20th August 2010 Mohit Pawar Leave a comment

How to overcome a challenge?

overcome_challenge_rock_climbingLife brings up surprises – pleasant and not so pleasant.

Pleasant ones are always welcome. Here we are discussing how to tackle not so pleasant ones. The challenges can be of different types. A job loss, getting into a new unsuitable job, money crisis – all are challenges one can come across.

How to overcome these challenges? Explore ideas below to gain a perspective.

1. Accept: Do not run – except when there is a tiger running after you :) . Accept the challenge. It will put your brain at ease. When you are in fight or flight mode you are in state of indecision. Accepting the challenge sends the signal of decision to your brain. It also helps increase the determination.

2. Take immediate action: See if there is any immediate action required. First step after the loss of a bank card (debit or credit) is to report the loss to the bank. This is the first action one would take. If you need to do something like that in your situation – then do it.

3. Think: Think about your combat plan. Put your plans on paper. Think about your strengths and options in such a situation. Create a plan with actionable steps for short, mid and long-term.

4. Find help: share your situation with friends and family. This will make you feel light. Good if you get some real help – if not your friends will share their thoughts about the situation. It will help you gain different perspective on the situation. Use your commonsense and pick the ideas you think are workable.

5. Take a break: A tired person is not fit for any productive pursuit. When faced with a challenge you need energy, agility and a clear mind. Rest and nourish your body and mind to be fit to face the challenge.

6. Read: Explore what others in a similar situation did. Donald trump when faced in 1994 with a financial crisis ($900 million of personal debt and $3.5 billion in business debt) – tackled it with courage and bounced back within 5 years. He wrote about this in his 3rd book “The Art of the Comeback”.

“I began to prosper a long time before the newspapers and other media acknowledged it. Apart from realizing my modest success, the media was, in fact, gleefully predicting my collapse — at a time when I knew I was coming on strong.” – Donald J. Trump

Nick Denton of Gawker Media faced with a credit crisis folded Valleywag (in late 2008) and Defamer (in early 2009), two highly trafficked websites to focus on the ones providing better financial returns. Nick had earlier been featured on Sunday Times Rich list of 2007 with a net worth of approx $290 million.

Every situation is unique and will call for a unique solution. You can still get some ideas. For more inspiration, read “The world’s greatest comebacks” by Robert A Schuller.

7. Act: act on plans and ideas that you put on paper, change course and adapt wherever needed.

Do all these and chances are that you will emerge a winner.

While you are doing this note down your lessons and take action to avoid similar situations in future.

Life is rarely free of challenges. If yours is like that I am happy for you and wish that it remains that way. Rest of us all, need to remember what Henry Kissinger said, ““A diamond is a chunk of coal that is made good under pressure.”

How do you act when faced with a challenge?

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How to face a challenge?

Life brings up surprises – pleasant and not so pleasant.

Pleasant ones are always welcome. Here we are discussing how to tackles not so pleasant ones. The challenges can be of different types. A job loss, getting into a new unsuitable job, money crisis – all are challenges one can come across.

How to face these challenges? Explore ideas below to gain a perspective.

1. Accept: Do not run – except when there is a tiger running after youJ. Accept the challenge. It will put your brain at ease. When you are in fight or flight mode you are in state of indecision. Accepting the challenge sends the signal of decision to your brain. It also helps increase the determination.

2. Take immediate action: See if there is any immediate action required. First step after the loss of a bank card (debit or credit) is to report the loss to the bank. This is the first action one would take. If you need to do something like that in your situation – then do it.

3. Think: Think about your combat plan. Put your plans on paper. Think about your strengths and options in such a situation. Create a plan with actionable steps for short, mid and long-term.

4. Find help: share your situation with friends and family. This will make you feel light. Good if you get some real help – if not your friends will share their thoughts about the situation. It will help you gain different perspective on the situation. Use your commonsense and pick the ideas you think are workable.

5. Take a break: A tired person is not fit for any productive pursuit. When faced with a challenge you need energy, agility and a clear mind. Rest and nourish your body and mind to be fit to face the challenge.

6. Read: Explore what others in a similar situation did. Donald trump when faced in 1994 with a financial crisis ($900 million of personal debt and $3.5 billion in business debt) – tackled it with courage and bounced back within 5 years. He wrote about this in his 3rd book “The Art of the Comeback”.

“I began to prosper a long time before the newspapers and other media acknowledged it. Apart from realizing my modest success, the media was, in fact, gleefully predicting my collapse — at a time when I knew I was coming on strong.” – Donald J. Trump

Nick Denton of Gawker Media faced with a credit crisis folded Valleywag (in late 2008) and Defamer (in early 2009), two highly trafficked websites to focus on the ones providing better financial returns. Nick had earlier been featured on Sunday Times Rich list of 2007 with a net worth of approx $290 million.

Every situation is unique and will call for a unique solution. You can still get some ideas. For more inspiration, read “The world’s greatest comebacks” by Robert A Schuller.

7. Act: act on plans and ideas that you put on paper, change course and adapt wherever needed.

Do all these and chances are that you will emerge a winner.

While you are doing this note down your lessons and take action to avoid similar situations in future.

Life is rarely free of challenges. If yours is like that I am happy for you and wish that it remains that way. Rest of us all, need to remember what Henry Kissinger said, ““A diamond is a chunk of coal that is made good under pressure.”

How you act when faced with a challenge?

19th August 2010 Mohit Pawar Leave a comment

Create a successful business

recipe_for_successA business is made up of an offering – product or  service and people – employees and customers. Add variables like time and money and you have a recipe for success or failure.

To create a success you need to do certain things right. Let us go in detail.

Your Offering

Make something that market demands or you think that market needs. It can be a product or a solution. There is space for both.

Hotmail offered a web-based client. Sabeer Bhatia (founder of Hotmail) and Jack Smith thought that market will like their product and market proved them right.

Google came up with a better search offering at the end of 20th century and now rule the search market.

Twitter provided people with a communication alternative and at last count were valued in excess of a billion dollars and had 100 million+ users.

Dana White with UFC introduced a large part of the world to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and created a hugely successful enterprise.

John Sperling despite being born dirt-poor came to be known as America’s Education Billionaire. He created one of world’s largest private university systems with University of Phoenix defying convention.

Shipping

Do not take years to perfect and polish your offering. Ship it. It means that bring it out in the market. See the response, adapt, improve and move ahead. Keep on working and shipping – new updates, product improvement and changes in tune with times.

Users and feedback

Make your initial users your partners. If you do not have a product to show off. Juts create a webpage to accept emails and permission to send updates later. It will make sure that people who come to your website receive updates whenever you have something important to say.

Make these users a partner during beta and incorporate their feedback. It will serve two purposes – first you will create a loyal set of customers and secondly get valuable feedback from a bigger group than those who are working on the product.

Time

More businesses close in their first year of operation than in 2nd, 3rd or later years.

When you get in – be determined to go past year 1. Do side gigs. If you are working on a software product do some software development on side to survive. When you go past year one you increase your chances of success many fold.

Success of Google did not come in one day but took couple of years. During early days Google’s main identity was being Yahoo’s search partner.

Facebook also has been in the business now for more than half a decade. Not every business can be as big (Facebook is the biggest web portal there has ever been with half a billion plus users) but you will create reasonable success when you stay there for a long time.

Of course just sitting there and doing nothing will not work; you will have to work at it. When you are in it for the long haul you also reduce your level of anxiety and see failure or success as small post on your bigger journey towards success in your venture.

Make sure that you are seen

Once you are out of the launch phase be seen at the right places. Not always on a mass scale – out in the world – but least in the mailbox of people who matter as a newsletter, whitepaper or a case study.

Also invite people to your home base – your company website in most of the cases – to share what is new. This you can do by writing useful content and releasing newsworthy products.

Create an offering that is worthy of peoples’ attention and business. Tata Motors’ Nano was worthy of attention so entire world came to see it.

Foradian Tech did it when they created new Rupee font when a new symbol was unveiled for official currency of India. They created this font before anyone else and garnered goodwill and press worth millions.

People: Create a culture that pulls right kind of partners and employees. Reward creativity. Create an environment conducive to creation. Zappos went to the extent of paying new employees to quit so that it hires people who think that company is a right fit for them.

Customers: Focus on getting your first paying customers and then first 10 customers as soon as you can. More on how to find customers later. Right customers are the ones who pay on time – in case you are not charging upfront. Those who expect good quality; repose trust in your company and do not expect you to be the least cost provider in the market (if that is not your USP, better if it is not).

Money: Save money before you start. If you need investment become investment worthy. Build a brand, show a prototype – better show some profits and then go out. Let people do the talking first.

Hope this helps.

What are the ingredients you are using to make your venture a success?

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Hi there, my name is Mohit Pawar. I work with brands and digital media based out of New Delhi, India. In my spare time, I pen my thoughts; organize open-source technology conferences and devote my energies to the cause of entrepreneurship. More