Some thoughts on founding and Bollywood

Two things have been on my mind. First, I attended two founders events yesterday and wanted to share what I learned. Second, I’ve seen four Bollywood movies over the past week or so that varied grossly in quality and wanted to figure out if I could articulate the good from the bad.

1. The Founders Events

Lesson 1: Youth is usually a disadvantage. Usually. But over 4-5 demos, the companies led by younger co-founders just had a better, relatable vibe. They seemed more “with it,” more “cocky”/ confident (in a good way). Older presenters seemed more defensive. Laundry Puppy, a service that allows for defined delivery and pick up of your dry cleaning and laundry, was demoed by a self-deprecating Jewish millennial who said that his mother had left him unprepared to do his laundry! Oh, and he loves puppies, so when you sign up, you’ll get a picture of a puppy.

Lesson 2: Sometimes the trending solution is not the right one. Laundry Puppy said they had started out as an app but soon found that figuring out laundry pick up and delivery was more of a conversation, so they switched to a text messaging service. They are working to automate 80% of the text-backs based on natural language learning. Reminds me of Coffee Meets Bagel. Before, when you matched with someone, you would get a dedicated texting line outside of the app, which I think led to more live meet ups! By moving the chat feature within the native app (I’m looking at you, Hinge!), meet ups are less likely to occur for many because you don’t visit the app frequently enough!

Lesson 3: Sometimes the most obvious geographic target is not the right one. With a Seamless culture, New Yorkers are spoiled when it comes to delivery of “anything they want.” Many dry cleaners already have dedicated staff that do delivery on demand. So Laundry Puppy started targeting other cities, such as Washington, DC, which had terrible or non-existent laundry delivery service.

Lesson 4: There is power in an idea vs. the sexy demo. Some of the biggest startup ideas right now are taking advantage of the sharing economy movement. Skillbridge.co connects consultants and ex-consultants who have free time (jokes!) with one-off projects. Hey you, fellow consultants! This means we can take time off work and have some guaranteed revenue (just kidding). When Stephen Morse of Skillbridge.co presented, the VC associates had few hard-hitting questions. “This is a great idea,” they all prefaced.

Lesson 5: There is a balance between youth and experience. VCs love teams that have spent YEARS in the field in which they are launching a product. Renee Park of High Peak Ventures said, “New founders are often former employees of successful companies.” Two women demoed Teller, which allows groups of friends to share pictures and texts within a group feed and thus “tell a story together.” They had spent 10 years in advertising. That said, another way to highlight expertise on the team when the co-founders don’t have it all is to enlist advisers who can fill in gaps!

Lesson 6: Even if you can bootstrap an amazing product, think far enough ahead in your roadmap so that you are ALWAYS ahead of competition (this is pretty obvious but something that needs to be proved out to any funder as well), who can and will move fast once you’re out. So yes, tell everyone about your idea, but maybe don’t share the details :-)

Lesson 7: A list. Traits a successful founder should have (as related by Joy Marcus!):

A successful founder:

1. Is tech smart (not the same as technically smart)
2. Is analytical (KNOW the data!)
3. Is business smart
4. Understands the triangle of tech, product, business
5. Is super competitive
6. Is a power user of her own product!
7. Is user smart
8. Is a powerhouse of new ideas (doesn’t just regurgitate old ones or apply new ones to old structures but GENUINELY new ideas! — think Zero to One)
9. Is curious (“She doesn’t know everything and knows it”)
10. Is risk-taking
11. Is thorough, complete (“she checks all her numbers!”)
12. IS COMMUNICATIVE! ☺

Lesson 8: You will learn more from the ‘nos’ than the ‘yeses’ — more about the product, the idea, yourself, and more. So embrace that.

Lesson 9: VC firms are known to invest in a certain “type” of company. Sometimes, however, it seems like they are investing in exceptions. But as Elodie Dupuy eloquently said, “We have the ability to recognize patterns.” So it’s hard to understand the exceptions when you don’t understand the patterns VCs are seeing!

Lesson 10: Counterintuitive, but companies should be taking money during times of success, when they think they don’t need it. If, down the line, they struggle, VC firms may be less willing to listen or will open up their pursestrings on less favorable terms. Build relationships when you don’t need the money! This goes back to dating 101: It’s better when there’s no blush of desperation on either end.

Lesson 11: Pay attention to your service providers, you new company! Sometimes, it is the third-party legal, HR, marketing, etc. service providers who are giving VC firms tips or suggestions based on their experience working with you!

Lesson 12: To keep yourself honest, and to keep friends / funders in the loop, hold yourself to the Sunday e-mail update, said
Kegan Schouwenburg, founder of SOLS (3d printing orthotics!). Great advice (reminds us consultants of best practice end of week e-mails for our project managers!).

2. Bollywood

I saw four movies recently: Ek Villain, Student of the Year, Gunday, and Hasee Toh Phasee.

If you watch Hindi cinema, you’ll recognize that three of the four feature Siddharth Malhotra, one of the few new actors in Bollywood who is not related to a prior actor, director, or any other industry insider (quite refreshing!).

Though he didn’t deliver, unsurprisingly, a Filmfare-worthy performance in his debut (Student of the Year), Malhotra’s on-screen naturalness in his many avatars in Hasee Toh Phasee and Ek Villain is remarkable. The subtle smiles, the earnestness — it’s all there. Not to mention his killer body (which has become a requisite for all actors and actresses, it seems). I’m excited to see him grow and challenge himself. And maybe, yes, would be great to see him in a film with Deepika while we’re at it!

I was most disappointed by Gunday and most excited about Hasee Toh Phasee. So what gives? I was recently talking to a McKinsey alum who said that he loves watching films that are bad to figure out where things went wrong. Could someone have pulled the plug earlier? Could anything have been reclaimed?

So far, one trend I’ve observed is the value of an amazing soundtrack. One of the main reasons I wanted to see Ek Villain so badly was because each one of its 6 songs were so heart-achingly beautiful. I knew Hasee Toh Phasee had come out but I didn’t want to start watching it until I had seen Siddharth Malhotra’s other two!

Hasee Toh Phasee

Synopsis: Nikhil and Meeta are known to create trouble within their respective homes. Young Nikhil convinces the babysitter his cop father has assigned to watch him, a lower-ranking cop, that his father has diabetes and forgot his medication, allowing Nikhil to sneak out and watch a Bollywood film. Young Meeta uses a rope to ingeniously lock up her apartment from the outside. Later in life, Nikhil ends up in a seven-year relationship, engaged to a gorgeous actress who threatens to break up with him all the time and calls him a “loser.” Nikhil, for being such a prankster, reveals he doesn’t break up with girls and stays committed. He does what it takes to keep his girlfriend, then fiancee, happy, even if he has yet to be successful in his own “catering” profession. Meeta, during this time, runs away from home (to China!) when she is denied money from her uncle to pursue her research dreams. She returns (7 years later) on the pretext of her sister’s wedding to steal money from her father to continue funding her lab. Of course, her sister is the gorgeous actress Nikhil has been dating. As Nikhil works to hide Meeta while she is visiting (he promises his fiancee!) so that she doesn’t give her father another heart attack like when she last left, he and Meeta fall in love (of course!). The problem isn’t that the characters don’t realize they’re in love — the problem is that Nikhil does not break up with women and would never want to deceive his fiancee (Meeta is too logical to care about this.)

What works: The dialogues are earthy, the scenes are realistic, and the mother-son, father-daughter relationships are well articulated. The wedding party characters are reminiscent of almost all other Indian weddings (in a good way!). The scenes between Nikhil and Meeta are adorable — involving hugs, stops for street-side snacks in the rain, and favors — and are thankfully stripped of the cloying romantic elements many rom-coms have.

What doesn’t: A few logical loopholes. This is quite common in Bollywood so they seem completely excusable and don’t detract from the happiness we feel watching the film. Why does Nikhil work so hard to maintain this relationship with a girl we see no romantic scenes with? What keeps their chemistry going? What do he and his fiancee talk about? (And where are these men in my life?) Meeta as a character is overwhelming in the beginning — (spoiler alert!) a person on antidepressants does not act like that. And why does she steal small items when she says she only steals what’s rightfully hers?

Gunday — Watch only for Irfan and Priyanka!

Synopsis: Bala and Bikram are two orphans who survive the division of Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971 by entering into illegal business. They are forced to smuggle themselves to Calcutta and become local dons by increasingly controlling more black market businesses. They both fall in love with the same gal, Nandita (played by Priyanka Chopra), who miraculously manages to rip them apart by professing her love to Bikram (and not Bala). Bala and Bikram eventually realize that this is all part of a plot by police officer Sarkar (played by Irfan Khan) and that, yet again, the “system” has failed them. (This was a common theme in several 60s and 70s Amitabh Bachchan films, which created empathy for the “dons” while critiquing the existing systems of law.) (Spoiler ALERT!) As expected, since they have still “sinned,” Bala and Bikram meet their deserved ends but, before they do, they reunite once again to fight the system.

What works: Priyanka looks sexy and toned. Irfan Khan delivers his dialogues flawlessly. Some of the songs are catchy. And…that’s about it.

What doesn’t: Rather than a few logical loopholes, there are major problems with production quality. Most of Gunday does not look nor feel like 1970s Calcutta. Bala and Bikram are driven apart by a woman they haven’t even really known! And the movie does a terrible job of keeping the suspense up by showing a gratuitous scene with police officer Sarkar and Nandita before she reveals herself to Bikram.