Sekhar Vemula is a member of:
My Company
Shows Social (www.shows4.com) helps friends and community to rate, share and buy Movies, TV, Music, Games, News along with celebrity endorsed Social Commerce (Fashion) Outlets. Users visiting Shows”Site” can set-up their favorite videos and music through “my shows” page. Shows facilitates various global communities American, Indian, Chinese, European, Pakistan , Bangladesh, Latino and Arab Emirates(UAE) to share their entertainment tastes with friends, family and communities locally and globally.
Shows primary focus is predominantly towards the untapped Bollywood market which constitutes a huge following in INDIA, Pakistan, UAE and expats in US,UK, Australia,Canada etc.
Shows Social LLC was registered in State of Texas, USA.
My Role
To be Frank, I was the CEO (Chief Everything Officer) initially who was involved in the scope of the project, development of the platform, content feeds, product functionality, site design, navigation etc.
Later my focus shifted to the core product strategy, enhancements, development, business development etc and giving my various team members (Desktop, Mobile, Content etc.) direction on tasks delivery and execution.
Way to reach out potential investors
Reaching out to potential investors was always a mixed experience of good and bad as they keep asking for more but it’s truly a steep learning curve. The larger Venture Capitalist (VC’s) firms ask for revenues whereas the smaller groups of angel networks are interested in the market cap and growth numbers. We did have a chance to work with certain seasoned investors in the market who did guide us on the Presentations, Company Valuation, Statistical Analysis and unique value-proposition which was very helpful to present ourselves to various potential investment agencies
Faced Challenges
We faced lot of challenges for finding right skill sets (resources) in every team. We normally encourage references from existing employees as it helps to minimize the hiring errors.Budget Constraints have been one of the prime reasons for product build and scalability.
Advice for fellow entrepreneurs
My strong recommendation for fellow entrepreneurs would be as Nike brand says “Just Do It”. Either your successful or failed in your ventures, it is fine to give it a shot very early in your life as a teen or in your twenties as you have nothing much to loose being single and young. You should not regret for not attempting an opportunity in later years.
My key thoughts
As an entrepreneur you need to control your own destiny and should have the freedom to come-up with new ideas and make them happen constantly.
Accountability: You need to engage experienced senior management to hold you accountable for meeting deadlines on various projects and accomplish goals.
Milestones: Setting key milestones is crucial for the success of any project at every stage. You also need to have clear statistical data supporting your growth numbers and value.
Innovation: This is the key Ingredient for success of any project but I would recommend not getting overwhelmed with multiple business ideas but stick to the core of tasks that are important and fine-tune as you make progress. Also, surround yourself with employees who are go-getters and finishers.
Culture as the company has grown
The company culture has always been pretty flat. We do deal with remote teams working from various global locations like Asia which actually give us a huge challenge to gauge and monitor the tasks delegated.
As we have grown rapidly in the recent times we had (Desktop, Mobile, Content) teams work as independent entities with their own Center Of Excellence (COE) and reporting structure.
