Starting an online shop is easy, but should you?

Because of my long association with the On-line world for nearly a decade and a half, I have come across many different people, clients, vendors, friends and strangers, who think that setting up an online business is like setting up a shop on an upmarket street or CBD. The truth is you are really far from it.

With the current on-line shops raising funds in millions and billions every other day, everybody is eying a share in the market. Flipkart, SnapDeal, Myntra, BigBasket are all raking in money left-right-and-center, albeit from VCs and not profits. Online makes it look easy to go from zero to hero in just a few years. It's a snap from the outside, but a trap from the inside. Most of the entrepreneurs trying to jump onto the bandwagon have all their basics wrong. My view is the Online Shop or eCommerce Stores are the eCom bubble right now, just as in the dot-com bubble that we saw during 1997 - 2000.

A whole bunch of these online shops are already online, a few dozens are joining everyday, soon you will have hundreds and thousands. By 2017 - 2018 we will see all that collapse or consolidate to the survivors. This is when the separation of sheep from the goats, or wheat from the chaff, or men from the boys will happen. Understanding this, if you still think you have a great idea and a good value proposition that will sell, you will have to consider these questions.

So "What does it take to setup a successful on-line shop?"

Well, for one the, the question itself is flawed. What you should be asking is "What does it take to run a successful online shop?", for setting up an eCommerce website is easy, but running it successfully is another ball game altogether.

Firstly, you need to understand that this is a valuation game. You are not going to be profitable for atleast 5 years, many would probably be loosing money even after 8-10 years. As is the case in many of these online poster boys, i.e. FlipKart, SnapDeal, etc., So be ready to pump in money, sell yourself to Angel Investors, then to Private Equity and then VCs and then to the general public themselves.

That apart, if you are still keen on starting a venture, consider these fundamentals;

1. eCommerce Shop - The IT aspect of it

2. Vendor Management - The procurement part of it

3. Warehousing and Packaging - Getting things ready to send out

4. Logistics - Sending it out

5. Support - Customer Relations and keeping them happy

6. Sales and Marketing - Strategy, Go-To-Market

7. Retention - Value adds, loyalty programs, referral programs

Without any of these thought through and worked out meticulously, your most likely to fail even before you start. Each of these require different skills and expertise. Ideally your team should consists of experts in each of these fields, how you get them on board is a call you need to make.

Many a times, setting up the eCommerce Shop is the easiest part, however if you don't intend to just put up any other shop, you will have to work hard on this aspect as well. This, I believe, is a differentiator that could really make or break sales. A plain Vanilla Online Shop is longer appealing to the masses, they have seen it and done that.

Above and beyond all this, make sure you have deep pockets to bootstrap the venture, and sustain. You should be able to run the show until the period you can appeal to an Angel Investor, from there on you are on the valuation and investor roller coaster.

Happy Shopping or Selling! which ever is your calling!

How to write a good resume

Resume writing can be a very mundane task for many, specially for the tech breed. Just putting together words describing what they do on a day-to-day basis or what they have done can be a big challenge. 

So, how do you write a resume? Here are a few tips and a structure for what to put in place.

1. Introduce yourself
   What you do when you meet somebody for the first time?
   You Introduce yourself.
   So put in the basics, i.e. your Name and Contact details (phone, email, address). Then you need to summarize yourself in not more than 3 lines. Write about what you do and what you have achieved and what you wish to achieve, use your own words. Use Summary instead of Objective. Objective makes you want push a high level statement, and in most of the resumes I have seen these are either lofty statements which are out of this world or are copy-paste from a standard template some guy wrote about two decades ago.
   
2. List out your Achievements
   How do you chose a paperback novel?
   You look at the ratings and reviews at the back of the paperback.
   Make a bulleted list of significant milestones and achievements in your career so far. Achievements that talk actual stats in terms of numbers go a long way, than general statements of achievements. You could also include achievements from your education, but put the work-ex first and then your academia. 
   
3. Summary of Technical, Management and Process Experience
   Can you judge a book by its cover?
   No, but the the index gives me a good peek at whats in it.
   Put in list or table of Technical, Management and Process Knowledge and Experience.
   
   • Technical Skills / Expertise
   • Mention Technology skill sets that you have expertise or have worked on.
   • Use acronyms but also mention the full names for the technologies where they are still not mainstream.
   • List the ones that you are most proficient with on top.
   • Management Skills
   • Mention Management Roles and Responsibilities handled or capable of handling. examples of skills could be, project costing, co-ordination, people management and so on.
   • Process Expertise
   • Mention Process Areas in which you have experience and you can work on. These are typically Life Cycle related activities, such as design, architecture, validation,...
   • These could also be related to QA and Compliance, i.e. processes for ISO or CMMi Compliance.
     
4. Your Work Experience
   So what have you really done?
   Well, this is for you to answer.
   Follow a defined format - for the companies list and the projects list. You may give a summary of the companies and then a separate section on projects, but ideally, I would want to look at company and projects at that company. These are some of the attributes for companies and projects that you should have
   
   • Company
   • Company Name
   • Location
   • Designation
   • Duration
   • Description of the company (2~3 lines - Optional)
   •  Projects
   • Project Name
   • Client
   • Project Duration
   • Team Size
   • Roles and Responsibilities
   • Challenges / Achievements (Optional)
   • Technology Environment and Tools used
   • Project Description (Describe the project and not the client.)
     
5. Academics
   Academics are important for an employer to understand the learning capability and your performance over a period of time. Here a standard format would include
   
   • Institution, Location
   • University
   • Graduation Type
   • Year of Graduation
   • Marks secured 
   • Specialization (Optional)
     
6. Extra Curricular Activities These can add value in certain jobs where the person is expected to take on multiple responsibilities. Don't mention the run-of-the-mill activities which you don't really perform. Rather use this to talk about your interest and serious hobbies.
   
7. Personal DetailsThese are pretty much standard and would have your Sex, Date of Birth, Nationality, Languages Known, Passport Numbers, PAN or Tax Numbers, Address.
   
   
8. Read what you have written
   How do you to ensure quality?
   You test the output.
   Read your resume completely from the first letter to the very last. Read it every-time, when you prepare it, when you edit it, and every-time before you send it out.

General Guidelines

1. Most Recent On Top and Most Important On Top
   
   • Always list experience, projects and academic certification, in reverse chronological order. i.e. most recent company on top, with earlier companies following it. Same applies for listing of projects and academics.
   • In case of skills, technologies, management and process areas of expertise, mention the most important ones or the ones you are most proficient with, first.
2. Keywords and Technology
   All Keywords and Technologies that you have knowledge or expertise of need to be mentioned in the resume, this an important part for both search and visual validation while somebody screens your resume.
3. Check Spellings
   Spelling mistakes are the most neglected part in many resumes, spelling mistakes are an eyesore. Make sure your read every word in your resume carefully. With all the document editors having robust spell checking options, it should be easy.
4. Format is very important
• Mark your headings - use bold, caps, band,... anything to make the headings more prominent
• Consistent Fonts - Use a single font throughout with variations in font size, styling and color.
• Separate sections with a line, space or heading so that its easy to view.
• Align all the lines
• A comma has no space before it, and always has a space after it.

With this, you must have an outline of where to start and end with. 

Happy job hunting!