Government reveals reforms agenda, mulls over FDI in corruption [#satire]

Continuing with its stance on economic reforms, the Government of India is on course for taking  a revolutionary step which will officially allow FDI in corruption. The Finance Minister, in an exclusive interview with our correspondent, disclosed the Government’s intention. 

“Our Government is committed to growth. Opening up corruption to foreign players will make us more competent and also help in bringing in foreign capital that will improve Rupee’s position vis-à-vis the Dollar. This will also help in making corruption more transparent”, explained the minister.   

Although, there have been past instances of foreign involvement in India’s booming corruption sector, this is the first time the Government is proposing to ease regulations so as to encourage greater foreign participation. 

The Finance Minister revealed that the Government had approached IIPM to carry out a detailed study to help them take a call in this matter. The Government chose IIPM considering the institute’s global exposure, which would help them in analysing foreign perception for this sector in India. When our correspondent contacted Mr. Arindam Chaudhuri , he sounded upbeat about the government’s proposal. “Corruption in India is a huge unorganized market, growing at a mind boggling CAGR of 420% over the last 10 years, similar growth is expected till at least FY20. Also, this sector has shown growth independent of which political party is in power, thus reducing the political risk of such investments. Allowing foreign players to be a part of this growth story will help us discover the diamond in ourselves”

However, opposition parties seemed unanimous in opposing any such proposal by the Government. “There is no clarity regarding this. What will be our cut? And will we get that in Rupees or Dollars?” asked an opposition party MP, on condition of anonymity. 

Meanwhile, Credit Rating agency Substandard & Poor quickly restored India’s soverign credit rating, after claiming to have ‘accidentally’ downgraded the same after the Finance Minister’s announcement. “The Government is certainly on the right track. Corruption has huge potential, we just had some taste of it after the ‘accidental’ downgrade!”, said a company official with a wink. 

“Now they will make me slap foreigners too!”, a certain Harvinder Singh commented on the development.  

Piggybacking on competitors' ad spends [Marketing vs Sales]

I saw the Quikr ad that shows a girl who sells her mobile before the ball that she throws up in the air falls back into her hand.

And I saw the OLX ad that claims "Yahan sab kuch bikta hai" ["Anything can get sold here"], which shows two guys managing to convince their father to sell his old desktop as they already had a buyer through OLX.

And then, I looked at my old Sony Ericsson S312 which I had respectfully retired after upgrading myself to a smartphone.

And I decided to give these sites a try!

Now then, I googled for OLX (to get the exact URL), and the first site I got was OLX.com [I did not notice that OLX.in followed it on the search page]. Not knowing that this was a US specific website, I registered myself on it, and then when it asked for my city etc, I reached a dead end since it only had US cities.This was a turn off and I never looked at OLX again.

I went to Quikr, and registered successfully. Put up my ad saying an awesome looking phone is up for sale. It's been about a month since I did that but still I have not got a single response from any of the 'buyers'. [Granted, that model is a bit out of fashion now!]

I almost forgot about it when few days back I got a call from Sulekha saying they saw my ad on Quikr and if my phone is not sold yet they would like to put up the same ad on Sulekha. They created an account for me and I got a mail that an account has been created and an ad has been posted. I am yet to hear from any prospective 'buyer' through Sulekha as well, but I am intrigued at how a third company which did not spend $$ on expensive TVCs at all took advantage of a market being created by its competitors (since I put my ad on Quikr in the first place more because of the TVCs that I saw of Quikr and OLX rather than any inherent need for me to sell my old mobile phone). All that the guys at Sulekha did was do a bit more of grunt work (the 'scan ads on competitor websites' part) and an awesome customer service (I did not do ANYTHING at all, except giving them an OK for creating an account and an ad, they did everything else).

Perhaps this concept might be unique to the classifieds market, as the market seems to be seller driven (OLX claims "Yahan sab kuch bikhta hai" ["Anything can get sold here"], and not "Yahan sab kuch milta hai" ["Anything can be bought here"]!. The Quikr ad also ends with "Sell Anything Quikrrrr"!) - the classifieds portals need the people willing to sell more than (or BEFORE) the people willing to buy. Plus the fact that the 'user acquisition' done by one site is out in the open (on the internet) for competing sites to see (and target). But just goes to show how YOUR sales can take advantage of THEIR marketing!

Update : Sold my mobile phone successfully through PriceShred.com 

Does 'Google Plus' imply a 'Facebook Minus'?

Some quick (and dirty!) calculations!

Google+ was publicly launched on 28th June 2011. It started off with limited invites, and today (close to 2 weeks after the launch), almost everyone has one. Thus this is a right time to do some analysis as enough people have given Google+ a whirl by now.

Now then, Google's Market cap has jumped from 155.68 Billion USD (on 27th June 2011) to 171.54 Billion USD (on 8th July 2011). That's a rise of 10.19%, or 15.86 Billion USD in 8 trading days! However, the NASDAQ Computer Index has also risen by 7.25% in the same period. Google has a Beta of 0.61 against the NASDAQ Computer Index (on the basis of past two months data). Thus, purely using this statistic, the rise in the Google stock price attributable to the changes in the US Computer Technology industry as a whole is 4.42%. Since, no other major news has come from Google (apart from Google Plus) in the last couple of weeks, we can (as a ballpark estimate, and yes this is the 'dirty' part) attribute the rest of the increase (5.76% or ~9 Billion USD) to the perceived increase in value created by Google Plus!

9 Billion USD is HUGE! That's - well - a tad more than an entire Twitter![Twitter is valued at USD 8 billion going by the latest 400 million USD round it has raised] Facebook's latest valuation as per the last auction held by SharesPost (which happened to be on 7th July 2011) was 87.5 Billion USD. This value has remained flat as against the auction previous to this - which was on 23rd June 2011.

Now, the value created by Google Plus for the Google shareholders is not out of thin air - it is at the cost of other social networks (which effectively means Facebook). So shouldn't we see an equivalent (close to 9 Billion USD) drop in Facebook's valuation? [Assuming it's a zero sum game we should - unless we are seeing significantly new and previously unexplored possibilities with Google Plus.]

However, even Facebook has had an 'awesome' feature launch in the past week - the Video Chat service, which happened on 6th July 2011 (just one day before the bidding for the latest SharesPost auction). So effectively one can say that the value added by this feature has sort of balanced out the value snatched away by Google+. But it's difficult to believe that one single feature can do so much damage control!

It would be interesting to track how the Google stock behaves over the next few weeks, as more and more people try out Google+ (and thus the value created by it becomes more clear). Very curious to see how exactly the Facebook stock fares in the next private stock auctions (and how much of a 'minus' is Google Plus for Facebook!)

Bumped [by the King of 'Goon' Times]

It was 6.15 AM and I reached the Kingfisher checkin counter at the Mumbai Airport to board a 7.15 AM flight to New Delhi. I showed my ticket and identity proof at the counter. She kept tapping at the keyboard, expressing surprise once in a while. I asked her if there is any problem. She preferred to keep tapping away as she kept staring at the screen - with expressions ranging from confusion to disappointment to distress. I wondered if she had suddenly got an E-mail from her boss saying she was fired.[The airline is known to be under severe debt. But I did not get into calculating the Debt/Equity at that time of the day] She looked towards left and then to the right for help, but both the counters seemed to be too busy (and it didn't seem like they had got any such E-mail).

I heaved a sigh of relief when she finally printed the boarding pass. But as it turned out, the relief turned into outright disbelief, when she looked at the boarding pass, frowned, tore it and threw the pieces in the dustbin!

I was shocked. It definitely did not seem like she had got a pink slip [no pun intended]. She finally blurted it out. "There are no seats available. The flight is overbooked". The tables seemed to have turned. It was now my job that suddenly seemed to be in danger (did I mention the purpose of the visit was a business meeting!)

I protested. "How is this even possible!". "I have a valid ticket!". "I have a valid identity proof" "I reached the counter well before time" "There is nothing that I have done wrong which justifies me being denied boarding" (okay, except possibly the fact that I chose to fly Kingfisher)

I so hoped that she would say - "Okay I was just kidding, since there is anyway some 15 minutes more for boarding. And since there is no one behind you in this queue, thought would play a small prank to pass time. Here's your boarding pass!"

I was in the real world though. And airline counter staff aren't known to be particularly funny in the real world. I asked her "So what next?". She said "The next flight is at 8.10 AM. We can get you a seat in that".

I said "That is not an option. I have a meeting." (I was hoping some persistence would help)

She tapped at her keyboard for a while and confirmed that no other airline to Delhi had any empty seats, and also that the next best option was the 8.10 AM Kingfisher to Delhi.

I didn't have a choice but to wait for the 8.10 flight. The issue escalating to higher authorities did not help. They all said the same thing. And as I later found out, it was not just me, but 3/4 others who had also got bumped off the same flight.

But now that the visit is done and I am back in Mumbai, I thought I should just check with the airlines and let them hear some music. Music was what they made me hear though (quite literally), as I called the helpline number and the Kingfisher Airlines jingle started playing. [On a side note, it's a good strategy to have a melodious and soothing jingle while the customer waits for 'customer care executive' - since there is a good chance that it might soften that customer's attack.]

I am yet to go past the jingle stage though, since the elusive 'customer care executive' has not picked up the call yet. Have sent them a mail and am waiting for a response.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Nevertheless, dear reader, what has your experience been with getting bumped off flights? What sort of compensation (if at all) is generally provided by the airlines? Isn't it wrong on the part of the airlines to overbook in the first place (considering there could be a situation - however slim the chance might be - that all passengers would turn up and none of them can afford to go late?)

[Disclaimer: The views expressed are purely as a customer of the service]

Update (June 30, 2011) : Received a cheque of Rs 4000 from Kingfisher Airlines as compensation. The amount is as per DGCA regulations.

LinkedIn IPO - 'Votes' the matter?

Finally got down to reading the LinkedIn Prospectus and stumbled upon an interesting 'Risk Factor'

The dual class structure of our common stock as contained in our charter documents has the effect of concentrating voting control with those stockholders who held our stock prior to this offering, including our founders and our executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates, and limiting your ability to influence corporate matters.

Our Class B common stock has 10 votes per share, and our Class A common stock, which is the stock we are offering in this initial public offering, has one vote per share. Stockholders who hold shares of Class B common stock, including our founders, and our executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates, will together hold approximately 99.1% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock following this offering, and our co-founder and Chair, Reid Hoffman, will control approximately 20.1% of our outstanding shares of Class A and Class B common stock, representing approximately 21.7% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, following this offering, and therefore will have significant influence over the management and affairs of the company and over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including election of directors and significant corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our company or its assets, for the foreseeable future.

...

Future transfers by holders of Class B common stock will generally result in those shares converting to Class A common stock, which will have the effect, over time, of increasing the relative voting power of those holders of Class B common stock who retain their shares in the long term. If, for example,Mr. Hoffman retains a significant portion of his holdings of Class B common stock for an extended period of time, he could, in the future, control a majority of the combined voting power of our Class A and Class B common stock. As a board member, Mr. Hoffman owes a fiduciary duty to our stockholders and must act in good faith in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of our stockholders. As a stockholder, even a controlling stockholder, Mr. Hoffman is entitled to vote his shares in his own interests, which may not always be in the interests of our stockholders generally.

Why this makes sense is that an investor coming in an IPO, (generally) would care much lesser about the voting rights than the Pre IPO shareholders (the founding team and the VCs). And the best part is, all shareholders are rewarded with more voting rights if a Pre IPO shareholder goes for an exit (since her Class B shares get auto-converted to Class A, thus the percentage voting rights for the existing investors increase). In fact, a typical retail investor would probably not mind more 'control' in the hands of a proven management (the Class B shareholders). But would getting less voting rights be actually a 'good' thing for the small investor category? Not really, as technically the 'risk' of the 'control' being in the hands of a certain few also is not necessarily a good thing.

Come to think of it, the differential voting rights could be very useful for startups going for crowdfunding - since the 'crowd' would probably be okay with getting shares of much less voting rights and thus the founders can have more 'control' over the venture they have started. [Of course, this doesn't hold for angel and VC investors - who would want a say per share equal to that of the founders.] This seems even more appropriate for startups as against mature publicly traded firms, in the latter case the 'crowd' being okay with inferior voting rights could probably also imply that the individual investor is more concerned with making a quick buck rather than staying invested for the long term. In case of startups, since immediate exit opportunities may not be available in any case, there are more chances that the 'crowd' has come in with a long term view.

One of the major criticisms for dual class structures has been about the possibility of the superior voting right holders misusing their powers for corporate matters like executive compensation, mergers and executions, etc. However, in case of early stage startups [Pre Revenue, Pre Profits, or at best marginal profits], such issues would possibly be relatively less relevant as against mature publicly traded (and possibly billion dollar market cap) entities (where chances of greed taking over are higher).

Wonder how much is this tool being already used, but surely looks like tweaking the voting rights structure can give some flexibility that can benefit all parties.

Paying users Vs Paying users

One of those ‘paying users’ is the ‘conventional’ user who pays for your service. The other, though is just the opposite - you pay the user as a part of your business model! And by ‘user’ I mean the ‘C’ in the typical B2C business (rather in this case –a C2B business).

One such interesting concept that I came across recently and one that falls in the second category is Carpaisa. Their tag line says it all – “Brand your car and get paid”. The user (a car owner) registers with Carpaisa, after which one of the many registered advertisers would put up a vinyl sticker ad on the car, the car owner would keep the ad on his car for a certain period of time, and the advertiser would pay the car owner depending on certain predecided parameters (Carpaisa, ofcourse would get a cut out of the deal)

This somehow reminded me of mGinger – a service where users can register to get paid for receiving promotional SMSes. I had registered with mGinger a long time back (have not exactly got rich yet though!)

The commonality between the two is that the user registers with the service purely with the intention of making money (without much of an effort). In case of mGinger, the effort is actually zilch, all you need to do is be ready to receive a few SMSes everyday. And the best part is, no one really knows that you are – well - earning a few bucks this way (if at all you do)!

However, in case of Carpaisa, there is a big difference. It is not an online/mobile promotion any more, but a promotion in the physical world. The user’s car will actually be doubling up as a brand ambassador for the advertiser company. And well, everyone on the road will (obviously!) know about it (that precisely was the advertiser’s intention in the first place). However, my sense is that it might be a bit awkward for many to put up an ad on their cars.

The basic theme in both the services is to lure users into registering by showing them an easy way of making money (not that anything is wrong with it). But the users have nothing else on their mind really! (Oh that also reminds me of SpeakAsia – the online survey site where they claim to pay users for filling surveys– they are even showing TV Commercials these days!).

Money being the only driver for the userbase is somehow not a very comfortable feeling for me. What’s your take?

Incubator or B-School?

Came across this piece of news recently about JGI Ventures floating a Rs 500 Cr startup fund. JGI Ventures is a part of the Bangalore based education group Jain Group of Institutions. The 'eye catching' part of the news - however - is not that. It is what appears in the second paragraph -

Budding entrepreneurs would be able to undertake a 30-month postgraduate course for a fee of Rs.30 lakh under JGI iDEA, or Incubating and Developing Entrepreneurial Ability.

This made me curious and I went through the programme brochure. They have chalked out a comprehensive 30 month course which covers subjects across domains (Finance, Marketing, IT etc) - and also includes some 'International Exposure' to make your business plan 'global'.

Now, at first sight, it sounds more like a B School programme (and a damn expensive B School programme at that!). Only difference is that a B-School programme typically ends with Campus Placements. This won't.

And if it sounds like a typical incubator, then the fact that there is a fees of Rs. 30 lakhs makes it 'different'. Moreover, one need not even have a business idea in the head to be a part of the programme. As the brochure reads -

Having a pre-conceived business idea will be a part of this process but will not be a mandatory criteria for selection. While aptitude is important, the primary focus of the selection process is to assess your attitude and passion to become an entrepreneur

In fact, this is in stark contrast to PayPal Co-Founder and Facebook early investor Peter Thiel's 20 Under 20 programme where he wants to "invest upto $100,000" in 20 Under 20 kids and "teach them about entrepreneurship".

Is this just an attempt at a new B-School trying to position itself differently (with a sweetener of a Rs 500 Cr startup fund at the end of the course replacing the traditional campus placements). And if one thinks of it as an incubator, then doesn't the huge fees upfront remove the incentives for the 'mentor' to really mentor like an investor?

Moreover, the well chalked out structure of the program - while it looks impressive on a brochure - might not be what is required. For example, not everyone would really require a visit to seven different countries to crystallize a business plan. So at least there could have been an option to pick and chose parts of the course (and thus also cut down on the course expenses).

Certainly there are lots of aspects that pique curiosity. But still, 30 lakhs?