Been about 6 months that I have been working in India, have had the opportunity to meet various VP's, CEO/COO etc over this time frame. Office in Bangalore is working, map collection and enhancement is going great. Mapmyindia is going to get a new avatar. Now focus is on Navigation Device, which is working. Heck I am even using it to go places.
What are my learnings for the last 6 months -
1. Do not believe anything you hear unless until you physically verify the same.
2. Way too many employees grand mothers have died, specially when they go for other interviews.
3. Kids adjust to new environments faster than you can imagine and they pick up new languages very fast (Heck the little boy is speaking Kannada words) :)
4. Weather rocks in Bangalore, cooler than almost all cities in India, do not need fan or air conditionining, like the Bay area.
5. Sales cycles are long but it does come around, persistance pays.
6. India needs MANY more movie theaters.
7. Most of the folks are many times more tech savvy than the US.
8. Electricity comes and goes :)
So now that I am all set, and functioning, I am going to focus on opening new offices in Bombay, Kolkatta, Hyderabad and Chennai. Hopefully some of these will open up by mid of next year, (bombay for sure).
Building a travel guide, planning on visiting Mysore this weekend, so looking forward to that. Have learned to manage churn in employees and staff (11 people have quit out of 20), 2 maids have quit, 2 drivers have quit, but heck now I do not get stressed out, as I have figured out how to replace one with the next (Great Learning). Ask for advise, if you so desire. India is a hard place to do business but there is truck loads of money to go around, only have to figure out how to collect the same.
Cheers,
Shiva
