Chirag Chamoli

the perfect con

A vain Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who are really swindlers(con men) that promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or “just hopelessly stupid”. The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all.

The interesting thing in above tale is merely the Product positioning and mass delusion play a larger role in making any product or service successful.

For instance “The Dirty Picture” is piece of crap, in terms of product, execution… Almost everything, except marketing. So this, makes it very difficult for anyone to say, movie is garbage, as “the masses” don’t agree with you.

So when making a product, if you can convince a influential few that your product is great, you are set.

My friend runs Iamstarting.com ( site for startups). She gets a lot of emails from a lot of “marketing” people usually stating, that so and so if a Mr/Ms Big shot and you should interview him/her and do find a 20 page PDF attached which will bore you to death and will not be helpful at all because this is created to confuse people.

Startups, please act your size

If you are a startup act your size be proud and be excited about the fact that you are a startup. People will love you more and accept you better. When you are a startup it is fun and exciting and when you approach someone, do it directly. Don’t put a fake layer in your communications. As startups people you reach out to are also interested in your personality.

On a more separate note if you are startup, do look at Iamstarting as you first startup pr in India.

I have seen a sudden growth of startup babas in Indian startup ecosystem. This is disturbing in wired way. So, I am making a checklist based on who can and cannot advise startups. Yes, I get the irony in the previous statement. You should refrain from advising any startup if….

1. You have never worked for a startup or started your own project, even if you have failed it is ok, but you should have started on your own
2. You can’t help the startup with contacts, money or technology.
3. You can’t help the startup get that magical first 1000 users
4. You are not a passionate user of product/service, who talk them up everywhere
5. You mean well, but don’t understand the idea
6. You have not been asked for it

That said, there are still some people in Indian startup industry who are doing genuine work and make things simple for new entrepreneurs, we need more such people. So on behalf of most of the Indian Startups.

Mujhe funding do, gyan nahi

We  meet a lot of good sales people whom we believe even though we know they are selling something. Sometimes we like them, they make us feel better and  connect with us through familiar stories. Then a thought struck me today morning that all or may be  most of the religious superheros like Buddha, Guru Nanak, etc from other religions too were just good sales people of their time, who were lazy. So instead of working in a farm or breeding cattle they gathered people and gave them gyan, and then we didn’t have TV or internet and people were looking for some sort of entertainment – this was good enough for them. Once the people started listening to them everyday probably they evolved the sales pitch.

So while people were inventing and building these guys were selling them spirituality and common sense :)

Just a thought, don’t mean to offend any religious sentiments.