How OKRs filled my Missing DNA — Part 1/3
The Present feeling
Oh Man, Can you believe how does it feel when you just find some missing DNA sequence to re-create dinosaurs? Only John Hammond can understand, and me. When I was reading this book I could clearly see the scene from an old movie Jurassic Park in front of my eyes. Do you remember the scene too?
Disclaimer: This blog is just a story, my story. If you like to read stories, you are welcome. But this is not a technical blog to find a solution to any problem. It’s my Journey, and everyone is welcome to be part of my next phase.
The Beginning of Quest
From the last ~15 years, it is my passion to find and experiment with the best ways to run a business and actually deal with people and teams that will finally run a business. I ran and shut down many businesses, and my colleagues were used to listen to this from me “ I don’t want a business that can run, I want that can Fly, And I am not interested in such business but the system that can make it Fly”. My Focus shifted from tools to better tools and from better tools to “tools that can manage resources better”, and from there to manage humans in the best way. Ultimately, the company is made of people, Isn’t it?
My Journey Started 20 Years Ago when I step into the world of entrepreneurship and my first service. I did my Engineering diploma and dropout B.E. in 2000, I realised that this is not what matters for me, So, I Quit and started my journey my way. My quest started 15 Year ago when a new entrepreneur who was struggling with his business in a small town with no reach to the outside world and having business education by family or school, found that the next big thing will be definitely online world and if companies can create easy websites and be online to sell, it can jump their businesses. That’s it. Yeah, Yeah, I know I was very late to think this, but that I know now. At that time, I was ahead of others, at least in my views.
So, with my running business(just to keep surviving), we started creating a tool with drag and drop based web development facility. I knew people will need experts to track the outcomes of the website so we integrated analytics inbuilt. Later we researched and found that how AI can be next big thing and we integrated AI to make the CMS as one of the first AI-enabled CMS. A Market place where developers can code and put their applications etc. We launched it, It was a wonderful tool. We implemented it with as many companies as we could. The tool started rolling well. It was Epan, a short of “Electronic Permanent Address”, your digital presence on the Internet.
(No need to see videos for this journey blog, It's just that I wanted to place it here)
While everyone in the company was thrilled, I was not. This was just another tool in my views, It was a good addition to any company’s toolbag. It has everything a company needs TO CREATE WEBSITE. I was not happy as it was not adding the value I wanted to add for a company or business.
Very soon, when everyone was looking to scale, I shut it down. I didn’t want to scale without having a perfect market fit product ready. Running that cool business was never on my top list until I know what exactly I have to do, to be as effective as I am wishing for entrepreneurs and companies. I wasn’t ready to have a pivot towards a great business leaving my ‘Aha’ moment achieved.
I understood, that we don’t need a tool. We need something that any company can rely on, to achieve success. So it has to be more than a website with some wonderful tools inbuild to measures and manage visitors and leads with strong analytics.
We wanted to create something that includes most of the good practices for any business that can give them a perfect start and directions.
At that time we couldn’t find any better name than ‘ERP” for what we planned to create. The team was no more with me, as I was not growing. They needed a growing company and I needed that system and just one ‘AHA’ Moment.
Very soon, I started creating xEpan 1.0 (You can imagine the ‘X’ as X-Man of Man). I knew companies and organizations needs a 360-degree view of what's going on in there and everyone has to be on the same page to make a business successful. I had two ways to go, by books and by understanding what an owner wants and how the team reacts to his vision. I choose the second one.
I met and worked with as many companies as I could. I was in the core of most of those and saw them taking decisions and the outcomes, I saw and analyse what decisions they were taking and how they were implemented, I saw them growing, I saw them surviving, I saw them fail and I saw them achieve their success in their own terms as well.
But, I needed to study more and this way I cannot work with more companies and people.