sahil parikh’s work+life stream

No, I am not going away and this is not my farewell speech. Just thought that writing the title in past tense seemed to make sense.

After switching from a service company back in 2006/07, a large chunk of my life revolved around DeskAway. An inspirational article I read made me look at the things that I have learnt in the last 3-4 years growing and scaling a SaaS business.

Quick, rapid decisions: You can easily change things around if something does not work out. Don’t ponder and wonder if something needs to be done. Just do it and if it doesn’t work, switch gears and try something else. Try out different tools, policies, management styles, testing procedures, website design and keep only the ones that work. Move fast.

Measure early and often: Everything on the web is measurable. Initially, we were too engrossed in building software that we completely ignored analytics and measuring the customer acquisition funnel. This was back in early 2008. Once we realized that we could learn so much more about our users and business, we built an internal dashboard to track everything - sales, free signups, conversion funnel, upgrades, downgrades and other important metrics. Today, key business indicators are a click away. This is needed to make quick, rapid decisions.

Hire attitude first, then skill: Hiring the right people is a huge challenge. We learnt our lesson early on when we were doing website design and development. We hired an expensive designer who we had to fire after we found out that he was freelancing from within our office. I am not a fan oft hiring experts - they are generally very expensive for startups. Look for good attitude and a willingness to learn. Get the right people on your bus, the wrong people out.

Make time for play: I enjoy each day. Work does consume a large part of it but I generally take out time to pursue my other passions (like tennis, golf and traveling) and spend a good amount of time with family. I guess the family part is well rooted in our Indian culture. Life is too short to spend it away on all work and no play. Also, make sure you take care of your health - without a healthy mind/body there is no work.

Don’t chase success: In 2008 we concentrated on building good software and listening to our customers. This automatically gave us a decent amount of recognition on international blogs, print and TV. This was huge for our small business. The beauty of it was that everything happened so organically - maybe we were doing the right things and enjoying it while at it each day. Too much greed for success gets in the way.

Manage your time: When you are short on resources and need to wear different hats you better know how to manage your priorities. Be aware of where you spend your time. Learn to say no. Keep a certain alloted time for reading and social networking. These things can so easily consume you that by the time you know it, it is already time to go home.

Think purpose & brand: Features and pricing are not really differentiators. The real differentiator is your purpose and the perceived value within your customer’s mind. They should join you because of the message you are giving out. Do you stand for something important? Your purpose, brand and culture should be bigger than your product. This is something that I think about each day.

I am sure there are several more things that I have learnt and am learning each day. I will pen them down on another post soon. It has been an exiting journey so far and looking forward to some fabulous announcements in the next couple of months…

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Before DeskAway, my wife and I ran a web design/dev service business from India and had a mix of international as well as Indian clients. Here are some of the things that ticked us off while working with Indian clients. You might be experiencing the same.

1. If you are in the service business, you are treated like shit here and meant to lower costs and over deliver.
2. People always ask for discounts. If not, then they claim that their uncles son can do the same project for 70% less. Go figure.
3. Payments are almost always delayed.
4. Most often, clients don't know what they want but still love your work. They don't want to pay for creativity.
5. You are expected to be present at your clients office for meaningless meetings; even if they last 5 minutes.
6. Lack of respect for other people's time. The 5 minute meeting could have a waiting time of 40 minutes or more.

I am sure not everyone faces all of these but if you are in the service business here you must have atleast come across one of two of the above. I am hoping a lot has changed in the last 3 years and Indian companies have learnt to play by global standards. Would love to hear your comments.

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I got inspired to write this blog post after reading "Less is less".

Too many project collaboration apps these days come across as being simple and easy to use. Some get away by equating simple with lack of features. This ticks me off since developing a project collaboration/ work tracking system is not the same as developing an email marketing software. With the latter you can get away with minimalistic features as long as your deliverability is 100%. No screw-ups there. But, when you are managing and helping people track their work "less is always less".

So, what is a simple app?

Simple is ease of use. How easily can a user adopt the solution to his or her needs. Is it easy to understand and start using the app right after signing up?

Simple is intuitive.

Though, simple is bad when it implies limited features.

So, why don't you have feature X, Y and Z?

That is because we are afraid it might make our software 'complex'. Complex is the opposite of simple. Complex software increases the time it takes for a user to learn the software. People today (and the Facebook generation tomorrow) do not have time to learn your software. They are busy with other things. If they can't add a new project/user/category without help, then they might as well log off and never come back.

So, what's up then?

You solve this 'Simple vs. Complex' dilemma by being a magician. Sort of actually.

Replace 'Complex' with 'Power'. Easy to use and packed with powerful features under the hood. Most importantly, let your users discover these features (magic!) instead of throwing it at them (cluttering the user-interface). Don't add a new feature if it is going to add to the learning curve and going to make your app 'complex'.

Be a BMW M5 - look like a sedan but be power-packed under the hood. :-)

Would love to hear your thoughts on what works for you?

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As everyone moves their online strategy to social media, this space is going to get commoditized and noisy. What is going to differentiate one biz from the other is their message a.k.a content. Content has and will always be king. Social media, just like billboards (one-way though) is a transportation mechanism to get your message through.

You will see results only if your content is worth engaging with. So, go out and produce some amazing content. You will automatically see your social media strategy at work.

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Startups are a rage in emerging economies. Look at India, China or Brazil, you will find hundreds of startups sprouting all across the country. It just has become so easy to start and market a web business (even in developing countries) – increased broadband penetration, inexpensive computers, smart-phones, easy access to the Internet, free-for-all social networking tools and above all, the availability of software tools that were either out of the reach of a small business or expensive and cumbersome to setup.

Read my entire article on PrudentCloud

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There are 3 types of web apps:

1. Simple with limited features

2. Simple with powerful features under the hood

3. Complex with a lot of features

The sweet spot is in the #2. These types of apps are a pleasure to explore and use. Just like test driving a car, the more you drive the better it feels. This not only suits the early adopters but also the late majority. Simple gets you into the door, the features keeps you using the app for long.

I have been thinking about this a lot and today it has been proved by the acquisition of Tweetie by Twitter. Tweetie is a simple, good looking and powerful Twitter client for the mac and iPhone.

Tweetie's founder Loren Brichter said last year “I think it hit that perfect combination of power and simplicity,”...

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"I want to work in a big company (preferably a MNC) with lots of employees"

This was what I always heard from people when I tried to recruit developers back in 2005 (after my wife and I moved back from Chapel Hill, NC to Mumbai, India). The Indian IT industry a.k.a Outsourcing Industry was at its peak and every developer wanted to work for companies like TCS, InfoSys, Wipro etc. Some of the myths associated to working in bigger companies are:

Secure Job (really, look what happened to Satyam)
Better Pay (not when you are amongst a hundred other developers)
Social status (maybe for the older generation)

Today, with SaaS/Cloud Computing and the apps economy picking up steam, working in smaller startups is sexy. You get to work on a lot of things and you have the ability to make a big impact on the Web. Most of the U.S. companies that I follow have proved it that even a team of less than 10 people can build a successful company in just a few years. 

Developers I meet today understand the startup culture and what it means to be working in a smaller setup. Convincing them is a lot easier compared to what it was in 2005.

That is a good sign atleast.

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There is so much information that is being produced each second via blogs, tweets, video, audio etc. Everyone is talking and listening. We can't take in all the information that is being produced. We need tools, filters and above all we need to really know what we are interested in and care about so that only the relevant content reaches us. Everything else is filtered as noise.

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The small guy has always been at the receiving end. The Internet has leveled the playing field. But, this is not the case with the on-premise software industry that requires considerable amount of investment (time and money) while purchasing the product. Ongoing support normally sucks here, especially if you are dealing with a large company.

Today, I get to know that my family business, PPFAS, that is using on-premise, rather complex software from Financial Technologies (a large publicly limited company) is having a hard time using their software, getting changes updated and questions answered. After some inquiry, I found out that FT's customer service department have no clue about technicalitles and these are the people you have to talk to when you have a problem or need a question answered. The technical guys never come online. PPFAS, a small company, needs the software (that they pay for it on a yearly license) and have spent considerable amount of time and money customizing it and training their employees to adopt it. They cannot easily switch providers - this might even be a case of a monopolistic stronghold. It is almost like you are cornered and you can't do a damn thing!

As a guy in the software business I keep thinking about when does craziness end? My love for companies who really care about the customer keeps on increasing. Will these old-school software companies who take customers for granted enjoy a limited spring time or will they get away?

What do you guys think?

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