The Great Windcheater Search! by Sir Yatin Gore

on the historic day of 20th june 2011, three dudes set out for the epic city of CST for individual reasons.(primary being glutunous eating). there were supposed to be two more , but who backed out due to lack of nerve( Mr. Gawde and Mr Rode). after having feasted the ravebous beast by Cannon pav bhaji and pastries and Mint tea ( a.k.a Manna) , the three musleteers set out in search of a windcheater for the retired player of MEFC :p . as he didn't like those availabe in Reebok store, they walked on to another bs store in marine lines. from there via a taxi to Tardeo ! But still the dude did not find what he want. they did observe a reebok store on the way( by that time they were deperate enouh to buy the aforsaid unliked jacket), but due to a wrong turn, they walked enough to fuck their legs up. and then using their charming wit, they got a taxi BACK to the original store and bought the aforementioned jacket( thrice cursed )! on the way the retired MEFC player picked up a horde of Man Utd merchandise. after that, due to insistance of one particular member, the party made their way to Kitab Mahal at Flora Fountain, where they had a taste of Ambrosia itself in the form of a Blueberry cheesecake, and Hot Apple Tea! It was compared to the other great ambrosia from the bowels of Spuntini, Goa. also, one of the members of the party, who prefered Indian author books to Foreign author ones, bought The Exorcist, and didn't seem much happy for it.

so the three dudes made theor way back home, jolly as anything and singing the praises of the Manna and the Ambrosia.

Thus ends our bedtime story called the Great Windcheater Search!

Cast : Myself, Harry the avid Indian author reader (a.k.a Harishchandra), and the retired player of MEFC who we all know by fame.

also thanks to our search guides, Mr.Rode and our beloved MEFC coach Mr. Kalamkar.

Malegaon to Mumbai -- post by rodinhooder Mr.Mohammed Faizan Ansari

Hello everyone!!!.

I am going to share journey of my life from a small town Malegaon to Maya Nagri Mumbai. I don't know how many of you will be interested in reading this. This should be shared on a personal blog but I am sharing it here because everything that I am sharing has a point of entrepreneurship.
The first Businees (Paan ki dukaan):

Malegaon is a small city in Maharashtra (should be known for Power Loom Industry but unfortunately known for Bomb blasts). it is a densely populated city. The major source of Income is Power Loom. There were many poor people working in Power Loom industry as labors. Their children used to put small “Paan Stalls” during vacations. I always saw them making good money. I wanted to have my own “Paan Stall” because I wanted to make money. I was not allowed to involve in any such activities. I was in 6th std at that time. My father being a known person, having some position in the town I had to face many restrictions I was not even allowed to go with those kids. But after seeing those kids I also wanted to get involved in that business. I had 1000 Rs in my piggy bank. The amount was sufficient to start a small paan stall. I simply went to those poor kids and made a verbal contract “I will finance the stalls, I will get all the products from the market , you only have to sit on those stalls. I will take 30% of total profit.” They agreed as this was a very fair deal. In this way my first business started making profit of almost 5000 in first week. Unfortunately I had to close all my stalls within a month as my father came to know about everything. You won’t be surprised that I had 4 stalls when I closed the business. This created a clear image of entrepreneurship or business in my mind, and I totally believe that in India entrepreneurship is all about “Jugaad”.
Library:

When I was in 10th std, I started a library cum learning centre where people could come and read good books. I kept 10 Rs per week membership charge. It started of with a bang, as I conducted free seminars and panel discussions with the help of my teachers at public places. I easily got a fund of 25000 from different people. This was not something that I did for money. I wanted to do something that can help people in some way. Frankly,there were only few literate people. I wanted them to know the importance of education and I succeeded to some extent. But I was still a kid, I did what I could at that time. Managing school time and library became very difficult. The library continued till I was there in the city.I left my town after completing 10th. No one from my friends or family took responsibility of the library and finally it got closed.
My father being a doctor always wanted me to be a doctor, my mom wanted me to be an architect, and I had no idea what I was going to do in future. I went to Pune to do my Junior College. Those two years were almost waste because I could not  do anything other than studies, libraries and early morning exercises.
Confused with so many streams open, I finally ended up doing engineering in Pune.
Teaching for passion:

Engineering life has been the most exciting experience of my life till today. I started taking home tutions of 10th std to Engineering subjects. I started this activity when I was in Second year. Teaching is something that excites me a lot. I used to get tuition calls from a broker who used to take first month of my sallery. Again keeda of entrepreneurship triggered my brain and my first venture as an engineer came into existence: Xpert Home Tuitions. All I did was; I took a shop act, created a website and did some SEO and calls started flooding on my number for home tuitions. I made good amount of money that helped me start up with my next venture.

My Own Infosys:
While in third year, I saw people getting crazy about their placements, joining aptitude classes and preparing for the placement drive that will start after one year. How crazy was that!!! Even my best buddies joined the aptitude lectures. What I was doing? I was wandering? After Home Tutions I took up some freelancing projects of websites and software. I found myself comfortable with coding and continued with it. I had only feeling that I won't be going for any job. I wanted to start my own Infosys. With no clear idea of what a company is? With no idea about the difference between product and service company, with only knowledge of some coding in Java and PHP I thought I can start my own Infosys. """BECAUSE at that time I thought: if Infy is paying me 3.5 lac per anum it must be earning at least 10 lac per anum because of me"""" I dint want to loose that money. So started my own company "e-Lightening Technologies" with four friends, rented a flat for office. Started hunting for clients. We offered cheap web and software services which gave us some clients but that dint continue because of diversified interest of all the co-founders. Studies and business together again was a mess. We all split and  I was the only person left who was willing to continue. I dint close the company but started taking only two three projects every month and managed to finish up the college.
Even after the college I had no idea whether I should continue with it or start something else. Finally I decided to leave Pune and go to some other city having more opportunities for business. I found Mumbai nearest and dearest and all the way came to Mumbai to start my company here.
God Blessed Bombay:
God has blessed Mumbai with so many opportunities. If a person is jobless here, he is truly a useless person. I came to Mumbai and started my company here in a shared office at Byculla. I got the mezzanine part to put my setup. Hired two people and started working. In 4 months I got 28 clients. Most of the service based startups fail only because they are not able to make sufficient money at initial stage. I feel really good because I am making good money better than people doing job in MNCs. The best part is seeing your team grow. I now have a team of 5 and a new place at Fort CST and will be shifting there in few days.
Still Thinking of What Next?
I am still thinking what should I do next? though I have spent just five months in Mumbai and as a full time entrepreneur, I want something bigger and better. I am experimenting with some new products in social and advertising sector. I hope I will come up something that will be considered as a BIG Leap for me and my company.

Rodinhood star of the week post my Mr.Kamal Kalra. - Must read for someone who fears failure

I am writing this today cos, failure is celebrated only at one place in the world and that’s TRHS. I am amazed to see how people share their failure stories and are appreciated for that. I would have never spoken about my failures but got the motivation from this community. Not even my family understands this, and I have a tag of a failure and my family thinks that I should just be doing a job. Whenever I share a new business idea with my family they laugh and my mom then tells me not to try it :)
Anyway, here are my failure stories. I was introduced to business pretty early, by my dad. He was a departmental store owner, but an amazing businessman. I am sure if he would have been here, he would have supported my pursuit.

Bread Supplier: I was pretty young and the eldest son in the family. I knew our financial conditions were just not right to ask anything extra from my dad, but I also knew that I want to live my life. When I joined college, I wanted to own a bike. I asked my dad and he smiled. He said, you wanna ride a bike, so you’ll have to earn it. I was excited. I asked how? He said, I’ll give the minimum down payment possible and rest you’ll have to earn to pay the EMIs. I was in a regular college. I was not sure how I could earn while I was still in college. Here also he gave me a chance. We had an agency of bread and Soft drink. We used to supply bread and soft drink to small retailers around. He asked me to find out retailers and supply bread and soft drink to them in my spare time. I used to earn Rs 1 per loaf of bread supplied. It was a great deal. I used to wake up at 5:30 AM and used to supply bread. While coming back from college I used to collect the money. This way I started earning about Rs 100 – 150 per day. It was fun to know that with some small efforts I could earn my bike J . Finally I was a proud owner of a bajaj pulsar in a month. I still cherish those moments.
Lesson Learnt: If you have the right reward, you can really do anything. You got to understand, who needs what. My dad saved the cost of a supplier and at the same time taught me a lesson for life.

Kiryana Shop:  Well, supplying bread could not go for long, my dad passed away in 2003, when I was in my second year.  It was a sudden death. I didn’t know what to do. And for worse, we were broke.  I had two younger brothers, my mom and grand mom to take care of. Anyway, I decided that I will manage the shop. I worked hard and gave the most of the shops around a run for their money. People there still talk about the things I did at that time. Like, I started sending fliers with the lowest cost (it was before super markets came around). People used to flock at our shop. Simple marketing, let the consumer come to your shop, give him 2 things at his price and rest at your price. You’ll still be able to get the same margin. It worked for a year or two. Finally, I completed my graduation and that’s where things started going bad. My mom wanted me to take up a job. Her point was that the shop is anyway running, anybody can sit on the shop and I should look for something else. And then emotional blackmailing, of the fact that my dad also wanted me to take up a good job.
I succumbed to that and left the shop to take up a job. The shop was managed by my younger brother, who was not interested in studies and my mom. We started fighting on smallest of the issues and finally the shop was closed within a year.
Lesson: It’s your baby; nobody else will raise him like you can. Business is not for those who can’t get a job. Business is for those who want to do much more than a job. People tell me that you need money to do a business. I tell them, money is just a fuel. You need a good car and an equally good driver too.
Fabrication Unit: As expected, I got bored of my routine job soon. Moreover, the shop was on the verge of getting closed. Competition had also raised people around were pouring money in departmental stores like anything and we did not have it. Anyway, I thought of another business idea. Export houses were in demand at that time. There were a lot of small and big fabrication units flourishing. I spoke to a friend and took some basic knowledge. It felt as if it was nothing. You need to have a few machines, karigars, and orders from export houses. That’s it :) I knew I am confident and can convince people. The best thing was that I was educated, unlike most of the fabrication unit owners. I took a loan from my mom, and brought 10 machines to start a fabrication unit. I used to work in night shifts those days. I will then work nights in office, come early morning, would sleep for about 4 -5 hours and then go in search of workers as well as Orders. Getting orders was not difficult, in fact some export houses were really appreciative of the fact that I was working at this age. I was 19 at that time. Well, orders starting pouring in. But the next huddle was the workers. Who would make those orders. It was really difficult, cos, I used to get the money 15 days after fulfilling the order and I had to pay to workers daily. Cash flow was a challenge at that time. But I somehow managed. But it was just a matter of a year. Here also, things started getting out of hands. I was still working and could not manage both the things together. Moreover, the worst thing was I could not manage workers. I just could not relate to them and their problems. I felt, they were exaggerating, but I was wrong. Finally, due to lack of money, lack of people management, things started falling apart. I had to close the unit, sold off all the machines, of course at a loss.
Lesson:  Managing people is also important. Retaining talent is the most important aspect of any business. You’ll have to strike a right balance, between business development and talent management.

Dial a Cake: This was a business I could sustain the longest. May be because I was little more experienced and was little mature when I did this. Okay, I had already lost a few opportunities till now and my family was completely against doing business. I stuck to my job and the entrepreneurial streak I had helped me rose in my position in the job as well. Within 3 year, I was a Manager. I learnt people management in my job. At one time, I was managing a team of about 50 people, so it was great. I realized that in corporate companies, cake cutting was pretty frequent. I thought, this was a great opportunity, cos, no one used to deliver cakes at that time. I again took courage and thought of starting up Dial a Cake. It was a novel concept. I knew it will be hit. I did some basic calculation and started the company. What I didn’t realize was that keeping your rates low would ensure initial orders but it will be difficult to sustain in the long run. There was a market gap, people were ready to pay anything if you give them the quality. But I kept the rates low and later kept struggling for margins. There was a lot of learning in the process, but I could not sustain it. The bottom line, I had another failed business in my kitty.
Lessons I learnt from Dial a Cake :1.  Market Research is important but you need to place your product right as well. If your product has potential, it’s okay to place it a little higher than competition. You don’t always have to play yourself small.
2.  it’s a tight rope of Net Margins and Sales. At times we get tempted with a sale and give away discounts. The discounts you give today are going to hamper your net margins tomorrow. Keep this in mind.
3. it’s easier to put a rate tag and convince the consumer but it’s difficult to revise it. Believe me, the most difficult part today it to convince the customer for revised rate
4. Brand is important. Create a Brand be it service or product. People will remember the brand and any feedback, positive or negative, will get attached to the brand.
5. Think about your running costs more than your initial costs. Onetime costs are still okay to bear, but it’s the running cost that has to be looked at. When we start a business we get tempted to take things which we don’t need immediately, may be because we took those things for granted in a job. But in your own business, you got to keep a right balance in what’s important and what’s not.
6. Last but not the least, you got to look at the revenue channels. At times we feel that this could not be a revenue channel for a business like us, but think again. Business is all about innovating and challenging the rules. You never know you might find a new revenue channel for your business. For ex. With Dial a Cake I always thought that we are B2C and will deliver once a customer calls. But it proved wrong when we approached a few shops who were not selling cakes but we put our brochures at their shops and got some amazing business from them.

Well, after these failures, I have learnt a lot but I seriously feel there’s lot more, yet to be learned.
It’s an ongoing process and we all keep learning at every step of our life.
Right now I am working with an ecommerce startup and have learnt here a lot as well. I hope to start again soon and with the blessings and experience of TRHS, I am sure, I’ll go a long way :)
Thanks for reading this far.

Rodinhood star of the week post by Aman Jha - Must read for aspiring entrepreneurs

I used to run coaching classes on contract-basis few years back, It was a moderate cash cow for but not my own venture as it didn't bear my name though I was the one who was running it, recruiting teaching staff, paying them, etc. But classes was owned by some other guy whom I used to give share of revenue.
In 2010, unfortunately I got less students, the amount of fees collected was less than I had to pay to my teaching staff. But I had a buffer of 6 months as I used to pay only after completion of syllabus.
(Now comes the mistakes that I did to doom my 1st venture)
1. Always take calculated risk not just based on vague assumptions & Never take out cash from cash starved business to fund another business
I had an idea of starting a food outlet in my mind since long, so I thought why not use this money to fund my idea and make profit and pay back my staffs 6 months later.
But the money was not enough to start with, so I went on selling my idea to my friends for investment and finally convinced two friends Rohan and Sayali to invest 50k and 100k respectively. But all that they gave me at that point of time was promise to invest that amount, nothing was in my hand or on paper.
2. In food business location dictates what is to be served
I started searching for location and the criteria was there should be colleges around and low rentals, I found such a place but in Badlapur (20km from Kalyan). Badlapur was developing fast, many new constructions were coming up but market was yet to be developed. I got a place, Bharat college and Mahatre college in vicinity, so I thought it was ideal location as more than 3000 students were studying in these colleges.
Next I started  searching for chef, I used to stand outside the hotels and approach their cooks and tell them that I have a vacancy. Finally with this practice I met Ganesh Patil who was going to be my chef for next 14 months. He was then serving as Head Chef in Smokin Joe and had an experience of 10 yrs. Now he was a pizza expert and no one served pizza in Badlapur, so it was a ideal choice for me. I immediately started working on that direction of starting a pizza outlet but didn't think for a second 'Why there weren't any pizza outlets in Badlapur?' It often happens that we want to capture a virgin market and when we get such a place we want ourselves to believe that it's a virgin market just because no one thought of that idea.
Actually, people in Badlapur were conservative when it comes to spending and with limited exposure. Many a times my customers used to ask me how to eat pizza? So pizza was not an ideal choice.
Ideal choice would have been to start with something which start at Rs. 10. Even Vada-Pav with some USP would have worked. So when you find a market with no competition dont rejoice first probe why there is no competitors. And for food business, location always dictate what is to be served.
3. First get all the money on table from paper then start spending.
Rohan as per promise gave me 50k but Sayali had some HUF problems, so she told me start using the money I had with me and she would pay me few weeks later. I believed her spent all the money in procuring equipments, raw materials, rent, deposit, etc. Sayali kept on postponing but I somehow managed to match all the expenditure and the amount I had with me and launched 'Chaska Pizza Outlet' but I had literally zero balance in my account the day I started. I had no money even to pay the expenditures for a month on the first day. Later, of course Sayali didn't invest single penny and I was partly doomed, as I had no contingency fund, fund for marketing, etc.
4. If you don't have deep pockets then start small
I had picture of Pizza Hut and Dominos while starting my pizza outlet but didn't have deep pockets like them which I ignored. I went on to recruit 4 people, giving them good salaries so that they won't leave, then I rented a 1000 sq.ft space instead of a kiosk which added the burden of high rentals. I went on to procure equipment with more capacities than I'd require initially, anticipating whole Badlapur waiting outside my outlet for pizzas, I procured more no. of chairs and tables than required hoping all 3000 students of nearby colleges spending their free time at my outlet spending extravagantly.
5. Only take inputs from experienced people but while executing use your own brain
As my chef had 10 years of experience I'd often take inputs from him and used to end up taking orders from him. He told him he would need 300 sq.ft space just for kitchen, so I had to rent a big space 1000 sq.ft.
He told me he would need an assistant who must have good experience in hotel industry while truth is even a fresher would have done that job, so I ended up hiring his friend.
He gave me list of equipment he'd need and without trying to find alternative I bought them.
He gave me a list of distributors to procure raw materials from, and I ended up procuring best of the raw materials available in the market, just imagine distributor of Dominos and mine were same. 
I tried to convince him to lower down the quality a bit according to the crowd and we will be able to lower down our prices too because people in Badlapur were more concerned about quantity and money spent than quality. Many a times customer would suggest lower down the price we don't mind you lowering the quality a bit. No matter how much I'd tell my chef to lower down quality, he always did the same. I wish I'd have used my brains very 1st day.
6. Keep operating cost as low as possible

As my chef was highly experienced, I was paying him Rs.10000, which is equivalent to what good pizza brands pay, I was paying his assistant Rs.6000, and I also had two delivery boys.
No one used to bring tiffin, chef used to cook lunch for everyone there itself using a commercial cylinder which was costing me Rs.1200, and I had to bear the cost of all the food that was cooked and everyone partied.
Due to these things our operating cost went as high as 50k per month and remember I said I didn't had a penny on day 1. So the total sale of Pizza's in 1st month was 45k, lower than operating cost. so I made a good loss in 1st month itself.
10 months later I brought down operating cost drastically to 15k per month, that was a good trick how I did that.
But the point here is, what if I'd have adopted this strategy in 1st month itself having a operating cost of just 15k in 1st month. Sales was 45k in 1st month, so I could have made profit in the 1st month itself and invested the surplus amount in marketing and would have entered a different phase.
So it was a great mistake of having a high operating cost which absorbed all my money, so I couldn't do marketing, no marketing so no awareness in public, no sales, so we entered into vicious circle.

Finally 14 months later I had to close down my venture and when I look back it was only and only my mistakes, though I gained lot of experience, turned into mature from being amateur.
Of course I couldn't pay my teaching staff too, so I had to take more loan to pay them. But then this incident taught me how to take charge, what are the details to be taken care of, how to manage finance, how to deal with customer and how to have realistic assumptions.