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Two emails – selling something to me – eyeing for my attention

Which one will get a response?

Which one went through more effort to write?

Which one will continue putting in the effort, despite the response rate?

If we don’t respond too well to lazy work, what makes us think that the world will respond well to ours?

Which one will you be today? 

I am privileged that a lot of people write in seeking help. 

What shocks me, consistently, is how few of them know what help they need 

My standard response to most emails is my favorite question 

“How can I help”

Here is the truth 

No one will figure out how they can be useful for you. You have to do it for them, if you need them. 

How can I help? 

The question you need an answer to, before you seek help

Bad answers

• Wanted to bounce off my idea
• Am I on the right path
• Get your views on the product
• 15mins of your time will be really useful

Good answers

• We are also building a supply-led marketplace and your experience at nearbuy will be useful
• You have invested in xxx and we are attempting the same. What do we need to know
• Should we scale categories or cities? 
• Are we at the right stage to raise funding or continue bootsrapping?

Help doesn’t come from a spray and pray approach. That’s advice, you are mistaking it for. 

People will help you only when you have helped them understand how they can. 

Self driving cars

I am amazed at the pace with which this industry is being transformed. There isn’t any month where an incredible video doesn’t surface – from different companies – showcasing real life implementation. 

Without knowing much about the technology – here is an admission I would still make. 

It isn’t possible that everyone started to build this at the same time for us to see so much action happen simulataneously. 

Instead, it seems that “someone discovered” that self driving cars was a possibility. And then the best brains lept at it to prove that they were the best brains. 

Mankind gained from this competition, as a consequence. 

The tools had existed. For a long time. And very few people bothered to look beyond. 

Until one of them did. 

And then competition took over. 

The race to build something better and before led to attention towards the algorithm that could take over the tool. 

And before we knew it – tools had become redundant. 

The steps towards progress are clear

People. Tools. Algorithm. 

Don’t stop at tools. That’s progress half done. 

I signed up for Amy at x.ai last week. Had been resisting it for a while, not sure why. On paper it’s the tech I should jump at. 

An artificial intelligence based calendar scheduler. 

Oh. My. God. 

The first few conversations were awkward. Especially marking her on an email with real people. Asking for her help to reschedule. 

Slowly she began her magic. Replying to my requests

can you share full address of Sector 29 market, or you know the place. I want to make sure the two of you don’t miss each other 

I replied with a “know the place”

At lunch day before (incidentally setup by Amy) my friend remarked 

It matters how we speak to the AI tech today. Because that’s how they will talk to us tomorrow. 

Last night I received the first week email from x.ai

It’s best to be clear and polite. If you think of Amy as a human assistant, you can’t really go wrong

It’s evident 

We now have a responsibility 

How we talk to AI today is how the world will talk to each other tomorrow

Customer service is a hard thing. Especially in India. The Indian consumer is one of the most demanding, and I would argue the most threatening as well. 

It’s amazing how high the percentage is of customers emails to us that threaten to go to the consumer courts on their very first interaction. They haven’t even heard us out – but assume we don’t mean well. That’s why the threat. 

It’s not personal. I now call it natural. It’s been hard wired in the consumers mindset. 

And here is the biggest reason

For years, organizations including and especially the government have dealt us a bad hand. We have had to fight for our consumer rights. Rights as a taxpayer. Rights as a buyer of products and services. 

So now our natural mode has become the fight. 

Worse still, organizations have mastered the art of offering explanations for their actions. 

“We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused”

No cool company 

Don’t hint towards the fact that you MAY have caused any inconvenience. You DID! 

Don’t apologize and be fancy about it. Say sorry. And MEAN IT. 

Speak just as you normally would. You know, human speak

And DONT GIVE A WHY

Solve the problem. 

Because guess what – the why may be right. The why may be true. The why may be genuine. 

But the customer doesn’t give a fuck about the why. 

They care about how you are going to help him. Not why this happened. 

Templates have allowed customer service to scale. They are now able to be less empathetic and more robotic to a lot more people than before. 

I continue to be shocked by how little people invest in their personal development. 

I bet there are more people with mutual fund SIPs than people who read 1 book every year. 

Part of it is of course intent. 

But the sheer number of people who wish to make a change but are unable to do so, if baffling. 

My observation is that people don’t know how best to learn. Content and experiences are available to us in multiple modes. But our ability to absorb isn’t as diverse. 

In my opinion, there are 4 modes to learn 

• By reading 
• By listening 
• By watching 
• By doing 

We all react differently to each of these. Never mind the reasons. 

Infact, we don’t react the same way all the time. For different lessons, our best learning mode may alter. Should alter. 

The best way to drive may not be through reading. 

But the best way to learn to code could be. 

The other important distinction is between learning and getting better. 

“The best way to learn is to do it” is the worst possible advice ever. 

Sure, the best way to get better is to do it. But the learning, the foundation, the basis – cannot always be by doing. 

Go back in time and we all will realize the number of occasions when we have succumbed to the “let me just start doing it and I will learn”. 

We ended up getting bored or feeling inadequate and gave up. 

So next time you wish to invest in a new skill

Play around with the learning modes. Give sometime to each. You may figure something else works better than what you thought. 

Resist the urge to get into it right away before learning the base. 

The best learners know that they need to be a different person each time they learn. 

2016 Resolutions

• Record at least 10 cover songs in my voice – 10/10

I sang more than 500 songs this year – and eventually recorded 30+. Might showcase some of them publicly for feedback

• Write at least 150 blog posts and at least 100 medium posts – 7/10

Wrote 197 blog posts

However, medium didnt do so well for me, which is a big disappointment. I really like the medium and one of my goals for 2017 is to move my blog from wordpress to Medium.

Instead, I shifted my focus to Linkedin and ended up writing over 50 posts there. Generated over 250,000 views

Quora continued well – logged a crazy 3.8Mn views this year!

• Have lunch individually with 200 nearbuy colleagues – 8/10

Had 172 lunches with nearbuy colleagues – some unreal, unbelievable stories – some genuinely passionate and driven people – some inspiring to the hilt – some happy to the extent of being contagious.

• Take 7 weekend vacations with family – 6/10

Could manage only 4 vacations this year, much to the dismay of Ruchi. At a personal level, I worry that my need for a vacation seems to have completely gone.

• Not look at my phone once I reach home from work, till my wife goes to sleep – 3/10

Followed this for 2 weeks, I assume. And then was back to my normal self. This is an area where I have genuinely failed. However, one thing that I decided to follow was not bring my laptop home during the weekdays. Everyday I simply come back – not carry stuff back. One may argue that has increased my phone time once home, but not having the laptop does make a big difference.

This year truly tested me.

It started with a massive high – we had pulled off a remarkable Management Buyout in 2015, closed the year with the best sales ever and entered Jan 2016 with spirits and energy at the highest levels possible.

And then it struck!

Feb-Mar 2016

The investment scenario had turned upside down. Funding dried up.

We were running out of money. And we had to ensure the company wasnt jeopardized because of the decisions I had taken. So we decided to go back to first principles of business and also conserve all the cash that we could.

Which meant taking some really hard decisions.

I felt responsible for all of it – for every job lost, for every benefit withdrawn, for every insecure face I encountered, for all the times I tried to pep things up but felt I was lying to my own self.

I WAS responsible for all of it – the low morale, the skepticism, the “you brought this onto us” look.

Admitting this, even publicly, wasn’t going to be enough.

I began to record my feelings. Everyday to work, I spoke to myself – expressly freely what I felt. It helped relieve the emotions, but it wasn’t enough

I had to get myself back. In order to get nearbuy back.

On one such recording sessions, I asked myself, “fuck, how is it that I fucked up so bad? So so bad? I was happy a month back, and now I struggle to find a reason to be so. As if I have forgotten what it felt like to be at peace”

And I thought…

Would it help to go back to that world? That moment when I was truly at peace with myself. What is it that I used to tell myself then? Maybe that would help?

So I spent the next week, wading through my content from the past. Blogposts, Quora, Linkedin, Facebook, Emails, Notes.

And it helped a lot. I found patterns. In my thoughts, my emotions, my words.

Patterns that I figured might help me get back on track.

And one of the content stayed with me.

My resolution for 2016, one of which was 

Record at least 10 cover songs in my voice

I wondered why I had resolved to sing?

I wasnt a good singer. And was extremely shy of singing in front of public.

In the tough period of Feb-Mar, I couldnt remember what drove me to sign up for singing as a 2016 resolution.

So I decided to give it a shot, almost desperate for a solution.

And magic happened

I sang

And sang

and sang

Horrible at first

Tolerable by now

But I didnt care

I made it a ritual. Everyday after lunch, I used to walk on the office lawns, earplugs and sing to myself.

Invariably I would end up crying everytime, as I sang

The emotions didnt stop.

The healing didnt either.

I would look forward to driving, because then I could sing.

I would record what I felt were my best renditions.

Share it, not for feedback, but as as sign that I was coming back.

All I wanted to do everyday was to sing

In a month, I knew that this tough phase, while real, will not consume me. I will not allow it to consume me.

By April, I had myself back.

The act of singing, feeling my entire body emote to the melody, the lyrics, rhythm – made me go back to my original self.

The self that wanted to be free, to find meaning in my actions, to feel happy with my judgement, to stand by my thoughts.

The act of singing made me connect with my own self, more than writing, or photography.

Over the past 10 months, I have sang more than 500 songs.

The act of singing saved me in 2016

The year has been the hardest I have ever faced. It taught me the importance of making people feel secure, the importance of will, the power of faith and perseverance

and above all, it taught me that the only person who can ever know you well, is your own self.

I became my best friend

Nowadays, we hang out together, singing :)

At toll booths, boom barriers reflect the behavior of most organizations out there. 

Employees approach with ideas, advancements, experiments, wild bets at the toll booth. 

Someone, supposedly capable but mostly simply a checker, is siting. Accepts some form of exchange – money in real world, ideas, presentations, data in organizations. 

And the boom barrier is raised. Allowing for the employee to go past. 

Before lowering itself again for the next employee. 

Day in and day out – the same “process”. Multiple booths, multiple checkers, multiple employees. But all allowed one a time. 

And then someone decided to introduce tags. 

Something you do (upfront payment in the real world) fetches you a badge. Where you don’t seek permission anymore. The boom barrier is never lowered on you. Till you keep paying that payment. 

Unfortunately, just as real world, less than 5% of the universe eve gets this tag. 95% still go through this painful sequential process. 

It’s ironical – the toll road was built for a speedy, unrestricted passage. And then someone, to establish importance and authority, choked the system at the toll booth. 

As a founder/CEO/manager – while you constantly aim to build toll roads, ask yourself how many toll booths are you also adding. 

And why? 

What will it take to give everyone a tag?

What will you give up? And what will you gain?

Does your organization really need a boom barrier?