The initial chapters of the book reminded me of Aleksey Vayner and of tons of spam that poses as advice on how to become a PUA. If you’re willing to overlook the almost-intentional hokeyness of the early chapters, you can walk away from the book with several thought-provoking ideas on simplicity, the value of time and the virtue of being more effective by working smarter rather than harder.

More than anything else, the book emphasizes the value of time, once the time-money trade off shifts in favor of time. Ferriss ruthlessly condemns conventional wisdom, which advises people to defer enjoyment until they have retired, at which point the change of pace is a big shock and might lead to regrets and aimless time-wasting anyway. He lays out some techniques that will help readers become fully detached and mobile from one’s work; to become financially secure in ways that will help them accomplish their dreams; to trim the fat of unnecessary possessions, ties and expectations from their lives and to take advantage of labor arbitrage to aggressively outsource mundane tasks to others. The last theme especially might give some food for thought to entrepreneurs running Atomized Enterprises.

Above all, Ferriss emphasizes active living, i.e. imbuing everything you do with intentionality, self-awareness and explicit volition. The man’s effort is commendable–what starts out sounding like a tacky, get-rich-quick book winds down sounding like it came out of a Zen text.

It’s good for Tim that he has been in sales roles for much of his life, because those roles can afford a reasonable amount of mobility. At my current workplace, several of the top-performing salespeople are perfectly fine working out of a home-office so long as they are ’smiling and dialing’ enough. As part of the Generation Y ethos, I hope for a flexible work environment, varied activities and travel in my career, but I still expect to spend several more years in a traditional office environment for the kind of work I want to do. But Ferriss’ exhortations on the value of time–the fierce urgency of now if you will–are definitely something to keep in mind as I strive to live a fulfilling life.

I’ve started my next book, Getting Things Done by David Allen, which takes a whole different approach to time management and efficiency. There is a huge online cult following for the book already, but I might report back with some of my own thoughts.

• According to the McKinsey Global Institute, private consumption in India is set to grow 4.1X in the period from 2005-2025.
• In 2012, India is set to overtake China as the fastest growing global economy.
• By 2010, private equity investment in India is set to reach $20bn (A PE Hub report states that VCs have pumped $2.3bn into India so far this year).
• 40 percent of produce grown in India never gets consumed, due to poor infrastructure and inadequate food preservation.
• Healthcare in India will present a $20bn market opportunity by 2015, including fundamental research, drug development and patient care.

India has made a name for itself in IT services so far, but as the economy and old ways of life slowly transform, the enormity and sheer variety of opportunities in the years to come should boggle anybody’s mind.

As an entrepreneur, you have to work 24 hours a day, but you get to choose which 24.

Almost simultaneously, the doom and gloom from the convulsions of the financial sector has found its way to the Silicon Valley crowd. Warnings from investment stalwarts such as Sequoia Capital and Ron Conway have almost single-handedly ended the exuberant atmosphere among the entrepreneurial set. Several VC firms have held come-to-Jesus meetings evaluating the impact of the credit crisis on the health of their portfolios. No doubt, it’s never a bad time to be an entrepreneur. Now is especially a good time for those just starting out to hunker down and build a company that will be in the right place when the economic headwinds turn. In his talk, Ken Morse gave some advice that applies to entrepreneurs no matter what the economic climate is like:

• Business people are essential. Ken said 80 percent of startups consisting only of technical founders (the ‘geeks’) fail. Conceiving an idea is less than half the battle. Assuming competent execution of the idea, getting the word out and selling to customers are a lot more important to the success of any venture. Ken exhorted entrepreneurs not to view salespeople as ‘lower life forms’.
• CFIMITYM. Cash Flow Is More Important Than Your Mother. Even if you are not the business person in your venture and even if you are lucky enough to be well-funded, get to know how your business model generates recurring revenue at a basic level. Make basic financial projections for your own reference that will guide your thinking for several months ahead.
• Selling skills are important. Ken said there is a real shortage of sales skills among entrepreneurs. By sales skills, we are not necessarily referring to dealing with prospective and current customers. Selling people on ideas and strategies is just as important.
• Do the homework. Regardless of whether you’re a lone business-minded founder looking for your technical soulmate/co-founder or vice-versa, you have to do the early market development yourself. Validate your ideas early by talking to prospective customers. Defining the scope of what you will do with real outside input is an experience that will refine your idea and potentially lead to new directions.
• Customers are the best source of funding. Rather than chase 4F (Friends, Family, Founders and Fools), angel or venture capital money, see if you can’t get customers to fund your development. Customers provide validation to your business model and can act as external champions of your product or service. What’s more, in return for their money they just want their problem solved and pain points removed; they don’t want any of your equity.

Ken made the above points alongside a great presentation detailing success factors for an entrepreneurial venture. Perhaps these success factors will change even as the nature of entrepreneurship itself is changing. But the points of advice above are truly timeless.

• Buy spot market offerings. As much as possible, buy products and services at going short-term rates, even if it means you end up paying a premium for not agreeing to sign on for a longer term. McNealy said that things change too quickly in our world and that locking in a profitable long-term contract rate might prove to be an impedance down the road. He said that signing on more resellers rather than more salespeople during the dot-com era would have been one example of this principle at work; he added that Sun should have preferentially grown its reseller network over its sales force.
• Minimize fixed costs and overhead. As a parallel to a supposed Japanese business maxim "all inventory is bad", McNealy said "headcount is bad". He exhorted entrepreneurs to keep fixed costs low and concentrate exclusively on their startup’s unique value proposition where they differentiate themselves. In most build vs buy decisions, entrepreneurs should only build that which will enable them to erect barriers to competitive entry by other players.
• Get someone to think you’re crazy. McNealy said that the mark of a good strategy is someone thinking that its creator is crazy. Eliciting a vehemently skeptical reaction means that there is a controversy somewhere in the business plan, which in turn is an opportunity for the entrepreneur to differentiate themselves and their startup.
• Create barriers to competitive entry. McNealy emphasized the importance of creating unique intellectual property (IP) such as patents and trademarks that will inhibit competitive entry into an entrepreneur’s market niche. He was of the opinion that a portfolio of this kind should not be used predatorily but that it is nonetheless a good defensive measure. Sounds like the IP version of the Reaganesque maxim "Speak softly but carry a big stick".

I was struck by the extent to which McNealy’s advice resonates with the themes of Atomized Enterprises that we have discussed at great length on this blog. McNealy does not perhaps espouse atomization to the same extent; for instance there was limited commentary on outsourcing or cloud computing. In one instance, he even wondered why management consultants exist at all because an enterprise should never ‘outsource thinking’.

Nonetheless, the idea of keeping overheads and fixed costs low is an important idea I took away from the breakfast. Do you think enterprises can still create value while outsourcing the effort behind core value creation (rather than the ideation behind core value creation)? Join the discussion in the comments below!

Name:

Location: New Delhi

Bio: Alok Mittal is Managing Director with Canaan Partners India. Alok focuses on building companies in the fast-growing wireless, technology and Internet domains.

A successful entrepreneur and founding member of Band of Angels India, Alok also seeks to foster the development of new global technologies in India.  He led the technology practice at Baring Private Equity Partners, India, where he focused on IT products and services, BPO, Internet and Telecom. Prior to Baring, Alok was Co-founder of JobsAhead.com, a leading web-based recruitment business. Alok was instrumental in the acquisition of JobsAhead by Monster.com, the global leader in online recruitment. He also brings strong Telecom experience to Canaan having worked for Hughes Software Systems, the premium provider of telecom software services and systems in India. He serves on the Board of Directors of Bharat Matrimony, iYogi and Cellcast. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Have you invested in startups meant for the Indian market before? Which ones?

Canaan’s investments targeted at Indian market are Bharatmatrimony, Techtribe and Cellcast. The other companies with significant India component are e4e, Unitedlex and iYogi.

What sectors or investment themes look most promising to you in the Indian market?

We are looking to broadly invest in early stage technology ventures including internet, mobile applications, software products, offshore services, transaction processing and so on.

What excites you most about your sector of choice in the context of India?

High growth rate of consumer markets, increasing rate of technology adoption, and vibrancy of venture-backed startups are the key factors that excite us about India. Our focus on technology is derived from our extensive experience in this segment globally.

What is one thing that Indian entrepreneurs often overlook when deciding to start a venture?

A key element that entrepreneurs would do well to factor in is the element of differentiation - not just at a feature level, but how are they able to bring significant benefits to existing and competitive offerings - especially benefits that the customer may be willing to pay for incrementally.

What are your personal interests?

My personal interests include reading (a whole bunch of diverse non-fiction), music, driving/riding. I am a moderate gadget user, with the regular ipod, palm, laptop stuff.

Connect: http://www.canaan.com, http://www.venturewoods.org, http://www.indianangelnetwork.com

[To learn more about in|vest, read the overview page and this blog post. If you are an investor with an interest in India and would like to participate in in|vest, please read the participate page as well.]

The rising incomes of India’s middle class, coupled with the favorable demographics of the country as a whole mean that the country presents a wide-open opportunity for any entrepreneur who is interested in taking it on. India’s diaspora of successful and sophisticated technology investors in the US (many of whom are former entrepreneurs) is eagerly seeking opportunities to invest in startups targeting the Indian market. Although I have deep ties to India, my recent visits have shown me the vision not just of entire industries being rebuilt but a whole country being rebuilt. Project Tofu is a venture (and a personal adventure) that I hope will teach me a thing or two about the Indian market as well as about creating and sustaining an Atomized Enterprise.

I can’t really say very much about Project Tofu right now other than that it’s an offering for the Indian wedding market, which is in its earliest stages of planning. As I go through the process of building it out as an Atomized Enterprise, however, I will catalogue my experiences here. An entrepreneur’s energies are all too often directed solely at solving problems of the venture he or she has launched. I hope to find the time to reflect here on the lessons I learn; if you, my dear reader, can also benefit from it, I’ll be so much the happier!

Jeff Bussgang, an entrepreneur-turned-VC has written a fantastic BusinessWeek article on entrepreneurship that explores this theme a little. The central problem Jeff identifies is this:

Unbridled, unfocused entrepreneurial energy can easily be squandered and misdirected. In my last six years as a VC, I developed an appreciation for the attitude and vantage point that VCs have when sifting through business proposals and allocating scarce capital to the best opportunities.

Jeff goes on to talking about how thinking like a VC and executing like an entrepreneurs is desirable for employees, but I want to explore the significance of this advice for technology-enabled enterprises and innovation. Atomized enterprises are capital-efficient ventures born out of momentous, loosely coupled combinations of labor, ideas and capital. To keep permanent overheads low, atomized enterprises must necessarily pursue more rational resource allocation strategies than traditional enterprises.

The tightly-coupled nature (relatively speaking) of a traditional enterprise, where many non-cohesive functions are nonetheless integrated together, means fewer points where rational decisions are made on the basis of market prices. The act of paying a price is a powerful reminder to maintain efficiency and imposes a certain crispness on any transaction. The loosely coupled nature of atomized enterprises has two key implications for innovation:

• more functions are accomplished by relationships to external organizations, which are in turn mediated by rational behavior-enforcing market prices and;
• assuming a relatively liquid market of service providers–which is reasonable for the kinds of commodity functions that are outsourced to external providers–rational decisions to switch to more capital-efficient service providers will be far less expensive.

With sufficiently rational and efficient resource allocation, an entrepreneur may even be able to pull off multiple, loosely associated atomized ventures simultaneously. I came across one example of an atomized enterprise recently when I was speaking with a fully managed Web hosting provider. One of their customers is a dentist who sells dental drug compatibility data online with no overhead of his own, while simultaneously carrying on a full-time dentistry practice. As atomized enterprises become more widespread, I believe we will see more examples of entrepreneurs who manage not one but a portfolio of linked technology-enabled ventures while allocating resources rationally and dispassionately among them. These practitioners of the atomized enterprise, whose passion for execution will be informed by a perspective that enables them to make truly rational decisions, will indeed be the philosopher-kings of innovation.

Name:

Location: Bangalore

Bio: Arvin Babu joined Greylock in 2007. He is focused on early stage company investments in India.
Prior to joining Greylock, Arvin co-founded two Greylock backed companies: Perfigo and Brience. Arvin was CEO at Perfigo, the leader in network admission control (NAC). Perfigo was acquired by Cisco in 2004. Post-acquisition, Arvin was at Cisco for over two years and led Cisco’s NAC appliance business unit to #1 market share. Previously Arvin served as CTO at Brience, a leading mobile software developer. Prior to Brience, Arvin was CEO at Webvibe, a developer of application middleware. Webvibe was acquired by KPMG Consulting in 1999. Post-acquisition, Arvin was CTO at KPMG Consulting where he led KPMG’s eBusiness technology initiatives.
Arvin holds an MS in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from India.

Have you invested in startups meant for the Indian market before?

No.

What sectors or investment themes look most promising to you in the Indian market?

A startup needs an ecosystem of local market opportunities (customers), partnership opportunities (GTM, M&A, OEM, etc) and great talent pool to thrive. There are some sectors which readily lends itself to consideration in the near term and some in the medium term. Near term sectors include: Solution as a Service, in which leveraging local talent pool and achieving scale non-linearly with cost based on, say, cloud computing; infrastructure solutions that can address low-margin, high-growth last mile communication needs and infrastructure solutions that allow large IT services to scale non-linearly with cost, such as virtualization management, infrastructure management, etc.

What excites you most about your sector of choice in the context of India?

Local market requirements are unique to include: lower margins, high growth/volume and tougher environmental conditions in the case of last mile solutions.  These attributes impose a barrier of entry for global players but give local entrepreneurs an opportunity to achieve scale prior to going global.

What is the most important lesson you have learned from your operational experience as an entrepreneur?

I learned the ability to understand & articulate the value proposition of the solution clearly to customers. Getting the solution out as soon as possible while iterating all the way to perfection reduces the gap between expectations and reality!

Connect: arvin@greylock.com

[To learn more about in|vest, read the overview page and this blog post. If you are an investor with an interest in India and would like to participate in in|vest, please read the participate page as well.]

The impact of what we know today as emerging markets on the innovation of tomorrow cannot be understated. The US has been a strong locus of innovation in the 20th century, but numerous views indicate that in this century, the US will not have a monopoly on innovation. It’s not that it’s a numbers game alone. In addition to countries like China and India offering much larger market opportunities, the social and cultural constraints that these countries face compel them to come up with innovations unseen in economies of abundance like the US.

I have a interest in innovation particularly in the context of the Indian market because of my ties to India. To try and do my part in advancing India-focused innovation, I am launching a special project on this blog called in|vest. in|vest is an ongoing social discovery of investors interested in India. Periodically (each week, I hope), I plan to publish a profile of a venture capitalist or angel investor looking to invest in companies targeting the Indian market. I’ll quote briefly here from the FAQ for in|vest:

Why are you doing this?

Social networks are ineffective channels to learn about and meet new people. The goal of this site is to facilitate networking among entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and anyone with an interest in startups and innovation related to India. This site is greatly inspired by Portland on Fire, a similar project done by my colleague Raven Zachary to encourage networking in the technical and creative communities in the American city of Portland, Oregon. A blogging platform such as Wordpress enables free-form and naturally flowing profiles.

You’re welcome to read the rest of the questions on the overview page.

Entrepreneurs looking to innovate for the Indian market: I hope you will find this project useful and connect with the investors who participate. In return, all I ask is that you send me names of investors you would like to see profiled here.

• Gartner has recently published some research on a cohort it calls "Generation V".  This cohort is defined not by demographic attributes but by behavioral ones–specifically its use of digital technology to demonstrate achievement, collect knowledge and share insights. As with several other things Gartner, Generation V has been neatly segmented into quadrants: lurkers, opportunists, contributors and creators, in decreasing order of engagement with digital media. Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang rightfully expresses some skepticism on the supposed demographic-agnosticism of this cohort and adds some of his own color to Gartner’s characterization. The intent of mentioning Generation V here is not to call out anybody on the specifics but rather to emphasize that it is precisely Generation V that raises new possibilities for a workplace and constitutes the flexible labor pool of an Atomized Enterprise.
• On the subject of new ways of working, the most recent Ultra Light Startups meetup featured some content about coworking, a relatively new mode of working that is making waves among the younger segments of the workforce. Some examples of ventures were brought up as having been conceived entirely within coworking communities. These are still early days for coworking and businesses in this arena are still couched as real estate plays. However, opportunities further up the value chain–including business services and even monetizing the carbon credits that may be saved–abound.
• This may be old news but is worth reiterating. BestBuy has switched to a Results Only Work Environment, which enables employees to set their own hours and derive their own definition of a work-life balance. This ultimate focus on results is an important part of how Atomized Enterprises must operate, and will be the focus of an upcoming post in the near future.

Meanwhile, I hope all my readers are having a great summer!

Update: Another noteworthy piece in the New York Times about a flood of higher-value Wall Street jobs being outsourced to India. After blue blooded Wall Street banks started to cautiously explore nontraditional venues for research five or so years ago, third-party research firms (in other words, non-captive operations) are seeing an 20-40% increase in business just this year.