So This One Time, When We Tried To Solve The Galaxy’s Water Problems…

This is post is by Aseem Khan, a process engineer at NextDrop.  Enjoy!

So once upon a time in a city far, far away three entrepreneurs set out to participate in the water accelerator workshop from CIIE. It was Thursday afternoon and they jumped on their bat-mobile and stormed towards the airport with the speed of a thousand horses.

They had super tools which could solve the mystery of missing water and ensure that the residents of the Milky Way galaxy could stay informed about water and never run out of water. This was a part of their plan to compete with NASA who were trying to find water on a different planet, but these three entrepreneurs from NextDrop had a plan in which the world would not need to look for water somewhere else- it could manage existing water resources efficiently.

So coming back to the story- after reaching the airport, the guardians of the galaxy inspected our entrepreneurs to ensure they were not carrying any illegal ideas with them.

They had a pleasant ride in the supersonic airship. In a span of 3 blinks they reached the planet of sun and sands – Jaipur.

This workshop was designed to increase the abilities of our entrepreneurs and equip them with enough tools to fight the battle with scarcity of water.

So these entrepreneurs were in the process of building excellent next gen products that could solve the world’s water crisis. And they had to demonstrate it to the masters and lords of CIIE. After demonstration they would provide them with magic potions and vocal advice which would help these entrepreneurs in their quest to solve the water problems.

So our entrepreneurs, gave the presentation on the 2000000000 inch  screen in a hall where the leaders of different planets were also present. They had 2 solutions for solving the crisis:

Waattr App

An application that would run on the smarter phones of the 21st century and alert the brains of the living organisms whenever they received water and created a virtual platform for the galaxy to share their water information. For example: – If a Martian wanted to move to earth and wanted to see how the water quality in Indira Nagar was, where would he go ?

Valve Badge

An application that would bring transparency and efficiency to the MWGWMC (Milky way galaxy water management council) it would provide the officers and  decision makers data points and suggestions to supply water throughout the world and ensure life continues to blossom in our galaxy.

So our entrepreneurs pitched these two products and they got an amazing response, and they also learned how to reach out to the universe and the latest trends in technology.

They also came back with the following learnings:

·         The designers, developers, entrepreneurs must always talk to the users, if there is a mediator in between then there is always loss of information and personal touch.

·         It’s best to make the plan as detailed as possible even if it means to write down the hourly itinerary.

·          Always be prepared to talk about the company for at least 10 mins or more.

·         Before developing any product, team members should brainstorm about the customer journey.

After that, they took their time capsules, and in 1/10th of a blink of the eye, they were back to their own planet – the planet of unexpected weather – Bangalore.

CIIE – IIMA – Water Accelerator

Over the past weekend (Aug 15th and 16th, to be precise), our team attended CIIE & IIMA’s first Water Accelerator program.

It was intriguing because there were so many different types of water companies at different stages.

Our team spoke on the same panel as the CEOs of companies like Sarvajal and Ecolibrium- and in the process, everyone shared and learnt a whole lot.

We thought it would be nice to share what we brought to the table.

Where our products were concerned:

• We brought 2 products to the market in the last 2 years
• We have been constantly releasing product features, many of which fail- but we learn from our mistakes
• Building product is all about observing user behavior and listening to yourself. Users don’t know what they don’t know.
• There’s a huge difference between building software products and everything else; distribution with software products is forgiving — everything else is not, and thus requires meticulous planning and foresight

Where HR was concerned:

• We realized that culture is the most effective mechanism to hold individuals accountable
• The question we keep asking ourselves is whether we should hire only for roles or for skills? This is not a black and white question, but we believe that when one comes across great talent, one should just pick them up.

• How do you know if someone is great? They make you feel great.

• Our 45 days to impact policy– decide on cultural fit of the employee and ability to contribute by the 45th day

Water Status – Experiments in Truth

There are a lot of things that can be thought about and there’s a lot more that needs to be experienced. Thinking about things can only take you so far, and at times it can take you too far into an imaginary world of ‘what ifs’. This can be especially true in a startup when every experience really is an experiment in truth.

The other week I was looking at some data (founders look at data), and this data was particularly interesting. We had just launched an experiment (in truth) to check on data quality seeing if people would verify message accuracy over a missed call. While validating data through this experiment we noticed an unusual amount of people text messaging their address. We shut down the experiment for two days to see if there were any correlation and there were.

For most experiments that we run we have a general idea of what’s going to happen. Sometimes you see something odd, that observation of phenomenon; these are the ones you dream of, because this is how the mind starts to look in a different direction.

I was sitting with Devin one morning, scratching my head at what’s going on and I ask him, “do you think people will missed call when they’re getting water? They’re already sending text messages when they don’t get water.”

Devin, “let’s start writing some tests.”

A few tests and a couple fun hacking sessions later, we had a module that:

1. sent a text message to people asking them if they were getting water
2. allowed them to missed call one number for yes and another number for no
3. record their response
4. sent them a thank you message

Then our eyeballs flipped inside out as we stared into the weird universe that is disruptive technology. People took this technology and made it their own. They started using it in ways that we didn’t intend or design for. They started to text messaging “yes” and “no” instead of giving missed calls. They started reporting their water status without being prompted and they repeated this behavior water supply after water supply. They didn’t respond at first and then they responded a few weeks later.

What to do when your users react so positively from your experiment? You give them a lot more and then integrate this phenomenon into your core product. We started sending a thank you message asking them to forward the message, to see what this would look like as an acquisition channel.

Some Numbers

• total number of feedback replies to date- 7100
• city wise- Hubli: 5349, Dharwad: 781, Bangalore: 492, Mysore 195
• total number of residents referred- 107

So what’s the end result? For the last quarter we had been working to get a design for a smart phone application that we liked. We went through two designs before this and both of them were very alpha. Take all of the learnings from our water status experiment, mix in some rapid deployment and we give you ‘Waattr’, the application built on ionic that changes how the world experiences water. Waattr connects you with your neighbors, and gives you real time information on when you will be getting drinking water, why there was a delay in the last supply and most importantly allows you to “splash” people to get information on your water supply!

Check it out, we released it onto the playstore, download and get yours now https://goo.gl/1d8euS.

NextDrop Adventures in Varanasi

Hi, my name is Madhu Reddy, I am a chemical engineer and I have been working at NextDrop from the past two years. I manage utility relations and also build products at NextDrop. Here is my first blog post.

I visited Varanasi with my colleagues Bindu and Bhargav for a business proposal. Varanasi is a sacred and one of the oldest cities of the world located at banks of the holy River Ganga.

Our visit was quite adventurous as Varanasi felt the earthquake waves on our arrival, month after tragic tremor in Nepal, however that did not stop us from pursuing our mission.

One of the first things we saw were two over head tanks near by, eager to learn about the field operations we went to one of the tanks. A old man(pump operator) was giving prayers to God, we inspected the tank till pump operator finished his prayers. we learnt from the pump operator that, the tank is under maintenance, also there are no valveman, this was interesting. We tried to explain to him that we are talking about the men who run the water supply system, we didn’t believe him completely that there were ‘no valvemen’.

We got some insights from Govind, our auto driver on his water supply, he said first five minutes they get dirty water, after that water doesn’t smell. He gets water twice a day, for three hours. Govind was kind enough to show us some valves. Govind bought us tea made of ginger which was served in kulhad(earthen bowl), delicious.

River Ganga is indescribable but in humble words I would say she is majestic, lot of people come here to take a dip in the holy water for “paap vimochan” cleansing of sin. Every day there is the ‘Ganga Aarti’  at Dashashwamedh Ghat which is beautiful.

Ganga aarti is the magnificent event during evening in the Varanasi that one must not miss to see it. It makes us experience the great feelings while Ganga aarti become in process. This beautiful ritual makes every moment of the evening period special and fills with the spiritual thoughts. It is performed by the brass lamps which accompanied with the mantra chant in the presence of the huge crowd.

All the priests who have to perform the aarti, wear same cloth, the dhoti and kurta which is tightly bind with a long towel. First they make preparation of the Ganga aarti by making collection of the five elevated planks, a multi tiered oil lamp, an idol of the Goddess Ganga, flowers, incense sticks, a conch shell, a big and heavy brass lamp having a snake hood at the edge of the River Ganga. A group of boats filled with devotees come around the place of aarti at the bank of River. They are very eager to see the event; some of them take live video, photos as well. Ritual of the Ganga aarti is performed by the students of the Vedas and Upanishads which is lead by the head priest of the Gangotri Seva Samiti. The whole event takes around 45 minutes.”””

Walking along the banks of River Ganga reached Harishchandra Ghat, I was curious to know about the cremation. there was a guy standing and watching the people unload the wood from boats, I smiled at him, I asked him where are these wood brought from, he replied nearby woods. I asked him, how much does he sell in a day, he told me around 1-2 tonne. I asked him what’s the selling price, he replied Rs10 a kilo. How much quantity is required for cremation, he replies around 250-350 kilos of wood. Now coming to my business, I asked him about his water supply he said he gets water once or twice a day. He said quality of water is poor, hence he has installed a filter at home.

He took me to his shop and started talking about dirty politics, how the water is not managed well in the city. I asked him how much time does it take to fix a leak, he said it gets delayed, I asked him if he complains to the water board. He told me no, there is a guy who comes around we complain to him. I told him about what NextDrop does, gave him the missed call number to get registered to our service. He told me before Modi became prime minister he was in the ashram across his shop for 6 months. I told him to call the missed call number, he asked my phone number, I gave it to him and said goodbye.

If you fancy fried food you can get some delicious food along the river banks. I tried some raw mustard oil for the first time with chaat, it had an interesting flavour. the presentation of the food was excellent.

Lassi is very famous in Varanasi, it is so delicious, people stand in queue at the famous lassi joints. Lassi in Varnasi is not like in cities where they whizz up in blenders. Here Lassi-wallah’s macerate the homemade yoghurt using big wooden stick in a steel handi, adding little sugar. Before serving they add the heavenly ‘malai’ cream which forms as a thick layer on the top.

Sun rises very early in Varanasi, by 5:40AM the sun is dancing in the sky. When I went for a walk. I saw people cleaning their porch with water, I asked a guy if it was drinking water, he told me that this water was from his storage tank. I asked him when will he get drinking water, he said, he has drinking water stored inside. On asking about his water timings, he said they get water between 7:30AM – 8:00AM.

On my morning walk I reached water board of Varanasi, which was just a few kilometers away from our guest house. I asked the gatekeeper is this where water gets treated, he said you are not allowed inside without permission. I told him I am just interested in understanding the water supply in Varanasi, I learnt that in Varanasi there are no valveman. Water board is very keen on the water quality in the reservoirs, so they don’t let anyone inside without permission. There was a chemist at the gate who told me that banaras has the best water supply in India and the water quality is good and is treated with chlorine.

Bhargav and I were escorted by Mp Singh an assistant Engineer. Who gave us the field visit. Our field visit comprised of visiting Pump house at the source (the River ganga), overhead tanks, chlorine diffusers, Water Treatment Plant.

First stop was Pump house, five pumps pump water to water treatment plant at badini. River ganga has been the source for varanasi since 11th century, and withdrawal has been increasing decade over decade.

We were eager to learn about supply system, so we went to a over head tank at Sunderpur, only to realise that there are no valveman in Varanasi. There was no one at the over head tank as most of the supply is during morning and evening. I saw the first electric valve in water supply system.

Then we went to Water Treatment Plant to learn about the water treatment process. The process starts with settling section for suspended solids, there are four huge tanks. Clear water from settlers is supplied to filtering. Water is filtered through sand bed, then it is disinfected with chlorine.

Next day, Bhargav and I met executive engineer first thing in the morning, we talked about Bangalore, he told us his son is in Bangalore and he is buying an apartment. He was excited about it and then he arranged a meeting with the junior engineer who took us to field to show complaints.

While waiting for the junior engineer, we looked at the storage house which was 120 years old over head tank made of mud and brick, the thickness of the wall was almost 6ft. The Engineer took us for field visit to see the process of complaints redressal. On one of the sites we saw there were 5 people trying to unblock the sewer system, with the bamboo stick. Engineer told us that, they try to do the job manually, if it is difficult then they get the jetty machine. The contractor was a sweet guy, he bought us the cold drinks, which we couldn’t say no to. We went and interacted with the residents asking them questions about water supply, water quality, how much time does it take to attend complaints. We found out that the citizens were satisfied with water quantity, but not so much with the quality and the complaint redressal was not satisfactory.

We also visited the sites where people had complained about pipe damage. An apartment was under construction, they damaged the pipe while trying to dig the bore well. We tried to ask questions around this neighborhood, we found out that this area gets water 24/7, this is because the area is at lower elevation. Hence whenever someone  would plug a pump, water  would be drawn in the pipe and people feel that they have access to water 24/7.

Then we met the, GM of water board. He was very down to earth and he asked us, what changes could we suggest to him in making the water supply system more efficient, we told him they have good infrastructure, but maintenance, needs some work. He asked us if we can help the call center to collect data in such way that we can place the residents geospatially and visualise data. We met call center employees and instructed them to follow our steps in collecting data and left.

Adventurous Journey came to an end with banarasi maghai paan which is world famous, It is expensive so, you don’t get in all the paan shops, the taste was delicious and I started talking in bhojpuri.

The Island of Misfit Toys

It’s funny, most people (and by people I mean media, investors, interested onlookers) just don’t know what to do with us.  Tech people say we are too social, social people say we are too tech.  What box do we fit in? What sort of company ARE we anyway? Are we a social enterprise? Are we a tech startup?  Are we trying to make money or trying to save the world? PLEASE TELL US YOU ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS! That’s really what we are (and so fitting for Christmas)- the island of misfit toys.  I couldn’t tell you what box to check because honestly, those definitions keep changing every day, I can hardly keep up.  But at the end of the day, the classification all comes down to money.  How you get it and what you do with it.

All organizations around the world create value.  The more capitalistic leaning organizations try to capture that value monetarily.  For example, Google captured $17B of their value monetarily last quarter.  The American Red Cross captured $3B of theirs last year. Does that mean that Google provides 6x more value for the world than the Red Cross?  No- it just means they do a better job of monetarily capturing it.  That’s not good or bad, it just is.

Funding structures inform how a company operates.  If you need to pursue grants, you need to tell funders at least a year in advance exactly how you are going to spend the money to hit the milestones that they set.  Which is fine, if you know exactly how you are going to hit your goals a year from now. I would argue that if you are a fast moving tech company, you should never be able to predict exactly how you are going to spend that money to hit that goal a year from now, even 6 months from now.  If you can do that, I don’t think that company is moving fast enough in the agile framework.  Innovation isn’t happening at a rate that would make it competitive in the pure tech startup space.  So the reason the startup wouldn’t qualify for grant funding isn’t because it isn’t making the social impact it said it would (because it would actually do it in half the budget, half the time), but it just outgrew the plan it had in place a year ago for the way in which goals would be accomplished. In the grant world, line items matter. Not so much in the investment space- we give you money, make us more of it. Period.  Again, not bad or good- it just is.

So us.

We move fast and break things. I can’t tell you how we are going to be operating even 3 months from now, but I can tell you it’ll be radically different (and by different I mean better faster stronger) from today.  We put humanity on a more positive trajectory. We believe in good design.  We know what you, the user, wants before you even know you want it.  We will never offer a technology we don’t genuinely believe will help solve a problem you have.  Another thing- we don’t make up user problems.  (Personal pet peeve).  We believe that if you create tremendous value in the world, the money will follow.  And we plan to capture a significant portion of that monetarily (just to be clear).  We love creating, innovating, and pushing the boundaries of what is currently possible. We are those crazy people you sit next to on the bus/train/plane that are talking to themselves,head-phoned in, as they vigorously scribble chicken scratchy doodles into their beat up notebook (ok that may just be me).

But that’s where we are at right now.  The Island of Misfit Toys.  Otherwise known as Team NextDrop.  And I don’t think it’s going to get any clearer in the future.  We will continue to be those outcasts in this tech/social/whatever else is out there world. Which is fine by us.  Misfits are awesome.  Because I said so.

And hey, if you want to a part of this misfit island, we are always looking for people to join our tribe and hack with us.

Happy Holidays

NextDrop is My Tribe: Home For the Smart Creative (Hacking Real World Problems)

I read Seth Godin’s definition of “tribe” a long time ago, but didn’t have anything to relate it to.  At that time, I remember wishing I had a tribe, something I felt so strongly about, something that I felt connected to.  I was sitting in San Francisco the other day, reading Eric Schmidt’s book on Google, when I realized that NextDrop had become my tribe.  I belonged to a set of like minded individuals who were intent on using startup frameworks to hack real world problems dealing with governments and citizens.  Most importantly, we are a group of people who believe that the why is just as important as the what and the how, and at the end of the day, company culture trumps all.

So my biggest challenge: How do I get a like minded group of individuals together to hack problems in this space, but more importantly, how do we create that environment for them to thrive? Those Smart Creatives?   And most importantly for the discussion, how do we do that in emerging markets across the world? How do we do that in India? Kenya? Indonesia? Given the education systems, and the parental structures, and the cultural barriers, how do we a) find those smart creatives and b) create a space for them to..have fun? Feel like they are doing things that actually matter? Feel like they are expanding their minds, (and very selfishly, expanding my own realm of possibilities) to move this tribe to really change the face of government and citizen interaction as we know it?

That seems to be top of mind for me right about now.  It’s a very interesting problem to have.  But I think if we can solve this problem and have NextDrop become the haven for smart creatives around the world, the rest will take care of itself.

Any inputs welcome.

Wow Our Last Post Was From February! But We’re Still Here, Promise.

This is what happens when I can’t think of a better title.  And when you realize that half the company wasn’t even a part of NextDrop when that was posted (which is completely crazy, let me tell you.)

 

Things are fun.  Crazy, awesome, fun.  It’s a great time to be working at NextDrop (and guess what, we’re hiring! And if you’re awesome and you don’t see a matching skillset, we’ll make a job for you anyway- yes, that’s how we roll). ANYway. I digress.  The point is, it’s been awesome times at NextDrop High.  I have to say, one of my proudest moments at NextDrop came last week, when we were presenting to the Chairman of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (because, yes, we now meet with them on the regular!) and they saw their own data for the first time.  And they started to DO something about it!  In the meeting itself, making plans! YES! Making change! One government utility at a time! It was…incredible.  It was such a rush.  And the best part? They were asking us for MORE STUFF.  More data, more analytics, more predictive models.  When does that happen?  Apparently when you work at NextDrop.  And for the record, they’re a great group of people- they really want to make good things happen.  I love working with them.  Backing up, we actually signed an MOU with them in May to monitor their water supply, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.  If you live in Bangalore, you should be hearing about us soon.  We’re making a push to recruit residents (because actually, the utility itself is asking us to collect citizen feedback- so cool, right?) And if you just want to say hi, or want to re-imagine the Bangalore water supply network, let us know/drop us a line!

Another cool thing happened when I started talking to all the people that work at NextDrop.  I wanted to crowdsource a vision statement for NextDrop- why do we exist? Why does everyone want to work at NextDrop?  And it was crazy how similar the answers were.  And it was pretty enlightening too, because I didn’t think about it before.  But.  The main reasons people love NextDrop are that you basically have the freedom and learning/growth potential of a startup, but the incredible real world impact of a traditional non profit.  They basically said they loved it because it was the best of both the worlds.  The vision for NextDrop was not just an external one, but an internal one as well.  (Not your typical vision statement eh?) Learn something new every day right? Who am I to argue with organic sentiment?

But that made me so, SO happy.  When I quit my job and moved to India about 3 years ago (and wrote this first blog post) I don’t think I could have imagined, in my wildest dreams, what a great group of individuals NextDrop would comprise of.  And now, when we’re working as a unit, I still blows my mind thinking about what the sum of our differences can create. It creates magic.  Pure magic.

And it’s just beginning.  I still feel the same way I did 3 years ago.  Scared. Not sure if I’m doing the right thing.  But I do know one thing now that I didn’t think about then.  That we have an amazing team.  And we’re only going to get better.  We work hard, we make lots of mistakes, but we learn from them, and we get better for it.  We stick by each other in good times and bad, and we help each other out.  It’s such a rush.  I’m so honored to be a part of something great.

And I think that maybe, just maybe, we’re going to put a dent in the universe.

I can feel it.

It’s Time For Another CEO Post (I Should Probably Recap 2013 or Something)

I feel like that’s what all the good CEO’s do.  And who am I to argue with tradition?  Except the problem is that it’s pretty hard to truly capture what it was like at NextDrop in 2013.  Not gonna lie, it was a tough year.  But we survived.  The best way to describe it is to compare it to my first two years in undergrad.  I went to UC Berkeley and did my undergrad in engineering, where your first two years were filled with things called “weeder courses“.  These courses were literally designed to make you fail (or at least try it’s very best to).  To be fair, when I was the graduate student instructor for one of these weeder courses, I finally understood the point- the professors were only trying to create a normally distributed curve, and the test was written to challenge those that were at the top.  But that’s pretty much how I think of the last two years at NextDrop.  The weeder years.  But when you get to upper division courses, it’s still hard, but nowhere as difficult as the first two years.  I don’t really know why, because the material is more challenging, but maybe it’s just because…you’ve survived.  You know you can survive.  I think you’ve also developed the coping mechanisms for working in uncertainty, and stress (pretty much all the time).  You’ve developed the framework for success.  That’s how I feel about where NextDrop is.  I think we’ve paid our dues, and we’re leaving behind our weeder years.  We’re getting to the fun stuff now.

Anyway, I thought I should somehow try to describe what the weeder years at NextDrop felt like.  In December, Quijano asked the Exec team to write down month by month, what was happening at NextDrop in 2013.  This was what mine looked like:

Jan- Meeting Desh, realizing we need money
Feb- Start asking for money
March- Asking for money
April- Begging for money
May- Really frickin desperate for money
June- Please, I will sell my left kidney for money
July- WE GOT MONEY! Moving to Bangalore
August- Trying to get some more money in India
September- Now that we have money, lets use it!
October- Lot of Progress on the utility side
November- Learning more about our customers
December- Customer systems in place, valvemen systems in place, Bangalore office

This was Devin’s

Jan – Reservoir monitoring. Bangalore pilot. Fixing.
Feb – Celery (periodic tasks). Outbound calls. Incoming SMS. Fixing.
March – Missed call! Valveman report. Billing.
April – GeoDjango! Maps! Bhargav!
May – TESTING! YES!
June – South Migrations. Caching. Telephony handling!
July – Valve areas state changes. Pipe damages (leakage squad)!
August – Utility dashboards. Supply Durations.
September – Feedback loop.
October – Supply Schedules. Geocoder!
November – Predictive analytics. Modular Feedback 2.0.
December – DevOps. Backups. Water clock.

Personally, I like QJ’s the best (But he stopped in September- apparently life at NextDrop stopped after September for him)

jan – 424 emails!
delivery reports for how many messages were being delivered. believe it or not at one point we weren’t sending messages to landline numbers that didn’t have a 0 before their number
zero customers in areas
presentations for BWSSB
India Water Week submissions
customers who are deactivated but paid

feb – 550 emails!
fund raising – Unitas
emails about tech fixes
will poole teaches us about increasing returns
twitter india
devin forks the nd repository
mapping and sweeping
charging residents in bangalore
experimenting with PPP for company operating system
valveman reminder sms
using data to scheduling areas to bill
QJ aspires to be a hacker
sms receipts
deactivations because we’re sending incorrect messages
experiments with customers using advertising books to refer other customers
reservior level monitoring contract
forbes 30 under 30
creating dashboards to quantify good areas
integration of ODK collect

march – 414 emails!
fund raising – Khosla
accepted to speak at IWW 2013
meeting with Rutvik from Inventus capital on scaling sms products
experiments with kirana shops billing
experiment with advertising in movie theatres
mapping, mapping, mapping – billed all the areas where we launched customers correctly
no more excel for data collection
mannually transfering customers based on geotags
anjana sends out the last ‘customer’s launched email’, the thread had started on 17/9/2012, there were over 3296 customers acquired, and 50 messages on teh conversation and this was the end of the customer service team acquiring customers on hand bills
pronita commits to nextdrop
pitching to the BWSSB
GEODJANGO integration
MISSED CALL customer acquisition systems
april – 480 emails!
fundraising – IAN
reservior monitoring MVP
HD1 center billing partnership
city view map – pretty map
billing getting approvals from valvemen team
talking about websie updates
vagrant
realizing we have customers in unmapped areas!
We got a postcard from a customer saying everything should be in kanada
Bhargav joins!
Madhu shadows utility engineers
Devin starts watching pycon videos
experiments with price sensitivity in bangalore
Anu starts to learn python!

May
fundraising – Venture East
Our first interactions with GSMA
Srikanth and aadhar
time studies on HD1 centers and people paying there
Intro to the World Bank, India
working on Bangalore expansion
Testing the code

June
fundraising – Soc+Cap closed!
valve monitoring emails
experimenting with intern team in Bangalore
e xperimenting with value added service of collecting other bills
first interactions with KUIDFC
nextdrop advertisements on local hubli+dharwad channels
NUWA visit
AngelPrime
hubli interns big push for geotags
paid utility contract from Hubli

July
looking into feedback
progress in NE3
geotagging customer before launching them
bhargav begins developing utility product
Devin and Pronita meet in California
survey on water tanker prices MVP
looking at ez tap
fundraising – mumbai angels nextwrok
coverage report
valveman customer referrals
SalesForce foundation
franchisee opportunities
exit interviews with first set of bangalore interns

august
pronita arrives in India! starts to crack billing
training second set of bangalore interns
trouble shooting geotagging in bangalore
NextDrop GameClock gives us insight to our representative resources
overlapping polygons makes it difficult to recruit customers
missed call for leakages
second application with GSMA for grant
Hubli EE changes and wants to provide the service to the city
integration of supply schedules to our application
meet with some Mumbai angels
finish off geotaggin in Hubli+dharwad
switch over to ZenPayroll
backlog in bangalore customers
entire team meets with AngelPrime
manual send sms to customers
feedback loop mvp

september
Peter Thiel schools NextDrop with CS183
nextdrop_secrets
feedback mvp experiments

I think Pronita and Nishesh decided to do theirs in person when we had our meeting so I don’t have it, but I think you get the idea.

Also, I’d like to state, for the record, that just like my weeder years at UC Berkeley, I was probably a horrible person to be around.  I’m really surprised that I still have co-founders and a staff actually (i.e. they didn’t mutiny).  Being a boss is really hard, and I must admit that I did a very poor job last year, in general.  What with the stress and all.  It really hit me when one of my employees gave me feedback- he said hey Anu, it would really help if you just asked how we were doing when you got into the office.  Wow. WOW.  I didn’t realize it, but it had gotten so bad that I wasn’t even treating my own people like regular human beings,  I was so engrossed in my work.  (Thank you SO much Melwyn for bringing it to my attention, I hope I’m doing a better job this year!)  But I think that was my takeaway/learning from last year.  Sometimes, especially during your weeder years, you as a leader forget that you have an entire organization to take care of.  Not just externally, but internally as well.  And at the end of the day, organizations are human.  Very human.  And if you abstract that out, and treat your internal organization like a machine, bad things happen. (I know, that totally sounds like a no brainer, but let me tell you when you’re in the thick of stressful situations, its funny how many things you stop doing…)

So I’d like to apologize to my team and thank them for sticking with me through trying times.  Speaking of team, I should probably write out who works with us now in 2014!  But lets make it fun- this is how I see each of them

Quijano: He’s our Co- founder/COO.  He’s pretty awesome and in undergrad he used to help me with my engineering homework.  He was definitely one of the smartest people I knew at Berkeley, and that’s saying a LOT. The coolest thing about him was that I knew he could be making so much money at other jobs using his brains (read: financial sector), but he turned them down to learn about the water sector (as evidenced by turning down his Amex internship to work with the San Jose water utility).  I think that takes serious guts.  In undergrad I knew I wanted to start a business with him (in the very very unlikely possibility that I would be running a business…)

Nishesh: He’s our Co-Founder/VP of Product Develop.  Nishesh is probably one of the most solid guys I know, and he’s the guy anyone on the team goes to when they’re having issues.  I would even go so far to say he’s the rock at NextDrop.   But besides his internal rock-ness, he’s the go to guy for anything related to governments or utilities.  So all of that, “What, you’re working with governments and utilities?! Not possible!” We have Nishesh to thank for disproving all of that. (Sorry girls, he’s getting married next month 🙂

Pronita: She’s our Co-Founder/Chief Growth Officer.  Pronita is awesome because I truly admire the way she relates to people.  We used to do dance together in college (that’s how we met) but then we sort of became travel buddies, and then she was also the other person in college I knew (in the very very unlikely possibility that I would start a business) I wanted to work with her too.  She’s an absolute boss when it comes to anything relating to customers, or making NextDrop come alive.  Seriously, some of the stuff she comes up with, I’m just like..whoa.  Yeah- lets do THAT.  She brings the flesh to the NextDrop skeleton

Devin: He’s our Co-Founder/Software Engineer.  Devin is a friend of Quijano, and when we met, Quijano told me that he knew the next Bill Gates.  And then I met Devin. And I was sold.  And then in true startup style, he dropped out of college and started NextDrop with us.  Seriously, look out for this guy.  He’s 20 and he’s a powerhouse.  Devin comes up with stuff, and I just think, holy CRAP.  That’s awesome.  Why are you so smart?

Thej: He’s our Chief Technical Architect.  Thej sort of does a lot of amazing things, but mostly, he is just a really really cool guy.  Did you know you can find his name on the new Mozilla Monument in San Francisco? Yeah.  Enough said.  I love working with him, because every time I leave the conversation knowing so much more than I did before.  And that’s not just work related- about the world, politics, feminism, history, you name it, he knows about it.

Bindu: Bindu runs operations in Bangalore, but that’s really code for doing lots of important things at NextDrop.  She’s pretty much responsible for any progress we’ve made in Bangalore re: utility contracting stuff.  I also really admire her because when I hired her, she told me she doesn’t work weekends, and she holds to that rule because she wants to spend time with her daughter, and her family.  I was like…YES.  Because she gets it done during the week.  And I respect her for that. I’m trying to learn from her actually.

Bhargav: Bhargav develops with Devin and Thej and he’s just pretty awesome.  I know I say that a lot but it’s true.  His attention to detail is amazing.  It’s fun because he hides little details on our dashboards!  He was teaching me front end development stuff recently, and we had a great time going through the D3 documentation to pick out visualizations for our customer service team.  I got to see how he thought about design, and it was really really cool.  Loved pair programming with him- especially on front end stuff.  Keep on being amazing Bhargav!

Kavya: Kavya works on our customer service team, and I love the way she interacts with customers.  She has a way of gleaning information from them without even asking!  It’s the absolute best (I like seeing her customer service entries, she never asked this stuff, but she writes it in there! So Great!).  She also has great ideas on how to improve our customer experience, which I love hearing about!  I think she really has fun with customers, and I think customers really like that! Love having her here!

Madhu: Madhu works on valvemen stuff in Bangalore, but codes on the side (Yeah, I’ve seen your commits to the NextDrop code repository Madhu- go you!)  If you want things done on the valvemen side that you think are impossible, you ask Madhu.  It’s a lot of firefighting, and it’s a difficult job, but Madhu keeps it under control.  It’s great to have him on our team!

Aseem: Aseem also works on the valvemen side, but we hired him as an intern 2 years ago.  He worked at NextDrop through college, and now works here full time.  In a very Nishesh sort of way, he’s just a solid guy.  If I want something done, I have no doubt in my mind that Aseem will do it, and not only that, deliver amazing results.  It’s very rare to have people that you can forget about what you told them because you KNOW they’ll do it and they’ll do it on time- Aseem is one of those people.  Pretty much the best!

Fanus: Fanus works on the valvemen side and the thing that I remember about him was being amazed that he learned English just from watching movies! I was just floored.  You really wouldn’t be able to tell.  “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”- Steve Jobs, I’d say that definitely applies to him.  Wonderful to have him on our team!

Melwyn: Melwyn works on the customer side and like Aseem, worked through college with NextDrop and now works with us full time.  It’s been a joy to see Melwyn grow-  the types of questions he asks now and the level of thought that he has now is leagues above where he was before.  He has so many great ideas- just yesterday he saw my bus ticket from London and he asked- hey Anu, why can’t we just do this in Hubli? See- McDonald’s advertises on the back, and these are the people who would use NextDrop- the public bus users! YES.  He asks the best questions, and gives me good feedback (he’s the one who had the courage to tell me hey Anu, this is how what you do makes me feel, do you think you could change that? So great).  Keep doing your thing Melwyn!

Anjana: Anjana works on the customer side, is pretty much the one who keeps us in check fiscally, and her story is interesting.  I was recruiting at a college where she was working as industry recruitment director, and at the end, I met the kids and I wasn’t really interested in hiring any of them.  She came in, and convinced me to have a coffee and talk to her about how they could improve their system.  By the end of the conversation, I knew that I wanted her to work for us! And..well, the rest is history 🙂  She is the enforcer who makes sure we abide by the rules and when we’re not, she definitely yells at all of us (and I mean ALL of us- I have not so happy WhattsApp messages from her as well).  Which is awesome.  Keep on keeping us in check Anjana!

Prabhu: Prabhu works on the customer side and his story is pretty interesting as well.  He started off as a part time rep that went door to door to recruit and bill for NextDrop.  I clearly remember that he would come to the office early to pick up phones, and come back late to deliver the phones back to the office. I was really impressed.  And one day, he took the time to get his ideas translated from Kannada to English, and sent us all an email on how we should run marketing campaigns in Hubli.  I was sold.  We hired him full time to work on the customer service team.  Keep on learning and making us get better Prabhu!

Amit: Amit is our newest team member, and he works on both the valvemen side and the customer side.  The thing I remember most is that he asks the most insightful questions.  That’s what got me at the interview too.  It felt like he was thinking 2 steps ahead and asked the right questions.  I hope you keep asking good questions Amit, I love it! (And make sure people are giving you good answers- especially me!)

Ok! Now you know the ENTIRE NextDrop family!  Feel free to drop us a line, or if you’d like to be adopted, I’m sure we could find a job for you too (especially if we think you are cool).

No seriously, that is really how we hire people.

Ok done plugging NextDrop careers.

What do we have planned for 2014?  Well, for one thing, we’re going to try and keep things updated more regularly here on this blog.  But in short, I’m excited because I think this is really where we get to do the cool stuff.  The fun stuff.  The big stuff.  The opportunities are in front of us, now it’s up to us to work our butts off to make it happen.  I think that’s the best possible position to be in.

#GameFace

 

Case of the transferring official

Recently, NextDrop went through the transition phase that every startup/social enterprise that is working with State run entities goes through. Transfer or changing of utility/government officials. All the rapport and trust you built over the past 2 years winked out in a flutter. As it so happens, while I knew this was inevitable eventually, this change of guard in Hubli caught me completely blindsighted. Here I was; happily preparing for my trip to the US, ready to recount to anyone who would listen, that working with government entities in India isn’t fraught with delays, glacial pace and reams of paperwork; content in the knowledge that I had readied everything for my absence for the next three weeks. All the while, though, something was pecking at my brain, telling me I had forgotten something. Something major. And this ‘major’ unleashed itself on me the day before my departure. The new Hubli Water Board Executive Engineer had taken charge and had summoned me to his office.

What ensued was precisely how one should not begin a partnership with the new administator of the state utility. Therefore I decided that the world must learn from my mistakes. Here are the most crucial things to consider when a new administrator assumes charge of government entity you are working with:

1) Prepare during the transition phase – My cardinal sin was to not prepare for the new arrival during the transition phase. Once you find out that your current counterpart is about to leave, there are two things one must do. First, find out what the priorities of the incoming engineer/manager are. Second, ask your current counterpart to introduce your service/work to the newcomer. A bonus would be if they introduce you as well but that is expendable as long as your services are given a proper foreword.

2) Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork – In India, you cannot easily find an exhaustive list of all the documents, permission and letters you need to have before you have an ironclad blessing to operate, especially if you’re working with the municipality or a state run utility. As a result, the paperwork we had, while sufficient for the previous administrator, was found grossly lacking  by the new incumbent.
In my experience, it is best to check with utility staff in charge of budgeting and finances what additional paperwork you need to establish your legitimate right to work with them beyond question. If ever in doubt, best is to preempt and get that paperwork in advance. If you think no one is going to ask for it, trust me, that will be the first document they’ll demand.

3) Be the host, not a supplicant – If you have received a good foreword and favorable reviews from citizens and users of your service, then you are well set for a productive first meeting. However, you should make first contact. What I should have done is to call on the new engineer and ask for a meeting. Even if he did not acknowledge it right away, I would have marked my presence in the register. When he finally gives you an appointment, invite him to see your office and learn about the work you have been doing successfully for the past x number of years. This is especially significant if you are doing anything related to technology.
Most administrators view technology as a daunting opportunity. While it sounds oxymoronic – it is anything but. Even the most ‘luddite’ utility managers see technology as the great emancipator. A pill to kill all ills. However, they may be extremely wary of it since it obscures their operations within a black box with a fancy looking User Interface. The closer they are to on the ground operations, the more wary they are. As a result, being transparent about how your technology does what it does in layman’s tongue, will go a long way in increasing their comfort level both with you and your services.

4) Get educated – first hand – By educated, I mean internalize his vision, priorities and motivations for the office. During your initial discussions, try and gauge if there is a fit between your services and his goals and mandate. That will define your focus area and further opportunities to support his targets. You can be the instrument for his and ultimately the utility’s improved performance.

5) Establish your credibility – At the beginning, any administrator will have a lot of questions about your company. What are your motivations behind doing this work, where is the funding coming from and most importantly how much money you are making. These are especially pertinent for startups/social enterprises. His skepticism is completely understandable. In countries like India, there are throngs of peddling salesmen trying to sell junk to the government. So the administrator’s first instinct is honed to be extremely skeptical. In order to establish your credibility, you must be willing to answer his questions honestly. Some of these might be beyond the boundaries of standard due diligence but that is the price of his trust. For example, I had to pretty much lay out my balance sheet and details of my marginal costs in front of him. The rewards, however, for such transparency are also commensurate. Once you have his trust, he’ll start to incorporate you in his vision. And that is the place you want to be!

My Most Memorable Day at NextDrop (yet!)

We had our first customer town hall yesterday at the NextDrop offices in Hubli. Completely unexpected and unplanned, it turned out to be the most memorable day in my not entirely uneventful life at NextDrop. First things first. The premise: Under the aegis of the Hubli Dharwad Water Board, NextDrop has been shortlisted for the National Urban Water Awards. A committee from the Administrative Staff College of India was slated to conduct a field visit on the 22nd of June. As it was eagerly awaited, we had prepared in all earnestness for the visit.
We thought it would be good to invite a few customers to the office. Going to the field and trying to locate houses of customers can be quite tiring despite geotags. So, I asked Anjana to call about 10 customers and organize lunch for them. As Anjana started calling – we should have realized then. It was fairly easy to get them to agree to come to the office at 1 pm on Saturday. Feeling well prepared, I left for Bangalore for a day. When I returned, QJ told me that they had sent the last 100 people, who had paid a NextDrop bill, an SMS inviting them for lunch at the office and asking them to confirm by giving us a ‘missed call’. Watch out eventbrite, that’s how future events will receive RSVPs. In the first 15 minutes of the message being sent, about 15 people confirmed.
Thus, the appointed day arrived. The plan – first a presentation at the Water Board office, then we bring the committee to the office to see operations, meet the valvemen and customers. As we entered the office, the committee and the utlity engineers in tow, we were welcomed by the sight of 6 customers already waiting for us. It was 1.05 pm. I have never seen this kind of punctuality from indian customers before.
The committee introduced themselves and explained to the group that they were here to check whether a service like NextDrop even existed, if it did, was it accurate and finally how did the customers benefit from it. Even before he finished, one of the customers spoke. “I receive messages late. Sometimes I receive water at 7 and the message at 8. That should not be, right?” My heart sank. May be they are all here to complain how they have not been receiving good service. “Do you always receive incorrect messages?” The utility engineer asked. “No No. Only sometimes. I find the service extremely useful. It is of great benefit to us.”
Meanwhile, about 5 more customers had arrived, some along with their spouses. What followed was a chorus of resounding thumbs up for the service. One customer said, “This is a very good service. I can’t believe it is only Rs. 10 a month. I would subscribe to the service even if they raised prices.” Several other customers agreed. One of them was in Bangalore when he received a message that his water supply was about to commence. He immediately called his neighbour to shut off his tap. Others said they used to the service to conserve water as well. Now, they didn’t have to leave their taps on. As the discussion started to move into high gear, more customers showed up. By 1.30 pm, we had about 17-20 customers in the office.
Enter valvemen – 3 of Hubli’s finest. They took stage and gave a detailed answer on how they receive far less number of calls inquiring about water supply since they started sending notifications to NextDrop and how they use the IVR system. Upon proding, they even introduced themselves and were rewarded with a big round of applause from the customers as well as their Water Board bosses.
After hearing just the first few remarks from customers, the committee was convinced that the service was of incredible help to citizens. I think they saw how strongly customers felt for the service. In fact, soon discussion turned to the issues of 24×7 water supply being piloted in 10% of the city. Customers debated whether the system was really required. One couple noted that if they were supplied water even for an hour reliably with a decent pressure, they wouldn’t want 24×7 supply. The committee members enumerated some benefits of continuous water supply to a rapt audience. It was incredible to see how deeply citizens thought and cared about water issues in the city. They were very well informed about the current state of affairs and wanted more information from the utility.

As the flow ebbed for a second, I took my opportunity and asked the question that has been haunting me for a while. “What would it take for you to recommend the service to your friends and family.” After such a comprehensive vote of confidence to our services, I thought this would be easy. They would tell me, we are already doing that or we would be happy to. And here is where I was laughably wrong. There was a pause and I noticed several heads shaking. Then one of them stated conclusively, “That is not our job.” “Yes, that is your job, you go door to door and tell people about the service. We are not going to do this.” another agreed. Taken aback, I wondered why not? “For 2 reasons, one, as soon as I recommend the service, people are going to wonder what is in it for me; and two, if for some reason they don’t get good service, they will bite my head off.” “However, if you send your people, or organize a similar event in my neighbourhood, I would be happy to testify about the quality and usefulness of the service”. In one fell swoop, my customers had told me that they are extremely hardnosed but they love the service.
Finally, as lunch was being served, customers asked us how many customers we had. 5000. That is not nearly enough to sustain yourself. We want the service to go on. You should raise your prices, one suggested. Another went as far as saying it should be made compulsory for everyone in the city. Have you expanded to the entire city yet? May be the Water Board should pay you for this service, one said looking more at the utility engineer than us.
The feedback of the day came from a lady (most probably a housewife) who remarked, ” Now I am free to go anywhere I like!” It took me a moment to absorb what she meant. There it was. Proof beyond an iota of doubt – we had made an impact. NOTHING, has made me happier than hearing that being said. The fact that we have been able to eliminate this uncertainty from the lives of people is the ultimate validation that what we do, matters. What other 10 rupee service would elicit such passionate feedback from you, that you would spend half your Saturday with the company, that you would brainstorm with them – ideas to stay afloat and expand! Our customers love our service and they want us to expand and improve, to succeed. Enough said.