January 1st, 2012 § § permalink
This post is truly inspired, ohh and well, before I begin, its 1st January 2012 and I wish everyone a healthy, happy, loving and successful new year!
Its been about a month odd for me using a Windows Phone. Its a Samsung Focus, a phone not yet available in India. Now before I talk about the specs, unboxing it is as simple as any other phone in the market. The built is good, easily fits in your hands, good camera.
So much so for the phone, but what’s inside is, what makes it sexy!
The phone is a Windows Phone, I upgraded it to Mango. But let me rewind the picture a little before we go ahead. Before this phone, I was using a Symbian Nokia e63 QWERTY phone. Obviously since I have been using it for many years now, I was used to it. So much so that I could write an SMS without looking at the phone even while driving on Delhi streets.
Experiment Begins – going back to Symbian!
After about 22 days of WP, I again tried going back to the Symbian I have been using. Surprisingly, it took me time to go back to the QWERTY keys. One of the reactive thoughts I had in my brain was how the sense of touch and the great UI of the windows phone had got me hooked. The ease of sliding through pictures, the intelligent word suggestions by the phone while writing SMS’s/ Notes had hooked me to quicken things up and I loved it.
The story before the WP experience
All my pals who had a touch screen phone, majorly the iPhone before, I had a single question for them, as to, how could they type SMS’s so fast on the touch screen? It took me about 5 days to get used to the same and today I find intuitive typing and suggestions on the WP far better than my old Symbian.
Intelligence and Dependency
Obviously in this age of social networking and with a lifestyle which demands constant brain uptime, there is always a need of syncing things up. The WP, synced my social networks with such an amazing ease that to know the various events, I don’t even have to log into facebook anymore. I have my calendar ready at least with Birthdays’ etc. already.
Ohh that Address for the meeting
Going for meetings to places which are completely new, a simple meeting request on the WP gets synced to the calendar with all the information which is available in one touch. With the Symbian, the story was a little cumbersome and different.
There is a whole love story happening here, the design which fits in the hands, the sense of touch which is invigorated at every touch of the screen and the story which it creates, makes the WP an experience in itself.
Let your machines be closer to the human emotion and you have a killer product!
One experiential lesson I have learnt from the entire experience is that engineers who are focused on making the next killer product should look at learning from two things:
- Nature
- Human Senses and Emotions
Coz, if your product co-creates that ohh so inspiring and awe creating love story with your user, well, you have a blockbuster with you!!
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November 5th, 2011 § § permalink
This one’s going to be interesting. Just a couple of days back, the Noida DND Flyway, which is one of the fastest ways to commute between Delhi and Noida, announced a toll hike of INR 2 for four wheelers, which in figures is INR 22 from INR 20 previously and INR 1 for two wheelers.

Now this is not the first ever toll hike in recent years, but what is interesting about this hike is the purpose with which it has been done. For people who are new to the entire thing, let me give a little introduction on the numbers:
According to a news report by the Times of India, in February 2011, almost 1 lakh vehicles use the DND Flyway daily. I am myself a daily user of the DND Flyway and I see a fairly large number of four wheelers using the DND Flyway on a daily basis.
I asked this question (why did DND Flyway increase the toll) to many people before this blog and almost everyone responded with an obvious answer, to increase their revenue. Now that’s obvious.
User Behavior and Revenue – penny saved is a penny earned
Lets look at the picture from a user behavior perspective! If you are using the toll plaza, you obviously are wanting to save on time and that’s why you are ready to invest money into crossing the toll, otherwise you are always free to use the kalindi kunj, Yamuna flyover, which is generally jammed during rush hours. Having INR 2 in your pocket each time you pass the toll plaza will sooner than later, become a frustrating activity. You cannot always keep looking for change and hence spend more time doing what you were initially doing to save time for.
Chances are, you will one day reach out and get yourself a silver/ gold card made, which will make your commute far simpler and easier. The cards will do couple of things:
- Ensure that the Toll plaza confirm revenue at the first level of transaction itself
- Reduce ground staff in terms of the actual toll management personnel and invest into better resources probably
- Get correct data figures which help in strategic decision making
All of this, by simply playing with the user behavior. This is an interesting case which pretty much reflects, how powerful can real customer understanding can be. If you understand your customer amazingly well, you will always be able to visit and re-visit and engage your customer just the right way.
User behavior understanding and knowledge of the customer has led to making of brands like Apple and the amazing products that people take pride in owning today. Get the lesson straight, its about your customer and how well you know him/ her, so get this piece right and you will be on your way to a great business!
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October 7th, 2011 § § permalink
Social networking has been around since sometime now. There’s much content around. There’s a lot of sharing, caring, love and what not. What was missing still, as I said it before, was the real understanding of the ‘Human Behavior’ by the social network. I am not referring to the real Artificial Intelligence, that might also happen one day, but social networking has a real face to it. Its more human really than technology.
Interestingly facebook, recently did couple of interesting changes in the UI and especially how they are evolving their brand pages. The entire concept of brand pages is essentially to provide an online space for brands to reach out and engage its target audience OR as I believe, targeting is the second level, first its about attracting just the available audience.
Look below your fan page likes
Recently facebook added something interesting below your fan page likes ‘number’. They added something called the People Talking About! This number essentially represents the number of people who are talking about your brand (mentioning you in comments, liking updates) etc. in a week. As an obviously logical extension to the thought, the more the number of people talking, the more is your brand reaching out to the relevant target audience.
Word of mouth
Now don’t feel as if I am traversing to a whole new topic. Interestingly what I feel is, there is a lot that facebook is doing to model the real world online. I find this very interesting. For me, since I have known social networks, I have always said, a successful social network is the one, which can understand the human behavior well and model it. And facebook is doing just that.
The number of people discussing your brand on facebook, is now visible to you, which is pretty much like the word of mouth which is one of the strongest ways of brand marketing in the real ‘offline’ world.

Social Network and the Human Behavior
I strongly believe, the future of social networking and hence the success of a global super social network really will revolve around the fact as to how well would the network understand the basic human nature and behavior and then model the various products and services around the same.
Make the platform effortless to engage with.
Statistics will always matter to businesses and Insights always help
One of the strongest advances which facebook has made in the last few days are to strengthen their “page” insights. Any brand which can intelligently gather data points and make worthwhile inferences from them, can leverage the free insights to better their understanding of the customer they are engaging with, online.
These are interesting times and such small yet powerful productized services from social networking platforms will surely change the game for everyone around.
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June 20th, 2011 § § permalink
Of all the things in the world, money makes everything go round and round. And well, in today’s times, when everything around you is growing, so is the inflation, when the top chart-buster song of the year is: mehngaai dayan khaaye jaat hai, you obviously need to ensure that you manage your money well.
Managing Money
Now, in my life, I have my parents, my wife, my grandma, everyone has their own view of how to manage money. And interestingly when I hear of their views, I feel like wow, how have we as humans evolved overtime to reach to where we are and how was our parent’s time and their tryst with earning money and building things from bottoms up and what times do we live in, when we have increasing buying power in our hands and we are growing!
The Challenge With Managing Money:
The biggest challenge which I see and have encountered with managing money is to keep a constant track of it while I am constantly on the move. Let me confess, life has become so upwardly mobile that today I check about my health as well, on my mobile devices. As we are growing to the next level of growth, we are getting dependent on technology to simplify our lives.
Thank God, My bank is in My Pocket!
YES! I am not kidding and neither have I lost it and sure I haven’t yet gotten a free debit card with unlimited cash to spend. What I do have is, I am a customer with the Standard Chartered bank, since the past couple of years. While I have been banking with them, overtime, I realized that in my tenure with them, I have rarely gone to the branch. The online banking is so fast and quick, that it serves me everything and in no time.
Sure, I had my own doubts in terms of being a “private bank” and how will it survive the Indian shores, but as their campaign says, here for good, I believe it now.
A Fresh Breeze of Mobility
Recently I got to know that SCB has launched a mobile banking platform across all possible devices and platforms which we know of today called: Breeze! I mean from iPhone to Nokia to whatever you can imagine, its there! So effectively speaking, now I have the bank in my pocket wherever I go, whatever I be doing. Its simple.
Why am I so happy about it that it occupies a space on my blog, well, because I realize how easy will it now be for me to access my bank without any hassles.
How does it look like?
As I always do, a sneak peek into the whole new world of easy, fast and on the move banking in your pocket!




And obviously I expect my bank to give this to me at no extra cost, so have they. The app is free for download on any mobile device you use.
Happy breezing, I am personally satisfied that SCB understands, as we grow ahead and move faster, technology has to make our lives simpler and not complex. Good to be your customer guys, keep up the great work!
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February 7th, 2011 § § permalink
A recent post I contributed to the IndiaMART Knowledge Services Blog:
The business needs more minds on board: lets get Co-founders
At the start-up stages of a business, while it all starts with the passion and dream of either an individual or a team of friends/ common connects together, who are committed to adding value by creating services/ products for addressing the market needs.
Two to tango: look around
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, all these major businesses have been built by two or more partners. There is a certain chemistry that works wonders for a growing venture when like-minded people come together to create an enterprise. There sure are many successful businesses, which have been created by entrepreneurs single-handedly and there will always be, but even they have felt the need for getting more people and especially those, who are smarter than them, on board to drive real value of their ventures.
Its a relay baton
Sports teach many a lessons in business. The relay race in which the baton is passed by the first runner to his/ her partner, who carries the same further to the finish line is a perfect example of an enterprise being set-up by a core team/ co-founding team.
There is a sense of strength, bonding, sharing and mutual growth in such teams which actually takes the venture further to achieve greater heights. Many a times, when an entrepreneur loses steam and feel down and out, its the real jet setting that is received by the core team sharing the same vision and dream, which gets him. her back on track! The core team is like a band of brothers which plays the same tune at all times and knows each others moves with just the look of the eye.
How is it being single?
We have seen and met many ‘single’ entrepreneurs who have expressed the need of actually getting someone on board at a senior level with them, but one of the major most challenges they face is the passion.
A major learning we received from such entrepreneurs is, finding such people is easy, who are passionate initially looking at the opportunity, but there have been instances when that passion fizzles out and the steam runs out.
Strikingly, we have also seen instances where the teams have dis-integrated post the joining of members on board who have great potential but are a cultural mis-fit to the organisation and hence not really well aligned with the growth of the enterprise.
Hence many a times people (ready to mingle) say its good and bad being Single.
Did you get your Horoscopes match?
Like in a marriage, in business, a few rules do apply. Its always good to have more people adding real value to your business in more ways than one. But you must see that your Co-founders must have the same set of values, principles, goals and vision for the business.
They must also be at least till a certain extent like minded on business issues as yourself. Its about how being a ‘Couple’ is. The chemistry quickly shows.
Lessons Learnt: A complexity increases, define the KRA’s
In the highly complex business ecosystem today much of the human reactive approach is aspirational. And aspirations may change with time and may also hence instigate a change in the behavior and needs and wants of various people. The same may also happen with the co-founding team of a business venture.
*IndiaMART Knowledge Services team has hence identified for such businesses the smart move is to quickly and clearly define KRA’s and ensure that a 100% ownership of the same is taken and well adhered to.
Finally, there are times, when marriages don’t work and its time to bid adieu
Yes, marriages are supposed to be made in heaven, but God helps those who help themselves and hence you have to work towards making a successful married life. A strong bond, a relationship forever.
Similar is the relationship which has to be worked upon amongst your Co-founders who have to really work hard in aligning themselves with the core vision of the business and place the business before self. But at times this may really not work and if its the case, keeping the business concerns alive and kicking and working towards its growth, the partners may have to look towards exiting out.
Its not easy to leave your own dream mid way, but as we have spoken to so many entrepreneurs who have been through such experiences, well, it sure will give you a huge relief which will set you activated once again to further look for challenges and create real value.
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December 26th, 2010 § § permalink
Is there something called a perfect organisation?
While looking back at my personal experiences over years of both working for large organisations ranging from IT to BPO to Wealth Management to running my own enterprise today into Social Media and Business Processes, with this blog post, I intend to share my learnings, which answers this deep question, which I have been asked many a times by professors/ lecturers/ thinkers during my talks and lectures, is there something called a perfect organisation?
Before we answer it, lets go back to basics: what is an organisation?
One of the strong personal attributes I have developed overtime in myself is to learn by making things simple for myself. By breaking them down into simpler, more recognizable, more achievable, more understandable pieces of information.
Let me hence break the word ‘Organisation’ down and one of the inherent parts is: ORGANIZE. Organizing is a way of being. It could be as simple as organizing things around you.
In the context of a company organizing is all about working with people, all aligned to an over-arching vision. Its about building a powerhouse of people who collaborate and work together to achieve a common purpose and create an institution. All of them may join in with a separate purpose, they all might have a different definition of achievement and may also come on-board with different set of goals to achieve, but they all align together while creating a common vision.
But Is There a Perfect Organisation?
I believe so. Though just like life, as we all learn and keep learning and grow to be better and more evolved human beings, same goes with Organisations. Every organisation evolves and lets also keep in view, every start-up may kick-start with a business plan, which may not remain the same or even be near to what the start was a few years down the line.
Then what is Perfect, you may ask?
Valid question. What is perfect is the answer to the question on what is an organisation. Its about people. Its about the fact that as an Organisation and as the CEO/ Top management of the Organisation, you be one with the reality that each one of your people are different. They all come with different values and bring onto the table a whole new set of beliefs.
But then is it not a lot of work to manage so many expectations? Well, not really. Its about keeping the freedom of expression of your employees, giving it value and creating the right ecosystem around them to build upon the very many values they bring together and creating powerful opportunities.
But this is common gyaan, what is perfect in this?
Yes it is common gyaan! Lets re-visit our mythology a little. Lord Krishna’s story has a major mention of a form of dance which he used to perform with his loving female followers (gopiyan).

If you carefully observe the image above, you will see an ORGANISATION. Yes, Krishna stands right at the center of the circle. And mind you, its a dance that is happening. Its a platform where all the gopiyan (your employees) are set free to express themselves. They do it, not because of any rules set around them. They do it of free will. They do it for pure passion. They do it for the love of Krishna (employees work).
Its also said that Raas Leela used to happen at night time (which is a time which is when your offices don’t work (if you aint a BPO), an informal environment) a time when everyone is in their own element.
So now coming back to the Perfect Organisation: what’s perfect about the Raas Leela? Look at the circle around Lord Krishna. Its a perfect circle in which the Gopi’s dance. Thwy do it not because of a set rule that it has to be a circle, but because of adhering to a common over-arching reasoning which says that we would like to be all around our Love, Our Krishna.
What am I suggesting?
While running my own company, I am powerfully intending to set up an organisational structure, where employees are free to express themselves. They are empowered with the ecosystem around them, which allows them to quickly get into the groove of the over-arching vision, such that they don’t have to forcibly work hard in aligning themselves to the expectations of the organisation or work hard to set themselves to the organisational culture.
Instead, they become the Culture.
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December 25th, 2010 § § permalink
This blog post comes straight from the heart! Yes, I know its been quite sometime that Iv blogged.
Its been quite some action while running an emerging company and building it towards setting up an institution. This blog is dedicated to success, grit and determination, proving against all odds and well, smart business.
This is a story right from the Bollywood successes, happily ever after series. The hero here is someone we know as Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who further on transformed into a super-hero called: VSS
I met VSS on November 14th 2008 at the NASSCOM EMERGE Friday’s 2.0 session, which I LIVE blogged and well, let me tell everyone reading this story, it was one of the most appreciated sessions ever. There were many compliments, but the one which resounded again and again from many people who attended the session was: this dude has his numbers clear right at the back of his hand!!
A small excerpt from my post: So for the first time I am blogging LIVE about a guy who is a prodigy literally! A guy who finished schooling @ 14. Became an engineer by 19 sold off his first startup for bucks and today owns a billion call mobile communications company
Starting from his first ever billing of INR 30,000 and the next 10 times of the revenue and now well, One97 recently became a decade old or should I say a decade strong and well, the next milestone soon to be achieved and set is the listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange! What better a New Year gift?
I visited the One97 office in Nodia last year and well, sure I was awed by the growth which the One97 team has collaboratively
achieved. I remember sitting with VSS in one of the conference rooms in the evening and discussing opportunities and the next tweet from him for me was: you are a brilliant man 2.0
What about the man?
Well, you will find a normal guy standing in front of you, in his trademark denims looking at you and you would never be able to realize he is going to list his company on the BSE. Talk to him and he will share a whole ammo of numbers and industry insights. And sure it has not been an easy essay to write for him. He has had his own share of challenges in life which he never resigned to and overcame to win.
In a recent workshop I took for a group of 200 emerging animation professionals from various parts of India into personal branding and positioning, I was proud to share with the audience the man behind the show and though obviously they may not know him, but sharing his story, sure kicked the fire in them!
But Why am I Sharing this Story amongst the many success stories?
Well, yes, I, in my entrepreneurial career have met and connected with various entrepreneurs who started from scratch and have established success stories. And with all due respects, I sure am learning from each one of them.
But knowing VSS the way I have, he sure is one man, who, say what you may, has proven that whatever comes, keep going strong and you will get what you want!
My best wishes to One97 and the team and let me now go and re-activate my trading account, obviously I will be taking stock in One97!!
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October 2nd, 2010 § § permalink
Social Media Marketing – are your kidding me?
Yes Sir, I am asking this question. Being the CEO of a fast emerging Social Media for Enterprise company, I am asking you this question, are you kidding me, when you say, Social Media Marketing?
Social Media – When Did it Become All About Marketing?
Well, its been a little over 3 years and Iv been hearing a buzzzzzzz word (yes the buzz has been longer than I expected it to be) called: Social Media Marketing. I know of so many small and large companies who are making hay while the sun shines by doing something called: Social Media Marketing.
But Marketing – That’s it?
Is it all about just marketing? Is it? I have seen this media grow and its effects and the various ways which companies have leveraged this media in. From plain simple blogging to Viral campaigns, all’s been said and done.
There have been some pretty major campaigns which found their place under the sun and in the hearts of people. There were funny videos of Ghazal Singers Selling Microsoft Software to Online gangs of the fair sex selling beauty products.
Time to Learn!
Social Network: a social network is nothing other than a network group of people who may have multiple objectives to join the same.
When did it Become All about Marketing?
Well, when did Social Networks become all about marketing? Where did the whole aspect of a knowledge economy go? When did real knowledge collaboration take a back seat?
The Dynamics of Marketing and How Online Media has Affected Them?
There are major theories being written and shared all across the world. I agree no less, there’s definitely a fundamental shift which has taken place overtime, since people have started connecting globally with each other. Its really about empowerment. People today feel empowered with the sudden freedom of speech, sudden freedom of connecting globally, sudden expansion of vision and opportunities.
And since these people play various roles in their normal course of life: parents, students, employees, bosses, employers, buyers, sellers etc. hence each one of them see these social networks as a way to connect with like minded people globally, they feel empowered.
Are You Mar-Kidding?
I ask the marketers now, are you Mar-Kidding? Yes!
There is a whole new set of aware, jazzy, savvy customers online, so obviously they have to be tapped into. Lets become a Social Media Marketing company and help our customers connect with their prospects online. Great thought! And no doubts, businesses are investing into this media.
But let me share in my experience of why many businesses do:
- Part of an experimental marketing budget
Businesses are yet to really see the powerful nature of this media. And why do I say that? Because let me go and ask how many of them can really quantify the results and how many of them really had clarity on their business objectives before even stepping into this mode and exploring the New Media as a marketing option!
- My competition is there and they are somehow successful, I want to be as well
Let me put it straight and I actually put it the same way for my customers as well. If DELL made couple of million dollars in revenue by executing a solid strategic thought on the Social Media, leveraging channels like twitter and the concept of community building, well, yes it did. But that ends right there. There is no point creating a parallel.
If I am not online, I am lagging behind as a business. If nothing else, at least I would get more interesting insights about my business online.
I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ALL THIS
My problem is: many businesses, and when I say businesses, I come from experience across the board from Small and Medium enterprises to Large Enterprises, which operate globally. Many of these businesses are really not fully decided upon what their business objectives are for leveraging the Social Media.
And before I go ahead, my disclaimer is, just like in every domain there are good and bad both, hence I am not generalizing every company, but many run of the mill Social Media Marketing companies (who have normal Bcom pass graduates who may have never read what a brand really is, taking about branding) as their resources to save cost and increase margins, go to these businesses and tell them its about Marketing boss.
Your customers are here! They are already talking, you are missing the bus!
And even before the customer can actually sit and deliberate, he says, what the heck, let me just start with a small amount and rope this company as my vendor and test waters.
THIS IS RUINING THE MARKET
Today, I personally know of business owners (who are good friends), who invested quite some money into the Social Media and after 6 months said: okay I am here there everywhere, but I dont really get how my business got affected?
When you have inexperienced lots working with enterprises, you are actually delivering a cake which is half baked and which will eventually burn out. Its as simple as a Chinese Specialist trying an Italian Cuisine while writing on his LinkedIn profile, I am an Expert in Global Cuisines.
Why Are Majorly All Social Media Marketing Companies Saying: The Indian Customer is Not Able to Appreciate our Services
Well, this one is a common sentence and though many people may shy away from saying this in public, but Iv heard it from the horses’ mouth, owners of Social Media Agencies saying: Indian Customers are not paying us as much, they don’t appreciate these services as much.
I agree to Disagree.
Show the customer value and he will pay
– this has been my thought process since the very beginning and even today as I am running an emerging company, I know how far have we come and how fast have we actually evolved, all thanks to some fantastic mentors we have on board who come with a global perspective and insight.
A Practical Example
Since I like taking examples to effectively communicate with people, let me put across the story of Until ROI in few lines. We started as a run of the mill Social Media Marketing company but soon realized that being just another one would be NON-SENSICAL.
There is no point being a fish between sharks already there and more fishes mushrooming at every nook and corner.
That is when we decided to take help of mentors who come on board with over 100 + years of cumulative global experience. And well, we changed and changed for the good.
But what did we do?
- Invested in people – we have a small but smart team of people who have relevant experience and sure we pay not just at par, in some cases, better than companies at least 20 times our size
- INNOVATE – INNOVATE – INNOVATE – we came up with a whole new thought process for leveraging the New Media for businesses
- Value Driven Solutions – our existing clients who needed more as they kept getting more insights into their businesses, we have been flexible enough to learn from their requirements and wallah, we have come up with some fantastic process based solutions
What’s been the result?
As a simple answer, we are a: Social Media for Enterprise company today
with happy enterprise clients.
Final Word!
I would like all Social Media Marketers to actually help businesses help create strong processes, both Internal and External and help them bridge the gap with not only their customers externally (who pay) but also the customers internally (employees, management).
We must help businesses understand the dynamics of being Social and how and why must a business actually go towards going public and not let it become a small paying experiment.
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February 5th, 2010 § § permalink
Before I start this post, I must confess, that since childhood, like many others, @billgates has been a hero. I always dreamt of seeing him and had my brush with him, when I LIVE blogged a session which he chaired, while being felicitated by NASSCOM, in New Delhi.
When I was pursuing my bachelors, Microsoft was a name which resounded like a dream coming true and a company to work with.
A couple of days back when @billgates joined twitter, I was looking at what comments have people to make and it was interesting to see how someone who may not stand even an inch to where @billgates does (whatever it may be, I respect the man, a self made achiever). There were all sorts of comments starting from welcoming him, to people talking about their Apple iPODs and the downfall of the Microsoft era.
At a recent conference which I blogged, one of the highly placed speakers, Founder of a Cloud based business application services company from India, had a bold statement to make, that MS is going to be history soon. At that time, I may not have had the understanding of the real dynamics of his statement, but today as I get to know more about the deep mess, I realize how things have shaped up and being a person I am, I still think, MS has all the chances in the world to fight back.
While reading an interesting post by a previous MS employee at the New York Times as to how MS lead to creative destruction, I was not much shocked at the story, as it was something, I knew from my interaction with many similar others.
In multiple minds, while writing this post, I am an entrepreneur and run a startup and I understand how the leadership of a company truly affects the entire structure and hierarchy. The mindset, the culture. Almost each one of us today has grown up, seeing the Office, Windows OS, though today the quality has gone down, there is no innovation and we have stopped expecting the days when Microsoft was supposed to be telling the future.
Though being an optimist, I again want the company to bounce back, fight the clutter. There is nothing really impossible. Its a shift required at a large scale, but that is what is required, otherwise this would make for the saddest story in business.
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October 13th, 2009 § § permalink
I landed back from Mumbai just yesterday and surely it was great LIVE Blogging the biggest Leadership event ever in India. Out of my many experiences in the financial capital of India and the city of dreams. Bollywood stars and the rest, I found this very amazing example of simple yet striking innovation by an entrepreneur.
This is what I found:

What you see in the picture above, no its not a Google van! Its the freshest and the best Gola (ice candy) made of fresh mineral water and fruit juices called Gogola India.
I bumped across this van while I was going for a meeting on the Hill street near the Globus mall in Mumbai and just for the fun of it and to interact with the van guys, I did buy two Golas from the van. The van looked pretty okay (a second hand maruti van) with all the electrical machines inside to make a good gola in seconds.
Interestingly, the menu is like an IE page, which gives you all the options of the various flavors available
simple, yet unique!
The Revenue figures of a single van which stands since 12pm till late in the night and keeps rotating in between two streets in Mumbai are:
- Daily sale (golas): 300 (in good times) 150-200 (in normal business days)
- Price per gola : INR 30
- Positioning of van is changed on weekdays and weekends
- There are more than 10 vans in the city, doing the rounds
My Feedback and Comments as an Incubation Consultant:
- Good to see that the logo has been duly trade-marked (good asset)
- Good revenue model (taking in consideration, all operational costs, costs of building the supply chain, maintenance of vehicle etc.)
- Simple and effective!
The Gola I had, was pretty good and was surely packed in a healthy manner, with properly kept juice/ color bottles.

I very strongly feel, the kind of Innovation we have in India, is amazing! Its simplistically brilliant and a concept which can surely become into an auto-generating proposition, and once your brand is recognizable, and you have a size, you can diversify.
Kudos to the entrepreneur
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