Situation:
2003 – Post dot com bust.
My co-founder GK (Gopala Krishnan) and I had launched a mobile business called mobile2win in China and India and were gaining solid traction. We had been awarded the Indian Idol business by Sony India and also were getting business in China from China Mobile and China Unicom etc.
However, there was no cash to grow. It was always a hand to mouth experience. The business needed a strong cash injection and VC’s were the guys whom we both knew so well, and could surely help us.
The VC’s were broke. They were so bruised by the dot com crash that they just wouldn’t meet anyone. Some of them were bankrupt (like our VC in contests2win.com – a firm called Eventures India)
I remember distinctly sitting in our dark conference room and brooding, when GK looked at a large poster of logo’s of brands we used to work with – it was always in our conference room as a testament of our partnerships.
I remember GK’s eyes gleaming when he looked at the logo’s and said ‘Alok – we have been meeting the wrong folks. Our VC’s are our clients – Not anyone else. You need to double up your efforts by getting business from clients. Stop wasting time chasing VC’s and get the business funded by business cash flow – not investments. Investments will never happen now. Business will always happen’
We did exactly that and grew the business to comfortably raise VC much later.
In 2006, mobile2win was acquired by Walt Disney in China and mobile2win became the best deal in my life.
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Very few people get it right, instead of solely focussing on raising venture capital they should get more clients and provide good service.
Very true indeed, especially for the people starting up. Its important to build a sustainable revenue stream and go to VCs afterwards.
eVentures was’nt bankrupt! Your earlier post too had incorrect information regarding the nature of how the initial investment in C2W got done.
All of us have grown up a little, have’nt we? Now exhibit a little of that maturity with some grace!
Rajesh, thanks for the quote. Just so that there is reference to anyone reading this, Rajesh Jog was one of the partners of Eventures.
I reply, I dont know any other way to describe what happened to Eventures! All you guys left, the office closed down, new investments stopped happening, there was no body left except Sandeep Singhal to ‘administer’ the company. You were not able to receive any new funding from your partners and to the best of my knowledge, the mandate was to clean up the slate asap. So if you dont want to call it bankruptcy, I am fine with anything else you want to call it.
As far as c2w funding goes, I think I know what happened to my company best! After series A (the seed), you guys and ICICI invested an ‘on account’ round that got converted into series B. However, this is not what I refer to. Post 2001, we were starving and since EVI didnt ‘exist’, ICICI was the only avenue left. Its during this period that I did many rounds amongst VC’s…
Rajesh, the truth is bitter and that’s the purpose of this blog. Its meant to let people understand what happens and how really harsh times can mold a person forever!
Truth is bittersweet! Depends on how you want to see things….
I had the good fortune of sharing a stage once with Kamran Elahian of General Catalyst Partners once whose presentation was all about ‘celebrating failure’. There was great wisdom there and I ‘d encourage you to think about this somewhat.
Anyways, you still remain my favourite entrepreneur for many reasons that I think I’ve articulated to you personally and in many public forums…
All the very best to you and all who try. In many ways, success is the management of failure.
RJ
Interesting thoughts, and interesting discussions. So much of a deja vu
Why did I not discover this blog earlier? I only read rodinhood… !
Carry on, Alok.. !