Showing posts with label Real life incidences. Show all posts

July 25, 2019

From what most people around me can tell, I'd always had a knack of coding. And design. Thus, I decided to try my luck getting a job as a Creative Design Lead for UI / UX development at one of the local startups around. I'd been running an architectural design firm Ansh Sharma Architects for a while now, so I wanted something that could take my mind off.

I'd heard from a good friend of mine that working at startups was super-cool and fun, and some of them even offered equity along with a stipend, which could really pay off if the startup took off. I only had a month long break at hand, so although I dropped the idea of bagging an equity, here's what I've to share:

The equity equation:

One of the earliest entrepreneurial minds at Silicon Valley, Paul Graham, laid out an equation which could help you estimate how much equity you could ask for while being hired.

1/
(1-n)

You should give up n% of your company if what you trade it for improves your average outcome enough that the (100 - n)% you have left is worth more than the whole company was before.

In the general case, if n is the fraction of the company you're giving up, the deal is a good one if it makes the company worth more than 1/(1 - n).

HRs always look for making a profit on your hire. Let's suppose you've read Graham's article and are asking for 5%. And so, if you could convince the founders that you could bring to the table what could increase the average outcome of the company by:
1/
1-0.05
≈ 1.052, which is 5.2%, you win.

We, however left out the salary that you're going to get paid, which we could think as a trade off against equity. So, let's assume the company you're interviewing at is valued at INR 2 Cr., and you're asking 600000 per year. Let the amount the company spends on you be 1.5 times your salary (which includes any overheads). That gives us salary and overheads to be 900000.

900000/
20000000
equals 4.5% and so you should just be asking for 0.5% to reach your target of 5%. As you can see the equity component you can take increases when you decrease your salary, so it is up for you to decide which one you should lean heavily on.

As for me, I went in for salary. I'll be posting an article the following week about negotiating salaries, so make sure you enter your email address to subscribe to my blog. It's free.
,

May 22, 2019

The following is an excerpt from a speech by India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar at an event hosted by the Federation of Gujarat Industries in Vadodara, India on 11 September, 2016.

am from the village of Parra in Goa, hence we are called Parrikars. My village is famous for its watermelons. When I was a child, the farmers would organise a watermelon-eating contest at the end of the harvest season in May. All the kids would be invited to eat as many watermelons as they wanted.

Years later, I went to IIT Mumbai to study engineering. I went back to my village after 6.5 years. I went to the market looking for watermelons. They were all gone. The ones that were there were so small. I went to see the farmer who hosted the watermelon-eating contest. His son had taken over. He would host the contest but there was a difference.

When the older farmer gave us watermelons to eat he would ask us to spit out the seeds into a bowl. We were told not to bite into the seeds. He was collecting the seeds for his next crop. We were unpaid child labourers, actually. He kept his best watermelons for the contest and he got the best seeds which would yield even bigger watermelons the next year.

His son, when he took over, realised that the larger watermelons would fetch more money in the market so he sold the larger ones and kept the smaller ones for the contest. The next year, the watermelons were smaller, the year later even small. In watermelons the generation is one year. In seven years, Parra’s best watermelons were finished. In humans, generations change after 25 years. It will take us 200 years to figure what we were doing wrong while educating our children.

Transcription by Eisha Sarkar. Emphasis mine. Also published on scaeceditorial.

August 04, 2018

We can't use erasers in our Graphics' Studio. It started when one of our professor asked us the difference between drawing with an ink-pen versus a pencil. Someone pointed out that while using pencils you could erase your mistakes. And this is how we were forbidden from using erasers, they say there are no mistakes in art.

Though it had much to do with the feeling a pencil could deliver; the soft graphite rubbing itself against the rough paper that we draw on, and also the varying intensities and thicknesses you can achieve with the pressure and the angle that you use, the question had me pondering over the actual fear.

What if is all it starts with.
What if I draw my pencil line a bit off?
The problem with our brains is that they are hard-wired to be protective. This, as an artist, can be hampering in our endeavors, but it does apply to other disciplines. Your brain actually keeps you from doing things that can be dangerous, in which case, even dangerous to your personality. Which, is actually good. You're protected by your brain from doing things that are morally wrong because you're a person who is good, who is usually right. But what it does interfere with is it prevents you from exploring, from doing things that you could've been doing.





For example, let's say that you're walking in a dense rain-forest. And you're lost. To add to the misery, you haven't had food since a day. There's a bush with a tasty looking red colored berry. It looks so perfect and delicious, you can't just resist having a bite. But, you've been told to not eat fruits which you have no clue about. So you go on to find a black berry which is familiar. You hate black berries, but you still eat it, because you're afraid to explore a new fruit. Your brain is protective.

It's definitely a one-sided argument that a reasonable person would eat the black fruit instead of a red one, but that's a story, a story when you're in a forest. This isn't a forest, right? Then why the heck are you, now, afraid to try out the red fruit?

From now on, just try to complete your what-ifs.
If my pencil line's a bit off, it wouldn't matter at all, because the person looking at my work wouldn't really know how had I intended to draw the line in the first place.
So, there wasn't anything to fear at all. I threw away my eraser already. Time for you to throw yours.

,

July 28, 2018

A few days ago, I found myself in a meeting with the GM, Finances for the Suwalka and Suwalka Group. He's a widely recognized name, and an outstandingly wiser man for that. As I got up, I couldn't help myself to ask him what his philosophy on life was. He gave a short albeit meaningful essence to his words. He asked me to,
Dream big. Dream on, but whatever you dream, never let it be small. Dream the biggest you can and you'll have nothing but success in your hands.
This reminded me of Clotaire Rapaille, a French marketing consultant, whom American corporations pay top dollar (read: $200,000 which is approximately Rs. 1,37,25,000) for correcting their marketing misdemeanors.

Dr. Rapaille was once hired by Jeep, the leading SUV manufacturer in the United States, to hunt down reasons for a rapidly declining revenue from sales. What he came up with, was a bizarre theory. He wanted Jeep to switch back to their earlier designs which featured circular headlamps instead of rectangular ones. Jeep executives agreed, albeit reluctantly, but thanks to the prodigy, the world once again saw sky rocketing sales from the automobile manufacturer.





I read an interview of him at PBS, which you can read here. He started out as a teacher, helping autistic children to learn to speak. When he was delivering a lecture at Geneva University, one of his student asked his father to attend it with him. At the end of the lecture, that student's father came up to him and said, "You know, doctor, I've a client for you.". And he said,"Is it a little boy, little girl, doesn't speak?". "No, no, this is Nestlé.".

Dr. Rapaille was taken aback, but he wasn't scared to live a dream, or as NY Times puts it, he was about to live a dream life which Freud would have envied. Nestlé had spent some of its time conducting surveys in Japan. They handed out free samples of coffee and asked consumers how they liked it. This had been going on for over an year now, and the reviews came out to be positive. Nestlé then decided it'd be safe to invest in the Japanese market and it started with them opening up cafés. Aghast, not a single Japanese soul was to be found wandering inside these newly opened coffee parlors. So, they had asked Dr. Rapaille for assistance.

According to him, marketing is all about gut-thinking. He tells us that when you're born, you're born with a reptilian brain, and after 7 years of age, we have in place the cortex, what most of us think of as being "intelligent". And it has been seen that children usually start learning a foreign language after 7 years of age, and yet they still continue to hold on to their accent. So, for example a child who has been brought up in wartime France, may learn the English language when he grows up, but his imprint of English would be different from a child, who's been brought up in a contrasting environment. If you're, thus, to create an imprint, it'll be best to do it before the cortex starts developing.

How could thus Nestlé expect a child who's been brought up in a culture which favors tea over coffee switch to coffee once he grows up. Dr. Rapaille told Nestlé to start selling sweets that were based on a coffee flavor, coffee flavored toffees and books for children that encouraged coffee drinking. Decades of careful execution of planning, led to wonderful results; between October 2015–September 2016, Japan was the world’s 4th largest consumer of coffee.

What it took was dreams, and careful planning that spanned decades.
,

July 22, 2018

I can recall a story of a recognized female Indian voice. Those were the days when she was young and her career was starting off and she'd been doing shows on the Indian radio. This had given her enough fame already and this was perhaps the phase where you'd be figuring out how possibly could someone live while being under the limelight. Having booked a seat in the train, as she searched for her seat in the coach, an aged woman had already fixated her gaze upon her, contemplating, as to whether she was the same voice she had heard and seen so much about.

As the young talent took her seat, the aged woman called out to her and she said something on the lines of her confirming who the young girl was and then appreciating her.
The other day I heard you out on the radio. You sing beautifully. Almost every Saturday, I sit with my daughters and we hear you out. I know there are just 7 notes, but your voice, it feels as if you're searching for the 8th.
The young girl was flabbergasted on hearing this. She shied away, blushing and meekly denying that she isn't as good as she was portraying her. "No, no, ma'am...", was all she was saying. The old woman, as she was a wiser soul, scolded the girl.
When someone appreciates you, you should take it. Never deny someone's appreciation. Say something like "Thanks." or "I'm glad you liked it.". If you don't want to take it onto yourself, the best thing to say would be, "It's all God's grace."
It's absolutely okay to be humble, but denying of someone's appreciation isn't humility, it's the lack of self-esteem. 
,

March 28, 2015


Gone are those days in the local vegetable markets in Bhopal, when you would be more tensed about the correctness of the vendors’ weighing scales, than your shopping list. The other day, when I accompanied my parents to the vegetable market, I found that a majority of the vegetable-sellers were selling vegetables with the help of an electronic weighing machine, instead of the traditional pan balance. I asked one of them, “How could you make it possible?”. “We have taken it on rent. Can you see that tomato vendor right there in the centre? He is the one who is giving these machines to us. He charges Rs. 20 per day.”, replied he. He added further, “And do you know, these days he has bought himself a loading auto, and he loads all these machines and gets them transported to another marketplace the next day.”

"Development." I thought at last.

And do you know friends, these people have started refusing polythene bags as well? They are asking people to carry their own cloth bags instead.

Isn’t it all good? :)
,

November 04, 2013

It has been quite long that I have been blogging. This blog is slowly emerging. It has crossed over one thousand (1000) page views. Thank you readers for your support. Due to lack of time I have started micro blogging. I would like to post some of the incidences that I recently came across. Here is a lesson.

During a visit to Aashima Mall, in Bhopal. On 1st November, occasion of Dhanteras. I saw some foreigners there. I wished them a happy journey to our country and of course, a happy upcoming Diwali. He asked my name. Yes, in that little conversation, he threw in a warmth of friendliness and asked my name while shaking hands with me. This, the lesson. We conversed further, but I had already got my lesson.

So friends, do not fail to ask the person's name. It can successfully make the conversation worth remembering.
,

May 04, 2012

It was Monday, 30th of April. As my father was back home after a long course of time, it was my time to celebrate. We did a lot of shopping that day. Of course, a good deal of shopping gives a great deal of discount. So I purchased some snacks too - Potato chips and some soft drinks too. But I cannot hold food in my hands because my stomach wants to hold them. And I could not resist. After about five - ten minutes I was wiping my hands and my mouth with the handkerchief. Then it was time to go to my favorite destination - Mc Donalds. We had some spicy Mexican treats and some fries. When we got back home my mother cooked some pizzas for supper. My tank was filled up completely but I didn't give up.

It were days and days before I could stand really still and think clearly because those spicy mexican treats and yummy pizzas kept working in my stomach till a long time later.

It is very well said by Mahatma Gandhi, which gives the very well awaited “Moral of the Story” to the readers, as —
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Ansh Sharma - Lessons In Life © 2015. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by Blogger

MARI themes

Powered by Blogger.