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The New Upmarket Lays in India While munching a pack of Lays Maxx and gulping down a glass of ice cold 7up, I got a thought about this company called PepsiCo and more specifically Frito-Lays. For the uninitiated, Lays Maxx is a little up market version of Lays, which is designed carefully to be thicker than normal lays (including baked) and ITC Bingo Mad angles, which are actually as thick as Nachos. I have been a great fan of Lays and the way they market their product across the globe. The way they show a clean cut packet, without any wrinkle or crease and how beautifully one takes out a piece and puts in one’s mouth, while one’s eyes are closed and is lost in the world of flavours. I tried the same; while I was able to close my eyes but couldn’t keep the crease clean (n number of times). I also like the way in which they have applied physics to keep their fragile chips intact by pumping air in the packet. If you have so much of ideal air to pump, why don’t you make some

Chennai flooded...Asks for Help! 100 years record broken, reads the marquee line of a local news channel here. It’s been 42 hours of rain and still the water is coming down from the heaven on this beautiful haven. Nature sometimes tests human endurance, patience and keeps one finger on human’s panic button. Its like- you move and I press. Water-Water everywhere, but don’t know how many people have water to drink right now. Whether they have food to eat, or rather survive and can they still access clean toilets (looks unlikely in most of the places, which are submerged under the water). Electricity looks like was never discovered and the people who have some bulbs twinkling over their head are the most lucky  ones, I guess (an over statement though). I see the roads, which were once ridden by bikes and cars are now canals for boat rides. I can see my society where I slept two days ago, now a small reservoir. The walls built to mark our territory are now asking- “Why we were

A small recap- You have build your product, you have a small but meaning full team, who is chugging along with you and working as hard as you are, you have a co-founder which as strategically involved as you are and you have money from your elder brother and an angel investor. You have a valuation of 12 crores and a well distributed pie chart. By the dilution which has happened in recent past, is it healthy? It is good too and bad too. Good because you have a larger chunk of money to utilize and bad because you have lost certain amount share and hence control over the company. Now your employees, your co- founder, elder brother and the investor will have right to say in most of the decisions.  But that’s alright as you are the boss and you will always have the last say till you own major chunk of your company. But make sure, you involve those people only who respect your work, your product and your plans rather than shoving their plans in your mind. So, what now? S

Opening a startup teaches you many things and researching over some taught me many things. Equity sharing is one of those learning. Let’s start a hypothetical startup called “DiscoverYou”. It has been started by you and you have done some initial work on it like some market research or initial product designing. It looked amazing and you thought about going forward with it with whatever money you have right now. Let’s us discuss the stages involved in my first article of two article series- How to manage your equity? Stage1: Your Company is still un-registered, but you have started gaining some value out of it. You look happy and have not thought about equity yet. Don’t worry just chug along for some time and enjoy the feeling of being your own boss. :-) Stage 2: Phew! It’s harder than you thought. What to do? Idea, let’s get a co-founder. You find someone who can help in making the prototype little better and is as crazy about your idea as you are for it. You find som

Your company has zeroed in on a product or service; you have a nice team of young, fresh and energetic people who are raring to go, a cool company name and a thought after logo for the same. But, where is the money to start? This might or might not work with your pocket money or your dad being generous enough to increase your pocket money to experiment on something. Some actually do!! Let us share some knowledge about finance, in a broader prospective, from which a young budding entrepreneur would want to start her business from. Seed Capital: This is little different from other finance you can look for when you are little confused or don’t know where to start. Some venture capitalists are happy to fund you; if you need some more time to  organize  your product or company. The amount is just enough to hire some people, do some research in the market, get your things organised and up and running. Startup capital: The things look settled now. At this stage you have a sampl

A startup starts and expands, depending upon two entities: Consumer and Government. While consumer forms the base of service initiation or product launch and maintenance, the government plays a pivotal role in supporting a new firm to get proper platform and adequate ecosystem to start and grow with time. It is like a gardener, who takes care of saplings and provides proper nourishment and environment to grow and bore fruits in future. In this article will talk about how a government can play a role in today’s generation startups: India is a hub of eight unicorns (companies having a “bank balance” of more than a billion dollar) and several rising companies which are here to stay, grow and provide benefits to consumers and gain revenues for themselves. It becomes important for the government to believe in these firms and put some of their time and money into them, to gain returns and to provide platforms. Why Bangalore is the hub of startups? Bangalore is the hub of

Last night, I made myself comfortable on my bed, switched on my laptop and started watching “The wolf of Wall street” for the 17 th time. The more I watch this movie, the more the urgency comes to do something with my life. There is something Jordan Belfort said, which hangs on my desk at office: “I want you to back yourself into a corner. Give yourself no choice but to succeed. Let the consequences of failure become so dire and so unthinkable that you’ll have no choice but to do whatever it takes to succeed.” There are 9 things which you can do then taste success in your life: 1. Sleep : Yes sleep, sleep is the most important activity of someone’s daily routine. Sleep compresses the data your brain is carrying for whole day and makes way for new things for downloading next day. A good sound six hour sleep is must. So take your first step and dream about being something. 2. Don’t squeeze 25 th : We only have 24 hours to manage and do our activities. There are fe

Lately, “Startup” as a term has caught my attention and it’s a whole new world with endless possibilities and high riding dreams. Earlier it was considered as a “Not so cool” thing in India, where people were not ready to invest at monetary as well as daughter (Talking about marriage: P) level. But today things have changed.  Entrepreneurs have become talk of the town. Now I see, a special page in newspapers, dedicated forums and large number of investors lined up to even catch the sneeze of a startup aspirant, having a nice plan and workforce to execute it successfully. Almost every day, one learns about new B-plan they come up with, new marketing strategies; whether “Ambush Marketing” or “Single day Complementary joint ventures”, things which one can’t find in books and journals. A person starting this endeavor is like a one man army, who has to decide the line of defense (from other competitors), the strategic points of attack (targeted consumer base), the ammunition power (Mo

DISCLAIMER It’s hard to satisfy everyone. So if someone can get offended, please don’t continue and close the browser window, and the one who want to read on this go on. Happy reading :-) ************** I am crazy about brands, how they are built, managed and how the propaganda is set for generations to come. While every brand has different USP on which it prospers, it uses two of the most important parameter to count on its success- Consumer  behavior  and Market research. A product or service can be hyper  localized  or spread across different time zones, but require consumers like us to start on a positive note, break-even, or even go with IPO. There is one brand which has always mesmerised me. It is not the P&G or Hindustan Unilever or Micromax ( having o ne of the best Marketing team in India). I am talking about ISKCON (International Society of Krishna Consciousness), an organised brand, having religion as its platform and deep rooted Krishna devotee as its con

India's own campaign If you are hungry then this is not a theme restaurant you are searching for :P Its been long, since I have published something and I won’t tell you story behind it, atleast this time. Today I read an article in The Hindu (not showing how intellectually advanced I am :P), about how different can Swachh Bharat Abhiyan be from what we perceive. A woman is known by her clothes, a man by his shoes and a community by its toilet, if I am allowed to say this. A country which is rising day in and day out, thanks to a very dynamic and really hyper active Prime Minister; who has become a trending topic on Twitter and Google (Most stupid PM controversy included), thanks to his visionary schemes- “Digital India”, “Skill India”, “Make in India” and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (I could have used “Clean India”, but this could have killed the essence of this scheme). Though others have brought in laurels for him and the country, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is something which looks