Srini from Amagi did a fantastic presentation around a month back at Startup Saturday Bangalore on things that he has learnt from experience as a bootstrapped entrepreneur at ImpulseSoft. ImpulseSoft was a Bluetooth solutions provider which got acquired by SiRF Technology, a NASDAQ quoted company in early 2006. Srini is now on his next venture at Amagi which is planning a local ad syndication business for TV that will allow local advertisers to reach a very targeted audience, more on that in a separate post.
Srini’s talk was very inspiring and although the presentation below will not probably capture all that he covered in his talk, I am summarising and adding from my own (rather tumultous) experience as an entrepreneur on things that no entrepreneur should ever ignore
- Know Your Customer : This is not the great pie chart on market size in your business plan. KYC policy for start ups mean ‘find out companies that will buy your product, decision makers in those companies that will affect buying, their budgets and purchasing process, and timelines’. Do not be surprised if the numbers look like 0.5% of the numbers on the pie chart.
- Sell as (or before preferably) you build : This helps you know customer needs better, stay focussed on customer needs, and stay focussed on delivering on those needs to make revenues.
- Evangelizing is good but stay focussed on making a sale : Entrepreneurs who are very passionate about their ideas and products become missionaries and blabber a lot. Do not do that when you are selling. Get to know what the customer wants, who makes the decision on the purchase, budgets, timelines and the things you agree with the prospect to take the sale forward.
- Do not be shy to sell : If your product is great, even cold calls to very senior execs can produce great responses. If you do not get responses, revisit the product and the pitch.
- Think Big, Start Small : Having a vision is very important but slicing them into key short term deliverables is much more important. Know what you have to do next to get to Profits Quickly.
- Spend to Earn : Do not be an expert at using Excel and just drag those marketing budget figures to make that upward curving curve look so business plan like. Try and relate every expense to some earning or benefit for the business. Do not spend if you do not have to.
- Resist Advertising spend : Use every opportunity in free public forums, seminars, online groups to spread the word.
- Take time to Hire (and Fire quickly) : Do not be in a hurry to hire. Take your time to find a good team. Any mistake on this front is very expensive on costs, morale and performance of the business.
- Try and raise money when you are in business : Apart from taking (free) feedback from kind VCs, do not have this serious thought of raising money before you know what business you are in. Know the market, segment the customers, talk to a few in all of these segments, find out what sells, for what price it sells, how quickly it can sell, test it out by making a sale and THEN go to an investor. Even then, you may not be able to raise money, so have a low cost, high survivality, quick cash break even business plan.
- Know when to quit : I just wanted to reach point no. 10. It looks good. Plus, this one is philosophical. Think about it when you go to bed.