Vijay Anand | The Startup Guy - Latest Comments in Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

PrasannaKrishnamoorthy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:15:51 -0000

This blog covers some of the stuff you were talking about in Instant Noodles from a first person perspective.

http://diffle-history.blogs...

Makes for a very good read.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vijay — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:23:02 -0000

Srikrishna,

Nope I havent forgotten them. Those (outside of the IT - I wouldnt even call it Web 2.0) sectors are doing just fine in the way they are focusing and building organizations, products and the brand.

But they are also beyond the circle of influence of these grassroot level interaction. I am more worried about whats happening in the eye of hurricane :) But good point.

@Rashmi We were talking about the way a company's product and culture should be positioned - brand is another topic, but the more I think about it.. how do you measure the success of a brand. Brand value and Brand equity. I cant see that being much within a year or two of the launch of something.

Also the deal is in building a brand that lasts. I mean, there was Kazaa... considering that people still remember it, its a great brand, but really what does it stand for? Maybe a not so good example, but hopefully you get the idea.

Or Maybe its just me who cant think of a single brand built over a year.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Rashmi Ranjan Padhy — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:35:36 -0000

I am also ok ... :)

This is the fun of having a debate ... both sides do not agree ... but are ok :D

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

K. Srikrishna — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:46:08 -0000

Dear Vijay,
One of your strongest posts yet! Thanks for stepping back and holding up a mirror for all. Will try to cover fresh ground - as other commentators have covered a fair bit.

[a] first agree with your core premise - trawling blogs and talking to 20 something entrepreneurs and new (to India) VCs one gets the sense of instant noodles and little of "Build[ing] to Last"
[b] HOWEVER, much of the discussion here and in other blogs at times appears to indicate that other than the Web (2.x) there is nothing happening in the Indian startup scenario - to provide some contrast

[b1] any semiconductor, pharma or embedded system startup needs easily 12-18 months just to get a product out the door and three years to know if they are going ot be around - and that's for the good ones; Sasken, OpenSilicon, earlier Arcus, Impulsesoft, FutureSoft, Emuzed are all examples of this; as are Reddy's, TTK Health or Ranbaxy
[b2] there is a slew of educational (classrooms or books) and manufacturing startups, talking to whom it will be clear that there are no instant noodles and the three/five year rule applies
[b3] it has been fashionable, right from the time Al Gore "invented" the Internet to talk of Internet time - but the basics of building team, product, marketing and supporting customers and building a brand has not gotten any faster, even if your RoR app is up in five days!

My sense is that even in Proto.in or other entrepreneurial forums it is critical for us to step back and view the entrepreneurial scene in the bigger context and not solely frame it in Infosys/Wipro, Google/Microsoft or Twitter/Web2.0 sound bites.

Reminds me of periodic discussions in the Valley of how shortsighted VCs are; however over 30 years any number of VCs have shown their perseverance to put in $80-100M into each semi startup to still see only 1 in 10 survive and thrive. Part of the problem I suspect is to do with youth of the audience and the boundaries we put on our discussions! Keep 'em coming.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vijay — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:20:15 -0000

Rashmi: Hmm.. I still wouldnt agree, but thats okay :)

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Rashmi Ranjan Padhy — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:09:32 -0000

Vijay,

For websites and software products, I still believe, this will not work. So startups should never just have fun taking 3 years as their playground and some one from the back would go past them.

For a startup to survive, they have to be fast, furious and at the same time, give time to build the brand. I see no reason why a brand can not be built in a year.

To build a brand, focus is very much important, and if you have the focus, then it can also be built in year and may not require 2-3 years.

Just a question, Do you think, Proto comes in the category of building a company for years? I think otherwise. Proto was a success in the 1st year itself. And it has not taken 2-3 years to be a success or a brand. It can be taken as an example of fast, furious and building a brand.
Thanks,
Rashmi Ranjan Padhy
www.rashmiranjanpadhy.com

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vivek — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:06:41 -0000

The takeaway from this post should be :
Instant noodles are much quicker to make,
easier to throw away, contain just enough
nutrition to help us make it to the next pack.

There is a serious issue with Indian investors
and long gestation products. I define "long"
as just 2 or 3 years. I also agree that a
personal investment from a wealthy ex tech
entrepreneur is the best way forward for those
seeking investments in this space.

In the end, you need to track some metric that
makes sense for your business.

If the metric is not showing an uptrend, then
there needs to be a plan to push it upwards.
My previous favorite metric was counting
downloads, my current is number of searches
by our product names. I think constantly
iterating the process of improvement and
measurement will lead to a winner or a clearly
visible exit sign.

It goes without saying that if you want to
play the 'long gestation' game, you need to
be prepared to duke it out.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vijay — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:30:20 -0000

Rashmi, 3-5 years for a brand is fairly reasonable. Look at Proto.in for example, we are two years old and are just scratching the surface.

I always equated building a brand, as magnetizing steel. It takes its time, but once magnetized also holds power longer. Thats essentially the power of a brand. It most certainly needs its time. Three years, if you think about it is just 1000 days :)

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

rashmiranjanpadhy — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:44:14 -0000

hmmm I find it difficult to believe and only time will tell tht ....

However, the main purpose is to say..... companies do not take a life time to build a brand now .... and entrepreneurs should look at speed and precision to challenge the market leaders...

No matter how big the market leader is, they can be toppled from the top and the startups would be able to do that...

If someone still wants to build a brand in 3 to 5 years .... I can only hope, they have all the luck .....

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vijay — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:12:01 -0000

Rashmi, google is 12 years old and their revenue comes from ONE product. Microsoft's revenue comes from such a huge array that they are one of the most robust companies around. I wouldnt be too surprised if Google disappears off the face of the planet in a decade - unless they do something to keep that edge. Not good enough.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

rashmiranjanpadhy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:23:52 -0000

I agree to what you have said .... and I also disagree to what you have said ...

Those were the good old days when communication and speed were not at their best. It used to take days to reach US from India and 2 hours to get connected across different cities...

I do not think of Tally, Microsoft, Infosys(yes Infosys) or Wipro as my role model any more. If at all we compare their share with other upcoming ventures, their market shares is going down. Agreed that they still might be the number 1, 2 or 3, but for how long.

The world is changing fast and so is the time taken for a product or company to go up and down. Specially in the web, if a company is not showing any traction in the initial few years, it is quite difficult to come up the ladder without drastic changes. It is the same case with the traditional business as well. Change and speed seems to be the formula of success.

To conclude, I would cite a few examples, Google is about 12 years old(half of Microsoft) and is challenging Microsoft. Infosys and Wipro are not longer dream companies of fresh computer graduates and the list goes on.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Indus Khaitan — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:58:09 -0000

Good post Vijay.

I have a slightly different take on why so few double digit million dollar companies get created.

Earlier, an entrepreneur had a single chance to succeed. If you failed, life was miserable. That was also the reason an entrepreneur incubated the business for 5+ years (succeeding eventually). Starting up was also painful; so it was difficult to do it again.

However, times have changed. When taking the plunge an entrepreneur makes a 10-point agenda in his mind. The agenda revolves around learning the ropes of business at a rapid pace viz. how to incorporate, how to raise money, how to hire, how to manage people, how to run a business, how to sell a business and how not to look stupid while doing all of the above. You wanna try everything out to at least understand what it takes (every entrepreneur is different, has different goals). A good example is raising money -- we may have seen a lot of serial entrepreneurs mentioning the fact that they don't wanna raise any money from a VC; solely because they had a not so positive experience in their previous startup. On the other side, on an average, an entrepreneur makes it big on his 3rd/4th attempt (we seldom hear the failure stories if preceded by a super success).

The answer lies in the tolerance of failures and increased experimentation. So, Go ‘start it up’ – if you fail, at least you know how to (or how not to!) build a product, which in larger scheme of things is going to be good for your next startup.

Cheers,
Indus
t:1ndus

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Pranav Bhasin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:34:18 -0000

Very aptly said - makes me think about some of the conversations we had with VCs ;)

While I agree with you that the instant-noodles trend is bad, I think there are more than a few basic reasons for it.

It is widely perceived that the greed of making a quick buck is why everyone wants to have a startup. True, if you only look at inexperienced people jumping into startups and dreaming about VC funding. But look at the other side - there is a whole ecosystem that dares you to jump in and the collective intelligence of that ecosystem cannot be questioned either since there are good companies being produced out of it.

So what is going on here? My belief is that the global scenario is changing and in the true capitalistic sense, the gap between rich and poor, the gap between big companies and small companies is growing. This kind of an environment ensures that consolidation will happen at regular intervals and that is what is keeping the whole VC marketplace alive.

Another thing that changed the dynamics in a big way post 2000 is the open-source revolution. There aren't a lot many things that you can build today and claim that "this is so damn hard that no one else can build it". So the only way to save your business is to get users to adopt it fast.

So if someone really understands this and likes instant-noodles, its really not a bad thing. Sadly, a lot of people who jump in don't understand this and to add to their woes are not building something that solves a real problem. They should listen to your advice.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Rajesh M — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:14:18 -0000

a common problem is most people behind startups are techies. they want the idea to be implemented and "get it over with". handling sales teams is not something they want to do for too long.
hence the "sellout" mentality.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Harinath — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:44:03 -0000

Vijay, very interesting post and food-for-thought. What you said is very much correct. All the big companies are not built in a day/month/year, but over the period of time. I have not met many start-up's, but I strongly feel that one should have the plan of action in place and this is the first thing one should do. I know, many disagree with me. Vision, Mission and Charter are what you breath and eat. One should be very clear of what they want to do. At times, I feel the best enterprises are the Social Enterprises. Look at Ashoka etc. and also see our next door neighbor - Grameen Bank. They are classic examples of "Change the rules of the Game".

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vijay — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:27:30 -0000

Srikrishna, Lets not flatter ourselves. There is no such thing as a product which only our company is building. It has never been the case, and if it ever appeared so before, it was cause the world wasn't connect as much.

I'll tell you a case of a product which didn't have a competitor: Gilette razors. The use and throw things that we men use on a regular basis now. It started off in the 80s and it has taken it 20 years to become mainstream. Trust me, if its something solidly lifechanging, it takes its own time to seep into the fabric of the society.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Srikrishna Das — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:23:52 -0000

If you've got the product/service that is in great demand and you are the only vendor succeeding in pricing it right; you can't help growing instantly . :)
Then there is a saturation point unless you keep innovating.

Instant noodles thingy sometimes does create a brand name that sells for a substantial amount of time to give you space to innovate.

krish
element idea Labs

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Sahil Parikh — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:13:21 -0000

Bravo! This is what I wanted to hear and I am excited that there are people here in India that think this way. The law of the farm holds true for everything.

Our journey to building DeskAway was not that of a quick one like other startups - but the patience and persistence is slowly paying off now. Its sometimes a challenge to make the team understand this cause like everyone else they are looking for the rewards tomorrow!

PS - if you see, this is happening in the stock markets also. People who wanted a quick buck and got greedy were burnt pretty bad.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Paras Chopra — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:39:29 -0000

Vijay, by luck I mean that for one YouTube to succeed, there are 100s of other *good* but unknown web companies that never really make a mark. I really didn't mean pure luck by the term luck. I meant that many things have to fall into one place, for an idea to succeed.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vijay — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:53:44 -0000

Yash: Working from Nine to Six isnt the magic formula to success, neither is working 24 hours a day. Its about how you work, how productive you are and if you have a focus and know your way around. A lot comes into the picture rather than just the sheer number of hours you put into it.

Prasanna: Technologists cant sell :) That's a statement.

Vikram: Possibly, but also for the folks who are trying to take it slow and steady. I think DHH's talk at Startup School is a must watch

Vikas: That sounds about right.

Manas: Everything good is also hard. Its like abstinence :) Its so much easier to indulge and break the rules.

Kalim: Absolutely. One needs to keep focus on both, but this is essentially tied into the exit path of the company.

Titash: Thanks for the compliment. Well, you cant live in paris and decide to dress like a bum. If you want to slow down, you also want to move onto something that lets you at your pace - the reason why i think some of the so-called hubs of innovation in this country arent very friendly at all.

And building a last company means having a longer sight of things. If this company is chasing the same thing that a noodle company is chasing, then they are just lying to themselves. They are both in the same boat - except that these guys are wasting time eating gourmet :)

And VC Money is not bad. If you know exactly what you want and want to grow, VC money will give you that boost. But in the forming years that could be detrimental - that was what i was getting to

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Titash — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:44:38 -0000

Its a great post Vijay. I started reading with some
some reluctance, then got glued till the end.
My question though, coming straight from the
heart, is that in certain high-growth,
tech-intensive industries, can one really
the candle-light gourmet, while the
competition is already half-way through his
instant noodles and has hit the market?

The other point (and this might sound like
a rant) is that the market for high-tech
software products is still to mature in India.
In such a scenario, how and to whom, does an
Indian startup sell its products? Its markets
are in the US, its competition is in the US
eating into those markets, and the only way it
can reach those markets are through VC funds.

I know of atleast two startups(one of which I am very
closely associated with) that are facing this
issue right now.

so, isnt it better to have some instant noodles
if its available, than starving to death?

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Kalim Ahmed — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:05:24 -0000

There are always two type of goals i.e. short term & long term. so it depends that on which goals you are working on. vision & mission can;t be achieved with same pace.
Its a debateable topic.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Manas Garg — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 05:01:22 -0000

Hmmm. While it is easy to agree with what you say, it is extremely hard to bring it into day-to-day life. At least that's what my own experience has been. When every car around you is honking and playing a video game, it becomes very difficult to drive straight :) You not only have to stand against your own herd mentality, you have to answer 50 other people why you are not driving crazy like others :) :) It's an irony that you have to justify when you want to do it right!

It reminded me of one humorous post Hurry Om Hurry and one of my own blog Eating food one dish at a time.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vikas — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:36:03 -0000

The 3-year rule is golden and people wiser than me have convinced me that there are absolutely no workarounds. I personally do not like thinking in terms of short-term sales and profits, but more in terms of long term value. Thinking of cash flow distracts you from the long term vision, it makes you do things that doesn't add a dime to the end goal. Valuation doesn't have to mean what the company could sell for today, it could mean what it'd be worth after 5 years.

Re: Living On Instant Noodles. | Vijay Anand

Vikram — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:20:37 -0000

This post is an eye opener for the 20 something internet startup boys.. Vijay as you rightly said building business requires lot of patience and perserverance.. which is lacking in the newage entreprenaurs. Just making millions (or rather billions) in the shortest span should not be the goal .. but making difference through once product / service should be the primary goal!