 I like to give an overview of what I am trying to do. First and foremost is an assumption by me that most of you who are here are either startups or what we normally define as small entrepreneurs. And this entire presentation is meant for technical entrepreneurs. So it is for people who are into new startup companies, we are not talking about people who can raise IPO of 100 crores to 100 crores, we are talking about people who are finding it difficult to get 50 lakhs. So let us understand that. And obviously as it says, it is a hands on guide. I think you will appreciate that there is no point in my suggesting to you, say you run up into a legal problem that you get somebody like Gopal Reddy to handle your case in the Supreme Court, you just cannot afford. So obviously the entire presentation is based on you being hands on with your ideas, products, processes. Yesterday not lot at least half a dozen people asked me, I have ideas and I do not know which product to select. So lot of you have asked me as to, I have lot of product ideas and I do not know what to select and how do I go about it and things of this sort. Please understand that you are the part of the majority. I mean I am not talking majority in the sense of majority as a majority, but majority of people who are today entrepreneurs, they also started the same way. They also had lot of ideas. They also did not know which would really work and so this entire process which has to come into play and some of the processes I am putting up here. So the idea is, I was in a long drawn conversation yesterday afternoon with one of you and saying that this is my idea and how do I go to the market, but it is the other way round actually. You know like you really have to first take a look at the market and then sort of identify who are the people who would be your probable users. You know one of the things which I keep hearing and this is I think also true for most of you is that you know I have a great technology idea, fantastic. I can patent it and I am sure you are aware that a huge amount of such patents have no commercial value and right at this point where we are sitting and discussing, we are discussing about something that I can do, you can do which has a commercial value. I think we agree on that. It is important to realize that technology is not the business. Technology is the enabler for the business. I think this distinction must be very clear in our minds. So once we realize this that we are essentially accessing the market as my input being the enabler component. So now I have to really look into the business component of what I am trying with my technology to enable. So when we talk of probable users, obviously the person who is thinking of going into that sort of business must be very clear before he gets into it, who could probably use it. There is no point in spending money on your innovation or whatever model or something that you make and then trying to find out who would be probable users of that. So by the time you have wasted a lot of money and time, this sort of follows, you know, the point number 2 follows point number 1 because in many cases, I would not say in all cases, I mean one great exception is the mobile phone. Prior to 1982, if I am not wrong that is of course the inventor of mobile phone never saw the product. So let us assume that he did see. So prior to 1982, there was no mobile phone. So obviously the second part really would not apply to mobile phone fully, but it does apply to telephony. The person who is in the business of mobile phone, he has to understand that this is part of telephony. It is not something which has come from the Mars, it is not that unique. So similarly in the case that where you are at the moment where you are thinking of bringing in a product or process into business, you have to have very, very clear idea that the same activity, how is it being done today? I believe that, you know, there are times when I do not know whether, you know, the very interesting case study in Bombay that there was a service, hovercraft service running from Gateway of India to Vashi and it, you know, no traffic and etc., etc. The whole thing failed because ultimately people thought that it was too expensive a service to save that sort of time. So it is important. I mean, you spend that sort of money, of course, fortunately in this case, the government spent the money, there is no individual, but suppose you spend that sort of money and then you look into, you have not looked into the activity as closely as you ought to have and you put it into service and people really do not want it, they would want it probably at a point of time, at that point of time, it is important to understand that the market as we see it is dynamic. So what, you cannot put a product or process into the market where the market is not ready for it. And as a startup company, we are too new to move the market to our way of thinking. You understand? We are too new into trying to do that. So it is important to realize that what we want to do today can with some effort is I am not saying that everything is pit-pat and you just bring your product and it will sell, no. With some effort, you can break into the market. So this analysis on your part has to be there. And believe me, a lot of it has to do with you, how you see it and whether you are comfortable with the people who will be using it. See, your comfort level is also important. You must be able to reach out to those people. If you cannot reach or if you feel that I cannot reach out to those people, then that is not your business. So again, the third point follows the second point. And how do you think, why do you think that the user would find your solution acceptable? So the user would find your solution acceptable because of the following reasons. And what are the, one of the major factor in the following reason is again you because it is you who is providing the product or service. So you again see the entrepreneur himself at any point of time is there is a nodal point. So what say an entrepreneur A is thinking and entrepreneur B is thinking maybe on the same product does not mean that the entrepreneur A and B will equally succeed. And what we hear a lot of time is there will be a lot of competition. I do not agree to that. There is competition. But it does not follow just because entrepreneur A and entrepreneur B makes the same product that there is a lot of competition. There could be, but that does not follow. What follows is who is more approachable in the market sense and who knows his customer better. So that is the solution to what product or service that you want to bring to the market. So we come to the first point, we elaborate a bit on that who is the problem user. This is very important. This is very important. I mean it is like suppose you were to sell exercise books. So the problem user would be anybody who is a student. I think that logic would not work because if even if it is so that anybody is a student do you have the where with all to reach such a large group. So let us also understand that when you are thinking in terms of the user it is important that you find the segment which you think that you can cater to. You understand. You have to find that segment which you think that you can cater to. There is no point in my telling you that Hindustan Lever caters to this segment. You and I we are not Hindustan Lever. We cannot cater to what Hindustan Lever is catering to. So when we talk of specific segment it does not matter even if the segment is small or you choose a small segment. At the end of the day it is important that your business succeeds. It is not important to what I say. It is important that whether money is coming into your company. So that is a choice the entrepreneur has to clearly make. Obviously again this is an obvious thing. I mean if you look at a segment say you look at a segment which is as I said student segment. Let us continue with that a student segment. If that is the student segment who would really be your user would it be more children in kindergarten in the sense that you see you need to have more orders. So will kindergarten children because they keep on scribbling they will be using more of your product or will it be primary, mid, college what? Now technology so when we are talking of exercise books obviously the user does not need a lot of technology to use an exercise book. But when you are talking of technology whether it is a mobile phone or a computer obviously this part that who will be the user in that segment becomes of critical importance. You just cannot wish that I will cater to this group of people and they can use it. You also have to find out whether that group of people are trained or can be trainable and then only can use it or they are already trained and they are just looking for a better alternate. Speak to people do not speak to your partners and all that partners are there you can keep on talking to them speak to them go and speak to them it is a is a lot of hard work but very important very important you especially for people like us who are startups average I am talking average it is 25 30 years we really are not people known you know in the common sense it when we when a person like you go and speak to people you will immediately get a sense of what they are wanting it will happen. The more you speak the you broaden the spectrum more you speak you will find it is happening and that will help you to make the choice can anybody here I mean we have some entrepreneurs here can anybody here give me a reason why I have written this line why speak to a diverse group that means a group which may not use your product can anybody yeah mitigate your risks in what way see basically if you are trying to have a market let us say my 80 percent of users are coming from one particular segment yet I have put efforts to have the 20 percent it is costing me a little more than actually there is a lot of profit in the 80 percent where I can completely focus and make my 100 percent in that segment the problem with that approach is the day that goes or the risk that is there with that particular group will increase for the business in terms of the sustainability or tomorrow sees a for example you know I have a dealer 80 percent of my business comes from that area that particular thing and I did not diversify into other small dealers around even though they are giving me one two things tomorrow if somebody else pitches my competition pitches for this particular dealer I will lose everything if tomorrow he is going to negotiate with me the point of negotiation for him will be in a higher point compared to if we have three four options when he is pushing me too much I can say to him that you know I have these three options not just one option now I have others also working with me I have a certain even pricing dealership various things diversification helps you not only market in other probable ways like dealerships and all other things quite right as a matter of fact this yeah please it's important to talk to diverse group of segments because it's not really straight forward to identify what your target segment is in the first place it may sometimes in some cases it might be as trivial but in some cases it you never know what your target segment is you might have a perception of what your target segment is but you still have to ascertain and speak to a diverse group that in that it in fact is there might be some other target segment that is more interested than what you thought so it's still important to ascertain the factual data and then you know make a valid judgment of what your target segments are I think this is well thought of but can you give me a process to identify this diverse group yeah but I think once you once you arrive at a target market you list down the target segments and then one once you have a list of target segments you narrowed on to a you know you narrowed on to a particular target segment so the broad list of segments that you have list down from your target market should be a sample space of your diverse group I guess and anybody else wants to yes diverse group can give different dimensions to our ideas and thinking and then so it can add a lot of value also sometimes if you speak to the people who are away from the industry so sometimes it will really give a different dimension to the thinking and the concept okay yeah I just have one last point to add to that diversification also helps you if you have a template product to actually move the product or design the product or the feedback system can be better and the product can be self-sustaining after that point it helps you self-sustaining the product as well yeah yeah please one more thing is that it can be help in the long run maybe he can diversify his product in the in that line now I think most of you agree that all the suggestions that have come really are very good and this is primarily why we need a diverse group but I just want to add a word of caution here you see when we talk of startup companies we are essentially talking in terms of one or two person companies now as I think is needed is needed because we have again a diverse group here to understand what does that one or two person company do one or two person company one man is normally little more knowledgeable in technology part the other person is more adapt in administration that is normal it may not be maybe both are very technology but normally that is how it works out now you can understand every day there are in a small company there are 101 problems as I normally say that you know the expense of the company starts the moment that fellow rolls up his shutter and switches on the light because he is paying for the electricity so in a company of that nature you know you do not have time to get into all this analysis this analysis what you say is fine is fantastic I mean you really can do it nothing like that so what does a startup company do simple talk to everybody just go and talk I mean if you if you see there is no you want something some answer by evening you know you when you come back like your chat your friend whoever it is between the company he comes at 7 o'clock around the evening first thing you know ask him come on what happened at kava there is normally everybody would ask at kava and that fellow will say I have made an analysis and all that the other fellow will get cheesed off is a what analysis you know because somebody is you know he is probably the other fellow probably thinking you know I don't have no money in the bank which is very common so we need we need answers like this we need we need the classical approach also but that classical approach should not tie a person like me down where it is tying me down you just cut it out because at the end of the you know in the long term we are all dead so it nothing can be long term it something has to happen I always tell my people that what you have done today is fine but I thought it would have happened yesterday so when we are talking of startup companies startup companies are people who want things happening now it cannot how can a startup company which is you know finding it difficult to get funds finding it difficult to get their customers even one or two customers that they have had they are howling over the telephone this is not correct this installation you have not done and this and that you that man however intelligent however educated he is he cannot sit down and do an analysis that is a startup company he is really out of a garage right our whole whole concept of incubators is that people like us who have started in a garage incidentally I did start in a garage so people like us who have started in a garage we think today from the government side no let us give them a better place so that is the incubation concept today that we give them a physical decent place to work in so why do we do that because otherwise the chances of success of his business is even lower because even a garage today in a city like Bombay will cost you in astronomical terms so this is the reason when we talk of diverse group first as I said talk to everybody what does this diverse group do the diverse group by them by the very you you may know them you may know them by face and things like that the diverse group will come out with some of gems you will be surprised and you have no time again to do a market analysis a market research unless again as I said that you are one of those companies who's got a VC funding of couple of million dollars now again we have some entrepreneurs here how many of how many entrepreneurs you have quite a few quite a few wonderful so how do you deal with criticism no but I'm just asking you when say a person like me criticizes you what product sir this is a product so how do you how do you react to that sir he actually see I said he has given his input maybe I have a bigger picture which I have not communicated so okay my facts are with me this is the path I have to travel and I have to travel okay and anybody wants to differ to what he's saying no we take comments and analyze it so we are going to every evening visit and we see what is the positive and negative comments we got so by making a note of that we are going to analyze and of course we will take the essence of it and we'll try to overcome if any positive comment is there criticism is a stage of success when I have started my own business of wire misses everyone says that it is not a product it is just like it's used in a window now at present I'm doing my business throughout the country with the turnover of more than 1.2 crore what is the product wire misses wire mesh very good very good okay yeah to be very honest it wasn't easy they have been instances where am I selling the right thing I would go back and do this so and then I would retrospect how can I it's it all boils down to one thing what does the customer want end of the day some people like your service but do not like some aspects of it and actually looking at those aspects and trying to improve is what it is about very true I do what she says is very true yes yes I want to do all of the things it was people said but I get pissed off I just yeah I think that is very fair what he says I am looking back I don't remember but I true must have I mean one thing I do remember my entire family telling me are you have to mind doing the business with what the sort of job offers you have I mean you must be mad so yes I think what he says is also true I mean you just get I don't know why the entire thing of criticism being leveled but you know the thing is that there are two types of people in the world do you know anybody knows I'm not saying man and a woman no he has person human beings there are two types yes is it ricks taker and ricks avers anybody else two types of people you know three two and a half nothing two types of people some people love to just criticize you for the no no no ma'am these names two types of people in the world I'll tell you this man and yes it follows yes positive attitude persons negative attitude persons are read about persons are extra yeah yeah leaders and followers are pessimistic see I mean just let me tell you the two types of people are historical fact the raja and the pracha exactly nobody can doubt no criticism on that the historical fact this raja and the pracha even however brilliant this our variable was but he used to sit one step below emperor Akbar he was not sitting on the same platform so raja and the pracha the employer and the employee no leader beader kuchni the leader is a pleader he's pleading for his cause but an employer is not pleading for his cause the employer is the fellow who gives the bread and butter for the other fellow so you are here as the employer so when criticism is there you must understand your the raja your job is to listen to that if you cannot then you are not an employer please remember business does not work you need to read a fellow cannot say that I am the business no he needs people so when you employ people you are the employer if you are the employer you are the raja because you are the provider for your employees how many people here run a business for more than 10 years hands up so would you agree with me what i am saying so you must understand a person who has run his business more than 10 years for 10 years whether it is two or 2,000 people every month he knows saab humko payasad denimala very important i i'll tell you a very interesting story which happened i came out of university and as i said garage so somebody advised me that you should have a typist to type so i said i don't know whether my business will run out this evening how can i employ a typist so after a lot of thought i employed a typist i trained in a princely sum of 400 rupees in the year 1972 so but every evening has to think that tomorrow this business may close down so one day some few people came into my that small little garage so i thought something has gone wrong and they have come to beat me up because they were looking like you know gundas so i said yes what can i do he's even very nice they very nice they said that you know this gentleman is working for you so i said there's something has gone wrong with him that is why they have come now so i was hacking my brain as to suppose it's a problem what to do i have no idea what to do then they said that this guy was to get married to the other fellow's daughter so they wanted to come and see whether he's really an employee here so after they went away after they saw he was employed i was wondering what sort of people i also don't know whether this job my business will run till tomorrow morning and that fellow has come to see that is the employee here but that strengthens my argument of the employer employee so please remember all of you are sitting here you your mindset is quite in variance to rest of us who are employees absolutely if your mind is not you will be miserable as a entrepreneur miserable maybe you will make money maybe you will not maybe your business closer i don't know i am not a soothsayer so i don't know but you will be miserable so i will please remember as a raja you are the raja so raja has to listen to all criticism from the praja it helps the business also but i will say more than that it helps you to build the business helps you as a person helps you with the change of personality to build the business so we come to the third part of the what what so this is what it was the third part of the first slide now we come to the product definition so you see what i have tried to do is that rather than get into a product or process mode i what i find not only here everywhere that i go to what i find is that we as startup companies would like to talk about my product you know sir i have built this so what do you think is so very difficult to say how do you say i mean so what i have tried to do here is that how are you prepared to go to the market you follow i mean are you both from the point of view of your business structure from the point of view as a person very important as a tachna tachna pruna and from the point of view as a as a person are you ready to go to the market now the third part we come to the product what is user friendly i mean this is something we keep on hearing and hearing and hearing what is user friendly as a as a startup company you have a product which you claim to be user friendly can anybody again describe what would you say one one point don't tell me three four five point that this is user friendly anybody who didn't say no come on if the same product were to be developed by the user you would do it in the same way you would prefer it to be in that way good this is a good good definition yes in our product we say it is a click and play sorry in our product we say just click and play click and play yeah so he means the same thing yeah a short learning curve yeah so so basically we all agree that the user friendly is that a product which as he rightly said the customer if he had designed it would have been in that fashion but obviously it is not even the DVD that you buy for your home is not user friendly so there is a big uh here at us between what we as technical people would say user friendly and we as customer would say user friendly now as an entrepreneur how do we bridge that because that that is critical to my market how do I bridge that what what will help me to to say that you know no I am user friendly how do you bridge that now if you think about this and if you think about your product which you thought that this is the product I will bring to the market and now when you are talking of user friendly obviously you are thinking of your customer you will find your answer what answer whether that product which you thought was a hot shot idea of yours is really the product which would go to the market am I right so you see how how the things get tied up you have a product nobody dies denies is excellent is an excellent product and then but you want to sell it so you have a customer and you want the customer to feel this user friendly and obviously you interact with the customer and the customer is really not happy with what you have given him so in this entire process this is an entire process so if you see your speaking to the people I said you speak to this people you must have direct contact with these people in this entire process what are you doing what are you doing you are identifying your product do you follow you have a product which is you think is a hot shot but your customer does not think your customer is I just cannot use it you are failed if the customer says that you won't buy it helps you to identify instead of you trying to break your head whether it should be this whether it should be that the customer is giving you that feedback free that look this is not going to sell maybe then you will start thinking maybe I shouldn't have that you know according to you again in court a cutting-edge technology stuff there probably I bring down my technology a bit and then that fellow says Ha Saab this is what I want can you give me example of this and any product that you know which yeah yeah it's actually a product which we did it ourselves basically we wrote a business analysis software for the Pune police back in Pune and the police like only like a very few people could use a laptop there so the people like you know the ACP level and things like that so we wrote a tool and we made it as simple as possible you know you had to click three button then you would get your reports whatever they wanted to run and we explained the entire thing to them and all and he said fine this is you know this is what I want but once we go back to the office we get a call saying that okay I've pressed the open button now no select a file you know and we are like okay so after all this we realize that you know it's not as simple enough so like we had to like do a lot more other things to make it just like one button so you have to click this button and everything will happen automatically and for that we have to like bring everything down quite a bit so this is from our own experience you know I was at one time a concentrated tourney in a company which used to make one of the leading music systems in the country cosmic stereo systems and I was also a part of the RND team now being a techie the system was fantastic I mean it was the best system available in the country so being a techie I wanted the system to be very versatile so you can use a microphone you can do a stereo recording you can play simultaneously and when you do a stereo recording you must do monitor we call it line in line out monitors so that if you do a line in line out monitor you know the what sort of recording you are doing you know whether recording is losing frequencies recording is having external noises and all that now this was used in the professional amplifier this was also used in programs where Ravishankar would come and play and things like that but what happened was that they will all buy these people who do the program they will buy our equipment every time there is a program they will tell the telephone has to send a technician to fit it up for them however so we explain to them it was really nothing much because they were all numbered they had their codes they had we had put in the jacks and everything where is Inesa was sent somebody so ultimately you know we did away with all those facilities many of those facilities there is a no mobile phone for senior citizens they find it pain to receive SMS read SMS or to locate a missed call it's easier for the younger generation to locate them through the menu true very true then the again as I said as we discussed in the first point we come to the second point now in the case of a product it is very important to understand that is for the entrepreneur that really is his product is in the field for X number of months is there in the field is not lying on his bench his test bench is not a test is really has to be on the field and if it is not there then he has to seriously see why it is not there he has to identify people or groups who would really be using it so you see at as I said we we started with something called which segment now if you have identified your segment it is important that in that segment you also identify groups which will be using it for testing because without that if you are going to make an investment and go to the market anything can happen you can succeed also as I said that we are not suit says but chances of failure are very high very very high and the test part of the product is not something which the customer says because you are talking to the customer so you are hearing what the customer says but you need to put the best of your skill to formulate what you want to hear from the customer regarding the product because as the technical part there are two parts as I said you are enabling technologically enabling your business so the technology part cannot fail if it fails then what are you enabling so the you need now once you are in a test mode of your product you need feedback on technology and that format again is a format which has to be user friendly you if you if you make a format which the other person doesn't know what to write even if he wants to you lost it so you need both you need at one stage you need to interact with people at large diverse group as we were talking about you need to talk to people as I said just go and talk to people and now you need to identify groups in that segment who will be really testing your product that's absolutely critical to the success of your product you see like my friend there he gave this thing to the puna police I don't know did you get the money for the software after how many months no basically it's not a government project it's like for this particular individual only so for the individual but normally as you know what happened many of us who have done business that if your product is not up working up to satisfaction then you don't know when you will get your money at the end of the day we need that money also you cannot plan out I mean you think at one time that my money is going to come in six months then something goes wrong is a name you correct this and only then I'll pay once he says that you don't know when you'll get that money then what do you do so all that you have to take into account when you are going to launch this product and I think I've also touched the last point how direct is your interaction with such groups this has to be absolutely a direct interaction there is no other way you have to find those groups you have to have interactions with those groups you see the market if you look at the market the market is very very qualitative in nature it is not something which is an object is not something that you can see as such you perceive it as such so in that market if you are trying to be there one of the players in the market it is important that you have a one-on-one interaction with people in that market and that has to be on a continual basis maybe I would say the day I as an employer I as an entrepreneur would think of starting something new from that very day I should be also in the market and it is easy is easy when when you go to buy something you are the customer you are not the seller then so if you can work on that that look as a customer you have access to all the counters because you are a customer people will answer your queries also so if you can you have access to that facility which is easily available to all of us use it use it you follow use that so ultimately what the policemen say he liked your product yeah I mean we made the modifications after a couple of days and then he could use it so I mean the product did what it was supposed to only he couldn't initially you know figure out how to open file I mean basic windows things which you know we thought anybody could do so we had to like eliminate even those things and you know streamline the process so eventually he did I mean they are using it actively you got a repeat order yeah very good so what do you think what do you think the user would find how did why do you think the user found your solution acceptable because it solved a very basic problem which they were facing and it was actually like the data analysis they would do take them five days and using our system it takes them about 20 seconds right now that was a big difference to him you know so he could he spent that much time to learn the system because it saved him so much time and we told him that is the easiest it can get you know after that it can't get any easier so 20 seconds what you find even if you find a solution in five seconds we register with him you should have asked him that if you have found a solution which which which is which is the lead time of five seconds will it register in him so 20 seconds is fair enough yeah yeah I think that's fair okay again we come to the word user friendly user friendly is like a nemesis doesn't leave you and the reason is very simple if you don't have a satisfied customer you have no market as as simple as that or as complicated as that fine nobody likes customer to howl no but there is again part of the business customers will howl also price price so what do you say about price we'll come to price other features now you see it is I said that the market is essentially extremely dynamic and your product should or would have features which you think are you know very positive additions to what is available today and I think that most of us here would agree to that that you know the product he or she has developed has quite a few of those features so but if you again make an analysis of those features and try to understand whether those features are really what the customer wants you are again in a close cycle you really don't know whether they want it whether it is going to with those features will it make it more user friendly or less user friendly so the user friendly part that becomes the key to the success or failure of your product and processes in the market we'll come to these issues a little later okay so now we have discussed enough about what all this is about and where it is leading us and things like that so we come to this point that we'll now go ahead and do it what is your market strategy will your company have its own marketing team anybody here who's running a business with his own marketing team how many people in your team 14 very good how old is your company very good yeah how many people you know come six anybody else how old is your company 10 more than 10 years you said no but this three years 14 people is laudable laudable you give support services the that is a separate team okay the people who do appointments and first interaction with the customer also end up supporting him after the closure and everything so i kind of use them for both for fences i don't think you need support you do you know i don't think so you you are into some support support services support services by the separate team there so you have a separate support team without without i'm not asking you to reveal a lot of data in terms of money will you tell this audience how much it costs approximately to have a 14 member team see if you add up the cost of travel everything everything i should add everything and then put it it will cost you about 1.8 lakhs to 1.9 per month now so you land up with an overhead of daily 22 lakhs a year on markets that's just the team i it does not talk about promotion it does not talk about advertisement nothing it does not talk of freebies are my entrepreneurs ready to do that 22 lakhs 22 lakhs sorry no no it is no question of you know it's a billing he'll do but he's built a team which various product requires this support this 22 lakh fixed overhead support is required month in and month out no i i'll explain to you what is the question the question is even if your business cycle dips you cannot chop that team that is the question so i knew what you're going to say that even if your business cycle dips you cannot chop because you chop a marketing team you are bad because you cannot create a marketing team overnight you understand yeah it is a cycle no so it's gone down so gone down for six months eight months you don't know and ours on the upswing again you don't have people so everyone is to himself i mean he he's designed his business and he i'm sure he's taken adequate care to see that he can support this sort of activity with this sort of funding you're very right that he has a certain level of billing otherwise he cannot do it but it's also question of sustainability you see even when you are making a project it is like saying that you build a house you have a plot of land which somebody has given you your ancestors or somebody so large plot of land one you can only build a house which you can first and foremost afford in terms of cost of building and also cost of maintenance business is very similar to that so you build a business which you can afford at the moment to set up and maintain because nobody knows whether your gestation period will be six months i spoke to somebody this month this morning and he said that he's broken even in five months i think that's phenomenal don't you think i actually want to share about that yeah this 14 member team we used to be about four member team when i started in we were now 48 people team in that that 14 member team the new marketing team came about a one year ago before that there were some people doing it but as a structure it came after two years you know i i had to learn through mistake as if you are looking at starting off it's a very good thing to take that team up front and move forward that's my advice anyways what i was trying to tell is if this 14 member team for me it took me after i took them it took me about four months or five months to break even at the same point i was already doing well but once this team came that overheads of their thing broke even another four five months it's a very good process to do so this is a learning experience for all of us so it can happen it cannot happen also in his case it was like yes please i have a question about whether we should be focusing on core competency or diversify into different aspects of business like my firm it's primarily technology firm it's a b2b solution and we are almost through with the product and we are we have started building on marketing and sales front right now so right now it's just me who is doing the marketing and sales but we are in a dilemma whether to you know build a team for a marketing and sales or focus on our core competency which is delivering innovative products and then outsource the you know marketing and sales aspect to export in those domain who have the network reach and sales experience in b2b so that is a dilemma i'm facing no at all i mean a simple answer to that which is which answer is not simple but i'm saying a simple answer to that is you have to identify from where is your cash flow i mean you see the end of the day you see just think about it he's got a 14 member team you heard what is his overheads in the 14 member team he he is a very sensible businessman he has reserves to go over a bad patch okay he's built that reserve before he's put those 14 people there or maybe in the process of putting those 14 people there so this is a question which we cannot answer for you this this is something which will you can answer for yourself true i mean there's a i think there's a different dimension to it as well apart from the cash management aspect of it because what i feel is you know even if you have the cash flows to manage your marketing and sales team it's also about the broad direction and the vision that you are focusing towards you know you know if you have once i let me again remind this whole group we are talking of new startups or at most we are talking of people who are in business for three years and you know the people here who are in business for 10 years i am in business for 38 years what applies to me cannot apply to you obviously at the same time what even whatever process i have gone through and what i can do today not not in talking in terms of money talking in terms of markets i can access i can access a market in five minutes i will stop you here