The Plunge!

Remember the humble old Toyota Qualis? Well have you ever wondered why Toyota must have pulled the plug on Qualis production at a time when it was selling like hot cakes and was at the peak of its sales and also had established its leadership in the segment? Well after ten years since this happened, we all now know the answer. For the greater good!! However, I will suffice this towards the end of the post.

I have been an avid automotive enthusiast all my life but in contrary right now my gig is in the software industry. Strangely for a petrol head like me I am gradually falling in love with information technology. I constantly look for new innovative technologies try understanding their purpose and try deriving a business sense out of it . Smartmonk Innovations happened roughly a year ago – we are a team of three tough, smart and an illustriously super cool bunch you will never ever come across in the management cabins.  We are a data analytics and a business intelligence company and have been offering bespoke services to clients both large and small.

We have been doing fairly well and had grand plans of scaling up in the next couple of years and little did we know that somehow our focus had been gradually moving towards building a product. A couple of months ago I had read somewhere in a startup magazine that this situation we right now face is a classic product – service dilemma that many technology companies face. It also had listed out the following three cases to further explain the dilemma.

• The startup runs for years to come as a services company
• The core team wants to build a product and then focuses on both, the services as well as product.
• The company stops services and focuses completely on the product.

The above cases listed out by the magazine couldn’t be more precise and how. We have absolutely experienced each of those situations. We believe we now absolutely understand the uncertainties, the unpredictability, the chances, the fickleness, the market and most importantly the business as a whole. We now are at the later stage in the situations listed, ‘TO STOP SERVICES AND COMPLETELY FOCUS ON THE PRODUCT’ –  the decision has surprised one and all and more importantly our beloved resources who have had great trust and supported us throughout.

It is kind of weird when we forward a potential lead to a competitor (whom we now call partners) or to say ‘we are not accepting projects anymore’.  This phase now has its own set of challenges. Firstly, an outright end to the regular inflow of funds into the company, which in-turn means there’s not going to be a penny in your pocket from day one. Though downsized the few resources and team who still have stuck to us have to be paid every month no matter what and I am at a fork as I write this, I still do not have an answer to their question, which is a simple ‘how’?

It was a risk we were willing to take. That is how much we trust our product, the experience in building a product and seeing it take shape with every line of code you write is enthralling. Nothing else comes to your mind, your social, financial or even personal sacrifices are rewarded righteously through the output. This I promise!

We are calling our product ‘4c’ as in foresee. An engine that is in the making and is bound to make analytics super affordable when unleashed. I shall keep you all posted with our core development updates and the real time challenges through my next posts.

Oh by the way before I end this, a question that lingered on many keen business observers’ minds when Toyota stopped production of their hot selling MUV at a time when it was doing extremely well in the market, was ‘why would Toyota do that?’. Well to make way for a more modern and customer-value driven vehicle. A vehicle that could better its predecessor in every way.  We all know how the Innova has reshaped the market and how amazingly and astonishingly right the top bosses at Toyota were, back then in 2005.  

Though not very similar to our business case, this somehow kept springing up in my head from the time I started writing this post. 

Good Day!

@preddy555