Indiaplaza.com: How an Indian e-commerce firm ran out of cash

Kothandaraman Vaitheeswaran and Indiaplaza.com, among the first e-commerce firms in India, survived the dotcom boom and bust but failed later due to lack of funds.

He had been contemplating it for a while.

After all, there is only so much a man can take.

The office rent was overdue. For three months. Almost Rs.6 lakh. The landlord had run out of patience. So had the 10-month deposit money for the lease. There was money due to suppliers as well—some 50 of them. Almost Rs.60 lakh. The suppliers had waited long enough. And now their pestering calls had taken a slightly demanding turn. Customers were complaining—on social media, review websites and to whoever cared to listen. They had ordered things and paid online, but they had not been delivered.

Suppliers wouldn’t ship incoming orders unless their dues were cleared. But customers didn’t care; they wanted to know why the products hadn’t arrived. They kept calling customer support, the office landline. Relentlessly. And they wanted their money back. But nobody would answer.

Over the last 18 months, almost 95% of the staff at Indiaplaza.com had quit. Taking up whatever assignment came their way, leaving behind a sinking ship where they were tired of delayed salaries, and for some months, no salary at all.

Kothandaraman Vaitheeswaran, the founder and chief executive officer of Indiaplaza, had nowhere to go. Nothing left. Except a modicum of dignity.

Read the story published in livemint.com on 3rd Jul 2015

Seven reasons why my first Startup failed

We started our journey in wrong direction and we failed to change direction with time.

Startups are hot talk these days and everyone want to start their own company. People read success stories but ignore the fact that more than 90% companies fail within 3 years of operation. Our startup SchoolGennie is one of R.I.P startup which we founded in 2013 but got shutdown in 2014.

Let me share top reasons of our failure.

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10 warning signs that your business is failing

This article is inspired by the Ten Commandments for Business Failure — an interesting book written by Donald Keough. Don is on the board of Berkshire Hathaway, Allen & Company and The Coca Cola Company (where he worked for over four decades).

He has also been on the boards of Columbia Pictures, McDonald’s Corporation, The Washington Post Company, H. J. Heinz Company, and The Home Depot.

In our obsession with success, we often forget that it is equally, if not more, important to avoid failure.

This article is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, “All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there.”

Here are the Ten (plus one bonus) commandments, that share the wisdom and business insights gathered over several decades and of immense value to any manager, businessman or investor.

Companies/executives displaying early warning signs of any of these are bound to fail:

Quit taking risks
Be inflexible
Isolate yourself
Assume infallibility
Play the game close to the foul line
Don’t take time to think
Put all the faith in experts and outside consultants
Love your bureaucracy
Send mixed messages
Be afraid of the future
Lose your passion for work — for life

Read the Business Line Article

Apple after Steve Jobs: 10 hits and misses

Oct. 5 marks the one-year anniversary of Steve Jobs' death. During that time, Apple has had some amazing successes and some spectacular failures.

Read the full post

The Art of Admitting Failure

When it comes to business, we are incredibly unaccepting and fearful of making mistakes. And forget about admitting to our mistakes, as that may be construed as a sign of weakness.

But business and leadership is all about relationships. And in any relationship, things go wrong, mistakes are made, ups are followed by downs. The strength of a relationship is not how perfect it is, but how resiliently it deals with the inevitable failures.

How To Fail Successfully

1. Create a culture of sharing failures as well as success.
2. Reward the act of risk-taking.
3. Define the limits.

Read this HBP blog post