Not a Typical Day!
July 3, 2010
A mother and son visited us this morning. She must have been in her sixties. She was slender, bespectacled and dressed immaculately in a silver grey sari. She had a presence which made you respect her immediately. The son was young, tall and extremely respectful towards his mother. He seemed to be charged while at the same time hesitant about impending changes in his life.
That is why there were here. They want to start a business. Actually, the son wants to get into business and his mother is planning to fund him seed money. They didn’t look as if they were rolling in money. Which meant they would be using up most of their savings. The new business better be real good.
Well, how good can a ‘roti maker’ be? Yes, a gadget to make rotis for the over worked Indian housewife. You put in atta on one side and you get garam garam rotis on the other. I have heard this one before. In fact, I have discouraged two other budding entrepreneurs with similar intentions.
What is a designer’s role really? Is it to question what the client wants to do or is it to do a good job of whatever comes your way? Well, you have to restrain your initial feelings and give an unbiased ear to the client.
“So, how many prototypes have you made so far?” I wanted to know.
“Well, we haven’t made one yet” said the son, “But, what do you think of the idea?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. So many great ideas never find a life. It is a long and treacherous journey from bits to atoms. I too generate a lot of good ideas, myself. In fact I have a collection of them filed away in lots of sketches and notes. All waiting for the right amount of funding of both time and money. And one prototype is never enough. James Dyson claims to have made five thousand prototypes before launching his vacuum cleaner. We cannot afford that many. We have got to do it in a lot less – fifty maybe? Even that is a lot of time and money without counting the effort that goes into all the frustrations and ecstasies of conceptualising and detailing. It is not that I don’t have the patience to nurture and find the right iteration that could find a life for itself. But they haven’t even started yet. And it just felt like such a long climb.
So I told them “Don’t put your money into this or in me. It will take a long time and a lot of money to develop a decent product.” A cloud lifted. They relaxed. The mother even gave me the hint of a smile. They thanked me profusely for the advice and left. Yes, they did save a lot of money for the hour they spent with me. All the money they never spent.
Now here I am. Another client lost. Another project gone. And both had come seeking me out. This is becoming a habit with me these days. How I long for that typical day when a client lands up and says “Mr. Korjan, I have always made at least a hundred times of what I invest in you. I don’t know what to do with all this money, now. So here’s a million dollars – give me whatever.”
Wicked, but I like it that way.
