Monday, October 15, 2007

Career

Career is like a stock market.

Most of the people do things which everyone does. When the stock market has crashed no one invests although decades of history shows that stock market follows a cyclical pattern. Similarly most of the people choose career path that everyone chooses, like at one point of time software was popular, at other times corporate finance, investment banking is hot now, venture capitalism/private equity is coming strong and but success comes to those who get into the race early and quit before the race becomes too crowded. A classic example might be of venture capitalists who hunt for the right idea invest in it and quit just before it is ripe, maximizing the profits. Somewhat similar to what Warren Buffet would do, invest in a stock when stock market is low and no one buys and sell it when everyone is buying or the stock market is hot.

Most of us would say how would they know when is the bottom and when is the peak. Or in terms of Career, what will be hot next ? Well it boils down to how much prepared are you, do you know the GAME that you are playing. The more you understand the better decision it would be. Understanding the pattern and that would be what is termed as vision. Or else breaking away from the pattern creating your own pattern.

As with stock market, Career would also have its own risk. Again no gain without pain. Risk is the name of the game. And for me least risker would be to start your own company. Company that does that no one else or even if someone does create market that the other does not have. Its like cars, in America in the 50's there were all big cars, and then comes the Volkswagen which created a market a market that no one has catered to before. It does not have to be big, it can be anything, as small as cap of a bottle but it has to be unique and it should have value.

When I think myself of what can be unique and of value. The first thing comes to my mind is washing dryer. There are some washing dryer in the market but probably it is not marketed well or too expensive or not reachable. A washing machine price in India ranges from 5000 Rs to may be 1 lakh rupee. A washing dryer is much simpler than a washing machine. You don't have to spin dry, you don't have to tumble wash, you don't have to add detergent, you don't have to fill and drain water. Nothing but to blow a hot air and rotate the drum. So if a washing machine can cost 5000Rs a washing dryer would cost no more than 3000Rs, at it strip down version. And the market, all of India. No one wants to take the pain to hand dry clothes on a rainy day, wait for a day before you can use it. It would be a revolution in Indian market. Market would be huge but they key would be to enter early and leave early.

Again everyone knows this and everyone (most) wants to start a company. In last two weeks I talked to two of the directors (incidentally both were marketing directors) in my company and I asked them what would they want to do if given a chance (they can do anything that they like). Both of them answered that they would like to start their own company. We all know that starting a company would be "THE CAREER", everyone loves his brainchild, cares for it more than anyone else does and enjoys being with it, so why not start a company.

It boils down to WHATs, IFs and BUTs, what if the company does not start, what if I dont get the finance, what is the market size etc etc, at times some of the data can be gathered easily at other times help would be needed and best approach is to look for people, people with different experience, experience in finance, experience in starting a company, experience in marketing, experience in market research etc etc etc and then draw upon their experience. But how to find so many people with different traits :) I would say MBA

Do an MBA and it would provide a market, you need to find the right product, the right person, who can help you. .......I guess MBA is something that everyone would need to do after every 10 years or may be 5 years. Because you will need newer set of people newer set of experience.

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