The Tribal Way

Why Start a Company

I recently read a blog post by Amit Agarwal (Digial Inspiration), which mentioned that Google had opened up Orkut so anyone could join.  It's interesting to me how all social networking sites are trying to one up each other.  Orkut seems to have a following in India, but there's been a flurry of activity with new sites popping up, that are bound to challenge it's position with localized marketing.

It brought me back to thinking about why we started techTribe.  techTribe isn't a social networking platform only, but one does see similarities. 

So I started to go down memory lane, and look at old notes on why we started in the first place.  Here's a note from months and months ago - not sure how long that means in Internet time nowadays :).

techTribe

Connect with Smart People
Showcase what You Have Done
Get Recognized for It

Achieve More with People You Meet

why techTribe
techTribe was formed because as professionals in the technology field, the founders felt that there was more to their identities than the company they worked for.  They were tired of introductions that centered around “Hi, I’m Rohit, and I work for Company X”. 

We’ve all felt that way.  There’s more to our identity.  There’s the company we work for, but there’s also what we’ve accomplished in life.  We rarely get a chance to talk about what we’ve done. 

We’ve created software. 
We’ve implemented solutions. 
We’ve designed products. 
We’ve advised companies.

We’ve solved problems in the banking and insurance sectors. 
We’ve consulted for the healthcare industry. 

We’ve done so for large companies. 
We’ve been part of smaller startups. 

We’ve trained people. 
We’ve received training and education.

We’ve mentored people.  We’ve watched them grow.
We’re passionate about a cause outside of work.

and WE CONTINUE TO DO SO.

techTribe is a platform for professionals and students in our industry to showcase what they’ve done, what they continue to do, and be recognized for it.  It’s a place where people can meet others who share accomplishments, goals, or interests, and collaborate in “Tribes”.  On techTribe, “meeting of the minds” fosters innovation. 

why Technology Professionals
The technology professional is an intellectual.  What excites us is the feeling of creating something.  What keeps us going is the thrill in solving problems.  We thrive on doing things others didn’t think could be done.  That’s part of our identity.

The founders of techTribe looked around and there was no place where technology professionals could truly connect with others, showcase their creativity, and get recognized for it.  They found open source communities for showcasing and sharing code, but not much else.  They found social networking sites where they could make “friends”, but that grew old fast; professional networking sites that were meant for sales and business development people to get introduced to others; and job sites to put up a resume.  Nothing that served the need of the technology professionals, not in the innovative sense.

why India
techTribe was launched in India. While India has established itself as a force in the technology industry, it has done so mostly on the basis of a smart, educated labor force that fits well in the flattened technology world.  There’s more to India though.  With the brilliant mind, and a strong work ethic, the Indian professional has the desire and the ability to innovate like never before, and techTribe’s goal is to help provide the innovation eco-system.

An innovation eco-system doesn’t require that every professional form and lead companies.  It demands that every professional be part of the innovation cycle, which requires that each professional contribute.  And we can contribute by sharing our experiences.  We contribute by teaming up with others on an innovative topic. By mentoring someone.  By helping someone with our knowledge.

techTribe is a community of innovators.  It’s the place where Innovators connect, and go on to achieve bigger things in life. 

The Revolving Door in Indian IT/BPO

I’m on my way back to the US, and on a long flight.  These long flights have become a way of life over the last 6 months, and I’m either fly to India or from India every weekend.  As friends put it – WOW – what are you going to do with all those frequent flier miles?  Well, that’s the irony in life – the last thing I want to do is use the miles to go somewhere ☺.

Anyway, speaking of challenges with gifts we’ve received in life, I am reading an article on Business Today, the October 8th issue called the “Revolving Door”, which speaks to how the single biggest problem facing the Software and Services industry in India is inadequate and fickle manpower.  Having spent time working with the major outsourcers, I can see how the employee attrition problem is the largest challenge faced by them.  I can imagine the pain associated with finding talent in a market where the there’s strong demand and a lack of supply, especially when the employer spends 3-6 months training an employee, only to lose them within 6-12 months.

According to the article, attrition rates at BPO’s are close to 70%, and in my past experience with IT outsourcers, they hover around 43%.  That’s the equivalent of more than half the workforce leaving every year.  CEO’s at these companies routinely say that their biggest challenge isn’t getting business or managing customers, it’s retaining employees.  According to NASSCOM, India requires around 2.3 million people in IT over the next 3 years or so, and these attrition rates can cripple the industry.  Employee retention is one of the reason major players have shut down their operations in India.

The scarier part, is the article clearly states how there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight.  Executives at the BPO and ITO companies complain about how in spite of being given a great opportunity, it baffles them that employees leave in a few months.  Well, in my humble opinion, this shouldn’t be a huge surprise.  There are parallels to what the Indian IT/BPO industry is going through, and as I’ve written before, some parallels are in the US Automotive industry.  The Indian IT/BPO industry has created an “Assembly Line” of technology enabled processes, which, combined with cheaper labor costs, has resulted in reduced costs of operations, leading to the major shift of the work to India.  In Detroit, when automakers first introduced the assembly line, they had cheaper labor, and they trained the labor force in the basic skills to work at the plants in assembly lines.  The employees were happy with the pay scales, and the expectations were in check.

We’ve created the same assembly line in India, but there are 2 MAJOR DIFFERENCES.  One, the average worker in the Indian industry is NOT a BLUE COLLAR WORKER, working away at the plants.  Second, the aspirations of the Detroit autoworker didn’t include BUILDING THE NEXT MAJOR CAR COMPANY IN 18-24 MONTHS (fueled by 4 companies that had done it in the United States). 

In my opinion, these are the 2 issues that need to be tackled, if we are to find a solution long term.  Short term plug-gap measures abound – incentives to stay, free food at cafeterias, access to malls, buses to commute, fancy buildings, ….the list goes on.  Yet, none of these seem to help much.  It’s IRONIC to me, that while the entire industry seems to complain about the government's lack of planning for long term infrastructure, when it comes to their own long plans, the focus continues to be on short term profits.

I realize I may be raising a controversial issue, but for those that wish to indulge with me for a few minutes, please read on.

1. The Indian IT/BPO employee is usually one who is bright, educated, and creative.  They’re attracted to the financial incentive offered by the industry, but soon are disheartened by the repetitive nature of the work, as well as the lack of creativity.  There’s an entrepreneur in every one of the workers, which is being squashed by the same old work, every single day.  It doesn’t matter if they’re answering phones for a credit card company, or setting up servers for them, it’s the same old work – every single day.  There’s a mismatch between what one believes themselves to be capable of, and what they’re doing on a daily basis.  It’s like asking your Mom to cook the same meal every single day – how long would that last before she quit???
2. Everywhere around us, we read about YouTube being built in 18 months by 3 young entrepreneurs for $1.65 Billion, or a mySpace being worth billions of dollars.  The expectations of the Indian IT/BPO worker is to make it BIG, and make it quick.  There’s no education on what it takes to build companies, not much career management on how their current work gets them on a path to build something some day, and no insight into what really goes on to build these successful companies, not to mention the 10,000 others that fail to get us the one Google or  YouTube. 
3. The Indian IT/BPO employee has no channel that I know of, to express their creative side.  They’re expected to do their daily work, but discouraged to venture into anything creative, some for security reasons, mostly for corporate paranoia.  Companies block access to chat, message boards, and other forms of collaboration with peers – which is a requirement for the employee to tap into their creative energies.  They’re not encouraged to think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions of any kind, and before people jump and claim otherwise, let me clarify that I mean encouragement in tangible form, not just words. 

Anyway, I’ve already written quite a bit today, so I’ll stop for now and pick up again in a couple of days.  I’ll leave with the simple thought that if we’re to solve the employee retention issue facing the Indian industry, the industry needs to come up with a long term solution that encourages people to spend time exploring their creative side (albeit at the supposed cost of some productivity/profits), and invest in entrepreneurship centric education in a very informal way (maybe mentorships etc.).

I’d love to hear from people…send me your thoughts.

Forming a Company in India

It feels good to express myself every other day…. Similar to working out, it keeps me agile, and we all know how important that is for health and innovation.  As a quick business update, we’re about to release the next version of techTribe next week, and I’m pleased to say the least.  One of the beauties of Web 2.0 is the ability to release new features and capabilities on a monthly basis.  Unlike enterprise software, we can listen to user feedback, and respond in a matter of weeks.

You’ll have to wait for a few days to check out what’s new with techTribe – India’s Innovation Platform (http://www.techtribe.com), but it’s a mix of what we heard from the customers, and some new things we’re looking for feedback on.

Anyway, I’m on a flight back to India to put some final papers together on our Indian company – techTribeNetworks India Private Limited.  I was on a flight the other direction last week, reading an article in India Today about statistics comparing India to the US.  One of the statistics had to do with how long it took to form a company in India vs. the United States.  I didn’t believe the difference, especially since I had heard one of India’s economic ministers on TV speak about how quick and painless it was.  The article said it took 71 days and 11 procedures are required to start a business in India, compared to 5 days and 5 processes in the US.  Having been through it in the US, I had personal experience that confirmed it. 

techTribe retained a premier firm to help with the formation of our Indian firm, and even with some of the best minds at work, we couldn’t get the company formed within 45 – 60 days.  We had to wait for a few weeks for the “Name Search” to clear (do I smell the birth of a new kind of search engine ☺), a few to file the papers since the memorandum of articles of incorporation documents have to be prepared “in print”, etc.  In today’s digital age, I must say I was surprised.  AND, to top it all, we couldn’t open a Bank Account until we have the company all done, so we couldn’t transact at all.  We worked around it by signing out personal checks that were re-imbursed, but try putting on a press launch or two with a campaign to follow without a bank account, and it gets tricky.  I don’t vent, so this is just for information for others looking to do the same.  I guess it’s easier for a woman to get 15,000 bank accounts with a bank under fake names in 3 days or so, but a legitimate firm can’t get an account opened ☺.

Other statistics I found interesting, and which demonstrates the opportunity in India.
➢    17,189 colleges & universities in India vs. 4182 in US
➢    100m mobile phone users in India in 2006, compared to 194.5m in the US in 2005
➢    93,000 elementary schools with computers in India vs. 110,000 in US
➢    350,000 Engineers produced annually and 800,000 Complete MBAs vs. 200,000 in US, plus 200,000 Science degrees are awarded every year in India
➢    9.9m Students enrolled in various colleges across the country

Anyway, now that we have all that corporate and financial stuff squared away, we’re excited about growing our team in India.  We’re trying something different in the industry again – leveraging Indians for their marketing skills instead of sheer labor force.  And I must say, I am very pleased with the level of professional talent in India.  We’ve managed to recruit some bright individuals, and have also come across some amazing people.  I just read a blog by Amit Agarwal, who resides in Agra, which is just perfect for what the Indian market needs.  It’s so great to see Indians innovating to serve the Indian market.  (His blog is Digital Inspiration at http://labnol.blogspot.com ).

The flight is about to land so I need to shut down.  More in a couple of days.

10 Businesses VCs are Dying to Fund

So we launched techTribe on September 14th in Delhi, and the response has been fabulous.  Some of the news is posted on the website, and more will follow.  We also launched a campaign called connect2Develop to reward innovation.

The few weeks leading up to the launch, and the few after were incredibly busy as one would imagine.  I haven’t been blogging much over the last several weeks, and that needs to change.  So I’m hoping to get back into it now.  There – that’s off my chest now – there should never be a place for much guilt in our lives.

Anyway, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the air lately, and I read a great article a week ago called “10 Businesses VCs are Dying to Fund”.  It was in Business Today, an indian business weekly.  The article talks about the record venture capital pouring into India, and which sectors this money was chasing.

Per the article, the sectors are IT enabled services, InfoTech, Mobile, Internet, Media and Entertainment, Education, Hospitality, Healthcare, Microfinance/Financial Services, and Clean Energy.  While the article did an awesome job of showcasing examples of innovation that VCs are looking for in these sectors, the 10 sectors weren’t a surprise.  I mean – what did we leave out – Agriculture and Manufacturing?  I am being a little sarcastic I know ☺.

It’s interesting how we’re seeing a flurry of venture capital announcements about funds being formed, and the lack of real investments - early and seed stage investments in the technology sector.  I guess some of it is to be expected.  The eco-system of technology innovation in India is just getting started, and if we looked at where Silicon Valley was 10 years from the formation of Apple or HP, there wasn’t much early stage activity either.  But the times are different, and the VCs are willing to take much bigger risks.  I’m confident that we’ll see quite a few new startups in India, because the capital is available now, there’s always been bright entrepreneurs, and there seems to be mentorship that is beginning to take shape with the movement of Indians back from the West.

Back to Innovation in technology, looking at the Internet sector, India has 50 million or so Internet users today, and the number is growing.  Consumer services, based on the open platform of the Internet is ripe for the making, and the article also points out that VCs believe that are several successful businesses in the West that aren’t yet present in India.  It’s reasonable to expect there’s a market for them.  BUT, there are cultural differences which may make it very different for these companies to succeed in the Indian market. 

I can’t help but think about ORIGINALITY.  Are we to expect that most new internet ventures in India will be based on the American successes or extensions of them?  Will this be similar to the Bollywood theme where most mainstream movies are based on a storyline “inspired by a Hollywood script”.  They have a shot at being moderate successes.  OR, Is it likely that we see some originals that will be runaway hits, and those will take into account the state of the affairs in India – like “Lage Raho Munnabhai” and “Rang De Basanti”.  I think we all know what the answer needs to be, and what’s possible if one were to focus on the needs of the Indian market. 

We have a couple of million technology professionals in India.  We have a real estate market, a hospitality market, a financial services market, a media and entertainment market – you get the idea.  8 out of the 10 sectors mentioned in the article open up IMMENSE POSSIBILITIES for the use of technology that needs to be SOMEWHAT UNIQUE to the Indian market.  Imagine the possibilities if we tried to innovate for the need of the Indian community, rather than only thinking of exports ☺.

I’ll end on that thought for today.  I’m on a long flight tomorrow, so I’ll try and write some more then.

Find out more about connect2Develop at http://www.techtribe.com