Just last week,‘The Rodinhood’ himself spent 3 hours traveling both ways in Mumbai only to be told the boss had left for NY.
Here’s what I experienced on Saturday. A case of how one start-up burnt their bridges.
I was cajoled by a connection to advice their portfolio start-ups with UX advice.
To kick-off we agreed to schedule a ‘UXBoot’ for one of their portfolio start-ups for Saturday 11:00am to 1:00pm at my Pune office. One founding team member was traveling from Mumbai & the other from Pune.
I got into my office on a weekend (we follow 5-day work week) at 9:00am to ensure my facilities man cleans up the office. I wrapped up important emails & was expecting the founders by 11:00am. I’d invited Prakash Thombre, co-founder at NotchUX and Creative Director with 22 years work-ex to join me in meeting the fine start-up team working, who’re currently at well-know institutions.
It was 11:30am, and still no word from the other team. At 11:45am the founder from Mumbai called in to confirm he’d just reached the connections Pune office & asked me for directions. He said he’ll join me in 15 minutes.
No news. I receive his text at 12:02pm: “We will come in 15 mins”.
No news. He calls in at 12:48am, asking if I have anything scheduled for the day. This galled me. What business has anyone to ask me of my plans. We had a scheduled meet at 11am-1pm, and we only had 2 minutes left of that. Then he took the liberty of ‘calling off the meet’ at the time it was scheduled to end.
And all this while, there’s no news from the founder based in Pune.
Although it’s a known fact that majority of us Indians don’t value other people’s time, this is no way of treating anyone who’s out to help you with their experience & time. The start-up fraternity must take an oath to shut out start-up founders who believe they can get away with disrespecting other peoples time.
Disrespecting time is a major reason why the Indian start-up eco-system remains isolated from the world.
I love how Clarity.fm does it. I’ve been called for start-up advice via Clarity.fm, and the app does everything in its power to rate Callers & Advisors based on multiple parameters. ‘Starting on time’ for the scheduled call is the most important parameter. If you’re in the negative, they shut you out. Period.
A quick background on our What & Why for the Indian Start-up fraternity:
I founded a successful UX consultancy – NotchUX. Our core practice areas are Information Design & Visual Design. Through the last decade, we’ve been neck deep helping our customer’s from North America & Europe notch up user experiences for applications across form-factors (touchpad, AIO, Smartphones, Tablets, and desktops). Innovation is a big reason why our customers love us.
As a start-up guy, I’ve paid through my nose for UX services right here in Pune. The ‘reputed’ pros I engaged showcased me the earth & delivered 1/100th on expectations. 3 months into the contract, and no closure in sight I donned the UX hat because I was pushed to the wall. I didn’t want start-up fellows to run around like headless chicken experimenting with UXers, while losing precious time & money.
I’ve been following ‘The Rodinhoods’ since inception, and it’s heartening to watch this community snowball into one mega congregation of like-minded start-up fellows. So motivated was I, that 3 months ago I decided to bring my hard-earned UX experience to Indian shores, and lend my expertise to Indian Start-ups.
My primary motivations to organize ‘UXBoot’:
- Tune founders to think ‘User First’ & ‘Mobile First’.
- Give founders the opportunity to don the UX thinking hat.
- Help them understand the importance of UX & consider engaging a pro before deep diving into product design.
- A FREE 2-hour ‘UXBoot’ workshop at our office in Pune. Agenda:
- Sketch out the user flow of one core task for each of the core user types, and
- Walk out of ‘UXBoot’ with a wireframe of the home screen & one other screen.
Objective of ‘UXBoot’ – to create a destination for start-ups to seek UX advice from hands-on pros.
Having organized 4 such workshops (not linked in any way to the connection I mentioned earlier), it’s heartening to watch founders post the UXBoot workshop. They ready to head back with a sense of purpose & urgency – well knowing there’s much left to be done on crafting an immaculate user experience. It’s what keeps me going.
This was my sickest experience of a scheduled ‘UXBoot’. And a fucked up start-up weekend!