Five Weeks
I spent almost five weeks in the US from late February to the end of March. This was my second longest visit in the past 30 years – since I spent two months in late 1994. There were two trade shows which bookended the visit and where Netcore-Unbxd had booths – eTail West in Palm Springs and Shoptalk in Las Vegas, with much of the intervening time spent in the Bay Area and New York. For me, the trip was about working through a strategy for Netcore’s US business – because most of our next $100 million is going to come from that market.
This stay had many similarities with the 1994 visit. That was a trip when I was searching for what to do next after a series of failed ventures. It was during those two months that I worked on the business plan for IndiaWorld. During this trip, I brainstormed with my colleagues on how to build our US business. While Netcore has a strong presence in India, South-East Asia, Middle East and Africa, growth in the US has been slow. Our acquisition of Unbxd a year ago was the first step in laying the foundation for strengthening the US presence. The US is the largest single market globally, and the next horizon for Netcore. (As an example: the ESP – email service providers – market in the US is 100 times larger than India.) For us to build an enduring great company, we need to win in the US.
I had planned the visit initially as a short one: a week-long stay to attend Shoptalk in Las Vegas. I then got an opportunity to speak at SaaSOpen in New York which meant I had to leave a week earlier. And then I decided that I should also attend eTail West to give myself an additional opportunity to interact with prospects. Thus, one week became two, and then finally five! The length of the trip meant that I had a lot of time to fill up, which in turn helped me schedule many meetings to learn more about the US market.
I made the decision to extend my trip to a longer duration very quickly. I decided that if I thought too much about it, I would find many reasons to stick to a shorter trip. But the entrepreneur in me is always ready for a sense of adventure. The trip turned out to be exactly that. Starting and ending in San Francisco, I took 10 domestic flights in just over a month. There were 32 consecutive nights in hotels; one good outcome is I am now a Marriott Gold Elite customer! And through the weeks, bit-by-bit, a better plan has emerged for the US. The coming year will determine how successful we are.
