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Alok Kejriwal, Founder of Games2Win earlier shared an awesome article So you think you can ‘Start-Up’? Take this FURNACE test first, based on his entrepreneurial experience.
Post a few interesting comments (50+ comments so far), Alok asked a great question on ethics (after a comment by Amit, a reader):
Here is Alok’s Question
Let me pose to you 2 critical decisions I faced in my entrepreneurial life and lets see how you tackle the same:
1) In 2001 we began operations in China as mobile2win. In China, the biggest advertisers are Local Chinese companies in the same proportion as the Fortune 500 companies. After 10 meetings, I had a big problem on my hand – all these local company executives expected ‘gifts’ at the end of the meeting from the supplier to even continue a conversation. In India and in life, I had never ‘gifted’ anybody anything in business for a transaction, so my heart would not agree.
In my office, my Chinese colleagues told me ‘This is the way of business in China’
Question : Assuming that you are a true entrepreneur, have raised money to start a business in a new country – what would you DO?
2) In a market that I will not name, we had a few accounting and secretarial positions opened. Intriguingly, late 20?s aged women applicants began applying. While we were interviewing, a fellow colleague came and met me in private. He told me that most of these women were pregnant or planning a baby and this was an old ploy (in that country) to gain a contractual employment with a company and then disappear for months on salary (after the baby was born), given that it was part of the employment contract. At the same time, I felt very ugly asking the candidates if they intended to have children in the future and hence could not ascertain what they state really was – and hence was not sure if I was being fair or not. Also, in the declaration, we did not ask ‘did you take a pregnancy test before coming here’.
Question : As the CEO of this start up company, if you got hit by a few such paid artists, you would be severely cash crippled and out. What would you do?
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What would you do?
For answer and this superb discussion, read Alok’s answer (and decision) here.
