A question for the VCs…

And for the early stage investors, seed investors and angel investors

There is one thing I would like to ask the VCs in India today. Name some of the companies you have invested in which didn’t do well. Whenever you see any VCs, they always talk of the investments that have done well. Somehow, that doesn’t tell me how much of risk you take while investing in companies. This is especially true of those who claim to do early stage investments. If none of the companies you invested in failed to take off, that probably means you are making far too safe investments. If you look at the kind of questions even the early stage investors need an answer to, they just seem like VCs dolling out smaller amount of money. Doesn’t quite fulfill the purpose or early stage funding.

I am not cross or anything. In fact, I have quite started to believe in the idea of boot-strapping, despite it being a tough thing for consumer facing businesses to do. But if you get some support from friends and families, it may just be possible. But I do feel that the situation is not that encouraging for all the hoo-haa that is created around VC money flowing in India.

We need real angel investors, who invest with their intuitive sense rather than by their financial number crunching sense. Yes, yes - I know financials can not be set apart. But still the primary driver of a small investment in the angel stage has to be intuition. Somebody who shares the passion of the founders for the idea. And I think it would not be possible for the firms to become real angel investors. A group of people would invariably fall for deep analysis and resort to “objective” measures like financials. Plus the way VC firms work also makes it difficult because the VCs are essentially using other people’s money. So, they can’t take risks personally.

I guess we need more wealthy individuals in India :D, who would invest small amount form their own pocket - so that they don’t have to answer to anybody else, who would invest in whacky ideas, who would lose at times (but that loss wouldn’t be very great for them) and win at other times with spectacular success.

Let’s see if we see some like those around! Some real angels!

Payment Gateway Gyaan…

So when all the ’sarkari’ work was over, I thought we were done with all of those frustrating situations where you feel totally helpless with the system. I was wrong…

It was when we started deciding on the payment gateways that we were in for a surprise. In general, if you are running a business with high margin and your individual transactions are of large value, you may not have to bother about it. One of the costlier, but reliable gateway or something like paypal would work fine for you.

But if you are relying on having a low margin, high volume business, targeted at Indian audience, you are in for a trouble! The reliable Indian payment gateways, are super costly and you will either have to increase the prices accordingly or see you margins being wiped out. And these also have high setup costs. Those which seem to have more reliable rates have scary reviews on the Internet.

Some of the international gateways like Paypal and Moneybookers are good, service-wise and also from the point of view that there are no upfront costs. But there are other things to be considered.

Firstly whether they deal with Indian Rupees or not. Now, when a gateway supports “Indian Currency”, it may mean two things. First and more common one is that they will send you the money in Indian Rupees. This is what Paypal and Worldpay do. But you have to pass on your prices to the gateway in USD, which at some point even your customers will see. Their cards will be charged in USD and are subject to exchange rate volatility as well as any service fees their bank/CC company may charge for foreign transaction. Then when you get the money from them, again exchange rate uncertainties come into picture, because they will convert USD to INR before sending it to you.

Moneybookers is better for businesses targeted at Indian audience because it supports INR in a broader sense. It deals directly in Indian Rupees. So, prices, credit card charges and remittance to you are all in INR. No forex business. So you know exactly what is being charged to your customers and what you will be getting. They don’t even have any setup cost. But there is another caveat. Their charges per transaction is 3.5% of the transaction value+ 0.29 Euro. Now this 0.29, which looks so innocuous expressed in Euros, turns out to be equivalent to 20 INR approx. Not a good thing for selling low value items!

As of now, we have one Indian Payment Gateway provider which looks okay from all perspectives. Let’s hope that it works out soon. Our store opening is kind of stuck on this.

Supermarket Hopper

I feel like calling myself a supermarket hopper. I frequent different modern retail outlets (supermarkets, hypermarkets etc.) looking for something interesting that makes daily chores easy.

Ready to Eat items are only an occasional relief. Both from the price and taste perspective they can not be eaten on a regular basis. They are more of a substitute for occasional restaurant food.

Recently I discovered potato powder from a brand call Veg-it. This is dry potato powder, in which you only have to mix water to get potato mash. And I must confess I am loving it. Suddenly making aaloo paranthas and samosas at home is so much easier and faster. Boiling and mashing the potatoes is the most boring and lengthy part of preparing these dishes otherwise.

Another discovery a while back was Good Life brand of milk from Nandini. They are not substantially costlier than the normal milk packets, but they don’t need boiling. For someone like me, who is not a regular milk consumer, but does not like getting embarrassed when someone visits and there is no milk in house for a cup of tea, it was an answer to all milk prayers. I can keep the supply for several days/weeks. Until the pack is opened, it does not even need refrigeration. After opening it too, just refrigerating it is enough. No boiling required at regular intervals! Wow!

One thing I would really be happy to get somewhere is a dough maker. For atta, maida etc. That’s one time taking chore, for which I have not found a suitable solution. This is what my ideal dough making machine will do. You put in atta or maida or anything else with which you have to make a dough. Then put water in a separate compartment. You should not have to worry about the exact quantity of water. You specify what the stuff is (atta or maida or something else) and what is the purpose of making the dough (dough for making pooris needs to be harder than that for making rotis). Alternately you can specify how hard or soft you want the dough to be by rotating a knob (or though some other equally intuitive arrangement). Then the machine figures out the right quantity of water to be mixed, makes the dough and gives you a way to easily take it out and clean the machine. A more intelligent machine would not have the pre-set ratio of dough material and water. Rather it would incrementally mix the water and then test if the hardness of the dough is right - that would be closer to how the humans do it. It may even allow you some manual adjustments of the quantity of water. This would be helpful in situations where different brands of dough material have slightly different physical properties.

Beyond the cooking chores, another thing I am looking for is some device to clean the keyboard of laptops and desktops easily. There are several wipes, sprays etc. that are in the market to clean the screen, but there is nothing I could find in Bangalore that would help in cleaning the keyboard. There are some brushes, but that’s not enough. Ideal device would a powerful enough, but a handy vacuum cleaner. Otherwise, there are aerosol sprays that can help clean the dust, but I have been unable to locate them in Bangalore. They can not be brought in the flights; so can’t even get it from the US I did get a vacuum cleaner from ebay India, but it was wonderfully ineffective. It is powered by USB and yeah - USB can’t give enough power. I wish they had made something usable powered by electricity, rather than something cool powered by USB and totally useless! Anybody has found something in Bangalore for this purpose, please do let me know.

And hey, one gadget I would like to acquire is this - http://iball.co.in/inner/show_product_details2.asp?catid=26&pid=77. But am just resisting…

Updates

I know it has been a while. But these were slightly hectic days. No visible impact yet, but those should be out in few days. We’d have our online store open soon. Abhaya is back in India and last week was hectic in settling him down. The office cum home is his home now and I have shifted elsewhere.

The inspection by VAT inspector is over, but we are still waiting for our registration number. I am keeping my fingers crossed. We have settled down on people who will handle our accounts, taxes and compliance work. So, we can focus on business better now.

Meanwhile given that our printing infrastructure is ready to spin out quality printouts, those in Bangalore can avail of this facility at very reasonable prices. Check out http://mudran.com.

And more gyaan on low cost running of company. We bought two cheap double bed-sheets from Big Bazaar and wrapped the huge printer cartons with it. We have two great looking tables now! No, I won’t put computers and laptops on it. Though sturdy enough, they won’t be of the right height and ergonomics. But for other general purposes they look not only good, but quite beautiful!

My part time job is going good too. Btw, are there any good ASP .Net developers around who are looking out? Leave your contact e-mail id through the comments (e-mail id is not published) and someone from Shiksha Planet will contact you.

The Diary of Gautam Buddha

English translation of the original story in Hindi. Many people wanted it translated. But if you can read Hindi, it’d be better if you read the original one. I have tried to translate it as well as I can, but original is still the original. Any suggestions regarding the words and phrases which could be replaced by more suitable ones are welcome. Even well known words do not come to mind when you sit down to translate!

–

The summer season is here. Now for four months I will be staying in the Water Palace. I like staying here because of the small lakes that are built all over in the palace. I enjoy playing with water.

Father was discussing my wedding with aunt today. He mentioned that Yashodhara is very beautiful. I am excited, but am also a little scared. The married life would be so different from childhood, wouldn’t it? With new set of duties. I have no idea as to what her likes and dislikes would be. Aunt doesn’t like my habit of playing with water at all. How would she like it? If she dislikes it, would or would not she tell me? I do hope she would not be cross without telling me about it. As much as I have heard, its not easy to understand the nature of women. And it does appear to be very right. Just look at aunt. How difficult it is to predict as to what will cause her to be angry, what will cause her to be pleased and what will make her all love and affection! I wonder what will please or provoke Yashodhara.

–

I always though that the life was so pleasant. Only after Yashodhara has walked into my life that I have realized that, that was nothing. Now I want time to just stop where it is. But no, why should it stop? Every new moment is as beautiful as the one gone by. Now life will always be like this. How sweet, how pleasant. Her sweet voice, her soft laughter, the sound of the jewelry she wears, and the music all around in this Spring Palace! One can not thank the creator of life enough!

–

Aunt told me today that I am going to be a father soon. The baby that would be a part of mine. The way father has always loved me, I will also love it, love it more than my own life.

–

When I had seen Yashodhara for the first time, I thought she was the most beautiful woman on the earth. But after Rahul is born, with the glow and pride of motherhood, she looks even more beautiful. And Rahul? I don’t feel like ever letting him go. He is a part of mine. Aunt always says that his appearance, behaviour everything reminds her of me as a child. How good does it feel to be a father. Life is even more beautiful now. And yesterday Rahul stood on his feet for the first time without any support. How cute did he look!

–

What kind of falsehood was I living with till now. Father and aunt would not be with us forever. Yashodhara will grow old and ugly someday. I will probably die of illness. And Rahul? He would have to go through the same tortures. That innocent, vulnerable creature will have to go through all this? The life will not always be as comfortable as it is today. What is the point of having the comforts today then? Why are we there in this world? Why do we come here? To live in the falsehood of comforts for a while and then to go through immense torture. Whosoever created life, why did he do so? Why did he fill the life with so much misery?

When the life has to end, when one has to suffer, what is the point in living with this falsehood of comfort? What is the truth of life? What is its purpose? Father knowingly kept me in this false world all this while. He would not let me search for the truth even now. I will have to go somewhere far from here. I will have to find the truth.

Yashodhara and Rahul? No, no. I don’t know where I am going. I can’t take them with me on this uncertain path. They will be sad to find me gone. But this has to happen someday or the other. It may as well happen today. When I find the truth, I will come back and tell them about that too.

Dear Yashodhara!

But I must leave now.

–

I wandered around to find the truth. I tried to understand it, find it through several different means. And here it is. So simple a thing. Its within us. Why, then, do people suffer so much in the world? And why can’t they get out of this cycle of birth and death?

No. This need not happen any longer. I have spent so many years of my life in finding this truth. Now, I am not going to let my knowledge go waste. I will tell everyone. But why am I feeling so anxious? Why do I feel that there is something pending for me to do? What is bothering me so much?

Yashodhara! How would she be? She has probably spent all these years in some kind of mourning. But now? Now she need not be unhappy any longer. I will go to her. I will make her see the truth of life, that I have found after so much suffering. She, too, has suffered all this while. Both of us have suffered due to our ignorance. Now the sufferings would be gone. I will leave tomorrow before sunrise.

–

I got up today with the intention of leaving for Kapilvastu. But I could not do that. Yashodhara is a simple woman. She has endless faith in me. She would certainly try to understand what I say. She would even believe them. But father? He has seen me growing up slowly, since I was a new-born baby. Things like finding the truth would sound childish to him coming from me. He would never let me proceed in life in my own way. Its not that he wishes me ill. But people always remain little kids for their parents. Parents can never believe that their children could know and understand something which they themselves didn’t. I beg your pardon father. I don’t intend to disrespect you by thinking like this. Its not that I have become excessively proud or something. But the worldly definition of respect and disrespect has ignored some greater truths of life.

And Yashodhara? She would have to suffer. For the sake of the rest of the world.

So instead of going towards Kapilvastu from Bodhgaya, I proceeded in the opposite direction. I have to start a new phase of my life now.

–

Today, at a place called Sarnath, near Varanasi, I talked to five gentlemen. I tried to explain them my experience and the truth. It was clear that they have respect for me. But the respect did not come from them understanding what I was trying to say. Rather they respect me for all that I have gone through, for abandoning the royal life to find the truth. Yes - that is the reason they respect me. I thought that this truth is so simple that it would be very easy to explain it to everyone. But that didn’t happen. It was very difficult to explain the experience in words. It was very clear that they were not able to understand. I am going to talk to them again. But before that I have to think a bit over how to put that experience, that truth in simple words, so that everyone can understand it.

–

Today I was a bit more successful. Today I could explain to them the truth in simple words. I put forward my experience in three simple sentences:

• Life has sufferings.
• The origins of suffering are cravings and desires.
• By removing cravings and desires sufferings can be gotten rid of.

And these five people accepted this truth. They have promised to accompany me and help me in spreading this truth all over the world. It’s difficult to believe. In such short span of time there are six of us! If people keep coming in like this, it won’t be long before there would be no suffering in the world.

–

More and more people are joining the Sangha. When I reach a new place, people already know about me. They are very eager to give us alms and very keen to know the truth. It seems like the whole world was waiting for this truth.

Even father has heard of me. Today messengers have come from Kapilvastu with his message. For now I haven’t given them any answer. Tomorrow they will also attend my sermon. What will they tell father after going back? Would it be right for me to go to Kapilvastu? For Yashodhara, if nobody else. I have no idea of how she would be. And Rahul? He would be a grown up boy now. He might be curious to know about his father. What does Yashodhara tell him?

But no! It is not the right time to go there yet. Many people have joined Sangha. But I don’t think father still considers it anything more than my childish play. The right time has not come yet.

–

The messengers from Kapilvastu came to me today to ask for the permission to join the Sangha. I can’t describe how happy I felt.I have not been able to go to Yashodhara and other members of the royal family with this truth. But it is benefiting somebody from that place at least.

But these days I am facing another problem. While I was talking about this truth mostly to educated people, it was enough to tell them what the truth is. But now I am reaching out to common people and it seems like what I am telling them in not enough. The situation is similar to how it was in Sarnath several years ago. People respect me. The reason behind that respect is that they have heard a lot about me, my life before they met me. Therefore, they listen to me. They even join the Sangha. But internalizing the truth is difficult for them. I need to put my understanding into words. They need to be told as to how to attain the truth. I will have to think more over this.

–

Today I saw a sick child. The disease was curable with some easily available herbs and I cured him. I was surprised as to why hadn’t any doctor cured him till then. It turned out that the child belonged to a so called lower caste and no upper caste doctor was willing to attend him. How unfair it is! This caste system is making our society so hollow from inside. And worst of all, even those for whom it is unfair, don’t think that the system is inappropriate. Then who is going to oppose the system? I have decided that I will work harder to get these people to see the truth. More and more of them need to join the Sangha.

But there is a good news too. The eight fold path that I had thought of, to help common people attain the truth, has gained traction with people. In fact they have heartily accepted it. People who are already with the Sangha now see their path more clearly. The number of people joining the Sangha is also accelerating. Now I have added a fourth sentence to my explanation of truth. That cravings and desires can be removed by following the eight fold path.

–

Father has sent seven message till now. All the messengers have joined the Sangha and have not gone back. But I still don’t feel prepared to go to Kapilvastu.

And Yashodhara?

No. I should not think about her. I don’t have anything to do with the worldly attachments. This is the biggest problem of Sangha too. The attachment of the members of Sangha towards women often creates problems. Till now women have not been associated with the Sangha. I think I will have to make that a rule, so that it does not happen even in future. Otherwise these members will go astray from their path of the truth.

–

Today I received tenth message from father. From the language of the letter, it looks like he has accepted my way of living. He still does not seem to believe in it, but I don’t think he would try to stop me any longer.

Probably now is the time to go to Kapilvastu.

But there are things that are not going all right. Today I saw a man who was suffering from an incurable disease. His family wanted me to bless him and to cure him with my powers, as I have supposedly done in past. I tried to explain to them that the disease was not curable and that I had never cured anyone through a divine power, but through medicines. And that there was no cure known in the medical science for the disease that the man was suffering from. But they didn’t believe me. They thought there was something lacking in their hospitality and hence I did not bless the man. I could not make them understand and I am nobody to be blessing people!

–

Yashodhara! I was not prepared to see her dull face. Where was that youth, that glow on the face, the long hair, those shining eyes? It seemed like I was looking at somebody else. Was I the reason behind this transformation?

But when she spoke, I realized that nothing has changed of her self-assured nature. I had thought that she would be angry with me, that she would taunt me, that she would cry. And then I would tell her about the truth and she would no longer suffer. But none of that happened. She asked me very simply, “If there is one truth in the world, why does one have to go to the jungle to find that? What is the problem with the palace?”

When I had set out to find the truth, I did not know what the truth is. The only thing I knew that in the palace people didn’t let me see the truth. So, I ran away. But I could not tell her all this. Because this was still no justification for what I had done to her. When I did not know the truth, I still knew something else. I knew the duties of a man and a father. But I ran away from even those.

When I looked at her face, then even in the physical dullness, I saw a glow that was not seen on the faces of even the best, the most learned members of Sangha. And I felt that Yashodhara knew the truth. And that she knew something beyond the truth too. Probably what she knew could bring more good to the world . But I have gone too far now. According to my own rules, women can not join the Sangha. At that moment, everything that I ever wanted to tell her, every experience I ever wanted to share with her, had lost their meaning.

I could not think of anything else; so I changed the topic. “Madame! A Sangha member asks for alms from you.”

“I have nothing with me other than my son. I give him to you. I hope that he would find his truth in a different way and another Yashodhara would not be born in this world.”

She had taunted me. But it wasn’t a wife taunting a husband. It was a learned person taunting an ignorant one. I should be stayed on; I needed to learn something. But I have gone too far. I can’t look back now.

After today’s sermon many people from Kapilvastu joined the Sangha.

–

It has been so many years now. So many people have joined the Sangha. So many of them have adopted the four noble truths and eight fold path. But why do I feel dissatisfied? Why do I get this feeling that despite accepting these principles, people have not been able to attain the truth?

–

These days people welcome me with scented sticks, earthen lamps and other things used for worship rituals. Many songs have been written praising my divine qualities. People want to touch my feet and they think they will be able attain Nirvana simply with my blessings. Rich people are trying to attend Nirvana by donating gardens and Viharas to the Sangha. What is all this? I had set out to spread the message of truth in the world. How come I have become more important than the truth itself. Something is terribly wrong.

–

Now the Sangha has grown so big, that many members travel all over the country and elsewhere without me accompanying them. I have no control over what is being preached to the people in my name. From what I hear, at many places people have written down the principles of the eight fold path and pasted it on the walls of their houses. Will I ever be able to make them understand that reading that would lead them nowhere. When I try to explain to people the importance of truth; so that they don’t equate me with the truth and a God, they consider it my humility and go on believing what they want to believe.

What have I done? I had started off to show the truth to the world, but I have put them all on a wrong path. What had that young man said, whom I met in Jetvana, several years ago. He knew that I have found the truth. But everyone has to find his own truth. So, he would not join the Sangha. He was right. Did he attain the truth after all?

–

Today when Rahul got up after his meditation, I saw the same glow on his face that was there on Yashodhara’s when I last met her. Rahul touched my feet for blessing and said, “Sir. I have attained the truth today. And now I need to go.”

I believed him at once. He had found the truth. For the first time I went for a walk with him alone. He was no longer just a little kid or a student to me. He was my equal and I could talk to him like one. I spoke to him about my dilemma. How I was realizing that I have put people on the wrong path and how I feel like getting away from all of this.

The depth and sincerity of his answer took me by surprise, “Sir. I can very well understand what is going on in your mind. When mother was sending me off with you she had said, ‘Son! I am giving you to your father. I expect you to be inspired by him and search for the truth. But son, everyone has to find his own truth. And there is something more that one needs to understand after attaining the truth. That you should follow the path of truth after attaining it, but should not expect that others will find the truth easily through you.’ When I remember her words, I don’t feel surprised at your thoughts.”

Yashodhara knew. This is what she knew, beyond my truth.

Rahul continued, “But Sir. There is something else that is important too, and which you are ignoring in your disappointed state of mind.”

“What is that?”

“Sir! I agree that the world has not understood your truth. And would never easily understand it. But can’t you see that for the first time, people oppressed due to caste system are seeing a ray of hope for the first time. People have at least started questioning showy rituals and other social evils for the first time. I agree that if people had been able to attain the truth, these things would not have mattered anyway. But something is better than nothing. Until the whole world understands the truth, at least some things can be improved. If you leave them now, the state of faithlessness they would get into would leave no hope for the discovery of truth, ever!”

And Rahul went away. He would not try to spread the message of truth in the world. He would only follow the truth himself. But few people who would be benefited by that, would make a lot of difference. Much more than I could ever do.

Yashodhara! Why didn’t I stay with you that day? But now I have gone even further. Now there is even less scope of going back.

–

It has been a long time since I attended Nirvana. People have moved much father from truth than they had in my time. They are erecting temples in my name. At many places I am considered a God. In China and Japan they even talk of my several incarnations. Buddhism is a religion now, with its own set of rules and rituals, which I am supposed to have founded!

But I don’t have the power to change the history. I wish I actually possessed the divine power people think I possessed. Then I would have gone and changed some events in the history. The first sermon of Mahatma Buddha, in Sarnath, would never have happened.

Updates on Pothi.com

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Also Abhaya has written a post explaining the importance of true Print on Demand for self publishing. Check it out here.

Preventing Disasters?

While the world talks about managing disasters like Tsunami and what not, its really sad that we are unable to avoid or handle things which should be more easily handleable. A close friend lost her uncle in such an incident. Read the details here.

Guruji tries to do a Baidu with Music Search?

Will India have a Baidu equivalent? That’s a question often asked in the Internet circles. As much as people would like to believe there is a threat to Google in India in the same way as in China, there hasn’t been a significant one till date - in the search market at least. “Why” would deserve a post by itself.

But on to the music search for the time being. The interesting part of the story in China is that Google was actually a leader and then badly lost to Baidu over the years. The trigger was played by mp3 searches. Apparently pirated mp3 download was a big thing and Baidu helped search for and download those. Google would, on the other hand, try to get rid of those pages, because they violated copyrights.

And now Guruji has launched music search in India. It supports search for several Indian Language songs. However, it does not link to mp3 download sites, as they would be as illegal here as they would be in China I guess :). It links to the online stations like musicindiaonline and raaga etc. How big a killer feature would this music search be? I searched for couple of Hindi songs, and the results were pretty good. However, is it that useful really? Usually we know about a couple of places where we can listen to the songs, and go directly there. Are there stations, which have a better collection of one kind of songs than other stations have? If so, probably there would be some utility in the music search. If not, I don’t think its going to create much of a buzz. But no one can predict the future, so let’s see.

Our chairs!

Ergonomics

One thing I had ignored till now was the ergonomics of my office. I have been working off the plastic chair and have been constantly using a small wireless mouse. The mouse is very handy to carry and all, but I guess prolonged usage is not good. Sometime, I would get an ergonomic mouse, but the first thing that needs to be addressed is a chair. So, I am going to purchase a good computer chair.

The new office at Google was designed keeping ergonomics in mind. The chairs were such that besides adjusting the height of the seat (which is most common functionality in any computer chair), you could adjust the height and position of arm-rest. There were also levers for locking backrest at a certain angle (so that if you recline, you are still supporting your lower back) and bunch of other stuff. Within a few of days of usage, it was clear that well designed office does make a difference to your well-being.

However, I can’t indulge that much right away Heck, they even had funky tabled with adjustable heights. But a decent chair with adjustable seat and arm-rest height is a must. The arm-rest height adjustment was the feature I found I used the most. Not so much the adjustment of back-rest. The idea behind the design of an ergonomic chair is that all the body parts should be well supported. This includes lower back, upper back, arms (the one that pains me the most), shoulders etc. and of course, help you be in a posture that is overall comfortable. Take this last one with a bit of salt though. Sometimes it may happen that you get used to a wrong posture and start finding that comfortable. But it may be doing you slow harm. One such bad habit I had was not supporting my lower back. Rather reclining by supporting upper back and leaving lower back in air! When somebody pointed that out to me, it took a while to adjust to the new posture. But I could feel the change it brought very soon. My back-pain had reduced a lot.

So back to the chair. I started by search by going to, yes, Staples. They showed me two models with arm-chair height adjustment. One also had the levers for recline/back-rest adjustment. This had a price of 8500 Rs. The other one had a smaller back-rest and supported only seat and arm-rest height adjustment. This one was priced at 4500 Rs.

Next, I searched on Just Dial for computer chair dealers. And boy! Do they rock? No I am not talking about the actual search. Rather, they have this leads system (where they charge the businesses for generating the leads). If you search for a keyword for whom they have businesses who have signed up to receive leads, you can choose to receive calls from them making you their best price offers. As soon as I had signed up, I got a call from someone who is actually a manufacturer and supplies to the show-rooms. But given our location, which is close to their warehouse, he was willing to supply us two chairs and the prices he quoted were far less. I am going to check out the chairs tomorrow. I received call from another dealer, who is going to meet me tomorrow. I guess I am going to get a much better deal than I would have managed on my own. Just Dial rocks!

And hey, looks like we’d be done with paper work in another week or so. Then we can concentrate on some of the real business