4 posts tagged “startup”
After a two year hiatus I’m back! My initial dream of escaping the corporate didn’t happen according to plan. The “telecom services” startup actually got started but I did something unfortunately a lot more corporate at the same time. We launched iJunxion (no site yet) 6 months ago with an initial conference calling service for India. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite leave the "corporate" like I was expecting – I ventured into something quite the opposite – Private Equity.
So, I guess you’re asking what happened? Well in January 2007 I got a call from a former boss at Merrill (where I worked for all of 3 months, or was it 6, I can’t remember) as well as some other partners of a Private Equity firm that was just starting in India. In the U.S. I had worked on a bunch of deals in the Telecom Tower space and these new PE hotshots were looking at doing a deal in the space in India. They had no Associates or junior level help of any kind so they asked me to help them out for a few weeks by building a model and starting to execute a transaction in the space. Little did I know that this “project” is one I am still working on and has led to a few transactions in the space. I guess I got sucked into the buy-side and have been with the firm (to be named later when my link won’t be the only one – as we just put the web-site up).
Now, though, I am doing it again! I am "leaving the corporate" to try to start my own business, or at least figure out what is important to me (besides cash money!).
We continue the long, slow, and circuitous route of trying to start this venture. Coming from a banking background, the most frustrating part is that we have not ground out the details. I understand what the overall vision of the Company is (though that too is still subject to change and may be the subject of another post) but I want to see progress and definition in writing; business plans, roles & responsibilities. Only then will I feel comfortable that progress is being made. Is this normal? Is this how most entrepreneurs think? Rajesh Jain believes that the entrepreneur should be a visionary and not be fully focused on the bottom line. If the idea is innovative enough, the money will come. He has 16 more years of experience on me and I am just escaping banking, but I feel like the innovation is only half the battle. Reading tech and VC blogs has taught me that many people have excellent ideas but you have to ultimately translate that into a model that can generate cash quickly or generate market share quickly – which will ultimately generate cash.
A little background on what we are trying to do. Initially the concept, as I understood it, was to license a piece of software that had been developed in the U.S. for exclusive resale in India. With that in mind we would basically be a sales and marketing driven organization. As I run the idea by more and more people, I have come to realize that to really make the organization interesting and worth working for, we need to have a stake in the innovation of the product and also the ability to adapt it to local market conditions. It seems that the other partners are confident we are going to be able to play the innovation game but for me it is very important that we lock this into the structure of the Company. I understand that I am being vague and will continue to do so until there is more clarity and the point of operation becomes tangible.
Finding the time to write is tough. . . . buuuut, now that I’m unemployed that may change – may because I’m kind of a, you know, procrastinator. The plunge has been taken and I just walked out of my extremely fancy offices in Nariman Point for the last time. I feel free, but there are a few downsides for the next couple of weeks. I am trying to start a “telecom services” firm with a few partners. The Chairman (though we are not sure what the structure of the firm will look like yet) is in the process of starting two business (one of them being mine) and is currently employed at a large telecom firm. The future CTO is also working and has been traveling a lot lately. Now that I have time on my hands I need to be the one who pushes both of these folks to get the ball rolling. . . . I don't think I will be able to sit at home all day reading tech blogs. . . .though to some of you that would be the life.
