Sachin Agarwal's blog

Generally, wherever I travel, people assume I'm from there.  That's because 1) I don't have much, if any, of an accent and 2) I have this weird habit of mimicking the person that I'm talking to.  I'm in New York, I'll drop a "cuz", out west, I'll say "dude" all the time, down south, a lot more "y'all"s (although I use that one a lot just because it's useful to have a plural second person). 

But I've noticed something two somethings that give me away.

First, I drop syllables.  More accurately, I combine them.  I can think of at least two words where I do this consistently: comfortable and interesting.  I pronounce interesting as in-trest-ing, as opposed to the more common in-ter-est-ing.  This one doesn't usually get picked up by other people.

However, comfortable is a totally different ball of wax.  I remember once that I had an interview all but laugh at me because of the way I pronounce it; actually, I think it was my pronunciation of uncomfortable that had him in hysterics.  I gather that most people pronounce it as com-fort-a-ble.  Well, for me, it's just three syllables: cumft-er-ble.  Not only do I drop sounds, I transpose the order of the t and the r sounds.  Un-cumft-er-ble. 

It's not just the of-ten/of-fen difference; this is something that seems to me to be unique to the Midwest: http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t936-0.htm.  Looking through the site after googling /interesting comfortable pronounce/, I came upon this thread: http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t9557.htm. 

This leads me into the second point: well, it turns out that I know I conflate the pronunciations of "pin" and "pen".  If you look on this map, you can see that the conflation just gets out of the south into southern Illinois (and the Bakersfield area of California, strangely). 

Taking the INNER JOIN (look, a SQL joke) of the two areas, I think that it's really interesting that you can pinpoint where I'm from.  Now, I do say wa-ter, and not war-ter, but I did grow up saying "soda" instead of "pop" (although I've since switched since I went to IMSA).

Here's a link that will kill an entire day if you go through the links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language

One of the things that I've had trouble with is succinctly articulating Dawdle's value proposition.  To me, it's this great and robust platform that can be expanded in infinite ways, meeting the needs of whatever the userbase wants.  Turns out that getting excited about the possibilities rather than what's there now just isn't smart. 

Even as we keep building new functionality and thinking about things to add, we need to be able to communicate why we're better *now*.  Right now, Dawdle's the safe and easy way to name your price for all your gaming gear.  We can back that up: Dawdle lets both buyers and sellers name their price using easy drop-down menus that are specific to gaming.  We provide protection to sellers by guaranteeing payment and giving buyers the tools to resolve any issues that may come up on occasion, and backing them up when necessary. 

Sometimes, it can be hard to focus on the great things you have now when, as an executive, your job is to always look forward, think strategically about new entries, new markets, and new partnerships.  But not only can stepping back be good for your mental health, it's good to step back and look at what you've already achieved and how it already is making your customers' lives better.

One of the hardest things to juggle when you're running a company is how to deal with your vendors.  As a startup, you're generally dependent on single-source vendors.  Generally, it's good to make sure that you don't become dependent on one, but oftentimes, the switching costs outweigh the benefit of getting out of the relationship.  That means it's critical to pick the right vendor to start with.

We've had issues with cost overruns, delays, lack of communication, incompetence, and just plain old nonperformance.  And this is despite the fact that we used referrals for almost every single vendor.  Frankly, the only vendor we were happy with was a blind RFP we sent for outbound telemarketing through BuyerZone.  In that instance, we went with the first respondent. 

It was clear that 1) they knew their stuff, and 2) they wanted our business.  Don't underestimate a hungry, smaller firm when looking at vendors.  Because they're smaller, they can be more nimble and responsive when you want things done.  Although they may see new things and make mistakes, they're generally aligned with you to make things right and offer concessions.  Larger vendors may have "seen it all," but oftentimes, that institutional knowledge is lost or only comes up when you need to fix things.  Generally, to me, the benefits of institutional knowledge should come from a vendor avoiding mistakes and errors in the first place.

I say this to make a point: when in doubt, responsiveness can be used as a general proxy for aptitude.  Those who have systems in place to respond quickly and intelligently prove that 1) they know their stuff and 2) if they don't, they'll find out and get back to you when they do.  Our [redacted, because he doesn't seem to get that he's on thin ice] seems decent enough, for example, but he only responds when I want to spend money.  If there's no commission available, he's all but unresponsive.  Random emails of "what can I do for you" aren't just useless; they're counterproductive when I tell you what you can do and you don't follow through all the way.  Just saying "I'll look into it" and then not following up unless you're prompted is crap.   Thankfully, he's gotten very little money from us in the past.

So, in addition to checking references and reading proposals and interviewing, look at how quickly those things come.  If you have to ask twice, assume the vendor doesn't need your business.  And if he doesn't need you, then you shouldn't put yourself in a position where you need him.

As most people know, I had the idea for Dawdle when I had a terrible experience selling my PSP online - eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon all failed me.  What most people don't know is that I bought my PSP to play one game - Street Fighter Alpha 3.  Technically, it's MAX on the PSP, because of the extra characters brought over from Capcom vs. SNK 2.

Over Christmas, I spent a fair amount of time at home, and that means hiding from my family playing my DS.  I got through and beat Phantom Hourglass, but then I had four more days at home.   So I decided to look for a Street Fighter game for my DS.  Turns out there isn't one.  Well, that's a shame, so I decided to see what fighting games were out there.  It's not pretty.

That's it.  Four real fighting games for a system that's three years old.  Sure, I could play the GBA version of Alpha 3, but I just can't get over the fact that there are six buttons for the game, and the GBA only supports four.  (Medium punches and kicks require you to press both punch and kick buttons, as appropriate.)

The Nintendo DS is a relatively powerful system and can handle 2D pretty well.  There's a D pad and six buttons.  It blows my mind that there isn't a single decent fighter on the machine (the Guilty Gear game is terrible).  I'd really have liked to play Alpha 3, or maybe 3rd Strike (a game I've only spent a scant amount of time on in the arcade).   Capcom's classic fighters would work perfectly on the DS.  Where are they?

So, in addition to the "work out more" and "spend less money" and "finally rip all my old CDs into iTunes", I have a new resolution for this year - blog more.  So here it is; I promise to blog at least every Wednesday, and other times as Dawdle will let me.  I'll be writing some about Dawdle specifically, some about the start up life (hard knocks and all), and some about pie. 

Or will I?

Lies!