..but saying YES and not doing it later might affect my trust on you negatively. I know many good people who find it to hard to say No simply because they feel it will sound rude. Saying No is very crucial at times and NO it doesn’t sound rude at all. No doesn’t always mean rejection, sometimes it means that “I am unable to do it for you for whatever reasons, and instead of wasting your time persuading me, go find someone else”, which is actually a good advice.

Maybe you really really want to do that for me, but you can’t. Say No to me, I WILL understand, or maybe you make me understand. Maybe cause you lack resources or don’t have time or are in middle of some process or are preoccupied with other work, but you still want to do it for me, but ultimately can’t. Saying No will save time and trust between both of us. Best No is the quickest No you can give to me, will save me energy and time. I would also appreciate if you could rather give me a No like, “I can’t do that for you, but you should check-out with Tom, Dick and Harry”. There you got an opportunity to help build my network, initiating a connection between two people, thereby earning some good karma, which will comeback two fold to you (one from my end, and second from the other connection).

Sometimes No is the solution, and we should use it then, but also be cautious that you are not using it for the easy way out. People are not fools. Being genuine is the key to good relationships.

If you help me now, next time when you need something that I can do, I might do it for you.

If you don’t help me now, next time when you need something that I can do, I will mostly probably not do it for you.

If you have a track record of ditching me everytime I need some help from you, next time when you need my help, I won’t help you for sure.

And this is not the way how I think, this is how almost everyone thinks. So think twice before saying No to some potentially helpful person.

Account 1

My high school had really weird timings. Infact I guess most schools in India have got weird timings, or maybe all schools start pretty early, and if it is so, I guess they should all change it. Anyways, my school starting pretty early at 7 am in morning meant that most of the children won’t be able to wake up early enough to have breakfast on dining table. They would either munch on the way to school or some other way. Near my school was this little shop. It was the only shop opened so early in the morning. It sold burgers, sandwiches and other fast snacks. I never liked those guys, cause the quality of their food was below average and the cost they used to sell it for was way more than the usual, and lastly, they didn’t even treat us well. But we had no other choice, as it was the only shop opened so early and we were hungry.

Eventually, one day we saw another shop, just as small and standing right opposite to this one. The vendor was smiling and the shop also looked pretty neat and nice, obviously it was new. I couldn’t resist visiting it. Luckily, the food quality was just as good as average. I mean, even though it was average, it felt good, also the price were usual. So this shop was cheaper yet better qualitatively as compared to the old shop. It didn’t take two days for the new shop to steal all the crowd from the old one. Well, the old shop vendors did decrease the price but it didn’t help them much, cause children didn’t forget the ill-mannered staff. I don’t know if they improved quality as I never tried them again.

Account 2

Recently my Omnia was giving me a lot of troubles, so I had to send it to Samsung Service Center. They told me it will take around 15 days to get fixed as they need to replace the touch panel. I couldn’t afford to lose the calls I would get during this time, so I decided to buy a temporary cell phone for these days. Of coarse, I was looking for a pretty cheap phone for only 15 days. During my lunch hour, I saw a big Vodafone board, visited that shop, asked them for the specific Vodafone model I was looking for. He said that he is not an official Vodafone retailer and the board is only there for promotional purposes. So he didn’t have the model I was looking for, but  he offered me to check out some other models. I thanked him for offering and asked him if he can guide me to the nearest Vodafone store. He bluntly said he don’t know. I didn’t like that. Anyways, I came out, I asked another shopkeeper about Vodafone store, and he told me that it was just four shops away. Now, there is no way that the previous shop keeper didn’t know where the Vodafone store is. He just didn’t want me to go to a competitor, or worse, he was showing the frustration that I wasn’t interested in the phones he was showing to me. Anyways, I found the store and bought the phone (and eventually lost it after 15 days). Now my Omnia is back in Service Center, and this time for over 30 days. I had to buy a new phone, and I didn’t want to buy the same model from Vodafone again, but while still being random, I was careful enough not to buy from that shopkeeper who didn’t help me find Vodafone store last time. Because I don’t like him.

Account 3

I am very fond of Delhi Chaats. I am not talking about the Delhi Chaat that we get here in Mumbai. I am talking about the various chaats that we can get only in Delhi. You have to taste it to realize that something can even be so tasty. Anyways, I tried almost all shops in Mumbai looking for that taste but couldn’t find it. I found it once in some shop in Infinity Mall in Andheri and it was almost nice. Unfortunately my luck doomed and the mall caught fire one day, and was burnt badly and closed. Later when it reopened, the specific shop didn’t. I was since looking for another place to feed my appetite for Delhi Chaats. Finally I came across this shop in Inorbit Mall in Vashi, called Only Parathas, and it was my lucky day. Now I just need to show them my face and they already know my order. I must have showed this place to tens of my friends. I am sure those shopkeepers must have made some jokes about me and my fancy for Delhi Chaats.

So last week, I visited them with my brother and a friend and ordered 3 plates of Tikki Chaat and Bisleri and 3 Red Bulls. They only has 1 chilled Red Bull and the other two were just not as chilled as one would like. We told them to keep it in freezer by the time when order is ready, but the shopkeeper replied that he will rather get us chilled Red Bulls from another shop, and so he did the very next minute. Not to mention he was proudly smiling at his own customer service when he said that. Now I normally tend to hate people who are proud, but I would rather flatter someone with pride if it means a better customer service to me. I like this guy anywhichways though.

Moral

• Just because you don’t have competitors today, doesn’t mean you will never have them.
• Don’t just sell your products/service; make a relationship with your customers. It helps against competitors.
• One of the ways to make a prospect your customer without being able to sell the product is by giving remarkable customer service.
• Don’t hesitate to recommend a competitor if that is what best suits the needs of your customer. They won’t forget the source. Most people never remember the great article they read online, but always remember they found it trough Google.
• Whatever you do, good or evil, there is always a blogger somewhere writing about you .

I felt really important when I received my first private cabin at my workplace. It bundled with a dedicated phone, lappy, all stationary and a litter bin. It made me feel grown up and happy.

Some days back, I found two litter bins below my table. It gave me mixed feelings. Good feeling that I got two dedicated litter bins now and bad feeling that probably am too dirty for one bin.

Today I realized that there are four litter bins in my cabin, one at each corner and I feel trashed already. It looks a bit funny to me, but not as much that I can enjoy everyday.

Some things are best when in limits.

Really, there are already too many of them. If you aren’t 100% sure that you are going to be successful in what you are trying to do, then please don’t waste your money, and time of all of us. Spare your investor’s money who don’t understand a single word of what you are telling them.

Messing a Startup or Starting up a Mess

You maybe spoiling what you already have

I hear this a lot: “I am going to start an IT firm”, “I have started something with my friends”, “I am setting up a backyard office” and blah blah. Out of all that I have seen, most successful of new startups are those who start maybe alone or with a bunch of like minded intelligent friends. But those who just saved some money and then hire a development company to realize their visualizations, are mostly a big fail. At times I see some sound minds, who are great at consulting opening up small service provider companies, with all good intentions; but end up with frustrated clients and spoiled reputation.

Starting up in India doesn’t mean you can afford to be cheap

In India, communication is a lacking factor and we must accept it, that we are not native English speakers. Even though there are many people who understand technology very well, communication becomes a big hurdle and they can’t be used well. Clients from all over the world keep complaining, that they have hard time communicating to their outsourced consultant in India, which only makes work hard to be done. Many a times, there are various IT companies who get to design a product or service for western countries, but due to lack of knowledge of western culture and unwillingness to research on the same, they end up making something which doesn’t really meets the clients needs, resulting in rework, extended deadlines and client’s frustration.

Many people think of starting up a company in India to be of great advantage in terms of cheap labor. Yes, that is right, but make sure that your services are reasonably priced so that you can maintain the quality. Many entrepreneurs assume, that they are pretty clever at what they do, and don’t need an equally clever staff. They think they can spoon feed every task to every employee, but my dead friend, if you think so, then I think you are not aware of height of dumbness of people out there. To run a successful company, employees need to be just as intelligent as the management. You can’t afford either of them to be dumb, not good for you, neither for your clients. Some great person said, “One great programmer is equal to hundred good programmers”.

Research before you startup, unless you are Paris Hilton

No offense with Paris Hilton, she is hot and what she sells, she don’t need to do research on that; and even if she fails, well, she will still have a lot more than what you have ever seen. But you must do research before you start a company. Research about your audience needs, find your competitors, analyze their market shares, set up some goals, mark some deadlines, structure a budget, know what kind of employees you need, where can you find them. Do you need big investment, or you can work with your partners and experiment your ideas first. What is the least that it takes to do your best? You are spending money, spend it wise.

You are starting your business, but creating jobs for others; Make it stable

Its great that you have left your job now and are planning to start your own business. Now you can probably work according to your own timings and don’t have to be answerable to anyone. But did you realize you are creating jobs for some people who will work with you. Do you think that the kind of people you want to work with, will also like to work for your small startup company in their right minds? Does your product have enough potential which they will also be able to see for a promising future and long term career commitment? Are you sure that you will not run down your company and have enough backups to secure the jobs of your employees? Failure is not the end, but people don’t forget.

I didn’t mean to discourage ambitious people with this post, just wanted to discourage ambitious people with crappy ideas. Believe me, even I have got many crappy ideas in my mind, but lets accept it and don’t make a fool out of us and waste everybody’s time and money, and probably save it until we are hit with some really bright idea?