Kumar, the soft spoken driver from Kerala, has been picking me up from home and dropping me back for the last seven days. On Wednesday night he finally asked if I was working the hours I was working by choice. Starting the day at 8 am and landing on Villa 16, Cluster 35 at 11pm at night, he had witnessed me sleep as soon as I stepped in the van after my last class, all the way on our 50 minute trek back home.
I told him I was on vacation.
How could you not be on vacation when you are paid to corrupt 150 young minds in less than 10 days?
The game plan was simple. New ventures fail because they don’t think through the implications of the choices they make when it comes business models, customers, products, feature set at launch and pitching.
We started with focusing on the customer, her voice, her pain to
Guy Kawasaki showing us how to get our money out of her purse by being as specific as possible.
Making dreamers think through what the customer is really buying when she writes that first check and what they need to do to make her write that check the second and third time.
My proudest moments are always when I see that thinking at work.
Presenting….
Pitching…
Analyzing…
In the spirit of all of these vampire and werewolf themes floating around, there is no greater pay back for a teacher than to see his student infected and hard at work.
