Blogging: Art or Science?

Bloggers. They are everywhere. Writing on every topic under the Sun.
Have met some awesome ones.
Have met some terrible ones.

So what’s the difference? What differentiates a Blogging rockstar from a dud?

Believe it or not – a good blog post has nothing to do with style of Writing. Your level of Written English and so on. Most bloggers get caught up in this and thus fail to write a blog post that can stimulate passion.

What an excellent blogger can successfully do, is replicate the following 4 things, repeatedly, over and over again…

1. Be Passionate – Brilliant bloggers choose a specific topic, and become thought-leaders in that space. Say, I love Apple. Steve Jobs was my first corporate love; almost read every printed book and article under the Sun on Steve Jobs and Apple. Thus, when creating a blog for myself, I decided writing on news/events/product launches on Apple & Steve Jobs. Another passion of mine is – Digital Marketing, and more specifically, Social Media. And finally, the startup space in India. Thus, my blog posts are mostly restricted to: Apple, Steve Jobs, Social Media & e-Commerce in India. Be passionate about something; and choose to write on that something. Just don’t create a blog for the sake of creating one.

2. Be Honest – Have met good bloggers, who failed to mature into brilliant ones. They lacked ‘honesty’. Be honest. Whether good or bad, be honest. And write – straight from the Heart. Your readers can quickly understand the difference between – “praising a product” versus “blatant promotion”. Be direct. Be honest.

3. Provide Value – This automatically follows from being passionate and being honest. Personally, I know, I can stand on any podium anywhere on Earth, anytime of the day, and speak about Apple and Social Media, non-stop for 5 hours. Cause the knowledge comes from within, and I’m passionate and honest about these topics. Similarly, whilst writing content – write content which provides value to your readers. They should wish to come back and read your blog posts every day – if not, at least once a week. This comes from delivering value repeatedly. Is tough to create content that satisfies this value proposition week after week, but is possible.

4. Research Judiciously – Excellent bloggers are researchers par excellence. Comes owing to a combination of the earlier 3 points. They research, read, analyze reports etc a lot cause they are passionate, they do so cause they wish to be honest whilst writing, and thus, they provide value. In fact, the point (4) is a resultant factor for them becoming brilliant bloggers.

I recently met the Head Marketing of one of the finest IT Solutions Provider companies in Bangalore; their in-house content team is rocking; clocking over 10,000+ visits per month on their Corporate Blog. That’s the hard work of 10 members in the In-bound Marketing Team. Whereas my personal blog, wherein I write blog posts once in a while, sometimes, once in a month, clocks over 7,000+ visits in a good month. The difference is in – quality of content written, and value proposition. As I mentioned this to the Head Marketing – there’s nothing wrong with the team, or in the style of writing. But what is needed is a more focused approach, understanding the buyer persona, creating a main writing persona, and then making it a more personal experience for the readers. It shouldn’t be a Corporate Blog, but an end-user interaction style – via a Persona. Writers write focused, direct, honest and value provided posts using this Persona.

If you have a personal blog, or you’re in-charge of your Corporate Blog, and visits are stagnating, it’s time to get a move on. Build a content team, a focussed agenda – what to write on, then an editorial calendar, and leave the rest to the Bloggers. If they follow the 4 points mentioned above, chances are you will be clocking 10,000+ visits in a month soon. If you’ve any tips, please do leave comments. Will include them in the above list.

Personally, I believe ‘Blogging’ and building and nurturing a community around a Blog, whether, personal or corporate; is more of an “Art” with some elements of “Science” in it.
Do you AGREE? If, disagree, WHY?

Social Media ROI. How to Measure It?

Social Media ROI. Every CMO’s nightmare. Lots of things happening – but where’s the ROI on this? – Is the million dollar question. Whether you’re a B2B, B2C or C2C portal – Social and Mobile is the future. On the Social front, there are 2 ways in which the efforts of a company could be classified and further studied in detail:

1. Qualitative Efforts, Strategies & ROI
2. Quantitative Efforts, Strategies & ROI

Ignore meaningless metrics like ‘number of followers’ etc.

A successful social media campaign includes:

• Building online brand presence
• Strengthening online brand presence with already existing customers/clients (via Royalty programs)
• Repositioning the brand (e.g. Myntra.com starting out as a Custom-Gift-E-Retailer to Apparel & Fashion e-Retailer now)
• Community Management

Thus, a campaign objective should be defined when conceptualizing a campaign; and corresponding success metric(s) should be defined, which helps us in achieving a bigger Goal.

Measuring Qualitative Efforts:

Measuring Quantitative Efforts:

Different Social CRM platforms like Sprinklr, Radian6, Spreadfast and others could be used to dig deep into Social Media campaign parameters and figure out Branding and Brand Identity Key Performance Indicators (KPI)s or metrics. See a few screenshots to get an idea.

2012 Gone… Welcome 2013

2012 passed rather quickly. Had moved to New Delhi to work for Exclusively.In Group (for Online Lifestyle brand, SherSingh.com) in first week of Jan 2012; took a few weeks to settle in South Delhi; met some amazing, talented and senior professionals whilst in Delhi… but found out that the Delhi heat ain’t for me… A good place to live and work for a while; but not secure enough for women, kids and definitely, NOT a place where I could live and thrive. Anyways, decided moving back to Bangalore in July. Thus took an offer with TOBOC International in Bangalore; and moved back. Was an excellent decision over all – since living and working in Delhi could make me understand – what I was missing… and why Bangalore is what it is – *special*.

Have had some amazing time with folks at TOBOC. Also a great time with the love of my life; as she’s visiting India. Future plans coming soon; and so is my plan to get a small cute car.

Look forward to 2013. For having a great time – professionally, personally and definitely with honey bunny.

2013 – Welcome with both arms.

And before I sign off – sincere solidarity with the parents of the Delhi gang-rape victim – a fighter who fought a battle with death for 13 days and passed away a few days ago in Singapore. Delhi was – and still is – the worst place for women in India; and till ‘hanged till death’ punishment is handed out to all rape convicts; am sure this would continue. Anyways, my heart goes out to her parents. All I can say is, as it says in the Bible – “Don’t loose faith. Even in the deepest of your doubts, have faith”.

Grow a Thick Skin Before Launching Your eVenture

Jugez un homme par ses questions plutôt que par ses réponses, Voltaire once said. In English, ‘Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers’. Unfortunately, many Indian eCommerce startup CEOs have crucified Voltaire at the alter. Too many probing questions are never entertained; and they loose temper and calm at the slightest of chances.

I recently interacted with a pretty famous ex-CEO of one of the first startups in India over the phone – whilst waiting to catch a flight at the Bangalore airport. Over our conversation of over 45 minutes, I asked over 25 questions – since the eComm startup he was proposing to float practically didn’t have any USP; didn’t solve any need; and practically had no revenue model to it. Since I had just been out working for an Accel Partners backed eComm startup, SherSingh.com (part of the Exclusively.In Group) in New Delhi, which quite didn’t go down well as expected with the company being acquired by Myntra.com a few weeks back; I was reluctant to join another one which didn’t have a solid business plan and a revenue model in place. Anyways, we spoke at length about the offering (another Western-styled chic lifestyle offering for young women in India), the USP, why this brand name, the expected marketing plan, expected channels to target, CPAs for first-time buyers and so on. When he finally asked me – “What do you think? We’re are pretty well funded“. My blunt but honest answer was – “Looks good. But a NO. I don’t feel the need for another western-styled chic-n-sexy womens apparel brand in India. Not convinced about the revenue model – you would struggle to make money. And funding is not a necessity, its a requirement when you wish to scale up!” The person on the other end was quite upset – got angry – and could feel it. Anyways, we bid good bye, and since then never heard from him again.

Was I being too rude to ask so many questions? Maybe YES. But was being honest.

Good CEOs should NOT become agitated when asked a lot of questions. Don’t take the questions personally – the questions are NOT directed to make you sound miserable and sad – and doubt your ability – but directed towards the business. Towards the business model of the eVenture. Towards the validity of issues like – CPAs, brand loyalty, order fulfillment, and most importantly, making money at the unit-level transactions. If you’re making money at the unit-level economics, chances are you will make it; irrespective of the valuations in the market. There’s a fine line which when you cross – the ‘reasons for failure’ eventually stop mattering; for most companies – its becoming a Senior VP or SVP or CEO level.

Over the past year or so, amongst the best & worst interacted – I think these are my favorite CEOs/Founders in the Startup space – they are cool, calm, honest, sincere and never take questions to heart – however blunt I’ve been -

• Narinder Mahajan – CEO of popular womens apparel & lifestyle website, ShopNineteen.com. Recently launched another brand, Pehraan.com targeted towards the Ethnic market. From the very beginning, it has been a pleasure to interact with Narinder – exchange views about the eComm market in general, strategies and so on. A friendly CEO, this is what every CEO ought to be. Committed, straight-forward yet always smiling.
• Amit Rawal – Founder/CEO of Premier Style Lounge for men - Elitify.com; the place where the stylish & successful Men of India shop online. Elegant, friendly and open-minded whilst discussions, Amit is a perfect CEO for all settings; and moreover apt for the volatile Indian eComm industry. His calm essence is significant for a fast-paced environment where most companies are currently struggling. In all my interactions with Amit thus far, he’s the perfect CEO for an eComm startup in India.
• Sunjay Guleria - Co-Founder/CEO of Exclusively.In & SherSingh.com; recently acquired by Myntra.com. Sunjay is friendly, super cool, trendy, and probably one of the “friendliest” CEOs I’ve worked for thus far. Takes care of his employees like family; and always there for them. Overall, excellent to work for him.
• Sandeep Singh – Haven’t worked for FreeCultr – but Sandeep (or Sandy) is the Co-Founder/COO of one of the hottest and most successful lifestyle brands in India, thus far. FreeCultr. Always honest, straight-forward in communications, Sandy is always a pleasure to talk to. Practical with great sense of happenings in the eComm industry; he has a wealth of knowledge that he never hesitates to share with. Always a pleasure to interact with, Sandy is the perfect CEO material for me; and would be a pleasure to work with some day.
• Shantanu Mathur – Former Managing Director, Incubation Unit – Smile Group that manages some of India’s finest and well known eComm brands - FashionAndYou.com, DealsAndYou.com, BeStylish, Juvalia, Freecultr, Tyroo, Quasar. A buddy with an open mind, excellent eComm Industry knowledge and always a pleasure to interact with, Shantanu is definitely one of the guys to work for in the eComm startup space in India.

If  you’re thick skinned, one doesn’t take the questions to heart. Otherwise its always painful to deal with a barrage of questions.

The English boss of my first company in London – a self-made billionaire, CEO & Founder of an Investment & Hedge-fund firm where I worked after passing out from Oxford, taught me a few invaluable lessons of life. From being able to clean up cups of all employees to being precise in calculations whilst calculating investments – one of the most important things I learnt from him was – ‘Ask Questions. Ask a Lot of Questions. Ask a Lot of Questions that dig for the truth. The honest ones will survive, the weaker souls will perish‘.

Thus, if you’re thinking of launching of your next eVenture, be prepared to be asked a myriad of questions. By your friends, foes, competitors, VCs and most importantly, by your employees. Questions that will rip you apart. Otherwise, you can always take the easy choice – launch a company, and make sure your wife and employees use it only. That way – you’re safe – your better half and your employees wouldn’t ask many questions. Of course, till you go bust.

Mashable – The New Look: Love OR Hate?

Was always on the cards. Finally happened. Am glad it happened. A cleaner UI and an infinite-scroll from Mashable.com.

Clean. I like clean things – websites, UIs, a form, or my iPhone. To me – “less is more” rather than “enough is more“.

Mashable has made a good effort to clear off unwanted waste from the homepage. Their new ‘homepage’ (re)design suggests that a lot of thought on user-experience has gone into it. With a more-or-less – ‘Pinterest’ look and feel; infinite scroll is the future and the web’s own slot machine.

In most of the recent implementations – I find, most companies are choosing either “auto-loading” or “triggered-loading”. Both has its own set of pros and cons. Personally, I love “triggered-loading”. Especially, in my previous organization, SherSingh.com, we used this “triggered-loading” approach whilst redesigning the entire website. Result was excellent. Faster loading time, and greater UX for end-user, thereby resulting in more time on site, lower bounce rate and eventually, more conversions.

Auto-loading on the other hand, on lower bandwidths can cause endless problems. Especially encountered endless Firefox crashes on Mac.

Another excellent example of triggered-loading is the TOBOCDeals.com website – which was released just a few days ago.

Which one is your favorite infinite-scroll loading style – “auto-loading” or “triggered-loading”? Why?

Thanks Amit@ELITIFY; for the Surprise Birthday Gift

A pleasant surprise from ELITIFY. Indeed. On 24th November – my birthday, received a surprise gift. Had a lovely leather card holder, courtesy of Amit Rawal, CEO & Founder of ELITIFY.com, based out of New Delhi.

One brand that is making a sincere effort to stand out from the current eCommerce clutter in India and create a niche for itself and its community is ELITIFY. Before moving to Bangalore for work in August; I met ELITIFY’s CEO & Founder, Amit Rawal at his offices. Founded in April 2012, ELITIFY prefers keeping things simple. Simple offices – less number of people – extremely important to keep costs down. The driving force behind ELITIFY is passion – to create something unique – something niche – something extremely chic for Today’s Successful Man. In fact, ELITIFY is not targeting that 75-80% of the bargain hunters of the eCommerce basket size. Rather the extremely posh, niche, HNI class of Indians; who aspire not only for the aspirational items from International Brands; but wouldn’t mind to save time to buy their favorite items online rather than visit showrooms and shop for these items in malls.

The packaging is absolutely lovely… loved the THANK YOU card… thanks Amit & Anahat for such a wonderful gift.

The USP for ELITIFY lies in the fact – Indian middle class is definitely increasing, but Indian upper class is getting richer as well. And with more people moving from the upper middle class to the HNI class; the desire to own something aspirational always increases with time. E.g. you’re a Senior Consultant at KPMG; recently promoted to Partner; wouldn’t you mind wearing those Gucci shoes you always aspired for? Or maybe, go for the Rolex you always desired for. That’s where ELITIFY comes in; and helps you become chic, sexy and feel gorgeous.

So which brands are currently being showcased on ELITIFY? Categories currently under display include – ACCESSORIES, SHOES, CLOTHING, GADGETS & GIFTS. Some of the world’s most chic, luxury & premium brands are included. Cufflinks from Paul Smith, Striped Tie from Burberry, Snake Skin Patterned Wallet from Etro, Whiskey Flask from Neiman Marcus, timepieces from Hugo Boss & Emporio Armani, Jack Daniels, Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tod’s, J Crew, Apple, Jawbone, Sony, Bose, Burberry, Prada, Versace, Cole Haan, Bvlgari and others, to name a few.

So, without further ado – if you’re passionate about Quality rather than price and quantity; make sure you do check out ELITIFY… Trust me! Amit’s team wouldn’t disappoint you.

A Lesson in Accountability: Difference Between the Janitor and the Vice President

I’ve often wondered the reason why some people make it to the top; and a few don’t, eventually, I mean. Is it the lack of qualifications, degrees from top colleges, or is the interest level in their professional lives that eventually dies out, or is it lack of ‘do what you love‘ Steve Jobs philosophy… or something else. One thing that is sure is – you can easily identify the ‘stars’ from the ‘duds’ in your team from ‘the level of accountability’ they take in their personal, professional, team and overall company wide organizational hierarchical development cycle. Duds are always giving excuses, the ‘stars’ try finding out solutions to *real* problems.

Star: I couldn’t sell our membership to prospect A for Rs. 12,000/- annual. So I proposed him to tell me what is the level of investment he is willing to risk to get CPL leads over a year. He agreed to Rs. 2,000/-, so I sold him for 2 months; and promised to come back after 2 months to ask him how he was doing; if it worked well for him, to sell him more; if it didn’t, promised to give him back a cheque of Rs. 2,000/- to return his investment.
Dud: I couldn’t sell our membership to prospect A for Rs. 12,000/- annual. I always felt our pricing was wrong and customers wouldn’t pay for it.

Star: While testing home page loading, we figured out that 2 of the new social media plug-ins that we had recently incorporated makes separate HTTP calls; one of which hangs, thus, massively affecting the loading time. We removed one, replaced with a faster client based web app with the same functionality; and replaced the other one completely.
Dud: While testing home page loading, we figured out that 2 of the new social media plug-ins that we had recently incorporated makes separate HTTP calls; one of which hangs, thus, massively affecting the loading time. I have passed the issue to the QA team; hope they will come back with testing results; and we will rebuild the page and pass to QA again.

There’s a level at which reasons, eventually, stop mattering.
What matters is – whether you can deliver, OR not.

Old photo of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs holding a brainstorming meeting with his product design team at NeXT.

The most famous case study here worth mentioning is from Apple. Read on.

One such lesson could be called the “Difference Between the Janitor and the Vice President,” and it’s a sermon [Steve] Jobs delivers every time an executive reaches the VP level. Jobs imagines his garbage regularly not being emptied in his office, and when he asks the janitor why, he gets an excuse: The locks have been changed, and the janitor doesn’t have a key. This is an acceptable excuse coming from someone who empties trash bins for a living. The janitor gets to explain why something went wrong. Senior people do not. “When you’re the janitor,” Jobs has repeatedly told incoming VPs, “reasons matter.” He continues: “Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.” That “Rubicon,” he has said, “is crossed when you become a VP.” (Apple has about 70 vice presidents out of more than 25,000 non-retail-store employees.)

Whilst interviewing candidates for different positions, I always make sure – they besides intelligence, a solid CV, IQ, education and skill set(s), have that X-factor. The measure of accountability, passion and ‘fear of failure’ which are so very important to be successful in the corporate world of today. Reasons matter – as rightly pointed out – when you’re someone who empties trash cans for a living. As you progress through life, it stops mattering. I expect my team members to be passionate, accountable and completely self-driven for achieving success – which in turn, determines my personal and professional success and/or eventual, failure as a Manager and Leader.

iOS App, eCommerce Store OR Digital Agency?

If given a choice of becoming an entrepreneur and opening your company, which one would you opt for -

- an iOS app that makes an effort to solve a problem in a known domain; and commercialize it OR

- open an eCommerce store selling (say, CD/DVDs, books, mens/womens/kids clothing) OR

- open a digital marketing agency service clients for digital marketing solutions – SEO/PPC/Social Media/PR/Online Reputation/WAP/iPhone-Android-Windows app development and so on.

Which one would you opt for and why?

Some Terrible Decisions by Apple in 2012

You may say – some terrible decisions by Apple. Or, some terrible decisions by the CEO himself – Tim Cook in the past few months. As a long time Apple follower and fan; simply put, this is quite hurting. And most disturbing of all – not sure Steve Jobs would have permitted any of these. Let’s look at the top 5 *worst decisions* of Apple in 2012:

1. Hiring John Browett – One of the first hiring decisions after Tim came to office. Why on earth would you hire a Dixons retail executive as the head of Retail for Apple – which boasts of one of the most enigmatic and supreme retail experiences in the whole wide world? Dixons? Are you kidding? Its like hiring a toilet cleaner for the Chief Operations Office position for a company. What did he do? John thought of a botched plan to cut staffing at Apple’s retail stores – which led to a lot of employee dissatisfaction and finally, when fired, John walked away cool with shares worth $3 million for his work for 6 months. Will definitely go down as one of the *worst* hiring decisions by Apple, ever. An excellent article – Why Did They Hire Him in the First Place?

2. Firing Scott Forstall – Either Tim was smoking too much w**d, or don’t know what to say, but firing the ‘most innovative’ inventor in Apple’s history, removing his bio from the Management page onsite, and redistributing the ownership of iOS to other Senior management members – too much to read here. If reports are to be believed, Scott was the ‘divisive’ and ‘corruptive’ influence at Apple; thus, most other Senior management members – Mansfield & Ive didn’t like him much – in fact, didn’t have meetings in the same room, unless Tim was around. Also, Apple looks to create a more simpler interface in future versions of iOS and Mac OS X, and closer (correct word is “tighter”) integration of the software-hardware ecosystem with most likely a hybrid A6 micro-processor (from the current mobile platform) replacing the currently used Intel CPUs on Macs; thus, Scott was forced out. Personally, I FEEL this decision will hurt Apple the most. ”He’s one of, if not the most prolific inventors at Apple,” says Erin-Michael Gill, Managing Director and Chief Intellectual Property Office at MDB. “If this guy is who the data seems to imply he is, letting him leave is a huge deal.”

3. The iPad Mini – Did Apple really need it? As the sales numbers show – this instead of putting pressure on Google & Amazon & Samsung – has put pressure on Apple itself – with more and more users/families opting to choose the iPad Mini instead of the usual bigger ‘iPad HD’? This product / segment cannibalization should have had been expected by Apple long time ago.

Apple’s full-sized iPad is now a $40 billion business.  It seems unlikely that normal Apple users are likely to buy BOTH a full-sized iPad AND an iPad Mini. Rather, they’ll likely choose one of the two. And based on the initial reaction, the choice for most is likely to be the iPad Mini. iPad Minis will likely have an average price-point that is about $200 less than the full-sized iPad. So, on a per unit basis, Apple’s revenue will take a hit.

But this loss of revenue on a unit basis will likely be at least partially offset by some additional sales–especially next year, if Apple releases an upgraded version of the Mini and the current version gets cheaper. This could help increase the velocity of iPad sales, even though revenue per-unit decreases. (source: http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-was-wrong-about-tablets-2012-11)

4. Release of Apple Maps – a botched up software. Did Apple really need to release it? Apparently NO. Instead they did – didn’t work – and then Tim Cook had to issue a public apology. Could have all this been avoided? Definitely yes, by giving the software more time – and testing and releasing it later. A botched up software app led to the downfall of Scott – who was just made the ScapeGoat.

With the release of the latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 6, Apple ditched Google Maps for its own mapping system.

The result has been a half-baked app that produces less accurate results than Google Maps. After its release, the new Maps elicited such a strong backlash that Apple apologized and offered a list of alternatives for users to download from its App Store. (source: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2012/11/07/2003547070)

5. Promoting Bob Mansfield as Head of “Technologies – He retired in June, then came back to work on contract for Apple, and then with Scott Forstall’s departure, he’s now the head of Technology at Apple. What non-sense is that? A guy retires, is brought back on contract, and then gets a full-time offer and gets promoted? Only God almighty knows whats happening at Apple. Anyways, overall, its a bad move – since Bob has 2 more years at Apple – then what? Again God almighty knows. Looks like Tim Cook has no clue of what succession role planning in Senior management is all about.

There are both – positives and negatives to every decision. In fact, a very wise man recently told me – “There is no right or wrong decision. Take a decision, and prove it right”.
On similar lines – hope Apple can prove these mistakes “wrong” and prove the decisions “right”.

JustEat.In – Horrible User Experience & Customer Service

Hungry we were. Very very very hungry. Earlier today. One of my colleagues and myself. Having worked on a project for a long long time, finally, we decided to take a break – and enjoy some good Chinese food. And since its raining here in Bangalore since past few days, cause of a cyclone build up, we decided – lets check out JustEat.in – which one of our co-workers had recently recommended. Anyways, I visited the site, clicked on the special offers currently running, and it led me to this page: http://justeat.in/specials/op/bangalore

Checked the list of restaurants…

Picked GREEN CHILLYZ and clicked on it to see details.

Ordered 5/6 items, crossed Rs. 300/- for minimum order value (exact order value: Rs. 360/-), received Rs. 100/ off on this, so paid Rs. 260/- online using my credit card; filled in our delivery address and was so happy – cause it was so smooth. Also received an email with order confirmation + received SMS on my mobile number with order confirmation.

So Far, So Good.

Then, after a few minutes I received a call from a LAN number, which couldn’t take cause was on another call. Here’s what happened next -

a) Received a SMS saying – couldn’t reach your number, so order put on hold.

b) I called the call center number – 3 times – couldn’t get through.

c) Finally, someone picked up – hardly could hear him speak. He was nearly inaudible.

d) Finally, after checking the customer rep said – “Sorry, we can’t process the order!” I was like – why? Reason – the restaurant you chose, is outside the delivery area of the restaurant. I was like – “Dude, you must be fucking kidding, right?” A few questions -

• How the f**k on earth do I know – as an end-user which area is under delivery area of which restaurant? Shouldn’t you put a slider OR do an input area match in your website – e.g. I entered “Ulsoor” and “pin code”, match that with the coverage area of the Restaurant which I’ve chosen – and represent – “Sorry, restaurant chosen is OUTSIDE delivery area”.
• How the f**k on earth do I know – as an end-user the restaurants which are in my delivery area – which delivery area is specific for which restaurant? E.g. cafe A delivers in 3 Kms, cafe B delivers in 4.5 Kms; both of them being in Ulsoor.
• The customer rep’s reply to my 2 questions was – “Sir, its mentioned in the Conditions – “Info & Reviews”. I was like – are you f**king serious? You expect your users to read the entire conditions; and then calculate the exact Kms and then place an order?

e) I told him – “Ok – no issues. Your product manager / or whoever designs the User Experience sucks – but can we get the order delivered – and we pay by cash”. We got reply – Sorry, this restaurant doesn’t do delivery under X amount.

• How the f**k on earth am I supposed to know – this restaurant doesn’t do delivery by cash? Where is that written? Do I need to read the ‘Condition’ for this as well?
  

Anyways, issues like these show why Indian eCommerce companies still are struggling to understand the market, break-even and more importantly, retain customers; i.e. loyalty is A BIG FUCKING ZERO cause the customer service and user experience is horrible. Simply terrible.

Will I ever visit JustEat.in? Never in a 1,000 years. An eCommerce company that expects its users to read ‘Conditions’ before placing a basic food ordering and calculating the distance themselves before ordering food – am much better off without such companies.

iPad Mini – Did Apple Really Need It?

Apple iPad Mini. Priced at $329. Understood – Apple wishes to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD and Google’s Nexus 7; but the question is – ‘Did Apple really need this one?’

I believe this is a terrible decision by Apple. And Steve Jobs if alive, would have had been extremely mad.

Before he died, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs referred to the problem in a conference call with the media, saying: “Software strategies always come first, as we know developers aren’t going to deal well with all these different-size products”. Not sure app developers would love iPad Mini at all.

Essential iPhone Apps

10 iPhone apps that you should have.
See complete article here.

> Bing
> Dashlane
> Evernote
> Facebook
> Find My iPhone
> Flipboard
> Onavo
> Snapseed
> WebMD
> Yelp

Which one if your favorite iPhone app?

Personally, I’m a big fan of:

> Facebook
> LinkedIn
> Pinterest
> QRReader
> viddy
> Instagram
> Y! Messenger
> Skype
> Find iPhone
> BeerShooter
> Beach Moto
> WhatsApp
> Angry Birds

These are the ones on my iPhone 3GS 32GB.

“Double Face”

Double Face. Literally in English means – “A Hypocrite“.
A bastard who says something, and means or does something else.

Am a typical Sagi by birth – born 24 November; so yes, have all the traits of a typical Sagi – extremely ambitious, career minded, focused in work, life and relationships; but also reckless, impulsive and at times, short tempered and egoistic. But one of the traits that I do possess – and have been reinforced over the years – is am honest, direct and straightforward. Have lost a few friends owing to this nature; but has benefited me rather than being the backbiting, backstabbing nature that a lot of other Zodiac signs have. In fact, Sagis are known for their bluntness; and thus its said – if you’re to marry a Sagi, you ought to be extremely thick skinned as well.

Anyways, one thing that I’ve never ever ever been called is – Hypocrite. I consider this word more derogatory than the worst of abuses – cause it takes away from me, my own self image and self esteem the core basis of living; i.e. self respect; and purpose of living.

But for the first time, someone did call me that. Really? Yes. Interested how?
Read on.

I recently went for a dinner with 2 friends of mine – yeah, it was my mistake to have thought that they were my friends, when neither of them were. Which is quite an irony – in itself in fact. Anyways, one was brunette; the other one a typical blonde. Both typical ones. The brunette – fiery little thing, speaking and enjoying. The blonde – extremely manipulative, quiet and measuring me up. We were chatting about life, their travels in India and thus; the general discourse ran as thus -

Brunette: I love Kolkata. Have been there*.

Blonde: Yeah, I love the slums in Kolkata (quite elaborate discussion hereat on her experience in the slums in Kolkata).

Myself: Yes, Kolkatans are the nicest people on Earth. Have warm hearts. If you ask for directions in Delhi, no one fucking cares. In Bangalore, maybe 2 out of 10 people would reply. In Kolkata, average 9/10 people would guide you to the place themselves.

Brunette: And then we met a woman who showed us her house… it was so small but had a refrigerator inside… she was so happy, cause she wanted to show it… she was proud of the refrigerator…

Blonde: Yeah… and we went with her to see her fridge…

Myself: See? You girls complaining about finding 3BHK and 4HBK flats here in Bangalore; and some people are so poor, they can’t even afford a 10X10feet little hut…

Blonde: YOU’RE SUCH A DOUBLE FACE – YOU TALK ABOUT MERCEDES CARS AND OTHER THINGS – AND NOW YOU TALK ABOUT POOR PEOPLE…

I sat there for a few seconds – absolutely shell shocked, spell bound, looking for the right words.
Couldn’t find them.
Kept on asking – “Me? Double Face? Me? Double Face? Me? Double Face? No. Other things yes, but not even fucking God can’t prove this.”
Yes, we spoke about career aspirations – I wish to retire soon enough with a Merc S Class which is one of the things on my Dream lists. Anyways, it has got nothing fucking to do with slums in Kolkata. And yes, I do donate Rs. 5,000/- every year to ‘Save The Children’ for kids’ education – the blonde forgot this.

Anyways, we spent the next 1 hour trying to understand where that word came from.
The blonde & brunette pair’s justification was – “We’re not native English speakers. Blonde meant – “multi-faceted” but “double face” came out.”
I went through these sentences a few thousand times in my head – and felt – blonde meant to say – ‘double face’. Not multi-faceted.

My points were -

a) Her English is pretty good – written, spoken and in accent. How come she didn’t make a slip of tongue in any other aspects?

b) The way a person says a thing, say a lot. It was meant in the way – “hey! you’re a hypocrite” and not “wow! you’re such a kind man”… Even if a mistake of slipping of tongue could have happened, I agree. But not in this case. Its like coming to someone’s house to kill with a revolver, and then saying to the person – ‘hey, I came to see whether you’re ok?’

c) And lastly, what convinced me was – she’s a Scorpio. Scorpios are famous for being extremely manipulative and yes, try mending everything they say, but countering judgements and cross-examinations always.

d) Vino Veritas – as the Latin saying goes. She was a bit drunk, thus, came out the real truth.

Anyways, I bid them goodbye; and escorted them to their hotel (since it was past mid-night); and then went home. Sent a very strong SMS from home – and yes, when early morning next day called them for apologies, neither picked up.

WHAT hurt the most is – Its a fact Europeans are extremely cold-hearted; but didn’t quite expect this from 2 people whom I considered my friends; and helped so much for finding a house when they were on the verge of being cheated by all the house brokers in Bangalore. Anyways, either its that Blondes are dumb, or Europeans don’t have the power of self assessment; that this happened.

Anyways, am not on speaking terms with the blonde anymore; she sent a SMS saying – “she’s sorry, hurt and angry that this happened”. But when I look back – I still see – she meant it. And the calculative and selfish person usually Scorpios are; they choose words extremely carefully.

All in all, I learnt a few big lessons in life -

a) Do NOT blabber unnecessarily whilst drinking.
Many do – and then regret it later.

b) Do NOT help people unnecessarily. Its a major character flaw in Sagis, but I need to work on it. Either way its a fail.
Whom you help – he/she will think – you have a hidden motive.
Others think – scoundrel is helping cause has a hidden motive.

c) Do NOT go out drinking with people – who are NOT your real friends. This is one of the biggest mistakes I made. And this is one of my life’s biggest learning from living in Moscow from 2001-2005 during my engineering years: YOU NEVER ACCEPT DRINKING INVITATION FROM SOMEONE WHO IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

I still remember those days from 2001-2005 – when my Russian friends stood in front of me to protect me from the ‘wave of hooliganism and Skin Heads in Moscow‘ all those years. There were days when have picked up people from the streets – bleeding to death from clashes with the Fascists/Russian SkinHeads past mid-night. Always stood for my foreigner friends in Moscow – cared, loved, protected all of them – and eternally thankful to my Russian / Ukrainian / Armenian / Chechen friends – whether working for the FSB or the Russian bratva – who were always there – night and day to provide protection – with guys and arms – to fight back. We did and still am in touch with a few; and yes, one of the basic things of loyalty that I learnt was – ‘Blood is thicker than Water. But Loyalty in Friendship is thicker than Blood. Never let someone down, even if it means at the cost of your life‘. I still remember the person who told me this – will never forget it. He was my friend for 4 years – saved my life in 2004; and though I couldn’t pay back anything cause I never had much money during my education; but we’re still in touch.

Our Brigada of Lefortovsky Stadium… I owe my Life to the guys & girls here… the best group ever…

Thanks to Roman – my one of 1,000 Russian friends in Moscow. During 2003 troubled times; owe him eternal thanks for saving my ass multiple number of times. Celebrating a party with vodka shots – one by one, all to be completed in 25 seconds.

Anyways, still when I think back about this particular incident – I feel I was right.
The blonde meant it.
Do I really care? Fucking HELL no.
I really do miss my Russian friends a lot sometimes – wish all could learn, what the fuck the word ‘loyalty‘ means from the Russians.

I recently read a line on Facebook. It was apt.
Don’t expect LOYALTY, TRUST & FAITH from cheap people. These things are expensive. Cheap people CANNOT afford them.

*Sentences are put as essence and not in their actual form.

Best Revenge Scene – Sonatine // A Bittersweet Life // Ajussi // A Better Tomorrow?

Always thought of asking this to myself – and to people who have seen all 4 of these movies… Asia’s finest – probably the best of the best in the modern generation from Japan & South Korea. The movies include:

• Sonatine (1993) – Directed by Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano
• A Bittersweet Life (2005) – Directed by Kim Ji-woon
• A Better Tomorrow (2010) – Directed by Song Seung-heon
• Ajussi (aka The Man from Nowhere) (2010) – Directed by Lee Jeong-beom

These 4 are the finest action dramas to come out from Asia in the past 25 years or so… out of the innumerable number of movies that hit the world stage.
These 4 are special. If you haven’t watched them, please do; you will love it.

Now comes the question – which one has the classiest or most dramatic and pictured to perfection “action OR revenge” scene. Here’s them in order:

Which one do you think is the BEST?

1. SONATINE:

2. A BITTERSWEET LIFE:

3. A BETTER TOMORROW:

4. AJUSSI (THE MAN FROM NOWHERE):

So which one do you think is the best?

A Better Tomorrow (2010) – A South Korean Gangster Masterpiece

It happens. The remake is better than the original. Once in a million – times. But happens. Such is the case with ‘A Better Tomorrow‘ (2010), the South Korean masterpiece of 2010. If you’re a fan of South Korean movies – then already you know what I’m talking about – superb story, classy action, ruthless revenge, and yes, the poetry in death is so sublime – you can watch it over a thousand times – again and again. My personal favorite – when it comes to watching a real Yakuza (mafia) movie is Takeshi Kitano’s Sonatine (1993). Then definitely – ‘A Bittersweet Life (2005)‘ and others. But this one is not far behind.

A Korean remake of the 1986 John Woo Classic. One brother is a criminal. One brother is a cop. Both will fight to the death.

Classy. Stylish. Chic. The movie has it all.

4 main protagonists caught up in their lives – problems, and trying their best to find solutions. As their paths criss- cross, life comes crashing down; and dreams get blown away like dust in the wind. Amazing storyline, superb acting, and yeah, as you can expect from a South Korean movie – action choreographed to perfection.

The movie has some amazing action scenes – which would put the finest action directors even in Hollywood to shame; such is the quality of action – choreographed to perfection. One of the highlight scenes is when -

Hyuk (arms dealer and best friend of Lee) goes to Thailand to complete an arms deal, accompanied by Jung Tae-min, a new member of the smuggling operation. However they were double-crossed by Jung and the Thai gang. Jung escapes, while Hyuk is captured and sentenced to prison for three years. After reading about Hyuk’s capture in the newspaper, Lee (played by Song Seung-hun) travels to Thailand alone, finds the Thai gangster in a massage parlor and kills him and his henchmen.

Check the action out… and compared with the original one in 1986. Such amazing scenes exist throughout the movie.

All in all, this is a classy movie. 10/10. Recommended for South Korean and Action movie lovers worldwide.
Do watch it – am sure, you will love it.

 

Steve Jobs’ glasses… Got one… :)

Wanted to get a pair since a long long long time. But never could get the time to visit the local optician, get my eyes kinda tested (last time I did that was in 2005 when still at the University in England); and so finally, made up my mind.

Sunday afternoon, walked into the local opticians on Cambridge Road in Cambridge Layout in Ulsoor (in Bangalore); and got my eyes tested. And then came the choice of frames and lenses. I explained to the owner – that I needed to get round glasses. He was like – hmmmmmm… so showed him Steve Jobs’ glasses on my iPhone… and he was like – wow! We can do this.

So placed an order – and picked it up today. Perfectly fits; and looks as well. Stylish. Niche. And definitely, made to perfection.

Cost:
> essilor fibre lens = 9,000/-
> feather light titanium frame = 8,000/-
> making/fitting charge = 2,000/-
TOTAL = (taxes included) = Rs. 20,000/- (approx USD 370, EUR 284)

Love it

SEO post Caffeine, Mayday, Panda & Penguin updates – What it MEANS?

Caffeine, Mayday, Panda & Penguin – 4 updates to the Google indexation algorithm since 2009 that has changed SEO landscape forever. Lets see what these 4 updates brought to the table.

Google made between 350 and 550 changes in its organic search algorithms in 2009 – this was before the Caffeine & Mayday updates. This is one of the reasons why SEO specialists or Webmasters should not get too worried and loose their night’s sleep on total pages indexed and site ranking factors – whether on-page or off-page. Its physically not possible to adjust to all of these changes as made by Google every single day.

Then came – Caffeine and Mayday updates to the search algorithm in Summer 2010.

Google’s June 2010 Caffeine update to its indexation algorithm was a revolution. Changed everything – how web pages are indexed.

With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale. In fact, every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel. If this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second. Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day. You would need 625,000 of the largest iPods to store that much information; if these were stacked end-to-end they would go for more than 40 miles.

Mayday update (read review from Vanessa Fox) was targeted towards eCommerce websites that creates thousands of URLs based on long-tail keywords – and tend to get them indexed in Google. This is how Mayday impacted such sites -

Last week at Google I/O, I was on a panel with Googler Matt Cutts who said, when asked during Q&A,  ”this is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn’t going to be rolled back.”

I asked Google for more specifics and they told me that it was a rankings change, not a crawling or indexing change, which seems to imply that sites getting less traffic still have their pages indexed, but some of those pages are no longer ranking as highly as before. Based on Matt’s comment, this change impacts “long tail” traffic, which generally is from longer queries that few people search for individually, but in aggregate can provide a large percentage of traffic.

This change seems to have primarily impacted very large sites with “item” pages that don’t have many individual links into them, might be several clicks from the home page, and may not have substantial unique and value-added content on them. For instance, ecommerce sites often have this structure. The individual product pages are unlikely to attract external links and the majority of the content may be imported from a manufacturer database. Of course, as with any change that results in a traffic hit for some sites, other sites experience the opposite. Based on Matt’s comment at Google I/O, the pages that are now ranking well for these long tail queries are from “higher quality” sites (or perhaps are “higher quality” pages).

In simple English – this means -

a) for an eCommerce website – whether B2B/B2C – just creating a few static / dynamic URLs and millions of keyword-rich / search-based URLs will not TRANSLATE to higher rankings in Google PageRank for the site OR/AND result in traffic.

b) the number of pages indexed may go up exponentially from few hundred thousands to millions, but as per Mayday update; pages (or URLs) that have lower visibility + content + quality content on those pages – would be ranked so far down the order, the chances of people clicking them would exponentially disappear.

Thus, in short – Caffeine made ‘getting millions of pages indexed’ easier, and Mayday made ‘getting top-quality & top-keyword optimized pages from those indexed easier’. Focus shifted from:

> getting pages indexed to
> getting all pages indexed to…

Now, came Panda update in 2011. Changed everything.

Panda was aimed at – The SEO model has changed with Panda in that, rather than getting as many URLs as you can indexed, you now want only your highest-quality, most important URLs indexed. As outlined in the article (link provided above):

Consistent signals should be sent as to which pages are most important:

1. Decide which URLs are canonical and create strong signals (rel canonical, robot exclusion, internal link profile, XML sitemaps)
2. Decide which URLs are your most valuable and ensure they are indexed and well optimized
3. Remove any extraneous, overhead, duplicate, low value and unnecessary URLs from the index
4. Build internal links to canonical, high-value URLs from authority pages (strong mozRank, unique referring domains, total links, are example metrics)
5. Build high-quality external links via social media efforts —-> this was specifically targeted in Penguin

Pay special attention to number 3 above. If your properties have low-quality or significantly duplicative content, it is best to remove those URLs from the indexes. Even a site with some high-quality content and lots of thin or low-quality content could see traffic deterioration because of Panda.

The new SEO, at least as far as Panda is concerned, is about pushing your best quality stuff and the complete removal of low-quality or overhead pages from the indexes. Which means it’s not as easy anymore to compete by simply producing pages at scale, unless they’re created with quality in mind. Which means for some sites, SEO just got a whole lot harder.

And finally, came the Penguin update in 2012. Penguin turned SEO upside down. How?

With Penguin update the focus is on “how to have great quality content on site, that other sites will wish to connect with us (by referring to us on their page)“.

i.e. as the article says, “New SEO will put all publishers on more equal footing, favoring those that produce quality content that is highly engaging to a certain audience. If SEO was previously a linear method of feeding a crawler with words and links, Google’s results are now the result of a feedback loop: show them that you can produce quality content that people are attracted to, and free search traffic will follow”.

Which means – links from social media channels – facebook, linkedin, twitter, pinterest, and most importantly wordpress/tumblr blogs will get indexed super fast and show up in results in same day or within next day; considered the content is rich, has value and adds visibility to the “topic or site in question”. Excellent example of this is from the 2 examples shown below -

a) I wrote a blog post on Elitify.com – a Fashion site for Men – 2 days ago; the blog post got indexed same day from my WordPress blog; and now coming at 4th position in Google for “elitify” term.

b) I wrote a blog post on our former CTO & friend, Vijay Marada passing away in 2011. When one searches for keyword “toboc” in Google image search, the image embedded in the post written so many months back, now comes as the first image. The image is called “toboc-training.png”.

Thus, post Penguin, social media will play an overly increasing factor for proper ranking of pages.

Which means – say, a site (A) selling item “XYZ” has 5,000 pages indexed. 500 are URLs with good quality content which are relevant to the overall meaning of the brand; and remaining 4,500 have been created for the sake of creation & got indexed during Panda update. And another site (B) selling same item “XYZ” has only 800 pages created and indexed from website + from social media channels – facebook, pinterest, tumblr, youtube & wordpress & from other PR websites – accounting to over 600 good quality, content and ‘good to better to excellent’ PR sites links; post Penguin update – the probability of site B to get indexed and ranked for MAJORITY of the URLs is higher than site A. Which also means – probability of site B getting more visits (hits) from people searching item “XYZ” than A.

But how is that possible? Site A has 5,000 pages indexed, Site B only has 800 pages indexed.
Reasons -
a) for site A = 500 URLs (out of 5,000) are good; for site B = 600 URLs (out of 800) are good;
b) post Panda & Penguin – “quality content“, “relevant content from search” & “social media backlinks to site” are governing factors.

Timeline with important factors:

• 2009 – Google made over 350-550 changes to its indexation & ranking algorithm
• 2010 – Caffeine update – targeted towards “indexation” – resulted in faster indexation, better indexation, fresher results in Google search results
• 2010 – Mayday update – targeted towards “ranking” – resulted in better ranking of URLs with greater visibility and lower ranking of URLs with long-tail keywords with lower visibility.
• 2011 – Panda update – targeted towards “indexation” – webmasters should make an effort to remove duplicate URLs, duplicate content, and build better links from good PR sites.
• 2012 – Penguin update – targeted towards “ranking” – social media backward links to site gets more important & relevant in indexation & ranking in Google search results.

ELITIFY – For the Successful Man

Snake Skin Patterned Wallet from Etro at Rs. 22,900/- or an artificial leather Wallet from an unknown brand at 50% discount for Rs. 1,999? Which one do you prefer? Are you a premier customer or a bargain hunter? Read on if you’re the former; you can visit Jabong.com OR Myntra.com if you’re the latter.

In the cluttered world of B2C eCommerce portals in India; the question often becomes – “How are you NOT another me-too website?” rather than ‘what’s your offering?’. Thus, with over 400 registered B2C eCommerce portals in India; all vying for that 10-12million eCommerce lifestyle customers out of 110-115million Internet accessible Indians; competition is fierce. Cut throat. Thus, most companies, whether bootstrapped or backed by VCs; are resorting to the ‘Last Man Standing’ theory; burning cash like anything. Jabong – 20 Crores per month on advertising; Deals&You – 12 Crores and so on. With practically no loyalty amongst Indians; since unfortunately over 75% of this basket size of 10-12million Indian eCommerce savvy customers are “deal hunters or bargain hunters”; the CPAs are going through the roof. Came across companies in the recent past, whose P&L statements show horrible figures; and CPAs are sometimes same or more than their average basket size. One word, shocking.

One brand that is making a sincere effort to stand out from this clutter and create a niche for itself and its community is ELITIFY. Before moving to Bangalore recently for work; I met ELITIFY’s CEO & Founder, Amit Rawal at his offices. Founded in April 2012, ELITIFY prefers keeping things simple. Simple offices – less number of people – extremely important to keep costs down. The driving force behind ELITIFY is passion – to create something unique – something niche – something extremely chic for Today’s Successful Man. In fact, ELITIFY is not targeting that 75-80% of the bargain hunters of the eCommerce basket size. Rather the extremely posh, niche, HNI class of Indians; who aspire not only for the aspirational items from International Brands; but wouldn’t mind to save time to buy their favorite items online rather than visit showrooms and shop for these items in malls.

The USP for ELITIFY lies in the fact – Indian middle class is definitely increasing, but Indian upper class is getting richer as well. And with more people moving from the upper middle class to the HNI class; the desire to own something aspirational always increases with time. E.g. you’re a Senior Consultant at KPMG; recently promoted to Partner; wouldn’t you mind wearing those Gucci shoes you always aspired for? Or maybe, go for the Rolex you always desired for. That’s where ELITIFY comes in; and helps you become chic, sexy and feel gorgeous.

So which brands are currently being showcased on ELITIFY? Categories currently under display include – ACCESSORIES, SHOES, CLOTHING, GADGETS & GIFTS. Some of the world’s most chic, luxury & premium brands are included. Cufflinks from Paul Smith, Striped Tie from Burberry, Snake Skin Patterned Wallet from Etro, Whiskey Flask from Neiman Marcus, timepieces from Hugo Boss & Emporio Armani, Jack Daniels, Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tod’s, J Crew, Apple, Jawbone, Sony, Bose, Burberry, Prada, Versace, Cole Haan, Bvlgari and others, to name a few.

The website is effectively simple – easy to use and navigate. Help present every step of the way. The MANual is an excellent feature on the site, which is usually absent in most B2C eCommerce portals in India. Registration via social media plugin, Facebook connect makes it extremely easy to register with ELITIFY. In fact, make sure you like their Facebook fan page for staying updated on all the latest additions to their already existing impressive list of luxury brands on the site. Additionally, extremely impressive was the Facebook fan page application, “What’s Your Style?”. Make sure you take it to know what kinda style quotient you personally possess. I took the quiz and mine came – “Style Aspirant”. Said, you scored 4 on the quiz. As a thank you, I have received a 20% off at ELITIFY.com.

Personally, am extremely impressed by the look and feel of the site, the offerings and categories of offerings on-site. I haven’t purchased anything from ELITIFY as of now, thus, cannot comment on the quality of a product(s) in question, delivery timings, and extremely important – customer service as well. But from the looks of the effort that Amit has put in; am sure he would nail all these aspects of the eCommerce business as well. After all, if you wish to serve the Stylish Gent of Today; your product, quality, service offering and customer service has to be of the best of world standards. Which in India, often becomes a bit of a challenge, but definitely worth the effort every cent.

All in all, ELITIFY is definitely the only B2C offering as of today, catering to the style needs of the Successful Man of India. How successfully this business can scale with the HNI and HHNIs of India – remains the question; and remains to be seen. But overall, full marks to the ELITIFY team for ‘Think(ing) Different‘.

Apple Most Valuable Public Company of All Time – Lessons for Entrepreneurs

20 Aug 2012. A day that shall remain in the annals of history forever. TechCrunch, an hour ago, broke the news of Apple Inc. becoming the most valuable public company of all time. In fact, I had recently argued with a friend of mine, that within 31 Dec 2012, Apple would become the most valuable company on Earth – and yes, proven right. Apple hasn’t failed me. Once again.

Apple is now the most valuable company of all time, with the Cupertino-based company’s market cap reaching a high of $621 billion. The company’s stock is trading at $664.12 per share, and reached a record price of $664.74 per share in trading today.

Microsoft previously set the record for a public company’s valuation at $618.9 billion in December of 1999. (source: TechCrunch).

Quintessentially, what are the lessons to be learnt?
For the Entrepreneurs, definitely – quite a few.

1. FOCUS IS KEY. Had earlier written a detailed blog post on Steve’s words – “Focus is Key” (reiterated by current Apple CEO, Tim Cook at one of the public conferences recently). Focus – being the only deciding factor between success and failure. After Steve was fired, Apple lost focus. Went on to the verge of bankruptcy (to a point, wherein Apple had just enough capital to pay salaries of Apple employees for forth-coming 90 days only), when Steve Jobs came back in 1997. Cut the product lines, reduced the number of products in pipeline from 350 to 10, sacked the useless middle-tier of suit adorning executives and line managers, and brought some balls back to Apple. Apple focused on what was needed at that time – a shot in the arm – of innovation. And rest is history. Thus, if you’re an Entrepreneur building the next Product of the millennium or simply selling clothes online; FOCUS. Focus on the key things. Focus on the right things that affect your P&L. Rest all is garbage; cast them aside.

2. NEVER STOP INNOVATING. EVEN WHEN YOU’RE AT THE TOP. I believe no one understands this better than executives at Nokia, Motorola, Palm, HP and the likes of MySpace, Orkut and Yahoo!. Once the industry & market & category leaders, these companies showed us brilliantly how to self-destruct themselves to the point of extinction owing to lack of FOCUS and INNOVATION. Always own the key technology, Steve Jobs used to say. None of these companies made an effort to; and thus, now, lying defunct. If you’re an Entrepreneur wherein your website/company builds/offers a product/service wherein Technology plays a key role, make sure you go to all lengths possible to own it.

3. SAY NO TO A 1,000 THINGS. I know this kinda sounds like point #1, but its kinda different. Focusing on the key things are relevant, if and only if, you have the balls to say NO to a 1,000 things. I’ve worked with CEOs who are simply geniuses in Product Development, all aspects of design, marketing & brand promotions – but lost focus too early in the game, since they never were sure, when & where to say NO to a 1,000 things. Thus, if you’re an Entrepreneur, follow this Golden Rule from Steve Jobs – “Make a list in your head. Things that are KEY to driving success for your company; do them; and cast aside everything else“. Follow this rule every week – on Monday. And priorities would clear automatically.

No one on Earth sums this up better than Steve Jobs himself.

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on,” said Jobs. “But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.” (source: DailyTech)

4. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T FORGET ‘CUSTOMER IS KING’. Have seen such companies, have worked for such companies, have observed such companies. Wherein the entire company worked judiciously for months on a Product/Service, spent thousands of man-hours on finessing it, and finally when it launched, it was a complete dud. Reason WHY? Lost FOCUS; and yes, forgetting about the most important deciding factor for your P&L – CUSTOMER. Steve Jobs was ridiculously fastidious on UI, UX and User adaptability of Apple’s products. Finessing it to nearly perfection – till even a 1.5 year old kid feels comfortable to using an iPod or iPad HD. Reason – laser-guided life-long commitment to “CUSTOMER’S REQUIREMENTS”. Thus, whatever product/service industry you’re in, don’t forget to FOCUS on the CUSTOMER.

Unfortunately, Steve is not with us anymore.
Am sure, he would have been extremely proud of today’s feat.
Hope to see Apple continue on this path of Innovation and yes, breaking new grounds in decades to come.

Pudu Arrives in India: For the Effortlessly Stylish Man

Popular Australian lifestyle brand Pudu is now available in India, via its online shopping site: PuduLifeStyle.com. A few glimpses of the offering on display shows the immense potential the brand has in India in the forth-coming years.

Whilst explaining the immense popularity and thereby success of the iconic iPod, Steve Jobs once mentioned his and Apple’s core DNA, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication“; in other words, less is always more. Whilst browsing through the entire catalog of Pudu online, the same rang true. The apparel offering is classic, chic yet effortlessly simple.

Pudu got featured in July 2012 Go Air In-flight Magazine. The brainchild of  brothers Michael and Andrew Piers, Pudu is a success in Australia.

Michael, the co-founder and CEO, has been in the apparel and garment manufacturing business for over 10 years in Bangalore. Andrew, co-founder and creative head of brand, is an astute trend-spotter and his know-how comes from years in the international modelling world.

So, in a cluttered world, how does Pudu stand out – is the million dollar question. For myself, and for customers out there.
This is the question that will ideally, decide the success or failure of the brand in India.

Lets look at it in detail.

USP: 

Pudu is for the stylish man. Someone who desires to dress chic, yet, not trying too hard to stand out. Linen and cotton being the preferred choice. And a simple glance through the entire collection suggests – the entire collection is built around bright colors. Colors like Jaipur Pink, Screaming Green, Wisteria, Royal Purple, Jodhpur Blue, Nu Blue, Mango Yellow, Latte, Cucumber Green, Hunter Green, Hershey Brown, Strawberry and Faded Tangerine are daring, and they do set the brand apart. Colors that brighten your day, without much fuss. Take a look at some of the creative editorials from the collection.

OFFERING:

Casual clothing for men includes shirts in linen, organic cottons, canvas stretch and prints. The collection also includes pants, lounge pants, cargos and easy to wear shorts.

BRANDING & PROMOTIONS:

From branding perspective, the brand has put in a decent effort. Roped in one of the [most] stylish, vibrant, chic and youth icons in India; Nikhil Chinapa. I believe, he needs no introduction to the Youth of India (if you need an introduction, I believe you were living on Mars or something, right?) In one of the interviews that I read on the catalog, Nikhil appears candid as usual. Mentioning reasons why he chose to become the Brand Ambassador of Pudu.

From the marketing & promotions perspective, Pudu has the following on offer -

> A flagship store soon to be opened in Goa
> Launching new category for “Boys”
> Launching new collection for “Formal Wear”

SWOT Analysis: 

Strengths:
> Established private label in Australia. Thus, ‘western look’ which Indians aspire for, will be catered to.
> Established Store chains in Australia.
> Co-founders have excellent Retail background in India.
> Launch of online portal in India (and offering offline secondary) adds to strength since India lacks a good retail infrastructure compared to the West.
> Excellent opportunity to target the ‘youth’ of India via Nikhil, Festivals in Goa; and make the label a de-facto label in Goa.
> Pudu MADE TO MEASURE (M2M) – A feature that makes the brand stand apart in India.

Weaknesses:
> Indians have an obsessions for white skin & western labels having white skinned models on cover. Couldn’t find any on Pudu website.
> Indians are extremely price sensitive. All private labels in India (online) so far are struggling to make money at ‘unit level transactions’; expecting to break even in 4-5 years time; which require a lot of strategic level thinking and focus. How will Indians react to the price points on Pudu?
> The price points as of now onsite, is on the higher side. Will this act as a ‘negating factor’?
> No COD available as ‘Payment option’. In India, as of now, primarily all websites have a 70-30% for COD:Credit card payments for their daily transactions. Yes, its true, that a lot of CODs do get cancelled as well, during confirmations, and the usual industry rates are around 7-10% COD cancellations daily. But is it safe to have no COD at all for an eCommerce website operating in India? Only time shall tell.
> Site mentions: “Please allow 5 working days for all delivery”. Has to be better. Private labels from where I have shopped – Zovi.com, FreeCultr.com makes an effort to ship within 2-3 (max) days. 5 is a long haul.

Opportunities:
> Modern retail in India could be worth US$ 175-200 billion by 2016.
> A large young working population with median age of 24 years, nuclear families in urban areas, along with increasing workingwomen population and emerging opportunities in the services sector are going to be the key factors in the growth of the organized Retail sector in India. The growth pattern in organized retailing and in the consumption made by the Indian population will follow a rising graph helping the newer businessmen to enter the India Retail Industry (source).
> The current basket of eCommerce savvy buyers in India as of now is around 10-15 million of the total basket of around 100-110 million who have access to Net & referred to as “net ready” (but limiting themselves to surfing, checking mail, listening to music, watching videos without doing any actual buying/selling/shopping online). With the current continuing proliferation of the net in India to Tier2, 3 & 4 cities, this number is expected to around 50 million by end of forth-coming 5 years; with total 250 million with access to net in India (and thus, ‘ready for embracing eCommerce).
> The male:female% of buyers online in India is around 70:30%; which favors Pudu.

Threats:
> Indians are extremely price sensitive. Price, and NOT quality often plays a vital role in the success or failure of an online label in India.
> Discounts are a good way to gain traction, or scale up visits, but the main issue then lies in the fact – out of the 10 million eCommerce buyers in India, as of now, majority are ‘deal seekers’ and ‘bargain hunters’. Thus, there’s a very very thin line between – a “brand offering Sales 2 times a year” and a “brand that only thrives on SALES/Discounts”. The issue lies in the fact – you can scale 10,000 daily visits to a site to 50,000 in a couple of hours by providing a massive SALE, but the visits/interactions/newly registered members are usually not converted into repeat buyers. Thus, the correct balance needs to be found out.
> CPAs for first-time buyers in Indian eCommerce are horrifyingly high. Unless you’ve deep pockets and really focused to trench on high grounds for 4-5 years; forget about breaking even, even making ‘positive ROI on CPAs for first-time buyers after 3 months for unit-level transactions’ often becomes tough.
> FreeCultr – one of my favorites – young, vibrant brands online. Launched in late 2011, FreeCultr has growth steadily over the past few months, clocking over 6,000 transactions monthly; thus, establishing itself as one of the premier youth brands online. Some of the offerings on Pudu are in direct clash with FreeCultr; but lets see how both brands pan out in the foreseeable future.

Look forward in ordering something from Pudu; and lets see how the packaging looks like.
Overall, wishing Pudu all the best.