This is a wonderful time to be starting up. You will come across very few people who will give comparisons to all the benefits they get working for big corporates. Its one such time. Hiring will be slightly easier, and retaining them will be even more easier.
Even in the midst of all that, it does seem that a lot of the Startup Companies are hardpressed for resources here in India. Here’s a solution.
A few of us have been talking about putting together a centre that trains people (as blank slated as freshers) on the common technologies that people use while building Web related products – the usual PHP, Python, AJAX, MySQL, etc etc and getting them upto speed on mashups, APIs, documentation, and moving forward. That is the level of skill that most of the startup community folks are looking for it seems. Or am I wrong here?
If I am right, then there is a simple way around it. Every chapter of OCC in the country is doing quite well. I heard from Santhosh that Pune is a 300 people group now (though I do suspect that the turn out ratio would be still less), but who knew Pune had 300 people who would be open to being part of a community right? And the same case has gone on with Bangalore, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, and even now and then with Mumbai.
Here’s the thought. What if in one of the OCCs a dozen of the startup companies, especially the folks who can code and code really well, commit that they will run a two month training program for people in these languages? It is going to take a bit of time and commitment, but there are a lot of resources already on the web, and with a couple of screencasts, and proper documentation, you could essentially also use it as training material for the next batch of people that you hire in your company later on.
What I am proposing is that a batch of technology entrepreneurs, each taking a week to cover different aspects of the course, could put their hands together to collaboratively solve an issue which is haunting a great many of them.
So if you could fix one of the startups offices as the centre for this activity, Put up a wiki where people can sign up for this course, and these 12 startup entrepreneurs/programmers get a chance to do a round of questioning and if they think that the candidate would be able to perform with some guidance, then the community as a whole comes together to train these few candidates and at the end of it, can assimilate them into the company.
There are a couple of reasons why I think this can be made to work:
1. Most freshers are scared of working for startups. The first question I face all the time is “Will they train us?”
2. People who do undergo any sort of training, usually go for some MS Certification and those courses are expensive. Its not like you can afford to get the developmental licenses anyways, and since they have themselves invested in getting trained, the salary expectations are going to be higher from you.
3. At the moment there are very few people who can talk about these technologies for the mass community to learn from. Perhaps contributing to the general knowledge of the masses to improve their skill level, if reached critical mass, will start churning on its own.
4. More people trained on OpenSource Technologies (that’s really what enables Startups), might also slightly increase the chances of people contributing back to Opensource. *fingers crossed*
5. I also think that most startup founders struggle to explain what they have in their head to others. And teaching concepts to others gets you to that level where tomorrow when you need to grow a community around your product, you can converse in a manner that the people can comprehend.
And of course, none of this has to be done for free. I’d strongly suggest that the teams charge the candidate 3000 – 4000Rs a month for this. That is also additional revenue, so its not technically charity either.
So, there is only one question that lingers. Worth giving it a try? What do you think?
Join the conversation at The Startup Guy, to pitch your thoughts on the matter.
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Seems like this thread has been started in so many places across the web, everyone discussing about the same thing. Here’s me hoping that something comes out of it.
Thanks everyone for all your thoughts. Though it might have seemed like I was being defensive or dismissive, the truth is more like wanting to probe into the main intentions of those change and feedbacks. Its good to know the intentions, as a project is being refined.
The most common criticism to this has been, “without financial motive, this initiative would fizzle out”. Well, I dont know about that. I look at the Open Source Community, and even much closer, the Barcamp Community here, right here in India and cant believe that thats a fact. Cant also help wonder that if we had come up with a concept like barcamp (people come together to share and learn), would it be a community initiative or would we be trying to do a “business model” around it too! 😛 Perhaps thats the biggest difference between the west and the east. Unless we contribute back, in some way, atleast with some efforts, we cant expect much for the total gain of the community. Its almost the theme line for going green, but that also goes for sustainability.
It would be great if one of the OCCs take this up and see if they can try. The one in Chennai seems gung-ho with people writing to say that they want to try this out. Perhaps before this year is out, we’ll know how that goes.
Thanks again guys!
@Himanshu: “An ant cannot die of falling, but it often dies of something ELSE’s foot falling on it :-)” Hehe. Thats a good one 🙂 and yep, true. When the elephants do dance, the ants die. And when they stumble, they might too. I guess only the paranoid survive.
>> My note to self: Make sure I stay conscious of these cycles when I get back in the battle.
> But dont get tied down with the economic cycles, they come and go.. entrepreneurs, especially startup entrepreneurs dont get affected by it all that much
Just to clarify, I meant cycles in the “current wisdom”. The economic cycles are easy to stay conscious of. They may not affect your thinking, but they do affect your investors, your customers and your suppliers, so it is a good idea to be aware. An ant cannot die of falling, but it often dies of something ELSE’s foot falling on it 🙂
@Himanshu, you made a gem of a point with this “Perseverance is great, but cheap experimentation with fast-failure is 20 times better.”
I guess the rule with innovation is that one must also be prepared to fail, if we are to try new things. And the second rule that comes close to that is to fail fast, and keep moving.
Sometimes, we dont try at all fearing failure.. now, thats a bit of a problem 🙂
Good luck with your dreams mate. But dont get tied down with the economic cycles, they come and go.. entrepreneurs, especially startup entrepreneurs dont get affected by it all that much – like gravity on ants, I suppose 🙂
>> As an entrepreneur one is also told to ignore naysayers 😀 But I get your point. Thanks for taking the time to express your thoughts.
I still rate myself on the entrepreneur “side”, despite being 75% of the way through my MBA. I just want to point out that perseverance is a good attribute, but it is *currently* heavily overrated.
In the “current wisdom”, you will see the same cycles that you see in the economy… Till the 90s, we (the Indian middle class) were all conservative people who wanted government jobs and could not tolerate any form of risk (entrepreneurship, debt etc.). Then post-2006 (probably after some Indian startups got very good public valuations?), we embraced entrepreneurship with a vengeance. Perseverance is hot these days… By December, if the credit crisis lasts, you will find the overcompensation, only in the other direction – everyone will be scrambling for safe jobs.
My note to self: Make sure I stay conscious of these cycles when I get back in the battle. Perseverance is great, but cheap experimentation with fast-failure is 20 times better.