How playing Clash of Clans can help you strategise while starting up

Disclaimer:

• Playing only clash of clans is not going to make you a good entrepreneur.
• I am a very big fan of Clash Of Clans.
• This is written assuming you know what Clash of Clans is.

I think it all started when I bought my new iphone a 4 years back. Like everyone else who has bought a super smartphone,I was also searching for some free games and I found Clash of Clans. I downloaded and installed it as it had too many good reviews. It was almost the same time when we started to establish Mypromovideos as a company.

Fast forward to present, when I open my Clash of Clans in my office I am really amazed to see how both the things have many things in common and why this non-racy game is very famous among many entrepreneur friends I know.

Here are my four cheap advices for a successful clan and a startup..

Start small and be wise:

Once you finish installing the game the game opens with a very small hut like thing called town hall. It gave me a few gems, showed me how to start building things and that’s it. You are left alone in this huge clan world, exposing yourself to get attacked any time.

At this level you will feel so restricted,powerless and sometimes even de-motivating to see the big villages with fancy troops attacking you. Only later I realised that only because of this small size I was able to make more mistakes and still come back to the game without getting burned out. I also realised that I was only learning the game and not playing the game.

Starting small comes with an advantage of making mistakes with freedom. You will have the liberty to do all the wrong things, strength to take blows which you can stand and most importantly the wisdom of playing the actual game.

Mature a level to go to the next:

In COC one common mistake everyone does is to jump into the next level just by upgrading their town hall while their entire defence is still in low levels. People do this mainly because of two reasons-  either they don’t know the importance of the defence or have the urgency to grow.  I too made this same mistake and got raped by the next level villages and was not able to defend even one attack.

Even in a startup there is no turning back once you start scaling or expanding prematurely. You have to be strong to bite the bullet or you will take the bullet and go down. Just don’t hire new employees or open new outlets just for the sake of it. Make sure there is a need.

Build a good team to go to war:

Once you reach a certain level of the game, you can start creating your own Clan or team and start waging a war against the other clan. The only way to win a war is to make all your clan members donate each other the troops, plan the war and attack with a plan. There will be a leader, co- leader and members present in the clan discussing the attack plan. The leader will make sure that he sets clan rules and communicates it to the team. Who ever does not follow the clan disciplines is kicked out from the clan after a few warnings.It is pretty simple, if all your members don’t attack, you don’t win the war. So it’s now not only about building your village strong, it is also about building your clan member’s village strong as well.

Similarly in your startup there will come a time when you will start hiring to share responsibilities as a team. In most cases you can’t skip this stage in order to grow your startup. You should be having a strong culture and higher vision to hold your team together or to let go of those who don’t fit. A good team will win you wars and make the company, while the bad team is going to just suck your energy and break the organization.

Plan well and Play hard:

Every attack come with its own cost and purpose. Some is for loot and some is for trophies and sometimes it is for both. So know what are your priorities. You have to invest time in choosing which bases to attack. Plan which troops to farm and what spell to brew based on your need.

Gain from each attack and repeat the same. The whole point of this game is to attack, win wars, use your resources carefully to build your empire.

It is very important to remember that there is an opportunity cost associated with every new things you do. That doesn’t mean that all the things you do have to reap money. Sometime we do certain things to learn, certain things to explore new territories. Some will fail and some succeed. Finding the balance between both is the key. This is where you have to have a plan for your time and resources properly or else you will get stuck in an illusion of growth while you are actually not. Keep reviewing your growth adjust accordingly and keep growing.

Originally published for Yourstory: http://yourstory.com/2016/03/clash-of-clans-startup/

How the dead printer of MPV got its life back and the story of its Saviour

At that time we had tried everything possible to make it work. We were about to give up on it and this happened.

 Death of the Printer

 Around two years back one my friends was shutting down his company and he asked us if we could buy some of his company assets. He showed us a lot of good things like conference tables,UPS,batteries,chairs, computers and then he showed us this beautiful all-in-one HP printer. He had brought it from Germany.It could print colors, scan documents, send fax and much more. He offered it for a very low price and we instantly decided to buy it from him as we did not have a color printer then.

 We brought the printer to our office, along with all the other things that we bought from him. Personally, I was very excited about that printer as I thought that it was going to solve a lot of our printing problems. All excited, we installed it in one of our computers to test . We gave a print command and the printer responded by pulling in a paper – and the paper never came out! The printer got stuck and it never worked after that.

 Though it sounds silly, this incident kept disturbing my mind. I felt helpless about the printer. I didn’t know why, whenever I saw the printer, it connected me with various moments of my life where I had felt the same helplessness. Somehow,  deep inside I knew that I should do something for this printer. We tried to repair it by all means. We even sent it to HP care and they said that the printer was dead, we had to scrap it. It was working just a day before in my friend’s office and in our office, it died!

 The Saviour

 At the time we had tried everything possible to make it work. We were about to give up on it and this happened. As a last attempt I posted the need of printer repair on FB.I thought no one was going to reply, as it might not be important to them. A notification popped as if it was only waiting for me to hit the post button. One of my friends gave me this guy’s contact.

 The guy came, investigated the printer and said this could be repaired. He was very young and I knew he was talking out of curiosity. I was judging him by his looks and thought he was not going to do it. But he was very professional in his approach. He said he was starting a new computer service shop and I was his first customer. He said he would do anything to repair our printer. As I had no other options, I decided to trust him and give the printer to him. When I was about to say, “Take the printer and make it work”, he handed over his driving licence and said,  “Give this back to me once the printer works.”

 I was truly surprised with his professionalism, his care for the customer and his confidence. I saw him as an entrepreneur. He was very inspiring to me. He called me every day and updated me about the progress, as he correctly guessed that I did not completely believe him. Three days later, he came with the printer and it worked partially! I was extremely happy to see the printer moving. He said that he needed to buy a few spare parts to make it work completely, which may take at least another month for him. I gave him the money to buy spare parts and decided to wait till he got back.

 One day,when I was sitting in my office sending emails to clients, thinking about the sales targets, worried about the payments to be done, this guy came knocking my door with a broad smile on his face and showed me a thumbs up. I was so happy to see him. I knew that he had made it work.I still remember the energy it gave me on that dry day. We took a print and it was perfect! We all felt very happy. I felt very relieved and my mind was completely filled with happiness.

Dhinakaran

 Now this printer has become a symbol of hope to me.The printer repair guy has become a model of the true spirit of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is not about making business it’s about changing the lives of people.From now on,  whenever I feel helpless, this printer will tell its story and it will show that ray of hope.

His name : Dhinakaran

His Phone number : +919524979181 or +918807378838

Experience of the Experiment

Goa has always been like a pilgrimage to me and from my college days it was a dream for me to visit this place. I was sold the moment I heard the name “The Goa Project”. The terms like Unconference and social experiment all added to the excitement.Moreover this is my first attendance to a conference with a speaker pass. I was also excited about meeting a few people whom I only know through twitter and Gmail. Hence the expectations were very high.

My colleague Gopal and I boarded train from Coimbatore along with an exciting youngster Sundaresan who is also a participant. We reached Goa early the next morning. The sun was still not out for me to get the actual view of Goa. As the skies were clearing we hired a taxi and we were on the way to our accommodation.

Sundaresan managed to get an economical accommodation for us which was right next to the Bogmalo beach. We also had other participants staying in the same resort and it did not take much time to get along with those super friendly people.

Mixer:

We had got a special invitation for the Mixer party which was like a get together for the organisers and the speakers with cocktail. Vijay Anand the man behind the Goa project (one of the people who I know only online) was setting the context of unconference by being absolutely unformal in his attire. I was so happy and surprised to see Girish, CEO- FreshDesk, around and this was the first time I was meeting him in person after we did our first Mypromo together. I had got an opportunity to get a real face to face customer feedback and Girish was transparent throughout. I also met Arvind from Zoho and Saravanan from Biztalk who were accompanying Girish.  I could see people from Chennai and Coimbatore dominating the numbers in the crowd. It made it feel more like Pondicherry than Goa.

First Day:

We were on time to the conference, so that we didn’t miss the talks. I wish I had my breakfast in our room itself, as I had to pay a INR 500 for a poor spread of breakfast buffet which I thought was complimentary.

I was all excited about my talk and a little nervous as I am not used to giving these kind of talks. If it was not for Javeed our track manager I would have shied away from the talk.The key notes started and the second keynote given by Arjun Vajpee ( I think the youngest Indian to reach the summit of the Everest) on his journey to the summit of Everest and his close encounter with death, was amazing and it made me feel embarrassed about how I was feeling nervous about the talk I had to make that afternoon.

After attending a few sessions, meeting a few people and finishing our lunch Gopal and I went to the place where we had to give the presentation. We did not carry our laptop as we thought it would be there in the venue and to our surprise it was not there. As Gopal and I struggled with a laptop we managed to borrow from one of our friends, the crowd gathered. I did not want them to wait so I started my presentation. My talk was about taking advantage of Social media and it went really well as Gopal concluded the talk. That moment I thought climbing the Everest would have been lot easier, with all due respect to Arjun :-P.

Later that evening dinner was served with good music. I liked both of it.

Second day:

A few friends went to the casino on the previous night and they were sharing their experiences there, as we were getting ready for the second day. The second day started with the key note by Pawan, director of a very famous Kannada movie, Lucia. He was sharing how he took advantage of social media and crowd funding and how he successfully made the first ever national release of a Kannada film. I got a chance to interact with him personally and he was humble enough to give some free wisdom on movie making and crowdfunding.

One gentleman had brought his Google Glass and he was gracefully sharing it with everyone who wanted to have a feel of it. Sundaresan took some good snaps with me wearing it which helped me to show off in the social media. We did not wait for the dinner as we were planning to the hit roads and to see how Goa party’s at night.

Observation:

Goa project is one of its kind and a good initiative to bring variety in the audience. There were a few organizing flaws which they could consider correcting next year. Unconference cannot be an excuse for a “could have been better” organizing effort. Otherwise it is a great get together for the people associated with Indian startups to have fun and learn from each other at the same time.

Five ways to work like a Danny Boyle with an Indian company

The tremendous success of Slumdog millionaire not only gave India three oscars but the film indirectly left a negative impact over the life of Indians and the behaviour of Indian companies.(Now that’s a controversial way to start a blog!) I am not going to say that what Danny Boyle showed in the movie is fictitious but to remind you of the fact that out of the eight oscars, two oscars were given to appreciate the creative genius of an Indian music director, AR.Rahman and one for the master class in sound mixing by Resul Pookutty, whom he chose for a reason. So why and how did Danny Boyle chose to work with an Indian company? Lets see..

Many  international companies had an initial hiccup in choosing an Indian company over their local companies because of the horror stories they had with them. There is no denying the fact that outsourcing to India had problems. So what is that problem.Understanding the requirement and delivering it as per the expectation is the key to any good business relationship. A lack of communication and understanding of the cultural differences between each other are the key reasons for those horror stories about Indian companies. Well, we have come a long way and like any other growing company, we have learned from our past and many pioneers who showed the way.

Thanks to the internet boom the world has become one global village. Today’s India has gone through a tremendous paradigm shift and acquired a great level of knowledge and understanding about the world cultures. Over the period of years India has evolved from a more Indianised, stereotypical approach (Like for example saying yes to everything the client ask for which is discussed later) to becoming more adaptive to the world cultures.

As we take some time to transform completely, here are the few things that you can learn from Danny, while you decide to go with an Indian company. Though most of it sounds obvious, it becomes practically difficult while you are actually doing it. Sometimes it is these obvious things that get ignored and forgotten. So get ready to be a good student who is willing to do his home work properly.

Note:These points are for people seeking to work with companies not with individuals.

1. Portfolio is the key:

This is the easiest way to shortlist and it’s very straight forward. Though it’s pretty straight forward, people tend to get carried away by the huge spectrum of price ranges they get and eventually end up burning their fingers. So if you have made a research and took the list of companies to work with,then the first thing to do is to rate them in terms of quality. Here, make sure that you don’t bring cost into factor while short listing them. You should see the quality first and then the cost. (The discussion about the cost is avoided for the time being and will be discussed later)This is where most people make mistakes. This step will take some time to complete but trust me this is the most important one. It’s always better to invest some days to save some months.

2. Ask for reference:

If you are not able to judge the quality in terms of their work.The other thing that you could look into is the quality of their previous clients. You can easily bypass to this step if you don’t have much time to short list. Don’t just go with promises, ask for proof. Any good provider will have good clients. Ask for the email addresses of those clients which they should be happy to provide and contact them to know about their professional experiences. You can even ask for some contact nearest to your place. This will help you in getting the confidence which is very important to establish the trust with your provider.

3. Quality is not Cheap but it can be competitive:

(Now, here is the discussion about the cost.)

India is a country with a huge diversity. Hence you will able to find people providing the same service in a wide spectrum of price range. Most of the times this is where people get lost in the jungle. This is the main reason for many of the horror stories. It is a common fact that people choose India for its competitive advantage on the cost of production. But one should remember that Indians also have a cost for their living and it’s not cheap. People have to pay well for good resources and give incentives to retain them. It’s a very vital fact for you to understand, so that you don’t make the mistake that many did. Be careful when someone promises you cheaper rates. They might not be consistent in what they do.

4. Don’t say Yes for the people who always says YES:

Indians are known for their hospitality and humility. We almost never want to disappoint our clients. It is because of this culture we tend to say “yes” to everything the client asks for even if we can’t deliver. So while choosing a provider make sure that you don’t get carried away by the promises. In the same sense, respect if someone is saying “no” to some of your requests with a valid reason. It might be because of the transition that happened over the period and it could be a very visible indication that you are talking with the right person.

5. Show your Trust in communications!

Out of all these, this is what you should do the most to ensure good results. Indians love the people who trust them. After all the hard work you did in choosing the right provider, you should not mess it up by being mean in your approach. A word of caution: A good modern day Indian company will not hesitate to even fire a client. This is quite normal for any quality firm to do, as they don’t want to waste their time with someone who doesn’t even have a basic respect for Indians and Indian companies. This is how companies become good to great. Having said that, if you approach them with your trust, it is almost certain that every time you will get the result that you would desire and most of the time, it may exceed your expectations.

Finding a lot of people in India for your work is very easy.Choosing the best among them for you is the challenge you have to face. If you stick to the above mentioned basics properly you will certainly end up being a Danny boyle in working with Indians.

 

I think I had the edge said number 1

I used to wonder why some great, top of the chart, number one film makers give flops, why some super stars fail to some unknown underdogs, what is the reason that makes these winners loose the game and what gives these underdogs the advantage over those super stars. A game supposed to be a cake walk suddenly becomes a nightmare. This happens not only in sports and films but It happens to each and every one of us at some point of  our life time.

You think you are the number one and you can win any one in the world.The moment we loose the game, we realize the thing that went against us. If you are sportive you will be able to accept that you were “over confident” and hence you lost the game. You will give a hand shake to the opponent and move on to try to win the next game.If you are egoistic, you don even give a fuck. You start complaining about the whole universe and keep loosing.

Also when we see the other side, being an under dog will always give you that fear of failure. This fear is always good for growth.If you have the desire to win, this fear will make you to perform to your peak potential and some times you will end up winning. One should remember that the every game he plays is new and should be desperate to win.

This inspired me to design some thing which depicts the attitude of being number 1. I tried few things and finally arrived at this concept of race between 0 and number 1. This is a quiet straight forward simple and short animation. The number 1 thought it had the edge over the number 0 which actually slowed it down and lost the race.

Moral: Being number one is good but you should not under estimate the zeroes behind you.

How I learnt Whistling and what I really learnt from it!!!

Whistle podu

Disclaimer : This may sound silly.

I think I was doing my 4th std ,I am not sure. My parents took me to a movie called Basha(A Rajini kanth Movie). The moment the censor board certificate appeared on the screen, the whole theatre had gone wild and a fan sitting near me was whistling like a trains horn. I was so fascinated about it and from then on I always desired that I also should whistle like that man.

Next day I tried blowing air through my mouth and found that whistling is bit tricky and thought it might not be for children. I gave up and assumed may be when I grow up it will come to me automatically. I was waiting for a right time to come. When ever I go to theatre I will always observe these people whistling and enjoying their hero’s intros,fights ,songs etc. All I can do is to scream like a mad man in ecstasy and wait for the right age.

Years passed, did not bothered much about whistling  except for the days I go to theaters and came my college days . It was a period when where my parents treat me like a kid and all others see me like a grown up. One day myself and few of my friends bunked the classes for the first time and went to a movie. Not able to recollect what the movie was. Many of my friends started whistling as the movie title flashed.At that moment I just realized that I am  still not able to whistle. Frankly that was really humiliating to me.

When I came home, I started blowing the air like the same way I did when I was kid. This time with a sense of desperation.With no sense of direction I was only becoming tired. Then I opened up and asked my pals on how to do it. They immediately said it is very easy and that added insult to the injury. All I have to do is to bend my tongue, place my fingers on the folded tongue and blow. I tried to give my hardest blow just to hear a loud shhhhhhh.

My friend advised me to just keep trying and said it will come eventually. As I now know the way to do it ,all I have to do now is to keep trying. I believed that I can make it. I was determined to learn this before that Diwali. It was not even a month effort I started whistling like a pro. A big Success !!!

The thing I learnt. “Attaining success and failure have the same blue print. All depends on what you believe in”.

Me and my wonderland!!

I am in the third quater of 24 now. As the life is unfolding its secrets and its going through a period of transition, I have started to look this word in a whole new perpective. Its like suddenly I fell in to a trap hole and found a beautiful place where everything is so amazing. Its the same eyes , Same people, Same environment but everything looks so different. Now don think me like a sadhu who some how got enlightened by some crazy mystical light. I have just started discovering the various levels of life and its bliss.

Okay, now about me. I am male (for my age please refer the first line) born to a lovely typical southIndain lower middle class couple, Krishnan and Yeshodha Krishnan. I have a twin sis named Anitha and ofcourse we used to fight with each other. I am an entrepreneur and I have few friends and I recently discovered that I could write  ( hence this blog).

Now back to the topic.

Anils wonderland is a secret place where I belong and its still in construction and I welcome you all.

As I explore my writing skills, I will be posting some interesting stuffs (at least to me) about my wonderland in this blog.

With love and care,

Anil