Has ecommerce evolved at all?

Naman did a great post about how the more things change in the ecommerce space in India, how they're going back more to what worked earlier.

Begs the question - where's the innovation?

The offline world has many ready parallels that haven't even started getting explored online. When I think of a purchase, a store profile/segment immediately pops into my head. Some are about VFM, some about quality, some about customer service and follow-up, some about choice, and some about "spending time in the store"! This varies by product/category. Where are those parallels online? What does a store stand for? 

Then there's the whole "browse" experience. Doing grocery is also a distraction for a boring afternoon for some. How do I discover new stuff? How do I chance upon products I didn't come to buy? How do I quickly compare across 2 different produts/pacjage sizes? How do I check for ingredients? Whom do I ask questions?

Of course, products that depend on touch/feel, tryouts, experience-based research are much tougher online.

Finally, the offline world offers "extras".  A coffee outlet in store/next door. A few books to browse. Neighbours to catch up with. 

The carrots of "convenience" and "choice" aren't strong enough. Many stores have more choice, and in the Indian context, I usually have multiple options within a 10 minute walk, and most guys deliver.

Ecommerce needs to innovate. And quick. Burning a lot of cash and hoping some sticks is way too short sighted.

What can they do?

1. Curate.Take a stand.

Take a call. Say "these are the best phones in category X" - partner with reviewers etc for this, or evolve a democratic tool/model. Take a stand for something healthy, something green, something ethical, something thta's good value. Be visible as batting for the consumer, and making an effort for it.

2. Play Consultant.

The offline world has learned this well over the last decade. In store service and staff training has improved a lot. One tends to be a little lost when starting to look for a phone/TV/laptop/car tyre/bag/whatever. Play a friend and consultant. Include some crowdsourced wisdom if possible.

3. Get back. Stay Involved.

Get consumer feedback about products/brands they buy. What worked, what didn't. Be seen to be concerned about the quality of various aspects of the store. Bring in experts and help for conversations, advice around big ticket purchases. "Are you using your TV optiimally?" "How do you keep the battery healthy?" "Recipes to cook healthy".

4. Ancilliary Services

Stuff breaks, needs repair, tech support, cleaning, maintenance. Make sure you get involved in helping customer derive better value, longer.

Its too transactional right now, and that shows in the bargain hunting behaviour the consumer exhibits online. Someone's got to change that.

Posted via email from workFront

The startup space needs some weight gain

On a recent thread on India's startup ecosystem vis-a-vis the idea of the startup visa that's doing the rounds, someone mentioned that in the US they saw a lot of support for the underdog - which is what startups are. This support came in the form of users signing up, the biggies willing to work with startups and angels and VCs more readily putting their weight behind ideas.

In India, its a tougher battle, to put it mildly.

Most users are less than enthusiastic, and even nervous, about signing up for a startup's service. Unless it is purely (small) transactional with very low risk, or comes as a huge deal, or serves a so-far unserved, desperate need. Anything less than this, and we need the weight of a big brand.

Big enterprise doing business with small guys is the same story - except it needs a much lower risk or a much stronger need. Else, no go.

I almost don't blame the VCs for following this trend. Few buyers, few users - would you put your money into it ?

The startups that are working are doing it around transactions. Sell books, tickets. Anything that needs some longer "commitment" falters. It can happen as a grey/white label, or with some smart dealmaking, but else is very very tough.

How do we solve this, and do it right ?

• Start with something transactional/low risk. Even if you intend to solve longer term problems, drive stickiness, etc. Tryouts are important.
• Get a dealmaker or two on your side. Easier said than done, of course :)
• Do NOT pay users to use stuff. It might give you a spike, but it isn't worth it. Avoid freebies, except for being thankful.
• Persist :) The curve will take its time. Goes hand in hand with lean-burn too.

These are some things startups can do to work around the problem. The core of it - i.e. making startups feel a little more "secure" and "weighty" in the eyes of the user, investor, big-biz, is still an open problem.

Ideas ?

Irritation to Go-live in a few hours

A couple of days ago, got yet-another-email in my inbox announcing deals. As is often the case, they were either uninteresting/of unclear value or felt like a trap with layers of well disguised fine print.

My first reaction was the usual irritation - the kind you have when a smrt-ass-wannabe tries to take you for a ride and you just manage to spot it in time. But, over lunch which I had in a few minutes later, it occurred to me that I might possibly not be alone in this sea of deal-noise. And that like me, folks naturally have a nose for good, genuine deals which actually made sense.

And as I thought more, it became obvious that the whole definition of a "deal" as a "discounted" offer was flawed. I'd just bought great tyres for my dad's car - even at no discount they were awesome deals compared to the other choices. And we humans, we just know these things, don't we ? Especially Indians - VFM is part of our DNA.

Of course, we find deals everywhere. And the really interesting ones are those that are around us - those in the neighbourhood mall, or with our usual grocer, or favourite diner. Offline, online. Sometimes just a friend selling something they don't need anymore.

So created the easiest thing I could - a Facebook page for dealrater. And followed up with a WordPress install with a plugin for voting deals up or down. And then added a Google spreadsheet form so folks could add stuff they found VFM, or a great deal they'd go for themselves.

The site is now up at http://dealrater.in. Its a simple blog with some features now, and will grow if my gut feel of folks being better at this, and interested in cutting down deal-noise is vindicated (them being able to find the site is of course part of the testing so help me please :))

// Pardon the crappy logo - its a 2 minute job to get started. Will get a fancier, designed one later.

All of this took sporadic effort over all of 48 hours. Including some data seeding.

The Great Indian Ecosystem

Some gems I heard over the last two days (All paraphrased. Non italicized bits are mine):

• Indians don't take risks. Yeah, right.
• Indians are immature. We should read more books. Whoa, there!
• Indians don't know how to sell :)

So, more or less, "Me = All Indian" seems to be a strong foundation of the ecosystem. Add to that the repetition of the sentiment. And again. And expertise is thus born!

So the hordes selling Tally, and of course making it, and the numerous loads who set up Potels, and the Tata Nano and the risk associated with buying a JLR or a Corus, the buying and selling of Glaceau - I guess no Indians in any of those pictures, eh ?

Ok, sorry about the sarcasm etc. I will confess it did get my goat and this was not a mature reaction. Should probably go read a book to figure that one out :D

Seriously. Guys, please. There are numerous other Indians who take risks, sell awesomely, and while they might not read books, their business maturity will be the content of many. Hordes of them. We're the nation who's everywhere - amongst the largest trading, immigrating, innovating populations. (Its not, repeat not, repeat not about patents and lab research alone. Please get over that inferiority complex of yours. Please.) Yes, I personally suck at a lot of these attributes, and would love to learn how to deal with this gap. So do a lot many from the technology space, and this is surely a gap we need to bridge (probably through partnering).

So lets please find those Indians, learn from them. The sweeping generalizations will not help. A pets.com, amongst a gazillion similar examples, sucked as much, so the nationality tag doesn't help at all!

If we all become a little more straightforward, show a little more honesty and humility, and focus on the solutions, we might yet create an ecosystem. Judgmental generalizations, though, will probably not be part of that...

Forced Entrepreneurship ?

Amongst the elites of the blogosphere, this is a phrase used often, and usually somewhat condescendingly, to discount the efforts of those who run mom and pop stores and businesses, only, as the argument goes, because the they did not have a choice.


Yet one sees a whole bunch of of these "forced entrepreneurs" flourish, learn better than most "choice" entrepreneurs about managing cash flows, hiring, marketing, CRM, and even scaling. Sure - its not usually about 10x scale (though a few do turn out that way) but thats a very VC driven attribute, and entrepreneurship is defined by so much else.

A plumber whose service my wife employs for certain rainwater harvesting and water management projects they undertake is one example I've seen. The guy now has a bunch of other guys he's trained, manages, finds work for, supervises. He takes bottomline responsibility for the team, has printed business cards and invested into a van for transporting his team and material more efficiently. He's been known to go ahead and market the idea amongst potential customers. He's managed growth - both of his business and of his role. Sure, he was probably forced into this - but that has hardly stopped him from embracing entrepreneurship.

There's a couple of legendary tales of paan-wallahs who've built business empires from their vantage points, while continuing to humbly assemble the daily dose for customers. There are small grocers who've adopted the aisle format and setup chains without losing their USPs of delivery, cash on delivery and the personal touch they had when operating a single small store. They've obviously managed hiring very closely since that was key to the whole experience.

Darshinis which grew into large catering businesses. Tailors who now own brands. Local courier companies which now manage logistics for corporates across the country - there's just tons of examples.

In some sense, aren't techies who're "forced" into entrepreneurship because of circumstances - perhaps a stream of bad bosses and workplaces, or the peer pressure of everyone else around them striking out on their own - also "forced" into entrepreneurship ?

The point of this huge rant ? Its not important how you got there. What you did, learned and what you managed to make of it afterwards is. So next time you use "forced entrepreneur" dismissively, think again if there are lessons there that you could instead gain from.

Some references to "forced entrepreneurship":

http://www.swaroopch.com/blog/my-benchmark-for-entrepreneurship/#comment-130025
http://www.venturewoods.org/index.php/2009/01/21/state-of-innovation-perspectives/

And, from a different perspective (and continent) ...

http://steadyblogging.blogspot.com/2009/03/nyt-on-forced-entrepreneurship.html

The "small SMEs" space : Marketing and Sales

I think thats a huge market, and could start driving local software business over the next few years.

If the idea of selling to them appeals to you, and you're open to the idea of managing your own brand, drop me a line. You would, of course, know how to sell to this market and have some decent connects into it already. This is not a job offer by any means :)

Manufacturing Giant ?

Well, there's more than meets the eye, or gets the headlines.

"It’s not commonly known that India is the largest manufacturer of motorcycles, second-largest maker of small cars, and third largest manufacturer of automotive components. In the pharmaceutical industry, India has quietly become the fourth-largest producer of pharmaceuticals, while also showing the ability to innovate with the second-largest number of drug master filings. It is also one of the largest exporters of steel, has one of the largest forging facilities in the world, is among the largest consumers and producers of energy in Asia, the second-largest manufacturer of CD ROMs, and so on."

The Challenges are enormous, but there's so many growth stories, and so much happening, thats its tough to not be optimistic. The startup space needs to open its eyes to these and engage, understand and explore opportunity better. It may be less sexy than the current romanticized attempts at entrepreneurship, but it'll make better business sense for sure!

Update:

Indus commented on an article about Indian internet startups failing to meet VCs expectations, and I responded to his comment. I think my response there was relevant to this entry - so cut-pasting:

"The internet, by and large, replaced TV in India. Not malls, not utilities, etc. Some businesses have engaged a portion of of their consumers by using the web as a (cheaper) channel, but by and large, real business happens outside of the not-that-much-of-an-idiot-box.
Its not a question of lack of innovation (that'll happen), or of merely "following" a model from someplace else. Its the vacuum of real-life and real-biz requirements that causes the same to be more or less dreamt up over coffee - and with little follow-up validation.
A little more rubber off the soles, a little more connection with real needs, and the right ideas, right innovation and decent success are likely follow..."

The Ecosystem is Broke(n)

During the course of a conversation-over-chai after a meeting with fellow entrepreneurs, we eventually got to the usual analysis of whats happening in the startup and entrepreneurial space around here.

Surely enough, the echo-chamber that resonates its own thoughts, and has little connection with those outside, soon came up.

So what's paining/failing early startups/small companies/first time entrepreneurs ? What does a business need to make it ? You've got the idea, you might get to the product, or some version of it, but then you sometimes kinda get stuck. For lack of decent, honest, precise advice, information, knowhow, or even plain awareness.

Distribution, the right pricing, what should your outbound communication be ? Are the buyers interested ? Why not ? Is it technology, or support, or something else ? Do we even know what's really happening in the spaces we're trying to connect to ? Is there any form of market intelligence at all ? (I do not include a critical analysis of launches, PR statements and quarterly results in this - that often does not help a startup too much). What's the government's take on issues ? What are the infrastructural changes in the offing and their likely impact ? How do you engage in a dialogue with these (you're already drowning in work) ?

An early entrepreneur would surely love an ecosystem into which inputs that cover the above aspects are drawn in. An ecosystem, again, is not the creation or sole preserve of this forum or that, or some or the other online publication. Its the coming together of all of these, with dialogue flowing between the various stakeholders.

That ecosystem is quite inadequate in India, as of now.

As I see it now - be it major startup events (both structured and otherwise), or online coverage of entrepreneurial activity - there are two major problems:

There's no EcoSystem (but only a part of it)

Sure there's a bunch of enthusiastic VCs who participate. There's a few industry people who even mentor folks. There's a lot of aspirants who want to get going, and then there's a bunch of people who've seen and done a little, and pass off a lot as knowledge.

There's a lot of hype, jargon and very little honest learn-as-we-participate happening inside this echo-chmaber.

More importantly, where are the people who're connected to the real world ?

Are there any top sales folks from FMCGs, Financial Services, Retail, etc, who're telling it how it is ? Do we get real info on what directions business development is taking in healthcare, telecom, energy, real estate, etc ? Yes, you sure pick up bits and pieces of info as you run into these industries, but you're on your own, and its a very incomplete ecosystem without these inputs.

Things are being built, reviewed, validated in isolation from these realities, and only a rude jolt much much later in the process forces a rethink. By such time, some have lost too much money, or people, or enthu, or time. People seem to go through entire entrepreneurship lifecycles with little connection to their real markets - and with a very fuzzy understanding of its behavioural traits. User personas are tough, but even worse, they're probably non-existent in our startups!

A few honest tips from people who've sold stuff "out there", figured out causes and relationships on the ground, would go a long way. Having access to thoughts from a senior bureaucrat who might be able to analyze government policy and directions better than techie-turned-analyst/VC/blogger would give the ecosystem a serious leg up. And so on - for media and communication, for figuring out pricing, and a whole lot more.

We need "more-360". Its a very very small world right now with few connects into reality. Gotta change.

There's no co-operation

This is true for both the players that help create the current ecosystem, as well as for co-operation amongst startups. Everyone is trying to do everything, be everyone, and seems a little fearful of opening up to inviting folks with other competencies. The expansion of the ecosystem needs an honest appraisal of whats available today, and whats missing. There needs to be a concerted effort to expand it, collectively. Each resource, each forum is so small and ineffective at this point that talking about competition is plain short-sighted.

Some gaps that I think exist:

• Experts for many aspects of entrepreneurship are missing from the discussions/fora.
• The entire focus is on "how to start" and "how to get funded". Even the words mention otherwise, the actions focus on these two. What about the startup which has been around for a while ? What about those who need a redo, or are about to pack up ?
  
• Exploration of new models. Right now - pretty much everything is a lift-and-fit from the Valley, and there's a tonne of traditional business knowhow thats ignored. The Nano was not created by adopting and stripping down an existing design. Need models for small ticket M&As, newer funding models that may not work like the current fund-of-risks model we see today (and that may have different investors from the essentially financial players one sees now), newer kinds of VCs, different models for hiring/organizational structure.
  
• Way more co-operation between startups. Trying to focus on what one does best, and keeping burn rates ridiculously low, will help get better success. There's often failure induced by a lack of understanding of competencies that could easily be co-operated on, but that essentially smart folks fail at trying to understand and learn quickly enough. If you can get products out fast, marry someone who buys in and sells well. If you can network, help create and manage partnerships for others. More distributed ownership, higher stakes and commitment, lower "salary" costs.

Someone's gotta to take the lead on some of this. A few success stories (to whatever extent - its not just $100 million exist that count) and we'll see more entrepreneurial activity that's built on newer models, for our own markets, at our price points, and stuff that sustains.

National Obsession Alerts :)

Ok, we just had to satisfy this major need that our users have been explicitly asking for, and that anyhow defines a major dimension of India in such a huge way.

“Score kya hai?”

Click here, and sign up for free Cricket Score updates when matches happen. For now we’re doing this for India interest matches alone. But then thats a sixth of the world listening, isn’t it ?

Solve This II: Pub Crawl

Find names of pubs across India - with some help from Zook

http://www.contests2win.com/crosswords/25253/Pub-hopping-on-Zook-in

Post Offices CRM

Am expecting a parcel through Speedpost, and its been a while in transit. Decided to test my luck and try and find out on the phone. Found the number on Zook, and called up.

• Someone actually picked the phone up
• He patiently heard my case, and asked me for the delivery number or some such, which I did not have
• He actually asked someone about it and explained to me that the guy responsible would be in at 10 and if I could please call up then.

Another instance of government machinery working well and being surprisingly pleasant to interface with.

The Address:

Post Office, Hsr Lyt,
No.21,Bda Complex,Hsr Layout,Bangalore- 560102
Ph:+918025720744

Coverage in the Telegraph, Kolkata

Dial M for more The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata)

Shrabonti Bagchi of the Telegraph, Kolkata did a story on what else you can do with your phone. Zook got covered in this article. It was nice to see all the people we know in this space in there too :)

Ads on Zook

We've started running a few ads on Zook! These are from partners, as well as advertisers.