Jumping Curves: abandoning a set business
Well, this year 2013 will mark a decade for company I formed and nurtured, M/S Integrated Ideas. In less 10 years Google and Facebook have grown at an exponential multiple. Several companies just get bigger in that space and I couldn't certainly took my organizations to any heights that deserves a mention in Fortune magazine. But many ( and I mean several thousands) of startups also closes out in that period. Our own kingfisher Airlines is a glowing example of death of a business that could have been revolutionary.
Integrated Ideas primarily is a consulting firm where we do a lot of research stuff. Some we do manage to sell and some we do not. To keep the monitory inflow, we run website, we manage student projects, we manage youtube channel, sell training videos, do patenting and many more things.
One of the fundamentals of a company is cash and unless you have it plenty, you put yourself at a risk of death. Generally business opts for debts, loans and public fund for keeping that cash flow. To grow and to model the business. However, I have refrained from all that for years. To me business is all about keeping that bottom line green and operating cost should be lower than inflow. Also the business should pay you well as professional, at least more than you should get in a JOB at your level.
Keeping patience and going slow was my mantra all these years. I have seen several setbacks and occasions that threatened a complete end of the organization, but am able to turn the table just with that positive balance sheet.
However at times you tend to get too taken away with your comfort zones and keep doing things which gives you constant revenue. But that really stops the growth as technology as a whole changes upside down over years. Needless to say, in technology domain 10 years is almost a lifetime.
So this year, it is big. We at Integrated Ideas have decided to jump curve and come out of our comfort zone. Big and straight. Talking about cash, we now have cash to survive for about 12 months without any revenue. This is not big, but not less either. We have stopped all our student operation and services to SME. We are not making any small websites, we are not making any custom business software and we are certainly not making any final year projects any more.
Now final year project was lucrative to small firms like us, it gelled well with our research stuff and it grew as big as $2,00,000 annual revenue model. For a self funded firm, this can be considered as big enough. But that model will be disposed by us forever. One, it does not give us a space to grow, two, our theory to make student work on their projects have taken setbacks in last couple of years due to constantly degraded education standards, three it prevents us from exploring more complex solutions as projects now have come down to cheapest possible standards and most of the times part of works of "guides". The solutions in SME has become fruitless as service demands have exceeded monitory gains and new devices has not been adopted that well by these businesses. A marketing effort to educate these businesses about fruitfulness to invest in new technology might have yield result. But we decided that such an investment would be impossible by us to sustain.
So what Integrated Ideas will do? We are entering into App market with several apps for Windows and Apple store, mainly in entertainment, healthcare and education niche.
So how is it going to effect the business?
1. You are talking about not generating about $15,000 a month for about a year and plucking it out from your resources. Big gamble. If the whole transition fails, you just can not come back to your previous business. A year away from business is like killing it forever.
2. There are already millions of developers, studios, companies in these App market and going ahead by pushing them will be no joke or miracle.
3. To replicate over $1,00,000 bottom line a year in any new business definitely needs "luck" ( well I truely don't know what exactly is that)
But the challenge is taken. I gambled my future. It could have two outcomes. Either I need to look for Job exactly after 365 days till when all our reserved money would vanish, or the company would comeout as a better business house with more sustained and growth oriented revenue model. Talking about risk, odds of success is 5% and failure is 95%. But I would rather take that 5% risk and fail than not taking the risk at all to see that 95% failure becomes a reality of 100% in coming years. A golden example is Blackberry. For now, it is quite tensed here at my office cabin, to my team.
To tell you the fact, this has made me sleepless owl. Not that I have had sleep for more than 4 hours in any extended period for last 10 years, but now it has become more of a routine. The fear of failure and consequences is bringing out best in me. But only time will tell how best of mine is good enough.
Sometimes I feel sorry to put my family, friends, colleagues and employees and even myself under such a serious risk of elimination. But guys, you would know that it is for the best interest for our small organization and such measures are mandatory.
Goodbye, students and SME. Time to make it big. So next year, either I will post a success story here in CE or be writing the story of how I created my own coffin and nailed it 😀 Whatever it is, this 365 days will be crucial and tough. May see my physical breakdown or psychological stigma. Let's hope I can defy these odds to make a case study of "Jumping Curves".
Integrated Ideas primarily is a consulting firm where we do a lot of research stuff. Some we do manage to sell and some we do not. To keep the monitory inflow, we run website, we manage student projects, we manage youtube channel, sell training videos, do patenting and many more things.
One of the fundamentals of a company is cash and unless you have it plenty, you put yourself at a risk of death. Generally business opts for debts, loans and public fund for keeping that cash flow. To grow and to model the business. However, I have refrained from all that for years. To me business is all about keeping that bottom line green and operating cost should be lower than inflow. Also the business should pay you well as professional, at least more than you should get in a JOB at your level.
Keeping patience and going slow was my mantra all these years. I have seen several setbacks and occasions that threatened a complete end of the organization, but am able to turn the table just with that positive balance sheet.
However at times you tend to get too taken away with your comfort zones and keep doing things which gives you constant revenue. But that really stops the growth as technology as a whole changes upside down over years. Needless to say, in technology domain 10 years is almost a lifetime.
So this year, it is big. We at Integrated Ideas have decided to jump curve and come out of our comfort zone. Big and straight. Talking about cash, we now have cash to survive for about 12 months without any revenue. This is not big, but not less either. We have stopped all our student operation and services to SME. We are not making any small websites, we are not making any custom business software and we are certainly not making any final year projects any more.
Now final year project was lucrative to small firms like us, it gelled well with our research stuff and it grew as big as $2,00,000 annual revenue model. For a self funded firm, this can be considered as big enough. But that model will be disposed by us forever. One, it does not give us a space to grow, two, our theory to make student work on their projects have taken setbacks in last couple of years due to constantly degraded education standards, three it prevents us from exploring more complex solutions as projects now have come down to cheapest possible standards and most of the times part of works of "guides". The solutions in SME has become fruitless as service demands have exceeded monitory gains and new devices has not been adopted that well by these businesses. A marketing effort to educate these businesses about fruitfulness to invest in new technology might have yield result. But we decided that such an investment would be impossible by us to sustain.
So what Integrated Ideas will do? We are entering into App market with several apps for Windows and Apple store, mainly in entertainment, healthcare and education niche.
So how is it going to effect the business?
1. You are talking about not generating about $15,000 a month for about a year and plucking it out from your resources. Big gamble. If the whole transition fails, you just can not come back to your previous business. A year away from business is like killing it forever.
2. There are already millions of developers, studios, companies in these App market and going ahead by pushing them will be no joke or miracle.
3. To replicate over $1,00,000 bottom line a year in any new business definitely needs "luck" ( well I truely don't know what exactly is that)
But the challenge is taken. I gambled my future. It could have two outcomes. Either I need to look for Job exactly after 365 days till when all our reserved money would vanish, or the company would comeout as a better business house with more sustained and growth oriented revenue model. Talking about risk, odds of success is 5% and failure is 95%. But I would rather take that 5% risk and fail than not taking the risk at all to see that 95% failure becomes a reality of 100% in coming years. A golden example is Blackberry. For now, it is quite tensed here at my office cabin, to my team.
To tell you the fact, this has made me sleepless owl. Not that I have had sleep for more than 4 hours in any extended period for last 10 years, but now it has become more of a routine. The fear of failure and consequences is bringing out best in me. But only time will tell how best of mine is good enough.
Sometimes I feel sorry to put my family, friends, colleagues and employees and even myself under such a serious risk of elimination. But guys, you would know that it is for the best interest for our small organization and such measures are mandatory.
Goodbye, students and SME. Time to make it big. So next year, either I will post a success story here in CE or be writing the story of how I created my own coffin and nailed it 😀 Whatever it is, this 365 days will be crucial and tough. May see my physical breakdown or psychological stigma. Let's hope I can defy these odds to make a case study of "Jumping Curves".
Replies
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Nayan GoenkaBest of luck man. Being me myself an entrepreneur and in the exact line of business I can say that you are 10 years ahead of us and more experienced. I wish you get what you want and lets see that you do well in that. You should hang around here more often and guide us with what you already have and cannot be taken away from you. I have a start-up now too and I understand all the risk factors. I support your decision but I must say you should reconsider all the aspects once more before transforming completely. Most and foremost, you have a family to support. We are here in support if anything needed.
Speaking business, we can also collaborate with you and see if we can do some stuff together. We will be very interested in that. -
zaveri@#-Link-Snipped-#
what kind of business are you in ? -
Nayan Goenka
We do web development, app development, network management, security analysis and implementation, product design and marketing, Tee's design, business card design, server configs, optimizations of websites / portals. Everything and Anything you want us to build on computers.zaveri@#-Link-Snipped-#
what kind of business are you in ?
Here is out website. You can always check it out.
#-Link-Snipped-#
PS: We have disabled the forms there due to over spamming since we just launched the website. We will resume that feature within 2-3 days when all friends are done seeing the website and we can resume to regular business approaches there. So if you want to contact us about anything, CE inbox or email/phone call is a good option. -
Kaustubh Katdare@#-Link-Snipped-# - It's so nice of you to post your thoughts & experiences here. They benefit everyone! There are a few things I wish to understand -
1. Why not spin off the projects business into a separate entity? The business, as you mentioned, is cash-flow positive and may help you sustain your operations in the new business for longer. My question is specifically about abandoning the established business and starting a new one.
2. I remember you had mentioned about getting funded. Is Integrated Ideas the business that got funded? Or is it the new business you're starting has the funding?
3. It'd be nice if you could share a few lessons you learned when you began building your initial team on a limited budget. That'd benefit a lot of entrepreneurs. We are looking to build a team locally here in Nagpur and your tips would help. -
Rupam DasKaustubh, we have got the fund for some of the applications that we are developing. As Applications can't have a bank account, it has to be through the company.
Coming to your second question. Yes I had given a thought on it. First I thought that someone else will run the show ( appointed). But however we attempt, it needs my time and effort, ever so minimum it is. So by spinning, I would take a bigger risk with career of students which I would not want to do personally.
See when Blackberry was the best smartphone, they could not jump curve and was out. Nokia is another such example. However if you look at Apple, Mr. Jobs was always there at right place and at the right time.
One of the important factors in business is to also understand where you want to see the business in years to come. As I do not want my company to become a "student project selling institute", I have decided against continuing.
It gives me more time into development, new job, marketing.
So we are coming out with some fabulous stuff ( according to us). Once you see refrigerators becoming cheap, you really should discontinue your business of collecting ice from iceberg and try to get into it.
Technology is changing fast, and thankfully for the first time we as a team are working in some of the technologies which is fresh and does not have the penetration. It gives us the scope to enter and build our position. So if the technology fails, we are gone, otherwise we ensure that we have the right business model and technology for next ten years. 😀
But, it is really very tensed out here. -
Rupam DasI don't know why fonts are changing while I am typing. I think there is some bugs in editor. Just did not re-edit it to let you know that while typing for long, this problem is occouring
You are reading an archived discussion.
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