Taking time off

When you are running a start-up, holidays are the last thing on your mind. With so many things on your plate every day, and having to wear so many hats, you end up running out of the number of hours you can afford to work on a day, to get the things you want to get done, done. And unlike some founders, who are single, I have a family, and a very young one at that, who constantly fight for their share of attention from their father. And the thing with kids is, they get what they want. If asking nicely doesn’t work, they will bring the roof down.

The last month was their school holidays. It also happened to be one of the busiest months for me work-wise. We had the biggest project we’ve undertaken coming to an end (well, it’s still not done and its not a fault of ours!) and a couple of very aggressive small projects falling on our plate (we were not in a position to refuse any work, due to the cash flow issues we were facing). This resulted in me not being able to take the kids out on a vacation during their school holidays.

I think they saw less of me than they did when school was on. Because on school days I usually drop them every morning and at least a couple of days pick them after school. But, during their holidays, I was sometimes out of the door while they were still in bed and on a few occasions turned in after they'd fallen asleep. Now their schools have started, but they didn’t have much of a vacation, other than doing nothing and playing all day, at home.

Upon spotting a deal on a groupon clone in SL, for a hotel stay in Eastern Sri Lanka, my wife, bless her soul, bought into a two night vacation. So I am taking a day off, I don’t remember since when, to go on a vacation!

I am determined to make the best of this vacation. My work has kept me working most of my waking hours, My time with my family has been about 2-3 hours on a weekday. And probably about 8-10 hours on weekends. And on this vacation, I am going to be with them for 72 hours, at a stretch. Leaving aside the activities, I am determined to make the most of the journey (travelling time), take the drive leisurely and enjoy the company.

Secondly, I’ve never been to the East of Sri Lanka. Even after the war ceased, I never got around to going to the North and the East of the country. So this is my first venture out to that region. And I am looking forward to seeing that part of the country, which I haven’t been to during the 35 years of my life! And I hear the beaches in that region are pretty awesome.

Hopefully, I will get to spend quality time with my family, visit a part of the country that I’ve never been to, and recharge my batteries for more hectic times ahead!

Are you a pig or a chicken

An interesting article at onStartups.com called Why Venture Capitalists Invest In Pigs, Not Chickens. Although I am not interested in raising venture capitol for my startup projects, it made me analyze my approach.

And the result, well I ‘m a chicken. My startup web project has been, is still, and likely remain for sometime, a side project. And by being a side project, it is not getting the attention, energy and marketing push it deserves.

I am pretty proud of the solution, the features and functionality we built into it. And I honestly believe there is a pretty good market out there for it. Similar solutions ideas were tossed around in a few forums that I’ve been to when people were discussing web start-up ideas.

But my outsourcing operation has been my primary focus always. And I’ve only been able to work on my side project, when I have downtime. And sadly, the last couple of months had been hectic beyond description. To make matters worse, what’s left now to do, is not my forte either, which is giving it a marketing push.

Getting back to the topic of chicken and pigs, right now, I am not in a position to become a pig on my start-up application. I cannot afford to waver my concentration from my outsourcing business. It is exactly not sailing on smooth seas. We’ve just passed a pretty rough patch, and the path ahead is not clear either. It’s a bit foggy right now and I, being the optimist, am hoping for some bright blue skies ahead.

Come to think of it, I am a pig on my outsourcing business, and a chicken on my start-up project.

Misguided online banking by Sampath Bank

I have been a customer of Sampath Bank for over 20 years. I’ve used them almost exclusively when it comes to personal banking. And I’ve been a using their online banking application ‘SampathNet’ since its inception.

Following this preference when I started my business, I opened up my accounts with Sampath Bank and immediately applied for online banking facilities. This is when I started to realize the short-comings of their online banking solution. Now some of these restrictions, as they say, are due to regulations.

Since I we are in the out sourcing business, which gets categorized as an export business, when I wanted to open a USD denominated account, I was asked to open an export account. This was seamless. All they wanted was the standard documentation and a declaration. Then I wanted to have the ability to transfer funds between this account our LKR account. For some weird reason which is beyond my comprehension, I cannot do this online. I need to always either send a physically signed letter, or make a request through the SampathNet’s mail facility, after which they make this transfer manually.

What I cannot comprehend in this whole scenario is, when I am the authorized signatory for both the accounts, why I am not allowed to do this transfer through the online banking portal. What ever transfer I enact is a legally binding transfer. Adding further to this confusion is the fact that in my personal accounts, I am able to transfer funds, through the online portal, from a USD account to a LKR account!

Secondly, I do not have an online feature to transfer funds to third party accounts, even from my LKR account. This prevents me from enacting the salary transfers online for my staff. I have to revert to the old school method of sending instructions in a letter, either physically or through the SampathNet mails.

All these would have been less painless, if the SampathNet mails happened in real time. They have a funny way of handling these instructions. When ever I send a mail, it goes to a Relationship Manager who is assigned to my account. The funny part of this RM is they only check these mails ONCE a day, in the morning. And that too pretty early in the day. So if I send some instructions, say around 9.00 AM, this reaches my bank branch, only the next day!

When I think of online banking, I think of real-time. Not with one day’s delay. And to make matters worse, the last set of instructions I sent to them on Monday afternoon, only got executed today, which is Thursday, because my RM didn’t turn up for work on Tuesday and Wednesday was a bank holiday. If you ask me, that I pretty crappy online banking.

SampathNet in fact was probably one of the pioneers in online banking in Sri Lanka. When they launched, they were unrivaled and they were above the rest for sometime. But their problem was, they are resting on their laurels. They are still on the platform that they launched probably 10 years ago. They need to upgrade their technology, have smarter security (I read someone speaking about their password change procedure and the password recovery procedure), and off load as many services as self services so they do not have to spend man hours doing mediocre things.

Sampath Bank, over to you!