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It’s been a month since I wrote the last column. You know, the one where I said I am going to start up and all. Yes, it was not a joke. This is for real, comrades, pretty or not.

Admittedly, many of the people who wrote in and gave us feedback found it a worthwhile exercise. I am guessing it is not only because they might learn a bit about being an entrepreneur up close, but also for the sheer pleasure of watching a writer going down splat on his face. Then there is also a segment of our readership that would love to see me go down splat on my face, but because they find this exercise a bit pretentious and more of a page filler.

To them, I have this to say. No, the editor refuses to increase the page count for my column. There is only that much of ranting he can take from me and that threshold is very, very low. Secondly, with reference to going down splat on my face, I have this to say—been there, done that.

Not many people know (and not many in my team do, either) that there was a time that I tried my hand at starting up. About five-odd years ago, I was at an organization that, by virtue of the work it did, had a presence in about 70 offices in Mumbai, most of them seating more than 500 employees. A sizeable number of them also seated more than 2,000 employees. At that time, I was in the organization’s non-core business, writing for a couple of financial magazines they had been sub-contracted with. I didn’t like it much there. That and a bit of boredom took me to exploring what else could I do at that organization or outside of it.

The idea came about pretty quick and it had to do with movie ticketing. I figured that with the presence that the organization had in these offices, and the 50,000 white-collared employees they housed, there was an opportunity in movie ticketing. The core idea was to give the employees the ability to book the movie tickets with my company’s guy in their office.

All I had to do was to make a bridge between the cinema and the cinema-goer and the foundations were already there for it. I thought of a backchannel where either we had access to the cinema’s reservation system or the ability to confirm reservations via phone with them. I also believed that the cinemas would go gaga over the opportunity to be able to reach such a white collar base. Money, I believed could be made through revenue-sharing—the cinema could part with about Rs.10 from every ticket made via us, and us charging a yearly flat fee.

I had these figures running through my head in terms of what it could mean in revenue. Crazy, heady stuff I tell you, considering the base of 50,000 was also bound to grow as the company’s clientele grew. I figured we could ramp up the number by almost 100 percent month-on-month within the first year itself.
I informed the bosses of the plan and sure enough, they were suitably excited, too. We could do this also, that also, this also…you know how it is in an overtly excited meeting room. The green light was given, time was allocated, the concerned were informed, and round one of my entrepreneurial bout began. I was aiming for a knockout.

It came. Alas, I took the punch in my face. It was more a slap actually, as it went in a little deeper than the flesh. From day one, I was made to realize how fools rush in. Many things went wrong. First up, the marketing and ticketing people at the cinemas made me see the kid I was. Everyone liked the idea, but none were ready to commit. Some weren’t ready to share the ticket price. Others wanted exclusivity. Many didn’t agree to the flat fee. Others wanted to see numbers before payment.

All of this showed how low on good, beforehand research I was. For example, I had no idea about the margins movie halls made on their tickets, yet I was asking them to share profits. One kind soul at (then) Adlabs Cinemas sat down with me after a meeting to explain what the components of ticket pricing was. It was an eye opener.

As the meetings grew with no results, I started lacking interest in it. The endless numbers of meetings finishing with ‘we will come back to you’ were taking their toll. I was more than sure that half of them were keeping me hanging just because I was 22 years old and they didn’t think I could pull it off. For others, I believed it was a lack of conviction in my abilities stemming from the naïve, un-researched first pitch I had made.

But the biggest letdowns in this whole deal were the bosses. While they were genuinely good people, they probably rushed me, and as a result, led me away from my idea. They wanted quick results. When the first few meetings were less than successful, they suddenly wanted an entire business plan from me. I didn’t know then what the heck that was. They wanted to see revenue estimates and possible cash flow scenarios. I didn’t know what the heck they were either.

There were meetings and more meetings. It was claustrophobic. And to top it, I would have remained an employee there. There were no indications from them that I could get a better deal if my idea took off. I would have remained in my current position. And I was thinking of a spin off. That probably got my goat as much as the lack of patience, space and my own inabilities. It wasn’t long before I left the organization itself. And the idea with me.

‘Red Carpet’, as the service would have been called, sits on my hard drive till today in a folder called ‘Off the Job.’ As it turned out, the organization did not follow up on my idea after that, though I did get a few calls asking for my ppts and plans from my ex-colleagues. In hindsight, I am sure they are now as glad as I am that that service never went operational. The damn internet booking websites would have beaten it blue and black.

Nevertheless, Red Carpet holds a valued place in my life. It was the first time that I tried to build something. That experience is priceless. I learned much about myself. I also learned a lot more about people in the world of business—more than I have learned in my few years of business writing. It was a failure, but more in cause than in effect. And thanks to it, I am better prepared for Round Two.

©Entrepreneur November 2010

Tags:
Ankush Chibber, startup