Apu’s World

From the mouths of babes.

Overheard yesterday, an 8-year old boy and a 6-year girl old playing on the street.

8-year old: I know a universal language. Do you know what that means?

6-year old: Yes, I know. Do you?

8-year old: Yes, it’s a language that everyone in the world can understand.

6-year old: No, stupid, universal language means when I speak in that language, everyone can understand me!

apu In General

I’ve finally found my spiritual home!

More prosaically - I got back last night from a wonderful, relaxing, refreshing trip to the Nilgiris. We are usually suckers for homestays and smaller places to stay in, but this time, we decided to stay at this resort, Kurumba Village - about 10-12 kms before you reach Coonoor on the Mettupalayam to Ooty road. We landed up on Fri morning, which meant we were the earliest guests; so we got the most secluded cottage on the property with the best view - spice plantation to the left and the mountains to our front and right.

I am not usually too keen on resorts because they feel impersonal, and one can’t predict if the service is going to be good or just passable. The Kurumba Village has got it absolutely right though - besides a very comfortable room, a beautiful property and a really well maintained pool, it was so nice to meet their genuinely cheerful and helpful staff - and not just a front desk person who is trained to do that, but everyone from the cleaners to the kitchen staff were such nice folks. This place has my vote if you ever go to this part of the world.

This has been one of the most relaxing vacations I’ve ever taken. One reason being that cell phones didn’t work there and we hadn’t taken a camera. Which meant, no interruptions, no taking away from the moment to record it. Just sitting out on the balcony watching the mountains, the green and the many avian visitors that we unfortunately couldn’t watch too closely, having forgotten our binoculars. We did get to see the Malabar squirrel though.

We took a short trip to Coonoor and the sheer ugliness of the place as it came into view took my breath away. Rectangular buildings in every colour cheek and jowl, overhanging electricity lines everywhere, hoardings, traffic - it was unbelievable that this could be a tourist place. Thankfully, as we passed the municipal bus stand area (which is what one sees first), some of the ugliness subsided and the character of Coonoor as a British-built old town is more visible. Upper Coonoor is still quiet and beautiful, with leafy lanes and little traffic. If you do want to stay in Coonoor town itself, make sure you don’t choose a hotel in the bus stand area.

Worthwhile visits in Coonoor include the Sims Park (a fixture on the tourist trail, and deservedly) and the All Saints Church, a beautiful 150 year old church that’s been well maintained and feels just as an old church should, with weeping willows all around the churchyard and its very own shaggy, lazy dog sunning itself.

I know there can be ‘withdrawal symptoms’ post a great vacation, but this time, I enjoyed the mountains so much that I really feel like I’ve left my true home behind. On our return, we found that sparrows have been busy building a nest in our bathroom, since we’d left the window open. Maybe that’s a sign that we’re no longer wanted here!

apu Travel Tales

Irandaam Jaamangalin Kadai, Tamil Muslim writer Salma’s first novel, which I’d enjoyed very much in the original is being released in English as ‘The Hour Past Midnight’. A review here, which isn’t entirely complimentary to the translation. Still, I’d say it’s worth reading. It is true that some of Salma’s language is highly specific to the Tamil Muslin community and perhaps to Southern Tamil Nadu. Yet, even if the dialect is difficult to capture, Salma’s insightful portrait of the community and of women’s lives within that constricted circle will hopefully shine through.

apu The Literary life, Women & Feminism

Yesterday I attended the ‘Walk the Talk’ event organized by the Bangalore Business Network, a day long event meant to help entrepreneurs by letting others ‘who’ve made it’ share their own stories. A few readers of this blog will know that I’m working on a new start-up idea (’new’ because one, I hope it offers something new to users, and two, because its also new compared to another idea I was working on but didn’t work out). I hope to announce it here by end September.

So, I thought the event would be useful to me. This is the first paid event of this kind I’ve attended as an independent, and having attended many such events during my corporate career, I was hoping that it wouldn’t turn out to be yet another boring session where people turn up mainly to be seen. Well, it wasn’t.

First, the good bits about Walk the Talk

• It was nice to have an event where the speakers genuinely shared learnings and useful ones at that. Mostly, speakers at such events seem to be under the notion that they are there to talk about how wonderful their company is.
• There was enough time for networking and this is important, because one of the things that sometimes is difficult for small-business entrepreneurs is working alone and not having people one can bounce off ideas with. Networking is also critical to start-ups in terms of meeting potential partners, clients and investors.
• The organizers tried to keep people to the schedule, and almost succeeded.

What could BBN have done better?

• Disproportionate focus on the whole VC funding area, despite some of the VCs themselves stating that very few businesses ever go in for or receive such funding. The first two speakers for instance were both in that area, and so was much of the panel discussion after that.
• I thought it would have helped to have a session on angel investors or funds available for small businesses. I bet the majority of firms operate in that area.
• In terms of logistics, many of the presentations had extremely small fonts and were hardly visible to those sitting at the back (like me) - of course, this is not something the organizers could control, I suppose. But, that’s a minor quibble - in most cases, the talk itself made up.

Some interesting learnings from each speaker

From Ravi Narayan of Mentor Partners (spoke on ‘Turning Ideas into Successful Businesses’):

• Entrepreneurship is all about “understanding and managing risk.” (He went on to talk about the key risks involved).
• Don’t re-invent the wheel when it comes to the funding cycle. It is well defined. First learn what kind of funding you qualify for (at different stages), so that you don’t waste your own time as well as the VC’s.
• More money doesn’t necessarily mean everything. Adopt a milestone-based, incremental approach and ask for the money that you ‘need’ at each stage. (I also got the impression that it can actually be dangerous for an entrepreneur to get too much money too early!)

From Parag Dhol of Inventus Capital (spoke on ‘Early Stage Funding’):

• It’s not just a VC who evaluates the funds-seeker. Entrepreneurs need to evaluate the VC too.

From Arjun Sekri, Founder of Daily Bread (a ‘My Story’ session):

• Your business may have a great idea, but it ‘works’ when there is a customer ready to pay for it.
• Getting into the eco-system is critical, not just building the product. Relationships with suppliers, employees, clients, partners etc can make or break you.

From the panel discussion with Suresh Narasimha of Telibrahma, Samir Kumar of Inventus and Krishna Kumar, Editor of DARE, acting as moderator:

• The recession is actually a great time to start-up - better costs, easier hiring and more flexibility from funders.
• During a recession, the ‘burn-rate’ becomes even more critical, i.e. how soon the business can get on its feet without relying on the funds injected. They said this in a VC context, but I think it applies regardless of where the money is coming from.

From Kartik KS, the Founder/CEO of 24X7 Learning (a ‘My Story’ session):

• Following others or the market blindly can be disastrous.
• Sometimes the business changes dramatically; flexibility and openness to servicing new opportunities is critical.

From Gina Campos Braganza, the Founder/CEO of TrumpIt/Opus (a ‘My Story’ session):

• How you structure your business makes a big impact on the taxes you pay.
• Sometimes, tax may even change the way you do business.
• Focus on cost-management, not just cost-cutting.
• Small businesses often turn a blind eye to compliance requirements and the results can be disastrous (in other words, get a lawyer and CA to advise you, from the beginning).

From Phanindra Sama, Founder/CEO of Redbus (a ‘My Story’ session):

• Creating a business can be fun, but crazy (he didn’t say this, but their own crazy journey towards creating Redbus convinced me!)
• When you actually go ’sell’ your product/service/concept, that’s when reality BITES you.
• Keeping core activities in-house is essential.
• You can partner even with your competitors, sometimes.

Unfortunately, I could not stay for the two panel discussions after that, which promised to be interesting - one on Emerging Markets (sports marketing) and another on Social Media Opportunities. While some of the learnings above may seem like what we call ‘motherhood statements’ (what’s the origin behind that, I wonder!), it was still worthwhile in the context of the stories and discussions, and of course, simple things are harder to actually practise.

apu Entrepreneurship

I came across this interesting tag at Art’s blog - it compelled me to get over my reluctance to ‘do tags’ mainly because it was an incentive for me to show off (to myself and to others), how many great novels I’ve read. No, seriously, I thought it would be interesting to do. The BBC apparently believes the average person would have read 6 of these 100 ‘most popular books’ (apparently because I can’t actually find a link which says that.)

Anyway, the instructions go like this: Copy this into your post. Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read. Tag other book nerds.

apu The Literary life