Rajesh Jain

Thinks 901

Eliot Peper: “Notes are short. You’ve got to be able to fold them into a paper airplane you can throw to a friend when the teacher isn’t looking, or, you know, fit them into a tweet, adapt them into a TikTok, or post them as an Instagram story. Notes are about one thing, although they can be about anything: gossip, advice, ideas, doodles, quotes, lists, questions, insults, insights, etc. Notes are written for specific people, not for everyone. You write notes to friends, crushes, enemies, and frenemies, but never to some abstract “audience.” Often, the more specific your note, the farther it travels, because there are other people like your friend, crush, enemy, and frenemy on the internet, and they will feel like it was written just for them. Whether you’re on Reddit, iMessage, Discord, Gmail, YouTube, Notion, or Mastodon, the internet is a place for passing notes—a giant note router.”

FT: “Higher interest rates have so fundamentally shifted the financial environment that investors must focus on a company’s ability to maintain margins rather than just its growth prospects, veteran private equity executive Chip Kaye said. “This moment is different than anything we have had in the 40 years before . . . with inflation proving stickier and interest rates higher than currently expected — and more complicated great-power politics adding to that dynamic,” said Kaye, who started at Warburg Pincus in 1986 and has been its chief executive for two decades. “If you could pick one characteristic of a business and that’s how you decide whether to invest, it would be pricing,” he told the Financial Times. “Lean into businesses that feel like they have the ability to adapt to a higher-inflation environment.””

Bloomberg: “[Robert] Lucas’s primary contribution was to insist that all assumptions about expectations be spelled out and tested to see if they were consistent with all other parts of the argument. For instance, if you wanted to assert that people would respond to one set of government actions but not another, you had to outline why that might be the case. In retrospect it seems simple, but Lucas (with co-authors, notably Nancy Stokey) was the person who showed how to do it. The end result was a reworking of virtually everyone’s macroeconomic arguments — monetarist, Keynesian or otherwise. The “Lucas critique” showed that policy changes alter how people behave, and thus affect the operation of the economy. Policy, in other words, should not be thought of as manipulating a fixed target: There is always an economic response to any policy, and so doing good macroeconomics is harder than previously thought.”

Economist: “The Lucas critique can be explained with the help of an analogy—one he offered to students graduating from the University of Chicago, where he spent many years as both a student and professor. Imagine a fairground that sells tokens at the entrance for the rides inside, all of which are independently run. Suppose the cashier abruptly doubles the number of tokens per dollar. Fairgoers, flush with tokens, will flock to the rollercoaster, fun house and other attractions. Some ride operators will assume their rides are more popular than they thought. They might even extend workers’ hours in order to handle the additional custom. A statistically minded economist looking at the park’s data might conclude that an increase in the token supply leads to heightened activity and employment. They might even advise other fairgrounds to try the same trick. But of course this “policy” only works because ride-operators do not anticipate it. As they realise what is going on, they will raise the number of tokens they require per ride. Prices will rise and activity will return to normal.”

The Making of My Book “Startup to Proficorn”

Introduction

My book “Startup to Proficorn”, published by Jaico, is out.

As the book cover says, a proficorn is a “private, bootstrapped, profitable, and highly valuable venture.” I have created two proficorns – IndiaWorld (1995-1999), which was acquired by Satyam infoway for $115 million in one of Asia’s largest Internet deals at that time, and Netcore (1998-now), which is a global B2B SaaS company with annual revenues of over $100 million. From the book’s description:

The entrepreneur’s path to success without external funding

Learn how to convert a dream into an idea, build a team, get paying customers, manage cash flows-all of this without having investors breathing down your neck.

Startup to Proficorn is a successful serial tech entrepreneur’s journey and what he learned along the way about launching and scaling startups. This book offers a roadmap to every aspiring and existing entrepreneur to build lucrative businesses without relying on external funding.

Using stories from entrepreneur Rajesh Jain’s life strewn with failures and successes, the book offers helpful guidance to conquer the challenges that will surely come your way throughout the entrepreneurial journey, whatever be the stage you are at.

Jain uses his experience of over three decades to let you in on startup success secrets and what to watch out for when managing your own venture. In the process, he also gives suggestions to create a better life through sustainable habits as a full-fledged entrepreneur.

The book is for anyone looking to build a business – whether as an entrepreneur or as an intrapreneur (within a large organization). My focus in the book is to discuss the “entrepreneurial mindset” and share my learnings on the journey. The book also features insights from four other proficorn entrepreneurs I spoke to: Rizwan Koita (CitiusTech), Pawan Gadia (Ferns N Petals), Rajdip Gupta (Route Mobile), and Prashant Pitti (EaseMyTrip), all of whom shared their stories and made the book so much richer.

Here are the 16 chapter titles:

99.99% of ventures do not raise capital; the stories we hear in the media are of the very small fraction who raise capital. As my stories show, it is possible to eschew external capital and build large businesses with a profits-first mindset. (Of course, I have been helped by every one of the 50+ VCs and PEs who have declined to invest in my ventures through the years!) Being an entrepreneur is one of the most amazing experiences anyone can live through. Even though most ventures fail, the world pushes ahead with their learnings which feed into the ones that succeed. My book offers insights and learnings into bootstrapping businesses that can be enduring, great companies, and also the mindset that makes entrepreneurs take up the dare of building such ventures – much of it from what I have experienced through my 31 years (and counting) as an entrepreneur.

In this series, I will share the story behind the book.

Origin

“Startup to Proficorn” began as a blog series. As the pandemic began and we were all locked down in late March 2020, I decided to (re)start my blog. I had blogged at emergic.org every day for 12 years, only stopping because I had begun work in the political arena. With time on my hands and some angst about the lockdown, I began my blog at rajeshjain.com on April 1 with this post. I wrote: “I hope to write daily. Something new everyday. I want to make the blog a mirror for my thoughts – as it once was. There are three broad themes I hope to cover: the future of marketing (linked with what I am doing at Netcore), my experiences as an entrepreneur and building a profitable business and what India needs to do to be free and rich (the work that I had started – and stopped – at Nayi Disha).” [Almost 40 months later, the daily updates continue.]

My first essay in the Proficorn series began on April 11, 2020: “In a recent Netcore Advisory Board meeting, one of the members remarked that Netcore had built a very interesting and different model – of profitable growth, without raising external capital. This needed to be talked about more, as an alternative to the “unicorn” growth model – where lots of capital is raised and burnt through quickly in the quest for rapid growth at all costs. As I was listening, a word came to my mind – “profi-corn”. I said it aloud, and everyone loved it. I spoke about this in a US visit earlier this year, and got a positive response – the word has a certain ring to it. I defined a profi-corn as a company having four characteristics: profitable, private, promoter-funded and having a reasonable valuation (say, $100 million or more). Building a profi-corn means making a different set of choices than a venture-backed company. This is what I want to talk about in this series.”

It referenced a post I had written a week earlier (April 4, 2020):

I have been an entrepreneur for 28 years. I have had a few successes (IndiaWorld, Netcore) and many failures. One theme through my ups and downs has been the focus on building profitable businesses. And that’s where I thought of the word “profi-corn” – as a counterpoint to the unicorn craze that’s been going around.

Unicorns are startups valued at a billion dollars or more. Many unicorns have been created in the past decade on the back of large fund raises and growth at all costs. In the post-Covid world, some will survive but a few will die. All of them will realise the value of profits.

There are two ways for companies to fund growth: they can raise external capital in the form of equity or debt, or they can generate cashflows and re-invest those in the business. I have focused on the second approach in both my ventures. One needs some initial capital – which comes from the founders (promoters). The aim is then to create a business model predicated on getting to profitability quickly and then continuously re-investing for growth. Without external investors, decision-making is faster and much more long-term.

That’s where I coined the word – “Profi-corn”. It describes a company that is profitable, privately held, promoter-funded and also has a reasonable valuation (say, $100 million or more). Given that many founders have 10-20% left in billion dollar unicorns, the wealth creation can almost be equivalent for the founders.

How does one go about ensuring profitability? Does being profitable mean sacrificing growth? What about gains for employees? What about the value addition that investors bring in along with the capital? What’s the right choice for founders? We will discuss these in forthcoming posts.

Little did I know then that I would write 100 posts in the series over the next year and have a book come out 3 years later!

Blog…

It was this column published online on The Print’s website on May 6, 2020 that caught the attention of Jaico Publishing House. The column was titled “Indian unicorns are unsuited for Covid crisis. Entrepreneurs, go for proficorns.” It was abstracted from a series I had just published on my blog, “Proficorns vs Unicorns”. Jaico reached out to me a few weeks later stating, “Did you ever contemplate writing a book on any of these topics? It would be wonderful to brainstorm some book ideas with you.” And thus began a conversation which eventually led to the publication of “Startup to Proficorn”.

I had not thought about a book when I got that email from Jaico. All I was thinking about was a handful of topics in the proficorn series to ensure I had something new to publish daily on my blog! At that time, the book seemed a very distant and almost impossible dream. As I spoke to the Jaico team, I realised that a typical book has about 60-65,000 words, which meant I would need to write about 100 blog posts of 600 words each. (I was still thinking short blog posts rather than chapters in a book.) I told them that I will keep writing on my blog and if I am able to have about a hundred or so short posts, we could then discuss in a year’s time about converting these posts into a book. They wanted a book proposal. This is what I sent Jaico in July 2020:

The conversation with Jaico also helped me think about the blog posts as part of a larger whole. I started listing out topics I could write on. There was no structure yet – I would write as ideas came to mind and publish them in sequences of five. Like a batsman wanting to score a century, I too worked my way towards the landmark. It was on March 26, 2021 – just under a year after I had posted the first in the series – that I published #100 in the series which was still called “My Proficorn Way”. I began: “Little did I know when I started the Proficorn series on my blog a year ago that I would end up with a hundred posts! And yet – here we are. A 20 Mile March of my own – driven by the decision to write daily. While the writings have covered diverse topics in marketing and India’s political economy, the proficorn series where I have written about my experiences as an entrepreneur is the one which has been a consistent theme. I have dug deep into my past for stories and learnings to share – hopefully these can help others given that it’s coming from a practitioner who has failed many times more than has succeeded. I have written as candidly as I can so that there are meaningful takeaways and actionable insights.”

Had I thought of writing a book, I would probably have been overwhelmed by the height of the mountain I would have had to climb. But by breaking down the problem into a few steps daily and not looking at the peak, I had reached the pinnacle. The blog series was ready to be transformed into a book.

…to Book

One thing I don’t like is re-reading and editing what I have written! When I write my blog posts, I send them to my friend, Atanu Dey, for review. He does an edit and sends them back, and I then publish on my blog. Taking the blog posts and making them into a book would require much more effort. It was then that I connected with Sandhya Kannan. She had been helping Jaimit Doshi and me with our hippoBrain podcasts and YouTube series. Sandhya agreed to help me with the book. We then started organising my writings into chapters.

Jaico also came up with a suggestion which was a big step forward and added so much richness to the book. They wanted me to include stories from other proficorn entrepreneurs also. At first, I thought it would dilute the originality of thinking and singularity of voice. Their insistence made me reach out to other proficorn entrepreneurs – and I realised there aren’t as many as one would expect! It was not just about bootstrapping a business but also reaching a certain scale. While a few declined or didn’t respond, four agreed to speak and share their stories. As I spoke to them and listened to their stories, I realised the power of Jaico’s recommendation to feature learnings from others – while some themes were amplified, a few others came up, and they have all made the book so much better. First-person stories from entrepreneurs who have been in the trenches are fascinating – each one different, and yet so similar in the broader context of bootstrapping a business.

With the blog-to-book journey underway, we got the contract done. I was now quite sure that the book would happen! Then began the chapter-by-chapter editing and review process. This took much longer than I expected. We did a marathon meeting at Jaico’s office on December 30 to wrap up most of the edits. It was the first time I had met anyone from the Jaico team in-person! (Because of the pandemic, all the conversations thus far had been on Zoom or via phone calls.)

And so it was that in mid-March during my US Trip, I had the PDF of the book as it would look when published. I spent a Sunday in my hotel room in Sunnyvale, CA reading the entire book start-to-finish to make sure there were no errors. It was the first time I had read the book in its entirety in almost 15 months. As I completed the review, I felt happy – the finished product had come out well. At times I would ask myself, “Did I really write that? It’s good!”

And so, here we are in June 2023: the “Startup to Proficorn” book I hold in my hands and which I hope you will too! It’s a product brought to life thanks to the efforts of Sandhya and the team at Jaico to whom I am deeply grateful for making it happen. It is a dream come true. I am finally a published author!

What I Learnt

I buy and read a lot of books. But I had never imagined myself writing one. A book with its 200-300 pages seemed such a mammoth effort. While I would tell stories of my three decades of entrepreneurship to my colleagues and at some talks to small audiences, a book with its structure and depth seemed a bridge too far. And yet, here it is! Now that I have written it, I realise it is not as challenging as I had thought. (I have more books in my head than I now want to bring to life!) Here are a few learnings for budding writers – and this is more applicable for non-fiction, for those wanting to write books based on their experiences.

First, create a habit of writing. It is the blog posts that led to the book. Short chunks which over time become a big whole. As is said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” A book begins with a single sentence. I love writing, and I write for myself (but do so publicly). I am very open to writing about my life, what I did wrong and right, the mistakes I made, the learnings. It is these stories of my entrepreneurial life that make up the book, along with the wisdom I have drawn from others.

Second, share the stories. The more we talk, the more the stories get embedded in our mind. Even though years or even a few decades may have passed, the sharing makes the stories seem fresh. As we share, we also learn which ones resonate, and which do not. Let there be a process of natural selection among these stories. The good ones can find their place in the writing and eventually the book.

Third, be honest in the telling and writing. My journey has not been a straight line up. The arc of my life has had lots of troughs – I have failed over 30 times in my 31 years as an entrepreneur. It is these mistakes which I have made which have taught me much through the years. It is never easy admitting mistakes and less so publicly. But I have realised that it is these stories that have much to teach other entrepreneurs. For example, my decision to hire a CEO for Netcore in 2007 was an admission of my failure to build the business. How I made the decision and its aftermath is very instructive to entrepreneurs grappling with a similar question.

Fourth, find a good editor and partner to help with the process. Had it not been for Sandhya’s patience in reviewing, editing, chopping, and rewriting, the book would probably not have happened. As the actors in our own movie, we need a director who can bring in the perspective of the audience. We also had a very good support team at Jaico. There were times when I would “disagree and commit” – knowing that they knew readers much better than I did!

Finally, be patient with the process. The path from the first cut to the final product takes time. Given that I finished my 100^th blog post in March 2021 and the first draft being sent later that year, it has still taken a long time for the book to get published. As a writer, we tend to think we are done when the manuscript is handed over and want to move on to the next project. But reading, reviewing, and rewriting is equally important. This is when the raw words get polished to perfection.

The next phase now begins – the marketing. For a book to succeed, it needs word of mouth. I hope the book reaches entrepreneurs and is read – over and over again. Every page has much advice to offer. The book is not just for tech entrepreneurs but for anyone running a business or with plans to do so. It also has a lot to offer both students venturing out into the world and for managers looking to create successes for the unit they run. An entrepreneurial mindset is something that can be developed and nurtured. I hope the book can be a catalyst in that journey.

Thinks 900

Noah Smith: “If you went back to 1973 and made a cheesy low-budget sci-fi film about a future where humans sit around looking at little glowing hand-held screens, it might have become a cult classic among hippie Baby Boomers. Fast forward half a century, and this is the reality I live in. When I go out to dinner with friends or hang out at their houses, they are often looking at their phones instead of interacting with anything in the physical world around them. Nor is this just the people I hang out with. Just between 2008 and 2018, American adults’ daily time spent on social media more than doubled, to over 6 hours a day..About a third of the populace is online “almost constantly”.”

Lokiniti-CSDS post-poll survey on Karnataka (in The Hindu): “Survey data show that unemployment was the biggest voting issue for voters in the State. Asked an open-ended question, close to three in 10 voters (30%) stated unemployment to be the biggest issue while voting in this election. Poverty stood at a distant second, with 21% saying that it was the biggest issue. Price rise was mentioned by 6% of voters as the main issue, thus bringing economic issues to the fore, with nearly 60% voters drawing attention to economic issues more generally…In the 2018 Assembly election, a mere 3% voters reported unemployment to be an issue. For the majority (27%) of voters, development was the biggest issue. Back then, no issue, other than development crossed double digits. This corroborates the fact that unemployment was one of the major pressing issues for voters in this election.” ET: “The exit poll conducted by Axis My India shows that the top three factors influencing those who voted for Congress were change (10%), inflation and poll sops (9% each).”

Raghu Raman: “Happiness comes from many sources like material acquisitions, social validation, satisfaction of achievements, etc. but probably the most effective of them all is a sense of gratitude for the blessings we were given and curses we were spared. There is an old parable about Emperor Akbar and his courtier Birbal in which Akbar draws a line on the wall and challenges his court to shorten the line without touching it in any manner. Eventually after everyone fails, the wise Birbal walks to the wall and draws a line much longer than Akbar’s next to it and says, ‘There… your line is shorter now’. Most of us belong to a minuscule Indian minority who have already won a big lottery of life, and at an intuitive level, we know it. However, like any value system or culture, this source of happiness and joy also needs structured rituals that constantly remind us of why we should be happy and radiate that happiness within our spheres of influence. And spending physical time in a sustained cadence with those less fortunate and if possible helping them out is perhaps the most effective ritual of finding joy.”

WSJ: “A once-in-a-generation convergence of technology and pressure to operate more efficiently has corporations saying many lost jobs may never return…Companies are rethinking the value of many white-collar roles, in what some experts anticipate will be a permanent shift in labor demand that will disrupt the work life of millions of Americans whose jobs will be lost, diminished or revamped partly through the use of artificial intelligence. “We may be at the peak of the need for knowledge workers,” said Atif Rafiq, a former chief digital officer at McDonald’s and Volvo. “We just need fewer people to do the same thing.””

Foreword in Dr. Anjali Malpani’s Book

I have written the Foreword in Anjali Malpani’s book, “Tries, Sighs, and Lullabies: The Untold Stories of Infertility.” About the book: “Tries, Sighs, and Lullabies: The Untold Stories of Infertility chronicles these and many other intimate and gripping real-life stories of loss, hope, endurance, and sacrifice. This remarkable compendium deftly describes the boundless desire and limitless struggle to build a family and the inexplicable joy that stems from becoming a parent, whether through reproductive technology, adoption, surrogacy, or natural means. Dr Anjali Malpani, a pioneer in the field of fertility treatment in India, successfully manages to capture the emotional, physical, and social dimensions of these complex stories and showcases the diverse facets of family, parenthood, and life at large. Through her empathetic and resonant writing, she provides an honest look at the traumas and triumphs involved in the journey of infertility. All in all, this thought-provoking and absolutely unputdownable collection of memories is sure to make you feel the soaring highs and the devastating lows of the characters which will stay with you forever.”

Here is an excerpt from my Foreword:

Abhishek is one of Anjali’s sixteen thousand babies. Born after five years of IVF treatment, he is truly Anjali’s baby. Bhavana and I had almost given up after four years – the emotional upheavals being as much as the medical challenges. But Anjali never gave up. She pushed us for one more try. I was at a friend’s place in Atlanta when Bhavana called to give the good news. For me, the words which came out were “Thank You, Anjali.”

Our journey with Anjali and Dr. Anirudha Mapani had begun in 2000. Bhavana and I had been married six-and-a-half years when we first visited their clinic. I had known Anirudha earlier through interactions I had with them in 1993-94 when I was trying to do an image processing software and needed to analyse ultrasound scans. That time, I went as an entrepreneur. This time, we went as patients.

Going to Infertility specialists is not something one can discuss easily with family and friends (however close they may be). It is a difficult decision to make and it means that both husband and wife have to accept reality and make a joint decision to seek advice and help. While the Web can be a helpful resource in understanding problems and possible solutions, there really is no alternative to spending time talking with doctors. Especially, ones who are as warm, friendly and knowledgeable as the Malpanis.

…On April 19, 2005, Abhishek came into the world as a six-and-a-half pound baby after a Caesarian. I could not believe it till I saw him and held him in my own hands. Five years after our first meeting with the Malpanis and eleven-and-a-half years into our marriage, Bhavana and I were parents.

For me, the lasting memories of that day are when both Anirudha and Anjali came (separately) to Breach Candy Hospital and held Abhishek in their hands. He was, after all, their creation. He was a triumph of their determination as much as he was our dream come true.

Anjali has been a friend for Bhavana and me through these years. She exemplifies the joyful spirit of life itself with her infectious joie de vivre. For her, every day is a blessing, every moment to be lived – for a mission. Bringing more babies in the world. Always patient, always ready to answer every question, always persevering, she goes the extra mile. For her, there is no “patient” – only mothers-in-waiting.

The book tells the stories of Latika, Nicole, Jyoti, Lily, Pooja, Durga, Yasmin, Shivani, Lakshmidevi, Kanta, Sushma, Sudha, Rakesh and Arjun, and countless others. Through these pages, you will live their ups and downs, ask their questions, and get Anjali’s answers. As someone who was once sitting across the table from Anjali, I could not help but relive our trials and tribulations as I read through these stories. There is something magical about the birth of a baby. Most are fortunate to experience it in the natural flow of life. Some need help. And for them, God has sent doctors like Anirudha and Anjali.

As I finished reading the book, all I could do was echo the same words from a moment long gone by but never forgotten, “Thank You, Anjali.”

Thinks 899

WSJ: “Creative blocks aren’t exclusive to famous authors, or even to people we think of as being creative. We all get stuck.We make strides on a project—whether it’s mastering a sport, changing careers or building a company—and then, we just don’t…In “Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most,” [Adam Alter], the New York University marketing professor draws on research studies, anecdotes and interviews to reveal the self-imposed barriers that thwart our progress—and the actions we can take to surmount them. The first step, according to Mr. Alter, is to reframe our perception of failure. Bombarded by success stories, we often overlook the struggles and obstacles that came before them. The truth is that we all encounter roadblocks—Thomas Edison famously tried out more than 1,600 filament materials for his light bulb before finding the right one. We’re better served, Mr. Alter tells us, by recasting a barrier as “a feature rather than a bug on the path to success.””

NYTimes: ““Gentle parenting,” an approach that steers away from punishment and focuses instead on helping children become more self-aware, is the term that has caught on, but it’s sometimes used as a catchall for a set of emotionally-focused parenting styles. The prevailing ethos is that it’s important to acknowledge and understand a child’s feelings while maintaining boundaries, and that parents, in turn, benefit from recognizing their own feelings. “It’s a generation that takes learning and self-growth seriously,” said Becky Kennedy, 40, a clinical psychologist known as Dr. Becky to her nearly two million Instagram followers, and who Time magazine called the “millennial parenting whisperer.”…“Things like feelings not being soft, feelings being the core of who you are — there’s more acceptance of that,” she said. “I think it’s a generation that feels like, I have one life. I want to understand myself. I want to feel good.””

Atanu Dey: “The world is a complex place and we cannot hope to understand it without a good deal of effort. We cannot rely on just looking at the world superficially. We have to examine the evidence and reach our own conclusions. We have to be careful not to simply swallow whatever is presented to us uncritically. We should learn how to think. That’s hard. It is easier to just go along with what people tell us. They are telling us what to think, and what to believe. They want power over us to lead us to their preferred destination. We have to learn how to think and not be told what to think.”

Alexandra Samuel: “Whether you write a newsletter, post a lot or a little on social media, or just need occasional ideas for reports, finding something to write about is often the hardest part of the job. All too often, I think of something to write that I’m sure I won’t forget…only to forget it. That’s why it’s essential to set up a system for capturing all the different ideas you have, or even to capture little phrases or comments you might want to use in a future report, article or presentation. I used to keep all these random ideas in a tiny paper notebook, but flipping through page after page of scrawled writing made it hard for me to find the right idea when I needed it. So about 15 years ago, I committed to putting all my random ideas into a digital notebook instead…I have found that the more religiously you capture your ideas, the more the ideas will come!”

Solving Inbound@Scale for Repeatable Sales Motion (Part 7)

Getting Started

There are two tracks that could possibly help us build Inbound@Scale in the US and other markets where we don’t yet have a significant presence in: a primary track with ProfitXL as a landing idea and PLG utilities to get marketers and developers started, and a second track showcases the power of AMP via a B2C solution like QuizMails (replicating an idea that had worked in IndiaWorld).

ProfitXL and PLG

As I wrote previously, “In the red ocean of competition, we needed to create our blue ocean where we could create a repeatable sales motion. Instead of us chasing customers, we needed to get customers to chase us for the products which delivered great value to them. And to do this, we needed to change our approach – from thinking about our solutions to solving problems for our customers. We needed to move beyond thinking retention, engagement, and personalization to helping customers grow revenues, cut costs, and supersize their profits – laying a foundation for their exponential, forever, profitable growth. We needed to help them create the best moat in their business – a “profits monopoly” (profipoly). Our ProfitXL idea could help them do just that.”

We need to be able to demonstrate the idea of ProfitXL. We need CMOs, CFOs, and CEOs to think beyond new customer acquisition, retention, and engagement. We need to use “profitable growth” as a landing idea. Perhaps, a Broadway-like show could be used to bring this to life. There still remains the problem of finding the initial audience for such a show, and that will require some marketing. Hopefully, the word of mouth after that can help us create the “Hamilton” equivalent in SaaS marketing!

We then need multiple PLG tools and utilities to convert interest into DIY action. Marketers should be able to get calculators to figure out the impact on their business, see the contribution to profits of their Best Customers, try out utilities like AMPifier and create their own AMPlets to embed in their existing emails.

This will help drive inbound interest which can then work as the target account list (TAL) for our sales team. It is a strategy which many companies have used successfully. Of course, it is easier said than done – the utility must solve an immediate problem and be truly self-serve.

ProfitXL and PLG used well can be the demand generation accelerator which can then provide marketing qualified leads (MQLs) for the sales team to convert into SQLs.

B2C and QuizMails

A second track can drive the popularisation of AMP (and Atomic Rewards) to create further inbound interest. As consumers, we rarely see AMP emails. The purpose of a consumer service like QuizMails is to drive that excitement of interacting with emails in the inbox and then asking: why cannot brand emails do that? Hopefully, marketers and developers will also be among the subscribers and then see the power of what AMP can do.

The big challenge here lies in how to build the B2C business. It must be seeded, and then spread word-of-mouth. Hopefully, quizzing is a horizontal that can work well in its various avatars: general knowledge testing and entrance exams preparation are two possible starting points.

Inbound@Scale is a challenge for every B2B SaaS company. In a world where less money is available for unrestrained marketing spending, marketers will need to be smart about how they drive demand generation and think past the obvious ones – those are just table stakes. There is a need to bring innovation in inbound and think beyond the incremental to increase interest. Done right, a successful Inbound@Scale problem can create a moat and monopoly, the pillars for building an enduring, great SaaS company.

Thinks 898

WSJ: “AI will continue the current process of automating parts of workers’ jobs. But while today’s automation is often described as applying to dull, dirty and dangerous tasks such as moving parts in a factory or warehouse, generative AI brings a new dynamic: Primarily, it supports knowledge work by providing the ability to create first drafts of documents, emails, presentations, images, video, product designs, etc. So, knowledge workers might spend more time editing than creating, particularly as generative AI is embedded into all the software products they use today. For instance, instead of an email system just typing ahead a few words, it could draft several paragraphs. Customer-relationship-management software could suggest topics to discuss with a sales prospect and even a script to follow. And a salesperson could describe a presentation in natural language, and draft slides could be created, accessing corporate data and images to fill out details.”

Andy Kessler: “Success is 1% inspiration and 99% preparation. Ideas are shooting around faster than ever, but most are worthless because no one does the hard work to implement them. Implementation requires hours and hours not of sweat—we’re in a service economy now—but of preparation. You must do it all: reading, researching, falling into one rabbit hole after another on the internet to find the right series of precedents and test cases and quotes to make your point, pitching your idea coherently and succinctly so it doesn’t sound pie-in-the-sky but practical…Study everything, not only the task you’ve been assigned. Dig deep. Come up with ideas and potential solutions. Work on an elevator pitch for what excites you. Don’t wing it. Prepare. And trust me, the feeling you get from preparation-induced success is better than anything you can buy at a dispensary. Preparation will make you super great.”

Randall Holcombe: “Prices offer buyers and sellers information about the value of goods and services, and to maximize that value, prices should change in proportion to the cost of producing those goods and services. If productivity increases by 2% a year, then prices should fall by 2% a year to reflect the lower cost of obtaining those goods and services. With inflation, prices lose some of their informational content because to see the true cost of something requires adjusting its price by the rate of inflation. Because individual prices tend to change intermittently, this calculation becomes more difficult as inflation rises. If the price of something is up 5% this month, is that a real price increase, or is that price just catching up with inflation? By this logic, the target rate of inflation should be negative.”

Luca Rossi: “After surveying 2000+ companies between 2013 and 2017, Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim proved that what separates elite engineering teams from average and poor ones, is mostly how fast and often they ship…Shipping fast and often is really what you should optimize for, and this alone over time lifts you at a whole another level from those who don’t.”

Solving Inbound@Scale for Repeatable Sales Motion (Part 6)

Starting Ideas

Here is a summary of some of my recent writing which provides the foundation for thinking about the parallel strategy for Inbound@Scale:

A Long US Visit: “The focus for us [at eTail West and Shoptalk] was on two innovations: AMP in Email (what we termed as All-in-Email) and AI-enriched catalog (which is the key to getting product discovery and personalisation right)…The absolute amazement that I saw time and again when I showed the demos of search and payments inside emails was most heartening. The challenge now is to convert this “wow” to a “win”. It means switching brands away from their existing ESP and martech stack to Netcore. I am hopeful because what we have is a real game changing innovation which can do wonders for conversions.”

LEMMMA: A Playbook for US SaaS Success at Scale: A few Indian SaaS companies have succeeded and scaled up in the US, but they are more the exception than the norm. I know Netcore can grow 20-25% consistently in India and emerging markets, but if we have to get to higher growth rates (40-50%), we need to win in the US. This has been the question I have been thinking about for some time. LEMMMA is one possible answer: land, expand, maximise, moat, monopoly, acquire…To take Netcore’s example, the ideal outcome is for an enterprise to switch 100% of their email traffic to Netcore. But that has a lot of friction associated with it: lists, segments, creatives, journeys, historical data – all have to be migrated. An enterprise will not undertake that exercise unless it is absolutely convinced that there is big RoI to be gained from the transition. So, a landing approach could focus on three stages: show value with the email program without making a switch (what I call the 0% solution), then get some emails sent via Netcore (1-30% solution), and finally a pathway for the full switch (31-100% solution)… The 0% phase needs to have product-led growth (PLG). A developer or marketer must be able to use the utility without much friction – and the resulting RoI must be big enough that there is word-of-mouth spread to help drive growth.”

ProfitXL: Selling A System: “ProfitXL is more than a single point solution or even a stack (multiple interconnected solutions); it is a bigger idea that the marketing industry has forgotten – how to ensure existing customers come back for more and bring their friends. ProfitXL is about creating a disciplined process which can deliver 25% year-on-year growth for long periods of time and at the same time cut marketing spending by 50%, leading to a dramatic improvement in profitability… For ProfitXL to succeed, I will have to make the problem visible and then talk about the system which leads to the solutions. In fact, more than talk, I realised I have to “show”… The question that I started to think about: could I create a (virtual) Broadway-like show to persuade decision-makers about the power of the ProfitXL system, and thus create a “landing idea” before the product-centric “land-and-expand” approach kicks in?”

Inbox Commerce: “For long, it has been assumed that brands must bring their buyers to their websites and apps for completing transactions. This has been a point of friction since unidirectional push messages (like emails and SMSes) had to persuade consumers to click and change context to the brand properties. Now, the interactivity that is coming in the push channels can ensure that commerce can be done right inside the inbox. Netcore’s early customers for AMP in Email have seen an increase of 5-15 times (500-1500%) in actions being performed inside the email when the option is provided to consumers. While engagement has been the primary use case so far, the next obvious step is to enable shopping. Once the payment layer gets streamlined and embedded inside the messages, frictionless commerce will be here – right inside the inbox where all of us spend so much time each day… The premise and promise of inbox commerce lies in the fact that it brings the conversion funnel closer to customers. Every friction point that is removed can lead to a magnitude increase in actions. What’s exciting is that almost all the push channels are now moving to becoming two-way, evolving from simply being communication channels to powering conversation and commerce.”

Resetting ESP and Adtech Industries: By eliminating the (at times, interminable) wait for consumers, marketers can push the conversation, conversion and commerce funnels close to the user. The magic of interactivity and incentives in the inbox is something consumers have not experienced before. The convenience and excitement will help increase engagement by magnitudes. And as existing customers engage and buy more, brands will need to spend less on the adtech platforms acquiring new ones…This is where the All-in-Email solution comes in.

Quizzing in Email: An Innovation in the Inbox: “Quizzes have had some part in our lives – and for some, they probably still do. They educate and entertain, are teaching and learning moments, bring social recognition, and work as filters in recruitment. How can we bring them into our inboxes daily – to fill life’s empty moments and also the know-now ones?…As I was thinking of interesting AMP use cases, I thought of quizzes. None of us has seen a quiz in an email because emails have not been interactive. Clicking through to a landing page and then answering questions creates inertia and we just let the moment pass. Remembering to open an app daily and participate leaves quizzing to the most passionate. I asked myself: what if we combined the power of AMP in email with the attraction of quizzing? Imagine getting a few questions daily in the inbox and answering them – all in a matter of seconds. Could it bring back the excitement we all felt as casual quizzers in the early years of our lives?”

How can we connect these ideas to create solutions for Inbound@Scale?

Thinks 897

Anurag Wadehra: “There are only two ways to attract customers. One, to have them want your product. Two, to have them need your product…The first way is based on evoking desire among customers. The second way is based on persuading customers. Most businesses use both ways to attract customers. Even if used together, each way is different in how it affects a customer. So, each way represents a different type of attraction game. An attraction game includes all tactics that pull customers through their journey, over time: from branding, promotion, sales to training, renewal and support. Let’s call these two types of attraction games: Desire Games and Persuasion Games. Desire games evoke desire for what’s missing in your customers’ lives without your product. Persuasion games persuade them of what’s possible in their lives with your product.”

Economist: “Now a new wave of digitisation, driven by the arrival of smartphones and the internet, is changing payments systems again. By making possible near-instant, remote payment, it massively reduces friction in the movement of money. This both facilitates trade from a distance and leaves a clear auditable trail. Digitised forms of payment can also become a basis for the provision of broader financial services, an especially important change in poorer countries with less developed financial systems…This report will describe the differing payment models, contrasting the bank/card networks in the rich world with the fast payments systems in emerging markets and the closed fintech ones in China. It will assess the possible role of cryptocurrencies and central-bank digital money. And it will look at how some governments may seek to use digital finance to reduce their dependence on the West. A good place to start is where the most exciting action is: the emerging world.”

Ashu Garg: “Generative AI, specifically, will likely have the biggest impact on the way that enterprises develop NLP systems. Indeed, for businesses that already rely on NLP, integrating LLMs is a natural next step. Industries with text-centric use cases, including document processing, sentiment analysis, and chatbots, will be among LLMs’ earliest adopters. On the other hand, in cases where products do not inherently involve language or NLP, we’ll see more experimentation, as companies explore how LLMs can improve user experiences and layer on language as a more intuitive interface to their products.”

Business Standard reports on a speech by India’s Minister of External Affairs: “In that speech, the minister sent some important messages about the government’s thinking on several critical issues. The first message was that the government will support manufacturing. Second, the government will continue to pursue its protectionist policies. Third, the government will help create a domestic value chain. Fourth, the government seeks to energise the economy and motivate the businesses to believe that it is possible to manufacture in the country through the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. Fifth, strong business is not only about economics, but also a critical segment of national security. Sixth, it is important for India to move to a strategic economy, have a clear sense who are our partners, where are our opportunities, where should we focus on our technology tie-ups. Seventh, Make in India is a strategic statement and not just an economic or manufacturing programme. Eighth, the focus on services is actually an elegant excuse for being incompetent in manufacturing. Finally, business or economics is too serious to be left to the businessmen and economists. In other words, the government knows best.”

Solving Inbound@Scale for Repeatable Sales Motion (Part 5)

ChatGPT – 3

[Rajesh]

What could be a good landing product for Netcore in the US market? Our products include: Email API, cross-channel campaign management, customer engagement, personalisation. In other words, we have products similar to Twilio, Braze, and some of the marketing clouds in the US market.

[ChatGPT]

Based on your product offerings and the US market landscape, a good landing product for Netcore could be the cross-channel campaign management solution. Here are the reasons why this might be a strong choice:

Comprehensive solution: Cross-channel campaign management covers a wide range of marketing activities and channels, allowing you to showcase the full spectrum of your capabilities to US prospects.
High demand: As businesses in the US continue to look for ways to streamline their marketing efforts and engage with their customers effectively, there is a growing demand for solutions that can manage and optimize campaigns across multiple channels.
Differentiation: While there are established players in the market, such as Twilio and Braze, focusing on the cross-channel campaign management solution could enable you to differentiate Netcore by emphasizing unique features, advanced analytics, ease of use, and competitive pricing.

To successfully launch your cross-channel campaign management solution in the US market, consider the following actions:

Tailor your offering: Customize your solution to cater to the specific needs and preferences of the US market. This may include localization, addressing industry-specific requirements, and ensuring compliance with relevant regulations, such as data privacy laws.
Develop case studies: Highlight successful implementations of your cross-channel campaign management solution with clients in India and Southeast Asia to demonstrate its effectiveness and versatility. This will help build credibility and trust with potential US customers.
Position your product: Clearly articulate your product’s unique selling points and advantages over competitors in your content marketing, sales materials, and website copy. Emphasize the benefits of your solution, such as improved customer engagement, streamlined campaign management, and better ROI on marketing spend.

By focusing on the cross-channel campaign management solution as your landing product, you can leverage its comprehensive nature and the growing demand in the US market to establish a strong presence and attract potential customers.

[Rajesh]

Can you summarise the strategy for Netcore to drive Inbound@Scale in a cost-effective manner for the US market? I want to be able to give this as an action plan to Netcore’s CMO.

[ChatGPT]

Here’s a summarized action plan for Netcore’s CMO to drive Inbound@Scale in a cost-effective manner for the US market:

Focus on the cross-channel campaign management solution as your landing product to address the growing demand for comprehensive marketing tools in the US market.
Customize your solution to cater to the specific needs and preferences of the US market, including localization, industry-specific requirements, and compliance with relevant regulations.
Develop a content marketing strategy that targets the US audience, focusing on their pain points and challenges. Conduct keyword research, create a content calendar, and consistently publish high-quality, SEO-optimized content on your company blog and other relevant platforms.
Establish strategic partnerships with US-based companies in complementary industries to expand your reach and enhance your offering. Identify potential partners, discuss collaboration opportunities, and develop joint marketing materials to showcase your partnership.
Leverage existing clients with operations in the US or those that can provide introductions or referrals to US-based companies. Request testimonials, case studies, and referrals from satisfied clients to build credibility in the new market.
Attend industry events, conferences, and trade shows in the US to network with potential clients, showcase your solution, and stay up-to-date on industry trends.
Utilize social media marketing, especially LinkedIn and Twitter, to engage with potential clients, share valuable content, and showcase your expertise in the industry.
Consider hiring local sales and marketing talent with experience in the US market to better navigate market dynamics, competition, and cultural nuances.
Offer excellent customer support to retain existing clients and turn them into brand advocates. Provide comprehensive onboarding, ongoing assistance, and regular check-ins to ensure clients get the most out of your solution.

By following this action plan, Netcore can effectively drive Inbound@Scale in the US market while maintaining a low marketing budget, ultimately growing the business and establishing a strong presence in the competitive landscape.

What a fascinating conversation and masterclass in the basics of B2B marketing! All of this in just about 20 minutes with most of that time spent by me thinking and reading the responses.

The recommendations from others and ChatGPT cover the gamut of the ideas out there. In fact, we are trying most of these strategies in some way or another. And of course, so is every other B2B SaaS company out there. I decided I needed to think differently – create a parallel path which can achieve the outcome of Inbound@Scale in a cost-effective manner. Could I do better than ChatGPT?