Think before you jump!

Nowadays, the life of a new idea is so short and there are so many takers, it has become a race to ensure that you jump on the bandwagon first to reap maximum benefits before everyone else replicates the idea and it becomes passé.

Gone are the days of taking calculative decisions with the burden of evaluating pros and cons. Look around... starting from buying a pizza, joining a course, changing a job, starting a new initiative, moving to a different work location or devising a strategy - we do not think as much as we used to.

So is this new-age opportunist approach of taking swift decisions a good thing or a bad thing? Well...let's see. To make this interesting, I will take an interesting example of the current predicament of Paytm.

**In fact I commented yesterday morning on the same subject and then wanted to write some more**

We are moving towards a cashless economy and Paytm was poised to be the pioneer. Well, sure Paytm had the charm and infrastructure for acceptance from people! But while they jumped on the bandwagon with publicity and gained all the mileage and user subscriptions they could.... what they did not anticipate was the massive problems they would run into because of huge number of users.

This is a classic case of over-the-top marketing spotting a great opportunity but not being able to flex, scale up and test so that when the cookie is out of the oven, it doesn't crumble.

So, what a the few basic things that went wrong?

1. Paytm did not put fail-safe mechanisms in place to encounter mass volume bombardment. Lack of user-acceptance testing and strengthening processes is required when you anticipate phenomenal usage.

2. Lack of strong partnerships/infrastructure in place with banks etc. to get the money cleared out on time. This is the USP... if this goes, the vision goes down in the drain.

3. Customer service not prioritized...people who lovingly embraced the slogan... "paytm karo" are now regretting the day they gave in to the urge.

What have I learnt from such an example?

a. It's great to spot an opportunity, get all excited and go all out but if you cannot anticipate the initial roadblocks, you will definitely stumble and fall even before you begin your journey. Remember to build a fail-safe mechanism early on.

b. A lot of parallel thought processing must go on while pursuing a dream. If you want to make it big, weed out the challenges that will hit you over a period of time strategically and systematically. Surround yourself with people who are very diverse but united by strong belief in your vision... they can add immense value and prepare you to survive the worst nightmare.

c. Evolve before you are pushed out. Complacency is sure to set in when short term results are achieved. Ensure the group of people around you are energized and engaged enough to chart out your evolution.

Hope this will be an interesting read for all of you. :)