jan/FEb 2014
Why optimism is an entrepreneur’s magic mantra (or, is it?) Page 42
Well Knotted!
The Magazine for Growing Companies
29 skills every
founder needs to master Page 25
Well Knotted! How Aditya Gupta is patterning a retail home fashion brand out of his rugs exportPage business 18
The magazine for growing companies
Ashwini Deshpande Elephant Strategy + Design
What does a creative leader look like? Page 52
january/fEbruary 2014 | `150 | Volume 04 | Issue 12 A 9.9 Media Publication | inc.com Facebook.com/Inc @inc
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contents
Cap lede here Text tk dummy Modigna facinit lore molorer incipisit adit lorero et, conse duis am
18 The Hike To A New Business Vista
Aditya Gupta’s business trek has entailed crafting a home furniture retail brand, The Furniture Republic, out of his flourishing rugs export business, Sharda Exports. Here’s how he did it. by shreyasi singh
42 Optimism++
Is optimism always an entrepreneur’s best friend? Or, a misleading force? We deconstruct optimism to give you a realistic picture of its strengths and follies. Design Evangelist Even after 25 years of starting Elephant, Ashwini Deshpande’s enthusiasm to spread design awareness in India hasn’t subdued at all.
on the cover
photograph by jiten gandhi
Aditya Gupta, founder, The Furniture Republic and Sharda Exports, at his company’s showroom in IHDP Business Park, Noida. Photograph by Subhojit Paul. Cover design by Sristi Maurya.
This edition of Inc. magazine is published under license from Mansueto Ventures LLC, New York, New York. Editorial items appearing on pages 6,14, 25-40 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.
by shreyasi singh
52 The Way I Work
Ashwini Deshpande, co-founder, Elephant Strategy + Design debunks the need for a work-life balance. When you love your work as much as I do, she says, there is no need to unwind. as told to sonal khetarpal
January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 3
contents
January/February 2014
49
08
16
000 14
07 Editor’s Letter
08 Behind the Scenes
Cleanliness, security and design—companies that have taken it on themselves to keep Stellar Children’s Museum safe and fun for kids
11 Launch
; Celebrating innovative, mid-sized companies at the Innovative100 Conference and Awards ceremony ; What Malcolm Gladwell’s new book does—and doesn’t—understand about entrepreneurs
4 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
16 Innovation
A smart tag to help you find your keys, cats or may be your spouse
56 Founders Forum
For Sharad Jobanputra, founder of Sequel Logistics, customer delight comes easy. Having happy and motivated employees is a much tougher task.
25 Special Report A DIY Guide!
For this special feature, we asked two dozen accomplished entrepreneurs for their best stuff: their insights about leading, inspiring, growing and generally getting stuff done. The result is a 15-page guide to what works and what doesn’t. How to inspire crazy loyalty How to ace a keynote speech How to elicit honest feedback How to be funny at the office as told to leigh buchanan, tom foster, burt helm, and issie lapowsky
Strategy 49 branding How Dollar jazzed up its brand with an online dance competition
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inc.com
Contents
Top Videos on Inc.com
Inc.com/Idealab
teve Case S CEO of investment firm Revolution; co-founder of AOL On the importance of a strong network
“ Entrepreneurship is a team sport. Having a big idea is important, but it’s equally important to have a great team.”
Inc.com/Inc-Live
Four Questions to Help Build a Purpose-Driven Team Inc.com columnist Lee Colan explains the benefits of providing your team with a larger purpose.
Without a compelling purpose, employees are just putting in time. Their minds might be engaged, but their hearts won’t be. If you want your team members to make every minute count, give them something to be passionate about. When they are inspired about a purpose, their hearts will follow. To do so, you need to answer these four fundamental questions that all employees ask, whether or not they ask them aloud. Where are we going? (Goals) How can I contribute? (Roles)
6 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
What are we doing to get there? (Plans) What’s in it for me? (Rewards)
“ Not every business is a bleeding heart. The businesses we partner with want to do good but also worry about the bottom line.”
People: photos.com
Inc.com/People
L auren Bush Lauren Co-founder of FEED On strategic partnerships
editor’s letter
MANAGING DIRECTOR: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Anuradha Das Mathur Editorial managing Editor: shreyasi singh assistant editor: Sonal Khetarpal DEsign Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Sr. Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Director: Anil T Sr. Visualisers: Manav Sachdev Shigil Narayanan & Sristi Maurya Visualiser: NV Baiju Sr. Designers: Haridas Balan, Manoj Kumar VP Charu Dwivedi, Peterson PJ & Dinesh Devgan Designers: Pradeep G Nair & Vikas Sharma ONLINE & MARCOM DESIGN Associate Art Director: Shokeen Saifi Sr.Designer: Rahul Babu Web Designer: Om Prakash PHOTOGRAPHY Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Sr. Photographer: Jiten Gandhi Community Team Manager: Rajat Gupta Associate: Akarshan Sapra Sales & Marketing Vice president: NC Singh (+91 9901300772) National Manager (Print & Online) Rajesh Kandari (+91 98111 40424) National Manager (Special Projects) Arjun Sawhney (+91 95822 20507) Senior Manager (Business Development) Anshu Kumar (+91 95914 55661) Manager (Business Development) Sukhvinder Singh (+91 8802689684) Production & Logistics Sr. General manager (Operations): Shivshankar M Hiremath Manager Operations: Rakesh upadhyay Assistant 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
Your Way of Life Dr Martin Seligman is the founder of positive psychology, a field of
study which examines happiness, strength of character and optimism levels. Several of Seligman’s insights and ideas are both fascinating, and useful in the treatment of emotional and mental imbalances. But, it is his take on how understanding psychology can help each one of us lead happier (and more meaningful) lives that I have found of great value. Seligman believes there are three types of “happy lives”—The Pleasant Life, The Good Life and The Meaningful Life. Most entrepreneurs and CEOs I have met certainly seem to share attributes which Seligman attaches to The Good Life, a state of being in complete flow with one’s work and responsibilities. It’s a life that signifies deep engagement; different from The Pleasant Life where you attract as many “pleasant” moments as possible, and learn the skills to amplify them. As any company founder will tell you, the gritty business of building a company isn’t really motivated by pleasantness. Interestingly, though, positive psychology is a tool entrepreneurs depend on a lot. They power their efforts with a steadfast optimism that they can do more, and do it better. We try and deconstruct this optimism strain in our feature on Page 42. Don’t miss this piece. We hope you will find it useful to evaluate your own optimism metric. It isn’t a surprise that Aditya Gupta, founder of Sharda Exports and The Furniture Republic, and our cover story this time, is a student of The Good Life like many of his ilk. His approach to work has also substantially been shaped by his passion for adventure sports and mountaineering—both of which enhance the joy of being in the “flow”. For Gupta, if the price for scaling that impossible summit entails living on a sheet of ice in a tent for two weeks, it is a small price to pay. The same applies to his entrepreneurial ventures. Find out more about his business treks on Page 18.
Shreyasi Singh shreyasi.singh@9dot9.in January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 7
BEHIND THE SCENES
Housekeeping Parents like to take their children out to play to places that are safe and clean. The company that ensures the interiors of Stellar Children’s Museum is spick and span is Delhi-based Nouvel. Navin Khanna started Nouvel as a basic cleaning service providing company in 1997 when he was just out of college. Over the years, as they grew, they started offering complete facility management, interior design and technical assistance for residences and commerical buildings as well. Today, the 3,000-people company maintains facilities at the offices of Vodafone and Kotak Mahindra Bank, amongst others.
Security Five security personnel of Proman Securitech watch over the museum during its open hours. Founded by Ankur Chowdhry four years back, Proman provides manpower security service and training to commercial and residential establishments. Each of its recruit undergoes 20-day outdoor and indoor training conducted by former instructors of the Indian Army and paramilitary forces at their training centre in Gurgaon. The 600-people company has licence to undertake projects in Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. They were responsible to ensure safety at Saif Ali Khan’s dawat-ewalima and manage security at Hotel Clarks Inn, Delhi.
8 | INC. |
JANuary/February 2014
Companies at the Heart of Everyday Life
Stellar Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Museum, Gurgaon
7.01.2014, 4:00 P.M.
Design Design has undoubtedly played an integral part in the success of the Stellar Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Museum, especially when the concept of interactive museum such as this is new, and untried before in India. The entire look and feel of the Museum with its bright orange and bluish purple theme is designed by Prasun Mazumdar Design India (PMDIndia). Started in 2010 by NIFT graduate Prasun Mazumdar, this art and design studio has also worked on designing the logo, website and merchandise for this Museum. This Delhi-based company has done design for the gastro pub Chatter House and advertising firm Broadcast2world.
photograph by Subhojit Paul
reported bY Sonal Khetarpal
News, Ideas & Trends in Brief
launch
A New Club of Achievers Inc. India’s first Innovative100 list celebrates innovative, mid-sized companies
Winners of the Innovative100 Conference and Awards Ceremony
Inc. India was delighted to release
its first listing of India’s most innovative, mid-sized companies at a conference and awards ceremony in New Delhi at the end of December. The Innovative100 is our initiative to identify and recognise innovative mid-sized companies in India. Our relationship with the midsized community in India, and the stories we routinely came across over the past four years that we have been in this country convinced us that Indian photographs by subhojit paul
companies were devising smart solutions and unique approaches to withstand the many challenges of building a company here. They are worthy examples of the ingenuity and inventiveness of our mid-sized community. The Innovative100 list was a culmination of a four-month campaign which began with asking companies to nominate themselves across 10 categories in August 2013. We were heartened by the response, and received 368 nominations in total. Companies could January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 11
launch
be nominated in maximum of three categories but they could win in only two of those three categories in innovation. More details on methodology and innovation categories are mentioned below. Our eminent jury (Rahul Chandra, Co-founder & MD, Helion Advisors; Navin Talreja, President, Ogilvy & Mather; L R Natarajan, CEO, New Business Division, Titan; Alok Mittal, MD, Canaan Partners; R Giridhar, Group Editor, Technology, 9.9 Media; Krishnan Ganesh, Serial Entrepreneur; Punit Modhgil, Founding Editor, Indian Marketing Review) evaluated the companies to come up with our list of 100 winners. The awards ceremony on December 20 at Hotel Radisson Blu, New Delhi was the perfect opportunity to celebrate our winning innovations. Considering this was our first edition of the Innovative100 list, it was a privilege to have nearly 65 companies present to receive their awards. 12 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
Ratul Chakravorty, Business Head, Mecgale Pneumatics
Anuradha Das Mathur, publisher of Inc. India, during her welcome address
Ranking Methodology Indian companies with revenue between `50—`1,500 crore for FY2012-13 were eligible to participate in the Innovative100. If the company belonged to a group, the group’s turnover didn’t exceed `1,500 crore. We assessed each innovation across 10 categories of business functions (mentioned below) in which we sought nominations. Each company was judged on four parameters: uniqueness of idea, replicability, scalability, and tangible business impact.
1 Innovation in Technology 2 Innovation in Responsible Business 3 Innovation in Product 4 Innovation in Manufacturing 5 Innovation in Corporate Governance 6 Innovation in Supply Chain 7 Innovation in Smart Money 8 Innovation in Branding & Communication 9 Innovation in Marketing 10 Innovation in People Practices
launch
Vishal Dhar, co-founder, iYogi
9.9 Media’s MD Pramath Raj Sinha (left) launches the first issue of Innovative100 with Professor Prithwiraj Choudhury of Harvard Business School Aakash Chaudhry, Director, Aakash Educational Services
Beyond the celebrations, the awards evening became a great platform for peer learning and insightful sessions. The day began with a workshop on the opportunities available for mid-sized Indian companies to craft valuable, abiding brands. We were fortunate to have Navin Talreja, President (Kolkata & Mumbai) and his colleague Prem Narayan, Senior Vice President of Ogilvy & Mather to lead this two-hour session. Interactive as it was, the Ogilvy session was also a wonderful trip down memory as Talreja and Narayan beamed videos from iconic Indian advertisement campaigns. There was also a session where a few of our winning companies presented their innovations. We were delighted to have Sequel Logistics, iYogi, EMMBI, Mecgale Pneumatics, Ujjivan Financial Services, and Aakash Educational Services showcase their innovations as case studies. Their stories of transformation and canny business solutions were proof
Navin Talreja, President (Kolkata & Mumbai), Ogilvy & Mather
that the Innovative100 was a list that was important to put together. Our keynote address for the evening by Prithwiraj Choudhury, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School was undoubtedly the highlight of the evening. In his research, Professor Choudhury focuses on innovation in emerging markets; and his two major areas of inquiry concern the management of
human capital within innovative firms and the interactions between multinational firms and local entities in emerging markets. His presentation, essentially a series of three case studies of companies from emerging economies, struck just the right can-do note. At Inc. India, we are driven by identifying and recognising the sometimes untold stories of our midsized companies. We are proud of the list we’ve been able to bring out—we couldn’t have ended the year better than the Innovative100 awards evening. For that, we’d like to thank our jury members, nominees, winners, sponsors, speakers and well wishers who helped make this event possible. The positive feedback we got for the Innovative100 campaign has also been a shot in the arm, and makes us more determined to hunt out good stories of growth, transformation and ideas from our business landscape. —Inc. India January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 13
launch
Let’s Hear It for the Underdogs Malcolm Gladwell’s new book has much for business owners to love By Leigh Buchanan
Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Turks by surprise. “The Turks simply had not thought that their Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, argues that in a contest opponent would be crazy enough to come from the desert,” writes between mismatched adversaries, perceived weaknesses can be Gladwell. Crazy is high praise for an entrepreneur. Half the fun of strengths, particularly when flexed in unexpected ways. In a postmaking it is proving someone wrong. 9/11, dot-com, Barack Obama world where institution topplers Two of Gladwell’s insights deserve more sober analysis. The first emerge out of nowhere, this is not exactly news. involves the “inverted U curve,” which models the inflection point at It’s certainly not news for entrepreneurs, who are devotees of which the addition of units—of effort, of people, of money—stops against-the-odds victories. With that crowd, Gladwell is preachmaking something better; and the further point at which adding ing to the choir. But not the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In units actually makes something worse. Gladwell uses this device to Gladwell’s narrative framework, entrepreneurs would be congrediscuss optimal classroom size and family wealth, but it is also a usegants from a humble church in Iowa who take down the Mormon ful conceptual tool for scaling companies. Tabernacle Choir in a sing-off thanks to skills they developed The second insight concerns remote misses. During the Blitz, performing on the streets to support their Gladwell tells us, Londoners grew largely inured impoverished families. to the bombing. In fact, many were emboldened. That sounds as if I’m mocking the book, and Gladwell explains that people who experience the I don’t mean to. As always, Gladwell spins a thing they fear most but emerge unscathed feel great yarn. He makes a smart case for the parainvulnerable. It’s a phenomenon entrepreneurs doxically fierce power of nonviolent resistance, should guard against. Just because you’ve escaped like that of the civil rights movement. His quesa few hurtling boulders and snake-filled pits tioning of the presumed superiority of prestidoesn’t make you Indiana Jones. gious schools—students may fare better at Each section of David and Goliath begins less-elite institutions where their self-esteem with a passage from Scripture attesting to the takes less of a beating—adds a provocative ennobling power of weakness or the illusory wrinkle to the hot debate over education. The boon of strength. The Bible’s most notable association of childhood bereavement with quotable on that subject (“Blessed are the meek, success (a disproportionate number of accomfor they shall inherit the earth”) does not Although plished people lost parents early) is a bit of an appear. Meek, outside of the Gospel, suggests a Gladwell barely eyebrow raiser, but the theme of personal comfailure of spirit. Weak, in the Gladwellian contouches on pensation for adversity rings true. text, means starting from adverse circumAlthough Gladwell barely touches on busistances, then using spirit, guile, and everything business, David ness, David and Goliath is full of ego boosts for else in your quiver to triumph. and Goliath is the entrepreneurial crowd, who are told, for In his opening chapter, Gladwell writes that full of ego example, that innovators are open, conscien“the act of facing overwhelming odds produces tious, and willing to court disapproval. Readers greatness and beauty.” That, of course, is what boosts for the will smile with recognition at the tale of Lawentrepreneurs do best. They survey the battleentrepreneurial rence of Arabia leading his ragtag band of Bedfield. They scrabble for weapons. They summon crowd. ouins 600 miles through the desert to take the courage. They change the rules. 14 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
Durga Bhavan, A-68 FIEE Complex, Okhla Industrial Area Ph. II, New Delhi-110020 Tel: +91-11-47242500 • Fax: +91-11-41607026 • Email: Krofta@kroftaengineering.com Website : www.kroftaengineering.com
innovation
Companies on the Cutting Edge
“This one function device will help people be more organised and save time by tracking misplaced items instantly.” —Abhishek Latthe, co-founder, SenseGiz
16 | INC. |
JANuary/February 2014
SenseGiz FIND
SenseGiz
Vigil Watcher
In March 2013, college friends Abhishek Latthe and Apurva Shetty were working on their first tech product SenseGiz Star—an accident detector, pedometer and tracking device. But, they decided to put its development on hold. They thought a single-function product to track commonly lost items would be more useful. Just like them, they believed many others must also get overwhelmed by misplacing or losing everyday personal belongings. So, in October 2013, they focussed their energies on FIND, a tag-cum-app that would both track and find commonly lost items such as key chains, bags, wallets and others. It works quite simply. A tag—which looks much like any hotel luggage tag—is put on an object. The tag is connected by Bluetooth to the mobile app that comes with it, and is downloaded on the user’s phone. The user can feed a range—anything up to 160 feet—in the app. If the tagged object breaches that range, the app triggers an alarm. The tag too can trigger the alarm if the phone goes out of the pre-defined limit. The founders claim this twoway trigger system is FIND’s main innovation. Latthe and Shetty have already got FIND’s casing design patented. They recently launched it commercially, and it can be bought in six different colours from the SenseGiz website at a price of $43.39 for two tags. Modes of Operation Active tracking: Phone alarm automatically sets on if FIND goes beyond the predefined limit Manual tracking: The app shows the object’s old and current location using Google Maps Phone protection: FIND sets off the buzzer if the mobile it is connected to, through the app, goes beyond the predefined range
photograph by Subhojit Paul
Features Waterproof Replaceable coin battery Multiple devices can be tracked at once Shared with multiple users Can be hooked using keyhole or stuck to any surface Power Saving: uses low energy Bluetooth; consumes 1/10th the power of conventional Bluetooth
reported by Sonal Khetarpal
the hike to a new business vista
18 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
Photo courtesy subject
the hike to a new business vista
On first impression, Aditya Gupta, founder, The Furniture Republic, doesn’t look the part of a thrillseeking adventurer. Gupta, also the promoter of his family rugs export business, Sharda Exports is an avid mountaineer who has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the Island Peak in Nepal, and Mount Mutnovsky in Russia. But, his approach to his adventure trips certainly seems to be much like his approach to business—studied, determined, and meticulously prepared for. His business hike over the past 22 years has been paced well. His basecamp was growing Sharda into a leading Indian exporter. That success led to more ambitious treks—first, building the IHDP, a business park for home décor brands in India in 2004, and then launching The Furniture Republic, a retail home furniture and décor brand, in 2012, which he hopes to weave into a national brand of 50-plus stores, and sales of more than `500 crore through retail, e-commerce and wholesale by 2017. Will it be Gupta’s crowning summit? By Shreyasi Singh Design by sristi Maurya January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 19
the hike to a new business vista
Climbing Stage 1
N Climbing Preparation The Backstory Aditya Gupta’s entrepreneurial journey begins with his family. Growing up in Meerut, he saw his parents strive to run a cold storage company. But, the 1970s and 1980s were tough times for the cold storage business because it was crippled with unfavourable government policy and low returns. His parents saw the writing on the wall, and began manufacturing carpets in 1983 out of the cowshed in their huge home. “I was in Class X then. So, we kind of grew up with rugs but it was a very, very small business, and certainly not one we could bank upon for the rest of our lives,” recalls Gupta. His parents stressed on education. “Become a man before you become a businessman, my father would always tell me.” A good student, Gupta got into an engineering bachelor’s course at the University of Roorkee, from where he graduated in 1990. “That changed the course of my life.” Gupta followed that up with an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University. He gave a miss to the job offers that came his way, thanks to a testy conversation with his mother who told him she’d rather have her son be a job creator than a job seeker. 2 0 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
The First Success
In 1993, when Gupta joined Sharda, it was a small family business with about `35 lakhs in annual sales. His younger brother Ashish Gupta joined the business a year later as well. Unlike many traditional business families, their father exited immediately and the brothers fashioned an impressive growth story by aggressively focussing on exports. In 1992, they exhibited at Domotex, the global trade fair for carpets and floor coverings, in Hanover, Germany. “It was the first time somebody in our family was going outside of India. My father was dazed, but he trusted me to do this,” says Gupta. Several other exhibitions followed. By 1998, the brothers grew Sharda to annual sales of around `50 crores. “That was almost a 100X growth from what we inherited from our parents,” Gupta says. A combination of being creative and reliable worked in their favour, he adds. At that time, foreign buying agencies were forced to deal with unprofessional Indian manufacturers. Delayed consignments, shoddy quality and an inability to position oneself ailed the Indian furnishings export business. Gupta ensured his business wasn’t any of that, and got top retail brands such as IKEA, William Sonoma (which owns Pottery Barn), Germany’s Otto Group and Marks & Spencer buy handtufted rugs, hand-woven rugs, bath and leather rugs, poufs and stools from them. In fact, the Swedish retail giant IKEA played a key role in their growth. An IKEA catalogue once featured a Sharda rug on its cover which became their bestseller. “From 80 pieces a month, they asked us to supply 2,500 pieces a month.” Their success was steep but steady. In 1996, they were recognised as being the largest exporter of carpets from India by the Carpet Export Promotion Council. The awards have kept coming, including the Trend towards Veracity Award at the AIT-Trendscoutng Heimtextil in 2012 for innovative re-use of materials like leather residues, flip-flops, jeans labels and old zip fasteners. By 2001, Sharda breached `100 crore in annual sales. At that point, Gupta began to realise that this business would soon plateau out. “See, after a certain size in this business, there comes a supply side constraint. We were already working with the best manufacturers, and using their highest capacity. It didn’t seem we could multiply that exponentially. The `100-`120 crore in sales was a sweet spot for this business.” Also, by this time the home textiles export market had become crowded with a mushrooming of buying agencies, export agents and small exporters, many of which survived because they cut on price. “I didn’t want to continue working for high-volume, low-price brands, like Walmart, Target and IKEA.” Gupta began a lookout for the next frontier that would present an opportunity for growth as dramatic as he had got at Sharda through the 1990s.
the hike to a new business vista
Climbing Stage 2
H
“ My adventures have instilled in me the courage to experiment. Entrepreneurship is also about taking risks and breaking the mould.”
Photograph by subhojit paul
The What-Next’s
is travels across Europe and the United States made him think that a design and business park specifically for garment exporters was something India needed. “All good exporters could be in one place which would make it easier for buyers to come and source at one go. Every important buyer comes to India a couple of times a year, but they’re not able to find the best vendor. So, I thought if we could create a junction to facilitate a meeting, it would really help both the buyers and the good exporters.” That idea led to the IHDP Business Park, a five-acre office complex in Noida, which could cater to ambitious exporters, and help them attract foreign buyers. The 4,00,000 sq ft building came up in 2006 at a total investment of `100 crore. But, Gupta was disappointed that he couldn’t generate enthusiasm amongst exporters. “The big exporters didn’t come because they felt they had more buyers than they could handle. The small players felt if the big players aren’t going, how can we afford it? There was a lot of scepticism and cynicism about anything at the industrylevel. People were worried their customers and clients would be poached by others, and the few carpet exporters who set up office at IHDP didn’t bring their customers here which beat the whole purpose! Plus, exporters and businessmen weren’t ready to shell out the rents we were asking.” Gupta admits, he went hoarse trying to build a community of exporters for the IHDP. Eventually, he gave up and rented out the space to corporate offices. “I doubt I will try and do anything again at the industry level. I don’t have it in me to struggle for people who don’t care about what I’m trying to do for them.” Fortunately, the IHDP investment didn’t result in financial losses. In fact, its prime location on the Noida Expressway ensured its value has appreciated exponentially. “The regret is what it could’ve been. It hurts more because I gave it undivided effort for a couple of years. But, when the corporates came in, it freed my time.” January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 2 1
the hike to a new business vista
“The window of opportunity in any business is quite small—you can’t wait, or strategise endlessly.”
Summit Seeker Appetite to experiment: “My adventures have instilled in me the courage to experiment. Entrepreneurship, also, is about taking risks and breaking the mould. During treacherous climbs in the wild, you’re actually risking your life at times. In contrast, taking risks in business begins to seem very manageable. It’s only money at the end of the day.” Wisdom to give up: “Even as adventure primes you up to take more risks, it also teaches you where to draw the line. In mountain climbing, it’s equally important to know when to
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stop. You have to be able to say—the peak is going to remain there, I have to be alive to come back and try to scale it again. Your passion for reaching the summit shouldn’t get you killed. You can’t want anything that much.” Discipline for preparation: “Beyond being mission prepared, when you’re out on there, you have to be fully alert all the time. It’s like that in business as well. Typically, the window of opportunity in any business is quite small—you can’t wait, or strategise endlessly. By and large, you should
be prepared for what’s coming your way, and have the confidence to say, I’ll be able to do the rest on the fly.” Give and take of action and reward: “On the kind of trips I do, things become very tough. There is always a point in every trip when I ask myself—why have I brought this upon myself? Why am I living in a tent on an ice sheet in -20°C for 20 days without a loo and a shower when I have a life of luxury somewhere else? But, those moments are very short. What you get in terms of a sense of achievement and
internal strength far outweighs any of the inconveniences. That trade off is important in business too. A lot of businesses might be small, but they are very profitable. They are used to growing organically without losing money. That becomes a mindset, which discourages them to try out new things, or make more investments. That approach is limiting. My adventures have taught me that you need to give up something (or many things!) to get something back in return.”
Photo courtesy subject
Aditya Gupta has been an eager adventurer since his first trek in 1987 to the Pindari Glacier while he was at the University of Roorkee. The fix has been constant, and his huge repertoire of thrills has only got more dramatic—the Brahmaputra rafting expedition in 2009, climbing the 7,560 metre Mamostong Kangri in 2010, and the Zambezi rafting expedition in 2011. This year, he’s prepping for his biggest adventure yet—scaling the Mount Everest—for which he will take two months off in April and May. Gupta believes his passion for trekking and climbing has influenced the way he approaches life and business tremendously.
the hike to a new business vista
Climbing Stage 3
T
A New Ascent
Market Watch
There has been considerable activity in the home décor and home furniture market over the past few years. In the online world, home fashion and accessories has become an attractive product category with companies such as FabFurnish, Urban Ladder, Zansaar and Pepperfry entering the fray. We spoke to industry watchers to identify the trends defining this market.
he free time got him to start thinking about the new “whatnext”? In any case, his brother “That opportunity is definitely huge in the home furniture market Ashish was at the helm in Sharda, is a cliché, like it is in many categories. Of course, there is a huge and was doing a great job of market out there for branded furniture. Customer preferences and tastes have changed over the past five or six years, and the managing it (although the wave of urbanisation has only accelerated the trend. But, it’s brothers have since then important to ask why there hasn’t been a national player yet in realigned and restructured their shared the furniture category? First, the price and location of real estate businesses). “I wanted to invest in a is a huge challenge for companies. Also, the handling and logistics of furniture is business which had two parameters. It expensive and complicated. Thirdly, there is a great deal of heterogeneity when it comes to furniture. A player who has national aspirations needs to be able to address could grow in a modular fashion, and it different price points, tastes and climates in different parts of India. It’s a big chalhad the capacity for massive scaling up. I lenge to cater to all these demands. How can you differentiate yourself because in eventually came up with three ideas—a this category, brands compete not with each other but with countless local players in chain of restaurants, a mini-gym for each city. Establishing a differentiation, and being able to build a business model women, and a furniture retail arm which around it will be important for any player who wants to scale up across India.” —Ankur Bisen, senior vice president, was an extension of our understanding, Retail & Consumer Products, Technopak Advisors and global network in this business.” It is how The Furniture Republic, a retail chain of home furniture and décor, came up. “It made sense. We’ve been to the best trade “The furniture market is a $12 billion market in India. Within that, home furniture is pegged at $8 billion. But, 80 per cent of that is shows, and worked with the best brands in unorganised. Overall, it’s a large opportunity both in the offline this business.” The Furniture Republic and online markets. Both those have their sets of challenge opened its first showroom—30,000 sq ft though as furniture has been a very complex category. In the across three floors—in Noida in January offline world, real estate cost is a big, big deterrent. How do you 2011. Another sprawling store came up in afford that? Plus, you have to maintain inventory in each of those stores which adds to your costs substantially. In the online world, there are several January 2012 on MG Road in South Delhi. new players. But, execution is going to be key to their success. You have to be lean “We are value-oriented player with a sense and agile. Right now, all e-commerce put together in the furniture and home décor of style. See, in India right now, there is won’t add up to $100 million together. That’s not even one per cent of the market. So, either a mass brand such as HomeTown, there is enough room—competition, market size or growth isn’t the problem. It’s or several exclusive, luxury furniture about how well you are executing. Of course, there is an opportunity for a player to be both offline, and be a partner to an e-commerce site. It’s the way things have evolved studios. There is no middle ground for in China which is largely a marketplace-driven economy. You continue your offline people who have good taste but can’t pay business, have your own e-commerce, and are also involved in the marketplace.” the moon for home décor. That’s where we —Mukul Arora, vice president, SAIF Partners fit in.” Gupta has invested `25 crore in the business, and claims the response has been encouraging. More than 4,000 customers have resulted in sales worth `22 crores across the two stores, he says. The aim is to scale up to 50 stores and `500 by 2017 on a hub and spoke model. provides him a chance to grab the potential in four verticals of He is aware of the challenges—right real estate, training to give the home furnishings and home décor market—B2B wholesale customers a good brand experience, and a steady stream of new to smaller sellers, retail for urban consumers, an e-commerce products. On the heels of The Furniture Republic, Gupta has also platform, and our global network. “Basically, this blended launched The Rug Republic, a catalogue-style rugs business model gives us the ability to move products fast. We can which allows their B2B customers to choose rugs from a yearcontinuously use up our inventory, and have a fresh, new round collection. He believes the combined strength of the three collection all the time.” Will these plans carve out a path to a brands, The Furniture Republic, The Rug Republic and Sharda new business peak for Gupta? January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 2 3
A
Guide! What practices have gotten you where you are now? What have you figured out that other entrepreneurs should know? Where do you excel? We asked those questions to two dozen accomplished entrepreneurs and no surprise—got an abundance of smart, frank, useful answers. As told to Leigh Buchanan, Tom Foster, Burt Helm and Issie Lapowsky
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How to Master the Four Big Social-Media Platforms Gary Vaynerchuk is the CEO of VaynerMedia.
Think of how you act with your friends versus how you act with your clients. You behave differently based on your environment. Social media is the same thing. Every platform is like a different meeting, a different room, and you have to be cool or quality depending where you are. Most people think of social media as distribution and use the same messaging on every platform. That’s not fully exploiting the tools. Instead, it’s important to figure out how to natively tell stories on each platform and which visuals and copy will enhance the likelihood of a given post’s going viral. 2 6 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
I included #business, because it was a trending topic at the time of this tweet. When you use a hashtag that’s trending, you have a substantially better chance of getting engagement from people who aren’t your followers. The couple hundred people who click that hashtag every hour around the world might also see it, and I might get some traction I might not otherwise have gotten. I also made my tweet a question, because it makes your brain think about the answer. If I can get someone to stop for half a second to ponder, I’ve got him in my ecosystem. Also, line breaks allow your tweet to take up a larger portion of the phone screen and attract attention.
Instagram is all about real images. Where are you? What are you looking at? What are you doing now? Unlike the polished images you’ll see for Facebook and Pinterest, this is a simple shot taken on a phone. It’s native to the platform. That doesn’t mean you can’t include information or text in your photo. I wrote some of the tasting notes directly onto the tablecloth. The only place where links are clickable in the Instagram app is in your bio. Rather than including a link in the post copy for people to copy and paste in a browser (because, honestly, who would ever do that?), I put the link in my bio. Remember, the more you act human, the more you win. Instagram is personal. It’s for those real-life moments.
A DIY GUIDE!
It all starts with the image. Notice, this image isn’t just the label of the bottle. It’s an original piece. When you’re developing images for Facebook, think about print and magazine advertising. I want people to know what wine it is (hence the crop in on the label) and how good it is (hence the Wine Enthusiast score). Keep your copy short. Include the important information that people will care about. In this case, it’s the rating, the price, and the right hook: Click here to buy now. And don’t be afraid to go in for the sale. If you want someone to do something, you have to ask him or her to do it. I made sure to include the word buy before the link
Pinterest is all about aspiration or utility. Here, I’m not just selling wine; I’m giving knowledge. This infographic gives context and tells you everything you could want to know about this bottle. This is just too much text for any other platform, but it feels right at home on Pinterest. People are shopping on Pinterest, so they’re spending more time on the content and looking at it with a critical eye. I used a much longer image on Pinterest than on any other platform. The platform dimensions are different and allow for it, but more important—similar to what I did on Twitter—longer pins take up more real estate.
How to Love Your Own Company Brooks Bell is the CEO of the technology company Brooks Bell. Everyone assumes the company’s CEO is fully
committed to the vision. The truth is, a lot of CEOs aren’t. Around 2007, I was one of them. We were, at the time, a creatively driven email marketing company. People hired us for our email design. We were being very opportunistic. We said yes to anything and weren’t strategic about it. It wasn’t fun to work there. I wanted Brooks Bell to be a data-driven testing company, where the analysts were the rock stars. I left the office for about a year, going to different data conferences to learn that world. By the time I got back, I knew what I had to do. I needed to change my team, change all of our clients, shift from creative to data, and completely redo my business model. We started with the team. We let five people go, which was the most difficult moment I’ve ever had. Another five people left on their own over the next three months. Then I hired 10 people over the next six months, people who were aligned with the new goals. We had four major clients at the beginning of this period, and we retired one of them every year. It was the first time I finally embraced the idea of thinking strategically, not waiting for someone to pick me and tell me what to do. I got to go out and create the market I wanted. Most entrepreneurs won’t admit they’re not all in and are feeling less committed than they once did. But realise: It starts with you. Have a vision of what you want. Let there be a huge gap between where you are and how you’re going to get there. Map out the next two steps and let the rest be a gray area. Trust that you’ll get there if you stick to that vision.
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How to Bring New Employees Into Your Culture Will Dean is the CEO of the adventure-race company Tough Mudder.
To find them, we have to do four things: run really good recruitment, induct people, train people, and assess people. We use the acronym RITA.
We started doing it in May of last year. We got to the stage where we were happy with our organisation and the culture we had and felt like we were in a position to scale it.
of peers across the company. I also personally sit down with groups of new people for an hour and a half and let them ask me anything they want.
Induction is the most complicated. It’s easy to put your values on the wall. It means nothing. It’s about behaviour. Culture is really just how people behave when they think you’re not looking.
Part of that time is spent sitting in a classroom and having people come and speak. We also have group discussions and give people mentors, with whom they can discuss things confidentially. Then we do team bonding activities, like sending people out on treasure hunts or taking them surfing. The point is to make them feel they have a set
Culture eats strategy for breakfast, and it’s far easier to keep the right culture on track than get the wrong one back on track. So figure out which behaviours are sacrosanct at your organisation and which ones are profane. Then take all four steps of RITA and ask yourself three months later, Am I really seeing the behaviour I want to see?
We teach people how we expect them to behave. The induction period is three weeks.
How to Manage Millennials Neil Blumenthal is the co-founder and co-CEO of Warby Parker—and, by a matter of months, a Millennial himself. 2 8 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
Forget what you’ve heard
All those articles that scold Millennials for their supposed entitlement? Forget them. Millennials are great employees. There is no reason to plan to accommodate this non-existent trait or to break anyone of it.
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People could die if we get things wrong. A lot of our employees are young, and they operate with little direct supervision, putting on events in fields thousands of miles from where I sit. We’re a very specific kind of company, and we need very specific kinds of people.
A DIY GUIDE!
How to Get your Type A’s To Chill Amanda Peyton is the co-founder of Grand St., an online shop for creative technology.
How to Stage a Grander Opening Johnny Earle is the founder and CEO of the T-shirt company Johnny Cupcakes, which operates five bakery-themed stores and regularly opens pop-up stores.
We are a very ambitiondriven organisation; everyone who works on Grand St. is sort of obsessive about it. That’s why we take a monthly field trip outside the office. It usually takes a whole day—we might go to art galleries, or we might spend the day at the beach. It’s not a team-building thing at all. There’s no agenda and no structure. It’s about creating an opportunity for blue-sky days. The reason we impose these days is that if we didn’t, people would just keep going and going and going. We have to fiercely command time for fun.
Meet them halfway
Young people entering the job market seek employment at companies with values that match theirs. Implementing a thoughtful social mission will help you attract top talent.
Introduce Intrigue Tease people’s curiosity by offering a mystery gift or a surprise guest. The words free and mystery are always a good idea. Limit the number of gifts, but keep it reasonably large: for the first 100 customers, for example. That won’t bankrupt you.
Pick An Optimal Time Weekends and evenings are best, because people don’t have to rush from work. Don’t open your doors at the same hour as everyone else. On weekends, wait until early afternoon. That gives you greater opportunity to pass out fliers and stir excitement on the street. Also, fewer hours adds a kind of limited-edition urgency to the experience. Promote Extensively And Creatively Start reaching out to journalists and calendar editors a month in advance. You can approach bloggers a little later. Make your marketing collateral as distinctive as possible.
Give them the big picture
Enlist Your Neighbours Surrounding businesses won’t love it when your customers block their entrances and overrun the parking lot. Warn them in advance, apologise for the inconvenience, and invite them to get involved. Businesses love to cross-promote, so suggest they provide products for your grab bags or other giveaways. Recruit Local Food Vendors People show up for free food. So why not get food for free and establish relationships with other local vendors in the process? Staff Up—Inside and out Recruit volunteers if you must, but make sure you have enough people working
Millennials are eager to make an impact, which makes them ideal for startups. Let them know exactly how their contribution ties into the big picture by sharing high-level insights and objectives.
the floor and the registers— and also keeping an eye on the street. Stanchions will help keep order. But someone should be out there enforcing the single-file line—and, not incidentally, talking up the company and answering questions. Hold A Soft Opening Invite friends, relatives, vendors, and members of the press to a run-through a night or two before the event. Employees get on-the-job training before facing morecritical hordes, and glitches will reveal themselves. Advertise Coming Attractions Make sure departing guests walk off with your calendar of upcoming events and sales. Document Lavishly Produce lots of photos and videos to post to social media after the fact, so people will see the business at its busiest and liveliest. You’ll also want the record for yourself. You’ll be so swamped and distracted during the event that the best way to enjoy it may be retrospectively.
Discourage twerking It just makes the rest of us feel inadequate.
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How to Disrupt The Workday for Fun and Profit
John Coleman is the founder of the creative agency Via.
If you want to remain creative and open to innovation, the worst thing you can do is work yourself into a rut, where you’re not engaging in new experiences in the world. So we try to break up the routine—to almost train people how to change. Some activities are up to employees—we have a bocce court outside, and people break up the day with 15-minute tournaments. On Tuesdays, we have music jams at the end of the day. But then there are total surprises. The other week, we called a meeting, shut down the whole agency, and took everyone next door to a local dive club to have a free drink and dance for the lunch hour. People were rolling their eyes in the beginning but left laughing. There are quieter diversions, too. Our office is in the old public library in Portland, Maine, and we’ve asked all our employees to select the 10 most inspiring books in their life. Ayn Rand shows up a bunch, but there are also design books, Mark Twain, Longfellow, Pablo Neruda, a book on stars, and Picasso’s sketches. Now we have a reading library with more than 1,000 books to sign out. With all these disruptions, the first rule is, We want to make everyone leave the phone, leave the computer, and be in the real world, in the moment. The second is, We want to force you a smidge outside your comfort zone—get you to open your mind. And the third rule is, It should be kind of fun. Because isn’t that what it’s all about?
How to be a Good Investor (Because A Lot of Entrepreneurs Aren’t)
I’ve seen a lot of successful entrepreneurs fail as investors in start-up companies, most because they make at least one of these mistakes:
Chris Heivly, once the CEO of Mapquest, is now a co-founder and managing partner at The Startup Factory, an accelerator in Raleigh, North Carolina.
They invest in good ideas rather than good founding teams.
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A DIY GUIDE!
How to Stop Relying on the Job Interview
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Andy Dunn is the co-founder and CEO of the menswear company Bonobos.
They expect the same pace, the same rush they experienced running a company. When they don’t get it, they grow impatient. Then they get destructive.
In the hour or two a week they spend on their investment, they try to be the CEO of the company.
Interviews are not a good way to get to know a person. The process treats hiring like a romance, as if that had anything to do with the eventual marriage. I’ve found that human judgment is really bad in the romance phase of any relationship, because both sides are showing their best cards. What you really want to know is, What are the worst things about the person and about the company, and are those things going to work together? We interview extensively, of course, but I think it’s the thirdbest hiring tool. No. 1 is actually simulating the job. During the recruiting process, we bring candidates in and have them do the job for a while. For our customer service Ninjas, we have them respond to customer email. For a VP candidate, I might bring him or her in to advise on a big decision: Here are the issues we’re facing—now run a meeting where we figure out what to do. At the more senior level, I tell people, If we are going to hire you, we are going to spend about 40 hours of your time. That might sound crazy, but ideally we want this
They invest alone as opposed to in a group with other investors. They don’t spread the insight, the burden, or the risk.
relationship to work for the next four or five years; that’s 200 to 250 weeks. Why wouldn’t we invest one week of time figuring it out? And by the way, if at the end you decide you don’t want to do this, that’s a great outcome. No. 2 is off-list references. Everyone does on-list references, but that’s such a checking-thebox exercise. It’s like, talk to some handpicked people who will all say I’m great. It’s hilarious—it should be a Saturday Night Live skit. In addition to talking to those people, you have to take the time to find other people who have worked with the candidate. And this is important: Try to get in touch with those people via your own network, because then they’ll feel some accountability to you and will be more honest. For associates, we’ll check one off-list reference. For managers, we’ll check two. And for VPs and C-level executives, it’s at least five. More often than not, we’ve gotten more excited about candidates because of their off-list references. In at least two cases I can think of, we pulled the plug on someone we were going to hire.
Do the opposite. Accept that you are now the tail, and you are not wagging the dog. Your founders—they are the dog in this metaphor—want your experience, your wisdom, and your contacts. (And your money; that’s a given.) Give generously of those things and accept the parameters of your role, and everyone has a chance at success. January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 3 1
How to Really Connect With Customers
Since January, I’ve devoted every Thursday, all day, to cold calling current customers. I call it Smile and Dial. I start in the morning calling East Coast folks, then move to the West Coast later in the day. It’s hit or miss. Half the people answer, and of those, 20 per cent
of the people say they’re too busy. The rest are happy to chat at least for a couple minutes. I’ll have really rich conversations with about half of them. When I call, I’m thinking, Care, care, care. I pretend like it’s my mom or my grandmom or my dad. I care about their
Gary ON
grandkid, about their dog; I care about their life. I’m focused on that, that shows, and they really open up. And then I actually do care. I’m so fascinated that I don’t have to do a trick. I want to find out who they are and how and why they use
How to Fight with Your Family
When I took over the family wine business, my dad
and I argued about everything—changing the name of the store, building a website, hiring developers, giving out 401(k)s. We always argued. Even our fight about moving the beer cooler took six months. It’s a common theme for family businesses. But what always won for me was a combination of massive communication and obnoxious persistence. I think that a lot of sons and daughters give up. You
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our service, and how we can be better. I don’t say I’m the CEO, because I don’t want them blowing smoke. I don’t try to solve their problems on the call very often or defend us. After the fact, I’ll worry about that. I want the truth, whether it’s good or bad.
get yelled at, get argued with, get upset, and don’t come back to the well. I never did that. I wore him down. My advice is: If you believe it’s right for the business, then find four different angles. Go in hard, go in soft, come from every angle, and you’ll find your way in. And whatever you do, never make it personal. Start bringing up shit that has nothing to do with the business, stuff that happened at home a month ago, and you’re derailed.
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Andy Kurtzig is the CEO of Pearl.com, which connects customers to lawyers, doctors, mechanics, and veterinarians, who answer questions and dole out advice online.
A DIY GUIDE!
How (and Why) to Throw a Kick-Ass Company Retreat
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Ben Lerer is the co-founder and CEO of Thrillist Our first company retreat was just three employees and myself going to the park and having a catch. Needless to say, that was not a good one. Now, I think we’ve figured it out. I’ve found that the No. 1 thing that leads to people being happy at work is transparency, so at our retreats, transparency is our focus. This year, we created breakout sessions to educate people about what’s going on at other parts of the company. When people are working their butts off, it’s easy to say, “My job is so tough. Why is yours so easy?”
The idea of these sessions was to A. educate people and B. make them appreciate how hard everyone around them is working. The whole company voted for sessions they wanted to attend, and we narrowed it down to five. For one, we had our ad sales lead talk about what a salesperson’s job really entails, which helped dispel the stereotype that sales people are just wining and dining people. Another piece of advice: Spend money. I don’t mean waste money. But the team will appreciate it if you don’t cheap out. If employees feel like you’re really investing
in them, they’ll invest back. And don’t do it in one day. Make it two. Make it a big deal, and give people time to let their guard down. Lastly, take time to make people feel the warm and fuzzies. When we were smaller, I would give a speech and talk about every employee, one by one. Now, I talk about each team. At the end of each speech, the whole company gives that team a standing ovation. It’s a real pumpup. If you make people proud of the work they’re doing, that pride will reflect in high-quality work in the future. January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 3 3
How to be Way More Productive
Tim Ferriss is an investor and the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef.
Wake Up With More Energy
Many people feel tired in the morning not because they didn’t sleep enough but because they have low blood sugar. You can minimise this by consuming a tablespoon or two of unsweetened almond butter before you go to sleep. It’s a very simple way to stabilise your blood sugar. (I’ve tested this by having a continuous glucose monitor implanted in my side.) Right away, a lot of people will go from feeling groggy to feeling extremely alert when they wake up.
Double Your Reading Speed in Five Minutes
Write down a sentence, any sentence that has eight to 12 words and fills a single line on a page or screen. If you read it by starting your fixation on the first word of the line and ending on the last word, you’re wasting about 50 per cent of your peripheral vision on margins. Instead, simply make your starting point two or three words in from the left side and your ending point two or three words in from the right side; you will double your reading speed. You can try this by underlining that portion of the sentence as a
guide. You still see the edges of the text, but you’ve eliminated the margins.
Clear Your Inbox in Half the Time
The only consistent way to get to inbox zero is to respond to fewer emails, because each response breeds more email. For those you need to respond to, here are a few tools I find helpful. The first is five.sentenc.es, which gives you a footer that says, “Why is this email five sentences or less?” and links to an explanation. There are different versions: four.sentenc. es, three.sentenc.es, etc., depending on how short you can actually make your emails. This excuses brevity; it absolves you of guilt. Boomerang is an extension for Gmail. It allows you to do two things really well: The first is scheduling emails to be sent later, so you don’t leave stuff in your inbox and mark it as unread because you want to respond to it a week from now. Second, you can set a time for an email to boomerang to the top of your inbox if someone does not respond, so you don’t have to remember to follow up. The last tool is emailga.me, which forces you to go through your email sequentially without an inbox view, with timers and other gamifications. It helps me get through email in 40 per cent to 50 per cent less time.
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Bonus! Because Tim Ferriss always gets more done
How to Prep for a Conference Keynote
Keep it Simple: I break my presentations into three parts that can all be practiced separately. Within each of those sections, you have a two-minute intro and a two-minute conclusion, and in between you have point-example-point or example-pointexample. In other words, introduce the concept, give an example of that in action, then re-phrase the point. Break it Up: I strongly believe that declarative and procedural knowledge are consolidated during sleep cycles, so I do the vast majority of my preparation the night before. Practice each section separately. It’s much easier to ace your delivery if you practice Section A, which is 10 minutes long, 10 times in a row, and then Section B 10 times in a row, then Section C. Only then do you string them together. If I nail a given portion in rehearsal, I listen to a specific piece of music to anchor it to that section. I anchor all my good deliveries to that track, and then I listen to it again before I go onstage. I like “Splinter,” by Sevendust, but that’s just me. Fuel: If the presentation is anytime other than evening, I eat a small breakfast. But the night before, I eat a meal very high in saturated fat and cholesterol—I’ll have the double portion of rib eye—to facilitate testosterone production, which helps mental acuity as much as physical performance, something a lot of people don’t realize. I’ve also found that caffeine dosing is perfect for me. I get the perfect concentration of caffeine with a 16-ounce Diet Coke, 10 to 20 minutes prior to going onstage.
A DIY GUIDE!
How to Create an Expense-Account Policy That Won’t Be Abused
Dov Seidman is the founder and CEO of LRN, which educates and counsels companies on ethics and compliance. Before I describe how this works, I have to explain a few things about our company. Because this is not the kind of thing that succeeds just anywhere. LRN is trying to become a selfgoverning company, which means we don’t have bosses. Instead, everyone reports to the mission. We embrace two kinds of freedom. The first is freedom from: Our people are free from micromanagement and rules and policies. The problem is that when you give people freedom from something, it leaves a void unless you also give them freedom to. Freedom to means people have the information and the habits of thought to make good decisions. (By the way, freedom from is different from empowerment. Empowerment means I have power, and I’m a nice guy, so I’ll let you have some under these conditions. With empowerment, people pay more attention to who has power than to who is right.) How a company spends money is a good indication of its values. Our people can spend what they see fit. But we want them to make those decisions based on a crystal-clear understanding of LRN’s values and what is best for everyone in the company. Consider expense accounts. For the past few years, all our people have planned things such as what trips they will take, where they will stay, how
much they will spend on food, without interference or rebuke. That is freedom from, and we know it works. Over that period, our travel expenses have declined. Now, to help employees with freedom to, we are making everyone’s expense reports public to everyone else on our intranet. There are a few reasons for doing this. The obvious one is that people are less likely to order that bottle of champagne if they know their colleagues will find out about it. But more important, we want to encourage people to think about spending in a collaborative way. We want them to consult one another before they take trips: Was that hotel really worth it, and given how much you spent on gas, should I consider public transportation? We also want them to see—and admire— models of wise spending. Not people who pinch pennies, necessarily, but those who accomplish a great deal (people in companies always know who accomplishes a great deal) without breaking the bank. We expect those who do make poor decisions to compare their numbers with their colleagues and learn from that. Principles are better controls than rules. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As we open up data on travel expenses and all other forms of spending to employees, we believe everyone will make better choices for the right reasons.
How to Do More of What You’re Good at and Less of What You’re Bad At
Carolyn Rafaelian is the founder of the jewellery maker Alex and Ani. In the early days of my business, I had a lot of opportunity around me, but I had a very green staff. I was trying to lead in every area of the business. I was on the lookout for a CEO when I met Giovanni Feroce. He saw the potential for the business, but he also saw what we lacked. He helped me take that leap to hire new people. When we got real talent in, it was such a breath of fresh air. I got to focus on my big talent, which was the creative part. That is my strength. If you feel that anxiousness, that sense the business could be more, then you know you need to access other talent to flourish. Make that your No. 1 priority. The last thing I ever want to do is something I don’t have enough expertise in. Know what you don’t know. We all have our talents. Surround yourself with people who are as good at what they do as you are at what you do.
January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 3 5
How to Humble Yourself to Customers
People don’t love companies. They love products, experiences, and people. If you want to create love, you have to work at it. One way we work at it is through customer surveys. Listening to customers can be really humbling. Over the summer, we did a survey and found out we weren’t always meeting their expectations. They’d say, “I loved this product, but it took three weeks to get it” or, “I love the product, but it took three weeks to get it, and it was the wrong size, and I couldn’t return it.” I felt the best way to respond was to write customers an email. I wanted to say, “We’re real people. We heard from you, and here’s what we’re going to do.” I wanted to communicate some honest humility, empathy, and show that we’re being responsive. We didn’t just tell people we would try to be better. We had a plan in place. We introduced what we call a 100 percent smile guarantee. We said, “If we don’t make you smile, let us know, and we’ll fix it.” That guarantee included things they asked for, such as free shipping and returns, but we also developed technology to help us exceed their expectations. Now, for instance, if an item goes on sale right after a customer buys it, we automatically credit his account. The onus is on us to exceed customer expectation, not on the customer to tell us something is wrong.
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How to Do Spec Work and Feel Good About It
The New York Jets came to me in 2009, just as I had started VaynerMedia, because they wanted to sell me a skybox in the stadium for Wine Library. I told them, “Forget about the skybox. The Jets need to be at the forefront of social media.” They were unsure about hiring me, so I said, “Give me one player’s Twitter 3 6 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
The key to building trust in any relationship is authenticity. So if you screwed up, own the situation you’re in. People respect authenticity. If you’re authentic about what you heard, the challenges you face, and the motives for the changes you’re making, customers will give you a whole lot of runway to make it up to them.
account, and I’ll show you what I can do for free.” I knew it was my cost of entry. Working with the Jets is how I was able to land the Nets and the NHL as clients, too. People overthink spec work. They get too philosophical and romantic about it. I’m not romantic about anything in business. Don’t be crippled by
the philosophy. Aim for the biggest possible client you can get, and treat it as if it is the highest-paying client of all time. If, in the end, they try to take advantage of you and get more work for free, remember: You can fire them as easily as they can fire you. The reason you’re doing all this is to get other clients, period.
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Jason Goldberg is the CEO of the online retailer Fab.
A DIY GUIDE!
How to Network As If You Aren’t Nervous at All
Cristina Mariani is the co-CEO of Banfi Vintners. If I don’t know anyone at a business event—say, a conference—I steer away from bigger groups and strike up a conversation with two people who are already conversing. They’re very likely to welcome a third— remember, everybody else is there to network as well. Then, if a
solo person wanders by, I’ll invite her in and introduce her to the others. It’s a good way to hear everyone’s name again. The thing to remember is you’re there to connect—not just hand off business cards. I like to ask people about what they do, because people like talking about what they know best. But you can ask about their families, where they grew up—whether it’s family, charity, or travel, the most important thing is to get their story and hear their passions. Just put a time limit on it. If somebody’s eyes start to wander around the room or the conversation doesn’t come easily, it’s time to excuse yourself. If there’s someone you came there to meet expressly, do your homework. Find out their background and their interests. I’m honest about it. I’ll say, “I saw this great article about you. Congratulations; can I ask you more?” Most people are flattered you took the time. All in all, you’ve just got to have self-confidence. It never hurts to have a glass of wine in hand.
How to Design an Office That Makes Everyone More Productive Michael Lebowitz is the CEO of creative agency Big Spaceship. What we do requires people who work in strategy, user experience, design, technology, and production. Traditionally, you departmentalise all that. But I organise teams around clients, not job functions. The half-life of inspiration is very short, and if everyone who’s working toward a common goal is sitting together, problems get solved quicker. When you walk inside Big Spaceship, you’ll see an open plan, with several long tables. Each cross-disciplinary team is organised along an aisle. The idea is they focus outward and then just swivel their chairs inward to collaborate. Even the physical motions are meant to be as frictionless as possible. There are also guest stools in each row, tucked under the ends of each table, so anyone can grab one and pull it up. We also try to give people lots of mediums to express themselves. There’s lots of graph paper, lots of construction paper. Instead of whiteboards, the walls are covered in whiteboard paint—there’s something really satisfying about writing on the wall. It gets your inner child. There are also private and semiprivate rooms, places with couches and beanbag chairs, for individuals or teams that want some quiet. We want to be the most collaborative agency in the world. So we try to create as many opportunities as possible for people to offer a thought on the fly.
How to Be Smarter About Spending
Alexa von Tobel is the founder and CEO of LearnVest. I spend only money I know will move the meter for the business. I always think, If I were paying for this out of my own wallet, would I buy it? That one filter gives you your answer. That’s not to say you should be as cheap as
possible, but it helps you focus on where you’re actually making an investment. Give me the cheapest business card that exists, but get my team the best technology. Sure, we could have free lunch five days a week—or should every-
one get an iPad? Would you rather have random taco night, or would you rather have a bonus? It’s easy as a company gets bigger to spend, spend, spend, but make sure where dollars go is where they’ll have the biggest impact. January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 3 7
How to Get Employees to Open Up
Michael Fertik is the CEO of Reputation.com.
You can walk around all day as the CEO thinking you’re not an intimidating person, but a lot of people, especially those who haven’t known you a long time, are automatically intimidated by your title or by the fact that you don’t talk with them every single day or whatever it is. When you have a strong personality, as I do, you have to make sure you are not intimidating people even more. You can say until you’re blue in the face that you have an open-door policy, but nobody ever takes you up on it. I try to combat that. Every day or so, I ask someone in the company, What is the dumbest thing you are working on? It accomplishes a few things. First, if I think the project isn’t actually dumb, that usually means I have done an inadequate job explaining how it relates to the larger business, so I explain it a different way. If I think it is kind of dumb and we shouldn’t be doing it, that is of course also helpful. And the question makes the open-door policy real. It gives people a comfort level to say something they might not otherwise say.
How to Make Your People Run Through Walls for YOU Nick Woodman is the founder and CEO of the camera company GoPro. Keeping people fired up starts with hav-
ing a really clear vision for what the company is aiming to do. Our mission is to make it easy for people to self-document and share meaningful life experiences. You’ll notice I didn’t say we make cameras and camera mounts. As soon as it becomes about the camera, it’s rather limited; it’s about a device. It’s like, Google didn’t start by saying, We’re going to make a better search engine. They said, We are going to organise the world’s information. The second piece is showing people the tangible results of their efforts. We have a bit of an advantage here, because it’s very easy to illustrate the results, thanks to Facebook and YouTube and all the other social sharing of the content people make with the cameras. When a really killer video gets shared around our office, we’re not high-fiving about, Dude, look how great our camera worked! We’re stoked because you can tell from the video how excited the customer was. That goes miles in stoking our work force. The final thing is to be as inclusive as
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possible and make sure the employees are having fun. Here again, I think we maybe have an unfair advantage, because so much of what the company is involved in is inherently fun. But that wouldn’t mean much if we didn’t take the opportunity to involve and include our employees in the brand activities—going to some of the events that we sponsor, going on film shoots, interacting with pro athletes. Even if it’s not an everyday thing, you want to make sure people always have something to look forward to. Last year, when we launched the Hero3 camera, we rented out the Great America theme park for our team and their families. It’s going to become an annual tradition. And it allows employees to experience some of the classic GoPro thrills—high speed, g-forces, being strapped into a ride. They get to film the expressions on their faces and do it with family members. If you create those opportunities for employees, they simply have more fun working at your company. They’re happier, they’re in a better mood, they are more productive. It becomes a culture of positivity.
How to Handle Haters
The oxygen for trolls or haters on social media is an argument. That’s why most people think the best way to handle them is to ignore them. I disagree. The best way is to engage them, but with respect. Acknowledge their point of view and start a conversation. They’ll gain a lot of respect for your willingness to hear them out. 3 8 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
A DIY GUIDE!
How to Fix a Struggling Department
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Doug Mack is the CEO of the home-furnishings retailer One Kings Lane.
Any business has parts that are in really good shape, where a manager only needs to do flybys. Then there may be other parts that are in trouble, where you need a deep dive. To fix a troubled department, I first hold one-on-one meetings with the people on the ground. I ask, “How do you think we’re doing as a team? What can we do better? How can I make you more successful?” We want to develop a baseline of what we’re doing well and where there are gaps to fill. Then I pull together the department’s leaders and share the conclusions. I empower them to fix the problem. We develop a clear agenda—here are the things we are going to deliver and the processes we’re going to fix. Any department that’s struggling has a communication issue. So we create forums for better communication. On our tech team, one of the biggest pieces of feedback was that people didn’t know what the company’s priorities were or what their colleagues were working on. We created what we call the MACK-1, a superfast 15to 30-minute meeting we hold two to three times a week for everyone to stand up to the mike. They announce if they’ve hired a new person, shipped code, or anything else. It’s an awesome way to make everyone aware of what’s going on but also to make success about the collective strength of the team and not just the person leading it. If there’s a governing idea here, it is that 100 per cent of the answer lies in unlocking the talent of the team. If you’ve done a good job bringing people in, the vast majority of answers on how to make them more productive, more successful, and more happy are sitting right in front of you.
How to Listen, Really Listen, to Employee Feedback Jenn Hyman is the co-founder and CEO of the fashion site Rent the Runway.
Most CEOs are fantastic sales people. We have to sell people on working for us, giving us money, our vision, everything. So, early on at Rent the Runway, whenever people would give me feedback, my first instinct was to sell them on the idea that their feedback wasn’t true. Someone would tell me, “It was intimidating when you did X,” and I’d say, “It wasn’t intimidating; it was just Y.” All of a sudden, people were giving me less feedback, and I had to change that. We started an anonymous employee survey. Every six months, we ask about things such as employee happiness and satisfaction with their managers. We share the results of the survey with the whole company and create action plans to address the feedback. In the last survey, for instance, we realised there was confusion about our 2013 goals, even though, as an executive team, we thought we’d done a great job broadcasting those goals. We took that feedback, and at the next all-hands meeting, we went through every goal in detail and created a forum where people could ask questions. And personally, I’ve gone from never asking for feedback to asking for it in every oneon-one I have. Then I just listen. I do not respond. Instead, I take actions to address that feedback, and, later, ask that employee if my actions made a difference. It’s the followthrough that’s so critically important. January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 3 9
How to Always Be Getting Smarter Kunal Sarkar is the CEO of Lumosity, a maker of brain-training video games.
As we do new things, we always want to make sure we’re doing things that help the business and not hurt. We may have a feeling of intuition that something may be successful, but how do you really know? We run experiments. For example, maybe I believe that emailing our users about how fun our games are will get them to train with the games more. So, first, I set a benchmark. I’ll measure the average training time with our current user emails. Then, I’ll split the users into three buckets: One group will get the originals, one will get the fun games email, and the rest will get an email that references how the games are backed by pretty hardcore neuroscience. Because we have 40 million users, we can run that experiment and get valid data about which is best in just a few months. (As it turns out, users prefer the science emails.) This makes our decision process really transparent. It creates a merit-based culture. What we decide is not about title or rank. I can’t just say we don’t do something because I don’t like it. If you can run one small experiment every week, something tiny—changing a button on the purchase page, say—and it makes the user experience 1 per cent better? Over the course of the year, you’ll improve by 70 per cent. That’s what leads companies to do double and triple sales every year. 4 0 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
How to Be Funny at the Office
In which Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, advises a hypothetical CEO on the fine art of workplace wit.
I’m fairly confident that I’m pretty hilarious. But how do I make sure I’m as funny as I think I am?
If you really need to know how funny you are, you could test your hilarity with someone who doesn’t depend on you for a paycheck. But that might not turn out the way you hoped. This is one of the many, many instances in which ignorance is your friend. As things stand, your subordinates laugh like inebriated chimps at everything they hope is meant as a joke. That artificial approval makes you feel like a superstar, and it makes your subordinates happy, because fake laughing is easier than working. It’s a perfect system. I wouldn’t peel back the layers on that onion. I would like to showcase my sense of humour at the office. What are the best opportunities for doing so? I’m guessing downsizing announcements are not ideal.
There’s no better time for humour than when you’re criticising a subordinate. Humour can lighten the mood in what might otherwise be a tense situation. When you criticise subordinates in a boring and normal way, you end up with crying, shouting, and sometimes violence. But if you whimsically compare your ineffective subordinate to a nutless squirrel with a learning problem, the situation quickly turns to laughs, hugging, andwith a little luck-inappropriate touching.
Is it better to be funny about stuff that’s specific to the workplace, or can I be more broadly humorous? I have material I worked up for Toastmasters last year that most people here haven’t heard.
People prefer humour they can relate to. For example, if you tell a funny story about the time your personal chef fell off your yacht and you let him drown because you didn’t feel like going back, your employees will find that relatable. At least from the chef’s point of view. I worry about making a joke that might offend somebody. How can I be both hysterical and politically correct?
It’s perfectly acceptable to tell offensive jokes at work, as long as you add to the end of each one, “Ha ha! It’s OK, because I dated one in college,” or “Ha ha! It’s OK, because I tried it once at summer camp.” That covers most bases. I am, by nature, a strategic thinker. How can I think strategically about deploying my humour?
That is an excellent question, because humour without strategy is like a pair of mittens with no user manual. It’s all trial and error and tears. That’s how accidents happen. Humor can’t be randomly sprayed into the universe with no thought of an endgame. Humour requires a strategy that connects your wittiness with your long-term goals. For example, one longterm goal might involve trying to appear somewhat human, for reasons that are not immediately obvious. Or maybe you like to use humour to belittle subordinates so you can enjoy the warm glow of your own arrogance. There are plenty of good reasons for a CEO to be funny. You just need to pick one. How can I be sure my employees are laughing with me, not at me?
The best strategy is to laugh at them first. As soon as you deliver your punch line, point to the weakest nearby person and yell “LOSER!” then laugh as if there are kittens in your underpants. I don’t know exactly what your employees will be doing at that point, but it probably won’t involve laughing.
Optim
Many consider optimism to be an entrepreneur’s most powerful tool. It is after all an ability to articulate a new future, a new possibility and a new way of doing something that most fundamentally drives enterprises and enables businesses to stay the course. Yet, is optimism always wondrous and beneficial? What are the limits of optimism? Where does optimism end and delusion begin, for example? How does an overdose of it endanger your business? Read on to deconstruct optimism. By Shreyasi Singh & Anuradha Das Mathur
The Diary of an Eternal Optimist
Inc. India’s publisher Anuradha Das Mathur is a selfconfessed “congenital optimist”, and a keen student of the science of optimism. Despite the many benefits, her brand of optimism has sometimes been a challenge to explain to clients, employees, investors and sometimes even her co-founders. Read her honest account of the perils, but more importantly, the possibilities of optimism when building a business. The “eternal optimist”—in a world of cynics, realists and practical people, this label had begun to confuse me. Is it a compliment or is someone calling me naïve and foolhardy, suggesting that I live my life on a wing and a prayer? I don’t quite do that, but the glass usually looks full—one Continued on next page
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Continued from page 43 half with water and the other half with air. Given that this attitude isn’t widespread, it can leave the eternal optimist feeling isolated or different—trying to figure out what to do with this blessing (in disguise!). In a world where excel sheets dictate one’s aspirations and expectations, how does one weave in the optimism upswing? When CFOs puncture your dreams so that their forecasts are accurate, how do you continue to push for the stars without feeling restrained, or even worse, unrealistic? The truth of the matter, to the disadvantage of the optimist is that often achievement is short of the aspiration. In a logical world, this suggests one should temper expectations. However, the voice in my head says, the lower you aim, the lower you will land. Is it then worth it to trade off potential for accuracy? The answer depends on who you are and increasingly, I believe, on whether you have the courage to fail, to be wrong. Can you put out a big dream and then only achieve some part of it? Not if you’re a blue-blooded corporate executive with a reputation to protect. You’d much rather rein in your optimism, be realistic, aim lower and then deliver against—or even ahead of—the promise. That’s what makes you the star! But if you’re an entrepreneur, you have a chance to benefit from this optimism—as I learnt a few years ago
when I began my life as an entrepreneur. Even though it doesn’t seem so to begin with, my co-founders at 9.9 Media and I, like all good and wholesome things, represent extremes like chalk and cheese. I frustrated them endlessly with my fearless optimism—convinced them of far-out targets and how we could get to them—and then fell short of meeting them. I embarrassed them in front of our investors, and often tried talking myself into realism but it was not to be. The saving grace was that the realists were equally off the mark! I would often worry that I didn’t have what it takes to run a business, based on what I saw others doing and thinking. Equally I noticed my frustration when ideas were thrown out before being tried and the fact that my optimism always made me see possibilities where some of the others saw a problem. They would ask me clever questions to which I had no answers and I would have to back off—especially after the first couple of years of under-delivering against promises. But, my insides refused to budge—how I felt about the future and where we were headed always looked like a place I wanted to be in. The good thing about a partnership is that at any given time, someone else was feeling optimistic also so we kept at it. We chased some promising ideas and some not-so-promising ones as well—these were the times when optimism won. I am not quite sure how long this could have lasted but, honestly, I got lucky. A couple of years ago, lots of literature started showing up on how entrepreneurs are different from corporate managers, and how an essential ingredient differentiating the two was the quantum of optimism they came with. Never before has optimism got such good press, and eager followership. Watch Suddenly I felt less out of place. A reputed the below TED talks on the subject of optimism. Use the ideas in the videos to identify your own optimism appetite. professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, Saras Sarasvathy, identifies the entrepreneurial DNA The Case for Optimism with the following characteristics: —Larry Brilliant • Get on with it, instead of waiting for We’ve known about global warming for 50 years and done little about it, says Google.org director Larry Brilliant. In spite of this and other the perfect time, place, opportunity. The depressing trends, he’s optimistic and tells us why. (www.ted.com) underlying belief is that you don’t need all the answers before you get started because there will be as much if not greater opporThe Optimism Bias tunity in the future. And that the path will —Tali Sharot Are we born to be optimistic, rather than realistic? Tali Sharot shares new clear up as we go along. research that suggests our brains are wired to look on the bright side—and • Start with what you have and be prehow that can be both dangerous and beneficial. (www.ted.com) pared to walk away if it doesn’t work out (affordable loss). Entrepreneurs demonstrate a certain impatience with planning Progress is not a Zero-Sum Game —Robert Wright and too much research. My hunch is that Author Robert Wright explains “non-zero-sumness”—the network of the optimist within doesn’t want to risk linked fortunes and cooperation that has guided our evolution to this being told it won’t work out; we aren’t willpoint—and how we can use it to help save humanity today. ing to believe that till we try it! The future
Can’t Get Enough
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A New Chapter
Brain Pickings (www.brainpickings.org) is a New York-based “interestingness” digest brought out by blogger and curator Maria Popova. Popova helps discover ideas, insights, knowledge and information across a wide variety of subjects—art, literature, science, design, technology—essentially to foster connections across disciplines. Here’s her list of the Seven Essential Books on Optimism. 1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 2. Learned Optimism: How To Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin Seligman 3. Everything Is Going To Be OK by Marian Bantjes, Marc Johns and Mike Perry 4. The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain by Tali Sharot 5. An Optimist’s Tour of the Future: One Curious Man Sets Out To Answer, “What’s Next?” by Mark Stevenson 6. Live Now: Artful Messages of Hope, Happiness & Healing by Eric Smith 7. The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
isn’t predictable—it has to be imagined and according to an entrepreneur “careful forecast is the enemy of fortuitous surprise.” It’s no surprise that I agree. • Woo partners first. Instead of wasting time surveying the market for customers, find one. Just one to begin—he will get the next few and then a business will follow. There is an inherent faith in people. • Sweat competitors later. Entrepreneurs worry less about competitors because they believe if they can be successful for themselves, then why bother about others. Actually, they worry less. Period. • Don’t limit yourself. Entrepreneurs believe that the reality has the potential to be better than it seems just now. They don’t want to limit themselves on the basis of currently available incomplete information. In fact, their enthusiasm around future possibilities is what keeps them going.
The more I think about these, the more I recognise the die-hard optimist in the entrepreneurial DNA. One more thing, Dewitt Jones, a National Geographic photographer urges everyone to “celebrate what’s right with the world”. Is this yet another way to think about optimism? He goes further and says, “focusing on what’s right gives us the energy to fix what’s wrong”. That sounds like people who build and create, doesn’t it? As if all this wasn’t good enough to help me feel less like a freaky optimist, but just because I expect it to, it keeps getting even better. Recent research by Tali Sharot, a renowned psychologist and neuroscientist, suggests that 80 per cent of the human race has an “optimism bias”. So, it’s not just entrepreneurs, it is most of us. If you’ve ever been accused of being too optimistic, don’t worry. I am okay, and so are you. January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 4 5
The Optimism
Realist
how motivation and emotion determine our expectations of the future, and impact our everyday decisions, memories and ability to learn. Her book, The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, based on Sharot’s original research demonstrates the surprising biological basis for optimism. She, in fact, suggests that 80 per cent of all people hold optimistic beliefs, and view the future with an optimism bias that makes them believe life will be better in the future (in terms of their health, careers or personal relationships) even if there isn’t sufficient basis for such a forecast. Her research holds special significance for entrepreneurs, many of whom are on the higher side of the optimism spectrum in any case. Shreyasi Singh spoke to Sharot over Skype recently. Here’s an excerpt of that conversation. 4 6 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
PHOTO COURTESY SUBJECT
Tali Sharot is the director of the Affective Brain Lab (funded by a fellowship from the Wellcome Trust) and a faculty member of the department of Cognitive Perceptual and Brain Sciences at UCL, London. She investigates
Optimism++
Q: You say that to make progress, people need to be able to imagine alternate realities, and that we need to believe we can achieve them. You refer to this as mental time travel, and also that positive expectations enhance the chance of survival. Clearly, that is the upswing of optimism. Is it also why optimism is so closely linked to entrepreneurship because much of the above sounds like a day in the life of an entrepreneur? A: People have found that entrepre-
neurs are more optimistic than other people. But, the question is are you more likely to become an entrepreneur if you are positive, or are you likely to become more optimistic because you are an entrepreneur? Well, both of those are true. In our research, we found that yes, entrepreneurs are generally more optimistic than others, and when you compare their optimism before and after they became entrepreneurs, they tend to become more optimistic as a consequence of being entrepreneurs.
Q: Does that bring up the naturenurture debate as far as optimism is concerned? Do we become less, or more optimistic as a result of our life experiences? Or, are we biologically hardwired? A: Well, it seems like both those notions are true. For
example, in twin studies on optimism, we have found that 30 per cent of the optimism bias is genetically determined. That is the normal across personality characteristics in general. Take stress, for example. How we respond to stress is genetically determined. This response to stress influences optimism. We have found that stress reduces optimism. On the other hand, it has also been found that lack of optimism increases stress. So, just as with depression, scientific research has found that there is an interaction between genes, and your environment—that you might have a genetic vulnerability to depression which is then triggered by an event. Optimism is the mirror image of depression, and so it is influenced both by your genetic composition, and your life experiences.
Q: If life experiences can influence our optimism, can we consciously work to mould the architecture of our brain, and become more or less optimistic, if we tried? A: There isn’t a lot of research on that. Dr. Martin
Seligman is one of the academics who talk about this. His research shows that the way you interpret failure can be worked on. For example, one can interpret failure as a permanent failing; that a project failed because you believe you are a bad engineer. Or, you can take something you failed in, and interpret that as a consequence with a flexible, contextual reason—that the failure happened because you got the equation wrong, or hadn’t made the right preparation. Over time, training the brain to think that way can help. And, the reverse is true for optimism. If you interpret your success to believe that it happened because of your inherent personality traits, it makes you more optimistic of success in the future. Seligman has trained people on interpretation. So, yes, there is some ability to change that. Q: What is the one lesson for entrepreneurs from the optimism bias? Are there ways in which this understanding can positively reflect in their management styles—in terms of planning, strategy, team building and motivating employees? A: Actually, when it comes to entrepreneurs, it’s impor-
tant to see the negative side of the optimism bias. In any case, entrepreneurs are high up on the optimism scale. Entrepreneurs should understand that it isn’t always true that the more optimistic you get, the higher your chances of success. At some point, the success-optimism relationship starts reversing. It’s important therefore for entrepreneurs to be aware that you might be misinterpreting your calculations. When confronted with actual data that might be contrary to their plans and objectives, very optimistic entrepreneurs are likely to dismiss the data. Their optimism bias might lead them to believe that the likelihood of something not working out doesn’t apply to them as much as it does to others. This can compromise their ability to plan effectively—to budget accurately for how long things will take, or how much they will cost. It is wise then for entrepreneurs to be strongly aware of their biases. It’s interesting. It is possible to hold on to your optimism which I most recommend, and also be aware of it. It’s like a visual illusion. When you first see it, the illusion is all you see. Then, somebody explains it to you, and you know the reason for the illusion happening. You can still see the illusion but you know why it is so. January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 47
Tactics. Trends. Best Practices.
Strategy
Branding Happy Feet Dance your way to a great brand
PHOTOS.COM
Ever tried to get someone to dance to your
tunes and failed? Take a lesson from Dollar International. The Kolkata-based hosiery firm convinced nearly 2,000 people to tap their feet to the background score of its TV commercials—part of the company’s campaign to make itself popular in the youth segment. So, as an extension of Dollar’s new TV commercial last summer that featured
dance maestro Prabhu Deva and Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar, the company launched an online dance competition to target a younger consumer base through its Facebook page. The ad showed Kumar and Deva competing with each other in a dance competition where the actor emerges the winner and the maestro compliments him with the brand’s tag line Tu Fit Hai Boss.
The company integrated that idea into a digital campaign where it asked people to download the TV commercial’s soundtrack from its microwebsite, make a dance video with them in it, and upload it on the company’s Facebook page. Top five winners were to receive cash prizes up to `1 lakh. The campaign was launched on March 25, 2013 and was initially scheduled to run for 15 days. But, the January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 49
Strategy
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Some memorable social media campaigns of 2013 The Cuban Guy
As Parle Agro plans to launch its new drink, Café Cuba, a coffee flavoured carbonated drink, in February this year, it has started a social media campaign to get people to taste the drink before its launch. The company has created a fictional character from Cuba called The Cuban Guy who not just introduced the drink in Spanish and broken English, but continues to urge people to try out the drink with his trademark Señorita and Señor references. Why Cuba, you ask? To mark a coffee revolution.
Gear Up Buddies
Jabong.com launched a digital fitness campaign to promote PUMA gear on its website. The company developed an interactive 26-minute long video featuring PUMA’s Fitness Ambassador Chitrangada Singh with 1,700 annotations that allow users to watch different fitness regimes. As Chitrangada and her fitness buddies change their gear for every regime, users can simply click on a PUMA clothing item and buy it directly from Jabong.
A Superstar Resume
Recruitment platform Shine.com promoted its professional CV writing services by creating the CV of a superstar on LinkedIn.
The company created a hilarious (of course, fictional) profile and resume of superstar Rajnikanth on LinkedIn, and when that created enough buzz on the internet, transferred the campaign to Twitter, where people were asked to connect to Rajnikanth’s LinkedIn profile and then tweet a quirky skill that would be added to his resume. In return, people won gift vouchers.
The Tagging Drive
Bangalore-based NGO, Once Again launched a very successful Facebook campaign as a part of Ogilvy & Mather, Bangalore’s CSR activities last year. The campaign nominated 30-40 people as volunteers who tagged clothes, shows or bags on their friends’ three to four year old photographs on Facebook. When the users click on the tag notification, they are directed to the cover page of Once Again.
The Photo Contest
Zomato ran a simple photo contest on Instagram last year where users had to simply take a food shot and share it on Instagram hashtagging Zomato. The best photo based on quality, composition, votes and content, won the user a digital camera.
PHOTOS.COM
campaign’s popularity forced the company to extend the deadline to a month, recalls Bidyut Nath, Dollar’s head of advertising. “We could have gone for contests or other passive competitions to increase engagement on our social media outlets, but we really wanted active participation of our potential customers,” explains Nath. “Ours is a mass-market brand and a need-based product, so it was important to get people talking about the brand to enhance brand recall,” he says. The whole process of participation seems cumbersome and requires significant effort for people to be a part of the competition, contends Indranil Mitra, vice president, Lowe Lintas, the creative agency behind the campaign. Mitra says they hadn’t expected more than 500 videos. Yet, there were 5,000 downloads of the soundtrack and Dollar claims to have received about 2,000 videos from people across the country—including smaller centres such as Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Guwahati and Allahabad—dancing to the 45-second soundtrack. The entries included both solo and group performances and because of the absence of an age limit, the campaign saw entries from young children and middle-aged persons as well. Another aim of the campaign was to create hype around the company’s Facebook page so that more and more people got feeds about the brand on their walls. Before the campaign had started, there were about 50,000 Facebook “likes” that grew to over a lakh by the end of the campaign. The analytics of the page helped the team understand the actual demographics of its potential customers that were different from those originally thought by the company, admits Mitra. “The benefit of social media over traditional media is that you get to know who your customer is. On TV, you don’t know who saw your ad and who will buy your product. In fact, our aim was to bring down the age group of our potential buyers from the usual mass market of 25-30 year-olds to 18-23 year olds, which was the average age group of the participants, and we achieved it,” he says.
Strategy
The criteria for winning the competition were kept simple. Participants who chose any other song to dance or did not say the brand’s tagline at the end were disqualified. From amongst the pool of entries that qualified, the best dancers were chosen. While Nath claims that the company never asked the participants to buy its products for the video, nearly 20 to 30 per cent of the videos are of people wearing Dollar vests and dancing to the song to make their entries stand apart. “What more could a brand ask for? We had so many youngsters dance to our song and use our brand’s tagline. They must have played the soundtrack several times and practiced their moves for days to make those videos,” Nath says. Ten videos were shortlisted by the Dollar and Lowe Lintas teams. Brand ambassador Akshay Kumar chose the final winners.
The benefit of social media is that you get to know who your customer is. On TV, you don’t know who saw your ad and who will buy your product. —Indranil Mitra, vice president, Lowe Lintas Dollar spent about `15 lakh on the digital campaign. If one adds the print support, hoardings and other media to promote the campaign, the company effectively spent about seven to nine per cent of its total turnover that year. Convincing the top management to spend these resources wasn’t easy, Nath says. “Even five lakhs seemed like an extravagance to spend on a digital
campaign to our management. I had to struggle for two years to convince them, and get their buy in to launch the Facebook campaign. Digital isn’t easily understood in companies of our size. There is still the notion that money is better spent on TV and print campaigns.” Vinod Gupta, managing director, Dollar International, admits that initially there were apprehensions about the success of the campaign because it was such a new approach. That scepticism has now transformed to great enthusiasm for the possibilities that digital media presents to a company such as theirs. Recently, Dollar, in fact, appointed ILS Network, a specialised digital media agency, to design and execute more digital campaigns. The company claims it has been growing at 25 per cent year on year, and expects to cross `650 crore in revenue by next fiscal from last year’s `456 crore. —Ira Swasti
strategy
The Way I Work | Ashwini Deshpande, Elephant Strategy + Design
“I don’t feel the need to get away from work, or to unwind.” Along with a group of five batchmates from the National Institute of Design, Ashwini Deshpande set up the multi-disciplinary design consultancy Elephant Strategy + Design in 1989 with a singular mission—to create design awareness in the country. The appreciation of design, especially design for business, was totally absent in India. Elephant’s young and driven team went from client to client advocating the benefits and need for good design. Those efforts seem to have paid off. Today, Elephant is one of India’s biggest design consultancies with at least 50 projects at any given point. Yet, 25 years later, Deshpande says her enthusiasm for what she does hasn’t waned at all. She continues to carve out time on Saturdays to play the role of a design evangelist. At work, her focus is simple—creating happy, productive employees, and satisfied clients. As told to Sonal Khetarpal | Photographs by Jiten Gandhi 5 2 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
I get up around 6.30am. My three cats get up before me and start meowing the moment
they see I am awake. So, before doing anything else, I feed them. On a good day, I go for a 3-5km brisk walk. On lazy days which is almost every alternate day, its coffee and newspaper. This is followed by piping hot breakfast—paranthas, french toast, scrambled eggs. For some reason, we are very big on breakfast. And, it has to be a different menu every day. After breakfast, I usually work for around half an hour at home, if not more. We have an office in Singapore. Due to the time difference, they start their work day two and a half hour earlier. Mails from Singapore team start pouring in by 7am our time. So, before leaving home I ensure all deliverables from Pune team to be made to Singapore are planned. Office is about 20 minutes drive and I am usually in by 10am. Most people are already in by then. As we have flexi timings, they are free to come in any time between 8.30am to
Simply Successful Deshpande’s creative high comes when she sees customers buy products designed by Elephant.
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10.30am. Actually, flexibility is an idea we’ve slowly got used to. In the initial years, I was conscious about people not being on time or wasting time talking to each other. That insecurity isn’t there anymore. Over the years, I’ve experimented with giving people their space and letting them work from home. And, I have seen people perform exceptionally well in these cases. The one thing we’re particular about though is Monday morning. We expect everyone in the office—all 60 of us—to be in by 10am for our Monday morning meeting where we gather at our outdoor cafe, The Palm Beach. The cafe is an open space between our two black-and-white-striped office buildings. Obviously, there is no beach but we had planted coconut trees there a few years back. It’s usually me who talks to everyone. I don’t really have to have an agenda for these meetings—the conversation can be about an interesting story, a big project, new trends or a team members’ achievement. The main idea is to start the week together on a positive note by seeing each other and giving everyone a chance to discuss their views. This weekly meeting has become a ritual for all of us. It’s such a joy to see people hugging each other during these sessions just because they couldn’t meet the week before or missed each other during the weekend. It is this culture of genuine friendship that we have tried to inculcate as the company’s culture. We want to create an environment where people can form personal bonds. Friendship is at the genesis of Elephant—my husband Ashish, Partho and I have been very good friends since college. We do this by making sure we have a lot of fun events and joint celebrations in the office. For one, we celebrate all festivals with great enthusiasm. For Ganesh Chaturthi, we all made our own Ganesha idols out of clay and newspaper in office. Fortunately, India is a country teeming with festivals. We also have our annual dinner and dance event, EleFunk, and the Elephant Premier League, our cricket match series.
eam work is the very essence of design. In fact, we are named Elephant because we were so inspired by the story Blind Men and the Elephant. In the story, a group of blind men touch an elephant and write about their experience. Each one feels a different part. So, one describes it as a wall, another as a rope, and for the third it is a pillar. They compare notes and learn how each version is true in itself but also incomplete. To get a sense of the complete picture, they have to put all the perspectives together. This is exactly what design is—finding a solution to a problem in a creative way. Each designer brings her own creative piece to complete the jigsaw puzzle. It is this philosophy that governs my professional as well as my personal life. My husband and I make our life work on collaboration. We take equal responsibility of what needs to be done at work and at home. If he is busy at home, I fill in for him at Elephant and vice versa. Even our son, who is now 20 years old, is not solely my responsibility. It was not the case even when he was much younger. Whatever we do, it is always our shared responsibility. That makes life easy and helps to maintain work life balance. In office, Ashish, Partho and I have very well defined roles. I take care of business development and communication design, Ashish heads product innovation team, and Partho is responsible for research, strategy and talent development in the company. In spite of that, we are closely connected. Our roles though clearly marked are not water-tight and we are forever filling in for each other. Three of us also share the same room in office to work. It is just like college days where we use to sit together to do projects. So there is no need for any formal meetings between us. Whatever we need to discuss we just have to turn around, crane our neck a bit and start talking. As creative people we understand how important discussions are. This is because creative people have a tendency to fall in love with their first idea. We think our first idea is the greatest idea and we cannot look beyond it. It’s how we all are
“It is the culture of genuine friendship that we have tried to inculcate in the company’s culture.” 5 4 | INC. | January/FEbruary 2014
strategy
intrinsically. And, there is nothing we can do to negate it. That is why we discuss everything among ourselves to get a more rational view of things. We encourage this attitude even within our teams. To encourage critical analysis of ideas, I have asked my team of designers to mail me the two or three ideas they worked on that day. Ideally, I would like to meet my team every day. It is from talking to them that I get all the positive energy I need. But, that does not always happen. So, this e-mail at the end of every work day helps me know what they are thinking and where they are getting their inspiration from. Reading their The Many Shades of Contentment Ashwini Deshpande doesn’t look to nature ideas helps to keep the designer in or other sources for inspiration. Her team meetings are the best dose of me alive. This practice also helps positive energy, she says. me spot which projects require my intervention, and which ones are progressing well. My first hour in office is usually spent in reading and replying to these mails. Earlier designers would bundle up their fees with other tangible On most days, after I finish with my e-mails, we have team costs like production or printing cost. This was because clients meetings at 11.30am, typically on the important projects so we would see it as a marketing expense and were hesitant to pay more. can plan what needs to be done for the rest of the day. We have We had to work to change that mindset. the next round of meetings at 3.30pm—for those not very urgent Over the past 15 years, design awareness has certainly projects but to plan for the big ongoing projects. Since very few improved in the country. All our projects now come through of our clients are based out of Pune, we connect to them through referrals. Now, our advocacy is to drive change in the industry, not conference calls which we try to schedule in one of these time to get work for ourselves. In 2009, we became the founding memslots. Having time slots helps to keep the day-to-day functioning bers of Association of Designers of India (ADI), a body of profesrather organised. But since conference calls are not always sional designers that works for awareness, promotion and well enough, I travel once a week, mostly to Mumbai, Delhi, Bangabeing of the profession. Most Saturdays are meant to do Associalore, Hyderabad or Ahmedabad where a lot of our clients are tion’s work or spent in planning and delivering lectures at local based. These are mostly day-long trips and I prefer coming home management schools to spread design awareness. This is my way of for the night despite having to stretch the day. giving back to the profession that I absolutely love. Another reason I travel is to speak at design-related conferA lot of people ask me about what hobbies do I have. I don’t ences. Sometimes I speak at schools or management institutes think I have any. I enjoy my work and that is my hobby. I don’t feel too so future managers of the country understand the importhe need to get away from work or to unwind. When I see products tance of design and how it can benefit the business. As of now, I designed by us in a customer’s basket in a supermarket, or the have lectured in more than 20 countries. Rockefeller Foundahoardings made by us in a sports stadium, it is at moments like this tion’s Bellagio Summit on Social Impact, Copenhagen Co-crethat I feel an absolute high. ation Summit and ICOGRADA Vancouver Design Week are Recently, we designed the 1.5 feet tall memento that Sachin some of the important platforms where I have presented. Tendulkar got from The Board of Control for Cricket in India We took the onus to promote design on ourselves when we (BCCI) at the Wankhede Stadium on November 14, 2013. We had incorporated our company in 1989. Then, design as a busidesigned it at a very short notice. The level of excitement that day ness didn’t exist in Indian corporate landscape. There were only in the office was huge; that the memento designed by us was presmall, boutique design firms. And, people would associate sented to the great cricket legend. It is when projects like this come design with fashion or interior design. What we did was neither to us I feel we have made a mark. What I am keen to do is design of that. So we started with educating potential clients about the sports identity for the Olympics whenever the Games come to design. In fact, we were the first company to ask for design fees. India. That is my dream project and I am eagerly waiting for it. January/FEbruary 2014 | INC. | 5 5
founders forum TEN Questions for Sharad Jobanputra
The founder of supply chain solutions company Sequel Logistics has found the secret sauce to go beyond customers expectations. Motivating employees remains his biggest challenge though. What have you learnt about yourself while running your business?
That I am very impatient. I want everything to be done yesterday. I don’t like procrastination and if it happens, I get very restless. What was the hardest lesson you learnt during your first year in business?
What is your greatest strength as a leader? I lead from the front. I personally track all our 70 vehicles. Every half an hour I get a status update from each vehicle— that’s 140 emails every hour of the day! Whom would
you trade places with for a day?
What part of your job would you gladly give up?
I am tired of reading legal documents and financial statements. Going through them word by word is very boring. What’s the one thing you wish you knew before you started the business?
At the age of 22 when I started the business I never thought I will have to spend a lot of time managing the business environment—the government officials, different permits, certifications and approvals required.
What have you sacrificed for success?
Family time is the foremost casualty. I haven’t taken a vacation with my family in the last ten years.
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With my grandchildren. They lead a carefree life. I, too, would love to be out of this rat race. What’s the best motivator for employees?
A few words of appreciation. No amount of money can bring joy like personal acknowledgement and recognition of one’s work. If you could time travel, where would you be right now?
In 2114 to see how my company is faring and if it has adopted all the latest technology or not. What is the one thing your employees would be surprised to know about you?
I may not sing well, but I love to sing.
as told to Sonal Khetarpal
courtesy Subject
Accepting that my company can make losses. I got very disturbed when we made loss in the first year.