Cool, Determined, Under 40 by Inc. India

december 2011

Crowdfunding everything you need to know Page 54

Cool, determined, Under 40

The Magazine for Growing Companies

PLUS

How to ace social media... and how a celebrity can help, for a price Page 40

Harpreet Grover who co-founded CoCubes with his college buddy, Vibhore Goyal.

The magazine for growing companies

Cool, Under 40

Meet the young guns behind some of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most exciting ventures PAGE 26

December 2011 | 150 | Volume 02 | Issue 10 A 9.9 Media Publication

Amar Goel, founder, Komli Media, has acquired five companies in 15 months.

December 2011

Smartly Positioned InMobi’s Naveen Tewari, 32, runs a “global start-up” across continents.

contents

26 Shining Stars

Watch out for these young entrepreneurs—our pick of the bright lights and big thinkers. 01 Ameera Shah, Metropolis Healthcare 02 Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal, Flipkart 03 Inderpreet S. Wadhwa, Azure Power 04 Deval Sanghavi & Neera Nundy, Dasra 05 Vibhore Goyal & Harpreet Grover, CoCubes 06 Abhishek & Anubhav Sinha, EKO 07 Naveen Tewari, InMobi 08 Aneesh Reddy & Krishna Mehra, Capillary Technologies 09 Amar Goel, Komli Media 10 Nitin & Rohan Gupta, Attero Recycling by shreyasi singh,

rohini banerjee and ira swasti

40 Social Media by the Numbers

Do you really have to know this stuff? You do. How smart companies are using every arrow in the social-media quiver by j.j mccorvey and issie lapowsky

48 How I Did It Manoj Agarwal

on the cover

Amar Goel, chairman, Komli Media and Harpreet Grover, co-founder, CoCubes. Photographed by Subhojit Paul in New Delhi. Cover design by Peterson.

Steel’s done. Adhunik Group’s Manoj Agarwal wants to march into mining and power now. Somewhere along the way, he may well be your next, big infrastructure giant. by dhiman chattopadhyay

This edition of Inc. magazine is published under license from Mansueto Ventures LLC, New York, New York. Editorial items appearing on pages 12-13, 22-23, 40-47, 54-57 were all originally published in the United States edition of Inc. magazine and are the copyright property of Mansueto Ventures, LLC, which reserves all rights. Copyright © 2009 and 2010 Mansueto Ventures, LLC. The following are trademarks of Mansueto Ventures, LLC: Inc., Inc. 500.

Photograph by s radhakrishna

december 2011 | INC. | 1

contents

December 2011

05 Editor’s Letter

16 The Scuba Sutras

Firms that keep the funny bone tickled at The Comedy Store

By Guhesh Ramanathan Can you really spot expertise? Don’t just depend on degrees and certificates when you hire.

09 Launch

21 The Goods

06 Behind the Scenes

Vinod Khosla: Have fun creating big change Former editor pens new venture The Ticker How loyalty stacks up A Skimmer’s Guide to The Rare Find, by George Anders Research Corner: Why it pays to help holiday shoppers relax

13 Get Real

By Jason Fried We just hired a filmmaker. Perhaps you should too.

14 Passions

Parmaarth Kapur kicks up a storm in his kitchen, fusing food fundas together

18 Innovation

An ATM machine that is rural-wise and hassle-free

2 | INC. | december 2011

Become an eco-warrior with green office accessories Speeding up your PC Tech Trends by John Brandon: DIY tools for creating mobile websites A touchscreen display for making presentations Things Durva Gandhi Can’t Live Without

Guidebook, No. 10

How to review employee performance. Following Page 24.

64 I Wish I Knew Then...

Priya Monga, co-founder, RC&M, says her entrepreneurial journey is marked by constant learning.

Strategy 51 managing Experiment with fun designations. Sometimes, it’s all in the name 53 Sales & marketing Can an online recommendation tool sell itself? 54 finance A field guide to crowdfunding 56 branding How sponsoring a rock festival is helping a restaurant chain reinvent itself 58 Elevator pitch Can the founders of 99Games get investors to play along with their $2-million wish?

60 The Way I Work

He systematically loves to break down older orders. He thrives on stress. Yet, it’s good to be Venkatesh Iyer and run one of the “funnest” firms in the country—Goli Vada Pav. as told to rohini banerjee

inc.com

Contents

5 things to do

online this month

1. Gaze Into the Future

4. Visit the Coolest Offices in the World

Tour the soaring spaces and innovative locations of this year’s Coolest Offices contest winners—all from your desk. www.inc.com/worlds-coolest-offices

This might be the year of the iPad, but what’s up next? We look at the technology that is likely to change the game in 2012.

5. Be the Boss of Your Budget

It’s that time of the year again. And, yes, you do have to prepare a budget. The 30 tips and tricks in this special report should make it easier. www.inc.com/moneyand-finance

www.inc.com/articles/201110/ technology-trends-towatch-in-2012

2. Weigh Your Options Is it time to sell? Here’s a look at five indicators that could help you decide. www.inc.com/ selling-a-business

Corrigendum

In the story on One Step Up (Start Up Diaries, November 2011 issue), the line: “In the sign-up model, each student pays anywhere between `10,000-` 15,000” carries an error. Modules for students actually begin from `400 for a session, and can go up according to the modules chosen. The error is deeply regretted.

3. Use Tech to Market Smarter

How facial recognition, eavesdropping apps, and augmented reality could help you engage customers www.inc.com/ managing-technology

MANAGING DIRECTOR: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Anuradha Das Mathur Editorial managing Editor: shreyasi singh assistant features editor: rohini banerjee feature writer: ira swasti Copy Desk Managing Editor: Sangita Thakur Varma DEsign Sr Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Director: PC Anoop Visualisers: Prasanth TR, Anil T & Shokeen Saifi Sr Designers: Sristi Maurya, NV Baiju & Chander Dange Designers: Suneesh K, Shigil N, Charu Dwivedi Raj Verma, Prince Antony, Binu MP & Peterson Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

4 | INC. | DECember 2011

community team product manager: mahesh ravi assistant product manager: Rajat gupta associate: deepika sharma Sales & Marketing senior vice president: krishna kumar (+91 98102 06034) business development Manager: arjun sawhney (+91 95822 20507) assistant regional manager (south & WEST) rajesh kandari (+91 98111 40424)

Production & Logistics Sr General manager (Operations) Shivshankar M Hiremath Manager Operations: Rakesh upadhyay Asst. Manager - Logistics: Vijay Menon Executive Logistics: Nilesh Shiravadekar Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre

Logistics MP Singh, Mohd. Ansari OFFICE ADDRESS nine dot nine mediaworx Pvt Ltd A-262, Defence Colony, New Delhi–110 024 For any queries, please contact us at help@9dot9.in Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Private Limited. Published and printed on their behalf by Anuradha Das Mathur. Published at A-262, Defence Colony, New Delhi–110 024 printed at Tara Art Printers Pvt ltd. A-46-47, Sector-5, NOIDA (U.P.) 201301 Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur

editor’s letter

On A High Note Since becoming editor of this magazine, and through most of the year, I have battled a happy problem of plenty. I’ve often wished we had more issues to bring out, more pages to fill, and more writers to pen down the many interesting stories my team and I come across. Each time we couldn’t slot a fascinating entrepreneur or an exciting firm into the monthly edit matrix, I’d stow them away in a folder I call “must-include-soon”. A year-end issue seemed to be the perfect time to do justice to that list. As Rohini Banerjee, Ira Swasti and I pored over our collection, we were struck by how young some of the entrepreneurs and indeed many of the companies were. Our cover story evolved from there. It’s hard not to be impressed by this bunch. Things I Learnt Between them they seem to have it In This Issue all—loads of ingenuity, business Think really big. Doing acumen, good ideas and, most something small takes as importantly, age on their side. much effort, in any case. Good point, Naveen Take Sachin Bansal and Binny Tewari Bansal of Flipkart, for example. Experts know nothing. Friends since their IIT Delhi days, Ignore conventional these two are barely even 30. Yet wisdom, says Vinod they have already navigated their Khosla four-year-old firm to the top of Know how to spot real India’s exciting e-commerce space. expertise. Often, it isn’t Flipkart really made waves in 2011. accompanied by fancy Its founders are the new gang to degrees

watch out for like our other internet entrepreneurs— InMobi’s Naveen Tewari and Komli Media’s Amar Goel. But it isn’t only Silicon Valley-type “tech startups” that figure here. There are also those like Deval Sanghavi and Neera Nundy of Dasra, or Abhishek and Anubhav Sinha of EKO who are bringing change where it’s most needed. They belong to that cadre of social entrepreneurs who inspire us and make us wonder—what motivates them? Find out on Page 26. Iconic venture capitalist Vinod Khosla was in Bengaluru recently. In an interview with us, on Page 9, he said he was very optimistic about India’s young entrepreneurs. I hope he gets to read our cover story. And finds even more to be excited about. All’s well that ends well, it’s often said. Our last issue of the year has given us the chance to dip into lots of positive energy. We wish you the same for a happy and enriching 2012.

Shreyasi Singh shreyasi.singh@9dot9.in

december 2011 | INC. | 5

BEHIND THE SCENES

Companies at the Heart of Everyday Life

Design The Comedy Store was originally designed by founder Don Ward in London in 1979. Inspired by the original design, the interiors of its Mumbai avatar have been done up by Delhi-based Lotus Design. Boat designer-turned-interior designer Ambrish Arora started Lotus in 2002. Today, his 35-member team has a diverse clientele ranging from the F Bar and Lounge in Delhi, Aarushi, a hostel for homeless girls in Gurgaon, and Raas, a luxury boutique hotel in Jodhpur.

Tableware The club likes visitors to laugh with their mouths full. The Comedy Store comes equipped with a full bar, diner and café. The fare is served on crockery made by Feather Touch, a leading manufacturer and exporter of bone china tableware since 1987. The 300-people company founded by S.P. Sethi provides crockery, cutlery and tableware to numerous hospitality chains across India, including Radisson Hotels, Marriott and Le Meridien.

6 | INC. | DECember 2011

The Comedy Store, Mumbai

04:11:2011, 7:45PM

Security You’ve seen the show, eaten the food and wish to make a getaway: well, good luck escaping the guards. On a serious note, The Comedy Store has ample security to keep its patrons safe. Its guards are hired from Aryan Security Services, a Mumbai-based firm founded in 2006 and run by founder director Prashant Ambre. The 800-people firm secured a turnover of `2 crore in 2010. It also protects other premium locations such as the Orchid Hotels and the Inorbit Mall in Mumbai.

Location For a comedy club, choosing the right spot is as important as getting the right people on stage. The popular hangout is situated inside Palladium Mall within Mumbai’s popular and busy entertainment and shopping complex—High Street Phoenix. High Street Phoenix gets an average footfall of 10 million people every year. Pioneered by The Phoenix Mills, it’s run by managing director Atul Ruia. Spread over 3.3 million sq ft, the complex also houses over 500 brands, including a variety of F&B and entertainment brands.

Photograph By jiten gandhi

reported by ira swasti

News, Ideas & Trends in Brief

launch

Wide Horizon Vinod Khosla tells Indian start-ups that they can build the future they want.

A NEW STORY

Special diets meet special entrepreneur

“Have Fun Creating Big Change” Vinod Khosla’s mantra for entrepreneurs Large shifts happen all the time all over the world, and experts almost never get close to getting them right, said Vinod Khosla, iconic technology venture capitalist, at the Nasscom Product Conclave in Bengaluru, recently. Khosla didn’t stop at that. To a packed audience of young entrepreneurs, he laid out his advice—do your homework, show the chutzpah to ignore conventional wisdom, find self-belief in the face of failure, and you can build the future you want. As for him, Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems when he was 25, and has spent the past three decades funding technology companies, is still driven by having fun at work. In an interview with Inc. India, Khosla said he doesn’t bother about an afterlife or a legacy as long as he’s making big changes, and having fun. He also spoke about the immense potential he saw in young entrepreneurs in India. continued on the next page

Merely writing about the thrills of entrepreneurship wasn’t enough for Pooja Kothari, Inc. India’s first editor. She had to experience the journey for herself. Fortunately for her, Kothari is now in the midst of start-up land, having recently launched Foodbury, an online store for people with special dietary needs, with her sister, Aarti. The result of a need she personally grappled with, Foodbury took shape in her mind as her young child was diagnosed with celiac disease (or an allergy to gluten). “Sourcing wheat-free products was a big problem,” says Kothari. This hunt for the right food introduced her to what she calls, “a growing world of food allergens”. “Every time we visited the doctor, we met others allergic to everyday food products like lactose, eggs, soya and wheat. We would bond over discussions on where to find the right food.” So Foodbury stocks a wide range of products—for diabetics, or people with food allergies— from brands like Whole Foods, Sugarless Bliss and Orgran among others. Kothari wants people to eat better. As for her, entrepreneurship is definitely something that suits her palate. DECember 2011 | INC. | 9

launch

The Ticker

“Have Fun Creating Big Change” continued Q: You mentioned “large shifts” in your keynote at the Nasscom Product Conclave. What is the single biggest shift that people should pay attention to today?

Cell phones and fulfilling the needs and, eventually, the wants of India’s billion-strong population are some examples of what sort of a market the country could be, for entrepreneurs. The mobile as a platform is becoming a true equaliser. It’s becoming very, very broad. For example, I

people under 35 at the Nasscom Product Conclave is a great indicator. The number of people who raised their hands when I asked ‘how many of you are starting companies’, that’s a great indicator—that was a very large percentage of the people in the audience at the event in Bengaluru. Q: What would it take for you to re-locate to India?

You know, I sort of think of everything that I do as global. It’s

“I sort of think of everything that I do as global. Every single company that we invest in is global. No company can succeed today if it’s only India or only the US.” was talking to some Nokia people and I told them—I want to hear about something that’s surprising you. They said they had expected Facebook to be popular on their feature-rich, high-end phones but what they are facing is a huge demand for Facebook as an application on their low-end phones. That’s surprising. Those kinds of surprises—that even if you can only afford a `2,000 phone, you want to be social and have a social network—are the ones that entrepreneurs need to pay attention to . Q: You talked about original product companies from India: is there enough support for that ecosystem to come together? Are there any specific indicators that tell you this?

I think that’s happening. It will take time but it will happen and I’m very encouraged by what I’m seeing. Well, just the number of 10 | INC. | DECember 2011

not about being in India, the US or China. Every single company that we invest in is global, so I think this is just the media’s notion. No company can succeed today if it’s only Indian or only in the United States. Q: Is there anything, after all that you’ve done, that Vinod Khosla still wants to achieve?

I always look at what impact one can make, what difference one can make and how much fun one can have doing it. I think those are the important things. I don’t worry about things like my legacy and what people will remember me for. I just want to have fun working on things I’m passionate about. That’s all I really care about. I don’t believe in an afterlife, I don’t believe in anything but fun things that cause big change. —Harichandan Arakali

kachru

It’s definitely time for season’s greetings and merry investments. First up, Aspiring Minds, the Gurgaon-based employability assessment firm sinha is ready for Step 2. GVK Biosciences and Omidyar Network India Advisors, headed by Jayant Sinha, will provide Series-A funds to Aspiring Minds...Next, Helion Ventures Partners will invest in Hoopos, a mother and infant care online chain...On an investment warpath are entrepreneurs Bala Parthasarthy, Sanjay Swamy and Shripati Acharya. The power trio launched Angel Prime, an incubator, to shine light on start-ups workbagging investments ing in mobile payments, e-commerce and apps for smartphones and tablets...Some more people news... Neelam Chhiber, the founder of Industree Crafts Foundation is the Indian Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY) 2011. Instituted by the Schwab Foundation for social entrepreneurship, the SEOY identifies visionary social entrepreneurs who have demonstrated scalable models...Chhiber’s not the only one smiling...Smile Group’s site Deals and You has managed to raise $17 million in its second round of funding, led by Mayfield Fund and Norwest Venture Partners. Nokia Growth Partners and Intel Capital participated as well. Headed by Gaurav Kachru, Deals and You will use the funds to rev up focus on customers, technology and infrastructure. —Inc. India

Happy Rewards Why loyalty always makes good business sense

A skimmer’s guide to the latest business books

Recently, Loylty Rewardz, a Mumbai-based company that helps brands retain

customers and build loyalty raised $4.4 million in Series B funding from Canaan Partners, a leading early stage and growth capital fund. Founded by Bijaei Jayaraj in 2006, Loytly Rewardz enhances customer loyalty by analysing their behaviour patterns and instituting appropriate rewards and recognition mechanisms. Thanks to big clients like State Bank of India, Citibank and HDFC, the company today processes more than a million card transactions every month to reward loyalty points. But Jayaraj says the tallying has just begun. He tells Inc. India his plans for the future, and how this recent investment will help him get there.

Q: What is the capital you have recently raised going to be used for? Which side of the business requires more focus right now?

The capital raised will be used to fuel the exponential growth plans we have. A part of it will be used to significantly strengthen our technology platform. We have already transacted over 90 million transactions awarding over 4.5 billion points in India. The technology platform will be scaled up to increase throughput. We also have aggressive plans to broaden our merchant network across Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns. Even as we go deeper to bolster our sales and marketing strength, we also plan to introduce our own innovative loyalty products.

largest loyalty firms in the world. Like I said, we’ve already crossed 90 million transactions, and we’re growing over 100 per cent year on year. We’re helping our clients benefit at the same rate. After working with us, they have witnessed measurable increase in their desired behaviour from their consumer base to the tune of over 100 per cent year on year. Q: Take us through your growth plan. What are the main challenges in getting to these milestones?

We currently have over 55 per cent market share in India and aim to consolidate and grow that figure. Ours is an 80-people team of professionals and we Banking on Loyalty Bijaei Jayaraj wants want to see this numto revolutionise loyalty marketing in India. Q: Give us a sense of ber more than double the loyalty marketing in the next year itself. segment in India. In terms of challenge, our sales cycle is long Loyalty market in India is in its early stages because it involves educating the client of growth and maturity, and the opportuorganisation on the merits of instituting a nity is large. We’re in a good place right customer loyalty programme. Consumer now as a company. There isn’t really loyalty marketing is one of the best valueanother large and established loyalty comfor-money marketing approaches. It has the pany in India currently that operates at our ability to influence relevant consumers scale. Our cumulative consumer base is directly; however, we face the challenge of more than 124 million credit and debit having to educate and mature the market as card holders, which makes us one of the we grow.

The book: The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else, by George Anders; Portfolio. The big idea: When hiring, companies should stop looking for people who will work out right now and start looking for people who may someday blow their socks off. Unfortunately, the sock blowers aren’t always obvious. The backstory: Anders, a business journalist, pursues the subject of hiring with the skills of a reporter. He travels to several places where job candidates are auditioned, including a classroom in California in which “Teach for America” applicants confront recruiters pretending to be problem students. Hire power: Your most important hire may be the person who does the hiring. Anders spends as much time on the backgrounds and approaches of great talent scouts as he does the talent itself. If you read nothing else: Chapter Three, “Decoding the Jagged Résumé,” makes a strong case that superstars in the making often lack the experience and qualifications that snag employers’ attention. Chapter Six, “Talent That Whispers,” describes Facebook’s strategy for ferreting out unconventional, self-taught programmers. Food for thought: Could entrepreneurs apply the same skills they use for picking new products to picking unproven talent? Both tasks seem to require the ability to move fast—before all the evidence is in—and trust personal insights. —Leigh Buchanan DECember 2011 | INC. | 11

launch

research corner

Attention, Shoppers: Take a Deep Breath Why it pays to help customers relax Retailers typically use festive music and decorations to put customers in the giving spirit during the

holiday shopping season. But according to a recent study, merchants might want to consider throwing in some back massages and pedicures.

The Findings In the study, “Relaxation Increases Monetary Valuations”, researchers found that when people are more relaxed, they are willin0g to spend more money. Luxury retailers have long used calming cues such as mood lighting and pleasant aromas to coax customers into opening their wallets. But relaxed customers will spend more for all kinds of merchandise, including utilitarian items and products that require physical activity, like a bungee-jumping session, says Michel Tuan Pham, a business professor at Columbia University. Pham co-authored the study with Iris W. Hung and Gerald J. Gorn, two business professors from Singapore and Hong Kong, respectively. Relaxation, says Pham, isn’t just pleasant. It promotes abstract thinking, which causes customers to focus on the general benefits of products rather than on specific features or details.

The Methodology In the first of six experiments, participants were randomly shown one of two videos. One was a relaxing 10-minute video that included nature scenes and a soothing voice, coaching the viewer through breathing exercises. The other was a 10-minute video about robots. After watching one of the videos, participants were shown photos of 10 products, such as a picture frame and an LCD monitor, and were asked how much each was worth. The people who watched the relaxing video thought the products were worth more, by an average increase of about 11 per cent. In another simulation, after watching the videos, participants were asked to bid on a digital camera on eBay. Those who watched the robot video had an average maximum bid of $295. The participants who watched the relaxing video bid $32 higher, on average.

12 | INC. | DECember 2011

The Takeaway Unfortunately, with the holiday season upon us and the nation’s economy still in the dumps, it’s tough to help shoppers reach a Zen-like state. “Consumers are quite tired and a bit worn out with the idea of the holiday season,” says Greg Hodge, global retail strategist at Iconoculture, a Minneapolis-based firm that researches consumer trends. “Getting them to relax is going to be quite hard to achieve right now.” Retailers may not be able to station massage chairs on every aisle, but there are some practical things entrepreneurs can do to make stores a bit more relaxing, says Hodge, such as playing soothing music and reducing lines. “Customers are put off by the sheer volume of people, and a lot of them find shopping very, very stressful,” Hodge says. “People find checking out the most stressful part.” He recommends a system like that used in Apple stores, in which roaming salespeople are equipped with handheld card swipers, to reduce lines. Even online retailers can make the shopping experience more relaxing, says Hodge, by making websites easily navigable. It also helps to simplify the checkout and shipping process, the way Amazon does with its one-click ordering feature. “You want to take away that stress,” he says, “and the final burden of paying for the gift at the end.” —J.J. McCorvey

“ Customers are put off by the sheer volume of people, and a lot of them find shopping very, very stressful.” Loose Spending

Relaxed study participants thought products were worth more money. neutral

$17

relaxed

$42

picture frame

+147%

$15 $23 scarf

+53%

$142 $149

$48

$71

paper shredder

+48%

lcd monitor

+5%

illustration by SHIGIL N

GET REAL BY JASON FRIED

I Oughta Be in Pictures

We just hired a full-time filmmaker to document our every move. Perhaps you should, too There’s a new story at your business every day. Maybe you dreamt up a great idea or shot down a bad one. Maybe a customer surprised you with the way he or she uses your product. Perhaps a client or an employee came to you with a suggestion for something you’d never thought of before. There are hidden opportunities in these everyday moments. They make great stories—and in today’s business world, you’re missing an opportunity if you ignore a good story. That’s because great brands are the ones that tell the best stories. Sure, good products and service matter, but stories are what connect people with companies. At 37signals, the Chicago software company I cofounded, we’ve always been big believers in storytelling. On our blog, Signal vs. Noise, you’ll find explanations of our design philosophies, details of our business decisions, arguments about our approaches to technology, opinions about what’s going on in our industry, new ideas that excite us, and more. We’ve written books and articles about most of these things, too. But just about all of these things have been expressed with words, not images. We’ve probably written close to a million words over the past 10 years; in that same period, I’d guess that we’ve taped fewer than 10 hours of video. And that began to seem a bit off. Video is a great way to show off a company’s personality, people, culture, and customers. It helps humanise a business. So a few months ago, we decided it was time to change our approach to storytelling—and start recording on camera what happens here. We’re far from complete strangers to video. But when we have opted to record something, we’ve outsourced the work to our friends at Coudal Partners, a design and product development shop down the street. Steve Delahoyde, Coudal’s resident filmmaker, has shot, edited, and produced a variety of videos for us—including customer testimonials, trailers for our book, and interviews with entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, outsourcing isn’t exactly compatible with spontaneity. If we have an idea right now, we want to get it on film right now. So we decided to hire a full-timer. We put a job ad up on our blog, describing the role and why we wanted to fill it. We listed the kinds of projects we had in mind (customer stories; documenting the way we work together; even showing our lives outside of work, because we have a lot of interesting people here). The key was that every video had to be interesting. (You can view the full ad here: 37signals.com/svn/posts/2980-were-looking-to-hire-a-filmmaker.) The applications came rolling in. I was quickly surprised—as well as relieved—to see how many really good filmmakers there are in Chicago. We got more than 100 illustration by Shigil N

applications, narrowed those down to about a dozen, and then asked those finalists to produce a three-minute video about a person or business they found interesting. They were given just about a week to do it. The video was to be shot, edited, and produced entirely solo—no crew or assistants allowed. Their only direction was to tell us a good story. One applicant made a video about a guy who ground prescription eyeglasses in his house. Others profiled a glass blower and a physicist in his lab at Northwestern University. All the videos were pretty great. We shared them around the office and asked Steve, our soon-to-be former contractor, what he thought. We wound up hiring Shaun Hildner, a Chicago-based filmmaker who worked at a digital media school. We liked his eye, his approach, and his ability to make people feel comfortable in front of the camera. Further, he had experience in motion graphics. Shaun just started, so we don’t have anything to share just yet. But we’re really looking forward to telling our stories and sharing our ideas in an entirely new way. The plan is to produce at least 25 videos next year. So, as they say on the set: Action! Jason Fried is co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm, and co-author of the book Rework. DECember 2011 | INC. | 13

PASSIONS

Life Outside the Office

“I am an unmeasured chef. I don’t have recipes. They just come to me when I’m cooking.” 14 | INC. | DECember 2011

Parmaarth Kapur

Cooking

Parmaarth Kapur relishes experimenting with palates. He loves food too much to not know how to cook, says Kapur, the co-founder of Anubhav Apparels, a `25crore garments business in Noida. He began tickling the tastebuds eight years ago, using his mother’s recipes to whip up a perfect dal, rice and chicken. But the homemade food didn’t quite satiate the master chef in him. He soon began fusing food fundas together—Thai spices in tandoori dishes or Indian dishes made in tagine, a Moroccan clay pot. Now, cooking is his recipe to unwind. “I go into this zone while I’m cooking,” says Kapur.

His Guru Kapur devours cookbooks written by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. “He’s a fun guy and totally into outdoor cooking. Like him, I wish to set up my own barbecue and invite friends over.” Finger Lickin’ Good Regional cuisines such as Goan, Malabari and Konkani, are among his favourites. He loves eating out at the Oh! Calcutta in Delhi and at the Mom’s Kitchen in Goa Master Chef Moment Thanks to his wife Alka, co-founder of Anubhav, who “can’t cook”, Kapur gets into a frying, broiling and basting frenzy thrice every week. He fondly remembers a prawn biryani he made for Alka. “She said it was the most amazing thing she’d ever had.”

photograph by Subhojit Paul

reported by Ira Swasti

The Scuba Sutras BY Guhesh Ramanathan

A brave dive for talent

Don’t confuse expertise with certificates. Real learning doesn’t come from amassing degrees, it comes from experience I clearly remember a story that Chris,

my diving instructor in Koh Tao, Thailand, shared with me right after I had qualified as a diver. It was of a 60-year-old British citizen, who wished to qualify for the Professional Association of Diving Instructors’ (PADI) licence; a few batches before me. Chris took him through the drill— first the pool sessions and then a test out in the open sea. The tests are sacrosanct: an amateur has to flood his mask, pull it away from his face and then breathe out through his nose while watching the water slowly drain away. Ritualistically, Chris demonstrated what had to be done. Then, he signalled the senior man to do exactly the same. Dutifully, the British man flooded his mask. Then, he just breathed all the water in through his nose, removed his regulator and casually spat all the water out! Dumbstruck, Chris signalled him to repeat the process. The old man repeated the drill again, and then again, grinning right through it. When they surfaced, Chris was burning with curiosity. He had to ask his unique pupil where he had learnt this unique trick. “That’s the way we did it in the UK Army’s divers’ unit,” my instructor was informed by the still grinning British man. Chris was amazed: just how many dives had his pupil clocked in total? “A couple of thousands probably. We never maintained a log book. So, I’ve kind of lost count,” he casually informed. He didn’t really need to learn diving. He just needed the PADI Certificate. Otherwise he couldn’t do the recreational dive.

16 | INC. | DECember 2011

I can’t think of a more classic example of the saying: ‘been there, done that, but didn’t get the T-shirt’. To put this example in context, let me tell you of how ‘scuba divers’ factories’ in Thailand work. Given that the Thai economy is primarily driven by tourism, large groups of fresh college graduates, mainly from Europe, land up for long holidays at Bangkok. After illustration by PC ANOOP

The Scuba Sutras

spending a few days sampling the sights, they head out to either Koh Tao or Koh Samui to pack in some diving. Most finish their Open Water Certification—a beginner’s certificate—in four flat days. Then, they spend a few more to complete their Advanced Open Water Certification. Sometimes with only eight or so dives under their belts—the absolute minimum—they sign up for the ‘subsidised’ Dive Master (DM) Programme. The motivation for this fast-track is quite clear. With the DM Certification, they can help out at the dive centres and earn some extra cash and extend their holidays. I remember my third season of diving at Koh Tao. Our dive leader was a Dive Master Trainee with a little over 50 dives. Just off Koh Tao is a popular dive site called Liam Thien Caves. On that particular day, our dive master took us there. Cave diving is a particularly challenging and dangerous sport. If you don’t maintain your buoyancy perfectly, you can bang around the roof and bruise yourself up pretty easily and badly. Also, it’s easy to get disoriented or lost, especially if the caves are long and spotted with tunnels. In short— diving into caves is definitely not recommended for beginners. Not that Liam Thien was a “very dangerous” dive. It’s only around 20 metres underwater. But it has a series of branches that lead off for about 15 to 20 metres before ending— sometimes blindly. Some of these do have vents that open up to the sea. So though there is some amount of light in the tunnels, by and large Liam Thien is dark. To cut a long story short, our dive master led us into the caves. Before we (and him) knew it, proceeded to get us all lost in there. And he had no clue as to how to get us out. He’d follow a branch—and all of us would faithfully follow him—to realise that it was a dead end. Within minutes, the group was completely disoriented. Some divers were running out of air. This was not a good situation to be in. To our luck, there was an experienced diver among us. She had dived over 500 times, but had never bothered to get herself certified beyond the basic Open Water Diver. She took charge. Along with

her 15-year-old daughter, who was just finishing her advanced certification herself (that girl had done over a 100 dives!), she gathered the group and led us out of Liam Thien. Once we were out, she handed the group back to the dive master so that he could take us to the boat. An underwater adventure sounds more dramatic, of course. But we see this experience versus certificate debate at work all the time—don’t we? More often than not, when we hire we look more closely at the certificates that the applicants flaunt—at the college background, organisations they’ve worked in, designations they have held and perhaps training programmes here and there—than their

he turned away. Then he turned again. He said, “I am not carrying my CV with me right now. But could I leave a file behind for you to take a look at?” I was intrigued—what kind of person comes to apply for a job without a CV? Also, I wondered what his “file” contained. I asked him to pass it over. And I’m glad I did. It was a real eye-opener. The file contained easily over 100 recommendation letters from individual customers of Hathaway Cable Network, where this young man had been working for a year before he came for the interview. He worked as the customer support executive. The praise for him was effusive—customers talked about his responsiveness, the speed with which

In a majority of cases, we tend to assume that candidates’ certificates are representative of their true expertise. true expertise. In a majority of cases, we tend to assume that these certificates are representative of a person’s expertise. I know I’ve done that. When I was hiring customer support engineers for my company, we had put out an advertisement and received over a 100 applications. After a basic screening, I called around 10 people for personal interviews. We wanted to pick three. As I was finishing the final set of interviews, there was a knock on my door. A young man stood there. He had seen the advertisement too late, he said, and hadn’t sent in his resume. But, he asked if he could still apply for the job. By then, we had pretty much made up our minds. I really was in no mood to go through another CV. So I gave him the usual spiel—we had no vacancies left. But he could leave his details behind and we would get in touch the next time we saw an opening. I saw his shoulders slump as

he resolved issues and his innovative methods to go beyond the call of duty to provide an outstanding service. I was sold. I made him a spot offer. Actually, now that I think about it, I never got to see his CV. It was many months later that I found out that he wasn’t even an engineering graduate. For the next five years, he grew with us from strength to strength. Today, he works for one of the world’s leading technology firms managing their global customer support. Put these examples together and think about it. Are you also making the same mistake of looking at someone’s certificates and not at his or her expertise?

Guhesh Ramanathan is a mentor at the entrepreneurship cells of IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad. He serves on the boards of several companies and is an advanced certified scuba diver. DECember 2011 | INC. | 17

innovation

Companies on the Cutting Edge

Village Bound

Vortex Engineering, a Chennai-based technology provider, has created a breed of cash dispensers that don’t need AC rooms and work on less than 100 watt of power. Vortex started building these tough cookies after IIT Madras approached the team to design solutions that improve banking access in rural India. “Building for rural infrastructure is more challenging. You have to make products that work in harsher environments ”, says Laxminarayan Kannan, founder and CTO, Vortex Engineering. In 2007, the pilot batch of Gramateller ATMs was successfully installed in Tamil Nadu to disburse wages under the NREGA scheme. Since then, the firm has bagged orders from co-operative banks and the State Bank of India. To combat erratic power supply, the new models have been equipped to work on solar power and have in-built UPS backup of nearly eight hours. Machines are also fitted with biometric authentication system and a voice guidance feature. Specifications Height: 1,500 mm Width: 540 to 600 mm Weight: 200 to 400 kg Achievements Technology Pioneer, 2011, by World Economic Forum Finalist at the Wall Street Journal Asia Innovation Awards 2010

Variants Gramateller Duo ATM—ideal for semi-urban areas and priced at `2.6 lakh onwards Gramateller Indi ATM—ideal for rural areas and priced at `1.75 lakh onwards

“We hope to see an India where there is one ATM in every village, operating profitably.” —L. Kannan, founder and CTO, Vortex Engineering

18 | INC. | DECember 2011

Gramateller ATM

Photograph by Jiten Gandhi

Vortex Engineering

reported by Ira Swasti

Your Business Toolbox

GO N! E GRE

The Goods

Love Your Planet Check out these ecofriendly office supplies

Global warming, carbon credits and sustainable development are today’s buzz words. Keeping up with the “green is good” trend, we have picked five eco-friendly items for your office. Reduce that carbon footprint with these responsible buys. —Ira Swasti

Studylite

Neem pens

Plastic pens are overlooked as a source of pollution. While reams have been written to save paper, nobody talks of rationing their usage of pens. Made from branches and twigs of neem trees, these pens didn’t need trees to be cut. All you prolific notetakers, write away. price: `100 for 5

courtesy company (5) Available at Store ABD, Designbait.com, greenandgoodstore.com and BPL stores

Chalta Racket

Chalta is the Hindi word for moving— apt for this movable rack-cum-coffee table inspired by carts used by street vendors. Made with powder-coated iron and rope (coir or silk-cotton), the table has enough room to double up as a newspaper holder or a book stand. The quirky creation is inspired by India’s rural life. price: `40,000

This stylish halo on a flexible stick makes for a great desk lamp. But that’s not why Studylite is cool—it comes fitted with LED lights which consume less power than traditional CFLs or incandescent bulbs. The lamp also comes with a solar charging option and is equipped with a rechargeable battery. It comes with a wide array of colours to go with your office design. price: `1,690

An Easy Dustbin

Save on steel, plastic and space by using these cardboard dustbins. They are handmade and come in a variety of beautiful designs. Easily foldable, they can be stored in drawers when not in use. Time to say goodbye to those dull eyesores called bins under the desks. price: `85 Water clock

These clocks run on water and other liquids. Just fill the reservoir at the back with any liquid of your choice. It’s cool blue translucent siding is soothing and allows you to keep the water level in check. Imagine the amount of battery junk saved with this one. price: `450 DECember 2011 | INC. | 2 1

the goods

Products + Services

Must-Haves

My favourite tool for organising data ryan goodman founder, centigon solutions san diego

My company makes location intelligence software for businesses, so I’m very much a technology guy. A couple of years ago, I started tinkering with Roambi, a Web-based service that turns spreadsheet data into interactive files for iPhones and iPads. I’ve been using it ever since. We have a lot of product offerings, so I used Roambi to create a streamlined price list I can pull up on my iPhone during meetings with prospective clients, even without an internet connection. To create the list, I uploaded my Salesforce pricing spreadsheets to the Roambi website, chose a template, and hit a button to publish it to my phone. When I show the list to clients, it appears as white text on a black background. I can scroll up and down with my finger and tap on different items for more detailed information. I also use Roambi to turn time sheets on Google Docs into colourful pie charts. The charts, which Roambi updates automatically, make it easy to track how many contractors have worked for us in the past two weeks and how many hours they’ve logged. I pay a total of about $400 a year for four Roambi Pro accounts for me and my employees. That lets us share files. Now we always have important data at our fingertips. —As told to Abram Brown

2 2 | INC. | DECember 2011

PC Running Slowly? How to rev up your machine

It’s only natural for computers to slow down over time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean shelling out for a new machine. PC tune-up software promises help in pinpointing and removing the junk clogging up your hard drive. How well do the programs work? We tested four of them on a sluggish, three-year-old PC. —J.B. Auslogics BoostSpeed 5

Our top pick, BoostSpeed has a bare-bones interface but produced the best results of the bunch. After scanning your computer for space-hogging programs, it displays them according to size in a handy tree diagram. During our test, the software detected a whopping 35GB of wasted disk space. We also used it to tweak our browser settings to maximise downloading and Web surfing speed. The result? A dramatically faster PC. cost: $50

TuneUp Utilities 2011

TuneUp Utilities lets you scan your computer for system file problems, search for unneeded programs and tweak internet settings for added speed. A star-based userrating system helps you determine if an application is worth keeping. We liked the software’s intuitive interface, but it found only 5GB of wasted files during our test. After removing them, we noticed a minor uptick in speed. cost: $40 in stores and $50 online

SlimWare SlimCleaner 1.9

This software scans your computer for large program files and presents them in a list with ratings and reviews by other users. You can remove unneeded files with the press of a button. During our test, the software found only about 900MB of wasted disk space, and most of the programmes on our PC were rated good, which was not very helpful. After deleting some of them, we noticed a slight improvement in speed. cost: Free

IOBit Advanced SystemCare Pro 4

We were underwhelmed by this software, which pinpointed only 145MB of wasted disk space during our test, the lowest amount of the bunch. There was no noticeable improvement in speed after we deleted the suggested files. One upside: Like TuneUp Utilities, the software lets you schedule regular background scans. Like the other software here, it does not work on Macs. cost: $20 a year

the goods

tech trends john brandon

Mobile Presence in a Flash DIY tools for creating smartphone-friendly websites presentations

Not your father’s whiteboard

One of my friends runs a flooring business. He’s proud of his company’s website, which looks good and is easy to use. But visit the site on a smartphone browser, and it’s a mess: there is too much text, the videos don’t play, and it’s painfully difficult to navigate. Two new DIY services, DudaMobile and FiddleFly, promise to solve this problem by converting regular websites into mobile sites that work on most smartphones. I gave them a try, using my friend’s site as a test case. To get started on DudaMobile, I entered the URL for the flooring website and clicked Make My Site Mobile. Dozens of templates popped up, in a wide range of colours and styles. I chose a simple silver and black design. Within seconds, DudaMobile imported all the content from the existing site, including graphics, text, and links, and arranged it in a virtual smartphone screen. Next, I used a step-by-step wizard to customise the site, uploading a company logo and removing some unnecessary links. I also added a map and a link to directions, along with a click-to-call button for contacting the business. Then, the IT guy at the flooring company added a code to the main site to redirect it to the mobile one. All told, it took about 10 minutes to create a mobile site with dozens of pages. Not bad, especially given the price: DudaMobile’s basic service, which lets you create a 10-page website with social net-

working links and a button that allows users to bookmark your page, is free. Or, you can pay $9 a month for a site with unlimited pages and premium features, including a map. Another plus? The service updates your mobile site whenever you make changes to your main site. The other tool I tried, FiddleFly, charges $588 for a five-page mobile site, plus $180 a year for hosting and maintenance. It was trickier to use, but it offers more design options. After a quick sign-up, a screen appeared with about 100 polished-looking layouts. I selected one with dog-eared buttons. The tool doesn’t automatically pull in content, so I copied and pasted links and text from the flooring site and uploaded photos. Then, I added links to the company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and a form users could submit to receive a $50 discount. I also added a YouTube video about installing floors. The process took about an hour, and the five-page site was more streamlined and polished looking than the one I created using DudaMobile. One gripe: unlike Duda, FiddleFly does not update your mobile site automatically. My friend found both sites impressive. He thought FiddleFly’s was sleeker, but DudaMobile’s lower price won him over in the end. My verdict? If you want to create a professional-looking mobile site for your business, these DIY tools are worth checking out.

At first glance, it looks like a regular whiteboard. But Sharp’s new interactive whiteboard is actually a 70-inch touchscreen monitor that comes with software for importing presentations from any Windows 7 computer. Using a finger or stylus, you can add annotations and drawings to anything displayed on the 1080-pixel LED backlit screen, including slide shows and videos. You can use gestures to change the size of objects on the screen. Then, you can save annotated presentations and share them via e-mail. cost: $7,750 —Adam Baer

art department

A souped-up digital pen Unlike most digital pens, Wacom’s Inkling is designed to record drawings, not just notes. You can save layers of sketches and add or remove them later. You can also play an animation of your drawing process. The rechargeable ballpoint pen comes with a receiver that clips on to any paper to record sketches. You can save files on the receiver, which has 2GB of memory, and transfer them to a computer with an included USB cable. The pen comes with a carrying case that doubles as a charger. cost: $199 —Adam Baer DECember 2011 | INC. | 2 3

the goods

Business Travel

Things I Cannot Live Without... Yoga, spa and sleep I need all three for that perfect mindbody-soul balance. iPad E-mails, meetings or music: three essential aspects of my life are sorted out by my iPad.

Painting An S.H. Raza which adorns my living room wall. Every time I look at it, my heart lifts. Founder, Breathe Arts

Durva Gandhi

My fancy wheels The Mercedes C250 with its Bluetooth and car phone is my office on the move.

2 4 | INC. | DECember 2011

Founder of Breathe Arts, an online art gallery, Durva Gandhi has led a series of successful design ventures earlier also. Dedicated exclusively to the Indian arts, Breathe Arts is accessible through an invitations-only model. Because her work entails that she remains “totally connected to her inner, creative space”, her favourite gizmos are those which bring her influences closer. “I love my iPad because it provides my life’s soundtrack. It plays a chant or hymn even when I’m doing mundane things like checking e-mails or doing accounts. I can’t live without music.” Other than music, her minimalist, arty home overlooking the sea in Mumbai is her calmest work zone. “It’s a rejuvenating space. It helps me connect with myself and gives me peace without which I wouldn't be able to work.” —R.B.

...and What I Covet If I could have a private jet, things would be perfect.

Everything you need to know to run your business in today’s economy

: : : : : : : : : : : A monthly guide to policies, procedures and practices

Remove booklet along dotted Line

review employee performance Annual performance reviews can be a double-bind dilemma for businesses—they are damned if they conduct perfunctory assessments, and damned if they completely shun the process. Not just line managers, many human resources executives too confess conventional annual reviews can be a waste of time. Employees have their own set of misgivings. According to Salary.com, six out of 10 workers don’t see the point in the mandatory form-filling exercise. But altogether skipping annual appraisals is a definite no as well. It sends out a negative message suggesting the company is not interested in helping staffers leave a mark. Also, salary hikes can be given without performance reviews, and they’ll keep employees happy in the short run, but genuinely good people may decide to find greener pastures where their efforts are really recognised and rewarded. Annual reviews are not meant to be ordeals. According to Robert Bacal, the author of Performance Management, “Performance management is about having everyone succeed and improve.” When handled well, performance reviews are an effective means to boost motivation levels, morale and productivity. The trick is in getting it right, and being a little creative. Read on to see how you can improve your own skills at doing this. —Charu Bahri

Vol. 02 No. 10 | inc. guidebook

review employee performance : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Attitudinal Shift Adopt a holistic outlook: Begin by explaining the scope of performance reviews. The sole focus should never be just the employees’ measurable performance and weaknesses. To be forward-looking, take into account every barrier to success, including the challenges thrown up by the work environment, market conditions and work flow processes. Which is why, author Robert Bacal says asking employees what made their jobs more difficult, and what they need in the next year to become more productive, is the single most important question. When framed so, reviews become dialogues between managers and employees, not a one-way street. Widening the scope is especially crucial when newcomers are appraised, says Archana Raha, business head, Axiome Consulting. “If road blocks are not cleared at the initial stages, employees may not settle down. Many times such matters become the root cause for their exit,” she says. Ongoing reviews: A year is a very long gap, adds Raha. She recommends introducing a six-month review cycle. Human resource consultant Sunitha Ravi, in fact, suggests quarterly reviews, to enable employees to continuously work at their shortcomings and strengths. “Generally employees’ performance peaks in the first and last quarter. They have a clear visibility of their goals in the first quarter and are also fresh and relieved from the pressure experienced in the previous quarter. The last quarter is usually a scramble to meet targets for a positive appraisal. Quarterly appraisals help inc. guidebook | Vol. 02 No. 10

keep up the momentum around the year,” explains Ravi. In high-pressure functional departments like sales, frequent reviews for junior and mid-level staff members can help boost morale especially if they’re combined with spot awards. Team members also benefit from an ongoing communication process with managers, by weekly or fortnightly interactions aiming at inquiring how employees are faring and sharing their performance metrics.

Get multiple reviews: Being at the receiving end of an inaccurate performance review or one marred by the boss’ biases is a huge let down for employees. Fortunately, 360 degree feedback surveys can help average out scores. This involves ensuring workers are reviewed by more than one person, such as their manager, colleagues and themselves as well. According to Sridhar Iriventi, VP, TechDemocracy, “Technology tools can help obtain such all round feedback in real-time rather than at specified intervals.” Getting several people to weigh in on the performance of a worker helps avoid the biases that cloud subjective reviews. It also creates a more positive work environment and generates realistic constructive feedback for employees. As Iriventi puts it, “This approach obviates the need to make an issue about appraisals. Often, employees dread ‘judgement days’ irrespective of how well designed the process. By experience and statistics, we know the maximum churn is after the appraisal.” For the best results, compare the self-appraisals with the other evaluations. Resolving the discrepancies between the reviews provides employees a clear picture of their actual contribution.

Frequent reviews can help boost morale if they’re combined with spot awards Use measurable goals: Setting measurable goals at the start of the review period makes appraisals more objective and effective. “Such goal setting works best when employees can align the aims with their career objectives and when managers spend time explaining the deliverables to juniors to get their buy-in,” says Ravi. Also, workers stay focused on their goals when they understand the role they play in the larger picture. Measurable goals allow managers to quantify achievements—as a percentage of the pre-set goals—during year-end appraisals. Although goalsetting exercises can be performed for every kind of task, it can be tricky for jobs where the outcome is qualitative in nature or is dependent on the performance of an entire team.

Money Matters

Use total compensation reports: Businesses compensating their people with significant perks could benefit from preparing individual employee statements showing the total compensation paid over the course of the year. “Sup-

pose an employee has been put to work on a special project and received special incentives in return. Then reminding the employee of the growth opportunity and extra emoluments received, acts as a morale booster,” says Varada Murthy, founder, People First HR Consultants. Separate pay and performance reviews: Discussions about pay raises and performance appraisals are best kept separate. Linking these two issues makes employees defensive. If workers understand that reviews are aimed solely at their professional development, they are more likely to open up about challenges they face and take an interest in solving them.

Iriventi also points out that salary allocations and reviews should be aligned with the organisation’s strategic plan whereas performance reviews are localised and should be handled tactically by empowering the line of command. So, it makes sense not to talk about money when you conduct appraisals. “In the case of high performing and key staff however, organisations may need to conduct mid-term evaluations and compensation revisions simultaneously,” adds Raha.

Effecting Improvements According to Ravi, “Appraisal process changes are best implemented bottom up because change happens seamlessly when the larger population voluntarily

embraces the new guidelines.” So it’s easier to muster up support and build pockets of success in the middle ranks. This approach also sends a clear message about the management being committed to the well-being of employees. Enabling mid-level supervisors to take the lead in introducing methods can do wonders for their selfesteem. “But improvements should be communicated and discussed with line managers prior to implementation,” cautions Murthy. Traditional performance appraisals are infamous for being uncomfortable interviews that must be tolerated for the sake of pay raises. By introducing interactive evaluations, you can generate a lot more interest.

review employee performance : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Generate more interest

These are just a few ways in which you can generate more interest in the review process: Require self-appraisals: Reviews can be made more effective by shifting

the onus of leading the process to the employee. For this, ask employees to fill in self-appraisal forms requiring them to rate their overall performance, list and quantify the measurable outcomes of their goals for the next year, and identify ways in which supervisors can help build their skills. Team and manager reviews: If you are willing to go a step further, ask

employees to review a manager’s performance as well. This would create more interest in the process. You can also conduct team reviews to determine the overall efficiency of departments. This helps correlate individual performances with group outcomes. Conduct reviews to rate the office environment: Asking employees to rate

the office environment is a good way to boost their morale and satisfaction levels and let them vent about issues they feel need to be addressed. Use employee morale surveys to identify ways to make the office a more productive place.

Notes:

Tips to improve reviews Follow these tips to improve the outcome of reviews: Schedule well: There is nothing like a rushed review to leave an employee feeling cheated. You owe it to your employees to make sure that you give them sufficient time to express their problems without being interrupted. Prepare for the review: It isn’t enough to take an interest in an employee’s file just prior to the big day. Cite examples of desirable and undesirable behaviour—through the course of the year—to make the process more realistic and personal. But this means managers must be engaged with their team members through the course of the year. Begin positively: Don’t put the employee on the defensive. Begin by appreciating their achievements. Setting a positive tone puts the employee at ease and elicits a better response.

Resources

Read about the benefits of

employee surveys, http://www. cvent.com/en/resources/ employee-satisfaction.shtml Learn more about the subject,

http://www.reviewsnap.com/documents/White_Paper_-_How_ Performance___Reviews_Can_ Boost_Morale.pdf

Another viewpoint, http://www. bukisa.com/articles/450119_ how-to-boost-morale-and-performance-of-employees

inc. guidebook | Vol. 02 No. 10

Inderpreet S. wadhwa Azure Power

Ameera Shah Metropolis Healthcare

Amar Goel Komli Media

vibhore goyal harpreet grover CoCubes

2 6 | INC. | DECember 2011

Naveen Tewari InMobi

Abhisheksinha anubhav sinha Eko

Aneesh Reddy, Krishna Mehra Capillary Technologies

Deval Sanghavi, Neera Nundy Dasra

Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal Flipkart Nitin and rohan gupta Attero Recycling

Why they sparkle: because they’re driven and determined The end of the year is a good time to count one’s blessings. It’s also the perfect opportunity to craft new plans and aim for a brighter future. The entrepreneurs in this story give us a chance to do both. Our pick of under-40 entrepreneurs points to an exciting business landscape in the years ahead. Many of them seem set to occupy icon status like Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal of Flipkart who have dominated headlines throughout the year. People are already asking whether they can be India’s Amazon. It must sound fantastical to the two—they’re just 30 and 28 years old after all. It’s tough even to imagine what their learning curve looks like. The other stories in this package are also full of incredible journeys. It’s not everyday that you meet a 32-year-old entrepreneur, like InMobi’s Naveen Tewari, who’s already talking about “how to let go”. It’s a necessary occupational hazard for somebody like him as he heads a global startup across continents, and competes with Google and Apple. Apart from these tycoons-in-the-making, there are bright lights like Deval Sanghavi and Neera Nundy of Dasra who are leveraging their private equity training to make philanthropy efficient and transform NGOs into institutions. Then there is Inderpreet S. Wadhwa of Azure Power who is making it possible for us to say yes to solar. Their ambitions and ideas are a reminder about all that’s right—and possible in India. DECember 2011 | INC. | 2 7

Ameera Shah 34 Metropolis Healthcare | Nitin gupta 34 and Rohan Gupta 32 Attero Recycling | Deval Sanghavi 36 Sinha 30 EKO | Harpreet Grover 28 and Vibhore Goyal 30 CoCubes | Aneesh Reddy 27 and Krishna Mehra 27 Capil-

Standing Tall Ameera Shah thrives in the crucible that is entrepreneurship.

2 8 | INC. | DECember 2011

ameera shah Metropolis Healthcare

Because she makes it look so easy

You can’t help but be awed by Ameera Shah. Standing a little taller than the average Indian male, she manages to make an impression right from the start. Then there’s that attitude—she runs Metropolis Healthcare, a `178-crore pathology labs chain with a dogged focus and makes it look effortless. This calm self-assuredness and clear focus have been traits she’s had since childhood. When her peers were trying to rebel through their teens, she was spending time at her doctor father’s clinic. It was supposedly to earn her monthly allowance, but Shah says she remembers the thrill of being so close to seeing how a professional business operated. “I knew I’d be an entrepreneur someday though both my parents were doctors. The thought of creating something from scratch drove me,” reminisces Shah. She has catalysed those childhood ambitions into action. Today, Metropolis Healthcare, of which she is both the MD and the CEO, is a one-ofits-kind diagnostics chain, and one of India’s only multinational network of labs with centres in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, South Africa, Seychelles, Thailand and the UAE. In India, the company works with (more than) 10,000 laboratories and hospitals, and 50,000 doctors through its 600 collection points in 125 cities. Just 10 years ago, this frenzied growth wasn’t prescribed. In 2001, when Shah joined her father—Dr Sushil Shah’s pathology lab, Metropolis—it was a tiny one-centre operation in Mumbai’s Opera House. And it was run more like a doctor’s chamber than a company. Shah had just moved back to India after stints at Goldman Sachs and a start-up in the US after a Masters in finance from the University of Texas, Austin. She wanted to work in India, and till she figured out exactly what she’d do, spending time at her father’s clinic seemed like a good idea. Her father suggested she man the customer desk—it was the nerve centre of understanding what he did. Quickly, she figured that her father’s operations were in dire need of reorganisation. She got to work—establishing an IT department, teams for marketing and strategy, and using internal accruals to set up new centres. “We didn’t really have a model. We reacted to the need. That was the best bit about the situation, as well as its most challenging aspect,” says the 34-year-old. For Shah, those early years are a fond memory. “Start-ups offer you opportunities to actually do something. I’d always rather be the leader and push change.” Well, the changes and smart thinking worked like a wonder drug. Encouraged, Shah and her father picked up pace, and how. In just the past three years, Metropolis has grown upwards of 130 per cent in terms of turnover. Shah’s finance degree and her business chutzpah helped her get Warburg Pincus, one of the world’s leading private equity firms, to put in $85 million into the chain in June 2010. As their growth chart continues—more than 50 per cent till 2015, she claims—Warburg Pincus has agreed to invest additional capital for the company’s future needs as well. This journey, more than the numbers, is what’s fun, says Shah excitedly. It’s easy to see she lives her business. “Metropolis makes me feel like a parent and a mentor. I have a yahoo moment every single day. When patients and doctors choose Metropolis over others; when the chain gets recognised within the industry or when I see a bunch of happy employees.” —Rohini Banerjee

Courtesy Subject

“ The thought of creating something from scratch drove me.”

DECember 2011 | INC. | 2 9

Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal Flipkart

Because they are master sellers

Few young companies become part of a somewhat daily office event like aloo parantha lunch deliveries or chai. But Flipkart, possibly India’s largest online retailer today, wears that rare badge. Even in our medium-sized office, it’s a familiar sight to see colleagues trudge up the stairs with Flipkart’s corrugated brown-paper packaging—containing that latest bestseller or the rare tome they’ve finally managed to get their hands on. Not that Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, founders of Flipkart, need such micro-examples. They have got used to larger numbers. In 2007, they founded Flipkart as an online bookstore. “Our market research showed that Indians were willing to buy online. It was the lack of serious players in the market that was preventing them,” says Sachin Bansal, FlipInderpreet S. Wadhwa kart’s CEO. Today, Flipkart has over Azure Power 11.5 million titles in its inventory, and an 80 per cent share of the online books market. But they expanded on their own Plan A by venturing into product categories As somebody who lived in California, sunny days were joys Inderpeet S. Wadhwa like music, computers, electronics, took for granted. They made for great picnics and sometimes, also led to the promobile phones and home appliverbial epiphany. In Wadhwa’s case, that moment came in 2005, a few months after ances. Its registered user base has his MBA from the University of Berkeley. “I was successful in my technology firm. breached the one-million mark. And, But I wanted to do something that would create a large-scale impact. I knew I was if the market buzz is to be believed, blessed with the ability to be successful,” says Wadhwa. after General Atlantic Partners evaluThus began his journey back to India. After toying with the idea of microfinance, ated it recently for a reported $150 Wadhwa zeroed in on solar energy as his big idea, despite his father’s warning million private equity infusion, Flipagainst entering such a highly-regulated business. “Nobody was actually selling kart is valued at a $1 billlion. solar power. We introduced the ‘solar as a service’ concept. We would build, operate The Bansals, batchmates from and own the power plants.” Azure Power was born in July 2007. Four years on, IIT Delhi, and briefly colleagues at things have warmed up. Azure today is the first private sector company to implement a Amazon, don’t deny or confirm megawatt scale grid-connected solar photovoltaic power plant in India, a feat it achieved these valuations. They’ve cleverly with its first plant in Awan, Punjab, in December 2009. That plant, one of the few operaavoided participating in the media tional under the National Solar Mission, has connected 20,000 people in 32 villages. hullabaloo. The number that stands In June this year, Azure commissioned its second solar plant, a 10 MW utility in out for them is when the company Gujarat. “That’s enough for over 160 villages,” says Wadhwa. A month later, it hits the `1 crore per day revenue announced a $16-million financing deal for a 5 MW solar plant in Rajasthan. Each mark. “It was one of our biggest 2 MW facility eliminates carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to that of 5,50,000 moments.” Today, www.flipkart.com trees, claims Wadhwa. Also, these plants bring uninterrupted, fixed price power. does business of `2.5 crore from By any standards then, 2011 has been a sparkling year. Wadhwa disagrees. It’s nearly 30,000 products every day. nothing compared to his scorching first year at Azure in 2007-08, he says. “That The old marketing adage—keepwas the greatest because it was the hardest. The government hadn’t announced its ing the customer at the centre—has solar mission then. There was no policy to support solar. And to raise capital for an ensured the company now towers unknown entity, with giants like Lehman Brothers going under, was incredibly diffiover other e-retailers. “When we cult,” he claims. For him, things started to look up only after Helion Venture Partstarted, the customer experience ners and Foundation Capital came in with Series A venture capital. In 2010, IFC also offered by existing e-commerce sites invested $10 million into Azure. was below average. We focussed on Our horizon has expanded, Wadhwa says confidently. “We’ve demonstrated our customer satisfaction. Ownership of credible technology. Now we only have to scale up.” That means bringing costs customer experience has worked in down, which will be a compelling factor even when the subsidies on the sector dry our favour.” In fact, Flipkart claims its up, or when the National Solar Mission’s mandate finishes. “Operating in a free repeat purchase rate is more than 70 market has been our vision from day one. That’s the only way to achieve the scale per cent. we want. My bet is it’ll happen in the next five years.” —Shreyasi Singh

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Courtesy company

For putting together a business that’s sunny-side up

The Front Benchers The Bansal buddies want to make e-commerce history.

This “memorable online shopping experience” has been shaped by a 30-day replacement policy, EMI options and free shipping. Other clever tricks in their bag include a cash-ondelivery option launched last year and the Flipkart Self Delivery, their dedicated logistics arm, introduced this year since e-commerce in India is plagued by an erratic, unreliable supply chain. Setting up their delivery infrastructure was critical to ensure on-time deliveries, and eliminate third-party couriers. Sachin Bansal says their own entrepreneurial journeys led to some of these solutions. “Our biggest learnings came from the initial days of setting up the business—the hurdles we faced in getting bank accounts and phone lines helped us understand the logistics problems the industry faces.” More than 60 per cent of Flipkart deliveries are now handled in-house. The plan is to expand their self-delivery to 25 cities next year, up from the 15 they service now. Flipkart’s future plans are ambitious despite many sceptics who feel e-commerce as a business is yet to prove it can be commercially viable in India. In India, internet penetration is still low, logistics are a nightmare, and the space is unjustifiably over-heated with many high-profile investments. Sachin Bansal isn’t cowed down by the outlook though. “With investments in supply chain and technology, we are looking at hitting sales of $1 billion by 2015. We will probably get there earlier, in the next two to three years,” he says. Much like their former employer, their vision is also Amazonian. “We want to be India’s largest retailer and redefine the retail, technology and logistics industry.” If their early Mah delivering— not journey Xxxxx is any hint, sleeping. Which both performance and exciteto say, atsomething work ment—isisdefinitely these two are busy honing to an art. —Shreyasi Singh DECember 2011 | INC. | 3 1

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Photograph by Jiten Gandhi

Smart Philanthropy Deval Sanghavi & Neera Nundy are turning the art of giving into a science.

Deval Sanghavi and Neera Nundy Dasra

For turning charity into real impact

There are more than three million NGOs in India. Only a handful of them are able to sustain themselves, let alone scale up. And less than three per cent of corporate profits are spent on them. These are statistics Deval Sanghavi and Neera Nundy are set to change. As co-founders of Dasra, a strategic philanthropy foundation, they have already directed more than `54 crore from high net-worth individuals (HNIs) to fund and scale-up over 200 NGOs and 50 social businesses. Their portfolio is large: including NGOs and firms as diverse as Saher, a Mumbai-based NGO involved in youth empowerment and community cohesion; and Magic Bus Foundation, which uses sports to transform the lives of underprivileged children. “These are entrepreneurs who tackle the biggest problems on shoestring budgets. I don’t think there’s a better opportunity in the world than to be able to help them grow,” Sanghavi says earnestly. Born and raised in the US, Sanghavi had always felt a pull towards the social sector. After his Bachelor’s from the University of Texas, he completed a sixmonth stint with CORP, a community outreach programme in Mumbai. “I think it was that experience that got me really thinking,” he reminisces. He went back to New York to work as an analyst at Morgan Stanley, where he met future wife and Dasra co-founder Neera Nundy. “We spent hours discussing how we could use everything we were learning in investment banking to help Indian marginalised communities,” says Nundy. Eventually, they cobbled together Dasra in 1999. They borrowed heavily from their private equity experience and introduced a similar approach to what they call “strategic philanthropy”. The Dasra team spends up to three months preparing an exhaustive research report on a particular sector. Accountability is built into the system from this stage itself. Each research report is funded by a donor. Then, Dasra shortlists NGOs that work in that sector and match them to HNIs. However, Dasra doesn’t stop at being a fundraiser agency. They give NGOs hands-on support for up to three years—helping them streamline processes and transform founder-led organisations into institutions. The aim is simply to ensure these organisations scale up. Dasra nets 15 per cent of the total grant to cover its costs, mainly team salaries, travel and basic office expenses. It sounds fairly logical, but this model wasn’t accepted early on. “The HNIs who worked in the for-profit sector didn’t understand that the same model could work in the non-profit space, too,” Nundy says. So, they asked philanthropists to spend 10 to 15 per cent of their charitable giving on the Dasra model and the remaining 85 per cent on charities they were already supporting. “In a couple of years, they could see the difference in impact,” Sanghavi adds. From then, Dasra has done it all—helping rural women become entrepreneurs and spreading water literacy in Karnataka to empowering tribal women in Gujarat. It is currently helping SNEHA, an NGO working with slum communities in Mumbai, to scale up from 10 anganwadis to 300, covering the entire population of Dharavi. Yet Sanghavi doesn’t think he’s maximised opportunities. He confesses he would’ve been a better entrepreneur if he was less conservative. Dasra with its 30-member team is still a small organisation and till 18 months ago, had just nine people. “We wanted money in the bank before we started adding people,” he says. But the slow start isn’t a pointer to the future. Dasra wishes to work with 1,000 philanthropists and 1,500 social entrepreneurs in the next five years. Recent initiatives like launching the Dasra Social Impact, an incubation programme for social entrepreneurs, and raising `3 crore through the Indian Philanthropy Forum has helped articulate these big plans. “Today, 80 per cent of our funds come from India. It was the reverse a decade ago. We’ve proved Indians are also willing givers.” —Ira Swasti

“We wanted money in the bank before we started adding people to our team”

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Ameera Shah 34 Metropolis Healthcare | Nitin gupta 34 and Rohan Gupta 32 Attero Recycling | Deval Sanghavi Sinha 30 EKO | Harpreet Grover 28 and Vibhore Goyal 30 CoCubes | Aneesh Reddy 27 and Krishna Mehra 27 Capil-

Vibhore Goyal and Harpreet grover CoCubes

For helping students find jobs, and companies, talent

Abhishek & Anubhav Sinha EKO

For banking on the ‘unbanked’

Vibhore Goyal and Harpreet Grover understand what makes people work—money, challenges and some wholehearted fun. It’s a considerable skill to have when your company connects colleges and corporates across India, to help young graduates get great jobs. CoCubes, founded by college buddies Goyal and Grover, uses technology to make campus recruitments more efficient and transparent. Bigger cities and established campus towns like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru have got their placement processes down to a fine art. But tier-II and III cities have an abysmal information asymmetry between recruiters and job-seekers, they say. A failed campus visit costs a company upwards of `1 lakh and many are hesitant to go to colleges that haven’t pitched well. “Colleges don’t know what process goes into shortlisting them for recruitment and whether they’ll be selected or not,”explains Grover. It’s this gap that CoCubes wishes to bridge—helping corporates get young blood into their companies, while bringing down unemployment at the same time—in an environment akin to a war-like hunt for talent. Grover came up with the idea of CoCubes in 2007, when he was working with Inductis, a financial analytics firm, after completing his engineering from IIT Bombay. A placement officer from a remote college in Maharashtra visited him to invite the HR for recruitment. Three months later, he discovered that the company never visited the college because it was tough to reach the campus. So he called up Goyal, his geeky roommate from college, to see if they could do something about it. Goyal suggested an online model to bridge the information gap. “Around 10 lakh students graduate in India every year. About one lakh good jobs are available,” explains Goyal. Armed with this insight, the two got to work and developed cocubes.com. It’s simple to use—placement officers upload student resumes and marksheets online, ensuring firms get access to authentic records, and students can “follow” companies they’re interested in. To add that fun quotient, students can upload video resumes to pep up their profiles. Alerts—dates of company visits and hiring formalities—are sent via SMSes. Instead of firms paying CoCubes per recruitment, Grover and Goyal only charge colleges `700 per final year student registered on their platform. Till 2010, however, they charged corporates ` 5,000 per campus visit. By making it free for them, their turnover shot up from `40 lakh in FY 2009-10 to `2.5 crore in FY 2010-11. The founders say the brainwave to turn around the company’s revenue model came from the sales team, which is why they are as passionate about their own hiring procedure as their clients’. “The one question we always ask before recruiting someone is—tell us one thing you’ve done in your life that makes you proud,”says Goyal. “That hunger to do something you can be proud of, is more important than any degree you may hold or where you may come from,” finishes Grover. —Ira Swasti

Understanding financial empowerment was a deeply personal experience for Abhishek Sinha, CEO of EKO: a financial inclusion start-up. In 2007, Sinha, who cofounded EKO with brother Anubhav, received a hefty cheque after selling his stake in his first venture. He splurged on restaurants and exponential salary hikes for his domestic staff. “Seeing them feel empowered felt incredible,” he says. That emotion, coupled with his last project—a mobile commerce solution—at his telecom firm, got the brothers thinking about how the unbanked could be brought into the financial system using mobile phones. Thus, EKO was born to act as a bank’s back-end for new account holders. To open an account, all a person needed was a mobile number and an ID. When the Sinhas went to banks, they encountered a bias. “They had schemes for financial inclusion but treated people as beneficiaries and not customers,” Sinha says. But, things don’t change fast especially in a highly-regulated sector. So, the brothers went ahead helping banks fulfil their CSR targets, mainly to prove their technology worked. EKO inked a breakthrough contract with the SBI in 2009, and started a mini savings bank account scheme with them in Delhi. Account holders could withdraw and deposit money with these “mini accounts”. In 2010, ICICI Bank also enlisted them. Today, more than one million people across 1,500 EKO centres—often run out of existing commercial establishments like chemist or grocer shops—in the NCR, Bihar, Jharkhand and UP, have new accounts, often their first ever. Over `1,500 crore has been transacted on these EKO accounts. The idea has attracted investors—`6.4 core by 4B Capital and $5.5 million infusion led by Creation Investments recently. Sinha says EKO is still struggling with proof of concept. “We’ve proved that customers are willing to be charged for our services. We don’t need to be just cost centres.” —Shreyasi Singh

“Around 10 lakh students graduate in India every year. About one lakh good jobs are available.”

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Standing Tall Ameera Shah thrives in the crucible that is entrepreneurship.

Well Connected Vibhore Goyal and Harpreet Grover have made finding jobs and employees, a breeze.

Photograph by subhojit paul

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Naveen Tewari InMobi

For when he says big, he means it Naveen Tewari’s vocabulary is peppered with words such as scale, impact and largeness. Before you slot him as the stereotypical “Type-A business major”—he did go to Harvard Business School and worked as a consultant in McKinsey & Co—Tewari engages you in an earnest conversation about serendipity, purpose and societal responsibility. For a 32-yearold, it’s an unusually nuanced tone to strike. It makes you wonder—is this his way of dealing with what’s an almost-unreal business journey? As the founder and CEO of InMobi, a mobile advertising firm, Tewari has had an entrepreneurial dream run of sorts. In just four years, InMobi has become one of the world’s largest independent players of smartphone-based marketing, positioning itself as an alternative to giants like Google and Apple. Yet, worthy competitors aren’t the company’s sole show-off stat. Sample this: InMobi’s mobile network, spread across 165 countries, has reached more than 340 million customers. With 15 offices across the US, Japan, India, South Africa and Europe, this 400-people “start-up” is already a global business with a client portfolio that’s peopled with more than 250 Fortune 1000 companies. The company also found early converts. When InMobi was barely a year old, Ram Shriram’s Sherpalo Ventures, early investors in Google and Amazon, gave it $7 million. This impressive show morphed into a fantastic one in September 2011 when InMobi raised $200 million in Series-C funding from Softbank, the Japanese media and telecom conglomerate. The investment—the largest an Indian internet company has received, as Tewari points out—has catapulted InMobi to global attention. Yet, despite an outstanding year, Tewari has his sights on achieving “10 times of what we did last year”. “What’s the point in trying to do something small? The effort and the pain in doing something small is exactly the same in doing something big,” explains Tewari. The opportunity certainly beckons. Mobile advertising is pegged to be over a $20 billion dollar industry globally. But, Tewari asserts, that beyond being an ad network or the “largest company on the planet someday”, InMobi for him is an opportunity to be part of a powerful revolution in the

Photograph by S. Radhakrishna

“The effort and the pain in doing something small is exactly the same as in doing something big.”

Aneesh Reddy and Krishna Mehra Capillary Technologies

mobile ecosystem. In emerging markets (Asia and Africa), key geographies for the company, mobile internet, he says, empowers individuals and businesses like no other medium can. “When a township has to be built, it requires basic things like water supply, roads and electricity before buildings come up. We see ourselves as those basic entities. We’re laying down an infrastructural foundation for others to thrive on,” he explains. So, apart from enabling leading international game developer, Invictus Games, drive revenue for its iPhone game—Froggy Jump—or helping Intel create awareness about its new CoreTM processor family, recently InMobi also supported Moraba, a mobile game aimed at educating young people about gender-based violence as part of its Mobilize4Africa initiative. How tough has it been to keep pace with so much action? Tewari says at every stage of InMobi’s rapid rise, he’s asked himself: “Will I be able to do this? There are only a few people I can talk to who are in a similar place.” He also confesses that now he’s got another worry. It’s easy to confuse confidence with gut, especially when even “risky” moves such as launching in mature economies like the US and Japan, seemed to have the Midas touch. Not that InMobi is in any danger of being complacent. “We have to stay relevant in a rapidly growing mobile advertising space.” Tewari knows that boils down to having the right hands. “You can’t control the ecosystem. You can only control the quality of the people you hire,” he adds. So he spends more than 60 per cent of his work week just in hiring. Not surprisingly, the think-big ambition is his first qualifier. “At InMobi, we’re all passionate about being part of a story and about writing a story for ourselves.” He’s certainly got a cracker of a beginning for a bestseller. —Shreyasi Singh

Because they make shopping fun

In 2008, when Aneesh Reddy turned down a Master’s course at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his parents were upset. When he told them the reason—to start his own company with his IIT Kharagpur batchmate, Krishna Mehra—they were shocked. But Reddy, 24 years old then, was sure he’d got his timing right. “Mobile was growing rapidly in India and the organised retail story was just beginning. We wanted to be part of the growth story.” But instead of growth, their real opportunity came with the global slowdown. Retail was especially badly hit with several stores shutting shop, or scaling back. “Both big and small retailers saw their sales dip by 10-20 per cent,” says Reddy. Keeping a brand’s flock of loyal customers engaged was a critical need. And thus Capillary Technologies was born. Reddy and Mehra developed a cloud-based app called !nTouch, which could send highly customised discount offers to shoppers’ mobile phones, even while they were still in the store. Basically, !nTouch instantly stores data such as items bought, bill number and bill amount at the time of purchase. It then carries out micro-segmented analytics, where customers get divided into clusters according to their gender, age, and categories like “potential”, “people who buy one-offs” or “those who only buy during sales”. Post-analysis, it comes up with offers an in-store customer might be interested in. For example, a woman in her early 20s who has just bought shirts from a particular brand will be sent a targeted, cross-selling SMS that may offer her a discount on jeans. Although it took them almost six months to find their first client—Indus League Clothing, a Future Group company—the cash registers started swirling soon after. Within three months, Future Group gave them 20 more stores to work with. Winning Qualcomm’s coveted B-plan competition also got them $100,000, much-needed seed capital. Today, Capillary believes it’s gone beyond the proof-of-concept stage. Their app is an easy buy for a retailer, Reddy says. “!nTouch manages to get eight to 30 per cent of the in-store customers to avail the discounts.” This is way more effective than a big bang sale, he adds, where a retailer has to offer at least a 30 per cent discount to tempt customers at home or in office to make a trip to the store. “Less than two per cent of them show up.” At $40-120 per month, per store (in India), their app is then a “steal” for any retailer, they say. Capillary’s own sales corroborate that. In barely three years, they are breaching `5 crore in turnover, and have grown to 100plus clients, including biggies like Pizza Hut, Puma and Woodland, across India, UK, Singapore and the Middle East. In total, they have reached a staggering 14 million end consumers across 6,000 installations. But beyond the large chains, Capillary, which is now 150-people strong, is all set to load single-shop retailers on to its client cart. —Ira Swasti

“ Mobile was growing rapidly in India and the organised retail story was just beginning. We wanted to be part of the growth.”

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Reflective Power Amar Goel’s Komli Media wants to change what advertisers do online.

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Photograph by subhojit paul

Amar Goel Komli Media

Because he has a mirror to the online world

Amar Goel’s recent entrepreneurial adventures aren’t for the faint-hearted. In the past 15 months, Komli Media, his digital media company, has been on a buying spree of sorts, acquiring five companies across Singapore, Australia and the UK. That’s an intense learning curve for any business especially one that’s just five-years-old. But Goel, who founded Komli to leverage the opportunities of a rapidly-growing world of online advertising, says it’s been a crazy, fun ride. “Before I began Komli, I’d never done business in India, not even in Asia. I grew up in the US,” says Goel. “A year-and-a-half before we acquired PostClick, I’d never even been to Australia. Now we have an office there. To see the world, travel to different places, work with different legal systems, and office cultures has been exciting,” says the 35-year-old. Not that Komli’s growth is just geographic. It tots up some impressive numbers. Headquartered in Mumbai, Komli reaches 30 million unique users monthly, and works with more than 100 advertisers through 200 partner websites across Asia Pacific, North America and Europe. Essentially, Komli helps marketers come up with targeted solutions online. Goel, who studied computer science at Harvard University and worked at Microsoft, Netscape and McKinsey before founding Komli, claims they’re already the third-largest player in digital advertising in India after Google and Yahoo. A self-confessed “product guy”, Goel says Komli is driven by revolutionising targeted advertising. On the back of innovative products like ViziSense, their leading audience measurement and ad spends benchmarking platform, Goel says Komli can be a $500-million revenue company in the next five years. ViziSense helps understand what’s really happening in the online ecosystem—tracking the fastest growing sites, understanding what women are doing online as opposed to men, and how often people visit banking site. “The digital lifestyle will explode over Asia Pacific. And we want to be there.” Goel personally seems well-equipped for the journey. Komli Media is his third start-up. In 1995, he founded Chipshot.com, a golf e-commerce company when he was just 19. By the time he was 24, he’d raised $50 million for his venture. It’s an experience he leveraged well at Komli, for which he has raised $23 million in three rounds of financing from leading firms like Norwest, Nexus and Helion Venture Partners. Goel is almost an entrepreneurship junkie now, he says, despite the many pain points—infrastructure woes in his beautifully done-up office in Mumbai’s Kalina, and the “super intense” war for talent. “But if I wasn’t building this company, I’d probably start another company.” —Shreyasi Singh

“ To see the world, work with different legal systems and cultures has been exciting.”

Nitin Gupta & Rohan Gupta Attero Recycling

Because they are cleaning up after us

Brothers Nitin and Rohan Gupta are out on a mission—to stop the planet from turning into a junkyard. Their firm, Attero Recycling, recycles e-waste like cell phones, TV sets and desktops. The idea for Attero, Latin for waste, came up five years ago. Rohan wished to dispose of a laptop. The process was difficult and led to a eureka moment. “We realised that there was a need to deal with the e-waste in an environmentfriendly manner,” says Nitin Gupta, the company’s CEO. That idea has morphed into an exciting business funded by investors like IndoUS Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Attero has a capacity of recycling 36,000 tonnes of e-waste every year. At its Roorkee plant the e-waste is put through a shredder and taken through an electro-magnetic field. Precious metals like gold, silver and copper used in the chips are extracted and sold to the commodities share market. Typically clients pay Attero a nominal service fee. Their clients could make more if they sold the e-waste to a scrap dealer, but that’s not the point. “Energy involved in extracting a single gram of copper from waste is 77 per cent less than getting the same amount from mining,” explains Gupta. Apart from being partners in this green effort, the clients benefit from the Guptas’ understanding of their needs. Attero picks up the e-junk from the offices of its 350-odd clients, some of whom are sensitive about data theft. The firm video records the entire process. They don’t confirm it, but a recent story on Attero suggests that they’re on track to a $10-million turnover by 2012. “Very few people get a chance do something good for society and still make money.” says Gupta. Now, who can disagree with that? —Ira Swasti

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Celebrity Tweets

Harnessing star power

Paying a celebrity thousands of dollars to promote your company in 140 characters or fewer may seem crazy. But a growing number of businesses are setting aside marketing dollars to do just that. Best Buy recently tapped reality star Kim Kardashian to tweet about its cell phones, for instance, and Microsoft hired entertainment mogul Diddy to tout its mobile tagging service, Microsoft Tag, to his legion of Twitter followers. Any company can snag an endorsement from a star using services that connect advertisers with tweeters—for a price, of course. influence—and was impressed to see she scored a 78 out of a possible 100. Some quick online research revealed that she worked with SponsoredTweets, a WebThe goal: Encourage based platform that more college students connects advertisers to register on the site with celebrities and offers online analytic The execution: Figuring tools for gauging the an endorsement from success of campaigns. a star would grab the Revsin logged on to attention of college the SponsoredTweets kids, CampusLive website and submitted founder Boris Revsin the tweet he wanted started exploring the Lohan to post. The idea of sponsored service contacted the tweets this summer. starlet and, about He held a focus group three weeks later, she with students to find agreed to publish a out which celebrities slightly tweaked verseemed most influen- sion of the tweet for tial, and Lindsay $3,530. To hedge his Lohan’s name kept bets, Revsin browsed coming up. Revsin SponsoredTweets’s checked the starlet’s listings and requested Klout score—a rank- a second tweet from ing of social-media rapper Jim Jones, The Company

From top: Evan Agostini/AP; Kristian Dowling/AP; Michael Kovac/Getty; Ethan Miller/Getty; Christian Petersen/ Getty; MCMULLAN/AP; Peter Kramer/AP; KENNELL KRISTA/AP; MCMULLAN/AP

CampusLive, a Boston-based website that lets college students earn rewards from sponsors by playing online games

who charged $1,950. Revsin paid for the tweets on the site and requested they be published on the same day in August. Within a day, some 4,500 people had visited CampusLive by clicking on a link to the site in Lohan’s tweet (“These challenges for college kids on #CampusLive are SO addicting! Have u checked it out?”).That number was lower than Revsin had hoped, but he was impressed with the conversion rate: Five hundred of those visitors went on to register on Campus-Live, and many of them are now regulars. Jones’s tweet (“College #Vampires brought to you by the #CampusLIVE payin hom-

Tweeting With the Stars

How much will you shell out for a celebrity endorsement? Below is a sampling of stars for hire on the Sponsored Tweets platform. Fee per tweet Number of followers Lindsay Lohan

$2,353 2,472,484 Mike Tyson

$3,250 851,168

Frankie Muniz

$208 119,789 JWoww

$2,353 1,549,310

Jose Canseco

The result:

$3,900 400,475 Tyrese

$4,550 1,595,225

Soleil Moon Frye

$5,850 1,449,763 Khloé Kardashian

$8,235.50 2,856,036

Lance Bass

$134.33 104,288

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social smarts

age to da legends check it.”) was much less successful. Only 1,000 people clicked on the link in his tweet to visit CampusLive, and 50 of them signed up. Revsin attributed the disappointing results to the fact that Jones has less name recognition than Lohan, who is also 10 years younger. Lohan’s message was also more enthusiastic, he adds. Lohan’s rate, by the way, has fallen since CampusLive hired her. Revsin has decided not to feature Jones in future campaigns but plans to purchase more tweets from Lohan. Is he worried about associating his company with a controversial star? No. “People still follow her and do what she does,” he says. “It’s like that strange thing, where you can’t stop looking.”

Facebook Promotions

Tu r n i n g “Li k e s ” i n t o l o o t

Contests, sweepstakes, and coupon giveaways on Facebook can be powerful ways to engage fans and attract new ones. Here’s how two companies used DIY services to launch Facebook promotions with different objectives.

The price tag: $5,480

Expert Tips

Avoid overexposure As celebrity tweeting becomes more popular, its effectiveness might dwindle, warns Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, a consulting firm in San Mateo, California. Before hiring a star, check his or her Twitter stream to see if it’s overflowing with endorsements for other brands. Choose wisely Hiring a controversial star to send a few tweets is likely to generate buzz, Etlinger says. “If your only goal is to drive people to your website, it doesn’t matter if they’re famous or notorious.” However, she warns, your brand could be tarnished if you stick with the person consistently.

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The Company

Savored, an online reservation service based in New York City that offers restaurant discounts The goal: Sign up new members and gather e-mail addresses for marketing purposes

In the past, Savored has run successful e-mail promotions with its 4,00,000 members. A few months ago, vice president Cassie Lancellotti-Young decided to broaden the site’s reach with a Facebook campaign. She researched several services before choosing Wildfire, a DIY Web app that lets you create interactive campaigns, publish them on social networks, and view real-time results and analytics. She opted for Wildfire’s white label program, which cost $3,500 for one month. Using the app, one of Savored’s designers created an ad for a sweepstakes promotion offering participants a chance to win a $100 meal each week for 52 weeks at any Savored restaurant.

The execution:

To enter the sweepstakes, which kicked off in August, participants were required to “Like” Savored on Facebook and fill out an online registration form that included their names and e-mail addresses. The result: By

the end of August, more than 12,000 people had entered the sweepstakes. As Savored had hoped, 4,000 of them were not members, and 520 signed up. “Now, we’ll have a whole new base of people we can remarket to over e-mail,” Lancellotti-Young says. She was happy with the results. However, she notes, Savored has had similar success with e-mail promotions, at a fraction of the cost. Still, she says she would consider running occasional Wildfire promotions in the future. “We don’t want to be a contest company,” she says. “But there are a billion people on Facebook, so there are always new eyeballs to reach.”

The price tag: $3,500

ILLUSTRATION BY Prince Antony

social smarts

book. Planning to run regular promotions, she opted for Offerpop’s unlimited monthly plan, which costs $750 for companies with 10,000 to 25,000 Facebook fans. For Birchbox’s first promotion on Facebook, Beauchamp used the quiz app The goal: Encourage customers to discuss to ask members to vote for their favousamples after receiving them rite products in a recent shipment of samples. Voters would automatically be entered in a Social The execution: Less than a year Speak sweepstakes to win full-size after founding Birchbox last Sepversions of the products. She fan-gate tember, Hayley Barna and Katia promoted the quiz on Birch(verb) Beauchamp had amassed some 45,000 registered users, thanks in To require peo- box’s Facebook Wall throughout July, directing contestants ple to “Like” large part to marketing efforts on to a separate quiz tab to “Like” your page on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, their favorite product. Facebook and Tumblr. With a strong socialbefore particimedia presence established, they pating in a pro- The result: About 1,800 people set out to encourage members to motion. participated in the sweepstakes, discuss their samples online and and 1,700 became Birchbox eventually buy full-size versions on Facebook fans during that period. Fewer the Birchbox site. “The more you’re thinkthan 100 of them went on to comment ing about a product, the more likely you about the samples on Birchbox’s Wall, but are to actually buy it,” Beauchamp says. Beauchamp says she was happy with the Last summer, she signed up with Offerresults. Unfortunately, Offerpop’s analytic pop, a platform that helps companies cretools were not sophisticated enough to ate and run promotions, including quizzes show how many people visited the Birchand photo contests, on Twitter and FaceThe Company

Birchbox, a New York City business that sends a box of sample-size beauty products to members each month for $10 a month

box site and bought products. Another hiccup? The sweepstakes kicked off the same week the samples were mailed to customers, and some comments included complaints about delayed shipments. Fortunately, Birchbox has a team of customer service reps that scours social networks for such complaints and responds to them. The company has continued to run a sweepstakes on Facebook every month using Offerpop. The price tag: $750 a month

Expert Tips

Go beyond “Like” Require people to do more than “Like” your company to take part in a promotion, says Blake Cahill, president of Banyan Branch, a social-media firm in Seattle. At the very least, he says, get their e-mail addresses, as Savored did. Get personal Instead of a generic sweepstakes, Cahill suggests, consider running a user-generated photo or video contest. “I’d rather have 100,000 superengaged fans than a million drive-by fans,” he says.

Foursquare Specials Please come again

Launched in 2009, Foursquare now boasts some 10 million users eager to let their friends know when they have “checked in” to a hip new store or favourite restaurant. Recently, the free service has rolled out a variety of services for businesses, including the ability to run specials designed to attract and retain customers.

The Company

Luke’s lobster, a chain of seafood restaurants with five locations in New York City and Washington, D.C. The Goal: Reward

loyal patrons

The Execution: Last summer, Luke’s Lobster started using Foursquare to reward its “Mayors”—Foursquare lingo for the patrons who have

ILLUSTRATION BY PC ANOOP

checked in to a given location the most times in the past 60 days—with a 10 per cent discount. But founder Luke Holden wanted to open up loyalty rewards to a larger group of customers. The grand opening of his chain’s fifth location, in Manhattan’s financial district, seemed like the perfect opportunity. Holden and Lauren Drell, the company’s social-media and

Web manager, logged on to Foursquare and created a Loyalty Special that would give repeat customers a chance to attend an exclusive launch party the day before the store’s official opening in

August. Customers who checked in to any Luke’s Lobster location at least four times in two weeks unlocked the special, which instructed them to send an e-mail to luc kyME@lukeslobster.com for DECember 2011 | INC. | 4 3

social smarts

more details and an invitation for two to the event. The Result: By

the end of the two-week period, 35 people had unlocked the special and e-mailed Luke’s Lobster. Of those, 20 attended the launch party, where they mingled with members of the media and sampled Social Speak

swarm special (noun) A Foursquare promotion that rewards groups for checking in to a location en masse. Companies can set a minimum number of check-ins required to unlock the special. lobster rolls, chowder, and wine passed around on trays. Holden and the store’s management team chatted with the partygoers, who were asked to sign a guest book and indicate if they had landed an invitation through Foursquare. Throughout the evening, some guests commented about the party on Facebook and Twitter, which helped create buzz, Holden says. The next day, the new location generated $7,000 in sales, double that of the company’s last opening. Holden attributes some of

that success to the launch party, which was the chain’s first and cost only about $600. Overall, he was pleased with the Foursquare special, which helped him reward 20 loyal patrons. He plans to hold a similar event and Loyalty Special before the opening of his sixth location, next summer. Next time, he says, he plans to put more effort into marketing the special on Facebook and Twitter to boost participation. “I think it was a great success,” he says, “but next time, we’ll make it bigger.”

Instant Twitter Followers Buying an audience

The Price Tag: Free

Expert Tips

Cross platforms To maximise your reach, encourage customers taking part in Foursquare specials to post their check-ins on Twitter and include a hash tag, advises Rob Reed, founder and CEO of MomentFeed, a consulting firm in Santa Monica, California, that helps companies develop location-based marketing strategies. That way, you're spreading the word on two social networks at once. Run concurrent specials Instead of focusing on one type of Foursquare special at a time, Reed says, run multiple promotions simultaneously to see what works best for your business.

4 4 | INC. | DECember 2011

Last summer, media news and gossip website Gawker published a claim by an anonymous ex-staff member of Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich accusing the politician of hiring a social-media firm to inflate his Twitter following with fake accounts. Gingrich’s campaign denied the allegations, and the scandal died down relatively quickly, but not before shedding Newt Gingrich light on an under-the-radar tactic: has 1.3 million Twitter followers, purchasing Twitter followers. Just how more than easy is it to pad your account with paid any other GOP candidate. followers? We headed to eBay to find out. The goal: buy random followers

After creating a Twitter account for an imaginary social-media consultant named Michael Kreznik, we logged on to eBay, where a search for Twitter followers yielded hundreds of results. We quickly engaged in a bidding war for 11,000 followers, at a starting price of $80. After the other buyer drove the price up to $180, we settled on a Buy It Now option promising 1,000 followers for $20. The Result: Within two days, Kreznik had amassed the 1,000 followers, as promised. However, a closer look at their profiles revealed that most of

ILLUSTRATION BY BINU MP

social smarts

the account holders had tweeted fewer than six times, and many of their bios included trite phrases, including “You’ll never feel true love if you can’t go through the pain.” In other words, we had bought dummy followers. The seller, whose eBay handle was michalrondos, declined to provide any details about his methods. the price tag: $20 for 1,000 followers The goal: Buy An existing account with a built-in following

We headed back to eBay and clicked on another Buy It Now listing, this one offering an existing Twitter page with 3,700 followers for $35. After we paid for the page on PayPal, the seller sent the username and password to use, along with the e-mail linked to the account. We changed all the information, creating a new account holder for the page: Dave Stone, the imaginary founder and CEO of the Stone Agency, a social-media firm. Surprisingly, most of the page’s 3,700 followers seemed to be real people, including many aspiring actors and college students. On the downside, the previous account holder had already posted dozens of questionable tweets, some comical (“Best years of my life my ass”), some typed in Russian characters, and some that equated to panhandling (“Follow me, please!”). Even Social Speak if we deleted the tweets, they would remain on permanent record with Twitter and the Library of Contweet bomb gress, which could be embarrassing for a business. (verb) The seller (daniel2u2) failed to respond to questions To spam about his methods. The Result:

Twitter followers with a tweet in order to make it a trending topic.

YouTube Campaigns

From must-see to must-buy

Austin Craig, the manic star of the Orabrush video, was known for his office rants.

the price Tag: $35 for 3,700 followers The goal: buy targeted followers

Finally, we set out to purchase followers that met specific criteria. We turned again to eBay, searched for targeted Twitter followers, and found a Buy It Now listing for 1,000 targeted followers for $9. We bought two sets and gave the seller Kreznik’s username and password so the seller could find followers for Kreznik. (Obviously, this would be a huge security risk in the real world.) Then, we supplied a set of keywords, including startup and business, to help the seller find followers that met our needs. The Result: Within a week, the Kreznik account had accumulated more than 2,000 followers, about half of whom seemed to be legitimate business owners, consultants, and bloggers who fit our keywords. Some of the new followers even retweeted Kreznik’s posts and included him in their Twitter lists. How did the seller (antares_70) pull it off? He claims to have used a tool called Tweet Adder, which helped him search for Twitter accounts based on geography, keywords, and number of followers, as well as the number of profiles followed. The idea, he says, is to start following accounts that are most likely to follow you back. the price tag: $18 for 2,000 followers

A viral hit about bad breath jump-started sales of the Orabrush tongue cleaner.

Double rainbows, annoying oranges, a baby biting his brother. You never know which YouTube video will make it big. What does it take to create a viral marketing campaign that creates not only buzz but also sales? The Company

Orabrush, a Provo, Utah, company that makes a tongue cleaner designed to eliminate bad breath The Goal: Boost

online sales

In 2009, nearly a decade after launching Orabrush, inventor Dr. Robert Wagstaff was selling only about 10 tongue cleaners a month, for $3 each. After several months of brainstorming ways to drive traffic to the Orabrush website and increase sales, Wagstaff and freelance marketing consultant Jeffrey Harmon decided to focus their efforts on a YouTube video. Inspired by a Howcast video about curing bad breath, Harmon e-mailed its creators for permission to use the concept. He hired a former co-worker, Austin Craig, to play the starring role for $100

By the end of our three-week-long experiment, Kreznik had amassed 3,154 followers, and Stone had 3,580. Not bad for a total of $73. Still, the whole process left us feeling queasy. Is the strategy a good idea for businesses looking to build a strong Twitter presence? Probably not, says Chris Paradysz, founder and CEO of PM Digital, a digital marketing agency in New York City. A hefty Twitter following might bolster the appeal of celebrities and politicians, Paradysz says, but for companies, the risks outweigh the rewards, especially if there aren’t real people behind the accounts who could eventually become actual customers. “Having that type of follower count only really matters if my last name is Kardashian,” he says. “For a small business, cash is everything.”

DECember 2011 | INC. | 4 5

image source: youtube

The Execution:

The bottom line

social smarts

Within six weeks, about 900,000 people had viewed the video, and 20 per cent of them had clicked on the link to the Orabrush website. During that period, Orabrush sold roughly 10,000

The Result:

Old Spice’s viral hit made its TV debut during the 2010 Super Bowl.

The YouTube/BYU Connection

Looking to go viral?

If you need help launching a YouTube campaign, you might want to do some recruiting at Brigham Young University. Three of the most suc cessful YouTube marketing cam paigns launched in the past few years have been created by BYU alumni. Here’s the skinny on the campaigns.

The Bad-Breath Test

Will it Blend?

Orabrush founder Dr. Robert Wagstaff met Jeffrey Harmon in 2008, when Harmon was studying business and marketing at BYU. After launching Orabrush’s first viral hit, in 2009, Harmon became the company’s chief marketing officer. The original bad-breath video has been viewed 15.8 million times.

In 2007, Blendtec founder Tom Dickson (BYU ’71) and director of marketing George Wright (BYU ’93) devised a way to make their blenders interesting: Use them to pulverise stuff. The campaign’s most popular video, which featured Dickson blending an iPad, has had more than 12 million views.

4 6 | INC. | DECember 2011

Social Speak

generate buzz. The grill was featured on the Today show four influencer times, along with dozens of local (noun) news broadcasts, but the Someone with appearances failed to translate the ability to into sales on the company’s webaffect the site. Last fall, EZ Grill founder opinions and and CEO Phillip Swan, who was actions of trying to target consumers in others in the their 20s and 30s, also began to social-media notice a drop-off in new fans and world. followers on the company’s Twitter and Facebook pages. That’s when a friend referred him to Banyan Branch, a Seattle firm that specialises in social-media marketing. Banyan suggested launching a video that riffed off the The Price Tag: $1,260 for youtube Ads popular Will It Blend? series on YouTube. Instead of putting objects in a blender, the The Company video would show a Windows 7 phone, an EZ Grill, a manufacturer of disposable iPhone 4, and an Android phone being charcoal grills in Bellevue, Washington grilled, to see which one would last longest. Banyan handled the video’s shooting, The Goal: Boost online sales and attract editing, and production, which took a few more fans and followers on Facebook days, and posted it on YouTube the same and Twitter week the Windows 7 phone, the HTC Surround, debuted. Banyan promoted the The Execution: After hitting the market in video,”What Grills Faster?,” on Twitter and 2007, EZ Grill hired a traditional PR firm to Facebook and e-mailed a press release with the YouTube link to technology blogs. tongue cleaners, clearing out its inventory. The company did not track how many free brushes it gave away, but Harmon said the sales generated by the video far outweighed any losses. In the past two years, the company has sold more than one million Orabrushes online, and the bad-breath video has been viewed more than 15 million times. The company now posts weekly videos on its YouTube channel. Recently, its tongue cleaner hit the shelves of CVS and Walmart stores around the country.

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

Launched in February 2010, this video, which stars ex-football player Isaiah Mustafa (shown above) as a man-scented stud, helped inject new life into the Old Spice brand. Jason Bagley (BYU ’00), creative director at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy, helped create the video, which has had 35.7 million views.

The video was an instant viral hit, garnering 1.5 million views within three days, along with coverage on prominent blogs, including TechCrunch and Engadget. Swan credits the clip for boosting the number of “Likes” on EZ Grill’s Facebook page from 780 to 3,000 and increasing its Twitter follower count from 1,500 to 6,000. However, he says, the video did not translate into sales, probably owing to the fact that it did not include a call to action and a link to EZ Grill’s online store. The company has posted three new videos in the past year, including one that explains how to make a grilled cheese sandwich in the likeness of Jesus and ends by inviting people to visit EZGrill.com for a chance to win supplies for a Glee viewing party. But none of the videos have come close to the first in terms of views. “Marketing on YouTube was worth it in terms of building the brand, but not in terms of building consumer sales,” Swan says. “But as a small company, you’ve got to throw the spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks.” The Result:

The Price Tag: $1,500

Expert Tips

Consider the medium Some products and services are ill suited for YouTube

image source: youtube

and paid a former college roommate $300 to write the script. Finally, he rented a Panasonic video camera for $50 and headed to a pool hall with a white wall for the shoot. During the two-minute video, “How to Tell When Your Breath Stinks,” Craig dons a white lab coat and protective goggles to educate viewers about bad breath and how the Orabrush tongue cleaner could cure it. At the end, an ad pops up inviting people to try the Orabrush for free by clicking on a link to the company’s site. The team spent about 80 hours producing, filming, and editing the video. After posting it on YouTube, the team purchased YouTube’s Promoted Video Ads, which cost $30 a day and made the video the first result when users searched for specific keywords, including bad breath, on the site. The team also posted the video on Orabrush’s Facebook page and retweeted posts about it.

social smarts

campaigns, warns Dan Rayburn, principal analyst of digital media at Frost & Sullivan. If you sell something that is difficult to explain—financial services, say—it might not translate well on video.

Paid Referrals

In the cluttered socialmedia landscape, a recommendation from a friend goes a long way. A crop of new services helps businesses reward people with cash and other goods for sharing ads on social networks. The Company

The Sweet Spot, a Dallas hair removal salon that specialises in sugaring, an alternative to waxing The goal: Attract customers to the newly opened salon The execution: The Sweet Spot’s

founder, Erin Cox, noticed links to products and services on her friends’ Facebook Walls that looked a lot like promotions. She followed the links and realised they all originated from Blue Calypso, a mobile marketing platform through which businesses reward people for sharing ads via Twitter, Facebook, or text message. In January, she signed up with the service, paying $2,500 a month for a promotion that allowed her up to 230,000 impressions. A Blue Calypso representative helped her design an ad offering 50 per cent off any treatment at the salon and import it to the Blue Calypso app, where it appeared ILLUSTRATION BY Prince Antony

Make it useful Ideally, videos should be both entertaining and useful, Rayburn adds. “If you’re cooking a bunch of electronics just to create a cool video, it may not reach your target demographic.”

Include a call to action If your goal is to sell products, include a link to your website on videos, as Orabrush did. “You don’t want viewers asking, ‘Where can I buy this thing?’ ” Rayburn says.

Let’s get personal

says the campaigns have been much more successful than a LivingSocial deal she ran this year that was not profitable and did not lead to any repeat customers. “The demographic base you reach using Blue Calypso isn’t just people looking for a hell of a deal,” Cox says. “Once they get in the door, they tend to stick around.” The price tag: $2,500 a month

Expert Tips

Build a base Paying endorsers works best for companies with an existing fan base, because people are more comfortable promoting companies they trust, says Fareena Sultan, a marketing professor at Northeastern University. “People don’t want to spam their alongside other offerings being resulting in more than 108 cou- friends,” she says. “They tend to send promotions to friends promoted to the service’s thou- pon redemptions in the first sands of members. Each time month. Though she was selling who will benefit from them.” Don’t cheap out Make sure members posted the Sweet Spot her services for half price, she rewards are substantial ad on Facebook or Twitter, or says the salon still made a enough to motivate endorsers, shared it via text, Blue Calypso profit, even after paying Blue paid them 4 four cents to 30 Calypso. She ran the promotion Sultan adds. “They’re performing a service for your business, cents, adding the money to a for three months, then kicked and they should be compenVisa debit card (payments are off an ongoing give-away cambased on each member’s reach paign that offers free lip or eye- sated for it,” she says. Follow through Finally, be and activity levels). To sweeten brow sugaring to first-time sure to deliver on whatever the deal, Cox also rewarded customers who purchase any endorsers with complimentary other full-price service. All told, promotion you are asking people to endorse, Sultan services. People who clicked on about 200 Blue Calypso memthe promotion were redirected bers have promoted the salon’s says. “The implementation has to be good enough that to a Blue Calypso landing page ads each month. Tens of thoufeaturing the coupon, along with sands of people have clicked on people who hear about your an option to “Like” the Sweet them, hundreds have redeemed service through an endorsement want to become endorsSpot on Facebook, call the salon, the coupons, and about 60 are ers themselves,” she says. or visit its website to make an now regulars at the salon. Cox appointment. Cox could then view reports and analytics on the Blue Calypso site. For more social-media strategies, go to The result: The promotion www.inc.com/business-owner-social-media-tool-kit/ exceeded Cox’s expectations, DECember 2011 | INC. | 47

Future Ready Manoj Agarwal knows entrepreneurs who have their ears to the ground will surge ahead.

HOW I DID IT

Manoj Agarwal Steely Resolve

It’s been less than nine years since a Kolkata-based family of steel traders decided they couldn’t grow till they became manufacturers themselves. So they set up Adhunik Metaliks, a steel manufacturing company. In the short span since, Adhunik has grown into a roaring `3,500-crore giant with interests in steel, mining and power. The excitement is only beginning, says Manoj Agarwal, the group’s managing director, and the architect of its recent strides, as he launches a plan to take his family firm global.

After I completed my schooling in Kolkata, I decided to test the notion

that Indians in the northern and western parts of the country were smarter entrepreneurs. That is what I was often told. So I took admission in NIT Kurukshetra to study engineering. I subconsciously picked up the business acumen of north Indians. It was a good addition to my already born-for-business Marwari genes.

In 1993, I joined a family rolling mill business in Punjab to learn the ropes

of the business. I worked there for six months before returning to Kolkata. I was immediately packed off to Jamshedpur where the family’s main trade was with the Tatas. I spent the next seven years setting up six service centres and improving trade relations with Tatas.

At that time, the Indian economy was opening up fast. Demand for

as told to Dhiman Chattopadhyay photograph by drishti

steel was rising rapidly. I realised there was ample space for another mid-sized steel maker in the market. It was also a necessary business adaptation. By the end of the 1990s, most large and mid-sized Indian steel plants had modernised their production processes. Traders like us had no future in the new scheme of things. However, we did have an opportunity staring right at us if we dared to become manufacturers. It wouldn’t be easy but it could be rewarding.

This article is a reprint of the how i did It (November 2011). We used a wrong photograph of Manoj Agarwal in that version. We regret the error.

We spent two years researching on how to build and operate a steel plant. We looked across India and abroad. Our extensive research did help. It’s what pushed us to grow faster. Another impetus was that government policies were beginning to change by then. Banks were becoming more open to lending and encouraging entrepreneurship. DECember 2011 | INC. | 49

how i did it

A crucial decision that we took, based

again on our research, was that we’d set up plants near existing and well-established steel plants. Our logic was simple. We’d automatically receive access to a running ecosystem and trained manpower base. We began with constructing plants in Rourkela (Orissa) and Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) in 2002-03. The decision stood us in good stead. We later acquired iron ore mines close by.

We formally launched Adhunik Metaliks

Limited, our flagship company, in 2002. We signed an MoU with the Orissa government and invested around `35 crore as seed capital. Luckily, the State Bank of India sanctioned our loan a month before the project. Their confidence in us, even when we were an unknown entity, was a huge morale boost for us. We started making profits from the first year itself. By 2004-05, we began working on phase II of our growth plan. We finally started producing quality alloy from the Rourkela plant. In 2005, we also inked an agreement with the Orissa Mining Corporation Limited for supply of iron ore. That was a critical partnership for our growth. Things have moved briskly for us. We have signed on large clients. Today we are one of the biggest suppliers of steel alloy to the Indian Railways, the Indian Armed Forces, and to oil companies and auto manufacturers. We went public in 2006. The listing was great for us. We were subscribed six times over. That was a good year actually. Celebrations continued right up to December when our Rourkela plant became operational. Incidentally, ours was the last steel company to go for an IPO. Since 2006, no other steel manufacturer has gone down the IPO route. We might be big today, but we’re still the youngest. By 2007, we were growing rapidly. Our challenge was to break into the auto sector where established players such as Kalyani

5 0 | INC. | DECember 2011

“I believe fortune favours the bold. But people who are both bold and wise are the real achievers.” Steel and Usha Martin dominated. We marketed ourselves aggressively and offered lucrative discounts. Now, we’re one of the major players. Half of the steel we produce goes to auto manufacturers. In the same year, we acquired the Orissa

Manganese and Minerals Limited for a throwaway price of `60 crore. Thus, we no longer need to depend on anybody for our raw material. But, my real “yahoo” moment was towards the end of that year when our stock crossed the `250-mark for the first time. We all had tears of joy. The entire office was celebrating. We’d justified the faith that our shareholders had in us. By mid-2008, we had not only grown the steel business manifold, but had diversified into mining. Adhunik started to plan a foray into the power sector. Over 67 per cent of India’s coal reserves are in the eastern part of the country. We had the three big prerequisites to get into this sector: we had land, raw material and water reserves. We founded our power company and acquired a forging company. Till then, we had depended on smaller forging firms. By doing away with this need to outsource, we rationalised costs, improved efficiency and, more importantly, had greater control over the product quality. We were on a high when the global economic crisis hit. Life’s got this funny way of keeping you grounded. The first three months of 2009 were the toughest. Banks were reluctant to lend. To make matters worse, as an infrastructure conglomerate, we didn’t have cash surplus. We urgently needed cash to fund our growth. Finally, in mid-2009 there was a respite as a handful of banks agreed to lend to us again.

We survived by slowing down our steel

manufacturing. However, we ensured that we keep a huge stock of raw material ready so that we had the first mover advantage when markets returned to normality. We still suffered derivative and inventory losses though.

Today, we are a `3,500-crore group, less than a decade after we started operations from scratch. We are proud of how we’ve grown. It’s not a small achievement. In 2012, our youngest baby—Adhunik Power—will begin operations. In the next three years, we want Adhunik Group to be a global infrastructure giant. There’s no reason why we can’t be a `10,000-crore firm by 2015. To get there, setting up operations in mining-rich countries (Canada, Australia and South Africa) is on our agenda. We’ll then list on the London Stock Exchange. I am still 42 years old. But having spent

close to two decades in this business, almost half of it running the Adhunik Group, I’ve picked up valuable lessons. I’ve taken calculated risks and gambled on key decisions. I allow myself to be driven by my gut instincts. I believe fortune favours the bold, but people who are both bold and wise are the real achievers.

There’s no substitute for hands-on experience. One may have an Ivy League degree, but the real world is different. The best entrepreneurs are those who have their ears to the ground. Take my word for it. The next phase of growth in India will come from the manufacturing sector in the developing states.

Managing A fun designation can be a worthy experiment this page Finance A field guide to crowdfunding page 54 Branding What a music festival can do for your business page 56 Elevator Pitch Can 99Games play well enough to win investors over? It needs $2mn to bolster its portfolio. page 58 The Way I Work Goli Vada Pav’s Venkatesh Iyer doesn’t have a balanced work-life diet. Unless he really puts his mind

Sales & Marketing

to it, he can’t stop thinking about vada pavs. The street snack has him firmly sandwiched in its grip

page 53

page 60

Experts on how an online reccomendation tool can get more subscribers

strategy Managing What’s in a name? Sometimes more than the good Bard would have you believe

photos.com

If we believe the Bard of Avon, a name by itself

doesn’t mean much. So how about a job title? Not much either, some people might say. After all, whether you call a leader the chief executive officer or its fancier counterpart, the “chief dreamer”, he’s pretty much going to battle a similar set of challenges and experience similar highs, they might argue. But some firms disagree—add a dash of innovation to a job title and you might just add a new dimension to a worker’s profile, they say. There are recent examples of Indian companies thinking out-of-the-box to come up with “fun” designations. Jayaram Rajaram, who co-founded ELSA Learning, is the company’s managing director. But he prefers to be known as its “chief dreamer”. “Mine is a DECember 2011 | INC. | 51

strategy

strategic thinking role. I need to be uncluttered and think of where the company is headed. In that sense, I am a dreamer,” explains Rajaram. It was his choice to give himself a second job title, in-sync with his work profile. It seems that Rajaram and his team are sold out on creative designations. The Bengalurubased ELSA has several other interesting examples. Its co-founder, who spearheads the delivery of goods, is both the company’s director and its “happiness coach”. The head of sales is called “the relationship guy”, while the person responsible for content and curriculum is “the details guy”. Rajaram’s philosophy is clear. “When you go to work, you need to have fun,” he says. At the newly set-up CoCubes in Gurgaon, Anand Subramanian is an “evangelist”. No, he doesn’t really preach or pray for people’s happiness. He is a marketing evangelist whose job is to talk about CoCubes, a company that connects colleges and firms online for campus recruitment. Essentially, Subramanian is a marketing and communications professional, who brings with him positive news and connects people. His unique designation just defines his mantra better, he thinks. “It’s about how one wants to project oneself,” he says. There can’t be a better example than Steve Jobs to prove his point, who called himself a technology evangelist. Similarly, Vijay K. Thadani, who co-founded NIIT with Rajendra Pawar, is the CFO: its chief fun officer. He reminisces about how this happened. “My colleague one day called me and said I’d been a CEO for too long. They wanted to promote me to a CFO, the chief fun officer. That’s moving up from E to F,” he laughs. As a chief fun officer, he has appointed several “fun managers”. “Work should be an expression of freedom and fun. We make sure we are serious about fun,” says Thadani. In western firms, especially those involved in technology, such experimental designations have been around for a while. Technology giant Dell has a “chief ethic officer” and the honcho of America Online’s matchmaking site is the “CEO of Love”. 5 2 | INC. | DECember 2011

Designs on Designations

Some interesting monikers used by companies the world over to give designations that extra zing 01 Venture Catalyst 02 Mobile Community Creator 03 Entrepreneur Mentor 04 Social Media Evangelist 05 Chief Hacking Officer 06 Chief Privacy Officer 07 Chief Competitive Officer 08 Chief Demonstration Officer 09 Vice President for Environmental Innovation 10 Diversity Marketing Manager

What purpose do these designations fulfill? HR observers believe they make sense at a time when traditional roles and responsibilities are undergoing major changes. A designation helps display the imperative focus. More often than not, a human resources officer is not only responsible for recruitments; he fulfils several other responsibilities—general HR activities, industrial relations etc. So when somebody is called a “talent acquisition officer”, it conveys that the person is absolutely focussed on that one goal. Thadani says a well-crafted designation can also give employees a sense of worth. “At NIIT, designations are created to align with responsibilities. We try to make it simple, and also add a bit of intrigue.” In this age of corporate talent war, any tool to motivate employees and have them buy into the organisation is a powerful idea. “It creates an excitement beyond the salary,” says V. Suresh, the executive vice president and head of sales at Naukri.com. As Indians, we are very designation-focussed, adds Suresh. “They are status symbols. People love to flaunt them and love the attention they get from these.” Many of these designations have typically been seen in IT companies or young start-ups, both of which don’t have to subscribe to traditional hierarchies. They don’t upset the apple cart, so to speak. Often, these designations are peoplespecific, something that can only work in smaller organisations. For example, at

ELSA, employees are encouraged to come up with their job titles. Sometimes, designations are as aligned to the job role as they are to the occupant’s personality. Rajaram recalls a former team member who chose to call herself “mother hen”. She actually fulfilled that role—offering advice and solving her colleagues’ problems. In other cases, companies innovate in order to showcase their values. The Future Group, for instance, wanted to draw attention to their belief in their business. They hired Devdutt Pattanaik, the Indian mythology expert, who chose to call himself the “chief belief officer”. His job primarily, as he’s often said in his blogs and articles, is to make people believe in the religion of retail. Belief, Pattnaik asserts, shapes behaviour which in turn shapes business. As long as the designations don’t become ridiculous, fun is fine, believes Ronesh Puri, CEO of Executive Access, an executive search firm. “If designations become too crazy, they can be counter-productive. Also, the culture of the organisation has to be in sync with such creative titles,” he says. Not that those with perfect-fit, fancy titles won’t leave their companies for other pastures. When people want to move on, they’ll do so irrespective of their designation. From an employee’s perspective, there are chances of not being taken seriously at client meetings, job interviews or other platforms with such designer designations. ELSA’s Rajaram has a solution. In his organisation, every employee has two titles—the traditional and the quirky. The traditional is used to solicit a meeting or get access to people. Once these conversations begin, people are drawn to the fun title. It becomes a point of conversation, Rajaram says. CoCube’s Subramanian agrees. As he is today, he’ll continue to be a ‘marketing’ person. There’s nothing to be disadvantaged with a title like evangelist, he adds. Sometimes, seemingly quirky designations become industry norms like the oft-used chief people officer. So, the next time you hire an operations controller, consider calling them a “cost kill analyst”. It won’t cost you anything extra and perhaps you’ll maximise on fun and loyalty of your employees. —Meenakshi Kumar

strategy

Sales & Marketing myBantu gives free reccos But will more users bite? How would you sell that?

Imagine how much more effective web browsing would be if a smart online personal assistant

could help you make sense of the thousands of results your search throws up. That’s precisely what myBantu claims to be. With myBantu, entertainment-related queries throw up dining, movie, and shopping suggestions that match the users’ preferences and location. To achieve this, myBantu uses its social intelligence-based ActiveRelevance technology. ActiveRelevance applies artificial intelligence to a user’s previous web interactions to come up with right-fit recommendations. Founded by serial entrepreneurs Bhaskar Enaganti and Bharath Yadla, myBantu launched its beta version in August 2011. And, it’s already available on the iPhone, Android phones and Facebook for free. Yadla and Enaganti, based in Bengaluru, want to scale up to two million users by the end of 2012. They believe their unique transaction-based commissions, ads and referral model will come in handy, as will the $6-million investment they’re scouting for. Four experts suggest ways to take myBantu to the next level. —Charu Bahri PITCH NO. 3: Work out revenuesharing deals Prashant Singh, senior manager, Alliances, Spice Labs myBantu could help retailers acquire customers by helping them send targeted offers. As the application runs on mobile devices, myBantu could share the users’ location, device type and spending pattern leads generated from scanning the device’s SMS inbox. myBantu could also work out revenue-sharing deals with device OEMs to pre-bundle their application, and with telecom operators to distribute their application to targeted users.

PITCH NO. 1: Tweak the service Atul Chitnis, Consulting Technologist First, I’d get rid of the canned replies on the website—it gives an automated, impersonal vibe. It’s a mistake to combine personal recommendations with public interaction. Using the word free in the tagline—“your free personal assistant”—may attract some people but will also push away others who don’t take a “free” service seriously. Use traditional modes of advertising like television since it is aimed at casual, everyday users. This is true of most technology-based solutions but especially those meant to mimic human interaction. PITCH NO. 2: Go mobile Arun Prabhudesai, Founder, Trak.in and thegadgetfan.com Mobile will play a key role in its future growth. I’d suggest pushing myBantu on mobile. For a platform like this, Mobile + Social + Location are a must. My biggest concern is myBantu’s name—it doesn’t match its international reputation. myBantu seems to predominantly serve US customers. But it might be a difficult name for brand recall. Also, myBantu needs to focus on emerging markets like India and China for the next growth burst. It’s important that they “promise” a turnaround time. Right now, it isn’t clear how the recommendations are turned around.

ILLUSTRATION by pc anoop

Style Guide Can myBantu become its customers’ trusted online buddy?

Feedback on the Feedback The idea to market myBantu using non-online techniques is great—we’ll definitely embrace it. The suggestion to go big in the mobile segment is absolutely great, given that we are seeing good traction both on Android and iPhone. Also, we’re planning to focus on the Indian market with some partnerships for content. myBantu currently gives recommendations based on Asklaila content as well. Regarding tie-ups with OEMs with device players, we are exploring that, and would definitely take that path in the US and India.

PITCH NO. 4: Align marketing with operations Hareeni Mageswaran, CEO, Corporate Chimes, a communications company myBantu should align its marketing plan with its strategic goals. This would help make gains from running focussed programmes like one for Android users. myBantu should map stakeholders and draft a stakeholder-specific public relations campaign. This would help evangelise myBantu’s services, build brand recall and help influence key stakeholders. Stakeholder feedback should be monitored. Most startups don’t invest in feedback analysis techniques. This will be a critical differentiator for their success story.

DECember 2011 | INC. | 5 3

strategy

what it is How it works

Best for... The catch T

Kickstarter

A haven for emerging artists, Kickstarter is fast becoming a platform for entrepreneurs to finance innovative new products. The site has seen more than 13,000 successful campaigns since its launch in 2009.

Each project on Kickstarter gets a fundraising page, which includes the funding goal, a video explaining the venture, and the deadline (one to 60 days after the launch). Campaigns are expected to offer “rewards” to contributors; such perks run the gamut from a thank-you on the company website to a prototype. If you don’t hit your goal by your deadline, you won’t see a penny.

Artists, designers, and inventors

Kickstarter accepts only 60 per cent of the 2,000 or so projects that apply each week—and it’s especially picky about entrepreneurial endeavours. Service providers, beware: Kickstarter takes projects of only an artistic or creative nature. “That’s where our heart lies,” says co-founder Yancey Strickler.

Indiegogo

Founded in 2008, IndieGoGo takes an ‘anything-goes’ approach. As long as the project is neither pornographic nor illegal, it’s accepted. “We’re open to any campaign, any idea, anywhere in the world,” says co-founder Slava Rubin.

Each project gets a profile page, with a video, a written summary, descriptions of perks for funders, a fundraising goal, and a deadline (one to 120 days from the launch date). Businesses can keep whatever they raise, whether or not the goal is reached. Contributions can be made via cheque, credit card, or PayPal.

Anyone with an idea—and a willingness to compete against thousands of others

IndieGoGo’s unfiltered approach has a downside: entrepreneurs must share the platform with as many as 10,000 other causes and projects at any one time— including the guy asking people to chip in for his root canal and the miniature horse in need of surgery. That’s a lot of clutter to cut through.

Profounder

Co-founded by Jessica Jackley, one of the brains behind the peer-to-peer microlending platform Kiva, ProFounder helps start-ups launch private rounds of crowdfunding. Investors get equity or a percentage of revenue over a set period of time.

The site guides entrepreneurs through every stage of raising capital, including creating pitches and term sheets to send to potential investors. ProFounder also provides tools that help ensure entrepreneurs comply with various states’ investment regulations. The site even helps calculate and manage dividend or revenue-share payments to be made in the months and years after the raise.

Entrepreneurs with welldeveloped networks of potential investors

The pitch won’t go viral. The SEC exemption that allows this kind of fundraising (Regulation D, Rules 504 and 506) prohibits general solicitation, which means investors can be only people the entrepreneur already knows, such as friends, family, and customers.

Microventures

Finance Buddy, can you spare a C-note? A field guide to crowdfunding

Launched in 2010, MicroVentures is an online broker-dealer that connects start-ups with more than 1,000 angel investors nationwide looking to make equity investments of $1,000 to $50,000.

Companies that make it through the application and due-diligence process can raise $100,000 to $500,000. MicroVentures handles investor relations throughout and after the raise. Investments are placed in escrow until the goal is reached. If you don’t reach your goal, funds are returned to investors.

Technology firms seeking experienced angel investors

Though MicroVentures accepts projects from all industries, the platform and its investors currently specialise in technology start-ups.

5 4 | INC. | DECember 2011

illustrations by Prince Antony

strategy

Artists, filmmakers, and musicians flock to sites like Kick-

starter to raise cash for their projects. Now, entrepreneurs are getting into the game. There are dozens of crowdfunding sites, including some geared specifically to start-ups. It’s not just money that users are after: a successful campaign can also generate buzz and provide proof of concept to professional investors. But raising small sums from hundreds of strangers is hard

work. Your pitch must be concise and compelling. And because crowdfunding happens online, it helps to be a whiz at using Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites to spread the word about your project. The chart below looks at four services with very different approaches to crowdfunding—and introduces four companies that have found success using them. —Malika Zouhali-Worrall

The cost Avg. $ raised Success Story Successful projects pay 5 per cent of funds raised to Kickstarter, plus 3 per cent to 5 per cent to Amazon Payments, which processes contributions.

$5,000

Jessica Genet and Stephan Angoulvant, co-founders of the Los Angeles–based design shop Lumi, were convinced that the textile printing process they had invented was innovative and exciting. They also knew that they needed a lot more research and development before they could convince anyone else that it was commercially viable. They launched a Kickstarter project in late 2009. Eight weeks later, they had raised $13,597 from 188 funders, in exchange for coasters, card wallets, bags, and other items they had designed. The campaign, say the pair, brought them instant credibility. Indeed, a furniture designer that learned about Lumi as a result of the Kickstarter campaign wound up hiring the company to produce textiles. “All of a sudden, we’re working with a major client, we have furniture lines going out the door, and our work is being exhibited at international furniture shows!” says Genet.

IndieGoGo takes 4 per cent if the fundraising goal is met and 9 per cent if it isn’t. There’s also a third-party payment processing fee of 2.9 per cent.

$15,000

Brian Lamb and Vladimir Tetelbaum recently raised $24,680, 123 per cent of their goal, on IndieGoGo. The money is nice. But even nicer for their Belmont, California– based company, Satarii—which is developing a camera mount that lets users easily take videos of themselves—are the metrics. By the time the campaign was completed, Satarii had some pretty impressive numbers: 5,00,000 views of its YouTube video, 10,000 comments and e-mails, and 283 backers, 63 of whom were so impressed that they kicked in $200 or more to receive a prototype of the device—some 30 per cent more than the device’s anticipated retail price. “When you walk in and say that to someone, they pay attention,” says Lamb. He and Tetelbaum have gone on to raise seed funding from a number of angel investors and a manufacturing company. A commercial product launch is expected at the end of 2011.

It’s free. (Some states charge a fee for filing paperwork.)

$29,000

Bronson Chang’s Uncle Clay has owned a candy and snack shop in Honolulu for almost as long as Chang, 23, can remember. When Chang learnt that his 63-year-old uncle was struggling to make ends meet, he got to work on a new business plan, which included a bright new storefront, locally sourced products, and a new name: Uncle Clay’s House of Pure Aloha. To get money for the venture, the House of Pure Aloha turned to ProFounder. Once the effort was launched, Chang and his uncle worked full time for a month to invite friends, family, and longtime customers to invest, sending weekly e-mails and hosting conference calls and in-store meetups. They wound up raising $54,000 from 19 investors, in exchange for a 2 per cent share of revenue over five years. “Our business has been all about the community,” says Chang. “ProFounder helped us tap into rich connections that have always been there.”

You pay $100 to submit a project, $250 for due diligence, and 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the total if the raise is successful.

$150,000

Julius Schorzman and Dave Matthews, the co-founders of Shopobot, knew they had a good idea: a website that tracks price changes at online retailers, alerting shoppers to the best time to buy. But they were spending so much time raising funds that they barely had time to work on the site. In June, the pair signed up with MicroVentures, where launching a campaign required little more than a day’s work and a conference call to answer questions from potential investors. Freed from distractions, the co-founders dug in on Shopobot. They interviewed job candidates, added features, and spent more time on marketing. Two weeks later, they had raised an undisclosed amount from 20 individuals in seven states. They had also doubled the number of registered users on their site. Says Schorzman,“As opposed to just talking about what we’re going to do, we were able to start doing it.” DECember 2011 | INC. | 5 5

strategy

Play “Freebird”! Blissedout fans rush the stage at the Sweetlife Festival.

Branding Hey, kids: Let’s put on a show! What a music festival can do for your business Bonnaroo, Coachella, Lollapalooza… Sweetlife?

The latter may lack the cred of other popular music festivals, but that hardly mattered to the 15,000 or so fans who rocked out to the Strokes, Lupe Fiasco, Crystal Castles, the Cold War Kids, and six more acts at the Sweetlife Festival in May in Maryland. The concert was the brainchild of Sweetgreen, a Washington, D.C.–based restaurant chain; it’s also the centerpiece of the company’s marketing efforts. Founded in 2007 by college friends Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman, and Nathaniel Ru, all 26, Sweetgreen aims to offer an organic, locally sourced, and inexpensive alternative to the usual fast-food joints. It has 10 locations (eight in the D.C. area and two in Philadelphia), 250 employees, and an annual revenue of about $15 million. 5 6 | INC. | DECember 2011

Music has been front and center for the chain since its earliest days, when the struggling founders boosted traffic by setting up a DJ booth on the sidewalk outside its first shop, in D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood. The company also has its own Pandora station and considers Coachella, a company holiday. In 2009, it held its first live-music event—a mini block party in the store’s parking lot—with local indie rock bands. The block party helped bump sales 20 per cent over the previous year, so in 2010, Sweetgreen blew it out with the first Sweetlife Festival. The trio persuaded the popular electronic act Hot Chip—in town for a show at Washington’s 9:30 Club—to play the restaurant’s parking lot that afternoon. The event cost about $50,000 to stage and left the company about $15,000 in

strategy

The festival is a big step toward extending the brand to music, travel, and fashion. the red. But the owners deemed it a success: nearly 1,000 people showed up, and the event generated plenty of buzz, including a mention in Spin. They were determined that the 2011 show be bigger—way bigger. Rather than doing it themselves, they partnered with IMP, which operates a number of concert venues in the area, including the famed Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. Designed by Frank Gehry, the 17,000-capacity venue sits on 40 wooded acres and has hosted artists such as the Who, Led Zeppelin, and Green Day. The pavilion had an opening on May 1, an IMP rep told them. Why not hold the festival there? The date nailed down, they now had about three months to attend to the countless other details. With such a large venue, a big-time headliner was essential. The Strokes, touring on the release of their first new record in five years, were available, the three learned. It took about a month of back-and-forth, but the group agreed to play. With the Strokes on board, Sweetgreen was able to line up sponsorships, of $5,000 to $50,000, from companies such as Applegate Farms, Yards Brewing, and Honest Tea. The headliner also helped attract acts such as mashup DJ Girl Talk and rapper Theophilus London. To spread the word, the company hung large graphic displays in its stores, created a website about the event, posted banner ads on its homepage, and purchased ads on Facebook. IMP’s marketing people handled radio-station plugs, ticket giveaways, and advertising on the websites of its D.C. venues. Sweetgreen was as choosy about the concessions as about the performers. Jammet battled with Charm City Hospitality, which runs food services at Merriweather, over whether the beer-swilling crowd would go for healthier snacks and whether nachos should be on the menu. Sweetgreen won the nacho battle, but it couldn’t eliminate junk food altogether. Still, it pushed for healthier ingredients. Finally, it was May 1. The doors opened at noon, and the Sweetgreen founders were all over the place—mingling with the growing crowd, filming webcasts with band members, hanging out backstage. At one point, they took in the view from the pavilion roof, astonished at how smoothly everything was going. “It felt more like a Sweetgreen event than a Merriweather

Surf’s Up Alice Glass, singer for the band Crystal Castles, catches a ride.

show,” says Zach Goodwin, guitarist for opening act Modern Man. “Their food was everywhere, but more than that, there was a homegrown, hand-built vibe.” Speaking of the food, Sweetgreen’s instincts were right on: the organic greens and the quinoa cups with roasted asparagus sold out. “We proved that just because people are drinking in the sun all day, it doesn’t mean they’ll only eat pizza,” says Ru. The salad stand was so popular, Sweetgreen was asked by Charm City to do another one a few weeks later at a Katy Perry concert. It’s easy to see how getting thousands of music fans, mostly aged between 14 and 35, out in the fresh air digging 10 bands brings a company good vibrations. Quantifying actual return on investment is trickier. The bill for the festival came to more than $5,00,000. Tickets were priced at $55. After donating a percentage of the door to the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and D.C. Farm to School Network, the company broke even. The company did double its social-media following, and restaurant sales increased slightly. Still, “there’s not a tangible ROI,” says Ru. “But we were able to educate people about eating local, healthy food—and get them talking about Sweetgreen.” More important, perhaps, the company rewarded concert-goers with some fine memories— such as the moment when Girl Talk closed his set with John Lennon’s “Imagine,” as a storm of multihued balloons rained down on the audience. The festival is a big step towards the founders’ ultimate goal of extending the Sweetlife brand to music, travel, and fashion. And the lack of solid financial results hasn’t slowed down the planning for next year’s event, which will be even more focussed on the healthy grub. For 2012, the group is aiming for 100 per cent control to bring in food trucks, celebrity chefs, and more local farmers. Down the road, the owners’ collective rock-’n’-roll fantasy is that Sweetlife becomes the East Coast Coachella. —Patrick J. Sauer DECember 2011 | INC. | 5 7

Riddle Me This

Can Anila Andrade rope in her investors, as she did her clients?

5 8 | INC. | DECember 2011

Photograph by jiten gandhi

strategy

FounderS

Rohith Bhat Anila Andrade (in picture) Company

99Games

Location

Udupi

Founded

November 2008 Revenue

81 lakh

Projected Revenue

8 crore

Revenue Model

One time download, Freemium titles Funding sought

$2 million

Funds sought for

More games for other OS platforms

Elevator Pitch 99Games wants to expand its arsenal. Will investors give it $2 million to play with? The Pitch “We bring user-friendly puzzles and engaging word games to

iPhone and iPad lovers. At 99Games, we conceptualise, design, develop and market games for the iPhone and iPad. The titles developed for iOS and Android platforms are monetised either as one-time downloads (OTDs), ad-supported (word games) or as freemium titles (social games). The monetisation model may differ, but each one maintains all the features of the original game. 99Games has developed quite a few hits—The Jim & Frank Mysteries, Mystic Emporium, WordsWorth HD and Empire Builder—for the iPhone and iPad. Many of them have been downloaded more than a million times. We also licence the best PC games and re-factor them for iPhones and other OS platforms. We’d like to explore more opportunities and expand our arsenal to get a shot at the current Indian gaming space, pegged at $10 billion.”—As told to Inc. India

Investors Weigh In Broaden the scope

Forge partnerships

get sustainable revenue

There are thousands of such gaming firms around the world. The trick is to figure out if you can become the next Rovio or Zynga. Investing in a gaming company is like investing in a movie studio. You have to hope that one film becomes a superhit. It’s a really risky option for VCs. If 99Games wants to raise $2 million, say for a third of the company, the VC will hope the company becomes worth $60 million. That’s how they will get a 10x exit. 99Games should go for angel funding, work to get more addictive games and quickly move to the Android platform. The iPhone or iPad platforms will not find a large customer base in India or China.

The company is doing a commendable job at generating revenues in a difficult-tomonetise space. The OTD business model is hard to scale. They should explore deeper models like virtual goods. Such businesses are usually hits driven. It will be good to see how different games are doing. Partnerships with established distribution channels may prove to be hard, because most distribute apps or games with proven companies. Still, it would be worth exploring tier-B handset manufacturers as possible partners. It’s important that 99Games keeps a very tight analytics on what is working.

One positive about the venture is that they have got market acceptance, reflected from their `81 lakh revenue. They have excellent graphics and interesting games. Their website shows that they can engage their customers for very long. But 99Games needs to try working on white label games, for at least one OEM vendor, to create a sustainable revenue stream. The freemium model takes time to generate revenue until the brand is built. They should use the funds in a way that it lasts for at least 18 months so that they reach a revenue target and then look at a Series A round from VCs.

Mahesh Murthy, partner, Seedfund, Mumbai

Ashish Gupta, senior MD Helion Venture Partners, Gurgaon

Paresh Kariya, angel investor, Mumbai DECember 2011 | INC. | 5 9

strategy

The way i work | Venkatesh Iyer, Goli Vada Pav

“I can’t do without stress and street food.” For Venkatesh Iyer of Goli Vada Pav, a Mumbai-based fast food chain, this ubiquitous desi snack is the Amitabh Bachchan of fast food. Iyer, who has a sacrosanct pecking order of passions—vada pav, Goli Vada Pav and unravelling consumer psychology—is convinced that the young, urban Indian might be brand-conscious, but they would prefer pav over an Indianised burger version any day. The 75,000 vada pavs flying off the shelves of his Goli outlets daily prove his point. His big business bites aren't without stresses though. But this foodie confesses he can't do without his fix of both stress and street food. Mention a new street snack kiosk and Iyer is there, as much to taste the food as to understand the business of tickling palates. With a single-minded passion, Iyer has translated this passion into a mouth-watering business: Goli Vada Pav or GVP now has a presence in 30 cities with 125 outlets. His appetite is growing rapidly. Iyer wants to add 100 stores every year, for the next five years.

As told to rohini banerjee | Photograph by Jiten Gandhi

I wake up around 5.30am and the first thing I do is prep myself for an hour-long yoga session. If it’s not yoga, he's off to swimming or a brisk walk, at least three times a week. I’ve been working to bring out a new, better me in the past couple of years. Street food and stress are a deadly combination. But I am afraid I can’t do without either. So I have

6 0 | INC. | DECember 2011

strategy

A Bite Too Big Venkatesh Iyer is obsessed with vada pavs. They dominate his diet and his sleep.

strategy

to take care of the body especially since I batter it with wilful eating. When I was young, I was bit of a fitness fanatic. Well, maybe not a fanatic but I did jog and hit the gym pretty regularly. However, discipline went off on a long vacation as office life, and later, Goli Vada Pav (GVP) took over. I’m determined to stick to my regime now. I’m done with my exercise by around 8:30am. It’s then time for a light breakfast— mostly fruits. That’s how it's been over the last decade or so. As I grow older, I’m more and more particular about eating my daily quota of fruits. In fact, now I can’t do without them. Fortunately, my mornings are peaceful because the way I’ve structured my business is as hatke (unique) as the product that I sell. I don’t switch on my mobile phone before 9.15am when I am ready to head to office. I follow something I call “hollow management”. In principle it means that I have little role to play in the logistics of my business. As I let my vendors know, “Hamare haath main kuch bhi nahin hain.” (There’s nothing I can do about this.) Our vendors run the show— the pav is made by one of the vendors, the vada is made by an entirely different team independent of the “pav makers”, and the chutney is manufactured by a third vendor. The logistics and co-ordination is done by an externally outsourced team. In truth, I run a small organisation and a big business brand. GVP runs 125 stores in four states of India. However, not everyone has to come to me to keep things running. I believe in putting capable people everywhere and in putting matters in the hands of master franchisees, while I innovate and ideate. This outsourced model is one I picked up during my critical investment banker-cum-broker days when I used to liaison between banks and corporates arranging for their funds. Even today, I am the liaison officer between my franchisees, vendors and Vista Food, the frozen processed food manufacturer, who works exclusively for McDonalds (India) and us. I believe there are two pillars in business: “operation” and “exploration”. I am more of an explorer. When I began I knew that I loved the innovation bit of a start-up. If I had a vision, it was to be as hands-free as I am. Managing only the operations doesn’t really suit my personality. I am always worried about what’s going on in the “Goli world”. Every day, I utilise the 45-minute drive to office to Google store reviews and scope out

what’s new in the street food scene. Thankfully, I am driven to office and I can use that time well. In those minutes, I also devour business magazines or read books by Paulo Coelho. Or, on certain days, I completely switch off and listen to spiritual, soulful music by artistes like M.S. Subbulakshmi. Once in office, I have a set order of priority: finance, franchising, projects and finally the store front. I talk to every team turn by turn, before finally turning towards the operations and number crunching bit of the business. All through these conversations, I’m constantly chatting with my co-founder, Shivadas Menon. Though I’d like to keep a distance from daily metrics, there’s no escaping the numbers now, is there? Meetings are usually about growth and restoration stage talks.

6 2 | INC. | DECember 2011

s a team leader, I confess, I focus

on different people at different times. When I’m in my exploratory phase, I’m mostly out on the streets meeting new vendors, trying to develop the brand and product further. Ten days every month, I am out of office promoting brand Goli. Then there are talks that I give at management institutions that have devoted case studies to Goli. It’s always a pleasure to interact with students and institution heads. Sometimes I am gone over the weekend much to the chagrin of my daughter. Admittedly, she and my wife have been living with an absentee father and husband for the past two years. Even when I am physically at home, my mind is elsewhere, thinking of new ideas and taking inspiration from other models. On most days, my mind is mostly occupied by the question of “location.” Location scouting gives me the chance to look at my main consumer—the youth. When I hit a new city, I try to gauge where the youth are going, which new spots they’re hanging out at, which are the new pizza chains or 'McDonald-ish' outlets that have become their hotspots. I sample entire menus at these places to figure out what’s bringing them the footfall. Of course, this is work. But I love trying out new street food eateries. It gets me closer to the pulse of the youth. I’m very hands on with every aspect when it comes to mapping new cities we’re entering—the what, why and who keep me on my toes. What should be the location, the store design and the wall colours? Should the restaurant have seating or not? Who’s my target? Will they prefer to stand or sit while eating?

strategy

“I love to destroy because I love to create. There's no thrill otherwise.” It’s imperative to know one’s customer inside out. I believe Indians may love wearing a Nike on their feet, buy an iPad, use a Sony headphone or sport a Ray Ban, but when it comes to food, they will eat desi, especially something as fuss-free, hygienic and quick as vada pavs. I don’t call the vada pav the Amitabh Bachchan of street snacks for nothing. I sincerely believe that I have a 100-crore customer base comprising Indians of all ages who adore it. They will pay to get it, especially if I guarantee quality. And we have managed to earn the customers’ trust: there must be a reason as to why around 75,000 vada pavs fly off our shelves in a day. Why I believe that Indians love to eat desi is because some NRIs based in the USA approached me with an offer to take Goli overseas recently. I was also offered financial help. They knew about us through word-ofmouth and because of our online presence. I’m a big advocate of viral advertising. Some 70 per cent of our customer base is the youth, so for us online is the place to be. Goli has a Facebook page. It also has a YouTube presence. When I’m not travelling, and in office, then after the meetings are over, I spend a solid two hours, from 7:30pm to 9:30pm, to marketing activities. Even when I travel, I make sure to check the net at least thrice or four times every day. It’s like an itch. Online reactions are important to me—they are prompt and honest feedback. I depend on them to gauge what’s hot and what’s not about what we’re offering. I don’t think of any feedback as negative. I look at it as constructive criticism. It helps me destroy an old system which might not be working, and bring about a new way of doing something. I love to destroy because it lets me create. I constantly obsess about creating a new system. Otherwise, there’s no thrill in the journey. And entrepreneurship is all about

a journey. At night, my mind is rife with ideas on how I can break the system and then rebuild it. Weekends are also devoted to it, when I sit down with Menon for brainstorming sessions. Our plan is to help Goli manage a 10-fold jump in its turnover, to `180 crore over the next five years, and for that we will add 100 more stores every year. This is an interesting time for us: we recently received offers from venture capitalists and Indian corporate houses to buy our stake. But we are looking for the right opportunity and timing. he way I work has a lot of madness. Perhaps the

only time when I am not thinking of a vada pav is when I am actually eating one! I love it so much that I have to have it often either in some Goli shop or on the street-side. In fact, I’d rather pack no lunch and do an impromptu snack-cumlunch when I’m in office. I have to intentionally switch off to stop thinking about Goli. At times, I chant the Gayatri Mantra in the late evenings. It helps me calm down, and concentrate on something else: say, books, which are a passion. I love reading books on sociology. Actually, there’s a business benefit to that too. I’ve to confess I probably like reading about subjects like sociology because it gives me clues about customer behaviour. I also like reading historical books. That’s perhaps one of the few interests I have that does not directly benefit my Goli interests. I also try and squeeze in cricket and swimming over the weekend if I am not travelling. Where I live, I have a team of several company CIOs, CEOs and CFOs who gather every Sunday for a willow war. Again, try as hard as we might, we end up talking shop often. I’d love to say that I go off to sleep with a calm and content mind but honestly, it’s still abuzz with business strategies and Goli when I hit the bed. As I said before, stress and street food don’t ever leave me alone. DECember 2011 | INC. | 6 3

I wish I knew then...

Priya Monga, co-founder, RC&M Experiential Marketing With husband Rajesh, Priya Monga co-founded RC&M, a rural marketing firm, in 1990. Soon, the firm turned out to be a pioneer in rural and experiential marketing for clients such as Airtel, Budweiser and LG. Its award-winning Toofan campaign for Mahindra & Mahindra, which sustained an ad blast for 600 days across 1,000 villages, is still a part of ad world folklore. The past two decades have been one of huge learning, Monga says. Two key lessons she’s learnt—the need to innovate, and listen to those with their ears to the ground. Rajesh, the co-founder of RC&M and my husband, worked as an advertising and industrial photographer for Eicher Motors back in the 1990s. That’s when Eicher decided to enter the rural market. They asked Rajesh to design a campaign for them. So, we bought four tractors, trained the manpower and made a film with a haathi and ghoda, where the tractor was depicted as the “lambi race ka ghoda”. The campaign was really successful. That’s what got us interested in rural marketing. But the going was tough. I wish we knew the “India pulse” better when we began. There was a lot of trial-anderror: we had to explore which medium of communication worked better where and that demographics react differently. Something that worked in the Northeast will not receive the same reaction in the south—we started to understand the Indian pulse along the way. For instance, we realised that having a customer base was not enough in a rural and semi-urban space; one needed integrated network partners on the ground. We had to integrate ourselves to the community. We didn’t remain just marketers. We became their postmen, informal banks and even a trade union of sorts for the people. Even as you build comfort with people,

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vehicles to drive that communication to get results. Outsourcing might have been a trend over the past decade. My experiences have taught me that one can control quality when one does everything in-house—right from production to technical work. When a campaign has to be implemented beyond a client’s office, in a 5,000-people town, your operations and control have to be well-defined. When you have your own people, they are answerable to you and there are fewer goof-ups. Today, 90 per cent of our models are built in-house. This potential and capacity we’ ve built in-house has made Grounded Priya Monga believes in homework us strong. We now have the before making the jump. strength to run 500 campaigns simultaneously with a team of 350 people. We have covered 70 per cent of you can’t ever think you know it all. Through rural, 75 per cent of semi-urban and 100 my 21 years as an entrepreneur with RC&M, per cent of urban India. Invariably, it’s the I’ve learnt that one constantly needs to innovate. Initially, we used to give a single solution 150-odd boys working on the ground for to clients. But the changing market dynamics the past two decades who have taught us that there’s life beyond our air AC offices. taught us that we needed to give a complete 360 degrees communication plan. We started They are the people with the real knowledge. They are our mentors. using online media, on-ground advertising, —As told to Ira Swasti mobile marketing and PR and results were there to see. You need to give your client a number of solutions along with a number of