Sunday, January 16, 2011

Entrepreneurship Lessons from Band Baaja Baarat (BBB)

 Recently I saw this movie called Band Baja Baarat and I was glad that finally movies based on entrepreneurs is becoming a reality in Bollywood.  For those who haven't watched the movie, the movie is based on two characters Shruti Kakkar ( Anushka Sharma) and Bittoo Sharma (Ranveer Singh) who starts their business of wedding planning.
As I am a wannabe entrepreneur,  I thought of deriving some lessons of entrepreneurship from the movie.  So here I go,  If you feel I left anything or are a critique, leave your comments.
1) Look for a partner :- While going solopreneur is a good thing, but having a partner is much better.  Look for a partner who is opposite to you in capabilities.  If you are good at designing, hire somebody good at management and vice versa.  As seen in the movie, when Shruti falters during the planning pitch, Bittoo enters at numerous times to support and take the matter forward.
2) Know your customer: KYC norms dont apply only for banks and financial institution but also for the new age startups.  Gone are the days of the better built mousetraps and the world will beat a path to your door.  As seen in the movie, Bittoo did a background study of the to-be clients and it helped them get their first big wedding planning.
3) Start early and start small: Start early and start small should be the motto.  People often dream of becoming big in short time but are scared of starting small.  Rather than launching all India at the same time, start from a state or a city and then grow.  And don't forget to celebrate the launch to new city.  My point is try to get proof of concept (POC) before investing large chunk of money in anything new. In the movie, they started small as they knew they would be wasting their time following the high society people.  They went to another market when they were confident of their performance.
4) Collaborate:   Rather than competing, startups should collaborate with each other.  That way the entrepreneurs can know each other and resists from harming each other.  In the movie, they collaborated with the flowering and catering guys and provided the best service and were known for that.
5) Keep the promise:  Its the promise you make to others and yourself.    Keep the promise you made to others.  Otherwise you lose the credibility.  In the movie, Shruti made a promise that they would never use any thing illegaly, so they hired generator instead of taking connection from the electric pole.  Another one is surprise your customer.  They provided free DJ when there was no mention of it.

In the end the greatest lesson from the movie was UNITED we stand, DIVIDED we fall.  When Shruti and Bittoo were together they did well but when they were separated, they made losses.
My best of luck to them and all future entrepreneurs.  Have fun.

1 comment:

  1. interesting thoughts. though i hope u wudnt try to 'hire' a partner (refer point-1) wen u decide to showcase ur entrepreneurial skills..

    ReplyDelete