This day, that year
By Jaggernaut
This day, last year, veriCAR was called off. We handed out our last salaries and shut the office one last time with a heavy heart and a strange mix of a number emotions.
We've been over it so many times. Over dinners and drives and drinks. So much we could have done differently. So much we couldn't.
It was an experience that taught us a lot. And I have often considered writing all of it down, lest I make the same mistakes all over again some day in the future.
However, I've never been able to get myself to do it. It might be because I am lazy. Or perhaps because, by God's grace, I have a lot of good friends and wonderful parents to speak to, so I don't feel the need to vent using this medium. But most of all, I think because it is an intensely private experience, and one that I am not yet ready to share.
Someday, perhaps. Never say never.
3 Responses to This day, that year
I'd like to see you do a write-up on the experience!
By the way, I think you hit the nail on the head the other day on gtalk when you talked about the lack of scalability being the issue. It raises an important question. Is it wise to pursue a business idea, however novel, which precludes building scale without a concomitant increase in costs?
My hunch is that "Operating leverage" (which is basically the ability to build scale without building costs) is the key to the success of a startup. However, once the business becomes a large enterprise, operating leverage is probably less desirable.
It's interesting that most of the first generation entrepreneurs who have succeeded in a big way in India over the past 20-30 years belong to industries where the operating leverage was really high to begin with.
Eg: Software services companies (Infy, Wipro, Satyam and the like)
In contrast, we don't see a lot of new competition in industries with low operating leverage. THe incumbents typically rule the roost.
Eg: HLL, Tata Steel, Tata Motors etc.
Thanks.
I don't think 'scale' is uniformly critical across the board. For some startups, it is more critical than others. For instance, a startup that has a patented technology that restores old paintings (just an example) may not require scale to achieve profits/success. (Of course, with scale, they can achieve supernormal profits, but not scaling the business will not kill them).
That said, I am certain your hunch about operating leverage is probably a well-judged thumbrule.
a startup that has a patented technology that restores old paintings (just an example) may not require scale to achieve profits/success.
Agree. But in that case, what makes them charge exorbitant prices is probably a copyright on the paintings they intend to restore and sell.
There is this DVD company - Criterion which specializes in restoring old art films and producing really good DVDs on the same. These DVDs are very pricey at $25, as Criterion has a near monopoly on old art film DVD market thanks to copyrights.
I'm not sure how much they expend to buy these copyrights since a lot of these "unrestored" movies are in the public domain when Criterion steps in to restore them.
So, effectively their business model resembles the act of picking diamonds on the street, making "copies" of the same and selling them at a high price.
No wonder people download movies.
Something to say?