How far are you willing to go?

Posted on October 21, 2013 by V

I met a guy. On first looks, he would be deemed as privileged and arrogant mostly due to his good looks. But on acquainting, I found that he came from a very obscure city in India that no one really cared much about, lost his father at a very young age, was raised by his mom in modest financial conditions, graduated and moved to a bigger city for a ‘job’ but deep inside he wants to be a movie star and is on about pursuing that.

So against all odds, he works 12 hour work days and then after that busts his ass perfecting his craft, physique etc for the remaining waking hours. He has come too far to give up who he is now. He keeps moving forward no matter what. In a few days, he is following a lead that will take him to a new city again, due to a big break he got recently. This time, Mumbai, the hot bed of all failed acting dreams.

But he will keep on keeping on. No matter what comes and what goes, he has his eyes on the prize, leaves the old behind, embraces the new and unknown and keeps pressing forward. Towards danger, uncertainty and highly probable failure.

I look at him and think “There is absolutely nothing that can keep one moving forward, no matter the pressures, deadlines, constraints or problems. If it’s important enough, you will find a way to make it happen.”

Whether or not he succeeds, whether or not I see him in a poster, I know that his will to succeed will live on.

Thanks man, for inspiring the hell outta me. I hope your dreams come true.

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The Origin

Posted on October 2, 2013 by V

How do you define an event?

Something that happens is an event.

So usually there is a cause ( Subject )  , and action or an effect (object) , a time and a space. This forms the basis of all that is. Because everything is an event. From our ” breathing” to taking companies public in an IPO. Its all an event. 

But the funny thing is , in order for an event to occur , you must define time and space.

But what about the event called ” the definition of time and space” ? Who decided that , ” from henceforth Time and Space shall exist”?  What was before that definition?

How would you define that event, relative to reference points?

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Thoughts keeping me awake

Posted on September 11, 2013 by V

There are four subjects that have been a lot on my mind and frankly, been very interesting:

1. What industries do we need to innovate or advance in order to advance humanity as a whole?

2. What industries do you need to target to advance India as a country?

3. How do you scale a new technology or an unfamiliar technology?

4. How to create a monopoly as a conglomerate?

I shall be updating more and more details about these intriguing ideas in separate blog titles as time goes by.

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Why closing off options is a good idea , albeit riskier

Posted on September 8, 2013 by V

Humans are inherently afraid to close off options. 
Like a prospective talented entrepreneur , who will do an MBA because he has “put in the effort ” for his application process . So the status quo becomes that he has to, rather than he could. Many of us just continue travelling on the wrong trains just because we have boarded them. 

But great  things come from closing off options, like focus and magic. 
When we say that ” my time is valuable enough for me to do this one thing right now and be the absolute best in it in the entire world”, that is when magic pops out.

As expected , this approach doesn’t have stable / growing returns on your investment for a long time. But ultimately , the only way to succeed ( to me, success is being in the top 0.01% of your field ) at any endeavour is to be remarkable. And remarkable, means to stand out. When you are as distracted and all over the place as everyone and their uncle, its hard to deliver remarkably good results.

The only exception to this, when you have to survive. When you have to live and fight another day, it makes sense to take what comes your way for the moment but to promise yourself under your breath, that the day shall come when I shall focus on what I really want to do, work my a** off on that alone and become the absolute hands-down best at it.

Finally, after knocking on enough doors , that day does come, more often than not. Some one believes in your vision, sees your passion and effort and decides to give you a small amount of resources to see if you really deliver on all that remarkable result, that you promised them but always ended the sentence with ‘ if only I had enough resources ‘. When that chance is taken upon you, you better straddle up, set your eyes on the prize and execute like your life depended on it. 

Thats how you really create remarkable work. By closing off as many options as possible and focussing on a chosen few high-hangers in the garden of low-hanging fruits.

 

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The best in the world or doing your best?

Posted on August 27, 2013 by V

Consider this quote from Seth Godin :

I did a gig in New York today about the Dip and it went really well. Afterward, someone asked me a question about his new business.

I asked back, “if you accomplish that, will you be seen by your audience as the best in the world, or will you be seen as doing your best?”

He didn’t have to answer. He got it.

If you’re doing your best, only your AYSO soccer coach cares. If you’re the best in the world, the market cares. The secret, if you have limited resources (don’t we all) is to make ‘world’ small enough that you can actually accomplish that.

 

If you are a small company in a market traditionally dominated by old industry, then you don’t have the economies of scale (to compete on price ) or research resources ( to compete on technological upgrades), yet. 

So you dole out a costlier but still a quality product out in the market, the only place that you can differentiate is the customer service in this scenario.  You have to be known as the best in the “world” for customer service. Then the “world” becomes that market segment who care about such a service than the best technology or price.

So this will bring you the resources to focus on the next most important thing in the roster. The product (or the service ) itself. Once you succeed within your initial “world” , you can now focus on improving the boundaries of your world to include those who care about the technology, the design and performance of the product in itself.*

 

This will bring you even more resources to focus on the most important weapon to compete in the mass market – the price (or ) the economies of scale. This still doesn’t mean, that you have to price your service or product in the easily affordable category, you could very well put it in the range of “aspirational” , provided you have taken care of the first two “worlds” very well and by ‘very well’ , I mean being the best in the world.

Note:
*It is very important to note here that  the first two “worlds” are very interchangeable indeed , you can start to focus on amazing customer experience or a great product as the top priority, since these worlds are often overlapping to a great extent.

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Culture, values etc.

Posted on August 26, 2013 by V

If there is anything that I have learnt over the past one year, it is that the culture and values matter a lot in a startup.

Starting with my most recent hire, I have started to explain and look for these qualities :

1. High ( unnaturally high ) work ethics

Talent is over-rated. As I have come to figure out, Joe may have the best talent in the industry but Frank have just 0.8X of the Joe’s talent but if Joe is working 35- 40 hour work weeks, his productivity is = 1X times 40 hours = 40X. While Frank puts in 98 hours a week and his productivity becomes 0.8X times 98 = 79X

So I insist to all my colleagues that a) this is not just a job, this is an opportunity to say five years from now that “I was part of the team that changed the industry and thus changed how the world works now.” b) there is no such thing as work-life balance and c)the product and the person becomes the same because you just cant take out the passion and purpose towards the change that you are working on, be it a work or at home or at the squash court.

2. Result oriented and metrics driven

No matter how much work you put in, if you cant show the results for it, then nobody cares. This is why at ,SolarTown, we work on a metrics driven culture and are extremely focussed on quantifying even the intangible aspects such as “Customer delight” and work tirelessly on those deliverables with a targeted 100% accuracy within the due time.

3. Customer centric

The mission of SolarTown is ” To be the Earth’s most innovative and customer-centric solar energy company”. We understand that the only reason we exist is to make amazing products / service that creates value to the consumer and this is the only and single point of focus that takes up a large chunk of our efforts because ultimately, in this war against non-renewable resources, it is the customer who decides to take our side, cheer for us with all her heart and be lead by us towards a new future. Who else will take care of them if we don’t? Big oil?

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Startup Retail Expansion strategy – Gengis Khan or Scattershot?

Posted on July 26, 2013 by V

As a leader in the rooftop Solar industry, you more or less have to close deals to stay alive or grow rapidly, especially as a startup.

So when markets open up in your favour, you need just one things to expand and that is cash. Assume you have raised just enough cash to grow, but in a retail consumer focussed business ( where in order to differentiate from the other unorganised players , you start to work on the brand, look, feel and the emotional connect of the product)  it becomes critical to open up a retail outlet that can control the customer experience in that geography in order to distinctly carry your brand through and make sure the end consumer is delighted.

So the question then becomes, if you focus too much on one geography( say south India ) , do you end up losing market share in other parts and giving leeway for competitors to grow and gain threshold in those geographies ( Say, Delhi) ?

When you have decided to go retail with your products / services, how do you strategise your expansion plan?

I think I might have found the perfect solution, but only time ( and maybe this blog) will tell.

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The Online skew

Posted on July 23, 2013 by V

Lately, I have noticed one too many Online posts and so-called entrepreneurial tools out there are skewed towards online ventures and many are flocking to the herd- thinking that online entrepreneurship is the only kind of entrepreneurship. Granted, that its the lowest barrier to entry but not the only kind. Many of the offline business builders are hard-pressed to find people facing similar challenges.

I am going to try and break that here, in this blog. I will be posting about what I learn while building SolarTown ( www.solartown.in ) , while also commenting on the challenges of building a business that changes the physical world and how we interact/consume energy from the world around us.

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Why Second Engineer? Why Technical Superintendent? Why Fleet manager? No, Seriously!

Posted on July 21, 2013 by V

To the young, old age is a distant rumor. We flock along merrily in our daily chores unaware or worse, pretending to be unaware, that time will catch up with all of us eventually. But what do we really seek out of a career in Shipping? Really?

An ideal candidate in my position who had just won three consecutive promotions is not supposed to question the career ladder. He is supposed to climb, more and more. A 3rd Engineer becomes a 2nd. A 2nd becomes a chief and so on until one becomes a Technical Superintendent in a shipping Company at 35, who ironically gets paid as much as a 23 Year old MBA in today’s India. From there on before hitting the glass ‘Asian’, ‘Technical’, “’Engineer must be a micromanager” , “Non-Scandinavian” ceiling, one may advance to the level of a Vice President- Technical. This is probably the highest post that 99% of Shippies will get to. Why?

Beyond that are the posts of “EVP –Technical” who may either go on to become a “COO” or a “CEO”. But in the entire history of Maritime Industry you will find, after doing my research I tell you, hardly ten Superintendents or Fleet managers or even Vice President Technical who has made that successful transition to Executive Vice President. I am not saying it is impossible. I am saying it is improbable, unless you are one- in- a- million talented enough to overcome the stereotypical obstacles AND you are extra-ordinarily zealous about the shipping industry, in which case you probably deserve to revolutionize shipping.

But if you are a 25 year old plotting to become a CEO or a COO or even a Executive Vice president I would suggest you to have a “green-to-tee” thinking or “to keep the end in mind” thinking.  In golf, the great ones, plot their moves backwards, from the hole to the green to the tee. Not from the tee to the greens.

When you keep the end in mind and traverse you will find in your research that  most, if not all , EVPs, CEOs, COOs of shipping companies arise from a Ship operators’ role or a chartering role. Very few will make it from the role of a Master or a Chief Engineer. Again, it is not impossible, only improbable. The reason is that while Ship operators and Charterers handle the shipping business and the people involved in it, at a macro level from the very beginning, while the people on-board start from a microscopic level and by the time they graduate to handling business issues at the level of Vice president, they have gobbled up a good twenty years of their career, a position which a young shipping trainee in the operations department gets to in five years of his starting out. Uneven playing field? You bet.

So what would I suggest? If you are keen on shipping as a career, move to

1) Operations role

2) Chartering role

3)Get an MBA from a top notch American /European school (Harvard/ Wharton/ Stanford/ LBS/ Insead)

 

The first two roles are straight forward. You move up the ladder, perform very well, build industry networks, leverage them and advance to the C-suite.

The third is a visionary tactic because Shipping is increasingly becoming a commodity business where the price wars have been raging on and off and the boom(2000-2007) and the bust ( 2008 – 2016??)  cycles of the shipping market are appearing faster and faster. Hence, a third generation shipping skill is coming to the fore.

While the first generation shipping magnates where  founders running a close family-only business, the second generation brought in professional managers and operators to run the business in a more professional manner. Hence as is natural in any industry, which is 300+ years old, it is now becoming more and more a finance game.

Hence the third generation Shipping executive would most necessarily possess a strong financial background. The best breeding place for such executives who have large fund-raising connections are from the hallowed corridors of Shipping focused Investment banks and Private Equity managers. They would be hired as VP/EVP Finance and gradually move to the the fore as CFOs, only to dominate in the coming years, transitioning into the CEO role.

As is evident from the fund-raising challenges and equity gluts of many large shipping firms recently, it is only obvious that shipping is going to increasingly value fund-raising and financial restructuring capabilities in the future, as the industry gets increasingly commoditized.

So the ambitious and the visionary Shipping executive would get a MBA in Finance, move to Wall Street/Canary Wharf for a while to a shipping focused bank/PE Portfolio and then head into the Shipping industry as a VP Corporate finance or a VP M&A, then transition to EVP- Corporate finance to CFO to CEO.  That shall be the most prudent path into the C-suite in the forthcoming wave of finance focused Shipping. The industry is moving eastward to lower cost regions and hence managers are bound to be non-Scandinavian in a few years and hence an Asian candidate with the ideal financial skill-set may be the choice to grow the next generation shipping companies.

As always, I don’t claim to be the authority on Shipping careers or trends. My views are very personal , mere observations and pattern recognitions as a fan of logic and may/may not be biased. Take what you may and leave what you think should be left, prudently. 🙂

PS: I did my research a couple of years ago, on the basis of the careers and backgrounds of the people listed below. So these generalizations have not been pulled out of thin air.:)  Feel free to Google each one of them to see ‘where they come from’

Andreas Nordseth, CEO, Danish Maritime Authority 
• Birgit Sølling Olsen, Deputy Director-General, Danish Maritime Authority 
• Carsten Mortensen, CEO Norden 
• Claes Devantier, Senior Vice President, Maersk Broker 
• Eivind Kolding, CEO Container Business, 
  A.P. Moller – Maersk 
• Frank G. Jensen, Partner, Chairman and CEO, Clipper 
• Henrik Ramskov, Managing Director, Handytankers 
• Jacob Melgaard, CEO, TORM 
• Jens Martin Jensen, Managing Director and CEO, 
Frontline Management AS 
• Kim Ullman, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategic Officer, Stena Bulk 
• Klaus Kjærulff, Chairman of the Board 
• Lars Pedersen, Head of Fleet Management, 
Höegh Fleet Services 
• Mikael Skov, CEO, Tankers inc. 
• Niels Smedegaard, President and CEO, DFDS 
• Per Gullestrup, Partner, CEO Clipper Ferries/Ro-Ro 
• Peter Lorange, Professor, International shipping expert 
• Robert M. Uggla, Managing Director, Broström 
• Roland M. Andersen, CFO TORM 
• Tommy Thomsen, CEO, Nordic Tankers 
• Tony Fang, PhD – International Business 
• Torben Janholt, CEO, J. Lauritzen 
• Trond H. Klaveness, President and CEO, The Torvald Klaveness Group

P.S. As always, I do like my gullible opinions challenged, so fire away if you think am wrong.

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Why am I headed there?

Posted on June 27, 2013 by V

It is to deny what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question then is, Can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable, then, to expect that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such an one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.

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