 Shall we start? Okay, cool. Thanks a lot. How was the food? Good? Are you sleepy? I am. And what I did is, so my job is to keep you awake. So I did couple of things. I had three Madkai streams. Then I ensured that I had a cup of tea and I kept enough water there to ensure that I am awake and I am not going to allow you to go to sleep. Okay. Quick one. It is a nice small gathering. So I am going to do more of a chit-chat and discussion so that it doesn't look like boring. So I have seen a lot of it. In my previous avatar, I was the, you know, the head of Ghatna India. Ghatna does a lot of conferences, large ones, they are actually the largest conference company in the world. And one of the things we learned was how to create depth by power point. So I am not going to ensure that you die looking at the power point. So I keep it very full of images. The other thing I do is that I do a lot of interactive things. So just stay with me. A lot of things I personally begin to believe is common sense because I believe as long as you apply common sense, I think things fall in place because the people who wrote it for first time or created the leap methodology for first time would have created out of common sense. It wouldn't have been an epiphany that it's a E is equal to MC squared or Newton's third law. It's a very simple thing. They would have observed and say, oh wow, that doesn't make sense. Before I get into it, I just want to understand a little bit of a demographic here. So stay with me and just help me understand who you are. You don't have to introduce yourself because it will take a long time. But just raise your hand. How many of you are also nurse here? One, two, three, four, good to hear that. How many of you? Come on in. It's OK. Don't get scared. There is a seat here. There is a ward for people who are sitting next to me at the end of that. So you can come here. How many of you are, I'm assuming your bosses are not around. How many of you are planning to start a venture? Good to hear that. So what I'm seeing is, what I'm learning is that close to 60% either are competent enough or about to become competent enough. So whatever I share with you, I can tell you it's going to be very valuable. First, it's a global best practice. Second, we have worked with 4,000 startups globally. Third is, this is inversely proportional to what you have learned in your corporate business. So you're going to find it hard. Fourth is, if you don't apply, I can tell you you're going to fail. And I don't want you to fail. Because that's one of our mission, is to ensure that startups don't fail. Along the way, I'll keep talking about myself if you are. Those of you who are very savvy on social media, I think Agile has, at Agile India, you can tweet. My Twitter handle is at Rajeev Banduni. You can include me there. And if you are even more savvy, you can include both of your Twitter handle. So who is Growth Enabler? Those of you haven't taken the time to go to the website Agenda and watch my indie video, which my friend Nitin put together and read some of the articles which has come about. We started, Growth Enabler is a London-based company. We have a head office in London. There are three of us who started it. We are all next. We are based out of India. I've got another partner called after Blahutra. He's based out of London. He's got a third partner called Lars Lindwellebeck. He's a Danish guy based out of London. Because wherever we are, there are obviously three offices. So we are internationally from day one. We have our presence in Hong Kong, presence in Kuala Lumpur. Why did we create for a very simple reason? We want to do three things. We want to ensure that anyone who wants to become an entrepreneur should have a very easy access to tools, templates and access to funding in a way that it looks democratic. So we are trying to build a paradigm way the world-leading advice is delivered to you. Why do we think we need to do it for a very simple reason? Take your time to go through it, actually. But I'll tell you what happened. This is not the way we wanted to start it. We got compelled because we saw a problem. And I can tell you every startup is born like this. We started something called WKNITE. We said there are three of us. We have earned. We'll be able to do some sort of angel funding. We're going to pick up six, seven companies. Work with them, invest in them. So, well, we have a, you know, I understand India, US, my partner understand entire India market, the other guy understand Stanley and China. So we'll go after ICE market in India, China, and we'll go back to the world. In our quest to find out that six, seven startup, we began to realize there is a huge problem. The problem is that there are more than seven startups who need to become successful. The problem is that while the startup is a poster boy in India, in Bangalore, in the rest of the world, there are only 0.1% of poster boys. 99.9% of guys, they actually fail. They go nowhere. I mean, in fact, if you look at it, global studies done by likes of folks, they said 85% of the startups fail in first 18 months. They actually shut down. Then they found out what they realized in first 12 to 14 months. By the time they run out of money, by the time they run out of money, Randa is over, they're dead. That led us to believe is that what's going on. How big is this problem? 85% of the startups fail. So why it's happening? To our surprise, we realize is that the start of world is huge contrary to what you see in this year. I mean, on an average in India from last four, five years, 100,000 new companies have been registered. In China last year, 1.9 million new companies registered. In UK, which has a population of 67 million, more than half a million companies registered. There's something wrong in India. It's going to touch a million. The challenge is with just around 200 accelerators, how do you serve the needs of everyone? And guess what if you don't live in Bangalore? Guess what if you don't get access to accelerators? Somebody is smarter than you gets into that. How are you going to build these startups? That led us to believe that there has to be a way that entire startup building has to be democratized. It should be accessible to anyone. So most of our modules are available to most of the people. It's free of cost. The other thing we do is that you don't have to come to us. It's available on web. Just have a look at it. These are all the videos, tools, templates. I promise you at the end of this session I'm going to give you a tool which you can use it. This is a simple checklist which you can use before you launch a product or plan into launch a product. And finally what we realized is that all these people need access to global coaches who have done it and know how to do it. So we have around close to 30 global coaches across the globe. These are either the board members of 4-500 companies or they are expounders who have money, they are interested in investing or they are interested in coaching. Then by virtue of what happened was a lot of people who want to be part of the ecosystem in India started talking to us. One thing led to another and what has happened is that in the last 11 months back now there are corporates talking to us like big fights like big pharmaceutical companies that how do we access this innovation so we feed them innovation. So if you are building a B2B startup you are building something there the people are interested in knowing that because we have known them we know most of the CIOs. So we are testing that product right now and we have close to 4 beta in that in London. So this is a bit about us. Let me just talk about simple things. One thing we learned was the entire structure of startup advice does not exist. Like I am talking about something I am going to share and then I am going to leave and even if you found a better way of launch a product how do you raise capital how do you hire people there has to be a structure like there is a curriculum in everything there has to be a structure a company building a startup building needs to happen what we started creating simple thing is that to take that decision they need 5 things competence capability communication clarity of purpose and confidence this is the only way that can be built when you know what you are doing and what is going to be the outcome and how to go about it we started calling them key decision matrix go to any decision go to our website you press any of them you are going to get all that advice it is available on web tool kits are available download now we are rehashing website we are creating assessment tools where you can assess where do you stand all that is free to use it so that you can get step by step advice you do not have to come to me it is all available on website you can go anywhere and do that today we are going to focus on creating amazing product we deliberately kept we did not keep it lean or something although we are a big believer of lean but it is amazing product you can create amazing product without lean but there is a reason why I feel lean philosophy because I personally feel is that that is the only way a startup can be successful there is no other way I have seen it we are a big believer of that and we know there are so many companies who work with us have followed it and there are some companies who are now at a stage where we are working with them to raise you know close to a million pound we surround the 10 crore rupees and other things there are companies in India we are trying to raise half million dollar for them when we see where is we are helping them to get through that so we have seen that success how it makes be done okay now that the room is full and good how was the food those guys came late I think you were busy ensuring that it is there all good with you guys okay cool thank you appreciate okay three things I am going to do what we are going to share assumption every startup starts with an assumption saying that there is a problem I can solve it and then we go and execute an assumption and then we do little bit of premature scaling out of a company called tiny owl yeah tiny owl food delivery company lot happening there looks like little bit of premature scaling we are going to talk a lot about India because we have collected a lot of data here if you have to launch your product today just by a show of your hand how confident you feel that you are ready to launch your product irrespective of your startup or you are working for a company one two three around ten percent of people okay I am going to ask again after going through this presentation how many of you feel you will be able to launch your product going through this presentation this is my way of just understanding whether it made sense whether you get it that these can be applied I like feedback I don't want to create death by power point I also don't want to create a one way communication so I am going to do a lot of in and out I am going to reach out to you ask you and feel free to ask me question those who have come late you can tweet about this conference at at agile India you can include us we are at growth enabler you can include me I am at Rajiv Banduni do all those things okay so let me just focus on assumption how many of you agree that there is an assumption and we believe that assumption is true and then we get into the market that we need to start a company that's how I started growth enabler what do you think how did you are thinking to start is there assumption you have and then you feel that problem exist and you want to go and start a company yeah everyone believes that okay the problem is it's good but it's not enough because it's just an assumption and the other thing I have learned and that's the reason I like Indian native languages because they define words very very nice English has little bit of sophistication right so while lot of startup assume lot of guys they tell me is that we have a hypothesis based on that hypothesis we are building this company I am okay with that I just say that can you just repeat that sentence just replace hypothesis with one word guess then tell me with same confidence that you are building a company for a startup I have a guess and I am building the company how does it sound now sounds scary right so every time you say I have a hypothesis do me a favor replace it with a guess okay so don't you think we all need to know what our customer wants are we very clear that we know what our customer wants 10 out of 10 startup I meet was struggling to grow go through this problem and syndrome that's the biggest mistake they do is that they assume that I know my customer because they just decide to assume that I know my customer that's where the problem starts you see I like when I say startup is a faith based initiative because nothing happened till the time there is a problem exist I need to solve it but the problem is that when you decide that I need to start something there is a problem that exist and I need to go and solve it it's just a problem if you have to build an organization that's scalable the revenue that can be repeated we need to go little further if just believing that delivering food and let me just tell you because we have gone as back as 15 16 years this whole food delivery is going on since 1999 you know that there was a company called web van there was the first company who used to deliver grocery in 1999 in fact they had an ipu you know that right it looks very recent phenomena isn't it there was another company I am trying to recollect the name they started delivering have you heard of crispy green donuts they said I am going to deliver crispy green donuts at 8 o'clock in the morning Saturday because people love to have different kind of breakfast so much so Amazon invested in that company that also closed out so there must be a reason because all these people from last 16 years are believing that I can deliver grocery and food not many people have made money out of that so remember whatever you are doing it's a faith based initiative so first mistake anyone you know and I want you to just keep in mind when you see when you begin to believe I know what customer wants please don't do that go back home and say have I asked the customer is that what you want number 2 I know there are a lot of how many of you are software engineers here very good lot of you you know what waterfall method lot of you know what is waterfall method so the first mistake leads to second mistake and I say I know what features I need to build because I know what my customer want because that's what I have learned in most of the large software companies is that this is the software I need to create these are the feature I need to build tell me when the product is going to be ready the alpha beta gamma whatever is the version is going to be ready 12 months from now nobody cares you see that if you have a vector in what in your what you call waterfall development the vector has only one direction the problem with startup is it's actually inversely proposal the vector there is cyclical so if you decide to follow a waterfall method and go out and say I know the feature and develop that feature build an app take 6-7 months to do that and then go to the customer again 10 out of 10 people have come back to me I said only one thing man 99% of the feature is not relevant problem what happens at that time is that lot of money has gone in and the runway has become shorter how many of you believe that any startup funded or non funded has a limited runway till the time is getting convinced that there is a ray of hope at the end of the tunnel I do believe the only thing a startup should care for is left in the bank before I shut this company and that's how you need to work very simply and the only way when you work like that you can avoid pitfalls is that every time you build something okay and believe you can solve the problem instead of building a product take a sketched version of minimum viable product and show it to at least 400 people and say if I build that would you buy I can tell you there are 20 other people will be building that or exist in the market you need to do 3 things either it should be cheaper faster it should be better those 400 people will tell you I like it but can you change this this this this this go back and change it then you got to ask them one more question if I build this would you pay then you got to ask them one more question would you pay 10,000 rupees because my build cost is 8,000 rupees I'm going to make 20% margin and you need to ask all these things right up front on the day you have decided to build your startup unless you're heading for a failed product launch so it's important always keep in mind whatever you decide whether it's an app things like what you want to build for an example I mean I connect with a lot of startup actually so I'll give you a very interesting example because I know a lot of people have talked about red bus because I've interviewed quite a lot of people there I've also interviewed there was a company parallel to red bus have you heard of that busvala.com yeah did you know that while red bus was not funded they got funding of 2 crore rupees did you know that they went ahead and gave because people were not using software to boost the bus ticket they gave them software free then they said there is no computer they gave them computer free then they said there's no internet they gave them internet free and then they ran out of money they never used it the other company was planning to do same thing did that for one and a half year learned that it's not going to go there they started selling ticket at bus stand and then suddenly they had 500 tickets what a bus operator wanted he wanted access to that 500 ticket he says I can give you where is the software everything got sorted out have you heard of a company called id fresh how many of you eat dosa at home good have you used that dosa better how many of you would that kerala paratha have you seen that green color id it belongs to a friend of mine called mustafa pc interesting story google him so he like you guys he worked for motrola was in irland came back and all that he's from kerala one of his cousins and all that used to have a shop somebody used to supply batter there packed in a dirty things people used to like it because gone are those days where you are going to soak the dal and toor dal and rice and all that they used to watch it then they realized at the volume started going complaints started coming things were not right there was no quality control so 40% of batter started coming back he asked it I was not interested he had no vision he says how about we fix the problem that's how id was born then from the road company the market valuation of why did that happen because they saw the problem do you think they solved the problem in fact there was a complaint that one day somebody said there is a bomb blast in the factory they went and saw there was actually a blast batter was all over the place what was happening was in a chiller batter used to ferment and the process was continuously going on so two day batter will go and then it can't be accommodated in that you know the where they actually in a ziplock and it will burst I don't know what's the reason they say oh we know that we used everything ingredient fresh and all that they were telling people it can't burst it burst actually one of the founders it went on his face not that he got hurt and all that then they realized there is some problem then they started fixing it then they again went to the market and realized that people like buying one kg of batter so that's nice works for few days they can work and build it their entire company was build only supplying dosa batter it can be used as a dosa it can be used as a idli it doesn't make sense there was a iterative process they didn't spend six months just finding out how to build a good dosa batter how to do a nice packaging and all that they were not sure whether people are going to buy it or not how big is the market then they went to couple of people then they put it together took the feedback and all that and they realized you don't know what feature you need to build but I can tell you the people who want to buy they know what feature needs to be built so ask them again and again number 3 how many of people have been you know I have certainly gone through that actually gone through a grind of a product launch date over 5 guess what happens we carry that mentality to our startup it says product has come in I need to launch it I am one I am motorcycle I also ride cycles and all that how many of actually looking forward to a launch of a new bullet adventure which they have specially created for Lataag Manali this one UI designer is looking at it so he says now if they are launching a bike route like that they have studied it for 5 years because I know for sure for last 12-15 years people are using bullet to travel to that region because I mean little bit of personality I am an ultra runner I run races of 100 km plus so every year to last 2 years I am going to Spiti valley that is closer to Lataag and I do last year I did 185 km so you see lot of biker there the current version of this thing doesn't work if they decide to launch and have a launch date it is okay because the amount of data they have studied the motorcycle they don't know what goes wrong they can do that if HLL decides to have a shashes of shampoos they have done that study even if it fails it is a dot in their entire what do you call balance sheet if you start worrying about a launch date what is it for no one knows you on a launch day I can tell you except for your wife, daughter, kids, brother, sister, neighbor 8 people will download your app so much for your launch date thanks for doing that because one of the things we have done is that we are very popular with media we have been covered in last 11 months 70-80 times and I feel it is a very good media you see the challenge with that kind of a thing is that you are still at a hypothesis replace it with gas so you spend lot of money you have created a launch date you have hired a media but hype for what suppose you create a bike like that and you launch it with lot of fanfare guess what 3 bikes are sold in next 8 months was it worth it because you don't know you are not a bike company you are a startup everything you are doing has never been done at least you haven't experienced it at least you don't know how people are going to react to it and there is no brand called infield behind it there is no brand called Tata behind it right I mean even if you get featured in the front page of economic times it doesn't say that you have that brand we call I think you have to think absolutely inversely proportional to a way a big company thinks for a launch you don't even have to worry about it what I would do is that figure out friends, family and all that and get them together and say look I am launching it can you use it and give me a feedback it comes free man and some people say oh wow it is not a bad idea to have a look at them remember one thing a startup is a temporary organization have a look at it it is a very popular definition it is a temporary organization that is looking for repeatable scalable revenue model till the time you achieve it everything is of no use your business plan is going to fall flat your revenue number is going to fall flat because it is based on guess so don't even chase them just keep pivoting it is a cyclical process just keep pivoting build, launch, learn, apply build, launch, learn, apply that is the thing you need to do that is where they go wrong because what happens is that either they have mentors who probably is the marketing head of HLL and say oh yeah that is the way it needs to be learned I know how it has been launched in HLL the guy doesn't realize is that you remove fonts out of that or you remove HLL brand out of that and then ask go and buy this cream I will give you a cream I said I made it the FDA regulation on that who has approved it nothing is going to happen to me because there is no credibility we have we are a start up we go to look for people who are going to believe in us and find those 20, 30 of them and say look I will give it to you you pay me, not a bad idea let me just see what it is then you need to look for scale you are a temporary organization which is continuously working for one thing how do I find a scalable revenue a repeatable business model there is no launch date who cares except you nobody cares in the market because one thing I have learned is that when somebody comes to me and says that I have a very unique idea would you sign an NDA I said please go back I am not interested because I haven't met anybody who has given me a unique idea because I know for sure because of the global market what you are building I can tell you there are 100 companies I have spoken to they are building the same in fact I have a pretty good idea they will probably be 12 16 once ahead of you now you need to think is what I am building I am not saying that don't build it what I am saying is that remember three things cheaper, better, faster unless you are doing that even if you decide it is not that I mean those are better never existed what are you doing differently cheaper, better, faster same those are launched it cost 60 rupees a kg id same those are launched failed in Chennai you know that why they are available for 30 rupees a kg because the rice are subsidized there same market, same India they tested that market for two months left that it's not relevant there rice are subsidized there all these people buy subsidized rice sell the same thing for 30 rupees a kg that guy can't manage it sorry see wherever he goes the manufacturing is local because they do fresh ingredients he doesn't take that subsidized rice it's for people that's not the right thing most of it in your city it doesn't matter where it's coming from legal, illegal if it is 30 rupees a kg would you buy my 60 rupees a kg because I have a better packaging no way you are going to buy that we look for value culturally we are very different let me just move to the next one so does anyone all make sense assumption it's a guesswork you are looking for scalable profitable revenue that's the only truth there is no truth in the number which you are talking about in fact anybody who builds a business plan please don't do it there is something called business model canvas how many of you have heard about business model canvas 1,2,3,4 those who have not heard please go back and google business model canvas it's nicely available if you don't have time go to our website there is a business model canvas my partner Lars has put together how it needs to be filled his entire video download it just fill it up it just talks about two things who are your custodian whom you are going to sell period at it's not complicated that's the way you need to look at it now people have assumed they need to build a company they believe they know the feature they believe people are going to buy that they are going to solve world hunger problem that's the way they are looking at it next thing what they do is that they start executing on those assumptions and that's another flaw people have when you start executing on assumption I kept saying that it's a hypothesis replace that it's a guess you can't execute on guess you have to validate that whether it's guess is worth betting or not who has gone out and tested the hypothesis who has believed that hypothesis is true it can be scaled and if you haven't done it don't even worry about your execution don't even take an attempt to just go out and say I need to hire designer I need to hire sales guys I need to hire that no you are the designer you are the sales guys and your co-founder is going to do everything I remember initially when we launched growth and Hitler we did a lot of workshops and focus groups because you want to know what the problem is you want to test it out we printed few banners we used to go there 45 minutes in advance we will ask somebody can you give us the venue we will pull up everything and all that we will put together we will also sit down take everyone's address name and all that this is what it is this is what they are trying to do would you buy would you pay would you continue to do that if not us how you are trying to solve this problem we went to 400 people to ask that and the reason I believe is that that's the only way I have found to build it because I couldn't have used only a brand name because nobody recognizes me Rajiv Bandhani with growth and Hitler is no brand Rajiv Bandhani with other Fortune 500 company was a brand because I was the head of that company it makes sense people can talk to me they are not buying my product I am solving a different problem I am solving a something which people have tried but nobody has been able to scale it actually the biggest thing they have tried in an accelerator incubator is that expanded to 30 people 40 people and a 6 month batch and they go out then they don't know what happens to them every part of the cycle I am going to be there and guess what I am going to democratize it I know startup doesn't have money so I am going to subsidize it to a point where it doesn't pinch you and then I am going to use that knowledge and reach out to the people globally who are looking for innovation marry the two of them together it's a good model I tested that I knew this model I have come from that background I know how to create research with so much of things we still sometime at the middle of the night will say is this going to go anywhere 11 months back we didn't know that there are 4000 startups will be interacting with us we didn't know that people will start funding us we didn't know that people will start buying from us we didn't know that we will have a 4 beta CIOs in London who will say yeah I need access to that we just had a guess we kept iterating on that guess never forget one thing build, measure, learn and then go back the same thing whatever you have learned apply that no business plan ever met the expectation of market first thing what happens when you have a business plan when it goes to the market it falls don't even try to follow a business plan for God's sake don't even put any numbers that in October you are going to have 400 people who are going to be doing that if it happens good because you don't know so don't put that and create a pressure if you have people if you have people who are funding you are asking you that question then there is something wrong you just say that eventually as the system grows become mature they are not going to be issue with money people will give you money the problem will be whom are you taking that money from and I am now beginning to feel horror stories of money because now media is chasing us hey these people are leaving that this organization is not working how many of you know about housing.com yeah it became a saga like a television soap everything can go wrong went wrong in that company nobody is wrong either the guys who started it nor who funded it I don't think people wanted to fail there it's just the maturity of start-up system and the expectation and what do you build and at the end of the day as a founder if you are left with 2% of the equity do you think it's your company I don't think we have raised our first round we still own 95% of our company and we are very clear we are never going to dilute below 51% because we care for this much mission when I talk to people they connect with me most of the people who have joined us has joined us for one reason if they have known us they have attended these kind of seminars they have seen us they have read our article they have seen us on television says I like you guys can I work with you I especially invited Ankit he has joined us a week back he is from Vipro he has read one of our article in Mint about start-up he has been working in start-up for the last 2 years he does the research and all that he says I like it I want to play in start-up I am you know I like a researcher we need a researcher because a lot of news people ask for the trends and analysis on that he says ok come over he didn't come growth enable as a brand he just felt that we are doing something good this is how it has come about I took him through the mission because that's how it connects only you care for that mission only you care for that problem nobody else cares for that nobody else wanted you cares for your mission you know what do they care for when you are going to exit and how you are going to make a 10x return to them that's the only thing they worry about so think 20 times when you are going to people and what you are going to ask for you cannot continuously relentlessly execute and expect that your business is going to succeed without even knowing that anybody needs that so always focus on proving your hypothesis man every time I meet a startup and say look I am going to pitch to somebody he says here is the business plan in month 1 I am going to do this revenue month 2 I am going to do this revenue month 3 I am going to do this revenue said ok thank you very much can you tell me past 3 months what has been the statistics of your revenue he says no we haven't done what makes you think that month 1 is going to be like that he says no I think so he says you think so no company predicts something they have a cycle and it goes through cycle after cycle you have no cycle you don't even know who is going to buy in fact you don't even know whether people are going to at all buy your product and if they do are they going to buy the version you have created and if they decide to buy version that created are they going to buy the price you have put together and if you have put together a price you have put together are you going to make money for those things there is no point creating a business plan that's the reason I say shift to business model canvas that has been specially created for startup it doesn't talk about numbers it talks about an ecosystem of startup because remember you are in a constant flow of only one thing you are searching for repeatable and scalable business model that's the only thing you are doing and unless you continuously asking yourself and you are surrounding people with those kind of questions there is a struggle and I think that's the problem which is beginning I mean look a valley based system the entire Forbes report was for a valley based system they are in their third cycle of startup we are in just first cycle of startup or you say one and a half cycle of startup because the first one happened when Infosys, Vipro these guys came and put it together after that nothing much has happened there was a small blip when the dotcom company happened I started a company then at that time we were valued around 15 million I raised around million we still exist we have around 250 people that was a service based economy how many of companies you remember from that time we started at Sadhi dotcom this dotcom and all that are still there and making money at that time I put together a website and people are going to buy that's what web banded interestingly they created a company which will deliver groceries 1999 then they reached out and raised fund everyone believed internet economy was coming they raised then they reached out to people at that time they used to deliver 800 supplies every day nobody checked that 70% of them are repeat 30% was dropping every day and guess what they did they did a 40 million dollar contract to create a warehouse in some 14 states where they are going to deliver without knowing then they hired a VP of sales VP of execution, VP of marketing nobody was interested in asking that look from 800 how we go to 2000 and those guys are planning that in 2 months we are going to deliver 2000 it never went because hype was selling they listed and exactly 7 months from getting publicly listed they filed for chapter 11 nobody tested the hypothesis the guess that it's a viable model not that similar model failed have you heard of a company called Tesco people they exactly do the same thing Tesco is a half billion dollar grocery delivery company they looked at the model they understood what needs to be done you need to keep pivoting you need to create a cyclical model because what happens is that when you follow a traditional business plan there is no trial and error you just don't go back you try error, try error, keep applying keep learning and putting back unless you do that you are struggling unless you do that there is no learning happening what people are going to buy there is a book called I am reading it it's a very interesting book somebody has written it because this entire internet based economy and a mobile based economy what it has done is that it has created a lot of distraction so there is for so much for your mobile based economy people select take a call to spend more time on a website and they decide that in 50 milliseconds they look at a website and say I am going to invest time or not what? and they decide that not based on the content just purely based on the content that's the recent research purely based on the color if there is so much of distraction where in 50 millisecond people decide whether I want to invest time on that website and purely based on color how our brain is like it's a very lazy thing I read a lot so I connect all these dots in my own library so there is a gentleman called Daniel Kahneman how many have heard about him? have you read a book called slow mind fast thinking fast and slow is the book normally referred to people who are doing phd in behavioral analytics if you not just have a look at them so there is something called lazy mind which does thinking fast my lens gets created that's the reason we kept a red they say oh like a red color that's good let's just look at them what do they do it's as simple as that because we are so distracted people don't have time to read that if you create a website which is full of blogs people don't have time they like bite size information the reason why facebook has gone into videos is primarily because they realize nobody is reading it they are either watching pictures or they are only interested in going through the videos nobody has time to read text has anybody thought about that when you are launching anything what you are doing this is the way things are changing surround yourself with people who will ask you these questions or ask somebody to help you ask you these questions because remember the reason people fail in first 18 months is not because they don't know what to do because they believe they know what needs to be done and by the time they figure it out it's too late only thing you need to worry is how much of cash I have in my bank so traditional business versus start-up needs in traditional business what happens is you basically have numbers and you measure yourself against those numbers start-up can't do that there is no predictability about start-up so you need to look at small small things for a very simple thing is don't create a measurement matrix of number create a measurement matrix initially that I have created a product let me just reach out to 100 people and ask them what do they think and if they 90% of say that I don't like these features go back and change a feature first thing you need to fix is that have you done enough for people to like the product the way it is then ask them would you like to pay then ask them may agree that yeah I want to pay that those are your first evangelists take care of them they like you they trust you they're buying from you take their feedback seriously ask them why are you buying from me what do you like about them use that as your USP apply that as a learning into your product those are your milestones not how many downloads you have because it really doesn't matter the average age of download versus deletion is so fast that in 30 minute people decide I need to get out of that in fact I'm actually intrigued now if that people need 100 apps to access information I don't think I can do that I've started deleting all the apps from my web if I need to search anything I like actually google search search it have a look at it and do that because I can't go through 20 apps I just use 2-3 apps which I need to use it third thing is my email app that's it I'm not interested because I need that rest I don't do it because I realize one day I just sat I said look I have 150 apps I don't use 90% of them and those are like big companies if the app exists in you you have known them if I don't use them guess what if you have created an app what are the chances that I'm going to download it I'm going to discover it and guess what what are the chances I'm going to use it and all these things doesn't happen that's good welcome guys feels good so never no product launches measurement never tried to do that lot of people do that mistake don't focus on your revenue you have no predictability about revenue the only thing you have predictability about is you're testing I know something are people going to buy those things I know something people like it I know something people say you know what 80% it looks good 100% if you change it it's going to make sense to me those are the measurement anything if anybody tells you the measurement about your revenue it's basically fooling you 5 minutes finally premature scaling are you out of time only 5 minutes can you give me 5 minutes thank you okay so what happens is that you've gone through one assumption and the execution on assumption now comes the premature scaling why do you think in last 3 months 90% of people who have been fired are from the companies who are into food delivery because all of them yeah what do you think what went wrong so true because the assumption and then assumption and then execution and assumption that's what web one did you see you are not at execution stage so when you hire people don't hire people who are in execution mode in fact there is no department call for you execution there is no department call marketing there is no department call sales for you the only department is called uncertainty I'm going I'm trying to test something if something works I'll go back fix it and I'll create more of it I tell everybody ensure that you have made friends with uncertainty because every day is uncertain if you take 10 step forward I can give you in writing you're going to take 9 step backward and when that kind of uncertainty you are living it how can you create a certain uncertainty of revenue scaling except for 6 metros nobody is realizing people are using taxis for sale people are using food deliveries because the culture doesn't exist not many people go out that's the reason food delivery is just going out of the window okay the reason for premature scaling again I'll give you a webman example or that buswala.com example was that because people were so focused about executing a hypothesis which was a guess which nobody proved it nobody took a feedback it only does it that there are only two kind of things happen you hire a lot of people you burn a lot of cash and returns are nailed so when you run out of cash then you get rid of people then you shut down company because you have no cash left any business plan you make I can tell you that the first attempt the business plan makes if you bark it it's going to fall flat it has no relevance till the time you have proved your hypothesis that's the reason very minstrel companies actually see light at the end of the day and that's the only way you need to do that and finally that's what you see management by crisis hire your VP of sales hire 70% of your staff suddenly you realize that out of 9 cities I'm going to only operate in 2 cities that's it I'm going to look at the model man I wish you could have done it 20 months back only worked on 2 cities only tested the model there baked the model then gone into the next city then gone into the next city then done the research about this then made it work for 16 years not many people have seen you have made money delivering the food and also keep in mind unlike big companies where failures are seen like you're done you're fired you haven't done a good job in startup failure is everyday you need to embrace failure every time you do something you're going to fail you're going to learn apply that till the time you found a method that you're going to be successful so don't take it hard for 20 things we have done only 2 things have worked but it's part of light it's part of lean because you're learning you're applying and all those things and that's the way it works in the end that's the last slide from my point of view it's a simple slide you can click it what you need to do actually what I've done is that as a startup you are in this mode customer discovery you do customer validation you pivot you do customer validation you pivot don't even look at customer creation you're building it takes good 18 months just to give you on that side and this is a very simple lean philosophy is that you have a hypothesis you do you try things and then you go to phase 3 then you verify pivot and go back and remember I've kept it cyclical the vector is not in one direction the vector is a cyclical vector let me finish it quickly now that you have gone through this how many feel confident that they have learned little bit about that they can launch their product that's good at least two more hands were raised okay if you feel that you are scared no question answers because we don't have time if you feel that you are scared and you need to know what is required I've created a checklist it's a 10 or 12 questions of checklist before you do a product launch I mean you won't be able to read it just send me an email just tweet me and I'll be able to send you the link for you to download the info at growthenabler.com or at Rajeev Bandari Twitter just send it to us happy to send you the checklist do that you can use it you can use it for your companies also I'm done with this thanks a lot sorry I took 5 minutes more appreciate that