Apu’s World

Recently, a friend of mine mentioned that she was planning to start up a Women Entrepreneur’s Group in Bangalore, and asked me if I’d like to join up. Now, I am a woman and I am self-employed, so I do fit the definition, but something held me back from giving a very enthusiastic response. I wondered whether women as entrepreneurs faced distinct and unique challenges which created the need for such a group. After all, generating funding, identifying a market, attracting customers, sustaining cash flow - these are issues that all entrepreneurs must face. I did however see one point in such a group. 

Women in white collar jobs (the audience for this group) often do not have the same networking opportunities that men do. Numerically, men usually outnumber women by a large factor, in most industries. Men tend to go out together for a drink or generally hang out in informal circles, where women usually are not that comfortable (except in some fairly progressive industries such as media or advertising, where gender doesn’t seem to make such a difference). Women therefore get lesser exposure to new ideas, trends, important people who can help make deals or even just to industry gossip. A women’s networking group can then, in a sense help to introduce women entrepreneurs to others in related industries and throw open some opportunities which don’t come by so easily. 

There could also be some subjects that appeal mainly to women. Balancing a business with a family, for instance is not a topic that most Indian men are likely to be concerned with, at the moment. A networking group may not really “help” in such an area, but women entrepreneurs may find it useful to talk to others in a similiar situation. 

My friend also told me that one reason she was starting a women-specific group was that other existing networking groups in the city, often met at times inconvenient for women with families. And this is where I started thinking whether a networking group would really make much of a difference. While not denying that women have fewer opportunities to network, I wonder if women’s progress in a workplace or at their own businesses is held back not so much by lack of networking, as by the fact that women are usually the sole care-givers for children. As long as women see themselves as the sole (or primary) care-giver of children, and familial as well as societal expectations also support this, will it matter much even if convenient timings are found? 

Even those women who come back to full-time jobs or run their own businesses may find themselves holding back due to home commitments. Socialising with colleagues or meeting a potential new client in the evening may take a backseat if the children are waiting at home. Any time can be a bad time for networking, simply because childcare often is a full-time job. And this really is the key difference between men’s and women’s career paths : It’s not just that men are better at networking (perhaps because there are more men around) or that they get more opportunities at it; it’s simply that men can more easily afford the time to do it. As Deb over at In a Strange Land puts it, women need wives too!

apu Entrepreneurship, Women & Feminism

Many people (including me) have this burning conviction that we’re meant to do something by ourselves - setting up your own business is becoming more and more common in India, as people start earning better at an earlier age and can afford to take more risks by the time they are 30 or so.

Naturally, where there is interest, there is opportunity, and where there is opportunity, can scammers be far behind? Via Escape from Cubicle Nation, I came across Business Week’s slideshow story on the 10 Most Common Home-Business Scams. Not all qualify strictly as “home” business, but all of them are essentially tricks that wannabe entrepreneurs fall for. (sometimes, people who’d just like some extra income while taking care of family, too.)

Have a look!

apu Entrepreneurship

The Open Coffee Club, Bangalore describes itself as a “an open forum for Entrepreneurs, VC’s and budding Entrepreneurs to come together and connect with each other at the grass root level”. While I am no entrepreneur yet, I do hope to start up something in the next few months. So, when I heard from my friend, Rashmi about this Club meeting every forthnight to chew the fat, listen to experts speak and yadda-yadda-yadda, I decided to attend a session.

Today, they had Rashmi delivering a talk on “Viral Marketing for Start-ups”. Rashmi is the founder of Altius Consulting, a marketing consultancy that caters to starts-ups and SMEs. How hot a topic viral marketing is could be seen from the size of the audience - entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs kept walking in, until the small restaurant we were meeting in, was almost full.

A very interactive session, at times, it seemed as though the volley of questions from the audience would take over the talk itself! But, we did manage to come away with some pretty useful ideas, especially for those who haven’t really explored this kind of marketing before.

Some of the key takeouts for me were:

• Viral marketing is fundamentally different from mainstream marketing, in one aspect - it is non-intrusive and comes from someone you know and trust.
• Hearing about products and services from people you know, has always been around - what we call ‘Word of mouth’. Technology has however made it easier for marketers to create and monitor this word of mouth.
• Viral marketing is not a substitute for product differentiation; a me-too product, a yet-another-social-networking-portal cannot just bank on buzz. Creating this differentiation is therefore the start-up’s first task
• You need to identify what is known as a “hive” in viral marketing parlance : a homogenous segment that is likely to be really interested in your product/service. This is in any case, true for all marketing efforts.
• All jargon aside, if you create a message that you want others to pass on, you have to make it easy for them to do it. If they can’t do it in one step, they are unlikely to do it.

Once Rashmi finished her talk, start-ups got some time to talk to her on specific problems applicable to each of them. These ranged from “Should I as a founder be the one doing the viral marketing?” to “How do I use it for a B2B industry?” to “How do I measure the ROI on various kinds of marketing efforts?”

Overall, a morning well spent. One thing which I came away with, and which would probably be useful to others in start-up mode was that Viral Marketing is not necessarily for all situations, nor is it useful just because of the (relatively) low cost. There has to be something to engage the user - if that is absent, don’t do it!

apu Entrepreneurship