Two failures and finally success

By Suresh Kabra
I define myself as someone who likes to experiment with new ideas and innovations. Born in a marwari business family, I was among the rare few who worked for a salary. Everyone around me was running his own business. Although background helped getting some business acumen, the real call for doing something on my own is a deep seated belief that human intellect is too precious to waste. So if thoughts meander like restless wind into a letterbox (to borrow form Beatles), you might as well do something about it.

This led me to start Samadhan Systems way back in 1993. I was employed full time, but had the weekends on me to do something different. We tied with a garment exporter and developed ERP solution to better run the whole manufacturing process. We had a few successes, but couldn’t scale for (now) obvious reasons. In 1995, even basic IT infrastructure was missing from garment factories and we were trying to implement an ERP solution! I remember going to very large garment exporter at Okhla and the owner showed me the IT room, a single PC across three factories which was doubling as lunch room by employees as it had an AC! We were way too ahead of the industry adoption curve.

I continued working as a professional but Samadhan stayed somewhere in the back of the mind. Got to do something about it. I finally revived it in 2007 when I switched to being a full-time entrepreneur with some not so great ideas. While the business card title moved from VP to CEO, the actual role depended upon where was the next fire. This is a phase when even Ravana inspires you as you need ten heads and twenty hands to be that all-in-one office boy-to-CEO mix and keep the venture running. In retrospect, this was the most sobering period of my life as you really start to understand and appreciate the value of human labour, big or small, and how every member is indispensible in the overall ecosystem.

Samadhan Systems developed a video delivery platform which enabled a consumer with entry level feature phone to have an enjoyable video experience on his cell. When we started, only high-end smartphone users could access mobile videos and these constituted less than 1% of total mobile users. So we saw an opportunity and jumped with a not so great idea of peer-to-peer service to send a mobile video greeting directly on someone’s cell. Sounds great and fundoo, right? Well, who knew that Facebook and whatsapp will totally redefine the customer behaviour? No one sends a greeting any more, you just post a message on FB. So this was a second false-start because market changed rapidly.

Thanks to Nagar’s samosas and Moti’s chai, the ‘aha’ moment happened when a brand agreed to sponsor all of our valentine greetings pack. We saw a B2B opportunity and quickly launched clk2c (click-to-see), a service by which brands could reach out to their target group and engage them with an interactive video right on the mobile. The sheer simplicity of the offering coupled with quick execution got us some very prestigious brands as customers. We scaled revenues 20 folds between 2009 and 2012, added close to 40 pan-India brands as customers and finally got acquired in 2013.

While running the start-up, I worked in a very transparent manner openly sharing with the team all the ups and downs of business and seeking a collective feedback on any change in direction. Every employee was to own his responsibility (no biometric attendance system or monitoring cameras) and was also to ensure that the peers were doing their own job well. If there was a delinquency at any time, I held the peers more responsible for living with it and not checking it early-on than the person who had faulted. This peer level monitoring worked well and the team found the right balance. There was never a ‘let it be’ or ‘it’s not my job’ attitude. Flat organization with no one being paid for babysitting. It was so smooth that I could take a 2-week vacation every year.

It is worthwhile to mention that the office boy who joined us to do odd jobs and didn’t know how to switch on a computer was preparing our customer reports in excel and powerpoint charts at the time of acquisition. I always gave new challenges to the team, outside of the regular office work, and encouraged them to acquire the required skillsets to meet these challenges at the company cost. All this did wonders in retaining the team and when we were acquired, the average age of employee in the organization was 4 years (for a 5-year old setup).

When I started as an entrepreneur, I did not have any pre-defined objectives. I wanted to experiment with something new and see what it takes for the market to accept it. I was not chasing any dream (and I don’t chase now also). Everything else was incidental, including the money part. The entrepreneurial journey gives you an unparalleled opportunity to propagate your value system to the world at large, be it employees, customers, vendors or partners. No other microcosm provides you with that opportunity. The best way to spoil the phenomenal experience is to put a little too much focus on money!

Did I have my bouts of frustration? Yes, of course and for one simple reason that we Indians can’t say an upfront ‘No’ when we are not interested in something. So we had customers who would stay engaged for months just to keep collecting data which they will never use and no business will eventually materialize (I call it keep me informed syndrome). And this happened across all management levels. As a society we have devalued our own time and therefore don’t value someone else’s time. And this hurts most when one is an entrepreneur. You are always short of time. I recall driving to Gurgaon once for a Monday 9 am meeting with a leading digital agency. The lady at the other end finally picks my call after I have travelled 2/3 of distance, just to tell me that she just forgot about it and had planned other engagements.

So if you are an entrepreneur, don’t be surprised if some of the high professionals behave in the most absurd manner. Instead of getting carried away by the title and logo on the business card, focus on person’s professionalism in dealing with you and see if they are receptive to your offering. The latter will give you business, sooner or later, while the formers will only frustrate you and waste your time. In the end, take it with a stride and keep moving. Carry on with no hard feelings as such is the path you have embarked upon.

Also, don’t do a start-up just because it’s in vogue to do so and you want to be seen as part of some elite club. There is no elite club here. Do it if the unused grey matter is itching to do something and you are at a point in your career where you can take a calculated risk. I have seen many brilliant young people go down the start-up path and struggle with their career thereafter.

Seek peer level feedback before taking the plunge. And this is the place where being a BITSian helps. BITS provided an environment where I was able to build long-term relationships (now 30+ years) with some excellent folks, who are ambitious but have their feet firm on the ground. They are brilliant but continue to be humble and will give a frank opinion. So thanks to BITS, I had this support group which I could tap into whenever I needed some level headed advice.

I am a passionate theoretical physicist. I see entrepreneurship as quantum mechanics working at a macro level. The start-up wave function is always evolving in a probabilistic manner. There is always a finite probability, however small, that it will collapse as the event you desire for. The challenge is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle which states that vagueness is built into the fabric of universe. So reconcile with the fact that you can only try harder. Results will always be unpredictable.

(The author is a go to market strategy advisor in tech-driven ventures)