The Corporate Startup

So, the Boss comes to you one day and says, There was a Management meeting and everyone thinks it’s a good idea to start a Direct to Consumer eCommerce business in the Company. It’s quite fashionable. Every Consumer Goods company is experimenting on it and we should start one. Coke has one, Mars has one (and not a very good one, apparently). You can sell anything on the Internet these days! If they can do it, so can we! Have a think about how to go about doing it and come back in a couple of weeks with a Plan. By the way, High Potential guy sitting across the hall has a Plan that promises millions of dollars in 18 months. And he’s selling it like it is the best thing since sliced bread. Even Miserable guy thinks it’s a great idea. And that’s the most he has spoken in 12 months in a meeting. It must count for something.

You go away enthused about it. Perhaps even energized. For once, a major project has fallen on your lap and finally, you could get recognized for your contribution and possibly, get the raise that the Company has dangled in front of you for years. You can smell it now. Vice President. Your brain goes into over-drive. You start researching on the Internet, buy a Kindle, download a whole bunch of self-help books, strategic business guides from Harvard Business Review. Blah blah. Yes, same fate, different day. Now, you’re pouring additional hours beyond your nine to five, crafting a Powerpoint deck of possibilities. Market potential, addressable customers, profile of audiences (the infamous 18-35 year olds), and how much money the Company could potentially make in 18 months.

The truth is, they needed someone pretty junior who has not moved through the ranks. Since the eCommerce business right now in the Company is only naught point 5 percent (that’s 0.5%, for those of you who can’t spell) of total business, it doesn’t really matter. It is a square root of nothing. Management is not going to risk a heavy weight in this role. They are going to round up all the available interns who joined last month, who have zero experience in the company, with no legacy Company experience imprinted in them, to start this business. The experienced guys and High Potential guy right there would be over-driving the retail business which has declined or flat lined in recent years. They need to fix the fundamentals. The so-called Brilliant Basics of 4Ps - Price, Product, Promotion and Placement with the largest retailers like Walmart and Target. High Potential guy would probably be a seagull consultant – ‘fly around, crap on you, and fly away’. That’s his modus operandi, his MO. He’s the one with the mega-watt smile and the Ivy League college degree. He can’t mess up. Or can he?

You go in front of ten people in a high level important meeting. Miserable guy is part of the ten people. You present your Powerpoint and at the end of it, you’re still scratching your head to whether they understood you in the first place. You get roasted on everything, as if they understood it. The Marketing guy is not sure about your Point of Market Entry and your marketing campaign. He doesn’t see any TV GRPs to begin with. The Sales guy thinks you’re stealing his business or making him look bad, since you’re projecting growth numbers that he did not predict in his last business review. It makes him look like a ‘sand bagger’, and didn’t see this coming. The Trade Marketing guy is worried that you’re going to undercut prices and end up irritating the retailers, and they are going to stop ordering from the Company. The Supply guy isn’t sure that you could deliver small parcels. Everything in the supply chain is designed to ship pallets to large format retailers in trucks with containers. He mocks you saying we ship over a million dollars every day in trucks to retailers, and you want to ship $25 of product to some dude across the country? We don’t have that capability. The Finance guy stops your presentation immediately and says, What you are asking is impossible. Our Financial systems are designed for retailers to send their orders over EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). We invoice them, based on their credit rating, and they pay us. You’re asking us to reconcile thousands of $25 orders through credit cards? I need 3 people to do this. Miserable guy nods his head in agreement with the Finance guy and grunts. His nose goes back to his computer screen and with rapid two finger typing, answers another email. He probably thinks he shouldn’t have said anything in the Management meeting in the first place. It was too much effort breaking silence for this lunacy. High Potential guy was playing it safe. He was non-committal throughout the meeting, saying the things that Management wanted to hear and reinforcing their objections with nods and hmmms. The other four people in the room are just taking notes profusely on their computers, fearing that one comment might make them look like they didn’t know what they were doing. That was the end of that meeting. 

You come away from that high level important meeting feeling a disconnect with Management. Maybe, a tad bit discouraged that the Company has not moved with the times, when everyone was buying everything from the Internet. All your hopes of being Vice President are dashed in that one meeting. You leave the room thinking that you’ve wasted all the late nights researching on something that they weren’t going to do anyway. You had so much self belief. Maybe you could consider a Side-Hustle that does exactly what they won't.

Six months passes and nothing happens. You’re back to your day job, and your occasional drinks with work friends, recounting the high level important meeting with them. Moaning about how closed minded Management was with the Direct to Consumer presentation, complaining again about missed opportunities, stupid decisions made by the Invisible Hand of the Company and the idiocy of High Potential guy, and the grunt of Miserable guy. The phone call from Boss comes and it’s short and sharp. He has the attention span of a fly too. 

Listen, Management has decided to give you the opportunity to set up a Direct to Consumer business. You will start with one Brand. Intern down the hall is not assigned anything, so she is going to be in your new team. By the way, High Potential guy is your new boss. We’ve also found your replacement. He’s there Monday morning in your desk. Good luck and congratulations. The phone goes dead. At this point, you’re not sure whether to celebrate or slash your wrists and wait for it to be over. All your hard work and late nights have come to this one moment, but High Potential guy has outplayed, outwitted and outlasted you in the Game. Shit. And you thought you were going to be at least a team lead in your new team. Now, you've been plucked out of your day job, forced to report to an idiot and worse still, you probably have to do all the work.

Congratulations, you now are part of a Corporate Startup.

Read the next post of this series.