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The New Son of the Soil

Jana Reddy on his farm

Last week I was in Bangalore. I met an old friend, Jana Reddy, who took me to his farm in Palakkodu, Tamil Nadu, over 100 kms away.

And he is what the new sons of the soil look like.

He is a techie, responsible for a portfolio with over 3000 team members. Well, he is more of a technocrat, less of a techie. Married to a techie. His son goes to college in another city. Aging parents live in a lovely area close to his high-end apartment complex. Loving son, affectionate husband, responsible parent, giving friend. A down-to-earth person.

He was like this in 1996, when I first met him. And today too, he is as down-to-earth. More so, in many ways.

Because he chose to go back to the land. About 10 years ago, a harsh conversation with a business head made him see that there was more to him than climbing the ranks in a large IT company, however lucrative. He started thinking about what he’d want to do post-retirement. And it was the memory of his school-time summer vacations spent in his native village that held the answer.

Find some land, do some farming. Not just own some farmland, and be a consumer of it. But work the land, and be one with it. Sixty years of age would be too late to start, he reckoned. “I need to start now!”

That set him off in pursuit of buying some land. Ten years later, he owns 8 acres in Tamil Nadu.

Jana has built a house with mud walls and a thatched roof, fitted with all modern amenities. It has two wooden lofts; one is his sleeping area, and the other is his remote work setup.

He has a barn to house his goats and store his farm equipment. He has some poultry, most of which were killed by a leopard recently. He is building a stepwell.

He is not a farmer by education. He is learning as he goes, experiments, fails, pays dearly for it all, and then sees some success.

Jana’s farm is not a neat, flat piece of land. It is land that starts at the foothills and runs down towards the town. He chooses to keep it like that, working with the large rocks there to create boundaries and safety. He is using the slopes of the land to do rainwater harvesting. Sure, there are borewells, but the rainwater holds the power to sustain life.  The lack of water is worrying now, he is hoping for rains to start soon.

He looks at the hills rising magnificently, providing a beautiful backdrop to his land. And wonders why some trees on the hills are all green and thriving, while some others are burnt down. He wants to understand how that happens, and bring that learning to his farm. He knows that there’s a way that nature works, and he wants to align with that.

Even the driveway he has conceptualized follows the lay of the land, so one can feel the essence of the land as one drives in.

Standing at the highest points of the farm, you can look down to the house and the barn. You will be excused if you miss spotting them, because the roofs and the walls just blend with the landscape. No jarring colours, no paints, no artificial decorations. Just oneness.

Jana Reddy on his farm in Palakkodu

He reads books on farming, talks to farmers, and identifies what suits best for the land he is the custodian of. Sometimes it means going against the conventional wisdom, and you can see him struggling to get the farm workers to listen to how he wants things done. It’s probably the only time I have seen him upset, and it’s not even obvious; such a gentle soul.

Everything is organic in the farm. There are coocunut trees, areca, figs, mangoes, aloe vera, brinjals, green chillies, herbs, bottle gourd, lemons, cherries, flowers, agatti, tamarind…

The only hint of chemicals is the anti-termites he has used to protect his wooden lofts from harm.

All the garbage from his apartment and that of his parents’ house is separated five ways, and most of it is brought to the land to enable composting.

His ways of living are less consumptive now, he says.  Most of the money he earns goes into the land. Pre-covid he had built a solid business selling organic produce to about 250 families in Bangalore. Covid changed all that. He is into pleasure farming now, he says. “I do what I like to do!”

I hear that as, “I am experimenting to see how I can work with nature so the land is bountiful, beautiful.”

Many of the old sons of the soil belong to a certain area, are hardcore farmers; they know the ways of the land and have agriculture in their blood.  The new sons have lived in the city most of their lives, and look for land to work with, wherever they can get it. They probably have tech in their blood, but land in their soul. It’s a calling, perhaps not an occupation for them. It’s a choice, not a lineage. It’s an intention, a fierce one at that. To be a custodian of the land, to do right by the land.

When there are such sons around, the Mother will be okay. She knows that her sons have returned. All is well.

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10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Get the Jab

Yesterday I was speaking to my friend who lives abroad. He described how he was just waiting for his turn to get his jab. I asked about the options his country was offering him by way of Covid jabs. He said, “There’s the Oxford one, the Pfizer one, the one by AstraZeneca, and now we will be getting Covishield from India.”

I was taken aback by my friend’s lack of knowledge about this: three of the four jabs he named are the same, and he obviously hadn’t bothered to do any research of his own. Then when he said they were debating which one was a better va$$ine, he only sounded vacuous. No research, no idea of his options, but he was debating which was a better jab?

I shook my head in disbelief. He had been a close friend of mine, and how did he devalue himself to this?

A month and a half ago, I had a similar discussion with a group of media friends. We all had spent some time on copydesks of magazines and understood the value of research before jumping to conclusions.

I am the only one in that group unva$$inated. The group outright rejected any alternative options of treatment, saying that there is no data to support it. And that they were basing their decision to get jabbed on what reputable, knowledgeable doctors were saying.

Since then, one of the friends in the group has had a long and harrowing case of Covid, and her mother, also jabbed, had to spend a long time at a hospital, even undergoing plasma treatment. At the same time, my jabbed friend in Bangalore also spent over 10 days in the hospital and her SpO2 levels still fall off to mid 80s, two weeks post hospitalization.

And then Covid came home. My jabbed husband got it first and then my daughter and I got it, though we tested negative. Three weeks later, we are all recovered. He went through 14 days of high fever along with taking paracetamol, steroids and a host of allopathic drugs, had his SpO2 levels drop to 85, while my daughter and I had fever for 2-3 days, and we went without any medication. We all have some lingering cough and fatigue.

You know, it takes all kinds to make a pandemic.

It is very hard to find information that is not propaganda or agenda driven anymore. Have you come across any media report that doesn’t call RTPCR a gold standard test? When in reality, the inventor of the test, Kary Mullis, said the test couldn’t be used to detect any meaningful presence of a virus?

All the information out there presupposes that injections and jabs are the answer to this pandemic, and that RTPCR is the test to prove the existence of the virus (which according to many doctors, hasn’t even been properly isolated yet!). So if you are continuously bombarded with information that has pre-concluded that everyone must get jabbed, one has to stop and ask, “What’s going on?”

I watched a Brut India video of Dr Rajesh Parikh, who has co-authored a book on Covid va$$ines (that was fast), speaking eloquently about how va$$ines are required, and jabbed people will only get mild cases of Covid, and how effective they are against variants (he didn’t mention any data to support this, when worldwide there is skepticism about jabs not being able to handle new variants. But you know he wrote a book, so he must be an expert!)

When the first news about jabs started coming out last year, I was among the minority that was questioning the safety of bringing out these products in under three months of trials. But the frenzy to have a va$$ine out, drowned out all debates on this. Anyway, what was there to debate, when there was no data out there to work with? But the historic data did show that all efforts to make va$$ines against other versions of coronaviruses had spectacularly failed, always failing at the animal stage trials.  

But by now millions are jabbed, and they haven’t all died. But is it just coincidence that the second wave and immunization ramp up are very closely aligned? 

Thousands have died, going by VAERS data. EudraVigilance reports over 200,000 adverse effects instances after AstraZeneca vaccine administration. India reported 180 deaths till March 31, post vaccinations.

We still don’t know the long-term effects of the jabs, or the drugs that have been rampantly prescribed. And now black fungus has made a solid emergence, and what are we to do with that? Perhaps another jab would help?

My point in writing this is to ask you to take a pause and wonder if this va$$ine story hasn’t been blown out of proportion? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But have you stopped and questioned any aspect of it? Or did you outsource your questioning to the media, your friends, family or doctor? Do you have informed consent? Or do you just believe you do?

Here are some questions you should ask yourself before you take the jab. And if you don’t know the answers, look for it in medical journals and from doctors who are sharing information that is being actively censored online. I have left some links here, but use them only to start off your research. Go deep and find your own answers.

  1. Are you aware that all Covid jabs are under emergency use authorisation? Do you have a complete understanding of what that means? 
  2. Are you fully aware of what the jab will do once inside your body? How long will it stay? And what will it continue to do? And how does one know that it will continue to behave as it is supposed to?
  3. Do you know the contents/ingredients of the va$$ine?
  4. Are you aware that you can still get Covid-19, as well as infect others even after getting the jab?
  5. Do you believe when doctors say that after va$$ination even if you do get Covid, it will be a mild case? Do you have anecdotal evidence that suggests otherwise?
  6. Have you reviewed any or all of the AEFI (adverse effects following immunization) data being shared in the media? Are you satisfied with the process followed for AEFI?
  7. Have you looked at the adverse effects being reported across Europe for AstraZeneca’s va$$ine? 
    1. There are over 200,000 instances of people reporting adverse effects (https://www.adrreports.eu/en/search_subst.html#)
    2. From 4th Jan to 12th May 2021:

8 deaths from Blood disorders

100 deaths from cardiac disorders

11 deaths from GI disorders

277 deaths from General disorders

7 deaths from hepatic disorders

67 deaths from infections

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/987644/AstraZeneca_analysis_print_12052021.pdf

  1. What are the long-term effects of the jab? Can you get cancer? Or become impotent? Or have issues with periods?
  2. In more than 1 year, we still don’t have clarity on the pandemic or the second and third waves. Do you believe that we are so technologically backward that we haven’t been able to solve this yet? Why have we not solved this yet?
  3. There is no real treatment for Covid, we have been told. Yet millions of people have stayed home and recovered with major, minor or no medication. There are treatments in homeopathy, ayurveda, traditional chinese medicine, that I personally know of, by which people have recovered. Do you find that normal, abnormal, irrelevant? Why?

From where I see, all those getting jabbed are part of a large worldwide clinical trial, for which they are willingly signing up for, by paying money to buy the doses. And when the trials come to a close in 2023, there’d be enough data to see if this was successful or if it wreaked any kind of devastation, as time went by.

If you did some of this research yourself, and went down some rabbit holes of censored material, “conspiracy theories”, and followed the Disinformation Dozen, you will soon hit the very edges of your belief systems. And that would be very, very uncomfortable. And many of you will simply go back to the mainstream narrative and Netflixing. But a few among you, will step outside your comfort zones and start seeing things for what they are, and not what you have been led to believe. To those ones, I say, welcome home!

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14 Years of Entrepreneurship

A few days ago I completed 14 years of being an entrepreneur. I did a Twitter thread on it. Replicating here. I am grateful for all the attention it got, and the great responses I received. There are more people like me, going through the exact same struggles. And there are people who thought it was an inspiring story, and that of grit.

So here goes:

I complete 14 years of entrepreneurship today. Lots of feelings – from being joyously inspired to dredging the depths of despair- often on the same day! Here’s looking back at each year to identify the key state of business, and the state of my mind! 1/n

2005: Start up | Excitement

Co-founding Knowiz as a content services company. Co-founder is the brain behind it. I have no idea what’ll happen, or how. I trust her to figure it out. Each proposal is a high, each small deal evidence to a biz model. 2/n

2006: Hard work | Fun

More work comes in, and we deliver working late nights and super early mornings. We hire an office space and our first employees. Every project is challenging, but we overcome them. 3/n

2007: Hard work | More fun

More clients, more work. The team is growing. More challenges. And to keep the cash flow going, we still don’t take salaries. But we are still enjoying building the company. 4/n

2008: Not enough money | Worry

There are not enough projects to keep us afloat. Plenty of competition out there: from big wig mag companies to freelancers. We take on projects that are not core to our skills, but we still deliver. 5/n

2009: Recession hits | Stress 24×7

Clients back out from retainers, projects dry up. Media and IT, our focus industries, are badly hit. And so are we. One by one, people leave. From a team of 12, we are back to just the two of us. 6/n

2010: Co-founder quits | Fear

Co-founder quits, I pay her off with money I don’t have. Why? No real reason, but a voice in me that says, Keep going. Shouldn’t listen to voices, but I did. Start building a team again. 7/n

2011: Learning the ropes | Courage

I sign up for an entrepreneurship program that makes me see my blind spots. Also start exploring meditation and spirituality. Somehow find the courage to keep learning, keep going. “Just show up, dammit.”  8/n

2012: In debt | More fear

Not enough cash in the business, but I continue to find new projects. Hard to get retainers, but keep trying. Team puts up with delayed salaries, rallies behind me. I hide myself in the loo and cry. Often. 9/n

2013: Merger | Panic

Meet a spirited, high-integrity person who set up his agency in 2011. We eventually merge to become a digital marketing agency. I am in panic. Company financials are a mess, but he bravely takes it on. He believes in the merger, our values, vision. 10/n

2014: Inefficiencies | Stress

Business starts picking up, deals are now larger. Little tolerance for inefficiencies and incompetence, thanks to new partner. Working style clashes, client issues, cash flow: stress aplenty. Meditation keeps me sane. 11/n

2015: Another partner | Excitement

We set up a product company, with a new partner. Decline funding, decide to do it ourselves. We grow the service company, with new offerings, bigger team. Tough, but mostly fun. Joyful. 12/n

2016: US focus begins| Hope

Services stay stable, product development is slow. A client goes bankrupt, wiping off lakhs from receivables. Yet we persist. Shift focus to US market. New highly competent team change the pace and game! 13/n

2017: Heartbreak | Stoic

Year of heartbreaks. More inefficiencies. Fights. Partners say they quit. I hold them back. We plod through depression, lose key team people, deal with bad clients. US market improves cash flows. Ease, in sight. 14/n

2018: Ease | Free

Finally, with more clients across the world and a highly competent team, we hit ease in biz. Lots of projects, delivered well, continuous cash flow. I have phases when I don’t even know new client names: yeah, that good. New product idea. 15/n

2019: Measured growth | Detached

There is more ease in doing business. Cash! Team is growing. New product is out; could be a big one for us. Two more products taking shape. Tech team looks real good. Services growing well. But I am detached. Just keep doing. 16/n

Mine is not a story of success by regular standards; it’s simply a story of persistence. You can only persist when you know your Why. What’s ours: We are here to build a culture that enables people to be themselves and get better at that, and find joy in work. 17/n

You can only persist when there are people to support you: business partners, spouse, kid, team, clients, random strangers who help. And angels. And be grateful for that. 18/n

You can only persist when you have it in you to believe in light when it’s all dark around you. And get others to believe that there is light, we just don’t see it yet. 19/n

But you know my story is a story of success by my standards: we have clients who rave about us. We have super success stories of people who have found themselves at Niswey, and we know we are making many more. 20/n

We are focused on profitability, believe in measured growth, and in integrity and joy at work. We know our way of doing business is not the normal way, but we believe this is the new normal. We are successful, in those terms. To more success! n/n 

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Decoupled Aspirations

Some of us have goals in life. Some have the plan to reach them, or to handle stuff. 

Sometimes it works exactly as the plan, we reach the goal and we are happy. Sometimes it works exactly as the plan, and we end up unhappy. 

Often it doesn’t work as per the plan. (There’s really no sure-fire method to making this work, is there?)

Often we find ourselves frustrated. 

“Things are not going as planned.”

“I haven’t met my goals yet! I am a loser!” 

“Why did this have to happen now? It was so not in the plan!”

I found myself having a series of these conversations last week. 

Co-founder, Abhinav and one of the team members, Nilanjana were having a discussion, and I happened to become a part of it. The discussion was about the current challenges being faced by her. And by the end of it I heard myself say, “You seem to have had a plan. And now things are not going as per the plan. In fact it has nicely blown up in your face, or so it seems. My guess is you are hung upon the plan going exactly as you want it to go. Can you loosen up your hold on it? Allow the plan some space to breathe and let it take its course?”

“In other words,” I said, “You know, be detached from the plan’s evolution?”

I was trying not to bring the Bhagavad Gita reference which many of us have grown up hearing: ‘Do your duty without any attachment to the results of your action.’ The last thing I want to do in the workplace is bring up stuff that has any reference to religion or spirituality. Especially to a team of millennials. 

And like a true millennial, she responded, “You mean like decoupled architecture?” (She has been writing on decoupled Drupal architecture, hence the question. Separate the backend from the fronted, so both have the freedom to do their job in the best possible way). Millennials can make innovative connections that will never occur to a GenXer like me.

I said, “Yeah, like that.”

Decouple your aspirations from how they should work out. Have a plan, but don’t get married to it. 

And thus, we stumbled upon the term, Decoupled Aspirations.

Abhinav listened to the conversation, and later told me that the idea stuck in his mind too. He has read the Gita, but somehow this term got through to him better. 

I had forgotten that I had talked about the very same concept to a friend, also a GenXer, a few days earlier. She replied, a day after this Decoupled Aspirations conversation at work. She said it made sense to her. And i responded, “Yeah, only, we now call it Decoupled Aspirations.”

She called up immediately to chat excitedly, because “the term spoke to her”.

Well, in two days, three people had understood a difficult concept just because we put a different term to it. And a day later, the friend used the same idea to explain something to her 10 year old who sat crying that she wasn’t going to win the student election! It calmed her down.

Wonder why this is happening, this instant understanding? My guess is that decoupling gives a sense of separation of two things, and that leads to creation of some space. And maybe the idea of the space created gives the relief one is looking for. And the room for comprehension.

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Comfort Zone Musings

A lot happened this week, personally, professionally. Nothing new in the life of an entrepreneur (or anyone, really!). And as I find a quiet moment on a Saturday, the thought that bubbles up from the past week melee is about comfort zones. Different incidents, different people, different settings—but the common thread is that.

I had been in touch with some people I shortlisted for an open position in our company. One of the key ways for me to judge ability, as well as initiative, is to send them a test to do. It’s not an easy one, but it’s not rocket science either. But to anyone without initiative or the hunger (we are looking for), it would feel like rocket science.

So here I was, down to my shortlisted three candidates.

One did it splendidly well, but had omitted to mention that she had already found another job. So she was out.

Another replied with a mail that sounded like a combination of lying and excuses. And when I followed up on what she said in her mail, she didn’t reply. Maybe she never saw the mail, you might say. I use Streak, so usually I know who has seen my mail, and how many times. So I know she saw my mail about the test 10 times, and the follow up mail once. She didn’t have the courtesy to say, No, thank you. Sadly, I seemed to have been proven right about the combination of lying and excuses. So she fizzled out too.

The third person saw the mail, and chose to not respond either. But when I followed up, she said she was in advanced negotiations for a job, and that it would be unethical for her to pursue ours. So that candidate went bust too.

So when all three candidates didn’t work out, I did what I usually do, which is question my modus operandi. Am I being too tough? Am I being too picky? Do I not want to close this position (what if deep down my subconscious is sabotaging the efforts!)? And on and on.

Then I looked at what I am trying to build. It’s cutting edge stuff, it’s not stuff for the faint hearted. It requires a toughness and staying power that many people don’t have. And while many freshers have this, experienced people exhibit less and less of this. They have defined their comfort zones and want to play in that. Comfort zone of not being asked hard questions. Comfort zones of known evils vs unknown evils. Comfort zones of working for a brand.

And that’s okay.

The other way to look at this is that they have defined their discomfort zones for other aspects of their life: maybe their personal lives push them out of their comfort zones quite a bit, so their work becomes their comfort zone. That’s certainly okay, isn’t it?

Some of us treps go into a mode of lamenting that people just don’t want to play outside their comfort zones. Just because we do, and many of our team members do, it doesn’t mean that everyone out there must either. It’s not their calling. So let’s drop the lament, shall we? And focus on the ones who do like to be out of their comfort zones at work.

Then there are others who play outside their comfort zones at work, and seem to go off-balance really quickly. When you extend help or solutions, they listen but come back and say, “No, thank you. My discomfort zone, my rules.” Sure, that works too!

Then there could be others who say they want to play outside their comfort zones, to learn more, to earn more. But if they are not authentic enough with their work, it starts becoming apparent that their ability to step outside their comfort zones is limited. And then it can become discordant, in terms of being misaligned on what one says and what one does. Is that okay? For them, perhaps. For a manager or an entrepreneur? Maybe, maybe not. For me, it’s not okay.

So what are my takeaways this week from all this?

  • That I don’t have to hyperventilate about people not wanting to step outside their comfort zones. If I want people who do so, I will just have to keep looking and find the right people.
  • That comfort zones come in all different sizes and shapes and forms. And I don’t have to insist that your comfort zone has to match mine.
  • That in case of an integrity issue with what’s being said, and done about comfort zones (or anything really), I want to question it.

On that note, I look ahead to a week that will need me to be out of my comfort zone quite a bit. Both at work and at home.

Cheers!

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Grateful for Gratitude

Sometimes you hit brain freeze. Fatigue. A total shutdown. For whatever reason. And you have to find a way to crawl out of it. It happened to me.

So what does one do? Maybe sleep it off? Which I did. Maybe watch movies you missed out on watching as life caught up with you? I did that too. Have a beer? Did that as well.

But I couldn’t find the inspiration to think ahead, or work on stuff. Even stuff that would get my juices flowing. It was a shut down. My brain refused to intake any more stuff, that I usually find cool/inspiring/funny/intriguing.

Maybe I should have gone off on a break. Turns out I couldn’t, in my current circumstances. At least, not just yet. The break will have to wait.

So what can you do? To unfreeze?

I really didn’t know. The week went by, so did the weekend. And then came Monday morning. I was better physically, not feeling drained anymore. But wasn’t sure if I had my mind on right.

While I went about my early morning chores, something struck me. “Look up a book on gratitude,” I heard a voice in my head. And yes, I do pay attention to these voices, please don’t judge me for it. Some months ago, I had heard, “Be compassionate to yourself, Suma!” And it’s probably the best thing I have heard all year. But that’s a story for another time.

So I bought the first book that I felt drawn to, after looking at a few. It was The Little Book of Gratitude by Dr Robert A Emmons.

Being the spiritual types, trying to evolve and as a follower of all that new agey stuff, I am exposed to gratitude and its benefits. And to a large extent I practice it too. But I do have that niggling feeling that I don’t really feel it at all times in my bones. However, there are also some mind-blowing moments when I can feel it in my soul. It doesn’t happen a lot, but when they happen it is magic.

So here I was, Monday morning, downloading a book on my Kindle. As the title promises, it is a little book. In fact, I didn’t even get around to finishing it. Because in the first chapter itself I found the shift I was looking for.

“Grateful living is possible when we realize that other people and agents do things for us that we cannot do for ourselves.”

There is an exercise in the book that gives you a format to express the gratitude for something someone has done for you. That was enough for me, really. I couldn’t wait to start writing.

I got to work. And wrote through the day, in between meetings and discussions and phone calls and standups. And even at home, before I slept. I ended up writing 13 pages in my notebook that day, finding 24 instances when people had looked after me, done something for me, even though they didn’t have to. But luckily for me, they did.

I don’t know what it exactly did to me. But I slipped into a nicer place, in my mind. The unfreeze had started. But the cool thing was I wasn’t doing it for the unfreezing. I was doing it for the joy of trying it. Just write. And lovely instances came to my mind. Tears. Laughter. Amazement.

I noticed patterns in my thinking, that were clearly not serving me. I remembered things I have already thanked people for in person, but I don’t think I can thank them enough for what their gestures meant to me.

By noon, I felt that I was back. Maybe not my 100% usual self, but this was definitely not that frozen person from the week past. I was unthawing.

I continued it the next day. And the day after that. And the next. And because this is December, and I was looking back at the year, it automatically became a sort of detecting the best moments for the company too. And as I would suddenly remember something we had quite forgotten, I would Slack it to one of the co-founders (the other was in sunny Goa!), so he could remember too and feel grateful. Then he started helping too: How about that person? And that instance? And so on. Very quickly, we agreed that while it had been a rough year, if we hadn’t had the support of so many people from across the world, we wouldn’t have been where we are today. How blessed we were to have met so many inspirational people through the year, who were incredibly nice to us and welcoming of our ideas. Wow. Some exercise!

Am I out of the freeze yet? Not fully, perhaps. But I am quite cool with this half-thawed person too. She is taking some time off from the world, being in silence by withdrawing from a lot of things that would earlier consume her, learning to switch off from social media, reading only the autobiography of Bruce Springsteen (that too sparingly) when it suits her. She remembers to be nicer to herself, not judge herself for all the failures and mismanagement, for any harsh words uttered.

And she can’t wait to hit her gratitude notebook.

 

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How the Odds Even Out

“Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you

When you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right

And life has a funny way of helping you out when

You think everything’s gone wrong and everything blows up

In your face”

– Alanis Morissette, Ironic


Have you ever noticed that?

Earlier this month, I talked of coming up against cash flow issues. It was exacerbated by the fact that we were staring at three clients pulling the plug – well, pulling the plug is a bit extreme, but we like to be prepared for the worst. With a tight cash flow situation at hand, and more impending, things were looking, well, grim.

The first thing to do in such a situation is stop the plug pulling, of course. In one of my earlier posts, I spoke about my co-founder yelling at me, and him being right. It was him yelling at me to figure out ways to keep the clients, not let them pull the plug.

So while I head sales, I just had to double up as an operations person and save the game. And that’s what I jumped in to do, along with the team. Got down and dirty with the daily hands-on stuff. Got the team to chin up, and do more, better. Spoke to the client SPOCs, where required, to figure out the way ahead. My co-founder did the same. And we hoped things would become better.

The next thing to do with dire cash situations is to cut the expenses, and look for money to sustain (by quick sales, or beg/borrow; no, not steal!). So we looked at one of our big expenses, rent, and explored ways to bring that down. We explored co-working spaces; we asked one of our clients if he could accommodate us, as he has extra space. He agreed too.

But once we white-boarded it out, moving out from the current place didn’t work out to be a good idea. Then we looked at our most expensive SaaS subscription, and moved to a lower package, after much negotiation with the company. Some money saved, going forward, without letting go of key stuff we needed.

The focus then turned to how to raise some quick money. And as if on cue, the bank called and offered us a loan, far more than we need. We white-boarded the interest impact on the business, and that also didn’t turn out to be such a good idea.

So, sales it was. Well, for us that’s a 3-6 month cycle, and while many proposals and good conversations are on, the closing takes it own time. The only thing to do here is find more ideal prospects, and pitch more. And that’s what we moved on to do.

We did what we had to. With no relief in sight, not sure where the money would come from, or how the clients would behave.

But do – that’s what we do.

And like Alanis says, life has a funny way.

  • Someone close to the business offered money at no interest.
  • The SPOC at a client’s who was planning our ouster, became respectful of our work, nearly overnight. It’s because the head of sales at the company was convinced about the impact of our work on the business, and saw it as detrimental to the business if we were let go. So he stepped in and guided the SPOC to see the light. First save!
  • We did some new samples for another client, who liked them, and decided, we were the right people to have on his team. Second save!
  • The third client, is still WIP. But it has become clear that if this relationship ends, it will be because we walk out. So, a sort of save there as well.

And what’s more:

  • An old client came back for more work. Because my co-founder asked her for referrals.
  • An existing client, out of the blue, asked for a whole new project to be started, right away. Because he likes the way we have solved the same problem he has. He wants a different approach, though.
  • A prospect we had been working on for a year, gave us some quick work to do. And she has said we will sign up for a retainer in January.

So, for now, things have worked themselves out. We didn’t let the gloomons (a word Richard Bach uses in Running From Safety, to describe negative concepts) hit, too much. We thought through issues, knew where we stood, did the right things, and kept doing. And life worked itself out.

But you know, life also blows up right in your face, when things are going okay.

The year had started on a high. We had a superb team offsite which had charted out the year ahead for us. The stuff we would do, the skill levels we would reach, the number of clients we would have, the brands we would build. Ah, the high of it!

And within 45 of days that, I had separate instances of both the co-founders quitting. When we got out of that mess, and became a tad happy, I came up smack against serious inefficiencies and incompetence in the team. There were people unable to deal with conflicts and having serious resentment festering.

Sigh, I should have quit. And yeah, the thought crossed many times, as they do every year.

People resigned, were let go off or coached. The youngest members in the team laid the path for the rest of the team to follow by demonstrating willingness to learn, being efficient and productive and staying happy. Today, we are a far more efficient team. Maybe not the happiest, but we will get there.

The only thread through all this is the willingness to continue, to stay the game, to not quit, come good or bad. And if that thread is held up, life will do its funny stuff. And the Universe too. After all, as they say, the odds are heavily stacked, in your favor.