In early 2008, my co-founder Mahesh and I were attending the Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.
One of the sessions was conducted by this rather short, energetic man called Mark Pincus whose company was called Zynga.
The presentation was nice and I really liked the logo of Zynga (named after Mark Pincus’s dog) amongst other things.
Post the PPT, we were crowded out of the hall and got a chance to speak to Mark. He had actually heard of games2win and remembered our Monkey (chimpoo). That week, both Mahesh and I visited the Zynga office and even discussed sending them a couple of our games to launch on their network.
While nothing much happened between our Companies, as the months went by, we began to hear stories of the ‘micro payments’ and ‘virtual goods’ sales of Zynga. Some journal reported that in Texas Hold Em, Zynga had sold 1+ million dollar worth of ‘virtual beers’. Mafia Wars began to earn similar ‘millions’ in Virtual Goods sales etc.
In 2010, my investor Sumant Mandal told me that Zynga was doing over 1 million dollars a MONTH in virtual goods sales and that number was doubling almost every quarter.
All this while – I was hearing, seeing all this and even witnessing some real evidence of all these data points and YET very conveniently PACKING this entire business revolution into MENTAL CONTAINERS of my mind and SHIPPING them to what I call DENIAL COUNTRY.
Simply put, I was in a State of Denial.
I just didn’t want to believe that normal people like you and me would open up their wallets, take out their credit cards and then load them into a currency that was used to buy pink tractors and farming seeds.
I DON’T KNOW WHY I was in a state of denial, but I guess it was:
– Laziness in really doing serious research on this new revolution.
– A Mental BLOCK to believe in NEW things that sounded SUPER GOOD.
– Taking ‘myself’ out if the equation and believing that OTHERS could and would do what I DID NOT want to.
Circa 2011 – Zynga will list at 20 BILLION DOLLARS valuation with the credibility of having invented something of a new Steam Engine in the land of Gaming. Just Farmville alone is worth 5 BILLION dollars in my view.
So this post is dedicated to making YOU examine what you are in DENIAL OF…???
I am now regularly coming across folks who:
– DON’T believe that the Internet or New Media is a media and something here to stay!
– That E-COMMERCE really happens in India (the argument is that ‘Indians like to touch and feel’)
– That some people under 40 can earn 10 lacs a month if they are really talented
etc etc
My plea – DO NOT VISIT DENIAL COUNTRY
What you MUST DO:
– If there are even murmurs of things happening in your trade; business of work domain – CHECK THEM OUT. ASAP.
– If some things are too good to be true – MAY BE THEY ARE – do not toss your head and say ‘impossible’…
– Believe in BUSINESS MODEL MIRACLES. I mean what young people do today (example – buy fashion and shoes and dresses online) and their other actions will shock you.
Listen to the railway tracks and hear the train coming before it runs over you.
You should be ON THE TRAIN – NOT UNDERNEATH IT.
*****
Please share examples of what you may have experience in your line of work or profession that highlights DENIAL and the consequences…
Devgad Mango
Great read. How true is that! When I proposed I can sell myself directly at the price I dictated (justified by the quality) people around me were initially in the state of denial. They said this may not happen because I cannot work around the already set system of the mandi. So I cannot being in a new business model. Some gave the same argument, people like to touch and feel me before they take me home. I said, well, everything in this world is created twice. Once in someone’s mind and then in reality. If that has been created in my mind, half the work is already done. If well begun is half done, then half done means well begun. So let’s go ahead and do it. And it worked.
Farshid Master
Awesome….Once again STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT….
Aditya Babbar
Dear Alok, it takes a lot of balls to put your hand up and say that you were wrong with your judgement/you did not see it coming. Congratulations and Respect to you !
I read a few months back about your trip to CA and your visit to the VC office(I have to say a very tastefully done environment, it was) and how you put out your grandiose plans which garnered an interest to the extent of of it being termed as Preposterous. Obviously, you left Denial country before that and thus your mind was in overdrive.
There are some great examples of not following status quo/the norm and you end up being in a phenomenal position, simply because you followed your gut.
Examples include –
Real Estate – Oberoi Realty
Hospitality – Lemon Tree
Airlines – Indigo
Public Transport – Delhi Metro
Telecom – Airtel
Vernacular News Channels
Mobile Phones – Micromax
E-Commerce – Flipkart & Fashion&You
What clearly emerges is that for everyone who has been labelled as the non-conformists in the herd, have looked at the Pyramid slightly differently. The concept of Value-Propositions was re-engineered and the rules book went out of the window. Some of these stories, have been due to organic growth and others, the proverbial tangential thought process.
I had a few demons which I silenced too after my early days of setting up this venture. The initial effort was to setup the Payment Platform using the proverbial simple, tried-and-tested route, and nothing came out of it. It was the easy sell, partly denial, partly ‘not wanting to step out of the comfort zone’, partly naive or too rigid a thought process. Even dismissive at times.
I fell, flat on my face, with nearly giving it all up. Then I remember reading this –
girte hain sheh-sawaar hi maidaan-e-jang mein,
woh tifl kya girenge jo ghutnon ke bal chale.
I remember crossing out Utility Payments on my Diary and rewriting Electronic Payments. A clean start and a clean slate. The emphasis on empowering the bottom of the pyramid. Its been better that way.
Ashok Pundit
Very much true.
Dev
“DONT believe that the Internet or New Media is a media and something here to stay”
I still meet people telling the globe is a box / is flat.This are illiturate or there perceptions bordered; – Box thinkers.
ramesh, ramakrishnan iyer
many good ideas here – and it is a wake up call – nice post AT.
Pradeep Chaudhary
Awesome post Alok. At times we tend to ignore the fact. Appreciate you shared your learning.
Ashwin C Parulkar
good post , Human grief response have common
DENIAL,ANGER,BARGAINING,DEPRESSION ACCEPTANCE
If you stirke with DENIAL-its better to reverse the order and start with ACCEPTANCE, so to avoid the rest of the ones.