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Anupam Bakshi of Agnisys - In Hindi, there is a word for “doing more with less”, it is called “Jugar”. This article is a “How-to from the trenches” for running a company in today’s tough economy. We’ll give examples of how this strategy of “Jugar” has worked for us. Here is the ordered list of things to do:
- Be agile
- Conserve cash
- Invest in smart people
- Invest in processes
- Use no-cost resources
- Keep fit
- Enable others to do more with less!
Be agile: Agility in what you create and how you deliver it to your customers. For example, we started out creating an OpenOffice utility that our users would use to create register specification and generate all derived outputs from it. To our surprise, people wanted MS Word even though OpenOffice was supported on all platforms and made logical sense. Needless to say, we had to quickly hire, retrain and implement a MS Word plugin for our customers. Keeping Agile for us means, creating products that are architecturally sound and letting the user guide us as to what features are implemented. This enables us to keep a small team size and maintain low working costs.
Conserve cash: Many a startups don’t run out of ideas, but run out of cash and go belly up. To avoid that fate, each dollar must go a long way. Be frugal and cost conscious. However, to use a cliché - don’t be penny wise and pound foolish, read the next two points.
Invest in smart people: Smart team players can be the difference between success and failure. In our case, we try to constantly recruit and retain smart individuals who are adaptable and can learn fast. If a mistake is made, the sooner it is fixed the better.
Invest in processes: Investment in good processes payback several folds. We are reminded of the importance of processes whenever we have tried to take a shortcut in the interest of some other pressing requirement! So our advice is, invest in good internal and external (customer facing) processes.
Use no-cost resources: Most large EDA companies have partner programs that encourage use of their tools and technology. In addition to using their tools for development, they provide help with joint marketing activities. We are grateful to Mentor Graphics for inducting us in their Questa Vanguard Program and offering several opportunities to contribute to their print and online media. We have now partnered with 8-9 other EDA/IT companies. Synopsys, Altera, Xilinx offer access to tools and other resources. Sun sent us a powerful server blade at no cost. Microsoft’s Bizspark program gave us access to most of their software! Adobe, which normally charges for companies wanting to join their partner program gave us tools free of charge.
Keep fit: You might be surprised to see this point being here. However, it is important to keep physically and mentally fit in order to continue on a frugal path for an extended period of time. We have found Yog and Pranayam (breath control) to be highly effective. They are themselves great examples of high return on investment, keep you motivated and driven despite heavy odds.
Enable others to do more with less: Lastly if you want to do more with less, enable others to do the same! Xuropa has done it. We are enabling our customers to use a simple editor to generate register code for Chips.
We feel not being frugal is being wasteful, and no one can afford that in this economy, especially startups.
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