Vijay Basrur

Airtel Mobile Recharges

You won’t believe this.

Service charge for a Rs. 225 top up on a pre-paid Airtel connection is “Rs.0″ (zilch)
Service charge for a Rs. 250 top up on a pre-paid Airtel connection is “Rs. 195″ (80%)

You can read that again.

Alok Mittal has the entire dope here

Rage Against The Machine

RATM is still a band. I haven’t heard their music, just the name was amusing enough to remember.

We are seeing a different kind of rage in Mumbai. The MNS folks are expressing their rage against non Maharastrians in Maharastra. So much so they created havoc at the Railway Board examination centers where folks from all over the country had come together to give their exams. Their rage was enough to even kill a young boy.

I think even a 2nd Std kid will tell you that the what’s going on is not right but the point is who is listening anyway? Atleast no one from the MNS. While no one is listening, a lot of folks are speaking.

Mahesh Vijapurkar has an interesting article on Rediff and points us to Raj Thackeray’s erstwhile effort, The Shiv Udyog Sena, whose mission is listed “As a Social Commitment Shiv Udyog Sena has been formed to create jobs and develop enterpreneurial opportunities for Sons of Soil.” Wonder what happened to that school of thought.

And while people speak, Raj’s wife says Shame Shame Shame to the fact that Maharastra Govt arrested her husband. The question is Shame on whom? I am sure for the logical brain, the answer is loud and clear

Markets are going downhill

I am just wondering how much more downhill will it go? My colleague is quite bullish on the bounce back. Only time will tell if the bounce back will happen sooner or later.

I bought a few Ranbaxy today and they bounced back pretty well today.

Blood on the dance floor

Well not exactly the Micheal Jackson song but it is blood on the stock markets all over. Its scary how deep the sub prime crisis has been and the impact it has had on global markets has been devastating to say the least.

My personal portfolio has been wiped out by over 45% and it is easy to panic. I dived into the markets thrice. Once when the Sensex was at 14000, then at 20500 and then again at 14500. Since now we are down to 12500 the math is very simple to arrive at how much I am in the red.

This morning, while driving to office I was chatting with my colleague (in these tough times it makes a lot of sense to car pool) and he was advocating to jump out right now since there are rumours the market will go to 9000 levels. Will it? Who knows? But its difficult to jump out right now. My logic is how much more will it hurt? Not much considering I am already 45% down. But I think I come from a school of thought, which a lot of folks still advocate, which is invest for the long term. But looking at the market conditions the long term is getting longer than ever.

So I guess it boils down to the fact that in these tough times if you want to make your money grow, you will have to work harder at doing so. You will have to be glued to the screen for a decent part of your day and keep monitoring your portfolio. Junk whats not adding value and load up the ones which are looking good. But then if you start doing it you might end up getting sucked into it. So what do we do?

As for me I think the first thing is to reduce expectations from the stock market. I don’t think it will give huge returns for quite a few years. Deep wounds take a while to heal. The fall to 12500 (or maybe even lower) will take a long time to recoup. Second is to keep looking for value buys and reduce the size of investment into the market. Don’t expose yourself to more than what you can afford to lose. Be it 2000 bucks or be it 50000. This way you won’t feel bad. Third don’t go on hearsay. Fourth is to look for investments in businesses you understand. When the markets were at 20500 I invested in Jhagadia Copper based on a tip without having a clue on what they do. My investment has tanked so badly that I have written it off. Fifth is to keeping nibbling at the SIP. I think it makes a lot more sense now due to volatility. And lastly before this ends up being a long list, remember that cash is king. Use FD’s or RD’s to beat the inflation impact on your cash. After all if the market does go to 9000 you’d be grinning if you have a decent bank balance to dive into the market

PS: This is only 2 cents on how to go about it. Considering my track records I am no expert but hindsight usually has lot to offer for the future.

Fight inflation, get a membership at Metro cash and carry

I managed to check out Metro Cash and Carry last weekend. I was impressed by the savings it offers but was surprised by the minimum purchase you have to make each time. Well after all it is not for the end consumers like you and me.

The cash and carry concept is pretty simple. You come, purchase in bulk, pay in cash and then carry it out. No free bags here! The minimum purchase value should be 1000 bucks. Some of the stuff needs to bought in bulk. Ex: Biscuits can be picked only in packs of 5. So you may end up with more biscuits than you want unless you plan to sell them to someone else.

To simply put, it is a wholesaler for a retailer. But one look at the prices and it makes you wonder how much “margins” the middle man makes. A Tropicana juice carton costs 75 bucks in any shop. At Metro it sells for 59 bucks leaving the retailer to make nearly 15 bucks (20%) on a 75 bucks item. That’s whopping! I picked up Diapers (what else!) and saved 20% again. Pampers pack of 28 which retails for 275 is available for 225. I was happy

While Metro may be a good thing for retailers since it probably puts any other middlemen out of the value chain, it is no saving grace for consumers who shop elsewhere. Retailers buying from Metro are not goig to sell you stuff for any cheaper. Even a Hyper mart such as Shoprite offers Tropicana for 73 bucks, I think.  This whole distribution seems to be a controlled “cartel like” business value chain allowing retailers to make decent profits squeezing the last bit from the consumer.

So if you live on the Central side (since Metro is located at Bhandup, they have one opening at Borivili in about an years time) you should network with someone who has a Metro card and go get your monthly shopping from Metro.

Diaper Technology

The one thing we consume the baby uses the most is diapers. We aren’t too happy about her being in it most of the day, but the fact remains that she sleeps really well in them. More so thanks to the rainy season

So I was mighty impressed with this article on the amount of research that goes into making the diaper better and better. Kimberly Clark seems to be doing quite a bit of research for their brand, Huggies. I am sure P&G has theirs going for Pampers as well.

We are big fans of Pampers!

Hiring

Hiring good people is probably the most toughest task for any organization, especially a startup. Ironically folks are still weary about coming on board startups even if the startup is well funded.

We have been trying to hire folks over the past 3-4 months and its been tough. We’ve tried quite a few options (LinkedIn, consultants, job sites, databases, friends, networks and the works). while we have made some progress on some of these fronts, the overall progress has been slow.

I’ve spoken to a few folks in Tier 1 IT firms and I get a general feeling that most folks in these firms have totally de-risked their careers. No appetite or hunger to take on a challenge. The only factor most care about is the money.

While its a personal choice of being a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond, it is proven that startups teach you much more than conventional large organizations, atleast I’ve experienced it first hand and can vouch for it.

As far as job security goes, I don’t think large firms offer very high security. After all don’t the Oracle’s, Yahoo’s of the world handout pink slips when the going gets tough. Yeah sure even if they do, they usually dole out decent severance packages but that’s another story. So I guess it boils down to the fear of unknown. There is little unknown in large firms. Everything is standardised and you just get down to doing your well defined job.

In startups it is a different story. There are very thin lines about job descriptions and if the situation so demands you gotta be ready to do whatever it takes. Right from lifting furniture to pitching in for a high level presentation. I have a nudging feeling that job satisfaction levels are higher at startups than large firms.

So what do you prefer, job satisfaction or a role predictability?