Tag Archives: startups

My First Media Interview

I provided an update yesterday about a Mint Lounge story featuring me. I thought some might find the story behind the story useful. So here goes.

After my initial interaction with Sidin (the writer), the process running up to this piece was a little scary since it was my first interaction with the media. Developing a severe case of coldfeetitis, I tried to get out of it but Sidin was persistent. Later, I realized that a little attention was probably good for Mavrix. Generally an introvert and a private person, I had already gone out of character by writing on this blog, tweeting and publishing my various online identities for the world to see. Opening up for the interview was a big but logical next step. I needn’t have worried. Apart from being a funny guy and a good writer, Sidin also happens to be a good listener and conversationalist, and put me at ease immediately.

While the interview ended up being a pleasant experience, the photo-shoot was anything but. After what seemed like a hundred odd clicks, I became very conscious of my plasticky, artificial smile. [Note – This was not the photographer’s fault. It’s me – I am the opposite of photogenic.]

After all this hoopla, I fretted and wondered if I had blabbered too much. Despite reassurances from friends and family, I secretly wished that the interview would be swept aside in favor of a bigger, juicier piece. Or that it would be a small piece, buried in small type, deep inside the newspaper.

It was anything but that. On the morning of the August 13, Google Analytics showed a spike of traffic on our website. My friend Google also informed me that the article had indeed been posted. I clicked the link and browsed through what seemed like a rather long piece (“Did I say all this?”). My mind went blank and I read the words without registering their meaning. I posted the link on my Facebook wall and went on to attend the business of the day. On my way back home, I bought the newspaper. When I opened the page that had the feature, I almost fell off the chair. Staring at me was the most ginormous photo of me I’ve ever seen. And the article was a full-page feature (“Did I really say all this?!”).

This time I actually read the article. And as I read it, my vital signs got back to normal. It was OK. I hadn’t made a complete ass of myself. Sidin had not written an exposé about me. A few congratulatory phone calls, Facebook comments/likes, emails and LinkedIn messages later, I actually began enjoying my 15 minutes of fame.

Now that it’s all over and I am back to the comfort of obscurity, I’d like to share of my takeaways with fellow start-uppers who are yet to go through their first media interview:

Put yourself out there. Social media, specifically Twitter, is probably the best way to have access to people who are otherwise not easily accessible. A very important part of putting yourself out there is about discovering interesting, cool people who are related to your field. I have been active on various social media platforms for just about a year now and I am still keep coming across fantastic people.
Trust your instincts. Once I got comfortable with Sidin, I shared a lot more with him than even I’ve shared with some friends. I don’t regret that.
Be honest. Or stay away from topics that you don’t want to talk about.
Don’t force your agenda. Some of my well-wishers told me that I should have spoken more about Mavrix. I respectfully disagree with them. This feature was not about Mavrix. It wasn’t even about me. It was about how liberalization impacted careers in India. I would be really ticked off if I were a reporter and someone blitzed me with information I was not interested in. Mavrix’s day in the sun will come.

Oh, and if you still haven’t read the post, it’s here.

What I Learnt From Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts On Music”

Steve Jobs wrote a piece called “Thoughts on Music” a few years ago. If you haven’t read it, please do.

It’s amazing how dated this post reads, even though it was written just 4 years ago. Think about it – Just 4 years ago Steve Jobs proposed that DRM be abolished and DRM is already a distant memory (except in countries that are not big Apple markets, like India).

The article may be dated but the lessons I learnt from it are not:

Think big. I have read this article many times and it is only during one of my revisits that I realized that there was a big disconnect between the title and the content. The title of the article should really have been “Thoughts on DRM”. I don’t think the “Thoughts on Music” title was the result of PR spin. I believe that the title is really a reflection of how Jobs’ thinks. To him, it was not abolishing DRM. To him, it was about making it easier for people to listen to music – the end, as opposed to the means.
To communicate clearly, think clearly. I totally “got” this article the first time I read it, and I thought “This guy can write!”. Over time I realized that the only way to write so clearly about such a complex topic (for most of us) is to think through it and know exactly what we want to say. Steve Jobs is a brilliant communicator because he is a brilliant thinker.
Doing it is more important than talking about it. iTunes was completely DRM free 2 years after he wrote this article. Soon after he wrote this piece, we saw the wheels in motion as one label after the other signed up for DRM-free music on iTunes. The adulation for Steve Jobs is not because of his keynote speeches but because of the accomplishments they represent.

Steve Jobs – through an ecosystem of iPods and iTunes – opened up a whole new world of music to me and millions of other people. He also taught me important lessons on thinking, communicating and doing.

Musicians Are A Lot Like Technology Startups

Life experiences (especially early ones) inspire the musician’s music and the entrepreneur’s business. John Lennon used song-writing as an escape from a troubled childhood. Richard Branson started a school newspaper when he got frustrated by rigid school rules and regulations.
Success for both musicians and startups come after a lot of hard work and learning from experience. The Beatles had played together more than 1200 times before they got noticed in 1964. Bill Gates had done 10,000 hours of programming by the age of 13.
Performing cover songs help bands launch careers but they need to deliver originals to sustain their success. Red Hot Chilli Peppers may have gotten attention through their cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” but it is their unique style of funk infused rock that gained them a large following. Similarly, startups can be inspired by existing companies but need to do something very different to deliver more value and be successful. Facebook may have started off as a Friendster clone but scaled better and innovated to become the premier online social network even as Friendster closed shop.
The musician’s first song and the startup’s first product release is always sketchy. You can’t be perfect the first time.
Both music and technology products are a result of teamwork. The band doesn’t take off till the right set of musicians come together. Indian Ocean started off with two people and saw several shake-ups till it got to the line-up that delivered success. Apple‘s early success was a result of teamwork – Steve Jobs’ marketing skills and Steve Wozniak’s engineering prowess.
Most musicians start with free gigs and startups with free products/services.
Musicians and startups make it big by persisting and continuing to do what they love and believe in. Susan Boyle made it big with Britain’s Got Talent, at age 48. Tim Westergren went through years of struggle before Pandora become the much-loved music service that it is today.

Mavrix Monthly Update April-2011

Our Tech Architect joins. Check out Thej’s profile, and the story of how we bumped into each other 8 years after we first worked together.
We finished cataloguing information for a decade of Bollywood songs.
- Why Bollywood? While we want to catalog everything with an Indian connection, we had to start somewhere. Bollywood undeniably produces the most popular music in India and seemed as good a place to start as any.
- What do we catalog? Other than what’s already available in the public domain, we are cataloguing a bunch of information that’s available only in CD inserts (at least some of them) – recording studios, instrumentalists, other credits.
- Is that it? Nope, that’s just the easy part. The tough and also the interesting part – we listen to each song and analyze it for a bunch of musical attributes. Attributes like genre and tempo, and a whole lot more. We buy CDs if they’re available and rely on online (legal) sources if not.
Our partner starts work on UI designs. Exciting but also scary! What we decide now is what the world will see at launch.

Setting Employee Goals In Startups – Our Story

During the first few weeks of our productive work at Mavrix, we did not set any goals for ourselves. This was simply because the work we were doing was very different from anything anyone of us had done before. There was no baseline information on effort, productivity, duration, etc. for this kind of work available in the public domain either. After a few weeks, we sat together as a team to talk about what a reasonable goal might be. Note that I used the singular “goal” – we decided to keep it simple and stick to one metric that we considered most important – productivity. This is what happened next:

Started with comfortable goal. There was a sense of discomfort all around when we started discussing goals. People did not want to get stuck with a goal that they could not deliver to. Although it seemed low, we agreed on a goal that everyone was “comfortable” with.
Gathered data. A week after setting our “comfortable” goal, we beat it by a huge margin. We decided to measure ourselves for another week before deciding if our goal needed revision.
Determined periodicity of the goal. We were surprised the next week, when we missed the “comfortable” goal. After some analysis, we concluded that given our work structure, we needed a two-week time period to measure ourselves against the goal, not a week.
Review goal at team or individual level? When I proposed sharing each individual’s measurements against the goal, I was surprised when everyone pushed back. They said they’d rather look at the goal at the team level because individual goal discussions could put people on the defensive instead of motivating them. Some of them told me that in their experience, reviewing goals at the individual level resulted in people “gaming” numbers or doing shoddy work in order to meet goals.
Baselined goal. After 6 weeks of measuring ourselves, we reset the goal to a value that was much higher than our initial one but also lower than the best we did in a given period. This is the goal we are measuring ourselves against now.
Adjusted business plan. Our measurements showed that the productivity assumption I made in the business plan was not valid (Surprise! Surprise!). While we have adjusted the plan to reflect our current productivity number (same launch date, smaller launch), we are committed to finding ways to get faster and better. If we can change the business plan once, we can change it again.

Mavrix Monthly Update March-2011

100 blog posts since inception. This is the 100^th post!
Updated FAQ. We tell you more about what we are doing.
Went through a quick RFP process for the UI design of our service. Decided on a partner.
Switched from BSNL to Tata Telecom after months of poor and unpredictable connectivity and bad customer service. We will run both in parallel for a month before we completely disconnect from BSNL.
Employee # 5 joins. The first lady (!) in our company and we announce it on Women’s Day!

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Throughout our startup journey, I have been constantly reminded of how lucky I am to have the friends and well-wishers I do. Here’s what my friends helped me with so far:

Got excited with me when I took the plunge.
Reviewed my business plan. Some were critical but only in a constructive way.
Told me about their experiences (in startups and otherwise). Invaluable!
Provided help and guidance through a myriad of things a startup has to go through.
Encouraged me.

Know who your friends are (this is more difficult than it may seem). Cherish them. Be there for them. It will make you feel a little less guilty when (not if) they go out of their way to help you.

Mavrix Monthly Update February-2011

We are a team. Three Content Analysts – Gururaj, Rakshith and Fidel – joined us in February. Santosh and I are glad we have others to talk to in the office! In three short weeks it feels like we have moved through the first three stages of Group Development – Forming, Storming and Norming and moved on to the final stage of Performing. Wishful thinking? Probably. Exciting? Heck, yes!
Technical Architect on board. In our last update, I had mentioned about offering the Technical Architect role to an individual. He has since accepted our offer. And to think that we just stumbled onto him! Serendipity is good!
We have a logo. We got our logo done by an internet-based logo design company. It’s not Mercedes-Benz but we like it. The best part of the design process – I got exposed to 37signal’s Basecamp. Although we ended up using it as an email system, I liked the simplicity of the project management tool. Sometimes (perhaps most of the times), less is more.
We have an HR system. We started using an HR system developed by a company called Semnox started by a bunch of friends. I approached my friends to get some ideas on HR management and salary processing and they ended up giving me an entire system. It is an awesome system and it works like a charm for us! I won’t be surprised if it is rolled out as a full-fledged product some day.

Startups and Serendipity

The startup landscape is replete with stories of serendipity. We got a taste of it recently. It is sweet and delicious.

We have been struggling to get a Technical Architect on board for some time now. A lot of interviews. Many no-shows. I was beginning to get worried. (A friend/advisor jokingly reassured me – “You are in deep shit. That’s a key trait of a good startup.”)

A few weeks ago, I spotted a photograph in the newspaper that looked familiar. The name listed against the photograph was familiar too. I say familiar because the picture matched a guy I knew but the profile description did not. So I Googled the name and lo and behold – found that this guy was indeed the guy I knew from a previous life. To make a long story short, I emailed this guy, we got together a few times, I made him an offer and he accepted. I couldn’t have found a better person for this role – he is a brilliant geek, a very nice person and, the best part – I know him.

The path to serendipity may not be very pleasant, but when you get there, you realize that the journey was worth it. What may look like setbacks in the short term, turn out to be building blocks of eventual success.

Meet The New Mavericks

Over the last few days, three Content Analysts – Gururaj, Rakshith and Fidel – joined us. Suddenly, there is a special buzz at work that comes with a new team coming together. We love it! Check our our team page to find out more about our new team members.

Despite our small number of followers, we manage to get a lot of questions about what we are up to. We can’t blame anyone – we know we have been cryptic about our work. However, it’s about time we provide some answers to our followers. We took a stab at broadly answering the “What do you do?” question. We also added a FAQ section. All this probably doesn’t answer all your questions but please bear with us and we promise it will all begin to make sense.