Highlight of the day

The President of a local bank (now our favourite client) just called and gave us a pat on the back. A few words of appreciate on a phone call that lasted 30 seconds just made the day for 25 odd people who work here at Alchemy. Thank you very much Shahzad Sahib.

As vendors sometimes we forget that we are also clients for our suppliers. When you get a chance to appreciate some one, go ahead and make their day.

Victoria Pearson review of the Blue Screen

You have to read it to believe it. But its friends like Victoria (and many others who have taken out the time to send me a note on what they thought was good or bad with the blue screen) who make it worthwhile to be an author. Thank you Victoria. Here is the link

Blue Screen In stores now - launch email

Could you post this on the appropriate forums that you moderate/participate with a brief intro and perhaps some of your comments about the Book? When posting on GOF or common forums, please check and reconfirm if other friends have not posted this message earlier. If you haven’t read the book as yet, please feel free to wait till you are in a position to give an unbiased review and then post the message with your comments.

Warm regards

Jawwad

__________________________________________
Launch Email - 22 April 2006
__________________________________________


Dear Friends

At the business school orientation for new arrivals, a fellow student asked me why I was at Columbia. My response drew a look of confusion – “I always wanted to write a book, run the New York Marathon and do a play on Broadway, the MBA is just for cheap subsidized housing.”

This of course was January 1999. As of 22 April 2006, I am proud to report that I am too fat to run and that though there were multiple attempts to produce Harvey, a Mary Allen Chase Play about a six foot tall invisible rabbit, all were sabotaged by a six foot tall invisible rabbit.

On the book front there is good and bad news. The good news is that no trees were cut down or killed in the final production run of the ebook “Blue Screen of Death – A desi’s misadventure in the land of opportunity”. Initial reviews are promising (read: not as bad as I expected), encouraging (no multi million dollar advance offers, but there is always hope for that call from Oprah or Ellen) and detailed enough to provide material for my next book “The Blue Screen - Reloaded”

The bad news is that you now have to buy a copy (more on that later) and read it (not at all mandatory if you pick a few hundred e-books online.) The book runs at 250 odd pages and is a schizophrenic mix of an email diary /memoir and a do it yourself guide to failure. For the non desi’s among my friends, the word “Desi” refers to some one from the Indo Pakistan subcontinent – the wedge of land squished between the Himalayas (on top), the Indian ocean (bottom), Oil (left) and the rest of Asia (right). It is home to the Indus Civilization, 1.5 billion souls, balti, chicken tikka, great music, really bad movies and me.

Written during five years of soul searching the book has a simple premise. To succeed as an entrepreneur, you must fail. Avicena the e-education venture I started in New York, while at school, and buried in California two years later, provides context and back drop. The last chapters summarize questions and answers I am asked on a daily basis by other entrepreneurs, friends, peers, students, wannabees and the friendly local neighborhood alien:

a. Was it worth it?
b. Will you do it again?
c. Did you learn anything from the stupid mistakes that cost you US$ 880,000?
d. Were you out of your #$@*(&! Mind?

Unfortunately till this note and the book went to press, I still hadn’t figured out the answer to the really important questions in life (What’s for dinner, What are we watching, Why me, Where did all the money go and Why am I up at this ungodly hour.) So if you are looking for universal truths, don’t buy this book. On the off chance that you do, and in the equally improbable event that you actually like it (you have to read it first,) send me a note. As an unappreciated and till recently unpublished author, it will make my day. Oh and I promise to stop returning your phone calls as soon as I become rich and famous. Till then.

Yours

Jawwad Farid

The book website: http://bluescreen.alchemya.com
Reviews so far: http://bluescreen.alchemya.com/reviews.html
Buy the book: http://bluescreen.alchemya.com/buy.html
Jawwad’s alternate manifestation: http://www.alchemya.com
Google Jawwad Farid

Access to vendor credit

Credit means the difference between life and death, growth and contraction.

Easiest and cheapest source are vendors who would like to do business with you. Over a period of time you can build your lines to a point where they represent a substantial component of your working capital needs.

And if you are ever in a position (customer advances) where you are sitting on large amount of cash for a few weeks and go and get a revolving over draft facility at your local bank.

Remember its easy to get credit, it is difficult to maintain and building that relationship:

a. Ground rule number one is to only borrow what you know can be repaid within the next two billing cycles based on closed revenue producing contracts.

b. Ground rule number two is to set expectations on the lender side by clearly indicating how and when you will clear their invoice.

c. Ground rule number three is to ensure that if you have said a month, you repay on time or a few days earlier.

d. Ground rule number four is to always know your expected net cash position now, 15 days, 30 days, 45 and 60 days later.

e. Ground rule number five is to always over provide for expected overhead in your cashflow calculations. You will always spend more than you expected on your fixed costs.

f. Ground rule number six is to buy occassionaly on cash, when you can. Financially it may make no sense at all but you would be surprised at what it does to your vendor relationship.

PMBA Reading List

Here is my reading list - Inspired by the PMBA on reddit

Five core modules, more to be added later

1. Negotations, Leadership and Accounting

2. Strategy & Pricing

3. Business Context

4. Self Expression

5. Product Development

Is it about money - redux

Read the Mark Henrick site/book/blog/journal. Enuff said

Is it really about money?

No. I do what I do because:

a. I think I can do a better job doing what I believe in, without compromising on my values.

b. I know who I am and what I stand for. My self perception is not jaundiced by what the world around me thinks is in vogue or not.

c. I would rather have the choice of deciding what is right or wrong and then do what is right (and at times wrong) fully aware of the consequences of my actions.

d. Linked with self awareness is my belief that in the long run I can create more value, better, faster, cheaper than the next guy, not working for himself.

Rent? Scale revisited.

Best kept secret in business. In my four odd ventures so far, I have somehow managed to not pay for office space. I need to write a book on how that works.

All the more reason why I hate sacle issues. But then as Shane used to say - this is the right problem to have.

The Blue Screen of Death

The Blue Screen of Death timelines - 2001 - 2006

August 2001: Read Stephen King on writing while flying coast to coast for an interview in New York.

March 2002: Despite working 18 hours a day still need to figure out what to do with my weekends. I am now down to five hours of sleep which leaves me with atleast four hours to do nothing after Fawzia and Amin go off to sleep. Not having cable is part of the problem. Getting cable is not the solution.

April 2002: Decide to write a book and become a best selling millionaire author. Step one is to write an article on HBR on failure – a subject I am very much at home with.

May 2002: Page 1 of my epic saga is done.

June 2002: Yeee-ah! Page 3 – 4 completed while vacationing in Maine for 4 days. Must be Stephen King proximity factor.

July 2002: This whole book thing is really not working out. The HBR article outline is somewhat done but their submission and approval process is a nightmare.

August 2002 – November 2002: Pressure at work sucks me into a different dimension. Plans to become independently wealthy by word power put on hold. That still does’t stop me from buying all the books ever written about writing a book proposal, getting an agent, signing a contract and a subscription to writers digest.

December 2002: Head back home to Pakistan

March 2003: The article is now a book is getting bigger and better and in good shape. Start doing active research on publishers and agents

April 2003: First speaking engagement at my old school on failure. Quickly followed by speaking engagement number two

July 2003: Somehow just getting 10% of gross for all this heart ache and pain doesn’t look appealing. And I don’t want to share the 15% with my agent. Best selling millionaire author plan put on hold but I still cary on work with the book.

July 2003 – December 2003: Work, work, work and more work.

June 2004: Week long vacation in Nathia Gali. I sit on top of a mountain and watch trees grow. Inspiration

July 2004: Third speaking engagement on failure

December 2004: Initial reviews of page one are good. The rest of book is crap

All of 2005: Three major rewrites. Two bad reviews. One note of encouragement. Two speaking engagements on failure. Discover Booksurge on Amazon.

Jan 2006: New year resolution to put this stupid book chapter behind me once and for all.

Jan 2006: Hire editor on elance to take a final look and see if there is any beef in 200 pages. Editor says this is good shit but you need to rewrite it all over again.

February 2006: Adnan promises to help with research, launch and execution.

March 2006: Discover lighteningspeed. Where have you been all of my life.

April 2006: Ebook edition on track.

April 2006: Sixth speaking engagement on failure

May 2006: Launch.

Scale

We now need to move from our current premises because the 1500 square foot office is now too cramped for a:

a. Four pizza company (up from a two pizza company less than a year ago)
b. Three bathroom group (there is a now a que outside the two that we have)
c. Four server shop (up from a single customer server)
d. Five group heads (up from a single leadership role)

Why is scale expensive and difficult

a. Its next to impossible to find a decent office with three bathrooms, parking space for 10 cars, uncongested location and a nice open and airy environment. Shahrae-Faisal has more than enough space but it's basically all crap. (parking, water, location, building, structure problems galore)

b. To be fair space is available but not in our budget. If you could afford Forum at Rs 70 per square foot, IBM Tower at 70 per square foot or the new Faisal bank building also at 70 per square foot.

c. If I had any money I would put it into half way decent commercial real estate with ample parking in a nice location. Heck forget the real estate, I would just build multistoried parking lots for a great ROI

d. Getting to 25 people was easy because scale was not required. Going from 25 to 50 will be painful.

But the good news is that the book is done. If I could turn that into a best seller, maybe I could afford a few square footage in IBM Tower. Should be out on Amazon sometime before the end of this month.