When Entrepreneur Tota met VC Tota (thanks to Vodafone)

I assume you’ve seen the latest ads of Vodafone:

Well, I decided to rethink the ad:

So, Thank you Vodafone for the new ads!

I’m happy you figured out that business folks are Totas (parrots!!!)

This is what happened in this ad:

Entrepreneur Tota (ET) wore his best suit bought on an e-commerce site at 98.75% discount. (the site is doing much better now. It’s only losing 32 crores per month currently).

ET wore a shirt bought from another e-commerce site that is unfortunately now buried in Ghansoli graveyard. The shirt bleeds color, but the entrepreneur lives with it.

That’s because Entrepreneurs adjust to what life serves them.

Now, ET has a business idea for creating a Big Data Company in the Cloud. The Company will feed on social data of e-commerce consumer chatter and predict which business will stay alive and which will go bust.

VC Tota (VCT) received the ‘executive pitch’ on e-mail from ET and agreed to meet him. FYI, VCT is a graduate of Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Wharton and Sydenham College. He was doing a double degree in IIT and IIM before he got an offer to join a VC firm that agreed to pay him 16.97 crores per annum in salary.

VCT accepted the offer grudgingly.

The salary comes to some use at least. VCT likes to dress well and usually combines three brands when he dresses. For this meeting, he is wearing Canali, Gucci and probably Armani.

VCT goes to the meeting with his legendary ‘Money Bag’. He has a cheque book inside it. That cheque book has the power to make a Man become a God.

ET greets VCT and pitches him the business. This is their conversation:

ET: “Big data is big business. It’s the next big business after big commerce.”

VCT: “What’s Big Commerce?”

ET: “Oh, it’s e-commerce gone BIG. When all the e-commerce firms failed in round 1, they received 35x more funding from their investors and became Big Commerce.”

VCT: “Oh, I see. Thanks for the inside info. Hmmm… I wonder why I didn’t read that on TechCrunch….”

ET: “So, big data is taking big information from the big web and big social and making big predictions. It’s a big business…”

VCT: “So, what do you want from me??”

ET: “Errr… Big Money??”

VCT: “Do you have big graphs, big excel and big PPTs to support the idea??”

ET: “Of course! And best of all, I have a BIG advertising plan that when executed will make a Big brand out of anything…”

VCT: “Wow! Sounds good! And then what will happen??”

ET: “The usual! We will get a Big exit from a Big IPO or a Big M&A.”

VCT: “Cool! Let me send you a term sheet and then plan for a Big party!!”

ET: “Yeah – send the term sheet through Vodafone – they have big data pipes that travel even faster than their call drops. That will make sure we sign ASAP.”

VCT: “I like entrepreneurs who use ASAP. Can we call the Company ASAP???”

ET: “Throw in 2 million dollars more = we have a deal! Thanks for helping start up ASAP!!”

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 This is a pure ‘vela’ Holi Day rant. No offence intended. If you still take offence, be my guest!!

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