If you love IT, do IT

'Entrepreneur is not a position, not a rank. It is an attitude, a state of mind which drives the individual, to do what might be regarded as "below my position", what might be considered "not hip and cool" and most importantly to appreciate the present that is opportunity!!'. Well, thats how I justify my love towards technology in general and programming in specific. So when I thought of going for a startup, it was pretty obvious that Tech was the first and last option.

Like all ideas for a startup, this one is a Web development firm, but with a twist. Employees will be students from Engineering. The opportunity arose on my Exchange visit to Austin. I was working with a real estate agent as a technology consultant for integrating web based communication platforms (and by that I mean I developed his website and integrated it with a few other online services. Well, I needed cash for spending and I used my best capabilities). And on one boring afternoon, he asked me if I could find him a suitable replacement in India once I resumed my course. That led to a chain of other discussions, which finally culminated into a firm for developing web-based applications, by hiring second and third year engineering students.

The employees: Any student who knows basic HTML, Javascript and CSS. Knowledge of Server Side Scripting is an added advantage. Must have a personal computer, an internet connection and must be capable of performing Google Search!! (No, this is not a ad!!). (S)He gets a CV point, hands on experience of working on live projects, interacting with clients and some pocket money. Commitment expected is weekly 20 hours. This is potentially a 100% attrition market, with no one being a full time employee. And that would be the biggest challenge to ensure that we have working members available at all point of time. If thats not possible(during exams season), then plan the work in pipelines to complete before or start after the said period. Another challenge would be to gather their specific learnings and contribution to the firm on a continuous basis. To ensure a level of reliability, in form of quality of work as well as availability of resources, we will have full time employees who may choose to be employed in another organisation.

The market: A large market of small firms who are looking to setup their websites with minimal overhead exists in the US. These firms are such that they cannot afford expensive services from outsourcing firms, and need the reliability offered by a professional firm. Small firms and independent developers in the US are pretty expensive. The cost arbitrage between US and India is the main motivation behind the market. With one sales person in US, a continuous flow of clients, through viral promotion, can be expected to the tune of 25 new clients every month. The only problem is that most clients will be one off and hence we will be hunting for new clients. Here comes the second function of the start-up, Web-based services products. Currently we have one product under development which will serve the Real Estate Agents market in US. The idea is to get more such products under development and use the client services to fund for the development of such products. In principle,on the BCG matrix, the product side is the "Star" while the client services is the "Cash Cow". Our aim would be to develop products and move them into "Cash Cows" region.

So here is my end objective: 'Create a process of customizing a content management system, so that a college student can pick up the same, customize to the requirements of the client and complete the request in a short turn around time'. This is where my expertise of setting up processes that speed up and simplify development comes in. A process of documenting the project and specific requests will follow. Except for these two tasks, scheduling projects and allocating to specific members. An allocation of 1 full time member to look over 4 students will sufficiently address all concerns the clients may have.

We would be at an advantage over the larger firms in two respects. Firstly, every employee will "work from home". Your hardware, your connectivity and your software. We are a network of developers who choose to work together to add credibility and reliability to the network. This has major cost implications, i.e. there aren't any costs for the organisation. No fixed costs of building facilities, offices or computing networks and hardware. Secondly, the only resource requirement is reliability as mentioned before. The nature of projects does not mandate need for a high level of security. This will allow the "work from home" principle to work smoothly.

As far as I am concerned, I need distractions to concentrate. I plan to go for my Lateral placement and pickup a tech role(if I could!!) and support this start-up on the side.

My parting words to all the budding entrepreneurs reading this magazine would be going back to the introduction. On the Exchange trip, I met an entreprenuer(a fellow student at UT Austin) whose start-up would sell worm excrements for garden use. He had been doing it for 6 months so far, had about $10K invested in, and was making about $15K a month. So far he was the only person on the team and was working out of his garage and backyard, and was planning to expand his operations. During one of the sessions, on professor’s request, he bought a jar of dirt with the worms in them, which turned off quite a bit of the class. Simply said, what you want to do might be considered not cool, or not hip, but nonetheless there will be a market. If you love it, then just do it.

I guess that was my 10 cents worth. Hope y’all had a good read!!