We all go through difficult times in life. These crises are pivotal moments in our lives; how we react shapes our future. We can allow these difficult times to become stall points or we can convert them into boosters that take us to the next level. Here’s what I had written: “Each one of us will face stall points at some time or another in our lives. We need to recognise them, and then work to get out of the negative zone. It is at times like these that we need family and friends around us. Each of us can do much more that we imagine; our attitude towards stall points will determine the heights we can climb.”
One approach I have found useful in dealing with a crisis is to get to the root of the problem and identify that one action which will get us out of it. While there can be many options, there is always that one thing which matters more than everything else. Richard Rumelt calls this the crux: “The crux of a mountain climb is the hardest move or segment, and you practice getting over that crux in order to accomplish the climb. The advice that comes from that is, “Don’t attempt a climb if you can’t handle the crux.” In business or national-security terms, that means, “Don’t tackle a problem if you can’t handle the hard nut at its center.” The successful strategists ask, “What’s the crux of these problems? Can I get through them? And if so, which of these problems is worth putting our resources toward?””
During the summer of 1994 when I was working on the image processing software product (Image Workbench), I had come to the painful conclusion that the time it would take for me to sell enough copies to create a profitable business would be far too long. I had spent more than 18 months building the software and trying to sell it to research institutions and hospitals. But I had to recognise the crisis: while the demos were great, there was no pressing need for it, and the ones who were interested had to go through a long purchase cycle. While I loved my creation, the crux lay in killing the project and moving on. Until I closed one door, I could not open another. It wasn’t an easy decision. Only after I quit could I start focusing on the idea that became IndiaWorld and my first entrepreneurial success.
Another crisis came in late 1996 when I had to change the domain IndiaWorld was using. I came up with a new one but it was not working. I could see two years of hard work and my early mover advantage being washed away. Once again, it was a crisis moment. I could either persist in the hope that things would change or try something different. It was during those tough months that I came up with the idea of using Indian domain names for different verticals: Samachar for news, Khoj for search, Khel for cricket, Bawarchi for food, and Dhan for finance. This was counter-intuitive: rather than asking people to remember and bookmark one domain (as portals like Yahoo did), I was asking them to go directly to their specific interest area. The strategy worked wonders, and I was out of the crisis.
