Blue Screen of Duds

It can be a real problem for people who are new to OS X to find the right software to get their routine work done.

To help such people along a bit, I am posting a list of software that I use on a daily basis.

In the first installment, I am going to post the average-Joe list and will be tackling the development platform list in a later post.

1. Throw out the slackers. Do not even think much about it
2. Pull out your current revenue figure, slash it by half
3. Sit with every employee and figure out what their basic living costs are
4. DO NOT leave the executive level staff out of this
5. Renegotiate all salaries at basic living costs + 10% of what is currently being paid
6. Make up the difference in preferred stocks or as bonuses that are payable under conditions at a later date
7. Give the option to leave or sign up for the program for employees with loans and other problems
8. Renegotiate every contract that you have and extend credit lines till they break
9. See if the halved revenue number now tallies with the expenses
10. Route a percentage of the saved money into enabling every possible sale

Logic behind the steps:

This is an environment in which everything -- from fear to opportunities -- are irrational. The key is to survive. If you survive, you'll win big too.

Keep as much cash in the bank as possible. Having liquidity at your end not only helps you to keep going, but it also works wonders for your valuation and ability to get credit.

It is easy to fire people, but it is not easy to function without the right people on board. Ask them to have some faith in you by showing some faith in them.

The employees get a buy-in into what is being attempted, but they also are better off with having a job than being on the street without one.

Talent is easy to let go, but harder to make up for or replace. Invest in them.

Sell, sell, sell.

business, business models, startups

Irrelevance is also a death of sorts. It is not the immediate in-your-face sort of regular demise, but a slow descent into nothingness that gnaws quietly away at the insides. Different people deal differently with irrelevance. The brave make attempts to change and find ways by which they can matter again. The foolhardy close the doors to the house, draw the curtains, put on that old 70s song and polish the silverware one last time in an attempt to convince themselves that not much has changed.

The printed news medium (including newspapers and magazines) is iconic in numerous ways. It stands tall in history, representing everything from the time of emancipation of information to being shapers of opinion across the globe in all matters regional or local. There is much nostalgia attached to it (who does not crave for the pre-internet days of the broad sheet and the morning cuppa?), but nostalgia is connected at the hip to the generation it is associated with. And generations always change.

The Problems

Let us, for the sake of convenience, imagine a patient on the operating table. The patient's operation is not being carried out on the money paid by herself since she could not afford it. Thus the sponsors come into the picture. The operating theatre now has branding in different areas. Now, the sponsor wants more space and kicks the legs of the patient off the operating table, which is A-OK. After all, there is no operation without the sponsor, right? Okay, enough already with the macabre metaphors.

Indian media has had the good fortune of being in a market reality that is different from the ones we see in the west. Empowered by our third world status, we have a market that is still far from being saturated and playing on potential than actuals, we have had it good for a while now. The past five years has been a time of extreme prosperity in the segment, with everyone and their uncle (or aunt) starting a publication or a television channel because the uncle (or aunt) next-door has one.

Quite a few of these entities were built on the 'invest-now-reap-the-benefits-later' school of thought that is the cornerstone of a bullish market. When the industry as a whole is trending upwards in its vitals, almost everyone wants in on a piece of the action. Losses are glossed over, since at least some money is coming in and 'it is just a matter of time' before the huge chunk of change comes in. Which is all fine when the going is good. Trouble is that the going is not that good anymore.

In a three part series, I'll try and take a swipe at the problems and the possible solutions for the segments: internet, print and television.

Internet

If there is one thing that has marked the eight-plus years that I have had the good fortune of being a part of this industry, it is the perpetual promise of a better and bigger tomorrow. The number of times you hear "when the market opens up" at any industry event is always greater than the sightings of companies actually having a clue about what they are trying to accomplish in the long run. I have written at length on this topic before, so i won't subject you to more of the same torture and we'll look at the possible solutions:

It is tempting when you end an association that is over three and a half years old to lean back and let it rip at all things negative and gloat over all things positive. Setting up a product from scratch, which is part of a larger product, is an exhilarating experience. Starting with just two people and an old beaten up computer, watching it grow into a 40-plus strong family, absorbing along the way the pains of growth, squabbles, glory and joy, is something everyone has to experience. Then again, like any narrative that involves the progress from infancy to adulthood, there is also the inevitable shadow of departure for the person who helped it grow always hanging in the background. And that is where I am at now.

It is one of the hardest things to have the certainty about what you want to do, without not much of a certainly about how you want to go about it. The process has been daunting, with years of learning gulped down the gullet in a timeframe of months. That, combined with the downturn, has made it into a roller coaster ride -- both emotional and professional -- which has often made it way more difficult than what it should ideally be. In the current set of circumstances, things that you think you know is a quantum that is forever in flux. Plans change, projections change; what you can/will also changes in line with that.