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Sep
25

How do you start creating a $100 Million business on a $5 Million debt with 0 employees I Talk at IIM Bangalore on 15 Sept 2018

This is my third entrepreneurial innings. With the first, I managed to create a bootstrapped world leader called TWB or The Writers Block that serviced the largest Fortune 500 B2B tech leaders in the world. TWB made money from the 1st month and grew on its own cash flow. The next 2 startups, which I did not choose, are called TWB_  (called TWBShift, essentially TWB2.0) and VOSD.

After 10 yrs of creating a world-class company TWB_’s fall was terrifying and total. In less than 6 months I was the only employee left in the company, from a few hundred earlier. And I had lost all offices, bank accounts, phone numbers even web servers as every rupee was employed to repay. As lenders moved in, employees and customers left. Some of that fightback is the subject of the TEDx talk here. The choices I had to make, the pain and the resurgence while interesting and with a hundred priceless lessons is not the subject of the talk today though.

What IIM Bangalore grads wanted was a view on how to help create this large enterprise to help dogs. The case study is not your average startup situation though. You don’t make a business plan, find friends and family, then angel investors then try to get yourself funded on a blue ocean dream. This is a knife fight and you’ve your hands tied.

Soon after TWB_ went down both my company and personal bank accounts were closed – and no the banks don’t ask you. There was no way for me to find any money. I’ve seen a time when I could only find private loans at 25% pa for a year — where you pay the interest upfront! And then when things sank further I had to find still more — which I got at 1% per day! For ₹ 1 Cr that is ₹ 1 lac a day. These are the kind of guys you watch the movies about – they don’t ask you to sign anything to give me money but you can’t not pay nor delay. If anyone’s has watched “The Girl In Yellow Boots” the local Kannada hudga at Kalki Koechlin’s doorstep is a pretty accurate picture of what I refer to. If you thought VCs are ruthless people you should meet one of these. They don’t threaten you with a term sheet and diluting your equity to put it mildly.

Rakesh Shukla at IIM Bangalore

Rakesh Shukla at IIM Bangalore on 15 Sept 2018

The problem definition

THE ASK

Could you turn around and start delivering on a $100 Million business plan from there with a revenue run-rate of ₹ 4 crores in Y1?

THE LIABILITY SIDE

  • You’re the only person in your company. You’ve liquidated all assets. You’ve no address, your emails don’t work your website doesn’t either.
  • You’ve got debt that runs into millions of US$. Banks agree to reschedule over a 3-4yr term but sundry creditors they want it all now — at one time together it peaked at ₹ 35-40 lacs a month.
  • No matter what you pay back each month you got to find ₹ 10-15 lacs each month for your dogs – that is non-negotiable. They got to eat and they got to have medical care.

THE ASSET SIDE

  • You still have a brand (TWB) that means something to customers  – you can only deliver on what is not capital intensive and really high margin. TWB_ today focuses on the highest margin business.
  • You have terrific goodwill with VOSD (the world’s largest no-kill dog sanctuary & rescue) – you could leverage that to create revenue streams provided you did not have to invest at all!
  • You have an individual with exceptional branding talent — for a period of the first 2 yrs. She could allow you to rebrand and make a fresh new identity that still builds on what worked in the past.
  • You have an individual with terrific marketing and technical/program management capability — for the next 2 yrs. You can rebuild your go to market assets. But you can’t do both.

THE PLAN

  • Phase 1 (first 2 yrs) of our execution was branding and short-term revenue.  Phase 2 (next 2 yrs) was rebuilding the infrastructure and basic teams and assets to launch.
  • TWB is already finding the run rate we had the 1st time and I expect Y2 to be the same top-line where we left off 4 yrs ago. In other words, we will do in 2 yrs what we took 10yrs the 1st time!
  • VOSD has created a portfolio of multiple sub-brands some driving engagement some driving revenue but all focussed on dogs. This includes VOSD DOG CARE a complete dog care brand available nationally. BARKING MAD – India’s largest for charity standup property. MONSTER BAKE – India’s largest for charity bake sales. ART FOR DOGS that brings together India’s top artists. STARS FOR DOGS – that brings together India’s biggest celebrities for a cause.

So how do you start creating a $100 Million business on a negative $5million base with 0 people? Answer: With ingenuity & gumption. When you can’t employ money and timing in business you apply ingenuity and fortitude and we’ve done that in spades. I’m still bootstrapped other and than those 4yrs I’ve always been cashflow positive – from Month 1. How’s that for a fightback?

 

Jun
25

The Son of the Son of God, is a Dog

“What are you looking so far up the mountains. You are the only man this time of the day, 20km either way” the voice said. “I don’t know, but I haven’t found”, I replied. “You’re on the road for a month. And you’ve done this many times before” the voice said, “Do you not understand that I am here? You don’t have to look?”

I smiled. Alone in a small tent in the middle of a moonless night which itself was in the middle of a vast snowfield up at 13,050ft. No phones. Only a bicycle colder than the 6ft of snow it stood against. But I was home. I felt a warm glow down my throat. It couldn’t be the alcohol because I never violated the rule of not drinking on the road. It must be that I’d found what I wasn’t looking for.

10 years passed with many conversations, him and me, as friends. With no real meaning. One day I said “I want more. I’m not happy”. He said, “what do you want now?” “I don’t know,” I said, “but I want more love”. “OK”, he said, “you can have all of it, you can be my son, if you can be their father”, he pointed to a small dog looking at me from the corner of my house. Kavya looked at me waiting for an answer.

The Son of the Son of God is a Dog I rakeshshukla.com

The Son of the Son of God is a Dog I rakeshshukla.com

I never again went to meet him at a temple or anywhere. The son of God. Now I was fearless, and it gets to your head. The situation turned, as it always does. I fell from a cliff, hit every rock on the way, and it was a long long way down. I lay bloodied and dying and I cried, bitterly but under my breath. “What do you cry about? The pain?” he appeared. “I’d never cry of pain”, it was a rebuke, “I’m your son”, I shouted back. He smiled, “Do you not understand I do not take care of any one thing. I can’t take care of you. I make the rules to run the

universe, and then I can only watch because touching it would violate the condition of having the rules in the first place”. I gasped, “so you didn’t leave me?”. “I’ll never love you less as long as you take care of your children”, he said.

I picked myself up and got to the first one that needed me. The son of the son of God was a Dog. Rakesh Shukla

(I wrote this on Shivaratri Feb 2017 and is an actual 1st person account. Through my darkest hour I could never stop nor forget that I do God’s work. And they are my children)