If you build something of value, the money will find you.

Often startups keep running for venture funding and scrap their plans for lack of funding. But, truth to be told, as in this article , less than 10% of startups receive any kind of funding. Which means only 1 out of 10. So what happens to the rest 9 out of 10. Do they die ? Not necessarily.

Getting a funding does not mean that your business will succeed and similarly, not getting a fund does not mean that you are doomed to fail. A lot of successful entrepreneurs have started their business and made them running using their own personal finances. Its often a very good idea to look for external funding only when you have a stable product built, and its ready to be sold/marketed.

But, how many of us do have that amount of time and money to experiment. Believing in an idea and sacrificing for it holds good only for some time. After that, you run out of patience and also money. Not to mention friends who tend to drift apart.

But I think those who can get through this period of trying, and keep similar-minded friends close are the ones who succeed. And then when you are successful in doing whatever you started with, say building a product, making it sell-able, money will follow you.

When to take the plunge ?

When I say plunge, I mean taking a plunge to start one's own business. I have seen a lot of people who have done it, and still more who want to do it. But most of them are what they call "arm-chair entrepreneurs", those who sit cozy in their homes and just think about doing big things, but do not actually take the plunge.

So what stops someone from taking the plunge. The reasons are many and very common and known to all (I call them 3 Fs : Family, Facility, Funds). I wont repeat them here.

What I have observed is that the reasons for taking the plunge are very similar, a passion to start something of one's own and take it further. A zeal to become the next Ambani or Nilekani. Apart from the common reasons, I have observed other very common reasons among these real entrepreneurs. Let me talk about a few of them.

1. Exposure : I think this is the most important and common to all. Most people whom I have seen starting of their own have done so because of some exposure or the other to a kind of environment where you are encouraged to think unique and achieve higher. The kind of college one goes to is one such environment. The fact that most of the entrepreneurs I have seen have some connection or the other from IIT/IIM is no coincidence. Also the company you are in. Literally and otherwise. Many start-ups have been started by ex employees of Yahoo, Oracle and Amazon. (Must be true of start-ups from other industries as well)

2. Knowledge (or lack of) : Its not about how much you already know, its about how you can achieve and gain further knowledge. Most people I have met did not know much about the business they got into when they started. If they had waited to gain the 'appropriate' knowledge, as most of us do,they would not have started ever. Fact is, we think we should have at-least the threshold value of skills/knowledge before we can make a plunge, and as we grow in maturity and experience, with the amount of knowledge, the threshold increases as well. So it is kind of chasing a constantly moving target.

3. Funds : Most of us think that we can not start a business without Funds. This is partly true. We need funds, but we need ideas first. Funds are the last thing to be worried about. If we have an idea and the passion we can get the funds needed. There are ways.  Might sound more philosophical than practical, but its true. One must not think about funds to start with.

Now to answer the question (When to take the plunge?) - The answer is NOW. If anytime is the right time, it is now.

What about me ? Well, I am going to do it as well. I did a lot of thinking myself. Was engaged in a lot of personal issues (I also have my own excuses) but now after doing an year long of thinking, I am taking the plunge. To start with I will be doing an MBA and then will be starting of my own. I did some work in a start-up in the last 1.5 years and I think an MBA will give me the time and knowledge to think about what went wrong and what can be done more in that.

[References]

http://www.lifebeyondcode.com/2010/03/14/why-some-smart-people-dont-take-action/

MBA Volunteers

Came across MBA Volunteers, who help MBA aspirants in providing feedback on their MBA application in-exchange for a donation to a non-profit organization.

http://www.mbavolunteers.org/

Neat idea. People volunteering come from a diverse background and are ex and current students in top B-Schools in the world like INSEAD, Harvard, Kellogs ...

And the proof that this idea is indeed good - this idea was a Runner-up: The Good Idea Competition 2008, London Business School.

How it works:

1. Check for availability of the volunteers by mailing them,

2. Make a donation to the charities listed on their website (they are real non-profit organizations and not fake). You must make a minimum donation of $175 USD per application.

3. E-mail your application materials to them and get a feedback in 4-5 days.

Note that they will not actually write the essays, or fill the application for you, but you will get an idea of how you fare in terms of the target b-schools, GMAT score, profile, essay quality etc.

[Disclaimer]

I have not personally used their service, so I don't promise or guarantee any satisfaction, value for money etc. I am not associated in any way to this group and hence I don't have any motive behind publishing this here. Its all in good-faith. Do spread the word if you like the idea or the service.

The light’s better here

The joke goes like this - Someone was looking for something on the ground below a lamp-post. The cop asks him, did you lose something. He replies "yes, i lost my keys". Cop - "Did you lose them here ?" .  The man replies "no, I lost them over there, but the light's better here."

Most of us figure out what to search for , or figure out a brilliant business idea but spend most of our time in the wrong place. This is what is called as "majoring in minors" (courtesy this video). Most people spend major time and effort in minor things and cant figure the more important things.

Example being when starting a website. Spending most of time in developing it, using cool and newest technologies, starting from scratch, but missing out on things like target audience, business proposition. If  you do not know whats the size and type of your customer, your website is doomed to die. So 90% of the thing could be to launch it, but the most important thing would be the last 10%.

Moral of the story - Do not just concentrate on what is the easiest to do. Concentrate on whats more important. Searching for the key under the lights might be an easy task but you are going to fail as the key is not there.

The elevator pitch

Elevator Pitch

Came across a nice video about how to pitch about your business idea to an investor in a 2 minute presentation.

A good elevator pitch is made up of two key elements

1.layout the pain statement - what you are trying to solve

2.value proposition - how does your venture solve that problem

A good elevator pitch must pass four key tests

1. It should be short - you might have just 2 mins to deliver your pitch

2. It should be easy to understand - even a non technical guy should be able to get the idea.

3. It must be greed inducing - how are you planning to get $$ and how much ?

4. It must be irrefutable - must be self explaining and leave the investor with more answers and less questions.

Quite impressive !

Relocating and a business idea

I came across this site called relocateeasy.com . It claims to provided end to end solution while relocating, starting from finding a rental accomodation, packers, moving your LPG connection etc etc..

Cool, isn't it.

Thinking about relocation, another idea hit me today. I have given out my number and address to a bunch of restaurants. And when I relocate, its going to take some time and effort to register my new address. Huh !

Well, what can be done is a registry, online of course, to keep your number and address updated. And the pizza guys just pick that up from the registry instead of their own database. This solves two purposes. First, any new restaurant or cab company need not create or store its own database to store numbers and addresses. This would be handy when you do not want to invest too much on such things for a startup. Secondly for the users, its easy to update the details.

Any takers !