Byju’s acquiring WhiteHatJr is all over the news today. The stunning growth of WhiteHatJr. has astounded many especially because to be acquired for $300 Million after being in business for less than 20 months is unheard of.

Many in India might not even have heard of WhiteHatJr much especially because they never advertised on TV. They were focussed on Digital/Social Media to run their campaigns and they did it smartly because they targeted the right group of people and got students & teachers on board.

One of the primary USP of WhiteHatJr has been the one to one coaching that they provide. Of course, coding is the emotional selling point because as a parent you get emotionally touched when you see your 6-year-old kid doing stuff on computers. This emotional connect along with the personalized education provided got them ahead of the race. The added advantage was they were pioneers of this space in India.

The use of technology to impart education has been well utilized by WhiteHatJr. The one to one video classes give you a seamless experience and the curriculum is set in such a manner that if the teachers are good (There are no bad students! There are only bad teachers!) then the kids will enjoy the sessions. The way it’s set up it helps kids learn coding through interactive & fun games.

I also must add that Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown helped them quite a bit. With parents working from home, these classes meant the kids got involved in something new, and because of the interactive way of teaching most kids got attracted to the system. And as pointed earlier, seeing the kids’ enjoyment, the parents committed to the programs (Emotional connect).

Many might say that the recent National Education Policy might have played a role in deciding the aggressive acquisition but to be fair such decisions are taken over a long time so I guess the decision had to do more about Byju’s growing clout over the EduTech space. With one shot Byju’s increases their valuation and also gets access to a pretty decent database of students who would need Byju’s flagship products as they grow up. Remember WhiteHatJr mainly has kids as their students who are not yet in middle school.

Byju’s, of course, can start a similar model of imparting education for Maths and Science Subjects. With ready students in the system, they won’t need to resell the new product. The ready technology in hand is an added advantage.

The teachers play a very big role in WhiteHatJr’s success because the students will continue in the long run only if they connect with the teachers well. The young kids as we all know tend to do well when they connect to their teachers. And once again Covid-19 worked in their favour because housewives got extra time in hand with no school for children and husbands working from home. 

In India, many ladies sacrifice their careers due to family but WhiteHatJr provided an opportunity for these ladies to restart their careers. Many who lost their jobs due to Covid-19 got enrolled as teachers too. Of course one needs to go through multiple rounds of tests before getting selected but if you are a graduate with computer knowledge then you can pass the interview rounds. To be successful though you need to have a passion for teaching. Otherwise, it’s a stop-gap thing and you might not add value to the ecosystem. 

There is always a saying that all disruptions create new market leaders and this definitely is one such story coming amidst the disruption of this century – Covid-19.

One thing that needs to be reiterated once again, if you have the right product, you don’t need to aggressively market it. What you really need is to get into the eyesight of your prospective users and if your product and service are meeting the criteria of your users, you will automatically create a difference to the society. WhiteHatJr is one such example.

When Zappos was acquired by Amazon, one of the terms was that Zappos will become a 100% subsidiary of Amazon but will continue to run independently. And that’s how it has been. Zappos still runs its operations independently and remains one of the great online stories of customer satisfaction. They have been able to do that only because Amazon didn’t interfere in the running of the company though nobody could have actually stopped them after the deal was done. That’s what Jeff Bezos is after all and that’s why he is so well revered as a leader. As far as I understand this acquisition of WhiteHatJr by Byju’s has been done with a similar concept where Byju’s won’t interfere with the running of the business and the founder, Karan Bajaj will continue running the show as before without any interference. This will be a great success story only if Byju’s follows the mindset of Jeff Bezos of negligible interference into WhiteHatJr’s management.

Good luck to both Byju’s and WhiteHatJr. Indian EduTech space is consolidating but the opportunity is still huge for new players. Will it be the cloning of the existing ideas or will it be something innovative? 

Let’s wait and watch.

In 1911 two teams, one led by Roald Amudsen & another led by Robert Scott started their journey to reach the South Pole.
Both made immaculate plans to reach the destination. While Roald Amudsen and his team came back home safely after successfully reaching the South Pole, Robert Scott & his team lost their lives. The opposite results of these 2 perfectly matched teams make a very interesting study.
Proper Planning and Risk Management are two very important aspects of project management. However well you plan, if your plan doesn’t take care of the expected and unexpected risks, you are bound to fail.
This was the basic difference in the above example. One planned meticulously and didn’t leave anything to chance whereas the other assumed stuff which backfired.
Roald Amudsen later said:
Victory awaits the person who has everything in order – People call it Good Luck!
Defeat is definite for the person who neglects to take necessary precautions – People call it Bad Luck!
How much do you blame your luck in defeat or in an adverse situation? Do you give credit to your luck when something good happens in your endeavour?
Good Luck follows many years of patience and perseverance. Luck doesn’t happen by chance.
Thoughts?

Our society is allowing maids to enter. Our cook is back to work. This makes things a lot easier for my wife. She is happy to get her cooking assistant back.
This brings me to the topic of “Happiness”.
What is happiness?
Happiness is a state of mind but then why are people around us not happy? Why can’t everyone be happy?
As per Tony Hseih’ Happiness Framework, when a group of people are asked the same question of what’s your goal, you get varied answers. But, if you keep adding a why against all their answers, finally we will know that all are pursuing happiness.
I for long kept comparing myself with others. This comparison mindset, I realised was hurting my psychology to be happy. I decided to be a competitor to myself.
Each day try to be better than yesterday. Keep raising your own bar & press forward. Don’t be overly satisfied with your accomplishments but be happy.
In India if you call another person & ask, “How are you?”, invariably the answer will be, “Going on”. Only 10% of the time you will get an answer, “I am doing good.” Why so?
Its all in the mind. If you are happy, you will reflect happiness otherwise you won’t.
What works for you? What makes you happy? How do you motivate yourself when you are down?

I am a sports lover & one of my favourite is Sergey Bubka. ​During his heydays as a pole vaulter his competitors used to fight for the silver medal because he used to win all the events. Not only he used to win, he used to break records. He achieved the feat of breaking his own world record 35 times in his career. In 1991 in the space of 4 months he broke the world record 5 times. The rest of the field was competing for the silver medal and he was competing with himself.
​Everybody has their own journey hence rather than competing with others, compete with yourself.
In my first job as a sales person, we had 2 sets of incentives. One, after you achieve 80% of your target & another when you reach 100%. I used to generally cross the 80% mark. Then one day magic happened. One big deal closed & I overshot my target by 200%. That day, my boss took me out for lunch and told me, “You broke the company record today. Records are meant to be broken and so don’t let your current success make you lazy. Continue as if nothing changed and this will ensure that you keep crossing your target.” That advice remained with me till today.
So, how do you deal with success? Do you raise your own bar higher? What has been your story?

Years ago during my childhood, I saw the movie, “Sonar Kella“ made by Satyajit Ray. It still remains one of my favourite movies. Other than it being an adventure/thriller movie, what really remained with me were the forts of Rajasthan with the cherry on the cake, The Jaisalmer Fort. The camel ride sequence of Lalmohan Ganguly was also something very enjoyable. Over the years, I always had that interest in visiting Rajasthan and so when the plan finally crystallized in 2013, I ensured that we have an extended stay at Jaisalmer.

Our Rajasthan trip started on 21st December and ended on 3rd January. Quite a longish trip but it still was like a whirlwind tour as we covered all the major forts of Rajasthan. 

This post of course is my experience of riding a camel in the Thar Desert.

After visiting the Jaisalmer Fort, our guide asked if we would be interested in a desert safari. We had small kids with us so we were not interested in staying overnight in the desert camp because it gets really cold at night. He suggested we take the camel ride and we thought it was not a bad idea for the evening.

Right after lunch we got ready and left for the desert camp which was about 40 minutes’ drive from where we stayed.

Asif’s and my family had traveled together to Rajasthan. So including the kids, it was 7 of us. We decided to rent 3 camels. In one Sushma and Sumbul sat. Another was occupied by Asif and his 2 daughters, Iqra and Daneah. The third one was for me and my son, Neel. 

Camels have this unique way of standing up. It will first get up from the rear using its two back legs and then it will raise its front legs. Writing this is quite simple but experiencing it is not so simple. Definitely it was not simple for me. 

We wanted the ladies to start first and as the camel rose up what we could hear were only shrieks of our dear ladies because as the camel raised its back legs both the ladies’ bodyweight went forward and this meant it was having difficulty to raise its front legs. Looking at that scene, I started wondering if it was a good decision to come for the ride in the first place. 

Asif was the expert as he guided the ladies to lean according to the Camel’s movement. My heart was pounding. Neel was sitting in front of me and as my camel raised its back legs, the gravitational force took me forward and I was unable to lean backward. There were now two problems in hand:

1. I was hurting Neel with my full weight over him.

2. The Camel was not getting enough strength to raise its front legs as my weight was a deterrence.

At that moment I was feeling like anytime I will lose control and fall off, anyways there were helpers around who came and helped the camel to stand up.

There is a saying that morning shows the day. Our ladies were now comfortable but my confidence in Camel ride laid in tatters. I asked the helper about how long it will take us to go to the destination. He said it will be about 30 minutes. He also added motivating words like it’s very enjoyable and asked me not to panic. Well, I said, you come and sit in front of the computer and write a program and I will also tell you don’t panic. It’s very simple.

Anyways, we started our ride through the desert and I felt that riding won’t be an issue. How wrong was I! As soon as the camel moved up the sand dunes, I was feeling completely out of control. The feeling was worse than riding through the pothole-filled roads. Sometimes, I am falling backward, sometimes, I am leaning in front. I was just hoping for the destination to come as soon as possible.

As a few minutes passed, I got used to the ride and the thought of watching the sunset from the Thar desert preoccupied my mind.

Neel was enjoying the ride to the fullest. As we reached our destination where we would be spending time till the sunset –  right in the middle of the desert, I felt like mission accomplished. But wait, I needed to get down from the camel’s back. Now the camels while sitting down follow the reverse process of how they get up. Now they will first fold their front legs and as it folded its front legs, I felt like I will be thrown into the desert. Somehow I kept holding the saddle and as it folded its rear legs, I heaved a sigh of relief.

Getting down I stretched for a while to get myself steady. I almost made up my mind to walk back during the return journey which was quite a childish thought though.

Anyways, I found a tea seller in the middle of the desert so I decided to have some tea to get back to my saneness.

The kids had a great time in the sand while Asif and Neel did some Camel Racing too. I was really surprised to see my very daring 9-year-old son and Asif kept on egging me – giving Neel’s experience.

The sand dunes were a perfect setting for the kids to play on as we waited for the sun to set. Sushma & Sumbul also joined the fun.

It was an exhilarating experience to watch the sunset from the middle of the desert. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about the camel ride though.

In the movie “Sonar Kella”, Lalmohan Ganguly had to get on a camel only once. Don’t know how he would have reacted to another camel ride but I didn’t want to ride it again. But, there was no option after all. This time the experience was slightly better because I made sure I leaned back right after getting up so that the force of the rear legs as the camel got up didn’t push me front and hence the tough part was done relatively smoothly. The ride became difficult though because now the camel was walking downwards in the sand dunes and this meant I was forced to lean forward. Sometimes it felt like I will fall over. 

Thankfully nothing untoward happened and we reached back to the camp and I felt like I won a war.

Neel in the meanwhile was feeling disappointed that the camel ride was over. How diametrically opposite reactions in the same bloodline, I wondered.

All in all, it was an experience worth remembering. I doubt I will get on a camel again anytime soon but then no one knows what lies in the future. 

Looking back I think the shriek of the ladies when the first camel got up followed with me not leaning backward when my camel got up meant I had a bad start and the fear psychosis reared its head. Darr Ke Aage Jeet Hai and I hope if and when I am forced to ride a camel again, I will do better.

So did you ride a camel? What has been your experience?

The Newspaper boy came unannounced today to inform that he can supply newspapers from tomorrow. He was interested to know if I would restart taking newspapers. I politely told him no. The last 70 days, I have gotten used to consuming news digitally. Not that, I didn’t have this option earlier but reading newspapers in the morning was a habit.
During my school days I used to be very weak in Languages. One day, my class teacher spoke to my father and asked him to subscribe for “The Statesman” and advised me to read the newspaper daily. Initially I avoided but my father kept forcing me to read. Finally I got into the habit of reading newspapers. Initially, I used to read only the sports pages and later moved to the front pages as well. Over a period of time, I became an avid reader and it reflected in my writing as well. I stopped making spelling mistakes and my marks improved. This habit continued and reading the newspaper along with a cup of tea became a part of my lifestyle.
Good or Bad I don’t know but over the last few weeks my life without newspapers didn’t seem any different. So the decision not to continue with the same.
What do you think? Are Newspapers required? How is it different in reading the same piece of information on your mobile device?

I was recently reading an article which said technology doesn’t always bridge the gap & that personal relationships suffer due to social distancing. I somehow don’t agree to this logic in totality.
If you are an able communicator then relationship thrives. I was not a person who used to meet the entire workforce in distributed offices before Covid-19 stuck. I generally left it to my colleagues to do the needful and had a more hands off approach. But this lockdown changed me. Its not that I am having Video Conference everyday – I have just kept it at the most 2 – 3 per week. But, what I have worked on is sending emails and keeping everyone in the loop. Something which I always thought was a must, got implemented due to the lockdown. Email communication worked like magic. After I started writing these emails, I realised what a big mistake I have been doing for so long by not communicating.
Communicate! Communicate! & If required Over Communicate! Thats the best success mantra for remote working.
The lockdown due to Covid-19 has actually helped me in rectifying my mistakes because I got the time to think over my mistakes & took necessary action!
How have you coped? Have you been communicating more during this lockdown period?

During our last college reunion in Bangalore, Mansoor Khan was the keynote speaker. There I heard him speak about “Third Curve”.
His speech was part of his theory from his book​, “The Third Curve”​. His theory is​,​ why we won’t see ​global​ financial growth for decades to come. The golden period of growth which started in 1750 hit the peak around 2007. The slowdown that started from 2008 will stretch to decades but ​G​overnments across the globe are trying to ​paint​ a different picture. Perpetual growth is only in books. Growth happens with resources & resources are like a belly curve & we are passed the top most point so we are in the shrinking zone & it will continue.
​As we get in terms to the black swan event of Covid-19, I wonder how prophetic Mansoor Khan was that day. Today growth across nations have fallen & it will take decades before we start rising again. We need to accept this reality. How we manage our finances will define the next generations’ future. People who always kept saving for this type of Black Swan event might be riding through this event comfortably. “Save for the unknown emergencies” is staring right at us today.
How are you placed? Did this Black Swan event​ effect you? How are you navigating it?

I ​was ​recently ​speaking to a friend in ​London​ and he told me that​ the​ UK government is paying a​ good​ amount to all citizens during LockDown. Wondering how it will motivate people ​in the long run doing no work​ and still getting paid?
For business​es asking their employees to work ​is backfir​ing​ because many employees are not giving so much importance​ to assigned work​ since the Government was already paying for doing no work.
The money doled out is huge. ​Just imagine, ​all employees of airline companies are being paid GBP 2500 per month till September. India is truly a po​or​ country! We are unable to even take care of the lower strata​ of the society​, forget the middle class.
Loans to ​Small Businesses in the UK are almost like grants with an interest rate about 1% ​& a moratorium of 12 months. No wonder all Small Businesses are opting for it. In India it’s so different! ​Here the banks say, “Pay up your EMIs as per schedule otherwise we won’t give you loans in the future.”
Is the UK model of paying and keeping everyone ​locked in, ​a better option or India is doing ​this ​better by telling her citizens that be “Atmanirbhar” (self sufficient) and adjust the lifestyle to “​L​ive with Corona”?
What do you think?

Infosys seems to be going flatter. The current 5 levels of hierarchy is being planned to be reduced to 2. This is being done to reduce time in decision making and to make the senior management more accessible.

I wonder why it took Covid-19 to make such a change when it’s a known fact that if you increase hierarchies then you, the senior management will lose access to the ground realities.

When Covid-19 stuck, I was lucky to join webinars where Mr. Murthy, Mr. Nilekani, Mr. Mohandas Pai were the keynote speakers. All have been speaking about reducing fixed costs to elongate survival. Mr. Pai being an EX-CFO was very clear about having cash in hand for 18 months. Hence, I am not surprised that Infosys as a company has decided to reduce their fixed costs because the Managers and above have the highest salaries and many of these positions are generally overlapping each other to some extent. So by removing these positions, not only the old culture of Infosys will be back but the company will also save a lot in salaries.

What does it say for the smaller companies? Remain leaner. Don’t get yourself top heavy. Don’t allow company culture to deteriorate in pursuit of growth. Remain accessible to employees. Have an open door policy.

Thoughts?

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