A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to
attend a talk by Harish Hande, the founder of an innovative Indian solar
company called Selco. It was an extremely interesting talk that
meandered from solar panels to social ladders, from small observations
to BIG ideas. Here are some of the highlights:
The talk was called a "guru" talk. In Hinduism a guru is a spiritual leader, especially
one who initiates someone in the practice of the religion. Harish
started by talking about the fact that his gurus as a businessman are
the street vendors. Here are people, he said, who make the most
difficult of financial situations work - pay high prices for the cart,
food, and ground to work on. They don't need excel sheets or net present
values or frameworks to make their business work - they use their
intuition that was created from hard work, desperation, and necessity.
"And do you hear these vendors talking badly about other vendors?" he
asked. The answer, of course, is no - the vendors never put down other
vendors - even the rickshaw drivers don't outbid each other. He
encouraged us to think of our businesses in the same way as a street
vendor thinks of theirs.
- He encouraged people to find their passion and jump in. He said he worried that the internet was making people the "masters of case studies." He admonished us saying, "Don't master case studies, BE a case study."
- He talked about people's perception of solar. He asked, "How many of you buy a TV using an excel spreadsheet?" meaning, how many of you calculate the net present value of your TV or the IRR or the payback, etc.? "Then why do we buy solar with spreadsheets?" While I find some flaws in this logic, it's an interesting idea that there needs to be a shift in the perception of what we value.
- He talked a lot about India's culture. The three most salient points for me were: 1) India needs to create an ecosystem where people - like street vendors - are invested in. He said that the only companies that get invested in here are those in which people speaker English because that allowed them to write a business plan, use excel, and pitch in power point. But 70% of the country doesn't speak English well enough to do that. 2) India needs to help people move up the economic ladder. He told the story about someone who started at his company as a dishwasher and is now managing a Selco branch. “We need to create that ecosystem so that people can move up the ladder.” And 3) he talked about how the upper class is living on the subsidies of the lower class. "Do we pay the coal miner a market wage? How about rickshaw drivers? Street vendors? Security guards? No, we don't. Then we are living on their subsidies." Interesting thought.
- He told the story of a journalist friend of his that went with a company to bring solar power to the pigmies. After installing the system they plugged in a TV and the first show that came on was Dallas (the old 80s shitty sitcom). The installer quickly cut the TV cable. He later asked the journalist not to mention it because he "didn't want to be known as the guy that ruined pygmy culture." In other words, we need to be careful about how we "develop" these cultures.
- Lastly, I took away a few thoughts I'd like to explore: 1) He mentioned that batteries are the weakest link and the largest cost (summer internship next year?), 2) Selco has started an incubator lab to sketch out the problems AND then find solutions, and 3) we need to figure out a way to bring solar to cities - what about leasing a block's worth of roofs and then putting solar on it?
It was a great talk and, as a visitor to this country, helped me see things differently. But then again, that's what a guru is supposed to do.
Next Post: Oh, the places... Part 3: Mumbai
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