Confusion Confusion Confusion!!

A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.
- Albert Einstein

Hello folks,

Thought we were missing? Thought we ran away somewhere? Haha, you bet we did! But even while missing and running away we were fixated on Bitti.in and only Bitti.in.

In one of our earlier posts (http://tinyurl.com/cad8vbq) we spoke about getting into a phase where we are lost on our way towards setting up the company. In continuation to the post, today, we share how things sometime get so confusing it causes endless delays in the run up to the launch of the company.

Similar to the chicken and egg problem, we went into a dilemma about the scale of our operations while launching the company. At first, we decided to do a pilot project and target only the Bangalore based brands.
We didn’t know we were in for a surprise. We marched to various merchants across Bangalore with what we think is an offer that they just can’t decline (Hey its a total win-win situation for both). But alas, soon we realized that the many merchants failed to share our enthusiasm for the idea.

But, the most important observation we made was, that bigger the brands, better the audience you will have for you ideas. It became very evident to us that nationwide brands are easier to convince and makes more sense.

After much reasoning, we have now decided to go for a nationwide launch for Bitti and are excited to work with some of the world’s most brands.

While the chicken and egg problem still persists, one problem at least has been solved.

Till the next post,

Cheerio!

Introducing Ninja #3

 

With the Yin and Yang balanced, or at least so he claims – We have, gentlemen and ladies, your breath abated – Ninja Number 3

Ninja Social
Ninja Social believes in greater good and want to work in areas which makes societies better. A self-confessed twitter junkie, he believes Bitti is his first step towards adding value to society.

Introducing Ninja #2

 

 

Loves anything. Speaks about everything.

Ninja Monk aim is to attain peace. Yes, literally. Not figuratively. He loves creating things that bring value to others.

 

Introducing Ninja #1

Image Courtesy: Deviant Art

Loves technology.. lusts technology.

Ninja geek revels in anything that is technical. He believes he is a tech brat and loves to create amazing things using technology.

Stay tuned to know about the other Ninjas!

Adios.

Being lost during startup phase

If you are an avid biker, or if you have done any long journey on your bike, you will be able to relate to this.  When we start a journey, we are always in top form. Excited with the prospect of the whole journey that lies ahead of us, the beautiful landscapes, and cruising on the winding roads, we start with great zeal and enthusiasm. If you are a bunch of bikers riding together, most top speeds are met in the first 2 hours of beginning the journey. And then the first pit stop happens. Breakfast, a little chai, smokes for some and the journey continues. The enthusiasm will have dipped a little but you will still have one or two in the group still whizzing past each other. Some more time, and the sun being on peak now, generally the tendency is it hit a average speed and stay at that. No whizzing and accelerating happens now. This generally happens when the terrain gets a little monotonous and the novelty of highways wears of a little.This is a difficult time as one needs to still concentrate on the road, keep the presence of mind and keep riding, because,  for sure, the terrain will change and the enthusiasm levels are going to rise again.

The journey of starting up is something of this sort for us. I have always likened my bike trips to journey of life. And entrepreneurship is pretty much a way of life, once you begin something. So when we started off with this idea and were giving shape to the thought, that we felt had value, things were a lot exciting. There were countless things to do. To make something when nothing exists, to raise from ground zero, one needs to do countless things. There is never too much. These are exciting times. We too had our amazing times devising strategy, planning our approach, revising our values etc.,

As things are getting more stabilized now and a certain pattern has been drawn, we saw ourselves slipping into a sense of comfort. We realised, this is not laziness. Laziness would be to not do anything and sit idle. That was not where we were. We were working hard. There were days where we would put in some solid work. But generally we observed that after a few such days we would move into a sort of slumber. Things would get done, but slowly. There was a general feeling of being lost, as we would keep asking ourselves “Now that, this is done. So what next?”

Now when it comes to discipline, we ninjas, aren’t exactly the best advocates of it. We believe we are pretty chilled out, accommodating and easy going (works for us). However, when you are consumed with an idea of building something and eager to see it take shape and come into life, you cant sit back and kick back. You need to move. You need to do. Not sometime. All time. We decided that we need to get our stuff together. Give it a tight binding. Build a path. Set check points. Pretty corporate, we told ourselves.

So we went to our mentor, Google. After googling through countless pages that offered much gyan about how to set one’s path, graph sheets and excel sheets that helped you not to stray, we were completely lost. We felt humbled and crumpled under the heavy tracking stuff. It was all good, but somehow we felt we will not enjoy working in that sort of a framework.

The ray of hope came in form of a notebook. While discussing one day with a pen and notebook (no fancy stuff when it comes to taking notes for us), one of us saw the student timetable printed at the back of the page. We told ourselves, why not. Its simple. Its something we were all used to. Its a different thing we were not used to it. But it was simple.

So we sat down and set down work timetables for each other. What exactly did we do? Each of us have our areas of work chalked out pretty neatly. Then there are activities that go into these areas. We sat down, drew a simple timetable and said we will do these activities at these times of the week. Things that were recurring got mentioned more than once.

It was as simple as that. And yes, its working great for us. All we need to do it is, look into the timetable and we know what activities we need to do for that day.

Did any of you guys to go through phases in your startup lives where you felt a bit lost? Where you were sure of the destination but the next step? How did you guys work around it?

We are eager to know your stories too!

What came first? Chicken, egg or the omlette??

Greetings fellow mortals!After a slow weekend thought we shall update a bit on our progress! Yes, yes it is not progressing at a cheetah’s pace, neither is it moving at snail’s pace. To put it across rightly, we can say, it is moving at human’s pace(sorry for the bad joke ).

Well, Well, Well, This post is an account of our first meeting with one of our probable clients.

We were relieved that we got to meet the right person, without having to go through the usual chains of ego,  that generally exists in many companies! Now this company that we met, has grown at a great pace and reflects the youth,adventure and all that can be associated with aspirations of young India. This company took birth in Bangalore and has today spread it’s wings across India.

So two of us, dressed up in swagger formal, rode our way to their office filled with hopes,aspirations and of course eyes full of stars (Duh? Starry eyed).

We walked confidently into the office and into the meeting hall with the brand manager of the company. We removed the sophisticated gadgets( PPT on the laptop ) and started our presentation. The brand manager being a young woman was able to connect with our ideas and we all nodded in unison…till she dropped one bombshell! Apart from this, we should say the meeting went great.

It was something that we were expecting but, nonetheless it made us to get back into our drawing board and made us put on our thinking cap. Wanna know what that bombshell was?

This was when the title of this post; What came first? Chicken, egg or the omelette struck us! The point that she raised was a valid one. Since we are up and coming website, yet to be launched; we are yet to get subscribers/ followers on to our website that made her a little skeptical.

What is confusing is, do the brand come first on the website or is it the subscribers? Now you don’t get subscribers without having any great brands and same time brands will not recognize you, if you don’t have ready base of followers.

Hai koi Jawaab ( Do you have any answers)? This is so similar to the chicken and egg problem, right? Now, we can also purchase database from agencies like a lot of them out there do. But, this is exactly where we are drawing a line and refusing to fall into the herd mentality(Told you, we are wolf in sheep’s clothing). We have, luckily in our arson, already drawn plans and ways to showcase the value that we provide to our customers that will help us build the subscribers list organically. (You will love it, we promise)

What do you guys think about this?

Should we just go out and do whats being done; that is pay and get databases or build our subscribers list organically?

Do let us know what you think is the best solution for this problem?

PS: The meeting with brand manager went very well and we are sure to have them on-board.

Ok. Let me go and have my boiled egg, omelette and some hot chicken wings now.

Ocean’s Ninjas

The three bad ass Ninjas!!!

As mentioned earlier in the birthing post, we spent a lot of time trying to get the perfect idea to reach our glory and fame. We pretty much told ourselves that we could not compete with the biggies in what they were doing, and doing best. We decided what we needed was something alien, something so radical that it would just change the face of the Earth. It would be the focal point of new things to come and herald a new era.

Nah! We didn’t get anywhere much with that train of thought. All we did was sit, think and come up with ideas that were basically solutions for problems that were not there or for people who did not exist. We were punching in the air, fighting against an unknown enemy, who probably did not even exist.

Then one fine day, logic dawned upon us, and we decided to look around and see if there are any real life situations that we can add value to. Logic did us good. We went through lot of stats, number crunching, clinical observing and arrived wiser, calmer and more good-looking.

Ha! No such luck.

However, it certainly did lead us to a very interesting observation. Those were the glory days of E-commerce selling where lot of leading websites made gold of whatever they touched, received moolah from here there, everywhere, people loved them and they were cool. There was some skepticism, but all heroes have some detractors, don’t they?

So we sat down, studying, how much business they did, what they sold, how much, who got funded, who was taken over – all the details.  We religiously studied it. We were awestruck by their advertising campaigns, and even more ‘left with no words’ with their marketing budgets. We realized it was needed cause bulk of buying population in India was not buying online and these were the angels who were convincing them about the fairy land.

During all these activities, one crazy night, when the clock struck twelve (Not exactly, but for drama of course), we asked ourselves – What if bulk of Indian population loved shopping in real places? What if they liked the experience of crowds, the fanfare, the rush of getting to touch, see, feel and smell what they buy? Could we do something for them, we asked ourselves. We facilitate them shop where they like most – and add value if we can.

That was the thought that led to Bitti. We decided the best way to go around doing that is to develop a platform that lets all of us experience  shopping the way we like most (real stuff), and avail all the goodies that online has to offer such as discounts etc. It made complete sense. This was our Zen moment. We knew what we wanted to do.

After sometime when we were talking about the whole idea and how we went about the same to some one; a business learned – he told us about the Blue Ocean Strategy.

He said: There are two oceans – Red ocean and Blue ocean. Red ocean is a concentrated pool where there are way too many fishes eyeing for the same thing. Blue ocean – Its a vast blue place where the sheer size makes competition irrelevant.

He told us – You guys are in the Blue ocean.

As for us, we were happy we could swim free.