Perspectives

I earlier wrote that, as an entrepreneur, nothing frustrated me more than power cuts. A true entrepreneur sees opportunities in difficulties. So, I sat down to think of how best to utilize the time when I had no access to Internet/power. Here is the list:

Unlike desktop computers, laptops are a boon to the Indian Entrepreneur. These days, you get a laptop for cheap. You probably have one already. Make full use of the built in battery time (roughly 2 hours).

Code: If you are a coder, now is the best time to create a dev environment on your laptop. If you are building sofware that needs two Operating systems, there are solutions. If your software needs two machines, there are solutions for that too. And the two hours without power is a gift. No twitter, no email. What more can you ask for as a coder?

Write: This is a great time to write posts for your blog. Having lost have lost the external world, you can go inward on a deep search of meaning and perspectives on the topics that you want to write on. Original content is a natural side effect of no wikipedia. Incidentally, this blog post itself was written when there was no power (Actually, power just came).

Meet: Every business has it’s customers. And every business owner needs to meet them. Over here in Bangalore, there isin’t really a load shedding schedule, but I roughly know when the power goes. And I head out to meet my customers, mentors, interesting people. I learn a ton lot more about my business than I would have, if I were to be sitting in front of my computer.

Think: Thinking is a bizarre activity. For me, the net result of thought on a task ends up un-necessitating the task. It seems to me that the more you think, the less you do. And doing takes more time than thinking. Your hands are much slower than your mind. As you can see, internalized thinking saves time. It may be different experience for you, depending on the person that you are, but all of us agree that it makes sense to put your mind to something before jumping on it.

Play: An instrument, football. Run. Yes, You are pursuing a hobby, it rejuvenates mental and physical health and all those other things. But Importantly, all of these are mind activities. You think analytically, mine patterns and crunch numbers when you play a guitar. Stuff that will help you in your business.

Read: Crossing the Chasm? Innovator’s dilemma? Good to Great?

What else do you think one can do?

Well, I will join them. I will tell them I will add value.

It seems like many business owners are afraid that a competitor or a new entrant will copy their idea and become successful. I can’t help but see the paradox here.

Your idea?

• If you are an innovator, you observed a market need. You applied your knowledge (that someone freely offered you) and you created a solution – USP
• Then you observed more and took more ideas from other sources and adapted them to work in your niche – Features
• Then, you took some more and did not even bother to change any of it and used it – Integration/Bells & whistles/Enhancements
• Then you worked with others who possess a USP in their niche to add value to yours – Partners
• Some more people saw something more than what you saw and joined you to help your cause – Employees
• You created Something – A company

And what do people like?  Your company.

As you can see, most of what most of us are doing is someone else’s idea. Your USP is probably yours (most often, even that is not true). And what is it? An observation. A thought. Did you get it because you are a genius? Is that observation such a big deal? E=MC²?

If someone is executing your idea better than you, join them. What are you doing all of this for anyway? To help make someone’s life better and happier isi’nt?

What did you lose that you cry about? What did you bring with you, which you think you have lost? What did you produce, which you think got destroyed? whatever you have, you received from here. – Bhagvad Gita.

Related articles:

• Vision, Mission and Value Statements Help Business Success (businessmanagement.suite101.com)

Most salaried persons play a role in creation of wealth. A role, but not responsibility. I did something in creating every 1 re I earned as a salary, but I was a part of a larger scheme of things that created, maybe 10 Rupees. And I presumably got my rightful share of 1 Re from it.

In an absolute sense, every 1 rupee that you create as an entrepreneur is worth much more. I have read somewhere that for every IT job created in Bangalore, there are 72 other allied Jobs created (say folks working at coffee shops, Banking, house maid etc.). Drawing inspiration from the same line of thought, It is easy to see how the creation of every rupee seeded by you as an entrepreneur has a ripple effect throughout the society. This 1 rupee never existed before and you carefully seeded it’s creation which in turn will create, for example, 72 Rs for the people who are a part of it.

I am unable to decide if the flip side creates a network effect too. Will a loss of 1 Re that you incur wipe a lot more wealth in the society? I am not sure. What do you think?

Entrepreneurship is a little bit about all the glamor that people have  purported it to have, but it is a lot more about things like this. As an entrepreneur, You are making this world a better place for a lot of people simply by being one. Keep that going. Or if you wondering if entrepreneurship is for you, this should give you an additional point of view to consider.

“With great power comes great responsibility” – Uncle Ben, Spiderman

Related articles:

• You’re Not a Real Entrepreneur (steveblank.com)
• My Thoughts on the State of Entrepreneurship (somewhatfrank.com)

I have started a journey of entrepreneurship recently. It has’nt been that long but the transformation it has had on me is hard to ignore. It is satisfying to have “aha” moments many times in a single day.

I have had many frustrating/saddening experiences in these last few months, but nothing comes back to irritate me as much as power cuts. Philosophically, I wondered who should take responsibility for my frustration and I could not find an answer. Not the BESCOM guys. Not our politicians, maybe, us, for having grown to a billion people. I decided I am the one who is accountable and decided to find a solution. The cheapest and quickest solution.

Being a technology entrepreneur, all I missed during power cuts was internet. Laptop was on battery and would run for a couple of hours and that was enough to juggle through. In my case, Internet was a wifi router and a modem. Both DC appliances with less than 10 VA (turn your device around and you will find a voltage and ampere specification. Power would then be Volts*Amperes) consumption. To power them, I should be able to buy a few re-chargeable batteries and load them on to a battery tray and that should do the trick. Batteries (cells) come with a certain voltage specification (typically 1.5v). But my internet devices had an awkward voltage requirement that wasnt a multiple of  any battery’s voltage specification I found in the market (Thippasandra). Half a day wasted.

Next, I wanted to get an Old desktop UPS and hook it up to just these DC appliances. A PC ups will be 0.5 kva (500 va). My internet devices together needed 10 VA. So, the UPS should be able to run these devices for 50 Hours. Hmm. I sensed something was wrong about the number “50″. A UPS cannot run for that long. I didnt know why.

I found something called power factor. Most people take 0.8 to be the power factor. I presume power factor represents power losses in way of resistance and anything else along the way. With that, the UPS should run for 40 Hours. That still didnt make sense.

I asked a  few electrical engineers, computer shop owners etc. but none of them seem to know. Some of them hinted that a PC UPS needs a certain load to even work. There is supposedly an automatic trip that will kick in after a couple of minutes if no reasonable load was found. None of them told me why it had to be that way.

I found a generous internet cafe owner who gave me a 3 year old UPS to hack around with for no payment. Thanks to him. On trial and error, I did find that the UPS tripped in 2 minutes. An explanation a friend’s father gave was that a UPS is designed to provide un-interrupted power supply before you switch over to another power source (like a generator). But that still did not answer why it needs to have a certain load. A plausible explanation I came up with was that the UPS may be designed to prevent leakage of current. I also found out that there are specific UPSes designed for internet backup floating in the market and it was a tad costlier (2700 Rs) than a PC UPS.

Ok, back to the experiment, I started connecting small appliances to the UPS to provide the minimum load. First was a USB hub, then an external hard drive. Wasn’t enough. Then a CFL blub. At this point, the UPS lasted longer than 2 minutes. For 20 minutes. Considering it was a 3 year old UPS, the Storage battery inside must have outlived it’s life. A new UPS may have worked for longer, but I decided to find a proper solution if I am going to spend thousands anyway.

The next option is to find an old car battery and muck around with it. But I realised that an inverter is just that and that it is the storage battery that takes up most of the cost. Generator is another option but they make a lot of noise and are costlier. I found this excellent article which helped me decide what specifications I needed for the inverter. But unlike what is mentioned in the article, I chose a provider who gave me the entire solution rather than shop around for a UPS and battery separately. They also took care of the wiring.

Finally, I ended up shelling out 16000 Rs and am now left with significant interest in creating a commoditized renewable energy power station for a home. An energy unit that makes use of solar, water, bio waste and anything else a home may produce and creates enough energy  to minimalistically power the home back. A dream, and I hope to undertake it sometime.

I hope this helps someone out there. Ensure that you solve your power issues once and for all. As an entrepreneur, there are many other issues to get worked up about. Power shouldnt be one.