I had to skip my breakfast early in the morning as I got up a little late. I wouldn't mind skipping some more early breakfasts' for some real discussion like the one yesterday at night.
Day 2 started with Madhu Bahai's session on "Finding Fertile Ground". He covered most of the topics from book with the same name (read more from here). Though, it was his insight and real life experiences were the ones to look forward for throughout the session.
Next up was "Building Cultures and Ethos in New Age Ventures" by Mr. Thyagarajan. We discussed Homestead.com (back in 2001) as a case study. There were considerable number of people who found the hiring, compensation and growth of the company unsatisfactory. Some even commented that the sole reason people would stick to this organisation which strives to provide good culture and thus pays 15% lesser than the industry standard is because the employees attain a comfort level. I wouldn't agree with this as I strongly believe in the "Employee s come first" philosophy. To add to it Mr. Thyaghrajan also summed some fundamental principle new age ventures should likely follow, which include honesty, work philosophy (fairness) and desire to serve people. I couldn't agree more with this thinking. Also. he stressed on WIM (what's in it for me) & WIU (what's in it for us) philosophy where the employees and employer have a clear understanding.
[updated later]
After lunch there was a session by Chirag Patel of Net4Nuts. The journey of Net4Nuts started with a web based product and now they are into mobile based value added services. He had his own list of Ps which he elaborated on. Few of the things I recollect are:
- Everyone is important. Everyone here involves just about everyone from employees, to customers and to even the accountants.
- Don't compromise with people you hire.
- Be always aware about the environment you are in.
- Be fast to change.
I was very curious about session on "Fundamentals of Finance for Entrepreneurs" by Bharat Kanani (Sr. Vice President, GVFL). The session was too quick for me to follow or may be it was lack of sleep. The only thing about accounting I know is "Debit the reciever, credit the giver", thanks to a week of commerce I attended at Narsee Mohanjee College of commerce. I would surely love to do a short course on commerce (do you know of any?). I had years back also tried to read "The Economic Times" regularly while on my bus journey to college in the morning. Most of the time (may be all times) I ended up having a refreshing sleep.
The last session of the day was by Chirag Mehta of IceNet. IceNet is a very well known ISP in Gujarat and very few (may be only one) who survived the competition from biggies like BSNL, Reliance etc. Now IceNet is also into product development with their flagship product Cyberroam client. He had a very interestion story of the tortoise and the hare to share which starts exactly from where the popular story we know ends.
During the day had some long discussions with Prof. Santosh Pullewar, Prof. Surinder Singh (both teach at Indira Institute of Management) and Neelkantappa H. s. I found them pretty receptive and humble.
Need I say looking forward for Day 3 ?
It has been learnt that significant financial irregularities have been recently uncovered at venture fund GVFL involving senior executive Bharat Kananis role in company divestments and dissolutions. Kanani was rumoured to be the successesor of GVFL head honcho Vishnu Varshney, whose resignation is being demanded by senior govt of Gujrat officials.