7 iconic movies which will inspire you to build your own Business

Cinema has always provided us with the much-needed escape from reality. A good movie manages to excite and engage us, and the right one does much more.

It’s easy to get sucked into the decadence of a corporate lifestyle. The money, the perks, the limitless demand and the greater supply. But if you’re someone who’s looking for just the right amount of push, don’t worry, we’ve got you!

We are always inspired by success stories of contemporary legends that make us believe there’s light at the end of the tunnel. We heart the stories of those who created an empire out of nothing or those who abandoned the corporate world to build a lineage of their own . So here are 5 iconic films that will inspire you to follow your dreams and create your own brand. Without further ado: Lights! Camera! Action!

The Social Network (2010)

Director: David Fincher

“Ma’am, I know you’ve done your homework and so you know that money isn’t a big part of my life, but at the moment I could buy Mt. Auburn Street, take the Phoenix Club, and turn it into my ping-pong room.”

The extraordinary tale of the world’s youngest billionaire, The Social Network, revolves around the one and only Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook. The movie begins with a young Zuckerberg, still in Harvard, laying out his plan for a ‘social networking site’ and chronicles his journey of driving Facebook into a global success. The movie explores the spirals of the life of a young entrepreneur, who had a billion-dollar idea and how, against all odds and fraught with social and legal controversies, he made it happen.

The Wolf of the Wall Street (2013)

Director : Martin Scorsese

This is one of the extraordinary rag to rich real life story you will ever encounter. This movie is a adaption of the real life story of Jordan Belfort, who was then a famous stock broker & running the Brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont . It will show you his life journey from a nobody to earning 1 million dollar a week to how he ends up in jail. That's not all, again how he came back from jail to to become the world's best sales trainer. It is simply a roller coaster ride & tells you both sides of the coin. You learns there all about success also if you don't handle it properly then how you end up in failure. So this is one hell of inspiring movie.

Pirates of the Silicon Valley (1999)

Director : Martyn Burke

The opening scene of the movie will simply hold your breath & will give you goose pump & will let you realize what kind of person the Great Steve Jobs was. This is a cult Iconic movie about the set up of two greatest company i.e. Apple Computers & Microsoft as well as the early life journey of the two Icon of the world Mr Steve Jobs & Mr Bill Gates. Love them or hate them but you can't simply ignore them, it is just like a time travel to the 80's. There are many standout iconic scenes in the movie which will actually made you realize how great those Guys (Jobs & Gates) are back then. The two famous dialogue from the movie is as below :

Steve Jobs : We are here to make a dent in the Universe, if not then why we would be here.

Bill Gates : In mafia they says, keep you friends close but enemies closer.  

Steve Jobs: Billion Dollar Hippy (2011)

Directors: Laura Craig Gray and Tristan Quinn

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

Steve Jobs is a legend who is an inspiration to generations. This unauthorised documentary on Jobs, CEO, co-founder and chairman of Apple Inc., is the epitome of inspiration for young, enthusiastic entrepreneurs, who probably grew up with his poster on their walls. It traces his life in the counterculture of the 60s, which he was greatly influenced by. Here, Jobs is presented as a marketeer more than a tech wizard. The film shows his resource-allocation power, his infinite passion that drew others to the company and his superior executive skills that made Apple what it is today. He, too, had one great idea, and with it, he managed to run a billion-dollar industry.

Wall Street (1987)

Director: Oliver Stone

“Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.”

This is the story of a young and passionate stockbroker, Bud Fox, who toed the line in too many wrong places to work his way to the top. He is taken under the wing by Gordon Gekko, a ruthless corporate raider, who will stop at nothing to accumulate wealth and power. Gordon manages to corrupt and manipulate Bud to the extent that the latter trades on illegal inside information for him. This movie goes to show how easy it is to get swayed by easy wealth and power and how to keep your morals intact through it all.

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Director: Cameron Crowe

“But if anybody else wants to come with me, this moment will be the ground floor of something real and fun and inspiring and true in this godforsaken business and we will do it together! Who’s coming with me…?”

An iconic inspirer, Jerry Maguire tells the story of a successful sports agent who realises one day that this wasn’t his life’s purpose. He wanted to do something real for his clients. He wanted to take a personal interest in their lives and help them grow. However, his new enthusiastic zeal for life is not appreciated by his seniors and he is ruthlessly fired from his high-paying job. Jerry now has the task of rebuilding his own brand with only one loyal client and just one colleague who supports him.

Boiler Room (2000)

Director: Ben Younger

“You become an employee of this firm, you will make your first million within three years. I’m gonna repeat that – you will make a million dollars.”

This movie revolves around a college dropout who runs an illegal casino from his rented apartment. He stumbles upon an interview as a trainee stockbroker at JT Marlin, a small brokerage firm in the outskirts of New York City. Pressures from his domineering father and his love interest keep him desperate and motivated enough to remain in the blood money firm. As time passes, he starts suspecting that some illegal deals are taking place in the firm leading him to make a choice between success and morality.

Credit By : www.digidocsblog.in

#StartUpIndia Ecosystem : Is Something Wrong with the Culture ?

I am not even remotely involved with the Indian startup ecosystem. But unfortunately, I read a lot and try to make sense of it in equal measures. And from whatever I have been reading and observing regarding the Indian startup story (especially in the last 12 months) I feel something is not right. Let me cut to the chase; here’s what I think:

Where Is India’s Facebook, Google, Amazon, Ebay Etc.?

Google, Amazon etc were born out of the first internet wave in the US during the 90s. A decade or so later, China built its own Google named Baidu, and practically drove Google out, which otherwise, has a global search engine market share of over 80%. Further, the rise of Alibaba displaced Amazon. Circa 2015, if India has indeed become the third largest startup ecosystem, then where is India’s Google? Facebook? Or Twitter? or such meta-level startups.

What’s wrong then? With due respect to the Indian innovators, IMHO, most Indian startups aim to be rent-seekers and not wealth creators in the true sense. They are not interested in the bigger picture, in solving genuine problems, creating new categories or trying to become leaders in the existing ones.

At the risk of generalizing, I want to say that most Indian startups by and large look to copy an existing model, and fine tune it to serve the local need. There’s Ola for Uber, Gaana for Spotify, the N number of food delivery startups, and their extended versions delivering just about anything under the sun. InMobi is the only Indian startup that comes to my mind, which carved out a niche for itself. Again, I may not know enough names, but I hope I have driven home my point.

The Zuckerberg Syndrome

This is my biggest pain. Ever since Mark Zuckerberg created the behemoth that is Facebook, every 22 year old graduating kid wants to become a CEO. The little things called experience and expertise be damned. And those sugar-coated, half-told success stories floating on the internet haven’t helped either.

What these young graduates often forget is that people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos or the latest poster boy Elon Musk slogged for years, worked in anonymity, sharpening their skills to the point of perfection before jumping onto their grand idea. To put things in perspective, Elon Musk took many years to self-learn the nuts and bolts of rocket science and electric automobiles, literally. But all we want to see is the end product — SpaceX and Tesla.

This is where the latest breed of Indian founders falter. They do not want to wait. They have been overfed the idea that an ‘IDEA’ is all you need and you need to move fast, unless someone else beats you. Misinterpreting the overnight success of new age startups like Pinterest, Instagram etc., they do not want to invest in honing their skills or gaining perspective about the sectors they wish to dive in.

The immediate tag of a CEO, CTO, COO (CXO) is way too enticing to let them go through the grind.

They should ask themselves — where is innovation in selling baby diapers online? Or loaning bean bags on rent for parties? Or delivering food from the local chicken-shawarma joint? Creating the most attractive and seamless website/app and hooking up with a local delivery service, while piggy-banking on investor money is NOT innovation. It is not sustainable and definitely not long term. It might be better to call it a normal business instead.

The Dichotomy Of VC And Angel Funds

It is interesting to note that most of the first generation startups in the US and also in China were bootstrapped. That played a huge role in their successes. Why? Because it is human nature which drives us that extra bit when our own money is involved.

On the contrary, the Indian startup scene right from the beginning is heavily marinated with huge VC and Angel funds. However ironic it may sound, this is what I feel is rotting the entire system. Young, creative, enthusiastic professionals leaving their jobs, higher education etc, drawn by the charm of easy investor money and an imaginary million dollar idea. Well, any idea would seems like a million dollar shot when funding is a non-issue.

Add this to what I discussed above and you can see a reasonable argument in why this generation of Indian innovators do not want to wait. The grand vision gets restricted to building a workable model of any existing idea, get funded and then hope for a million dollar exit. This is the purported life-cycle of most Indian startups.

To an outsider like me, the Indian startup ecosystem resembles a large casino where Mc-Daddy VCs come to play their bets.

Forcing Western Models Onto Indian Markets

Let me explain by quoting an example — online grocery delivery makes sense in the US, where the nearest Walmart or Kroger might be miles away. Secondly, most food items there are frozen with a longer shelf life. Thirdly, from personal experience I have observed, a US family has a more or less fixed weekly or bi-weekly grocery list with strong brand loyalties.

The Indian system is as opposite as it can get. There’s a Kirana (mom and pop) store at every nook and corner, complemented by the rapidly expanding supermarket chains like Food Bazaar, Big Apple to name a few. But even more important is that we Indians largely consume fresh food — vegetables, milk, fruits etc. Indian mothers won’t cook in peace until and unless they’ve handpicked their vegetables.

Thus, the Indian market for online grocery shopping gets restricted to the young and working population in urban centres, who are anyhow increasingly eating in office or outside. My point is that there are many such startups in India, trying to fit a western model into Indian markets without fully working out the ground level movements. That’s why they hit a roadblock when it comes to scaling, and end up being the proverbial frog in their respective wells.

The Mind Numbing Valuations

I am old school. Hence, I believe that profit is the main driving force behind any venture. And that any venture should be valued according to how profitable it is presently, or might be in the definite future. But when a startup with no profit to show in the near future, and a multi-million cash burn rate, get valued in billions, a layman like me fails to understand the equation being worked out, even after factoring the much talked about cost of customer acquisition. To be fair, this is more of a global phenomenon and not just specific to Indian startups.

It almost sounds obscene when Uber is valued at 60 billion $. That might be more than the GDP of some countries.

The problem is exacerbated in case of India because nascent startups lose the plot in the glitz of inflated valuations, even before they get a hang of their basic modalities. VC firms often end up sucking out a major portion of total equity in the bargain, leaving very little for the original founders to play around with. Except for the paper tag of being freshly made millionaires, if not more.

The Talent Or The Lack Of It

I wanted to keep this point for the end, because it might surprise a few. Dare I say this — I feel the potential of Indian graduates is being oversold. We are still relying on the past laurels of the IIT-IIM system, when it used to be relevant. But IIT or IIM does not means that they are capable of creating the next big thing. Young graduate are not thinking beyond the box. Only thing they are thinking is to open the eCommerce of some sort or Food delivery or some thing related to it. It is really unfortunate for the company like Helpchat doing dozy things to lure hundreds of millions of dollar & company like online grocery system Groffers raises millions of dollars as seed funding where no body is looking up to the really vast filed ahead of them in field like Health care, digitalization, fintech etc. 

I want to conclude by accepting that it is easier to rant and pick up faults. The likes of Google or Amazon had the first mover’s advantage, backed by strong and developed national economies. In comparison, the task is cut out for anyone starting now. The world order is far from just, and the bigger players do every bit by arm twisting developing countries to their advantage. The Indian startup ecosystem faces somewhat similar problems in its limited domain. Having said that, I do wish to see Indian startups someday working on truly cutting edge technologies in areas like defense, space, automobiles and opening new vistas, not just for India, but the entire world.

Credit - Inc42.com , digidocsblog.com