e-mail without GPRS/Internet through SMS."
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/bNow-send-email-through-SMS-b/318049/

Interesting product, but with limited functionalities. Interested in what others have to say about it?

The Brazil experience- II

No doubt, I didn't lose as much weight as I should have.....

-- We should not forget Brazil's natural beauty, it has great beaches, forests, and some mountains too. Rio is completely different from Sao Paulo, much smaller city with great beaches and party atmosphere. The biggest obstacle in exploring Brazil is language, it can get really tough to find the right places and go beyond Sao Paulo and Rio!
-- I am forgetting an important part of Brazilian culture, in fact, two: Samba and football. Loser I am, I missed both. Carnival ended two weeks before I landed; and there were no major football activities in South America (except for the Ronaldo's 'incident')
-- I should end by saying something about brazilian people. I found them very friendly, open to other cultures, people made an effort to speak in English. They have strong family values and children usually live with parents till they are married. It is Ok to pat on the back and hug. Society shows glimpses of the 'US dream', despite of the fact that relations between the two countries are not very strong. In many ways, it has lot of similarities with the Indian culture.

On a final note (bear with me), the only time I saw Indians in brazil was when the President visited Brazil. She stayed in the same hotel. To be blunt, she lacks any charisma and totally, lacks the 'thing' required when you are the Head of the State. No wonder very few parliamentarians turned up for her speech!

The Brazil experience- I

So what are you thinking? What was I doing there? I was on a study in Brazil for full 3 months, based out of Sao Paulo, and made some visits to Rio. It was a completely new setting to me. To summarize the experience in one word, it was different.
Brazil is a mystery to many people, only known for Samba and babes. Let's explore it further:

-- First things first: the beauty, what you have heard is true and its amazing! Though, my Colombian colleague was fairly disappointed by the brazilian 'standard', claiming that Colombians are better!
Those girls have highly well-toned body, and not surprisingly, many have gone under a knife! If you know portuguese, its a heaven!
-- Which brings me to the next issue: language. Portuguese is the only language spoken in Brazil. Very few people speak English even in Sao Paulo which is considered to be highly cosmopolitan. All the business is done in Portuguese. After going there, I have a new found respect for Hindi and have been trying to use it more in business discussions (with Indians of course).
Tip: Always have a card with your address written to show to the taxi driver.
-- Talking about taxis, they are expensive, but drivers are very friendly and honest (unlike some Dutch taxi drivers). I tried Metro once, and I must say Mumbai metros are much better than brazilians. People have little sense of discipline in getting in and out.
Public infrastructure is good, but under tremendous pressure with long traffic jams, very similar to some of the big Indian cities.
-- Which brings me to a comparison of the two countries. Goldman clubbed India and brazil together in BRIC, I don't know why! Brazil is far ahead of India (at least 5-8 years) in terms of quality of life and living standards. And I am comparing apple to apple, Delhi/Mumbai to Sao Paulo. To give you simple real life scenarios: everybody in a family has a car, roads are much better, 'normal' employees travel abroad on personal trips frequently, etc.
On the other hand, focus on growth is much higher in India. Financial markets are more sophisticated, and companies are more aggressive in international expansion. I found Brazilian companies inward looking and lacking on ambition. Focus is still on commodities, and their strategy is to milk the cow as long it exists.
-- Cow reminds me of beef and food. All my team mates met a vegetarian for the first time in their life! I was starved there, living on pasta with tomato sauce throughout the week. My main meal was breakfast and lunch was always rice with chilli sauce. There was one Indian restaurant which served the worst food I have ever eaten. Lately I developed a liking (or addiction) for hot chocolate cake with ice-cream. No doubt, I didn't lose as much weight as I should have.

More to follow...

1 year at Job!

Talking to a friend today morning, I realized that I have almost finished 1 year at my first job. This might be a good time to write down some memories, learnings, experiences..blah blah
So the biggest achievement has been that I traveled to 8 different countries during the last year (UAE, thailand, belgium - my sweet home(!), netherlands, france, germany, UK and brazil).

This travel meant working with people with very diverse backgrounds and cultures. Telling them about India and indian traditions was challenging as well as entertaining for me. And knowing (and seeing ;-) their culture was truly amazing, the differences between the French and Dutch are just as staggering as those between a north indian and south indian. Just a word about the Brazilians: they are amazing!

As this was a post related to the job, I should mention something about the work. It was a good learning experience about project management and media industry (my field of expertise now). The best part of the learning came from other people, some of whom are really smart people.

Finally wrapping up by saying few things about the experience of living in brussels. It is sweet as long as it is short and you know how to drive a car. Fortunately, first factor worked for me, but second didn't! I know have to learn driving pretty soon......

More to follow...

Back after a long time!

I stopped blogging a year ago, reasons were many; primary being that blogger was too slow! I tried to load it sometimes and it never did! Of course, more obvious reasons also applied: being busy in job, travel etc. From now on, I will try to be more regular (as though people are waiting for me!)...

Campus Recruitment Automation Software/Portal

I am currently working on a start-up, Eatbits.com.
We have come with a Campus Recruitment Automation Software for educational institutes. We have built up a system which, we believe, is going to add a tremendous value to the Placement Activities at an educational institute and give it a new professional outlook in line with the stature of the institute.

Our main motivation for developing this software came from our personal experiences at IIT Kanpur. We saw an inefficient and manual set-up of the Recruitment process.

We would like to introduce you to “Ergo”, a Campus Recruitment Automation Software.

Some of the important features of our software are:

1. Complete automation of the entire placement process through a web-based interface.
2. Ergo supports 3 interfaces:
1. Administrator Interface: To monitor and control the entire process including managing job applications, student profiles, recruiters’ data, announcement forums etc.
2. Student Interface: To create profile, apply for jobs and manage resumes.
3. Company Interface: To view job applications, short list students and communicate with students/institute.
3. Archival and maintenance of past recruitment data
4. A comprehensive portal for the Institute’s Placement Activities.

Ergo provides a user friendly and comprehensive interface to the institute, all the students and the recruiters. It will make the whole process easier, more efficient, reliable and fast. It will provide the institute an efficient and professional system which will be a definite edge in the eyes of recruiters.

We would be thankful to you if you can go through the demo of our product at: http://www.eatbits.com/demo.

Username/Password for the same are:

Administrator Interface: admin/admin

Student Interface: student/student

Company Interface: company/company

We request you to go through our system and give your valuable feedback. We would be glad if you can refer the software for your respective educational institute. Please contact us for more details.

Contact me at:

Phone No.: +91 98863 46740

Email:pankajg05@iimb.ernet.in

Anusmaran- A great experience

Back to blogging after a looong time. Can't say I was too busy for taking just 15 mins to write a blog, just laziness I guess....and probably, lack of content for me to write about. Finally, I have got something to write about.
Being the Alumni Secretary of IIMB (because of that 1 dreaded vote :)), I was in-charge of Anusmaran'06, the annual alumni reunion of IIM Bangalore. It was supposed to be held in 12 cities across the world and being here in Tokyo doesn't help the matter anyways. Basically, all coordination needs to be done from here....and here I realized the importance of technology and team in this world.
So, what was the homework I did in IIMB for this? Basically, built up my team. I was not supposed to be present in all locations and success of the entire event depended on people who were supposed to be present in these locations. People will say my team was my "circle" only. But, then I openly admit that I purposefully did that. Nothing but personal equations work in a non-rewarding situation. At the same time, I build personal relationships with many others and they are now my closest friends.
Coming now to ground reality...the real action began when I reached here in Tokyo. I was supposed to get resources for my team. Initially, no body replied to my mails, I was frustrated with lack of support from any of my team members. Had I made the right choice? But, then this is not how it was supposed to work. I needed to lead, right! All initial work had to be done by me, nobody else would do it. Then began my series of cold calls, mails and pitches to Alumni for sponsorship. Coming back from work at 9 pm, and then making those calls/mails:- aah!! Selling an event with the worst possible past record and image was not easy. Frankly, it boiled down to begging and emotional appeals. It was a long cat and mouse game between me and alumni :)
So, where was my team? Well, they got into action when we had the sponsors, and they really did get into action! Certainly, few pinches of emotion and anger had to be put in from my side here and there :)
My target was to put the entire event into "auto-pilot" mode by last week and I was able to do that. In the last week, my involvement was nearly zero. Everyone knew their responsibility and deadlines. And finally, the event was a success.
A good experience for me! certainly....made some mistakes definitely. But, overall learnt a lot. It has certainly given me a lot more confidence in myself.
Can't forget the technology part here. Gmail, gtalk, telephone calls: really, world is so small!! I certainly realized it for the first time......
My greatest personal achievement: my team members are getting more credit than me for the event.

Orkut Profile of a Software Engineer

About me: I think I am changing the world, but I am not. I think I am contributing to the Indian economy, but I guess I am not. I think I love my work, but I do not. I think I hate all people who made me earn my engineering degree, and I do. I think I am living, but… and most importantly, I am LOOKING for someone!! Ok...I won't be funny anymore. I am a cool guy with a zeal to enjoy life (If you know me--> "Just stop laughing!!")

Relationship status: what?

Birthday: The day my PL is about to fire me

Age: 10111

Here for: web browsing in company hours

Children: can’t be (hey, don't get me wrong here!!)

Ethnicity: Programmer

Languages I speak: Java, C/C++, 010101110101

Religion: I get holidays on all religious festivals, so I love all religions.

Political view: the guy sitting beside me is a pig!!

Humor: weekly

Sexual orientation: When will I have sex?

Fashion: Ask my company HR. Btw, I like jeans, t-shirt and a cross-bag.

Smoking: The second greatest pleasure on the earth

Drinking: The first is this.

Pets: Yeah, my PL looks like a dog.

Living: Cummon, this is a stupid one. How can this be asked to a software engineer? Believe me, I am living!!

Hometown: My company (Oh God! Please bring my appraiser to this page)

Webpage: http://naukri.com, http://jobsahead.com

Passions: searching for the cheapest pub around, cursing my company, looking for another company, remembering my good old college days, worrying about my future

Sports: quake, CS, computer chess

Activities: Are you crazy?

Books: “How to lose weight in 20 days?”, "How to live a happy life?", "101 ways to attract a girl", “Java Unleashed”, “C++ at your footsteps”, Others censored

Music: Metallica, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, ACDC, and anything depressing

Tv shows: can’t afford one

Cuisines: Bread, Omelette, Butter, Maggi, anything available within 200 metres of home

And, the above post has been written by ME and its not a pick up!!

An interesting thought

I have borrowed this thought from my friend Aseem. Here I present this interesting comparison along with my inputs :)

The comparison is between JIT production and our risk-averse nature. I will start with a brief introduction to what happens in JIT which will help you appreciate the comparison better.

JIT: One of the cornerstone thought of JIT is that “Reduce inventory and capacity for improvement”. It is like a ship sailing over an ocean. More the water level, lower the probability that you will hit a stone. Inventory and excess capacity increases your water level. Everything goes on smoothly and you never feel any problem. JIT principle is to reduce this water level so that you fail and the, you improve.

Same thing is applicable to me and many of my batch mates from IIT and IIM. With 4 Is or 2 Is in their degrees, they have increased the water level. “Playing safe” seems to be the sole motive. Do IIT, then US/IIM, and then do a job. “Play safe” always. We are living in a small cocoon which guards us from failures, pains and miseries. And once you are guarded, you can never improve. Whoever said,“One failure teaches you more than 100 successes” is the greatest thinkers of all time (If nobody has said this, I am saying this :)).

One needs to reduce that water level to hit the road blocks and then learn. Otherwise, your boat will always sail across a river, it will never be able to voyage in an open ocean.