This blog... is only for those guys who were in Hall-IV IITK during 1989.

20-years back during this week I came to IITK ...to meet Jayaraman
for any advice for joining Ph.D in IITK....he prometely took
me to one Mr. Ilangovan in C-210 and vanished.

I was at that moment had no clue of what project i will do for
my Ph.D...Ilango asked me whether I am interested in doing Ph.D
in NMR...I said yes...he asked me to come in the evening to
meet other friends.

Evening I went to C-block HallIV... there was this fat fellow
on his short without shirt...he was singing some thuthakka thuthakka
song in hindi and was hanging in the middle floor. I asked for
ilango to him....he introduced himself as DevAnand doing M.Tech
and took me to lawn and we were waiting for Ilango to come
from his lab.

Then came a group of American college guys....one lean rowdy looking
guy was there who was talking all filth and laughed loud...
I was introduced to him ... hey i am Immi...Immanual Selvaraj.
Impressive I thought....he introduced his juniors who came
to join like me.

Everyone started asking my area of interest...i had nothing to
tell except NMR...what in NMR...who the hell knew...simulation
or experiemental.... i said experimental.... because i had no
clue on what is simulation.... in chemistry there is nothing
called simulation...all glass and chemicals...there was a
big pause. I got scared...i never knew experimental in NMR
means means hardware....Ilango came and ordered for tea etc.,
to everyone I thought wow...this guy is rich.

I thought i impressed everyone only on one thing...my smoking...
I was the highest smoker in the whole group.... i smoked around
4-5 cigrettes on that evening.

Got interviewed and selected...can write a lot about that interview
as well...but will stop.

Got selected so a party was going ON with the american college
guys....that lean rowdy fellow was drinking and shouting....
but he was interesting in many ways....i thought.

Fat fellow (dev) said he will book a room for me in HallIV... so
he did... but before moving to HallIV i was put in shared room with
a mallu actioned tamil fellow called Tamil.... the first thing
that got my eye with that fellow was .... he had 4-nipples...
We shared that room for 2-3 weeks i guess... we became freinds...
though he moved to hallV i moved HallIV because i liked what
i saw in HallIV....Ilango, fat fellow and rowdy fellow.

We three are still freinds and in touch....thanx to email and internet.
It is 20-years now.... It is still good to remember that time.

Fail quick

Failing quick.

This is called testing the water... you test the water and decide quickly whether to carry forward or fail and quit.

What is the point in quitting after you start?? This is a biggest dilemma any entrepreneur goes through... he never wants to quit. sometimes even after knowing that He is
gonna fail... that adamant thinking ... somehow I will make it.... without knowing ... which how and ...what how...


That is the mantra of "be prepared to fail"...

Serial entrepreneurs have quit many... why? Because they fail
quickly and quit.


Failing quick is the mantra within BE PREPARED TO FAIL MANTRA.

If you fail quickly and quit... there is a good chance that you will attempt again and next very quickly and start and achieve success quickly. If you fail every 7-8 years and start again...u r done within 3-4 fails before your life comes to an end!!!


Fail quick...get up back...start again...fail quick...start again...fail quick...start again...succeed. then start and succeed....then start and succeed...Now you know how to succeed...

But alas there is this Oxymoron say from the past...
"Early bird gets the worm" and
"Success comes to one who waits"...

This mantra of fail quickly combines this two... Start EARLY
and wait...if you can sense you will fail...then fail quickly and go and wait where
you get the worms.

Failing quick in business...

Is there a time limit before we say a start up is going to bite the
dust?


I had run a company earlier... during that time one of the
GUJJU (gujarat fellow told that 1000-days). I donno how far
it is true (because when i asked one more gujju he rejected
it).

He said we wait for a fellow to make some profit until 1000-days around
3-years if he still struggling...then that means he is very
positive about what he is doing...but only circumstances does
not support him. So other people in the same business give him
links (not money) for his business so that he can come up.


Is that really a good number? 1000-days for a start-up to make
profit?

I would say yes. It takes about a year to build something good.
and it takes another year (to complete whatever left over) to
make the markte feel that there is something coming from
this company. The company and awareness gets created.

If in the 3-rd year the product is not speaking then there
is something tremendously wrong.

i) product is not good.
ii) product is not accepted by market
iii) Product is way ahead of time
iv) did not value competitor and act
v) the basic business plan needed a revisit 1-year back.
vi) so on and so forth.

So if traditional failing is measured in 1000-days why people tell ... if you want to fail... then fail quick??

There is a famous quote in entreprenuer world is if at all you fail .... fail quick.
We will see why fail quick is important in the next post.

Be prepared to fail

"Be prepared to fail"...

This is one of the quotable quotes for an entrepreneur.

It may sound like an oxymoron. Why should i be prepared
to fail when i building something to lost long. Is that
not absurd? Am i building something to fail? That clearly
says what i am building is wrong...then why should i
build it?


The statistics says that 1% of startup only survive and become
big. Let us say even 5% for an argument shake. Does that
mean 95/100 people start something to fail?

Is that the 95 peoples thinking about starting a business
is wrong?

what does this say?


For a startup to stand and survive and become big there
are multiple stages and multiple environmental challenges.
A startup can fail at any stage because of error or
change in environment. We can never control the environment
and it portraits things at its own will.

So what you have in your hand and control is what you
do and not the environment and the market.
Sometimes,

i) startup fail because they are well ahead of time.
ii) Market demand has changed by the time the startup product comes out.
iii) You may be making X-compenent which fits into A market... but
because of B A-market could have vanished.
iv) Just because your competitor has money and muscle could
crush to non-existence.

and a lot more.

So it is very important for any startup company to envision
failure and learn and change course and fit the market.