How to build a strong business model

Have we ever wondered how many businesses are founded every day across the globe ? And how many of them seen light across the years ? If they failed, why did they ? All of them had a business plan, all of them had decided carefully what products would they include in their business portfolio, it all sounded so perfect that they took the plunge; yet something might have gone wrong that they don't exist now.

Well, below are the 7 key points which have been identified as essential key points for a strong business model, identified and agreed by most entrepreneurs.  

1. Identify your specific audience.

Targeting a wide audience won’t allow your business to hone in on customers who truly need and want your product or service. Instead, when creating your business model, narrow your audience down to two or three detailed buyer personas. Outline each persona’s demographics, common challenges and the solutions your company will offer. As an example, Home Depot might appeal to everyone or carry a product the average person needs, but the company’s primary target market is homeowners and builders.

2. Establish business processes.

Before your business can go live, you need to have an understanding of the activities required to make your business model work. Determine key business activities by first identifying the core aspect of your business’s offering. Are you responsible for providing a service, shipping a product or offering consulting?

3. Record key business resources.

What does your company need to carry out daily processes, find new customers and reach business goals? Document essential business resources to ensure your business model is adequately prepared to sustain the needs of your business. Common resource examples may include a website, capital, warehouses, intellectual property and customer lists.

4. Develop a strong value proposition.

How will your company stand out among the competition? Do you provide an innovative service, revolutionary product or a new twist on an old favorite? Establishing exactly what your business offers and why it’s better than competitors is the beginning of a strong value proposition. Once you’ve got a few value propositions defined, link each one to a service or product delivery system to determine how you will remain valuable to customers over time.

5. Determine key business partners.

No business can function properly (let alone reach established goals) without key partners that contribute to the business’s ability to serve customers. When creating a business model, select key partners, like suppliers, strategic alliances or advertising partners. Using the previous example of Home Depot, key business partners may be lumber suppliers, parts wholesalers and logistics companies.

6. Create a demand generation strategy.

Unless you’re taking a radical approach to launching your company, you’ll need a strategy that builds interest in your business, generates leads and is designed to close sales. How will customers find you? More importantly, what should they do once they become aware of your brand? Developing a demand generation strategy creates a blueprint of the customer’s journey while documenting the key motivators for taking action.

7. Leave room for innovation.

When launching a company and developing a business model, your business plan is based on many assumptions. After all, until you begin to welcome paying customers, you don’t truly know if your business model will meet their ongoing needs. For this reason, it’s important to leave room for future innovations. Don’t make a critical mistake by thinking your initial plan is a static document. Instead, review it often and implement changes as needed.

Keeping these seven tips in mind will lead to the creation of a solid business plan capable of fueling your startup’s success.

Credit goes to Larry Alton for sharing the article. 

Do you speak startup language ?

There's been a lot of buzz around the startups these days. In last few years, many startups have come up and have gained traction due to the amount of money which has been poured into them by the venture capitalists. Some of the companies which started just 3-4 years back, have already entered into the billion-dollar club.

Such startups are a hot favorite among some of the best b-schools and young graduates, who look forward to these firms for their next jobs. There's a lot of difference in the work culture these companies have brought into the conventional professional work environment. Found a collection of words which is commonly used while talking in this entrepreneurial world, so sip a coffee and learn the new dictionary :)

Acqui-hire - This is what you do when you acquire a company more for it's top talent than it's product and services.
Burn rate - A measure of how much of investor money a startup spends every month to finance overheads, implying negative cash flows.
Bootstrap- You're doing it the hard way, with no venture capital. Your bootstrapped startup runs on it's own accruals.
Curation - A fancy new term to say 'collect' or 'organize' everything  under one umbrella.
Disruptive - Used to describe technology that displaces another; often overused by entrepreneurs and sometimes misused.
Elevator pitch - This is the '60 second' business plan pitch a startup entrepreneur needs to have in his head for whenever he bumps into the investor in an elevator.
Freemium - A sales strategy wherein you sell your core product free to customers and charge only fr the premium version. Benefits ? Low entry barriers for the customers.
First-mover advantage - You're a  first mover if you're the first to enter the market segment. So, go conquer !
Game-changing - That's what you do when you change the rules of your sector with your 'disruptive' idea.
Gamify - What you do to your product to make it fun for a user by implementing game elements.
Gross merchandise value - The total gross value of all the goods sold on an online marketplace over a certain period.
Growth hacker - This is the guy who markets or sells a product through a combination of analytical and creative thinking.
Ideation - This comes first when you're penning 'billion dollar' ideas, hoping to convert them into a business.
Impact investment - This is the money that goes to 'do-gooders' who build ventures with large scale social impact.
Intellectual capital - This is the wealth of knowledge your advisors, investors or mentors bring to the table to grow your startup.
Lean startup - This kind of company spends 'lean' amounts of money on everything, till the balance sheet doesn't permit so.
Leverage - This is what you call being street smart -- use network, technology, partnerships to your advantage,
Low hanging fruit - This is the most obvious customer or market segment you will tap as an  early stage startup before you get ambitious.
Minimum viable product - This is the first version of your product with no bells and whistles but ready for market adoption.
Monetize - The crucial, life-changing method to make money from your product or service. Can't monetize ? Then you can't succeed.
Pain point - The nagging, troublig problem that a sector has that your business idea can solve.
Pivot - That's what you do when you change the course of your business but not it's focus.
Pre-money valuation - The value of your company before you take money from an investor.
Post-money valuation - That's what your company is valued at after you get funded i.e. investment plus your pre-money valuation.
Scalability - How far and wide can you spread your wings ?A term often asked by investor before they bet their bucks on you.
Sweat equity - is when a startup employee or founder is paid with stock and not cash for all the effort, toil and maybe a few tears.
Value proposition - It's what your company does to heal the 'pain point'.
Zombie company - This startup just has money to survive and feed it's founders, but has no growth premium.



(Pic from 'The Economic times' daily newspaper)

It's raining cats and dogs

SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE 

As month of July starts, sale season starts off across all malls in India. Each and every brand trying to offload their collections and hence the price war starts. The way in which monsoon showers provide relief from tiring heat of summer, this sale season acts a rain of offers, rejoicing consumers to dip their hands into the designer collections which had been too pricey till now and have become affordable overnight.

And as soon as a the sale season starts, you would see swarms of people thronging all the malls to find that latest arrival cloth piece which they might have chosen earlier but couldn't buy then for it's price. They would struggle to find the right size which fits them but is already lost in the huge pile of clothes which are thrown across the trial rooms. They would wait in long queues for their turn to come, to try on all the dresses they would have got their hands on, irrespective of whether it fits them or not.

All online deals seem to be a cherry on top on a cake at this time. Why should people spend their time waiting in queues and running along the showrooms to find their correct sizes when exclusive shopping experiences are also offerred by the online shopping stores. (Thanks to cash-on-delivery, cash-back for defective pieces, return-policies etc, all of this is made so easy). One such link is mentioned below. It offers a wide variety of products and their prices are far less than the ones in the shops. 

Amazing online shopping deal

Online deals for these products are much better priced and provide lot many options to choose from than the ones which otherwise would require hopping from mall to mall. I can shop irrespective of day and night without worrying about the store closing timings since this can close it's shooping door only at my command. So, what are we waiting for, let's make hay while the sun shines :)

Happy July !!

Happy shopping !!

Think simple, live simple . . .

Here's another nice one for you all. Got a chance to read a very impressive story about a Japanese cosmetic company. I am listing the excerpt from the article below. I am sure you would understand what one needs to do to lead a real simple life ..

One of the Japan's biggest cosmetics company once received a complaint that a customer who had bought a soap box, found the box empty.
Authorities looking at the reputation of the company immediately tried looking at the issue in assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of the soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Trying to resolve the problem, all involved in the process got together to devise a X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty at any time. No doubt, the issue would not occur again since many were working hard and monitoring the whole process with more precision this time. However, they had already invested a huge amount of money and time.

A small company employee who was posed with the same problem sometime later, did not get involved into the complications of X-rays etc, but instead came out with a cost-effective simple solution. He brought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan ON, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

This is a clear example which shows how life has become complicated for all of us who rely on all-new electronic gadgets and machinery in our daily lives. This man's thinking shows us how simply a task can be resolved when you focus on solutions instead of problems.


Think simple, live simple ..

No one let's you climb the stairs !

Read it somewhere and found it very much apt in today's world. With growing policies and protocols around the companies of the world, this turns out to be an eye-opener. Go on keep reading !


Start with a cage containing five monkeys.
Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done round here.


And that, my friends, is how company policies are made !!

With few days of stay remaining in Bangalore, I, with some of my best friends, planned for a trip before leaving Bangalore. And the destination was finally decided as the "Venice of the East" , yes Alleppey (also known as Alappuzha in malayalam), a town with picturesque canals, backwaters, beaches, and lagoons.

As we began to check out the transportation options, places to see, houseboat options, etc we realized that transportation options were limited - Only 1 train which leaves from Bangalore to Alleppey on friday evening and as far as road transportation was concerned, most of the volvo buses would leave around 5-7pm which wasn't the convenient time for us (Obviously, boys don't pack bags, they fill it in last moments. so, we planned for coming back from office, fill stuff in bags and be ready to go :)). We looked for direct trains, trains till nearby stations, even considered changing over trains to reach the destination, direct buses, changing buses to reach destination, self drive car hire, taxi cabs. As days passed, since only 2-3 days were left before our travel date, our options were reducing. Buses where last seats were available were also filled now. No more late evening buses were available, self drive car hires were asking for lot of money, well beyond our estimated budget. With no options further, we got into a discussion to postpone or delay the trip by one day. Earlier we had planned for 2 nights, 3 days trip, but now it seemed impossible. Then from nowhere did we get an idea to check with our KSRTC buses and bingo ! we found an airavat volvo bus leaving at 8:30pm and that too where we had choice to select seats. Can you imagine the height of our spirits, with a bang, we were back on track. All set to go, with airavat volvo booking done, package with houseboat personnel finalized, returning tickets for monday evening; here we were, setting foot out of Bangalore together. We knew things would never ever be same again when we would come back, with most of us packing bags and heading out of Bangalore in different directions of the country.. This trip is gonna be one of it's kind .. 
Here we come Alleppey !

Queue up !!

Just take a look at the pic and guess what are we looking at ..

queue for washrooms? no

queue for movie tickets? no

queue for railway ticket reservation? no

queue for a voting? NO

Guess what, this is the rush on sunday evening at the entrance of a "Mantri mall" in bangalore :)

Yes, this queue is for entering the mall.

If you notice, most of the crowd doesn't have bags for checking, so this line up is not due to delay in checking of bags; plus there was another entry gate with similar long queue.. All this just to enter the mall.

This mall in malleshwaram, is one of it's kind in Bangalore. Huge and gigantic as compared to other malls in Bangalore. Hosts lot of brands, good spread of eat-joints across the floors, many options for shopping clothes, accessories, leather bags, suitcases, bangles etc etc. Since, this mall is huge, you might want to consider taking a break at some restaurant or food court before looking through each shop. (There aren't any seating places in the common floor area which can be used)

Though security people weren't found on each floor, this is something mall people should look into(after mishaps happening in one of the mall in Bangalore, this is definitely a concern).

Few things which caught my attention and definitely stand out as compared to other malls in the city:

While strolling and gearing up for window shopping, I came across many small shop-like counters on some of the floors which included ice-cream parlous, accessories just like any other mall. But if you're looking keenly, you would be surprised to see a counter "Chai time" (i guess that was the name). Yes, this counter is exclusively for tea ("chai" in hindi); many people standing in middle of a shopping mall and sipping tea while enjoying the advertisement events organised in the common floor area.

Food court of this mall is located on the top floor. With open area and some restaurants along with food counters, it gives good options from Rajdhani, Oval-bar (yes, there is a drinking area in the mall), South Indies, Taj Express, Beijing bites etc. Though the seating arrangement is not smoothly done and is spread across over a large area with obstructions in view (due to fountains, common dais meant for some event, i guess) you need to struggle a bit to find if seats are available.

With "Taco bell" opening their only store of Bangalore in this mall, it makes your overall experience more pleasant. Guess what, their menu has been customized for veggies too (now that is something veggies should definitely rejoice about :)). Snacks from here along with chilled fuitistas(chilled crushed ice fruit slush) or their bottom-less coke(yes, with taco bell, bottom-less pepsi/coke is back in city) ended by day picnic on a good note.

Temples and parks used to be evening public stroll areas of the past. Today, malls are becoming the evening public stroll area. With people coming in this huge numbers, malls might need to gear up more than expected :D

Considering the spread of options for shopping, eat-out options, ice-cream parlors, chai-wala, taco-bell, security, seating arrangement, this mall goes the following rating:

Options for shopping: 4.5

Options for Eating: 4

Service: 3

Parking space: 3.5

Reduce Traffic, reduce pollution !!

You get up in morning, have your breakfast, some bbye(s) to your family, with head held high, great enthusiasm you step out of home, and onto the road on your way to your work and . .. .

horn horn horn !!! aaaaaaaaaaah, traffic !!!

We talk about growing traffic on road, we talk about growing pollution, we talk about public facilities required to travel from home to office, we ask for facilities like office cabs to go to work ..

Can there be an end to this ? May be it's time to think radically ..

Many problems, One solution, work from home :)

In IT world, where professionals are just another IP addresses, sitting in their cubicles, logged onto remote servers, why can't that cube be a corner at their home? If organisations do provide this means in case of personal emergencies, due to health reasons, etc; why this becomes difficult to be accepted as a normal work routine? In this world of growing technology where video conferencing has come down to mobiles, do we really need people physically present in same conference room to talk?

So, talk people, why?

Are we talking about security of data? If yes, then what happens when people login from home? And I don't think it's too difficult to devise ways to protect that, is it?

In this growing world, let's question and think about something which might seem simple in solution, but is rejected because of it's simplicity.

Let's reduce traffic, let's reduce pollution, let's work from home :)

What would you give to keep a smile on those faces

While travelling to office, when my vehicle stops at traffic light, I see children swarmed on the junction, collecting money by selling small packets of ear buds, balls, desk lights, flowers etc. And I wonder, shouldn't these children be at school at this morning hour, but then who would pay for their fees, who would feed their hungry stomach. We have been blessed to receive these. Not everybody else is. Let's give these children a helping hand so that they can enjoy education as we did. Let's bring back smile on those faces which have wrinkled working under harsh sun. Let's make a difference by whatever means we can ..

Of many organisations which are involved in empowering social sector in India, one which I have personally followed and found to be working with great results is "Sambhav Foundation"

About Sambhav Foundation

Sambhav Foundation has worked passionately in the social sector to empower and transform lives!

The projects at Sambhav are:
1. Early Intervention and Education: Children born at risk having delayed development are provided intense intervention to help minimize their difficulties.
2. Self Enrichment: Students of two schools in past three years acquired coping skills based on WHO and program designed by the organisation. Another program with 546 students at Uttarahalli government school, in collaboration with the Mindtree Foundation, titled as Sambhav-Mindshare.
3. Village Development: Funds raised at the last 10KRun impacted 370 villagers on healthcare, education, livelihood and basic amenities as there are no roads, toilets or drinking water facilities.
4. Balika Siksha project (Girl child education): Funded tuition fees of 15 children with emphasis on skill and personality development to pursue a great future. Donors also interact and mentor these children.

Website : http://sambhavfoundation.org/
Email : sambhavfoundation@yahoo.co.in

While I was interacting with the organisation and finding out more details about their projects, I saw, the energy in the volunteers, the passion with which they talked about the projects, charted out plans how these projects would work; and that inspired me to support the group and involve myself in the activities of these project, a path by which I can contribute my bit to the society.

I decided this would be my way to bring back smiles on those faces !

Why blog?

I am easily flattered by people who are able to express their feelings in words. This has been very tough for me since childhood. Shying away from people is very easy for me and against that expressing myself in words is not at all a ball game.

However, over the years people around me have been very influential and here i am bitten by the blog bug. If this is how I am supposed to start off expressing my feelings about various topics that i feel happy or sad about, then so be it.

This blog profile has been created to talk about those topics which I see in my daily life around me; related to happenings in society, politics, relationships between people around me, games, movies, trips, restaurants, vacations, long trips, night drives etc. The aim of this blog would not be to support a political group, or to advertise a product, or to give views which have been bought at a price; this blog would show the feelings of a common man, a simple common man. This blog would help me express my feelings for the topics listed above, views which generally people carry and conflicting or supporting opinions by others.

This is going to be my way to take all of these views to the outer world, world where people crib, world where people care, world where people love to listen, world where people love to share... And this is how it would begin .. . .