10 Years 10 Minutes - Lessons from Each Year as an Entrepreneur

Was faced with a challenge earlier this weekend. Had to collect my thoughts for a 10 minute speaking slot at a startup series. (eChai, Jatin and Nikhil, you folks are doing some amazing work!)

What would be the best way to compile these thoughts? There's always so much to talk about! So, Saturday afternoon, went thinking over, what would be the top 10 lessons I learnt (read - mistakes I made 😉) over the last 10 years as an entrepreneur.

So, here goes the list -
Lesson 1 - No job is too small! Really, Mahatma Gandhi spoke about cleaning our own toilets. Apply the metaphor to work! Are you ready as an entrepreneur to do the heavy lifting? Are you ready to be involved in the smallest job (caveat: you might not be the most skilled) and yet, give it your best!?

Lesson 2 - Margins are important! It's not just the top line that matters. How controlled your costs are is a great indicator of the longevity of your business - new or old. Corollary: If you sell on cost, someone will always beat you. If you sell on product and services, you will invariably beat the biggest.

Lesson 3 - Focus on Key Product! We all work on filling a need in the market! The market has many needs! And filling each need is tempting for an entrepreneur. But then wouldn't you need 10 arms and 10 heads for that? So focus on your key product!

Lesson 4 - Innovate and Protect your IP! Intellectual Property Rights is something many entrepreneurs (atleast in South Asia tech) tend to give a low priority too. Well, if you have developed something, go for protecting that idea to implementation story.

Lesson 5 - There is no such thing as Bad Publicity! is an old adage. Often marketing and publicity take a back seat. As a salesman, you've got to literally be in the hair of your customer (because if you aren't, probably someone else is :-)). Make the right noises and ensure you are available and well positioned and unabashed.

Lesson 6 - Cash is King! A business is measured on the basis of it's turnover (invoice). A successful business is measured on the basis of it's invoice to collection cycle. How well you collect is how well you run your business! Lose your sleep over your customer. If you have a happy customer you will get more and you will get timely collections!

Lesson 7 - Work is Life; Life is Work! (Don't get me wrong; and wait till Lesson 10) but till then, you've got to eat, breath and sleep your business. Remember the Alchemist. If not read it, there's a very interesting thought there!

Lesson 8 - Never Compromise! God is in the Detail! Detail it out, give it your best and expect the best from others. You might fail while doing that. But you will also come out with, no regrets!

Lesson 9 - People! People, delegation & motivation. These are important. You've go to have things done through the right people. There will always be a temptation of let me do this, but you've got to be able to manage and get things done, because there is a right person for each skill.

Lesson 10 - Get a Life! Not contrary to Lesson 7. Don't forget yourself and your family in the process. Take time out for your own self (that's very often when clairvoyance in thoughts is achieved)  and your family & friends (man is a social animal, said Aristotle).

Is Capping of School Fees Killing Our Future?

Guajrat Government ruled to cap school fees through the Gujarat Self Financed Schools (Regulation of Fees) Act, 2017.

Here's what I read of the Act,

1. School Fees is capped at Rs. 15,000 for pre/primary schools, Rs. 25,000 for secondary schools and Rs. 27,000 for higher secondary schools for Academic Yr 17/18. No announcement yet on 18/19.
2. Any deviations need to be approved by a committee where in a break-up and justification needs to be provided by the schools.

Here's what I hear as justification about the law:

• Schools are supposed to be non-profit making, yet they charge high fees (more on this later) and are being run as companies rather than schools.
• There is an uncontrolled increase in school fees every year.

Yes, in the short run, all of this makes good sense. But here are some thoughts that are making me sit back and think:

1. Schools may not make profits, but schools are institutions and institutions needs Capital and Labour to survive. What is the function that defines the fees to quality of teachers and administrators, infrastructure, pedagogy, recognition, affiliations, quality of output? We had great teachers in our time at Bhavans, Vadodara and what a biology lab of specimen of all sorts we had! I wonder if the same teachers and infrastructure would be manageable at schools that have to work under strict budgets? 
2. The lack of a methodology to define the school fees and leaving that to committee to decide (and with all due respect to the committee) without guidelines or a formula is lack of transparency. That's not the most ideal way!
3. Finally, can we compare this with the per capita cost of education that the Government spends in the state of pre-primary, primary and secondary education. I have no idea, but some people I spoke to said that this is much north of the cap set by the Government under the Act. I wonder if that is true. 

My two cents on the above:

1. Schools charging what they wish to is probably free market economy. Government intervention in free market is like saying that the government should cap air fare? Fun fact: on certain days of the year, a one-way single airfare between cities a couple of hours apart in India is comparable to a years school fees per the Act! 
2. In security, we talk of the weakest link. For every control, there is a loop hole. Schools will probably find a roundabout way and that's not good for straightforwardness. (Which, I believe, is one of the traits that we want our kids to imbibe!)
3. A more positive way of handling this would be, that the government focuses on getting government schools to a world class level; such that parents want to send their schools to government schools than private schools. If this happens, that surely is a win and will be great and exemplary governance! 

But till then I am skeptical that this Act might be like a soothing balm in the short run, but in the long run can destroy quality of education and remove transparency in education.

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit...

....

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!