How To Create A Successful Entrepreneur Story Online?

What will make you different? What will give you the edge? How will you succeed when those around you fail? To become a successful entrepreneur you must exhibit exceptional skills and optimism.

These are seven basic steps which will help you to create a successful entrepreneur story:

1. You must have a burning desire to succeed.

Decide how to succeed no matter what it takes and your success is inevitable. You must never give up. If your reason for success is big enough it will drive you forward even when everything seems hopeless and you feel like quitting.

2. A Step by Step Planned Strategy.

As an entrepreneur you must lay down all the steps which you need to accomplish in your successful entrepreneurship journey. You must be particular and clear as to where, by when and how you will complete your tasks.

3. Responding to Any Suggestion.

A customer or a friend might come up with a suggestion which is helpful for your business. Now it is your duty on how you will respond to the given query and in what fashion.

4. Assistance of a Mentor or Guide.

Model the thoughts of your guide or mentor and in turn learn what has made them successful. If you are able to copy successful entrepreneur and do what they have done, you will also be successful.

5. Able to take calculated risk.

The biggest asset of any entrepreneur is his ability to take risk and have full benefit of the oppurtunity which is infront of him. This risk taking ability will actually result in higher profits and better market penetration.

6. You need a system.

All successful businesses use systems that deliver duplicable results. If you get the results you want occasionally but can't duplicate it, you don't have a business. A business must be able to produce the same results over and over, that is what produces continuing profits.

7. You must have a team. Business is a team sport.

If you try to do everything yourself, you will fail. No one is good at everything. Develop the talents and strengths that you have. Spend as much time as possible doing the profit producing tasks you are best at. Find others to do the things that you are not good at, and delegate as much as possible.

Here I end my list of top seven tips for becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Inspire Minds to Change Lives

Ratan Tata's words of inspiration - Inspire minds to change lives

On Courage: I am, unfortunately, a person who has often said: You put a gun to my head and pull the trigger or take the gun away, I won't move my head. 

On Successful People: I admire people who are very successful. But if that success has been achieved through too much ruthlessness, then I may admire that person, but I can't respect him. 

On Leadership: It is easy to become a number one player, but it is difficult to remain number one. So, we will have to fight with a view to remain number one. 

On Nano: This project (the Nano) has proven to everyone that if you really set yourself to doing something, you actually can do it.

On the Need to think Big: We have been. . . thinking small. And if we look around us, countries like China have grown so much by thinking big. I would urge that we all, in the coming years, think big, think of doing things not in small increments, not in small deltas, but seemingly impossible things. But nothing is impossible if you really set out to do so. And we act boldly. Because it is this thinking big and acting boldly that will move India up in a manner different from where it is today. 

On Risk: Risk is a necessary part of business philosophy. You can be risk-averse and take no risks, in which case you will have a certain trajectory in terms of your growth. Or you can, while being prudent, take greater risk in order to grow faster. 

On Risk: I view risk as an ability to be where no one has been before. I view risk to be an issue of thinking big, something we did not do previously. We did everything in small increments so we always lagged behind. But the crucial question is: can we venture putting a man on the moon or risk billions of rupees on a really way-out, advanced project in, say, superconductors? Do you restrict your risk to something close to your heart? 

On Employees: The way to hold employees today is to make their work and their day-to-day activities in the company exciting enough for them to stay. Not everyone will stay, but I think if we can empower more people and are willing to pass on the responsibility for that, and if people are satisfied and motivated, there's less chance of them wanting to leave and go to a competitor. 

On Low-Cost Products: It should not be, cannot be, that low-cost products come to mean inferior or sub-standard products and services; definitely not. The aim is to create products for that larger segment — good and robust products that we are able to produce innovatively and get to the marketplace at lower costs. 

On Customers: We should be treating the customer in the same way that we would want to be treated as customers. 

On Innovation:Barriers to innovation are usually in the mind. 

On Customers:There was a need to re-focus and look at how your customer sees you, and to pay more attention to what the customer wants rather than what you think she wants. Are you really the most cost effective producer? Are you aggressive enough to grab marketshare? Will you endeavour to dip your toe in the water and do something that you haven't done before? 

On Innovation:If you are a little innovative or a little bit of a gambler, and you make a product which is either ahead of its time or has an evolutionary design, or has features that work into a person's perception, then you have an acceptable product. 

On Questioning:I kept saying, please question the unquestionable. I tried to tell our younger managers just don't accept something that was done in the past, don't accept something as a holy cow. . . go question it. That was less of a problem than getting our senior managers not to tell the younger managers, 'Look young man, don't question me.' 

On Speed:Today, the world does not afford you to luxury of being a slow mover. Nor are there any holy cows. We have to be aggressive, be far-sighted enough to look into the future and we also have to be pragmatic enough to say that if we really are not in a leadership position in a particular business, we should look at exiting that business. 

On Icons:The kind of company one would want to emulate is one where products and technology are at the leading edge, dealings with customers are very fair, services are of a high order, and business ethics are transparent and straightforward. A less tangible issue involves the work environment, which should not be one where you are stressed and driven to the point of being drugged.

On Introspection:All companies need to keep looking at their business definition and, possibly from time to time, to see if that definition needs to be redefined. If you take the example of Tata Steel, they could say that they are a steel company and find themselves in a shrinking market where steel is under threat of being replaced by some other material. The question is: what do we call ourselves? One view was that steel is a material, so can we be a materials company? We don't have to be in all materials, but can we be in composites, can we be in plastics, laminates, etc? The automotive business needs to think similarly, and so does the chemicals business. We have to keep looking at ourselves and asking: what is our business?

On Innovation: My outlook on R&D is that it is an absolutely necessary thing for us to do. And I don't think we are doing enough. The point is not just spending money; it's how many patents you file, your innovation rate and your product development. . . If today you were to give everybody a mandate that they can spend 3 per cent of their revenue on R&D, assuming they can spare the money, I don't think many companies would know the what, where and how of spending that kind of money, other than to put up an R&D place and buy lots of equipment.

On Customer Relationship: Where we have direct dealings with our customers, it is important that, at the middle-management levels, they are shown courtesy, dealt with fairly, and made to feel that they are receiving the attention they deserve. The interface with the customer should be a seamless one.

On Risk: There have been occasions where I have been a risk-taker. Perhaps more than some, and less so than certain others. It is a question of where you view that from. I have never been a real gambler in the sense, that some successful businessmen have been.

On Ethics: What worries me is that the threshold of acceptability or the line between acceptability and non-acceptability in terms of values, business ethics, etc, is blurring.

On Success: I would not consider myself to have been tremendously successful or as having failed tremendously. I would say I have been moderately successful because there have been changes.

On Survival: The strong live and the weak die. There is some bloodshed, and out of it emerges a much leaner industry, which tends to survive.

On Challenges: If there are challenges thrown across and those challenges are difficult then some interesting, innovative solutions will come. If you don't have those challenges then, I think, the tendency is go on to say that whatever will happen, will take place in small deltas.

On Planning: We never really plan big. We are not in keeping with what is happening around us. When you go to other countries around us you see it visibly that we are just back in time. And yet we have so much to offer.

On Commitment: We have to clamp down on deviations from commitments. For ensuring greater commitment to performance, we also need to have a system which rewards performers and punishes those who don't perform.

On Risk: We have is to be less risk-averse. We have been a very conservative house and we have been applauded for our conservatism but today we need to take more risk. We don't need to be flamboyant or cavalier but we need to be less conservative than we have been.

On the Future: One hundred years from now, I expect the Tatas to be much bigger than it is now. More importantly, I hope the Group comes to be regarded as being the best in India. . . best in the manner in which we operate, best in the products we deliver, and best in our value systems and ethics. Having said that, I hope that a hundred years from now we will spread our wings far beyond India.

On Resistance: You will probably find the resistance (to change) more from those who haven't been doing well.

On Change: Change is seen to be needed, and fast, so long as it does not affect me. We want to see change but if you suddenly tell me that I am the company that has to go, or has to be cut in half, or three of my businesses have to be hived off, then all of a sudden, the very person who made the noise about change is now saying, 'You don't have to do this.'

On Humility: I would hope that as people who might take an elite position, would be considered amongst the elite in the country, you will always display humility in the manner in which you deal with your fellowmen, both in your company and in the country and you will continue to have passion in the areas in which you will work.

On Doubt: On many, many occasions you would have doubts on whether what you are pursuing is the right thing. But if you do believe in what you are trying to do and you pursue it and stay with it in a determined manner, I am quite sure you will succeed.

On Problems: There are solutions for most problems. The barriers and roadblocks that we face are usually of our own making and these can only be demolished by having the determination to find a solution, even contrary to the conventional wisdom that prevails around us, by breaking tradition.

Next Gen Gaming Technology: Indiagames.com

Life is a never-ending game

Last year, Indiagames, the Mumbai -based gaming company, hit the jackpot when China's Tom Online acquired 80 per cent stake in a multi-million dollar buyout.

Coming soon from Indiagames are the legendary adventures of Emperor Ashoka and an exciting game-based movie on the Jurassic Park.

Meet India's 28-year-old gaming king, Vishal Gondal, CEO, Indiagames, who has come a long way from his humble beginnings in the backyards of an eastern Mumbai suburb, Chembur.

Many startups have their origin in a hobby. Most game development companies come under this category. Developing a successful business model for such companies can be a challenge, especially if you’re a rookie entrepreneur. Vishal Gondal, who founded Indiagames and still runs it after selling a majority stake to UTV, recalls how his business model fashioned itself when he still didn’t know the meaning of the term:

I was totally into games since my childhood, be it volleyball or online. I still play games all night long. I created my first game at 14, it was a Pacman clone. In 1993, I started FACT (Futura Academy of Computer Technology) at a garage in Chembur, Mumbai. I was just 16 then. There were only three computers and I taught students software programming, multimedia, etc.

In 1997, I started ADVER Gaming i.e. games built around advertisements. My first project was for Pepsi. The game was programmed to shoot Coke cans with Pepsi. I used to go to companies and ask for themes for creating games. For Pepsodent, the game was designed to kill germs. I have also designed the scoring system for Femina Miss India, in which his algorithm helped calculate the scores of the contestants.

Then came the Kargil war and I thought a game where you can shoot the terrorists who are trying to cross the LoC would be very appropriate. ‘I Love India’ was an instant hit. Then I realised that there’s a lot of demand for India-based games. And so in 1997 Indiagames.com, a website focused on games for India, was launched. It had games like Ravan Vadh and Dusserah.

It was still a small venture with only five people until PricewaterhouseCoopers stepped in. One day in 1999 two investment bankers, I had no clue what it meant then, walked in and told me that they can provide me with venture capitalists. I had no clue what they meant, first investment bankers then venture capitalists. They explained that VCs will give me big money to expand my company and they will take stake in it. The best part was I would not have to return the money they’ll put in. Great. Now, when I look back I think had I been aware of all that I would have been able to take the plunge and reach were I stand today. Ignorance can sometimes be a bliss, you see. They asked me my business model and when they realised that was reacting to it as if they were speaking in Greek, they made one for me. PwC said they will only charge me success fees, that is, if they succeed in getting the funds, then only I will pay them. I agreed.

They arranged Rs 3.5 crore from VCs and got their due. With the new money, my office expanded and I hired around 40 people. But, I was quite conservative in spending, don’t know why. After the dotcom bust, I wanted to shut online gaming and move over to mobile gaming. But, the other board members were not sure about it and wanted to go with providing services to foreign software companies. So, I had to also act as IT service provider for some time.

But, I had faith in my gaming abilities and as there were not many players in this segment then I managed to get assignments for mobile gaming from Disney, Universal, Sony Pictures and Nokia. And so came games for Lion King, Finding Nemo, Hulk and Wheels of Fortune.

I always had the feeling that something more was needed to besides these, I needed a few products. I need to license a character, make a game and distribute it. But, it was very difficult to choose such a character because if it fails we will lose big time. In end 2003, Spiderman 2 was to be released and I decided to go for him. Got in touch with Marvel Comics and managed to get a worldwide licence for Spidey. The game was released in 60 countries and in 6 languages. Later I acquired licences for Bruce Lee, Jurassic Park, Buffy the Vampire slayer and Mask. Mobile game publishing increased our revenues 10-fold.

I am happy that I have proved that you can do a product story in India. Now, I have a team of 300 people which include gaming programmers, graphic designers and gaming testers. Everyone in my team love gaming and that’s the common thread that binds us. When we are not creating games, we are playing one. My offices are in Mumbai, Beijing, London and Los Angeles. I also outsource some work to Eastern Europe, US and China.

My dream is to give games or e-sports, as I call it, the recognition of a sport. It is never business for me, it’s just gaming. The other global players in mobile gaming are EA, GLU and GAMELOT. Besides, companies like Yahoo and Indiatimes also have mobile gaming facilities. My recent favourites are Resident Evil 4, Gears of War and WiiSports. It keeps on changing.

With the growing market of pirated games it is becoming very difficult for gaming companies to maintain margins. So, I have made a pact with major gaming providers including Microsoft where I deliver a gaming package to people via broadband and charge them monthly. The companies are paid according to the usage of their games. So, when there’ll be easy and cheap availability of legal games, people won’t go for pirated products. Recently, UTV has taken over a major stake in Indiagames.com. (the stake held by Tom Online). To budding entrepreneurs, my advice is that you should have a good original idea and the capability to execute it. Have faith in your product. And always give preference to business sense than legal sense.

Gaming's dark side

Are games addictive? Do they cause violent behaviour? Gondal says, "NO!"

"With low penetration of gaming in India, I think violence is not perpetuated through gaming. There is more violence on television. You can get addicted to worse things in this world, so it's better to get addicted to a game! And he explains the positive aspects -- games sharpen reflexes and knowledge. Strategy games -- like King of the Empire -- and social games help increase tactical insight. Also, the theme that is amongst the most popular in gaming is 'Good must triumph over evil.'"

Wanna go gaming?

Being a part of the International Game Developers Association, it has been Gondal's endeavour to promote game development in India, especially because not many companies are looking at this segment. "We have a shortage of trained manpower, as there are no institutes to really train people in this field. We take people at a trainee level and train them for 6 to 8 months."

"The good thing about the gaming sector is that an employee can even be a school dropout. To be a 'tester,' you just have to be passionate about gaming. Testing is a very important part of gaming, as we cannot launch games unless they are tested well. For game designers, we have a varied set of people: artists, programmers, people from tee arts, science, and commerce fields.

"We have trained about 80 per cent of the people working here. Indiagames is the only place, which has the largest number of team members in one place. Interestingly, we have foreigners keen to work for us. Our US operations are headed by an American, while in Europe we have hired a former Vodafone head.

Techie's interests

Gaming is Vishal Gondal's first love, but he also loves travelling and trying out new cuisines ("I have been to many countries," he says). He is also a gizmo man; he likes to have all the latest gadgets. He dotes on his Blackberry phone. His home is wi-fi ready.

Future perfect

Optimistic that gaming will boom, Gondal explains that the company will set new targets and grow. "We have about 60 per cent of the market share in India. We are growing at 150 to 200 per cent. The priority is to stabilize and tap the more markets and capitalise on the tremendous mobile growth and increased broadband in India."

"We have just launched Jurassic Park. It is a very interesting theme where we put you in the park and how you go about to escape from the park. We will also be working on 3D games and expanding the console gaming project. Another project will be a console game on Emperor Ashoka -- all about him and his wars. Indian stories have global appeal as well. We hope Emperor Ashoka games will reign over the games space."

With the Indian mobile gaming market set to generate $336 million in annual revenues by 2009 and the number of mobile users to go up by 2 million every month, Indiagames is certain to ride the wave. "The next two years are critical to us as mobile users are going to increase in number and broadband is coming up in a big way in India," says Gondal.

New Age Audio Systems: The Bose Story.

Bose Phenomenon.

Entrepreneurship is the midwife to innovation. Yet, how many businessmen have the courage of conviction to build enterprises that are based on principled ideas of what companies should be? Last fortnight, on a raw autumn day, I met an exception to the rule: 72-year-old Amar C Bose. The story of how a young MIT grad’s quest for the perfect stereo system led to the creation of Bose Corporation in 1964 is business lore. The privately-held company went on to become a sound (sic!) transnational, with a turnover in excess of $1.2 billion in 2002 and a reputation of building the world’s best audio systems.

What is less well known, I discovered, is that the Bose Corporation is not the brainchild of a canny business strategist, but an ongoing experiment by a brilliant scientist who knows how to use logic to move from assumption to conclusion. I had wanted to meet Dr Bose from the time I first stepped into a Bose showroom many years ago. Each retail outlet comes with its own demonstration room. Walk-in customers are urged to take in what can only be called a Bose son-et-lumiere. You sit in front of a bank of impressive-looking stereo equipment including awesome speakers that thrum life-like sound at you. At the end of the show, the salesperson removes the large speakers to reveal that actually, all this while, the hi-fi sound was coming from the tiny Bose speakers. At this point, the audience gasps.

As I drove towards The Mountain, the Bose Corporation’s headquarters in Framingham, MA, I was very curious as to what kind of a mind had come up with a marketing strategy that changed the customer’s mindset and convinced the customer about its own product attributes. Turned out it’s a teacher’s mind. As a electrical engineering professor at MIT, writing textbooks forced Dr Bose to think like a student. “It caused me to project myself into the mind of someone I am addressing”.

So, in 1968, when the Bose Corporation came out with its first breakthrough product — the 901 Direct/Reflecting Speaker which reflected 89 per cent sound off walls and brought live concert-like sound into homes — Dr Bose also decided to come up with a breakthrough marketing strategy to sell the product. “I knew this speaker was better than anything in the market. But, if I had left it to the salesperson, he wouldn’t even try to explain the attributes. So, I came up with the idea of a 7-minute demonstration. It was like teaching or writing a textbook”.

Welcome to the Bose school of entrepreneurship, which teaches only two lessons. One: Passionately, madly and deeply, believe in how you want to run your company, and ensure your actions are designed to follow your beliefs, no matter how illogical or non-businesslike it may seem to anyone else. Since innovation is all, it’s ideas and not hierarchy which determines the direction of research. Since Dr Bose is a fierce believer in ethics, every employee learns the p’s and q’s fast — salespeople are sacked on the spot if they are caught criticising the competition.

Two: Passionately, madly, and deeply, avoid doing what you do not believe in, no matter how logical it seems to everyone else. Since he wanted to ensure that the Bose Corporation was driven by research and not financial results, Dr Bose refused to take the company public and be bullied by Wall Street. Since he did not start the company for personal wealth, Dr Bose’s salary is fixed by the HR department just as it is for every other employee. None of his children work there nor will they inherit it — instead, it will, most likely, pass on to an education trust.

Is Dr Bose always right, has he always made smart choices, were resources always efficiently employed? He will be the first to admit, no, no and no. “I would have been fired at least five times if I had been the chairman of a public company”, he says with a grin. Then, he leans forward, his eyes burning with intensity: “For me, the profits that come in are like the blood in the human system. However, the real excitement is the way the body works.” That’s the thrill of enterprise — despite 38 years of being in business. When did you last feel the rush?

Article Reference:
The article appeared in the Financial Express dated: Tuesday , November 12, 2002.

Answer Lies in the Questions.

Answer Lies in the Questions

After getting a Masters degree from abroad in computer science and business administration, I was working in a technical role with a large financial company in the United States. But two years ago, I came back to India with the intention of starting my own business in the information technology/business process outsourcing sector. My initial efforts were not successful and now, after a hiatus, I am making another attempt, this time to start an online marketing company. I need advice on how to go about it.

When I came back to the country and emailed US companies to explore outsourcing opportunities, the responses were not encouraging. Sometimes, there was no response at all. I realised that nobody would outsource to me unless I have some reputation, solid experience, infrastructure and backing to carry out the work.

Soon, I got absorbed in my family business and the idea of an outsourcing startup took a back seat.Over time, however, I developed a keen interest in and some knowledge about online marketing. Now,I am in the process of setting up my own business. By this time,I know that building a customer base is going to be a challenge,especially given that I have to compete with much bigger and stronger rivals.

I want to know the correct strategy I must adopt to build an online marketing firm from scratch. Do I need to change my approach or attitude in order to be successful in this business? Or, are my concerns just the fears that any entrepreneur might have? I would appreciate your guidance.
Dear Mentee,

I hope you allow me to refer to you as such. First, let me congratulate you on contemplating going down the “entrepreneurial” path not once but twice while you are still young (my assumption). After that, in the absence of more detailed information on exactly what you did on your first attempt and have done on your second, I must tell you that you are asking me to do all the heavy lifting. Some of my colleagues in Silicon Valley, faced with such a general and broad question, would have terminated the mentoring session . While normally a little more forgiving, I too believe that a mentor’s role is to provide feedback on the DEEP RESEARCH and VALIDATION the mentee himself/herself has conducted and to provide at most a single spark which ignites all that passion and hard work. Here, I feel I am being asked to do it all. If I am wrong and you do in fact have done a lot of homework, my apologies.

So, I am going to ask you a series of questions (which are not exhaustive) and invite you to consider them and what your responses to them would be. I will even offer through the editors of this column to personally meet with you after you have these responses. In framing these questions, I hope also to give you some pointers on strategy, attitude, approach and customer acquisition all issues you have raised in your general enquiry. So here goes.

• What were your learnings from your first attempt in being an entrepreneur? Why did the US companies not respond to you? You have already indicated that you lacked solid experience, reputation, infrastructure and backing (financial or otherwise) at that time. Are all of those not present now? What have you done to cover your bases on these?
• What value proposition are you going to bring to potential customers which is different from others, many you suggest being large and strong players. Are you going to be faster, better, cheaper? Online marketing is a huge space. Have you identified the sweet spots for you — vertical or solution or service? How and why? Have you actually talked to potential customers to establish their needs?
• You say you have developed a keen interest in and “some” knowledge of online marketing. Normally that is not enough. The usual words one looks for are “passion” and “deep” knowledge in you and the people you have got on board as part of your founding team, advisers etc. Have you identified such a team who will present a credible alternative to a potential customer? If so, how are you going to incentivise them to stay with you and build the organisation? Does your philosophy of entrepreneurship include the sharing of the wealth which is created if you are successful?
• How do you intend going to market? Normally building a solution or service is the easy part. Selling it is tough. How do you intend to reach your potential customers? Have you identified partners, channels who already are serving your potential customers? What do you bring to the table for such partners/channels?

There are many other questions which I could ask or give feedback on if I had more information on the work you have already done. So my response may be slightly shorter but my offer to meet with you when you have the responses remains open.

So I finish as I started. You seem to have the entrepreneurial bug. That’s great. But there is a lot of hard work ahead. How much you have already done will not reduce the amount yet to do. Figure that out. Best of luck.

SRIDAR IYENGAR Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners

Resource:
This article appeared in the Economic Times in one of their successful columns called "Starship Enterprise" dated Sept 7th 2007.

The Story of Wrigley.

The Story of Wrigley.

Innovation Through the Years

Even in Small Things, "Quality is Important"

William Wrigley Jr. came to Chicago from Philadelphia in the spring of 1891. He was 29 years old, had $32 in his pocket and unlimited enthusiasm and energy. He also had great talent as a salesman.

His father was a soap manufacturer, and at the start of his new business in Chicago, Mr. Wrigley sold Wrigley's Scouring Soap. As an extra incentive to merchants, Mr. Wrigley offered premiums. He knew his customers would be more likely to carry Wrigley's soap if they received a little "something for nothing." One of these premiums was baking powder. When baking powder proved to be more popular than soap, he switched to the baking powder business.

Then one day in 1892, Mr. Wrigley got the idea of offering two packages of chewing gum with each can of baking powder. The offer was a big success. Once again the premium - chewing gum - seemed more promising than the product it was supposed to promote.

At that time, there were at least a dozen chewing gum companies in the United States, but the industry was relatively undeveloped. Mr. Wrigley decided that chewing gum was the product with the potential he had been looking for, so he began marketing it under his own name. His first two brands were Lotta and Vassar. Juicy Fruit gum came next in 1893, and Wrigley's Spearmint was introduced later that same year.

Getting a foothold in the chewing gum business was not easy. Several times the young company was on the verge of going under, but hard work overcame the difficulties, and the business forged ahead.

In the very early days, William Wrigley Jr. personally did much of the selling to the trade. He had a gift for seeing his customers' point of view and accommodating himself to their needs. As the company grew, Mr. Wrigley showed an unusual knack for inspiring enthusiasm in the people who worked with him.

Mr. Wrigley was also one of the pioneers in the use of advertising to promote the sale of branded merchandise. He saw that consumer acceptance of Wrigley's gum could be built faster by telling people about the benefits of the product through newspaper and magazine ads, outdoor posters and other forms of advertising. Then, as more and more consumers began to ask for and buy Wrigley's chewing gum in the stores, the storekeeper would naturally want to keep a sufficient stock of Wrigley brands on hand.

As the company continued to grow, it steadfastly applied this basic principle: "Even in a little thing like a stick of gum, quality is important."


The Spirit of Innovation

Wrigley associates are proud to be a part of the Wrigley Company, and are dedicated to its long-term success. Every associate is expected to operate under the Company's shared values and rely on these values to guide their behavior with each other, and the customers and communities of the Wrigley Company. These values form the foundation for the way we conduct our business - the Wrigley Way.

• They treat each other with trust, dignity and respect.
• They create an environment where people from diverse cultures and backgrounds work together effectively.
• They support and have the courage to take measured risk.
• They act with a sense of urgency without sacrificing excellence.
• They foster a spirit of innovation in all areas of our business.
• They strive for effective communication that results in teamwork, shared knowledge and ideas.
• They make an extraordinary effort to attract, identify, recruit and retain the very best person for every job.
• They pursue lifelong learning and personal development.
• They encourage individual leadership, responsibility and accountability.
• They demand of ourselves high standards of ethical behavior.
• They develop long-term relationships for mutual growth and profitability.

Reference:
WRIGLEY

5 common Mindblocks against Entrepreneurship.

Mind Over Matter.

5 common mindblocks against Entrepreneurship.

TO EVEN those with a strong urge to start their own business, it seems ludicrous to give up a job in a comfortable atmosphere, with full benefits and generous bonuses. The fact is, it’s still a job — and you still wonder, every day, what it’d be like to work for yourself, not someone else. The following are the five common mental hurdles you must leap over to realise your dream.

You don’t have a lot of money in the bank

That’s a very good reason to shy away from quitting your job, isn’t it? But that just means you need to get a financial plan together. Consult with a financial planner who can help you map out personal and business finance goals. Some local colleges and community centres even offer workshops and classes on financial planning, usually at a minimal cost, so take advantage of them.

Someone mentions the words “business plan” to you, and you stare blankly

A business plan is not the be-all, end-all of starting a business. But it’s pretty important. Some think they don’t need a business plan if they aren’t planning on seeking financing from outside sources. But even if no one but you ever sees your business plan, it’s still important. It helps you put your goals in focus and create a written plan of action for your business. It’s almost like a detailed to-do list. Plus, you never know where your business will take you. You might get started and find out you need more money than you thought, and that’s where that handy business plan comes in.

You don’t know anything about bookkeeping

Go ahead and admit it—it’s very freeing. Admitting you don’t know everything will only make you successful later, because it means you’ll have the courage to ask for help. Get all the advice and mentoring you can at this stage. There’s no shame in consulting with an accountant, an attorney, a long-time veteran in the field, and so on.

You’re not sure you have the dedication it takes to stick with it

There’s a simple way to solve this problem: Don’t start a business doing something you don’t like. If you hate getting up early, starting a coffee shop or a bakery is not for you. If you get impatient around children, don’t start a child-care centre or anything else kid-related. You have to love what you’re doing when you start a business, or you will not stick with it. It's no different than working in a job you hate.

You’re afraid of selling

That’s a big one, because if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re also a salesperson—that is, unless you figure out a way to bring a top-notch salesperson onto your team from the get-go. Chances are, you don’t have the money for that yet, so perhaps a better alternative is to psych yourself up to sell. If you believe in your product or service, you’ll find the confidence to sell it.

Now quit stalling, and get to work. You’ve got a business to start.

Reference:
(Adapted from Microsoft’s Small Business Centre website)

Design Trends in upcoming Retail Stores

Designs on their mind.

The story of a team of five youngsters who sensed an opportunity before others and built one of the largest independent studios in the country

FOR A while it seemed like the design revolution was going to pass India. With a retail boom well and truly on, it was only natural that there would be a ripple effect in product and display design, but many retailers chose to go overseas for store design and display. Shark Design is one of those companies that had sniffed the opportunity five years ago and lapped it up. Its founders seem to have got a headstart over a host of advertising agencies that are beginning to get interested in design.

The design firm, run by five thirty-somethings, has been at the forefront of the retail store design business in the last five years.

Their work is there to see at practically every retail store — Pantaloon, Etam, Reebok, Samsung and the Worldspace lounges, to name but a few. And it’s not just the store design for these retailers, the actual point-of purchase displays and other retail knickknacks have all been designed and manufactured by Shark Design. While the company asserts its presence also in 3D modelling and animation, it would be no exaggeration to say that nearly all its revenues come from retail design and manufacturing.

How did it all come about? In 2002, three friends, Ashish Jain, Manish Jain and Avnish Jain kicked steady day-jobs in some of the biggest advertising agencies of the country to start their own business. But back then, design wasn’t uppermost on their minds. The company they set up was Eventz Entertainment, which as the name suggests, was an event management company. It was only next year that Eventz Entertainment morphed into Shark Design, and Avnish was the brains behind the design. Today, just about four years later, Shark Design is one of the largest independent design studios in the country, and one of the few that have a fully equipped manufacturing facility as well. The design firm clocked a turnover of Rs 30 crore in FY07. It had already broken even after three years of operation in FY06. Interestingly, the design house ran entirely on its own steam out of a small office in Delhi. There were no bank loans, and no borrowings from family etc.

(Clockwise from left): Ajay Naqvi, Avenish Jain, Manish Jain and Ashish Jain

Amit Ajwani, one of the five partners who joined the organisation just after it was set up, describes the defining moment for the company. He says: “It was a Samsung event that we were working on. We were asked by them to create a display unit for an event and that was the beginning.” Mr Ajwani was an old JWT hand and had studied together with one of the co-founders, in Indore. He quit JWT about three years ago, where he was servicing a bulk of the Unilever businesses to take charge of the Mumbai branch of Shark Design. Ajay Naqvi, formerly of Ogilvy & Mather — and the man with the baritone voice behind “kuch log Sumo chalate hai” — came on board around the same time.

The advertising background of the founding partners has been a great influence in shaping the agency. Says Mr Ajwani: “We spend a lot of time on shop floors trying to understand consumer behaviour and we see how we can translate these learnings into our design and manufacturing.” That surely must have impressed Kishore Biyani, the Future Group head honcho. Mr Biyani recounts spending hours on the shop floor in his book, and he’s given most of the new retail business to Shark Design even though Future Group has an in-house design firm called Idiom. A lot of emphasis has also been spent on market research and understanding what clients want. Besides the Future Group, for whom Shark handles Pantaloon, Etam and aLL stores, the other big clients include Samsung and Worldspace.

Mr Ajwani and the others are too concerned about the imminent entry of foreign design houses. Fitch Design, one of the leading retail design firms worldwide, has just made a big-bang entry into India by bagging the AV Birla Retail account and designing their ‘more.’ stores. Most of the domestic work would still go to Indian design firms since the account size would be too small for someone like Fitch.

Second, Shark’s manufacturing facilities allow them to work on design execution instead of actual design and it has already worked with Fitch on a few designs that the latter has created. The company also says it is cheaper than any of the big design houses, with Mr Ajwani reckoning that it charges barely a sixth of what a big design house like Fitch would charge.

Of course, the five don’t want to rest on their laurels. Mr Ajwani has clearly stated that the company aims to top Rs 100 crore by 2010, which means that it has to grow at 100% every year for the next three years. Unless the organised retail industry is completely thrown off the rails by all manner of protesters, it would take a brave man to bet against this sort of growth.

Article Resources:
Irshad Daftari is the Chief Editor in the The Economic Times, Mumbai and the article appeared in one of their successful columns on Entrepreneurship/Startups called "Starship Enterprise". For more information on Shark Design log on Successful Entrepreneur - Design Studios

Retail design trends for 2008.

As 2007 runs out, retail fixture manufacturers and designers have their eyes turned to 2008. What exactly will the New Year bring in terms of retail design? There are certainly bound to be surprises and wildcards (as there always are), but there are also a few emerging trends, having built momentum during recent years, that will go full steam into the upcoming year.

Green is the new “it” trend

When Wal-Mart starts doing it, you know it has to be big. Of course, I’m talking about “going green.” Reducing your negative environmental impact used to be something only the niche, nature-loving brands worked toward, but as society begins embracing the environmentally conscious state of mind, more retailers are jumping on the bandwagon to stay in tune with their target customers.

It’s more than just seeing

More and more, consumers are looking for more than just products or services when they enter a business. They are looking for an experience. With the power a great experience has on same-store sales, retailers are doing their best to create immersive environments that are a treat for more than just the eyes. Hearing, smell, taste, and touch are stepping out from sight’s shadow to create a complete sensory experience.

Seven Signs of a Successful Entrepreneur

Seven signs of an Entrepreneur

IT TAKES an entrepreneurial fire in your belly to start a business — and make it succeed — and not everyone has it. How do you know if you have what it takes to start a business? There’s really no way to know for sure. But there are things in common among the emotional and family fabric of people ready to consider an entrepreneurial venture. You don’t have to fit all seven of these categories to be a good candidate for entrepreneurship. But it probably wouldn’t hurt. In general, the more you have in common with these characteristics, the closer you probably are to being ready to try going out on your own.

1

You come from a line of people who couldn’t work for someone else. People who are successful at establishing their own business tend to have had parents who worked for themselves. It’s usually easier to get a job with a company than to start your own business; people who strike out on their own often have the direct example of a parent to look to.

2

You’re a lousy employee. No need to sugar-coat this one. People who start their own businesses tend to have been fired from or quit more than one job. It is not to say you were laid off for lack of work or transitioned from one job to a better-paying one — you were cut loose, or you quit before they could fire you. Think of it as the marketplace telling you that the only person who can effectively motivate and manage you is yourself.

3

You see more than one definition of “job security.” The very few people who’ve stayed with one employer for 25 or 30 years may look incredibly secure, but how many people do you know who are able to stay with one company for that long? In a rapidly changing economy, job security can be frighteningly fleeting. To paraphrase one business observer, “It’s way better to have 100 idiot clients than to have one idiot boss.”

4

You’ve gone as far as you can go, or you’re not going anywhere at all. Sometimes the motivation to start a new venture comes from having reached the top of the pile where you are, looking around, and saying, “What’s next?” Early success can be wonderful, but early retirement can sometimes drive energetic and motivated people totally batty. On the other hand, the drive to build something new can also come from deciding that you’re stuck in the middle instead of at the top. Fear of stagnation can be a powerful motivator, especially if you have an idea for something that could be at least more interesting and potentially more lucrative.

5

You’ve done the market research already. Don’t even talk to me about your great business idea if you haven’t put the time into figuring out if there’s a market for your product or service. As the people behind any number of failed internet ventures will tell you, “cool” doesn’t necessarily translate into “profitable.” Don’t bother building it if you haven’t figured out whether there’s a good chance the customers will come.

6

You’ve got the support of your family. Starting a business is stressful under the best of circumstances. Trying to do it without the support of your spouse or other significant family members or friends would probably be unbearable.

7

You know you cannot do it alone. You might excel at promoting a business. Maybe you love running the financial end of the enterprise. You could be someone who starts a business because you have unique creative or technical know-how to create a product.

Any of the above is possible, but it’s unlikely that you are going to excel at all of these tasks — or at all of the tasks involved in running any business. Forget all that “lone wolf” stuff. No matter how “go-italone” your philosophy is, you’re going to need some help sometime.

The willingness to get that help — having employees, partners or consultants for those areas in which you are not an expert — is one indicator of likely future success. As development consultant Ernesto Sirolli writes in “Ripples from the Zambezi,” “No successful entrepreneur has ever succeeded alone... The person who is most capable of enlisting the support of others is the most likely to succeed.”

Reference:
(Adapted from Microsoft’s Small Business Centre website)