a blog

Entrepreneur

2012-02-09T14:37:00.004+05:00

I was always before choice: either to join a corporation or start my own. I always chose the latter, because of being 'free', 'own boss' and 'able to change the World' as entrepreneur.

Now I am almost 35 and I understood that being entrepreneur is not necessarily owning a business. You can bring this way of life (or more correctly work) to established companies. e.g. I consider those who carry out corporate turnarounds entrepreneurs as well.

In this case, entrepreneurship is totally rewarding for entrepreneur as well as for company.

No guarantee that entrepreneurship will be supported in every company (Hello, Kodak), though. All depends on corporate culture and of course leadership.

Nokia's new strategy: more questions than answers

2011-02-14T10:52:00.003+05:00

I was following up what Nokia would do in order to reinvent itself.

Friday's new strategy seemed to be a bit shaky...

If they pick Windows platform, how will they stay giants in mobile business in LONG Term? Count on miserable margins from selling HW? will then Nokia compete with HTCs and Motorolas of this world?

More questions than answers. let's wait for a couple of years and see.

Strange problem

2010-02-04T19:02:00.003+05:00

I came across with a strange problem in my latest online venture TENDERWEEK.com.

The website provides a database of local tender notices. Publishing to the database is free. What I can't understand is the reason why so many (especially government) organizations are reluctant to publish notices for free. Instead they publish elsewhere (mainly in newspapers) for a fee!!

I never expected such a problem. Is it because they (maybe) don't like TENDERWEEK.com? or is it because of lack of trust to online media? or perhaps it is because of their indifference to their jobs and organizations?

I thought I would spend all of my time persuading consultants and companies to buy access to tenders database but now it is clear that the challenge will be persuading buyers to post notices for free...

Unfinished job

2008-11-06T17:22:00.001+05:00

For the past three months I was busy with dgMarket Uzbekistan project. dgMarket is a universal online marketplace for tenders. The project is created by UNDP's Gateway Foundation and operates in 171 countries. In 22 countries dgMarket has branded national websites, Uzbekistan is among them and I had to do smth with this moribund project.

The challenges were to raise brand awareness, to increase website user number and to make the project profitable. During the two years of dgMarket.uz functionning it had 6-7 active clients (who paid constantly), 300 daily visitors.

To shake things up I came up with three step strategy:

The first step was to improve the product (website) itself, particularly its usability and navigation. To say it was akward, is not to say at all. I was amazed how user did not get pain in using it. Maybe they did get but there was nobody to listen to them...

The second step was about improving client relationship. We let our clients feel we need them as much as they need us (by local laws every tender information must be published in media).

The third step was about changing the business model. dgMarket makes money by charging a fee for placing tender notice. As there were much more sellers who were eager to get up-to-date, reliable information about tenders, we thought it was financially attractive to charge a fee for viewing tender information instead of charging to place tender notice.

Good and bad results:

The first two steps went well although the website optimization process took unusually long. The main reason is that the website is managed from a development center in Moscow and it took a while till the developers act. Regarding the client relationship, we listened to complaints and wishes of almost all of the existing clients. Although we could not provide a solution to all their complaints and make happen all their wishes, this very attention to them helped them to strengthen our image as a reliable partner. We even got some big companies in telco, oil insdustries as well as in government agencies as our clients and there is still plenty of potential clients to acquire.

We had some problems as well. The visitors number grew twice the first 2 months but then fell catastrophically low due to very unstable work of the website during a week. We tumbled in Google organic search. It was a very bad news as 70-75% of users were coming from Google search.

We have not recovered yet from that disasterious week, but if we compare the statistics of this three months of my tenure to previous quarter we can see the the loyalty, depth, time spent on site and recency parameters of dgMarket.uz usage grew significantly. It means although we lost in quantity, we gained in quality of users (it is also a good news for clients who buy our media banner inventory).

When the time of the third phase was approaching, I had to leave dgMarket Uzbekistan. The reason is quite simple and disgusting: money. Pity...

NEXT turnaround

2008-08-04T17:22:00.001+05:00

Problem

There were two major problems that led NEXT to bankruptcy:

1. Market.

We were too optimistic about the dynamics and size of the market we were operating in. From the beginning of launching the company we have invested heavily into software developers in the hope of market leadership when it matures....but it never really did. Web development became more like a commodity: with almost everyone using free design templates and free Content Management Systems building websites. And as for the clients, their major concern
was price: they were not ready to give away big money. So, when we understood it, we were in debts.

2. Two founders, two visions.

Both us (founders) thought of the company as their child and wanted very, very much to succeed it. It was the good part and the bad part was that we each had sharply different visions for the company. I believe it was a classical situation and the classical mistake was the failure to clearly set out responsibilities and decision making power between two of us. It led to malfunction of the organization and even to interpersonal problems.

Action

We had to solve this stalemate and I decided to buy the stake of my partner. From the first sight it seemed risky because NEXT was in full debts and software developers ran away from the company. But I knew I had to move from technology development to advertising in order to survive.

First of all, I changed the company's name from NEXT Technology to NEXT interactive. That was clear indication that we have adopted a new way. Then I got rid of small (in terms of profitability) and troublesome businesses such as web hosting service. Every web development and internet marketing shop here had their own web servers, so this decision was perceived by them as at least as 'weird'.

The next step was to make web development cheaper. I outsourced the development of new and flexible Content Management System (CMS) that would allow us to create website with minimum resources: We had one web designer and one web developer (with beginner level) to adapt the back office of the website using the new CMS. This allowed me to double the profit from each website we were building.

At the same time we began offering interactive marketing, media planning and buying services. These services were at the center of the turn-around strategy. After 1 month of these changes we got our first client for our new business model: Samsung Electronics Uzbekistan. We developed online marketing plan, developed media planning and buying for the client, as well as we developed a promo site for the campaign. This approach allowed us to go upmarket and earn
more (because under the old NEXT we would be only doing web development).After Samsung Uzbekistan online campaign, Coscom - third Cell operator in Uzbekistan - picked us to conduct their interactive marketing promotion.

After 8 months of restructuring NEXT we paid off our 90% of our debts. It was crystal clear that we were on the right track.

Conclusion

It was a big lesson. I learned two things:

- First, you need to do anything to avoid misunderstanding with partners and investors in leading business, especially if other founders and investors are participating in daily operations.

- Second, you need to be brave to shed unprofitable and low marginal businesses in order to focus on businesses that will bring in more in the future.

Answers to your questions

2008-04-14T17:16:00.005+05:00

Somebody emailed me a file with a 'motivational' content. I receive such kindda files very often and I usually read 'em thru quickly and then delete. But this one is very different, at least for me.

After reading it, I just realized that all my questions to God are answered.

Read it below and think.

I Asked God…

I asked God for Strength,
And he gave me difficulties to make me strong.

I asked God for Wisdom,
And He gave me problems to solve.

I asked God for Prosperity,
And He gave me brain and brawn to work.

I asked God for Courage,
And He gave me danger to overcome.

I asked God for Love,
And He gave me troubled people to help.

I asked God for Favors,
And He gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted,
But I received everything I needed.

Did u find answers to your questions? if not, read it again. It is all there.