Tyranny of the Minority

Grand slam for free market capitalism. Whenever one group of people finds an arbitrage opportunity to make a lot of money, another group of people will inevitably claim that the gains are ill-gotten or achieved through malintent. How many times has the “protection of minority rights” covered up the inefficient distribution of capital/power/freedom. Thank god we have people like Equity Private to come bat against the big boys of journalism. Just goes to show how phenomenal user generated content and other “web 2.0” ideas can check the tyranny of the minority, so to speak.

Can We Get the Ball Rolling?

We continue the long, slow, and circuitous route of trying to start this venture. Coming from a banking background, the most frustrating part is that we have not ground out the details. I understand what the overall vision of the Company is (though that too is still subject to change and may be the subject of another post) but I want to see progress and definition in writing; business plans, roles & responsibilities. Only then will I feel comfortable that progress is being made. Is this normal? Is this how most entrepreneurs think? Rajesh Jain believes that the entrepreneur should be a visionary and not be fully focused on the bottom line. If the idea is innovative enough, the money will come. He has 16 more years of experience on me and I am just escaping banking, but I feel like the innovation is only half the battle. Reading tech and VC blogs has taught me that many people have excellent ideas but you have to ultimately translate that into a model that can generate cash quickly or generate market share quickly – which will ultimately generate cash.

Maintaining Innovation

A little background on what we are trying to do. Initially the concept, as I understood it, was to license a piece of software that had been developed in the U.S. for exclusive resale in India. With that in mind we would basically be a sales and marketing driven organization. As I run the idea by more and more people, I have come to realize that to really make the organization interesting and worth working for, we need to have a stake in the innovation of the product and also the ability to adapt it to local market conditions. It seems that the other partners are confident we are going to be able to play the innovation game but for me it is very important that we lock this into the structure of the Company. I understand that I am being vague and will continue to do so until there is more clarity and the point of operation becomes tangible.

Back at It

Finding the time to write is tough. . . . buuuut, now that I’m unemployed that may change – may because I’m kind of a, you know, procrastinator. The plunge has been taken and I just walked out of my extremely fancy offices in Nariman Point for the last time. I feel free, but there are a few downsides for the next couple of weeks. I am trying to start a “telecom services” firm with a few partners. The Chairman (though we are not sure what the structure of the firm will look like yet) is in the process of starting two business (one of them being mine) and is currently employed at a large telecom firm. The future CTO is also working and has been traveling a lot lately. Now that I have time on my hands I need to be the one who pushes both of these folks to get the ball rolling. . . . I don't think I will be able to sit at home all day reading tech blogs. . . .though to some of you that would be the life.