What’s In A Name

The Brand

All of us at some point or the other have been asked — “Flipkart, what does it mean?”

For a fact, it means nothing — looking it up in the dictionary will testify just as much. A simple explanation is this;

• We needed a unique word (or sound), that meant nothing and hence had no generic connotations to it
• It would have to have something with the idea of shopping, or a shopping cart (or sound like it)
• And not have the word “book” in it. (what if we start selling CDs and DVDs tomorrow? Or Pendrives? Or Cellphones?)
• Have an available .com TLD

I may have missed something, but that’s pretty much it.

PS: And though Binny and Sachin share the same last name, they aren’t brothers. (In the family ties sense. What makes the COO and the CEO brothers is out of the scope of this post. I might leave that up to Seth Godin or Guy Kawasaki)

The “Customer”

Head on over to Mr. Rajgopaul’s post first.

If you came back to this post, that’s good news right off the bat! But more to the point; We erred.

• We do not have a standard policy of addressing people
• In this case, Mr. Rajgopaul had specifically asked to be addressed formally
• In spite of which, he was addressed informally in the second round of correspondence

We have no excuses to proffer. NONE.

What is not evident in any of this is that the conversation I had with Mr. Rajgopaul on the phone was indeed a pleasant one (I will admit I was surprised, and also that I was naïve — which is what led to me being surprised). Not any more, I understand him perfectly. As I expressed in my conversation as well, this was the first time I had personally come across an issue of this sort — but there could possible have been other cases as well. It’s just that others might not have been as articluate, cogent or vocal about it as Mr. Rajgopaul.

If push comes to shove, something like this might be in the offing … eventually.

How Would You Like To Be Addressed?

Or let’s take baby steps first, shall we? Here is Your Account section on Flipkart. If you could spare me a minute and fill in just the basic details (First Name, Last Name, Mobile Number, Gender), it’ll hold us in good stead.

• Oye
• Hey
• Hi
• Hello
• Sir
• Ma’am
• Namaskar Saheb
• Namaste Ji
• Namaskara Devaru

I have personally used all of the above in correspondences.

Some have even suggested I have a Colonial Hangover when referring to them as Sir and Ma’am. If I need to, why not use “Namaste” (and derivatives thereof)? My preferred interpretation of Namaste is “the God in me acknowledges the God in you”. Nothing to do with age, caste or sex.

Others have chided me, referring to the Dharma/Karma dichotomy. Actions, not words.

To cap it up, I referred to Hetal in the feminine, and he stepped in soon enough to correct me. Still not sure if he’s started signing off as Mr. Hetal, though. But I don’t need to be told twice.

The most irreverent of the lot seems to be this Naked Indian Fakir. There’s a lot on there to see and listen to, so I’m getting in on the action as well..

i’m a Gandhian. i’m a Churchillian. i’m even a
Nehruvian. and a Lincolnist. i’m a Freudian. and
a Jungian. a Darwinian. and a Satanist. i’m old
fashioned. i’m a post modernist. a cubist. a
dadaist. a democrat. and a quasi fascist. a
liberal. and a leftist. i’m Hindu because i find the
gods funky. i’m Muslim because then god isn’t
clay, stone, plastic or metal. i’m Christian just
because. and i’m an atheist. i’m Lynchian.
Hitchcockian. a Kieslowskist. and a Ghatakist.
i’m vegan. and a carnivore. a naturalist. and a
mall rat. i’m a philatelist. and a postman. i’m an
activist. and a lethargist. i’m actually Green
Lantern, when i’m not the Phantom. i’m whatever
the f*** you want me to be. and then i’m NOT.
underneath my clothes i’m naked. i’m Sindhi,
reared partly in the land of Bengali, and partly in
the land of Kannada, making a living in the land
of Marathi, all in one big confused nation. so i’m
indian. i tried for ‘f***er’ but that url was taken.
fakir was the next best thing. anyone with any
objections should try to Quit India now. its never
too late. thank you.

i’m also – as you can see – a touch pretentious.

And on why he refers to himself as the Naked Indian Fakir

because it’s the ultimate under-estimation. its what churchill called gandhi when the latter was on a fast at the beginning of the quit india movement. evidently the cigar puffing englishman never imagined what the loin-cloth clad near-naked indian fakir would be capable of.

similarly, i like being underestimated. then there’s no pressure to deliver a knockout punch. almost anything you do thereon is above expectation because expectations were so low to begin with. and if you do clear the vault by over a foot then the applause resounds that much louder because no one knew you could. and even if they thought you might, they’d have liked to believe you couldn’t. its not their fault. we’re conditioned to being hard on others. i do it too. i underestimate. and when i’m wrong about someone i hate having to eat my words. which is why i love to watch others eat theirs.

naked.

indian.

fakir.

i wonder what churchill looked like when he ate these.

Amen, or Ameen!

Jayantika (I’m hoping you don’t mind the first person reference) had mailed a while back, and there were some things about her that had been committed to memory. And this happens often. A lot of the early customers have been committed to memory, for largely two reasons:

• The customer pool was fairly small
• Our backend was 3 computers with no power backup

Work would come to a halt when the power went out. Unless.

Unless we could carry on with work without the systems up. The only way to do this was to remember all Customers’ Names, Addresses, Contact Details and Order History. Soon enough, we knew well enough whose book was to be shipped where, irrespective of the systems being up or not. And we knew most of them by voice (no caller ID necessary). So if any of you called in 2007-2008 about something, well, chances are every third call you made had us telling you things from memory.

We just hit keystrokes on the keyboard to make it seem like we were “looking up” stuff.

What doesn’t surprise us is this — 90% of these people continue to place orders with us. They’ve seen the ugly, then the bad, now maybe the good. That’s loyalty that can never be put into words.

And even if they stop, we’ll still be friends. “Dosti hum se karo, hamare dhande se nahin.”

The Designation

It’s the first day of a new Regional Manager here in Bangalore, which meant I had to be up at 9. We met and greeted, and the gentleman whipped out a diary and fired questions rapidly at me. Who? What? Where? CEO, COO, VP-OPS, Tech Lead, Head HR — abbreviated acronyms were slowly turning out into an Org-Chart, right before my eyes. Ordinarily, it would worry me … but I’ve learned from experience. There is one question that will usually pop up that makes all pens run dry. And it came, on cue:

“So Tapas, what do you do, your designation?”

You could hear the pen screech all the way till 3rd Block, Koramangala. But this Regional Manager had done his research and he played his cards well. “You’re Techno-Functional. You do some of the operations and some of the technical. Techno-Functional.” I’m sticking with it too.

Techno Functional.

I had to do my bit to show him a bit of appreciation as well, and I did.

He is right now on the assembly line. Mr. Pat*l, the Bangalore Regional Manager is on the assembly line.

Oh, it’s not a big deal. The Founders have done it too.