"We have more lawyers than you have employees"

Finally, a story about the advantage of being a Large Company. Take that, Clayton Christensen!

From a podcast interview with Jay Shapiro, founder of an Singapore-based online ad agency called Blue:

Jay: We were Blue Sphere Interactive and around, I guess 2001, EDS, Ross Perot's company, decided they really wanted to get into the internet...And sure enough a couple of months later EDS launched this small start-up spinoff with 2,700 employees called Blue Sphere. And they were marketing to HP, we were doing HP. So I sent them a lawyer's letter saying please cease and desist, you're causing confusion in the market. We're Blue Sphere, we had trademarked the name already and everything. And they sent us back this fantastic lawyer's letter. I still have it. It said thank you for letting us know. Please be advised we have more lawyers than you have employees. We suggest you change your name.

Andrew: Is that really what they said?

Jay: Yes. They actually put it in a letter. I cannot believe it. And so we became Blue, which is a much better name anyhow. So that's how the venture was born.

Andrew: Oh, what a great letter to send out. It's ballsy, and it's painful, and it's wrong, and it's great.

"Commitment is the Key" - K.V. Ramani

Fascinating account of the tribulations and success of an early mover in the Indian software industry, who chose - in the mid-1980s - to tread a different path than the common "body shopping" route. - The Venture Intelligence Team










K.V. Ramani, Founder, Future Software (Bio)

Speech and interaction with the students of Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai (recorded on campus on June 23, 2010).

The Podcast (mp3) - 64 minutes, 29.2 MB

(Use Right Click > Save As to download to your desktop)

Highlights:

• In the eighties, when banks did not recognize software as an industry that they would lend to and there were so much of red tape, KVR's sheer persistence helped him overcome the odds - even to the extent of arguing a committee of bureaucrats into reversing their decision!
• Future Software, which stuck to its niche of telecom networking software from inception, was the first Indian company to license "protocol stacks" to global telecom vendors in its pusruit of "non-linear growth". KVR insists that Indian IT succeeded because of "talent/skill arbitrage" and not cost arbitrage. "We could have charged three times as much and got away with it," he says.
• KVR's story emphasizes how the founding idea - especially for an IT product company - should be based on something that is likely to become popular 3-5 years ahead. He believes the founders should focus on the vision for the company in the next 5 and leave the job of managing the next few quarters to the operational managers.
• One of the advtantges of starting in a niche market, KVR points out, is that the target clientele is obvious .
• The podcast has an interesting account of how KVR converted the huge problem of its largest customer, Hughes (which accounted for 30% of the business), wanting to set up its own shop in India, into an opportunity.
• KVR also highlights how Flextronics acquired and stitched together what is today Aricent by acquiring 5 Indian communications software companies (including Future Software).