The Balance Sheet OR Profit & Loss way of building a business.
by Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
- 17,392 views
Accessibility
Categories
Upload Details
Uploaded via SlideShare as Microsoft PowerPoint
Usage Rights
© All Rights Reserved
Statistics
- Likes
- 10
- Downloads
- 155
- Comments
- 8
- Embed Views
- Views on SlideShare
- 2,924
- Total Views
- 17,392
No business [ here i mean a real business that lasts more than a decade ], can be built without sustainable long term assets to facilitate PNL. It never was a viable way, and i guess, it never will be. if you see any business that is milking cash today, it has to have a great asset base, again in any avatar in its present or previous lives. So if a few flicks who call themselves entrepreneurs, have honed their skills at a large enterprise and then make a PNL business, do carry assets paid by someone else. Again to the point of any large company of today, i mean TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, etc. became big PNL business only because of the assets built by them for years, including technical and marketing skills. Any other economic activity like steel making, automobiles, dressing people, vanity, entertainment, ANY, if it has to be a business needs a strong balance sheet to be built.
So for all entrepreneurs reading this, please focus on a balance sheet with assets, as alok says, it takes 10 years to make it big, and i guess about 4-5 years, to just make the assets you need. People may not see the value of the assets you have built, but focus on doing that. They will eventually see it. Do not listen to people who want you to explain how will you make money in 10 mins. Very few people understand it that fast.
And asset building cannot happen with today's abundant capital. Only because it is not cheap. 5x and 10x VC formulas are for entreprenuers to pay for the venture capitalists mistakes. Even after a 1:40 funding:receiving business plan ratio their error rate is often more than 60%. In most cases with that kind of success rate, you are considered a failure.
The Indian ecosystem for early stage capital is not yet mature for today's markets specially the internet market. Great companies have always been built in this nation and under every economic condition. This aberration will pass too. eComm cos have shown, that a quick and large PNL business is only about finding the larger fool.
Great Investors have a great track record to back companies that will make a lot of value. They do not have a 1:10 [ or 1:5 or even 1:3 ] success ratio. For every company they back, it creates value, not just for themselves but the ecosystem at large.
So there are two ways then, one find lower cost of capital or substitute a higher cost of capital by finding a better team including the investor. The second is the best way to make the odds in your favour because finding lower cost of capital in highly inflationary times is not going to be possible even with great efforts.
Hence understand what is the value you are creating and focus on making a strong Balance Sheet to make a strong PNL. 1 year ago
Rock solid, AirTel is another example out of many which has impressed me a lot. They have been running a P/L business which was asset intensive and rewarding after many years of operations.
Thanks,
Vinit 1 year ago