A super campaign day for Yogesh and the Team ...

I spent the entire day (a holiday and the festival of Ugadi at that) campaigning on the ground for Yogesh Devaraj in and around Arekere with a team of 10-12 committed volunteers (all doing it just because they believe in Yogesh and his commitment for changing the system & of course changing people's belief in their ability to change the system one person/voter at a time).

Two things that stood out after a long and tiring day ... the hope that the poor and quite a few of the middle class still have for change and their needs are very very basic (Water, Roads, Drainage, Better education and Get my son a job) and the apathy among some of the apartment dwellers (some of them claiming to have a voter id in their home town) while almost scolding us saying "Why didn't you come earlier, you could have got us a Voter ID card and we would have voted for you". While it is sad that people expect to be spoon-fed into doing their most basic duty to the nation,, one thought in hind-sight was if ONLY our campaign had started a few weeks earlier, we really could have if nothing helped bring up the voting % by another 5-10%.

All in all a super campaign day ... the team met probably a record number of people today and also got a record number & % of "Yes, we will definitely vote for you". Surprisingly, among even the poorer class of people who said almost every time, we have realized that selling our vote for a few 1000 Rs. is hurting us. We will never do it again". There were a handful of jerks who said, "I have 100/150 votes, how much will you pay". We responded with lines like "Is that what your children's future is worth?", "God save you", "He'll give you 1000 and make sure that you end up spending 5000 or even 50000 more over the five year term for Water, Electricity, Travel from one place to another and for your child's education", "Keep getting fooled" and so on and so forth.

On the positive side, we also heard several people say, "I/my family/my extended family of 20+ have been voting for BJP/Congress for the last god knows how many years. Now, we have had enough of it. Thanks for coming today and giving us hope. We will definitely vote for Yogesh." And as the buzz gets stronger and stronger and spreads across wards, any fears that people have that my vote will go waste is slowly and surely going away.

Yogesh is sure to make an impact and the best testimony to that is some so-called good parties starting a dirty game of spreading lies about Yogesh (again revealed because they happened to say the same lies to a friend of Yogesh that we met) and also spreading cleverly written propaganda (read lies) about them being supported by AAP, establishing cheap alliances with mainstream political parties with a record of corruption, violence and no match in ideology OR reason for doing so. Come on, guys. What is the difference between you and the Congress and BJP now if you will do all this to try and get a few more votes?

Anyway, to end this on a happy note, I will share what Yogesh said to us during the break. I will never stoop down to that level even if I lose this election because of not doing so. Because, I am thinking long-term and the cause of cleaning up politics and governance in India. I don't want people to lose hope that there are good people in politics. And people will see through their lies & cheap tricks either today OR some day when word gets around and they will lose out their place in this campaign for cleaning up politics sooner rather than later. The crusade will go on.

Read more about Yogesh at www.vote4yogesh.org and his Facebook page. Please like and share his page with friends and do try and see if you can join one of his Weekend campaigns (one contact with him and your belief in the possibility of CHANGE will definitely increase). You can enroll for one of the campaigns by calling Yogesh on his personal no. 94803.25600

What is a VOTE worth in the Karnataka Assembly Election?

How much might a vote in the Karnataka Elections be worth? 

A rough guesstimate and how you can overcome the buying of votes.

• Total Karnataka Budget > 1 Lakh Crore
• Assume our politicians eat up at least 2% of it (Conservative)
• Total Population of Karnataka: 4.2 Crorer
• Registered Voters: 70% (assumption) = 3Cr
• Voting % in the past: 50%
• Assume 2 serious candidates and 10% serious (non-bought) voters
• Total Votes Bought: 40% of 3Cr = 1.2Cr

How much is going into our politician's fat pockets?

One vote should actually get paid Rs. 1700 (assuming 2% goes into politician's pockets). And what I last heard is that the rate has gone up to about 4000 this election (per one of the maids in my friend's house). They surely wouldn't be paying 4000 OR 800/year to just make a 2x return over 5 years considering that there is a 50% chance of them losing all that money. No stupid investor would do that, leave alone our smart businessman politicians. That must mean that 2% assumption was grossly incorrect assuming the politicians need to make a profit if they have to invest (most of them are pukka businessmen). Probably more like 10+% of the budget is going into our politician's pockets.

How much are you losing every year, you stupid tax-payer? 

Just imagine how much your taxes will come down by considering the tax-paying population is a small % of the total citizens of Karnataka if you just go out and VOTE and get a clean government in place. Should definitely be worth spending 30 mins going to a booth if you can recover upto 40K every year in reduced taxes or increased facilities (assuming 10% cut and 25Lakh Tax Paying population) by just voting in a clean government. Good return for your time? Be a good investor and invest your time suitably. Don't fall for the "My one vote won't count" ... do the opposite you also vote and make sure every one of you and your friends vote.

What can we do now?

Having said that, we can still beat this system of buying votes.  All we need to do is vote for serious citizen candidates like Yogesh Devaraj (More at www.facebook.com/YogeshDevarajForMLA) instead of saying sab chor hai and the good guys won't win and sitting at home. In a typical constituency, it only requires about 10-15K additional people to come out and vote and the non-serious good candidates who have a decent base and will get between 15-20K votes will soon become a viable good candidate and possibly the MLA who will work to meet your needs and transform your constituency. And considering all the voter drives that have happened in companies, apartments and elsewhere thanks to Smartvote.in ... this is definitely in the realm of possibility. It's your choice ... want to try and save that 30mins of your time OR have a chance at saving 30-40K per year and of course doing your duty to saving your country?

All we need to do is just increase the voting % from 50% to 70% and most of the increase should be in the educated urban youth and I am positive none of the educated urban youth will vote for any of the mainstream political parties (viz. Con'gress, BJP, JD-S) after all the ghotalas in the Center by Congress and in the State by the BJP and JD-S. That will mean that we get rid of the mainstream parties once and for all atleast from the major cities (Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore). That would be a start, wouldn't it?

Will put together a list of my preferred candidates and the reasons soon. Still trying to figure out a good candidate in my constituency #BTM Layout. Anyone you know?

Why Yogesh for MLA - Bommanahalli?

Those following my posts on Facebook might know that I have been all about Yogesh Devaraj and Yogesh Devaraj - MLA for Bommanahalli for the past couple of weeks. Forgive my spamming you with it and please bear and share until May 5th ... have tried to restrict the spamming to FRIENDS in BANGALORE for the vast part but for the occasional rant.

Who is Yogesh? 

Yogesh is a friend who I met through two of my closest friends in Hong Kong way back in 2007. Yogesh was travelling back to India for a vacation and had a 6 hour stop-over. Yogesh wouldn't miss a chance to meet his friends for the world and since I was at home that afternoon, I decided to join and meet them. My first impression of him was as though he was my friend too and not just Pushpa & Deepak's. We ended up chatting for long and he almost ended up missing his flight. He just about made it to the boarding gate on time and pretty soon, I forgot all about him. A few days later, a mail and a Facebook request followed and we stayed in touch for a long time. 

A few more things about him that you might be able to connect with ... Schooling in Marimallappas, Engineering in RVCE, Sr. Manager in CISCO, Born in Mysore, Living in Bangalore since 2007 in Pride Regalia, near Bannerghatta Road, Arekere, Founder President of BANA, Active Volunteer of IAC, AAP [worked full-time for IAC coordinating various activities], BIG Fan of Anna Hazare & Arvind Kejriwal. :-).

He quit his JOB

I heard from friends that he had quit his full-time job and was committing to social causes. I heard about a few things he was doing (An NGO, A School, Fights against Corruption in Government Agencies like BDA and BBMP, founding and leading BANA - A group of RWAs, Organizing Socio-Cultural activities to encourage young talents) and the impacts it was having (again from friends and the occasional update on Facebook). When he got actively involved in IAC, I always admired what he was doing, the courage he was showing, the conviction he had shown to go the whole hog and wanted to join ... but like 90% of the Facebook crowd, I just liked and commented and never did anything to follow-thru in terms of even attending a dharna OR a meeting OR a candle-light.

I AM CONTESTING

Things changed on a lazy Sunday Afternoon when I was chilling and checking out Facebook in early Feb/late Jan (Not sure), I saw an update from Yogesh that he was going to contest the coming Assembly Election ... while I was happy for him, I didn't know a lot of what, why, etc. Continued giving free gyaan on various topics around what he should do in his campaign, what he should not do, etc ... all along frustrated with myself that I was not able to do much.

FREE GYAAN ENDS ...

One fine day, Yogesh had had enough with my free gyaan. He pinged me, asked for my no and almost immediately called me back. Spoke about his campaign, what he had been doing (in more detail) and why he wanted to contest the election, his vision and how this would be a game-changer for Bangalore and Karnataka Politics. He also spoke about how he is different from all other candidates including some people with a good-image but who were all talk and little action. He spoke about his sacrifices and the motivation for his sacrifices. He had got a lot from the State and the City and the people here and he wanted to give back to society. More importantly, he saw the clear need for people like him to come into Politics and clean it up from within. If not, he said, the day is not too far when all of us will need to pack our bags and move off to a Europe or a South-East-Asian Country (since US would anyway not be able to handle all of us).

I obviously knew most of what he was saying about Doomsday being near being an active follower of politics and corruption (in the State by the BJP, Congress & JD-S) and in the Center by Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and her bunch of servants. And the nagging feeling of not having done anything to fix the mess that we are in and disaster we are moving towards finally got me to say "Yogesh - What you are saying sounds great, how can I help?". He sought help in 2-3 areas that included Social Media Campaign Management and Website Optimization. These were obviously my strengths being an Online and Social Media Analytics Consultant at one of the world's most active company in Social Media and one of the early movers in the eCommerce space (way back in 1995). So, I jumped at the opportunity.

AND ACTION BEGINS ...

Since that day in the first week of March, a lot has changed.  I have met him and talked to him so many times. I have actually gone on a couple of campaigns with him in his constituency. I have asked him so many questions including many that people in his Facebook Page ask as well as many of my own. I have learnt so many new things about him. So many unsung achievements (schools he has transformed, NGOs that he has given a huge fillip too, enabled a signficant increase in voter registrations in his area) and transformations he has been able to achieve in the last 4 years of full-time public service that I am convinced that come what may, we need to ensure he makes it to the Assembly on May 5th. I don't care if the richest businessman (embroiled in the land-mafia) OR the worst goon is contesting. We need to make sure Yogesh wins and he's going to change not just Bommanahalli, but politics in Bangalore and Karnataka too.

HIS PROMISE

As many of my friends asked me, I asked Yogesh too. So, what are your promises to your electorate? What are you going to do if you win the election. His answer is simple ... people are tired of promises. People need MLAs who can deliver and have shown a track-record of delivering, a track-record of service, someone who they can approach when they need something, someone who will make sure that all the basic needs of a human being (whether rich OR poor) such as Water, Electricity, Roads, Employment & Self-Employment Opportunities (by Skilling, Training & creating Jobs), Health and Hygiene and sufficient well-equipped Civic Amenities and someone who can ensure that there is zero-tolerance to corruption.

He says once I achieve this, then we can think of the moon and the stars and then I'll refer to the manifestos of all these parties. The other thing he says is why second guess what people want ... he seeks opinion from people at every stage in his campaign on what they want and more often than not, he is proven right. The odd occasion when someone brings up a valid point and it makes sense, he is quick to absorb into his vision and also then start talking to various people in relevant roles / departments about how that can be achieved. E.g. One such point that came out from a young graduate who was looking for a better job (he was doing some part-time work) was how are you going to help people like me in terms of opportunities and skilling. He took the youth's number, spent the next few days thinking about this and talked to various friends in companies in a range of sectors and came back with a clear answer and an action plan of what he would do. The kid was not only impressed ... he now volunteers with Yogesh (and yes, he volunteers - not paid employees just called volunteers to feel good about themselves)

WHY YOGESH IS INDEED THE BEST CANDIDATE?

I asked several trying questions to him around how will you achieve each of the objectives and there are five key traits which I feel will help him achieve whatever he has set out  to do:

1. He understands the pulse of the people really well. He knows exactly what the people on the street want since he's talked to 100s of 1000s of people over the last three years in his various community service initiatives and activities. His conversations with people are so wonderful. It almost feels like his pitch is exactly what everyone on the street is looking for. And no, this is not just a pitch. He feels strongly about it.
2. He is fully committed to this cause. Who would quit a well-paying job and work full-time on various activities that affect society in terms of governance, social-welfare, education for 3-4 years. Most candidates I know are either full-time businessman OR employed in some kind of role.
3. He has clear ideas on each and every need and how he is going to fulfill it. But, more importantly, he has the humility to seek inputs from the grass-roots and experts, listen to them and implement suggestions when good ones are made.
4. He totally believes in democracy and empowerment of local bodies. So, while his priorities are the basic needs, he is not going to go and start doing what a corporator OR a Govt Employee has to do. All he will do is to get the team to focus on achieving his vision of meeting all the basic needs and give his 100% to fulfilling it.
5. He is a doer. Unlike most other well-minded candidates, he is one person who has achieved in his short public career achieved so many things that he's built a huge fan-following across the constituency and actually across the state and even in the US during his time there.

As regards his winnability, he is super-strong in 3-4 wards of the constituency (where he stays and where he has done a lot of good work for people there) and is also gaining a lot of traction in others with strong teams of volunteers getting formed. And every new ward that his team goes after, people are seeing him and realizing that there is still HOPE and the HOPE is leading to a WAVE for CHANGE across BOMMANAHALLI. And more importantly, this time is going to be a 6-way fight (BJP, JD-S, Congress, KJP, BSR and Independents/Small Parties) and even if TOTAL VOTES go up to about 150-180K (from 120K last time), getting about 40-50K votes should get him into the reckoning. Then, it's just a matter of a few more things falling in place and we should have Yogesh as our MLA for Bommanahalli. :-)

THE FINAL REQUEST

My request to my friends and family is this:

1. Please VOTE for him (irrespective of what your political affiliations are, what your friends tell you about any other candidate, what Social Media tells you about the race being between BJP, Congress and JD-S)
2. Please spread the WORD between now and 5th May (Talk to at least 3-4 people about Yogesh every day, Share our stories about Yogesh and his campaign on social channels, email to friends, chat with them) - Basically do what it takes to help Yogesh win. DO IT FOR YOURSELF (even if he is not in your constituency, I believe his winning will change KARNATAKA and NATIONAL POLITICS). For more info about Yogesh OR pass on the word, please refer to www.vote4yogesh.org OR www.facebook.com/YogeshForMLA. Use this post if you like.
3. Please VOLUNTEER and join his campaign team. Believe me, you'll really feel good about yourself. I thoroughly enjoyed the two days when I was part of it and am sure you will too. Don't worry about not being in his constituency ... I am not too. I plan to take part in as many as my JOB and my 3-month old kid allows ... to be fair to her, it is more my wanting to be with the kid than the kid wanting me right now since she's settled down significantly now (touch-wood). :-)

That's it for now. Over to you in terms of Liking and Sharing this post on e-mail, FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and every other channel that is available. Let's get working!!! :-)

Coming Up: Some interesting stories from the Campaign Trail including one on how not to mess up our Social Media campaign (as one of the other candidates did) :-)

Guest Post: New entrepreneurship idea: Online concierge service for companies

This is a series of blog-posts based on my call to wannabe bloggers who wanted to start off their blogging career/hobby with one post and keep that going one at a time. Bargava Raman is a friend from Mu Sigma (I talk about my time in Mu Sigma here) who is currently based in Bangalore and works for Cisco's Marketing Analytics Team. Here's what he had to say about why he posted this blog here: "Been wanting to blog for a while - but indolence takes precedence as always.Havent written in a long time and only when writing did I realize I hardly know how to write :)

Do write to me if you want to post any of the themes listed in my previous post. Anyway, here goes Barg
ava on his new product/solution idea.
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Randhir posted about his travel from Bengaluru to Hyderabad when he had to book a bus at very short notice.

Just got off my worst bus ride ever – All I can say is if you are ever given a chance to choose between a Bullock Cart Ride and a ride on the Omer Travels bus, choose the Bullock Cart.

In good-ol’ days when I was working with one of the top IT companies in India in Chennai, they used to have a concierge which took care of all such personal stuff. Amongst other things that they did one of the things which they were very efficient was in getting tickets(bus, train and air) and sending the ticket to the person’s seat. All that was necessary was to send them an email with the details necessary and they would call to let you know the available modes and fares and once you confirm – its a done deal. It could be planned a month in advance or on the date of travel. They were able to offer something to the employee.

Let’s spend a few seconds to think why it would be profitable. Marketing theory talks about Segmenting-Targeting-Positioning (STP) a product. Such a concierge definitely did that pretty well.  IT professionals are price-insensitive to a greater extent than the mango-man (aam junta).  Probably due to more income at disposal at a younger age or missing home or peer pressure or could be any other outlandish reason. But that held true more then than today (College students today are shopping for iPhones – many of my friends, including me, did not think about getting a mobile until 2 years after we started working !). The employees got tickets without bothering to go and stand in line for tickets(these were days before internet became so common) and the concierge too made some money. Well – all good things come to an end eventually. With the advent of IT in travel bookings, such services have died slowly (or have become very inefficient).

Now, what is the product idea that I am thinking about? For one, anyone could target such a population with a little premium for such a service which they consider very essential (just look around IT professionals in Bengaluru-very few native folks !)

What I am toying with is to create an online concierge service (or rather – just an online travel service). The segment would be the employees working in IT companies.  A premium would be charged for booking – but not big enough for them to immediately attrite and go back to the current process of booking on their own.

Why would this succeed? This is just a hunch and not really a well-thought out plan. But given that there are not a whole lot of websites that offer customers price comparison (a la-orbitz kind of stuff for travel in India is non-existent) – this could be a good place to tie-up with various bus operators and share the premium/commission.

Is it just travel-booking? Again – I don’t have a good answer for this. But then, thinking what can be added to this, probably vacation planning. One could tie-up with hotels and give good travel packages. Hey come on – such sites exist. Dont BS? Yes – I don’t deny that.  One could use cleartrip, redbus or irctc . But something that caters to corporate with a good customer service would work like a charm. And sites like makemytrip charges a huge premium to the partnering sites.  Competition could always be useful :-)


Will company make money ??? This is something I am very sceptical about. Let’s assume a medium case scenario (worst is an eventual close-down!).  For eg: 1000 folks use the site every month and say 10,000 folks use it in year. And say – we are able to make Rs 10 profit from each customer. That translates to Rs.1,00,000 per year.  Very minimal and hardly attractive. Cost would be hosting the site – with database connectivity- charges would be around Rs.10,000 per year. Also, if telephonic customer service is to be incorporated – paying the person for phone and working hours will make it very unattractive.
As a note: Alexa reports that redbus is ranked 500th in terms of page views in India. Consider monetizing through ads – the proposed site can break even. Effort to bring in additional features(like travel, packages etc) and impact of social media can make it work bigger.

What to do? Hey – isn’t entrepreneurship all about satisfying one’s ego and not caring about money? :p

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Bargava - All I can say is an idea's success largely depends on its execution. There sure is an opportunity (supply-gap) here and you can always provide the service for a year and then exit with a sell-out to one of the existing players. If you need help brainstorming this or taking it further, let's talk. :-)
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You might want to read this post on who is a typical entrepreneur and also read my other posts on entrepreneurship

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Big Loser

#bigloser is trending on Twitter and I am considering joining it. :-)

A few details about how this works: A Sponsor is a person who cares about and feels a friend/family member needs to lose weight.A Participant is a person who loses the weight and does a good turn by getting money donated to charity with his efforts. As someone on Twitter said, instead of me donating money to the gym and not use it, let me at least get money donated to a charity and feel good about myself. No greater motivation than doing something for a social cause and boosting my self-esteem.

While at first glance, Rs. 10/person/kg might seem like a small number, it surely does add up especially looking at the way it is trending.

So, now that I want to be a #bigloser. Any volunteers who wants to sponsor me? You'll need to donate Rs. 10 per kg I lose to a charity of my choice. Please drop in a comment or send me an e-mail (arhebbar at gmail) if you want to sponsor me. :-) To make it sweeter and MOTI-vate myself to do something significant, if I lose less than 5kgs by Feb 2012, I'll match your donations.

I have to mention this just to rub it in. While this is not really the same thing, a friend Ravish (remember this, Ravi, Gops, Chandu, Mahaniya and the rest of the gang) had bet against my losing 10 odd lbs in a little over a month way back in 2006 and lost the bet as I lost way more than 10lbs. So, while I am not as healthy (unhealthy to tell you the truth) as I was way back then, there sure is potential. :-)

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You can also follow me on twitter @rhebbar to get frequent updates on this and my other blogs along with hear from me about other things I find interesting as well as provide feedback on this post or my other posts.

My Investment Rules

Some simple rules I swear by:

1. Keep it Simple Stupid – The more complicated you make it, the greater chances of messing up, the greater the chances of you feeling this is not working and giving up.
2. A penny invested is a penny saved – What I’m getting at is if you invest something, it’s surely not being spent on something you didn’t need. You know what you want and you also know what you don’t need.
3. I will not gamble – This means no hot tip (even if it comes from the very respectable and your favourite business guru – take the tip, do your own home-work, take responsibility)
4. I will diversify (Within your limits of course – If you are not comfortable with investing in China, don’t do it). A good suggestion is around 10-20% in overseas markets
5. I will only invest for the long term. This also means that you will have sufficient cash on hand for your short term needs (say at least a year). You should be thrilled when the market falls to new lows.

Simple investment techniques for the common investor:

1. One or more MUTUAL FUND SIPs that invest out 10-20% of your monthly income (Bring some sector diversity in if you like or even some geographical diversity to reach your diversity goals).
2. One or more Index funds again invested on a monthly basis without looking at the overall market size.
3. Setup a rule for how much of your portfolio you would like invested at different levels of the market and do a monthly rebalancing to ensure that you are close to that level. e.g. At a Index level of 9000, I plan to put 80% of my assets in stocks – essentially moving cash into stocks to make this level and at 18000, I plan to have just 40% of my assets in stocks – essentially moving stocks into cash. You can pick these values once or twice a year depending on your understanding of the market’s best and worst possible levels. Don’t change this rule too often.
4. Rebalance once in 2-3 months (again follow a rule and a reminder in your calendar to do so) to ensure you don’t end up tracking this every week or maybe even every day.
5. Beware or Be-aware of the Tax-Man (even though he comes only once a year). This could effectively mean delaying the sale of a stock on which you are sitting on a profit for several months for a few more months so that ST gains turns to LT gains.

Coming Up … My Investments Dashboard – A simple excel that semi-automates my investments and satisfies my gambling instincts too?

The not so real estate

My search for a flat landed me in Bellandur and a decent looking apartment called Parijatha Apartments. The dude who spoke to us was overly nice. Some of the promised he made were:
- You won't get another apartment at < Rs. 2800/- in this area. I'll give this to you for Rs. 2100 and if you book by tomorrow for Rs. 2000/- per sq ft.
- You can make any modifications you want to the plan at no extra cost
- I will provide you 10 years of free real estate consultancy (buy/sell/rent this house)
- Construction of the Apartment will be done by June this year
- There is a play-home / creche right next door ... and so on and so forth

Why is he doing all this? we wondered and then we wondered aloud. His answer was
- This is a 3 year old building. The builder ran out of funds and stopped construction
- I have now come in and put over 1 crore in this building. We convinced the builder that it won't take him more than 50 lakhs (this reeked of use of poor quality material to get the work done :-))
- I guarantee you the quality and so on and so forth

I have to admit we almost fell for it and here we were ready to sign up when I thought I'll just do a quick check on the builder's past buildings and reviews. A couple of quick google searches revealed that this builder is one who has a great record of cheating people and a poor track record of completing building constructions. There were atleast 5-10 posts from people living in that very same apartment bitching about how they were cheated by the builder.

Thought I'd put this on here so people looking to buy a house beware of such builders. Just do some online research, or go to http://www.consumercomplaints.in/ and you'll probably find complaints on tons of builders. Another thing that worked for us is talking to a real estate broker in the area and checking with atleast 2-3 builders in the area.

Young Indian Cricketers ... caught off guard briefly!!!

Who is a typical entrepreneur?

A recent report from the Kauffman foundation for entrepreneurship titled “The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur” points out a few interesting facts which gives hope to the married or about to be married folks who have entrepreneurial aspirations:

1. The average and median age of company founders when they started their current companies was 40.

2. 95.1 percent of respondents themselves had earned bachelor’s degrees, and 47 percent had more advanced degrees.

3. Less than 1 percent came from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds

4. 15.2% of founders had a sibling that previously started a business.

5. 69.9 percent of respondents indicated they were married when they launched their first business. An additional 5.2 percent were divorced, separated, or widowed.

6. 59.7 percent of respondents indicated they had at least one child when they launched their first business, and 43.5 percent had two or more children.

7. The majority of the entrepreneurs in the sample were serial entrepreneurs. The average number of businesses launched by respondents was approximately 2.3.

8. 74.8 percent indicated desire to build wealth as an important motivation in becoming an entrepreneur.

9. Only 4.5 percent said the inability to find traditional employment was an important factor in starting a business.

10. Entrepreneurs are usually better educated than their parents.

11. Entrepreneurship doesn’t always run in the family. More than half (51.9 percent) of respondents were the first in their families to launch a business.

12. The majority of respondents (75.4 percent) had worked as employees at other companies for more than six years before launching their own companies.

What's your take on this? Is this applicable to India as well?

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You might also want to read
A Guest Post on a Business Idea 
I am officially an Entrepreneur Now
Zeopane needs your help or my other posts on 

Entrepreneurship

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You can also follow me on twitter @rhebbar to get frequent updates on this and my other blogs along with hear from me about other things I find interesting as well as provide feedback on this post or my other posts.

Coffee Break Labs – A new initiative I am helping with

I have recently been helping a friend Sridhar crystallize the idea for a non-profit community oriented entrepreneurship promoting site called Coffee Break Labs. I’ve been in touch with several entrepreneurs in India over the past year or so and almost every second person I meet either is working for a start-up, is working on initiatives besides a full-time job or is a full-time entrepreneur. This of course is without even including the family-owned businesses who too are a core of this group.

There’s a silent mass-movement towards entrepreneurship that is taking place in India maybe aided by the recession and the lack of a lot of action in companies. One look at professional networks such as LinkedIn will tell you the number of groups that are getting formed to bring together these enterprising individuals, help them learn from each others mistakes, find like-minded partners for their next venture or just find some more inspiration to convert their aspirations into a real venture. LinkedIn we feel is too generic a platform and is more suited to job-seekers.

CBL (I have another rant coming on how much I hate the name :-)) is a movement that aims to bring these entrepreneurs and wanna-be entrepreneurs together, share inspiring stories, learn from each other and provide tools (tips, incubation, advice) and resources (Financial: Angel Investors, VCs, Contacts, Financial Institutions, Govt grants and Non-Financial: Sourcing, Hosting, Software, Hardware, etc ) and a whole lot of other stuff. These are initial ideas and the way we see it – CBL is going to be shaped by the first few people who join the community and work with us. So if you believe in this story, have suggestions for us or just want to enjoy the ride and learn with us as we try to grow this community, you can visit us at www.coffeebreaklabs.com and sign up and / or follow us on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn so that we can keep you posted on our progress.

Hillarious reasoning of the Indian mandate ...

Stolen from comments section of .. http://churumuri.wordpress.com

Credits: Gokulam 3rd Stage

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All politics is local politics. Sample conversation overheard somewhere in rural Karnataka.

Kamalamma: “aa uduga yaar vosi helu” (Who's that young guy, tell me, tell me?)
Gowramma: “Indramma idralla, avar mommaga ante” (oh, he's the grand-son of Indramma - Indira Gandhi - referring to Rahul obviously)
Kamalamma: “alala, yeshtu muddaagade mundedu. bellage olitavne” (oh, he's so adorable, so fair and shining)
Gowramma: “kenne myaake guli beeltade. aadre adyeno heltavne artha aagakilla” (he's really adorable, but i've no idea what he's saying)
Kamalamma: “nin votu yarge? yaav party? asta na?” (so who are u voting for - the hand? referring to Congress)
Gowramma: “illa sumkiru. kamaladoru vote ge 500 rupayi kodtaarante kanri” (are u crazy, the Lotus party-BJP is giving 500 Rs per vote)

This conversation probably replicated itself in every constituency in the country. If the BJP didn’t pay cash, the UPA ensured it was done through the government machinery by implementing the NREGS. Everybody likes free money. Villagers like free water, power and Rs.8 per year of kandaaya on an acre of land (if at all collected). City dwellers like Rs.10000 annual fees for an engineering course for their hudugas and hudugis. Whose father’s what knot goes?

=======================

All offence intended to the dirty politicians.

Excuse the poor effort at translation if it does not sound as humorous as the original (Rural Karnataka dialect).

Elections 2009 Results - My thoughts and some more

Despite being a vocal supporter of the BJP, I'm thrilled about the results as a whole and no the market jump up (Up 17% and closed due to hitting the upper circuit) is not the reason. Wondering why? 

The maturity of the Indian Voter collectively has left me stunned for two reasons.

1. Vote for Stability: The country was in pain crying for stability and a kick up the backside for the third, fourth and whatever fronts. And the only reason they existed was BJP did not have a Pan-India presence (No presence in AP, TN, WB, KL, and J&K). So what does the Indian Voter do - make the choice clear. No more third and fourth fronts for me.
2. Vote for Performance: AP (YSR), Bihar (Nitish), Gujarat (Modi), Orissa (Naveen Patnaik), J&K (Omar Abdullah - although a very short stint), Karnataka (BSY - A short stint again) and Delhi (Sheila Dixit) clear positive votes for performance and UP (Maya) a clear vote against (although UP is too complex to describe in these terms). Did I miss any others?

The good thing here is the BJP ruled states (most of them) have returned them. They need to continue to do the good work and repair the damage in other states such as Mah/UP/MP/Rajasthan caused due to infighting (Raj), vote-split among factions (MNS) among other reasons.

Despite all the talk about Muslims grouping against BJP, the BJP have no reason to complain unlike Mayawati who is cursing them for ditching her despite her efforts to act as their messiah by arresting Varun Gandhi and detaining him under NSA. You don't go around threatening a community and not expect them to group up against you. This chest-beating might have won the BJP a seat in Pilibhit, but resulted in a rout in UP and a significant loss of Votes around the country. I know several friends who were sitting on the fence who decided to switch to Congress just because of VG. And this time, unlike the past elections, most of my friends did vote and in a close election (several seats that I was monitoring were neck-to-neck and kept switching back and forth), these few voters VG pissed off did matter and probably resulted in atleast 10-15 fewer seats.

For the BJP, it is time to look beyond Advani. The main stream media does not give him his due and that was probably the biggest reason for his not being able to emerge taller than Manmohan. Most people don't realize his contribution in building a party (he did this and not Vajpayee) that he brought so close to being a strong rival to the Congress and the importance of that in a democratic polity. Before the BJP, our best alternatives were Mr. Deve Gowda, Mayawati, Laloo and Co. His voluntary sacrifice of the PM contender post in favour of Vajpayee in 1996 is really admirable. Contribution cannot be measured by the posts you hold which in the India Context is probably directly proportional to the number of times you switch parties. He's toiled hard for a party and it has almost established itself as the rival to the Congress that India desperately needs. But alas, so close yet so far.

The next step for the party involves establishing a presence in the states where BJP has virtually no presence and cleaning up the in-fighting in . Since most of these are bipolar states already, BJP cannot make a decent entry into these states without allies and unfortunately for the BJP, it cannot hope to make any allies without toning down its extreme Hindutva content. Unfortunately for them, when you say Hindutva, people only think of Godhra, Ram Temple, Muthalik/Mangalore, Kandhamal and others. 

So the way out is to find a moderate leader - a Sushma Swaraj, a Jaswant Singh or a Arun Jaitley and please not MM Joshi - the only thing I remember about him is his efforts to rewrite History books like that was the biggest priority in HRD ministry and completely stop any tacit spport for the rowdy elements within the BJP, stop all Ram-Talk and condemn/take swift action against any such BJP and non-BJP elements who engage in this. 

And maybe in 2014, after the Congress screws us for another five years, there will be a wave in favour of the BJP (and this time across the country).  Or maybe, just maybe, the Congress and all other parties will take the warning that the Indian Voter has served on them and start performing. Wishful thinking??? I hope not.

Older Posts

Elections 2009: The D Day

Indian Elections 2009: My Vote and Why?

Change is definitely on its way

WTF - Is this stupidity or is this arrogance?

Indian Elections 2009 – The “D”or is it the “C” day

After 4 weeks and 5 phases of Elections, a heated campaign and mud-slinging battles galore, the day of Counting of votes is finally here. It’s been a passion following Indian Politics for me ever since the 1996 election which was the first time I almost voted. I was so excited about being able to vote in a few months that I’d started reading up on the politics, different parties, different leaders and had started forming an opinion and sat through 72 hours of counting, news reports, horse-trading, parties switching sides, forming bargaining groups and the whole works. There’s already enough signs that this one’s going to be one better than the 1996 episode of the biggest soap opera of them all – “The Great Indian Election” and the whole world is watching this one (even Obama and Hillary apparently).

Does the Indian Electorate really want instability?

Let us try to analyze this from what the electorate gains from this:

1. If a coalition government does get formed, every small party comes into demand and their particular regions can get its pound of flesh from the Center as Chandrababu Naidu so wonderfully did between 1998 and 2004. Already see signs of this with Nitish and TRS.
2. If a government is formed and doesn’t last its full term like 1991 and 1996, they get one more round of elections which going by last estimates, ends up with parties spending up to a % or two of India’s GDP. Where is this money going to? It is the common people. A large portion of this is probably black money which is coming out into the open. But the elections is surely one of the big revenue sources for a lot of small-scale industries, small entrepreneurs and party-workers. Why wouldn’t the Indian electorate (read common man) want this?
3. The electorate if it can give a good enough fractured mandate that there is no government that can be performed. That is probably the best time for India. There is no one out there to ruin the country’s economy and loot the country’s exchequer. What better mandate than that do you want?
4. What else will explain so many regional parties getting formed and actually doing well? Time for a Kannada Janatha Party maybe so that we too get our pound of flesh - central funds, an NSG unit, a lot more railway lines, international airports in other second-tier cities - Mysore, Mangalore, Belgaum?

This is probably the greatest insult that the Indian people collectively are throwing on the whole polity. If they don’t get the message now, they never will. And I have a strong feeling, they probably never will until there is a mass movement - a revolution of some sorts and we are too comfy in our own lives to do anything about this.

The other end of the argument is that people are not thinking of this at the national level or at least not enough people are thinking about it at the national level. Even assuming that, this is in fact the case, who is to blame?

What are the national level issues raised everyday in the news by the main-stream media (especially those stupid anchors – led by Arnab Go’saw’me – I would if I could)? Varun Gandhi and his shouts against a community, Priyanka Gandhi’s nose and smile and whatever else resembling her grand-mothers (I was hoping someone would say it resembled mine :p). Rajnath Singh having a tiff with Arun Jaitley and his sulking for days on end like a kid who’s been denied his lollypop, Party hopping by one person or the other, breaking and forming coalitions, shouts against a caste, sucking up to a religion, calling people names and this is the only news that is reported. The day a national party released its Infrastructure Manifesto, the biggest news was Sanju Baba promising a Jadoo ki Jhappi to his sister Maya memsaab.

While one part of me tells me that the only way to protest against this “Soap Opera” style reporting by the media is by totally boycotting the main-stream media and following the results on a more fact-based avenue such as maybe the election commission’s official website, I know I just won’t be able to resist the temptation of rushing over to check out which joker has jumped onto which bandwagon. That is probably the reason the Main-stream media sticks to the soap-opera style reporting. They won’t change until we change.

Can I resist the temptation? That is the question besides of course the more important question – who’s going to form the next government.

PS: My bet is on a Naidu or Pawar or Nitish or some other dark horse propped up by either the BJP or the Congress or maybe both. That will be fun - a government that has the support of around 500 members of parliament. 

Older Posts on Indian Elections 2009:

Indian Elections 2009: My Vote and Why

Change is definitely on its way

WTF - Is this stupidity or is this arrogance?

Tweeting URL: You can follow me on twitter here

Swine-Flu: Better Safe than Sorry

As part of my research for Zeopane, I started reading a lot about flu in general and branching off of that, reading on swine-flu - the latest killer which is slowly but steadily spreading its tentacles. Flu Vaccines is a killer-app that we are looking at for validating our technology since they are delivered transdermally and our low-cost microneedle patch will save costs significantly and also allow easier vaccination of the poorest people in the developing and under-developed countries. 

I know this post sounds like a pitch. :-) But the point of this post atleast is not that. After seeing more than 25 ads a day on TV in Hong Kong on Swine-Flu and ways to prevent it, HK and China as well have learnt their lessons from SARS. I was concerned if there's enough of an awareness in India about the disease. This is just my tiny effort to spread awareness of the symptoms and the precautions that needs to be taken. 

What are the symptoms of Swine FLU?

• Lethargy
• High fever (102 degrees+) along with chills, aches and pains
• Sore throat
• Stuffy nose
• Nausea and/ or diarrhoea
• Fatigue

How do you prevent its spread and / or how do you stop yourself from being infected?

• Wash your hands frequently
• Avoid visiting very crowded public places.
• Avoid touching the mouth, nose or eyes, which are primary modes of transmission.
• Cough or sneeze into a tissue -- dispose it off and wash your hands immediately
• Avoid close contact with sick people, as far as possible.
• If you get sick, stay at home.
• Be well hydrated with fluids.
• Eat a nutritious diet and build up your immune system. 

It's easy to say "Oh, this is a Mexican/SE Asian phenomenon". But with all the Air Travel that takes place these days (especially between India and SE Asia) and with the near 100% circulation of the air within a flight, it's a very strong possibility that if you don't take the said precautions, it could reach India. Although I do admire the fact that India has been very cautious in the airports, you never know when this killer can break through.

And knowing what happened in China with SARS (repeated denials for over 4 months) just to ensure the transfer of power happened smoothly in March 2003, I won't be surprised if Mexico's current claims that Swine-Flu is under control (especially after several governments including China started blocking people and products from Mexico) is a total or partial lie. So, please do take your precautions. 

Better to be safe than Sorry!!! And do spread the word around by sharing  these details with friends and relatives.

Older Posts on Zeopane that you might like to read:

Zeopane needs your help

Officially an entrepreneur

Zeopane on CNN Money

WTF - Is this stupidity or is this arrogance?

Rahul Gandhi's latest statement on the Quattrochi / Bofors issue  is a killer - I am stuck for words here. How do you react to this? When asked if the CBI is being misused by his regime, he says

"Every party which is in power could put pressure on institutions. It is a fact," he said, adding that every government tries to push its people into such agencies. "

Even if this is indeed true, shouldn't he be ashamed of saying this. His screwed up party ruled our country for 54 of the 62 years of Independent India and his screwed up family ruled us for over 30 years directly and over 40 years directly or indirectly. If you ask him why there is so much corruption in India, he's probably going to say every party is corrrupt. If you ask him why is there so little done by the government to solve the country's problems (Terrorism, Poverty, Communalism, Casteism, Corruption)  he's going to say no party does anything. 

Is he really as dumb as his statement shows or is this his arrogance of being the natural heir to the monarchy he thinks India is? I am seething here ...

And to add to my anger is another article I came across on rediff titled "Rahul Gandhi no more a political pappu".  How long are we going to keep buying this crap from our so-called leaders?

Older Posts: 

Indian Elections 2009 - My Vote and Why?

Shoe-shy politicians - Get your shoes out

Change is definitely on its way

Greenery of my garden city??? :-(

The greenery of Bangalore City or what's left of it still (as seen on Google Maps). The small green patch in the Center is Lalbagh (about to be cleaned up partially or completely with the new Metro Station planned there) and the one on the right is the National Games Village Stadium.

No way can we call this mess of concrete a garden city, can we? 

But the positive spin about all this is the citizen activism and the buzz around getting the politicians to stop s%$%ing us hiding their corruption / nepotism under the guise of development. I really can feel the change happening around the country even from outside India. I can't imagine how exciting it must be to be a core part of this. In hindsight, we may have to thank Pakistan for providing the final trigger with 26/11.

Save Lalbagh, explore alternatives for Metro - Please sign the petition!!!

Last week, a group of Bangalore Residents under the umbrella of Hasiru Usiru got together to protest against the running of the Metro Rail through Lalbagh. This Metro Rail Station will result in indiscriminate felling of trees and destroy the last remaining greenery spot worth talking about in Bangalore. Do we really need this Station going through Lalbagh? 

I feel one of the best examples of a poorly planned project that will in all probability not serve its intended purpose is the Bangalore Metro Project.

1. A metro that will be used by such a small part of the population. It doesn't cover enough of the city for starters to be used by more people and become a widely used transport system. 
   
2. A metro which atleast with its current plans won’t be able to meet the city’s public transport needs. I am sure it will help, but its surely not the magic bullet it is being touted as.
   
3. A metro which is surely not state of the art. Who uses over-ground metros these days? They are so much slower, so much noisier, need so much more maintenance due the vagaries of wind, rain and other weather elements and so much  more uglier.
   
4. A metro that will need car-parks around it which will lead to more destruction of greenery.
   
5. A metro that will have malls around each station that will lead to even more destruction of greenery.
   
6. More than anything else, even if this is the best solution for us, whenever  something like this is pushed through without as much as a public debate or atleast a debate in the legislature, there surely is something fishy about it.
   

Please sign the below petition and voice your opinion against the destruction of Bangalore's last surviving greenery. Also share this with all your friends from Bangalore or friends who have visited Bangalore and enjoyed its pleasant weather because if you don't do it, the next time you come to Bangalore, the weather might not be so pleasant and you won't have any right to bitch about it. :-(

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savelalbaghfrommetro?e

India Elections 2009: My Vote and why?

Living in a democracy where we swear by the secret ballot, I am going out and sharing my opinion on whom my vote is reserved for this time. I guess I am not breaking any rules since I unfortunately won't be able to vote. But a promise I've made to myself is that I'll not only vote in the next election, but will also take a more active role in this. Inspired by all the leaders who've given up careers and made the move to clean-up this mess, I'll surely take some action come the next election.

Coming to the topic at hand, I am going all out in support of the BJP for several reasons:

1) WYSIWYG - What you see is what you get? At least they are being vocal and proud of being the rightists that they are. Unlike the Congress, who claim they are secular but what about the muslim appeasement by turning a blind eye to infiltration , making statements that muslims have first right to Indian resources, and rescinding POTA and putting back a similar law in place after 4.5 years of their rule (or should I say mis-rule and a dastardly incident which opened their eyes or was it just a short term measure to cool down the heated tempers among Indian citizens). Need I talk about the shoe-throwing episode and the history behind it.

2) Party that is not family-centric: We are a democracy and not a monarchy under the Gandhi family as Sonia Maino Ghandy and her children along with the rest of the coterie seem to think. BJP is an entirely grass-roots driven party with almost every leader coming up through the ranks on the strength of his or her own work or abilities. Take Narendra Modi for example. He's a national level leader now largely for his development in Gujarat.

3) Takes a stand against the muslim (yeah I said it) favoritism (or do we say appeasement) that is rampant across all parties by being soft on fundamentalist organizations like SIMI, by encouraging subsidies like for the Haj (have we ever heard of a Teerth Yatra subsidy for Hindus or maybe a visit to the Vatican for the Christians - that's too small a votebank to focus on). I believe the whole BJP strategy of supporting the Ram Janma Bhoomi Movement (of course they didn't start it) was to ensure that Congress Party's votebank politics is shown up for what it truly is.

4) BJP's vocal vows to get back the black money (predicted to be near 1.4 trillion USD) stashed away in tax-havens across the world. See this. If nothing, it shows that the BJP is much less corruptible (they have tons of Congress leaders that have moved into their party over the last 10-15 years) and they have to play the game until the game changes which might make it difficult to say that they are 100% clean. But atleast we'll have a lot more of our tax-money going back into development schemes.

5) BJP government will come without the baggage of the Left and this will be a huge huge relief to the Indian Economy. The last five years have been back-breaking with every forward step being blocked by the left parties that were supporting the government (Was that really support or was it another puppeteer managing the MMS puppet other than of course the lady in 10 Janpath).

6) In terms of policies, BJP has been more populist than the Congress (Rs 2 a kg Rice vs the Congress's Rs 3 a kg rice) because that's the only way you can play it in India (unfortunately). But going by the track-record of their work between 1998 and 2004 where India (atleast Urban India) was truly shining, I think they should do a decent job with managing (or atleast not harming) the Indian Economy. They initiated several infrastructure initiatives that have made no progress in the past five years maybe??? because the Congress realized they would get no credit for it (how cheap???).

7) Although besides the NDA comes to power, I pray that they come to power with the support of a handful of the new generation of independent candidates such as Capt. Gopinath from Bangalore South, Manu Digvijay Singh (the one I mentioned in a previous post) and the several IIM grads contesting the elections all across India so that they can keep a check on the crazy elements (such as Varun Gandhi) within the BJP going berserk.

If you are still reading, thanks for your patience as I bitch my heart about why I hate one party and don't mind another (the lesser of two evils since we need to have a party in power unfortunately), do me,  yourself and our country a favour. Come election day, Go out and exercise your vote!!!

India-Pak screw-ups

India messes up big time (http://tinyurl.com/ck9a7j)  with DNA, Anajali Waghmare fiasco and Pranab Mukherjee Election focussed??? dumb as always double-speak (here and here). 

Dawn - A leading Pakistan Newspaper puts PoK as part of India(http://tinyurl.com/cuzylr) in a map that they publish. Not sure what they are trying to do to themselves. I guess an effect of the "Copy-Paste/Reuse culture in IT in general (maybe the web-development was outsourced to India)" so rampant these days and a bit of laziness to go find another image or a lack of technical know-how do some image-editing. :-)

Shoe-shy politicians

Looks like Jarnail Singh - the journalist from Dainik Jagran is the saviour of India. He's scared the s%%t out of all politicians all over India especially in the ruling party since it appears a shoe is all it takes to get you the boot from contesting the elections.

Get all your dirty old shoes ready and vent your anger now so that they get the message.