Sing with your own voice

One of the best and inspiring posts I have read on the net...though its a bit too long...

From Gaping Void

Full article here

how to be creative

1. Ignore everybody.
2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours.
3. Put the hours in.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
7. Keep your day job.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

Indian Embassy, first it messes then it fixes

Two designers from our client Befree are planned to come to India on their yearly visit to meet producers and plan collections for next season. The girls applied for visa at the Indian consulate in St.Petersburg, Russia for a tourist visa, to avoid all the documentation for a business visa, and with the tons of russians coming to India its never any problem. Amazingly, after 10 days of waiting, on Friday 7th March (the girls are supposed to fly sunday 9th) the Indian consulate decided they needed more documents and asked them to come back and meet on tuesday the 11th with the documentation like hotel reservation etc(!). This is pretty strange and unusual as they didnt ask this documents before, and I have had atleast 5 business visitors in last 5 months from Russia who were never asked for such documents.
After trying to figure things out by explaning the real reason for their visit is business and not travel and also how important it is for trade etc etc...and trying best on Friday, the girls were asked to leave as the embassy was closed and matters could only be settled on Tuesday when they reopen.
Left with no choice, the girls almost postponed the trip, and I ended cancelling all the producer meetings I had scheduled with them.

On saturday 8th March - a holiday, out of the blue I get a call from some stranger in Russia, speaking in Indian english, asking who I was and if I knew two girls in Russia who were planning to come to India. Ofcourse, I do and tell him as much. He asks me details of my business and after feeling that the girls have genuine reason to go to India, albeit not for travel but for Business asks me to send a business Invitation ASAP as he wants to "not trouble two good girls who want to come to India and feels responsible to enable all possible trade between India and Russia".
Pretty AMAZING and most unusual!
The two designers and their boss, and I are still stunned on why the hell was the visa not granted in first place and how the hell did the guy from consulate call back on a holiday, and went out of his way to grant the visa.
Especially after having faced the rigid visa consulates of USA, UK, EU I wonder how much flexible the consular offices can be and enable better cooperation and experiences for individuals plannng to travel by taking more initiative and paying a bit more attention to individual cases!

World's youngest self-made billionaire is 23-year-old

As per Forbes magazines' the new list of world's Billionaires and richest people,
"The world's youngest billionaire is 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking Web site Facebook. The magazine estimated his worth at $1.5 billion and said he is the youngest self-made billionaire to ever appear in the Forbes billionaire rankings"

Reminds me of a quote which was part of a friends email signature
"Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work" --Robert Orben

Keep walking... and think Different

Current mood and seeking inspiration....

Quality and Learning

After a small one week break to attend a cousins wedding (and meet my folks and innumerable relatives) I came back to work, only to find another Quality claim from my Buyer. As I have written earlier, ensuring quality of goods whose production we are managing is part of our job and I /We are doing our best.. but its enevitable that something slips by. This time it was a beautiful knitted embroidered ladies top. We were breaking our backs and brains to ensure the delivery of this style in time and quality of the heavily sequinned embroidery.. and ended up not noticing some holes in the back and sleeves! Such a disaster, after such hardwork!.
After a pretty restless and dejected day, I figured out learnings I ought to print in bold letters and put in my office wall.
1. Chose the right garment for the right producers... guys specialising in High fashion woven styles for scandinavian markets cannot do embroidered knits, as much as producers specialising in mens cotton shirts are capable of doing womens chiffon dress! -- i just remember that we have two womens dresses running with producer specialising in womens handbags, and losing sleep over the thought of quality of production! But sometimes its unavoidable as we offer styles designed and developed by one producer to Buyer and once chosen its not ethical to take that style and give to another producer, just becuase we believe the second producer is better at such garments.
2. Try as far as possible, not to deliver goods under pressure. This is one golden rule, though very hard to avoid. Several times, the delivery dates of goods are overshot by producer and Buyer is restless to get the goods. So we as agents dont have enough time to check the goods properly and with a calm mind.
3. Get more experienced and more patient professional dedicated to quality. As i am currently juggling various roles of managing, marketing, and checking quality... its not an easy job and somethings better be left to professionals... though it could be expensive, it will hopefully pay off in the long run!

Officially Delhi

Its been close to 3 months since I/We as NGS closed out Mumbai and moved to Delhi. As I am operating still from home, I keep telling the producers that our office is in Mumbai but are shifting to delhi. Well, thats done and I can now say We WORK FROM Delhi. I have just signed up for a cool office Near Nehru Place in Kalkaji.
Next step, is to get a smart Merchandiser cum Quality incharge.

Most entrepreneurs when they start are a one man company working from home.. but then they slowly and steadily grow. Then comes the classic challenge. The problem I see for an entrepreneur is from running the business himself to being able to develop employees who can takeover and manage. This is a critical step and very important, as it can make or break a company (almost), on the positive side it involves switching from spending 90% of your time managing tactical operations to getting atleast 50% of the time free to invest into Strategic issues...while the employee(s) takes care of the operations... also if capable the employee(s) will add his talent to your strategy to make you/your company stronger...and on the negative side the customers could lose their personal contact with you and could be mishandled by the employee. I think its also why most times, a company started by 2 or 3 partners has a better success rate than by one individual. As one partner takes care of operations -- getting the delivery done or coding and debugging that software program ..while the other can look out at how to shape up business, target marketing and create expansion strategy. Several times, a business started by an individual remains a one man show... as he/she grows comfortable with a certain status-quo where he has a set number of buyers/customers and he is not able to transition them to an employee and go look for new ones. Its sometimes ..inertia..while others it could be an individuals ability ..or sometimes even luck.

Stop being a wimp

Stop being a wimp and do some god damn marketing!
Motto of the month :)
The last statement of the last post was really ..silly