In this Video, I introduce you Business Model Canvas for Intrapreneurs which I am building based on the Business Model Canvas and Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) canvas.
Business Model Canvas for Intrapreneurs
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Category Archives: Experience
Why I am open to Work in 2021?
Once you are an Entrepreneur, you are an Entrepreneur. You really wish not to go back to work for any reason what-so-ever. However, being an Entrepreneur opens you a whole new world of challenges. How much ever you plan, what ever you plan, you will come to terms with the uncertainty and this keeps knocking everyday in your journey.
Over the last 18 months, the idea of HAPLO was to narrow the gap between technology and Real Estate. We build the platform and in these unprecedented times our deal closure times have increased 3-fold.
We are a bootstrapped startup and we wish to remain this way (apart from being open to angel funds) until we establish our name in the market.
Being bootstrapped, we have been cash crunched and we have looked at various options to keep things going.
I am a strong espouse of theThirdOption.
Option 1 – Give up.
Option 2 – Generate revenue and keep going.
theThirdOption – Work to generate income and focus on the sales.
Being an entrepreneur is getting creative. Personally, I have made a choice to get creative and start looking at options where I can work and continue on building our product.
I personally and strongly believe in HAPLO. It will change the way technology penetrates into Real Estate.
However, at this point of time, since we do not want to close or borrow, I am choosing to work part-time/consulting to keep myself and HAPLO afloat.
I talk more about this in my latest Podcast – Entrepreneurship in 2021
What are your thoughts on my perspective?
The power of being unreasonable
There is one thing which I learned in the last ten years, being unreasonable. Even if it is not in the preview, often people go out of the way and respond to you when you ask.
After I started sales for my product, in the last three months, I have only been doing reference sales. I reach out to people in my network, search on LinkedIn and Facebook, send a personal message and reach out to them. 8 out of 10 times I get a response.
Initially, I searched for professional introduction email’s and I sent, but somewhere in my heart, I was not convinced. It was not touching my heart, what would the person who is reading it would feel?
Just imagine the advertisements and a marketing email from one of your connects coming as a personal message or InMail. How would you respond to it? How would you read it? This made me change the way I write.
Now, instead of writing an introduction about me in a line or two, I start by writing how we are connected and if there was any of my previous experience with their last writing or activity on FB/LinkedIn or use a context when one of our acquaintances was mentioning about them. Then I write about my story and ask if I could make a request.
8 out of 10 times, I get a response.
Please don’t think that this is a marketing gimmick, but it is a way of first establishing a connection with the person, sharing your problem/solution and then making a request.
Whatever anyone says, in today’s world and in the times to come, emotions will always play a role in building your credibility.
Try it out.
How to select the best idea to pursue?
When I decided to work on my idea, the first thing which came to mind is finances. How am I going to use less money and bring out the best product? The first thing I did is to lay out a 12-month plan. How much can I spend on myself for the next 12 months and what is the buffer I have for building the product?
I debated on 4 ideas.
The first thing I did for the next few months is learning more about the domains. The three domains I was contemplating are HealthTech, Co-Working, and Education. I made mock business presentations, Investor presentations and of course tore many sheets of Business Model Canvas.
All ideas were working out well on the Canvas. The next 4 weeks, I focused on only one idea each week and see how I felt about the idea all through the week. I did not think of anything else during the week. Only the idea which I chose and focused all my energies in talking to people about the idea and noted their reactions. At the end of the week, I wrote down all the thoughts and the gut feeling I had for each of them.
Towards the end of the month, I sat down again and revised my notes and how my heart and body felt reading all my notes.
Clearly, there was one winner, and that was aCubeNow™.
Somehow, each time I thought of this idea, I never had a negative thought coming back to me. For all the other ideas, I had too many Whys.
As an entrepreneur, when you begin to ideate on your idea, I would highly recommend that you spend as much time as you can thinking of the idea. No one else, except you and only you, can feel the idea running through your body. Let all the feelings – positive and negative come through. Let them pass through your body and mind. They will tell you what you need to do.
And once you decide, give its own gestation time. All you need is the belief in the idea, and be persistent about it.
Being an Entrepreneur – 1 Year Review
Last year, in August (precisely on the 11 August), I announced to the world, that I am transitioning to be an entrepreneur.
When I started, had a very big idea to build a Strategy Consulting firm focusing on Ideation and Business Model Validation for start-ups.
In the last one year, have done 4 in person sessions, 2 webinars and have been ideating on 3 ideas out of which 1 is development phase, 1 in ideation phase and 1 in the design phase. Well, what has been my learnings in the last 1 year? Here are few of my experiences.
You will feel lonely – Like it or not, if you are coming from the corporate world where you are working in a team, you will feel very lonely to be on your own. Accept the fact you will no longer have people around you to have a chat, share your experiences, catch up for a lunch/coffee or going out on team outings.
During this time, your Facebook timeline will be filled with more travel check-ins and pictures of fun times at work. Read this as a test for your commitment 🙂
How I handled it, I reduced my FB time. I only browse through the page once in a day and don’t go back to it. Fortunately, there will be one person in your network who will post a motivational quote and that will help you come back to track.
Self-doubt – You will have this each day. Am I in the correct path, am I doing things right? Should I get back to a job? These questions will come to you each day and especially when you look around and people are busy in their lives and when you have a lot more time to ponder about.
STOP self-doubting. Your heart will tell you if you are in the right direction or not. All you have to do is be conscious of what your heart is telling you. If you are not being comfortable with something, then you need to change something. Think of new ways. There are various tools and techniques on the internet, find something which will help you focus. For instance, I used BusinessModelYou, a toolbox for evaluating yourself.
Days are much longer than you thought – When we are in a job, our outlook calendar drives our day. But, when we are on our own, we drive our calendar. There is a lot of difference in this. In a job, you are driven by what the company needs, but when you are an Entrepreneur, you drive what the company needs.
You will be in control of your day. You plan your meetings and you plan what you will need to accomplish over the course of time. Since the time is in your hands, you will feel that the days are longer than you actually thought.
Health improves – Knowingly or unknowingly we take a lot of stress when we are in a job. There are exceptions, I know people who handle stress amazingly well and never let it affect their health. Being an Entrepreneur it is much more stressful than you ever think – Social pressures, responsibilities at home etc take a toll on you. But, if you leave these aside, then life becomes more beautiful.
Meditate – You must have heard this everywhere, but I will put in a simple line. Don’t get carried away with all the jargons you hear, but just focus on one thing – Sit down for ten minutes each day at a said time and just focus on your breathing. That’s all. The key here is the time, stick to a time schedule. If you want to do at 7 in the morning, ensure each day you automatically sit down at 7 for ten minutes, where ever you are in this world.
Accept and Focus – You will see down times more regularly during the start-up phase. Each day will be a roller coaster. Accept it. It’s ok to feel low and depressed. Watch a cartoon movie or an inspirational movie or speech, it will help you regain your confidence.
Find a life coach – If you need to work on building on your strengths and transform the power of your thoughts to reality and you need a little help, find a Life coach. Remember the movie, Dear Zindagi? How does Alia Bhat find herself? Through her coach Shahrukh. I, fortunately, watched this movie after I took life and professional coaching. It made a lot of sense and in fact, I went back to another coach to help me fine tune my learnings. So, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It will change your life.
PS: If you are reading this post and want to know my experiences, don’t hesitate to shout out to me.
Of all the above, before you embark on your entrepreneurial journey, spend time thinking, find your favorite place – a park, coffee shop, a religious place, an ashram or a relaxing center and just think of what you wish to accomplish. Accomplishment here is not money, Yes, all of us want to be rich, but remember, this is a by-product of what you are going to do. So, don’t focus on money, focus on what you want to change or make an impact or remembered for. This is the key. When you begin, the plan will be labyrinth or you might not see anything for tomorrow. Focus on what you want to accomplish and over a period of time things will start falling in place. All you need is to commit to what you want to accomplish.
If it helps, The arc of ambition will give you a very good sense of direction and motivation. This is my bible.
Good luck, more experiences to come…
the discipline of freedom
We all want freedom. Freedom from rules and regulations, freedom from family, freedom from teachers, freedom from friends, freedom from everything. But what is freedom? Is it only attributed to what and how we want?
Freedom is an attribute of mind. The mind needs to have its control over all what is happening around us and that is what the freedom each of us aspires.
Freedom, when not controlled, is the most dangerous enemy we will have, and that is why Freedom needs discipline. When thoughts are built with discipline, that is when you experience the complete freedom.
The mind and brain even though are interlinked, many times the brain does not follow the instructions of the mind. The mind does not allow you to think objectively, it only sends out emotional thoughts. The brain wants you to get up and run, but your mind refuses to get up (an emotional thought of sleeping for a little more while). It gets caught up in the vicious cycle. It is tempted to do what it is doing (resting, watching TV, reading or writing). How do you overcome this?
About a year ago, I started my journey as an Entrepreneur. Suddenly, I had the feeling of emptiness. There were no more late night calls, no scheduled meetings or travels, no escalations and last but not the least, no being artificial self. Suddenly, I felt I had all the time in my day and my brain was not being occupied. Now, I see the morning sunrise, do not rush to have breakfast and don’t look forward to my coffee break, no lunch meetings, no gossips, no rush hour traffic and finally, not going to bed with all the energy lost, just dreading to wake up in the morning to start the cycle again.
Days and weeks went by, I rested and let my body accept the new changes. Life was good. I now have all day to myself to do what I want to do and what I was wanting to do. For a long time (even now at times) I kept pushing out things in my checklist – I can do it later, I can do it tomorrow etc. As days passed by, I realized that I am being lesser productive than I was earlier. On 1 Jan 2016, I made a resolution that I am going to write a blog post a day for 100 days and voila, I did it. I used to plan my writings, write during the weekends and set the timer to publish automatically each day at a set time. I was using each minute I got productively by focusing on what energizes me to push myself during the office hours. Off late, I realized that now, because my day is not packed, my mind and body were getting off guard. The commitment to get things done has slowed down (I have all the time, right?).
It took a while for me to get back to schedule. Now, I get up in the morning, make a list of things which need to be done for the day and the day goes on by checking off the list. Initially, I used to make a list of things which I need to get done – like respond to the email, complete the presentation, meeting with someone etc. This helped, but the lethargy still exists. Now, I have a list of things which I need to do and I started using an app called Strides on iOS. This is a fantastic app which allows you to make a checklist of your activities which you need to get done each day repetitively. Now, my checklist goes like this – Wake up at 5 AM, Read/Writing time, Meditation time, the list of things which need to be done during the day, Read/Write or Google time. Notice the Google time. I realized that unknowingly I keep spending time on Google searching for something or the other. Now, I avoid going on unnecessary searches, rather I write down what I want to search in a paper and do it during the specific time in the day.
When we have all the time in our hand, we forget how valuable and brutal it is to not be productive, especially when you need to earn your living as an Entrepreneur.
This is the reason I renamed my blog to The Discipline of Freedom because freedom without discipline is like living without breathing.
Is Apple losing it’s IQ?
Yesterday’s Apple event was not much awaited (let us be honest about it, at least I was not) and what apple fans are looking for is the 10th anniversary of iPhone next year. However, as with each year, we did look forward to seeing if there are any pathbreaking innovations coming out this year.
The two major features which were predicted came true – a dual camera and removing the headphone jack. Are they really path breaking?
Is this really innovation? Let us go back into a little history. When Steve Jobs was at the helm of Apple, suddenly there were outbursts of innovation beginning with iPod to iPhone to iPad. The rhythm continued till about 2010 and then things started to slow down. Except for the change in the size of the screen, not many new innovations have come out from Apple. Every year, the only dialogue you hear is “the biggest thing ever happened to iPhone since it was born”. Definitely. This is an improvement from the previous version, but not a major change or new feature coming in except that they have started to bring out more and more accessories which will generate alternative revenues because we know iPhone sales are slowing down.
Innovation Quotient
It is important to understand at this juncture that there is a cycle of innovation and all companies have to go through it. There is a limitation – in thinking, in market acceptability and accessibility.
Apple over the last 15 years has bought out products which had a different perspective. This increased the hype of their offerings and together with Steve’s obsession for beautification and practicality (read design thinking), Apple products have changed the way the world looks at technology. Competition evolved. Even though not many are able to match/catch up to the beautification (many companies are coming close these days), there is a tough competition which has evolved. With the IP protection and patent laws, Apple was able to withhold many of its innovations and keep them in-house. Alternatives evolved.
When disruptive innovation happens, the level of hype comes down. We take the time to understand the long-term impact of a new feature/functionality. This has to be playing in as time goes by. Let us go back a little into history and look at iPad. iPad initially came in as an offering between a smartphone and personal computer. People predicted that there is no need of this offering and there is no long-term impact, but today, we look at devices like iPad and tablets as a serious alternative to a personal computer because it is easy to carry around and worked with. This lead to bringing in lighter and more compact laptops. It took a while to accept the concept of iPad and tablets, but now, all of us are using them.
During the latency period companies like apple cash in on the current needs. Look at the new iWatch, yes, good load of new aspects came in, water resistant, inbuilt GPS and ability to track your workouts, but bringing Pokemon to the watch is only going with the market craze and if they can add few bucks to their kitty by bringing this game to the watch, why not?
It is not all about Innovation all the time. It is very difficult to sustain the innovation business model. Companies need to offer best what their core is – for Apple, it is any of their products and we know they are very good.
IMHO, Apple’s Innovation Quotient has not come down. It is just that the hype level is coming down and this is a natural phenomenon. This will settle down and for a path breaking innovation to shake the markets to come in, will take a little while longer.
3 Questions
Before you start working on your idea either as an Entrepreneur or as an Employee, there are 3 important questions you want to ask yourself:
- Where do I want to be?
- How to get there?
- Can I get there?
Very simple, but yet powerful.
Where do I want to be?
During the last week of December 2015, I was restless. I want to something but did not know what to do and how to get there. So, I tasked myself with a simple project – 100 Blog posts in 100 Days of 2016.
How can I get there?
I did not have any laid out topics on which I wanted to write, but have quite a few interest areas. So, on the varied topics of interest, I have which range from Driving, Photography, Innovation, Healthtech, Inspirations, Running, Entrepreneurship, Innovation etc. I identified 3 areas to focus on – Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Healthcare, and Life.
Can I get there?
As much as possible each blog post of mine, I wanted to have a real life example which I went through or which someone whom I know has gone through so that I can illustrate better.
Today is 93 Day of my writing. I will do an analysis later on how I fared, but these are the three simple questions which got me to where I am today.
Ideas as Platform
When we have an idea, we focus on building the product. What happens eventually is that the product gets into iterations and over the period of time becomes redundant for various reasons.
What we need to focus on is to build our idea as a platform. Think of it as a broader solution and the products are offerings of the solution. What happens with this is that the ideation has a broader spectrum and it gives us opportunities to build on the platform.
This lays the foundation for the future of your startup. Look at any major organisation, they build their offerings on the platform. Maggie does not just sell noodles, they have soups, pasta’s etc. What is the platform? – 2 minute snack/food.
Look at any car manufacturing company. They specialise in manufacturing a SUV, Sedan, 4X4 etc. The outcomes are quite different and appeal to varied consumers. Maruti in India focus’s on Sedan’s and they offer Compact to Mid-end cars – Alto 800 to Ciaz to Grand Vitara. They have a offering to varied economic diversities. This is how they build their market share.
Entrepreneurs should first identify the platform and then build their offerings to solve components of the problem so that their offering can be varied, affordable, sustainable and if changes are required, only one solution can be altered and remaining in tact.
So, the next time you are addressing a problem – create the platform and not just one solution.
Articulating the why
You can be successful today only if you know what you’re doing and why
The most important part of being successful is understanding why you are able to be successful. Success comes with lot of factors – Luck, Connections, Knowledge and being at the right place and at the right time. Apart from all these factors, there is one key ingredient for success – your ability and passion to perform.
I read a fascinating book quite sometime ago – What got you here won’t get you there. It is a fascinating read. At each phase of our life we need to understand that expectations change and it becomes very important.
When you start your company, expectation is that you bring your product to market. When you bring your product to market, the expectation is to expand, after your expand, expectation is to increase market share and when you increase market share, expectation is to keep the company at the top and derive value to share holders.
Each of these phases come with different expectations and you need to constantly monitor these expectations from each stakeholder and this will help you to be where you wish to be.
For all this to happen, the underlying question is how to articulate the why of what you are doing and how you are doing. You can be an entrepreneur or an employee in a organisation. Understanding what the market or your company needs and developing the why in you to deliver accordingly is what makes you successful.