A date so late that romance might suffer

On 18^th  April, I was sitting in a big auditorium, clapping and smiling for people who were part of 5 years of IIT journey. It was a farewell award ceremony at IIT Kharagpur. Just few minutes ago I gave a two minute speech from the stage. People loved it; at least the reception voice meant so.Yes the speech has 700 views on Youtube (P.S. That’s too much for IIT anyway).

Two minutes later I was cross checking my mail. Roadrunnr, now Runnr has delayed my date of joining to 5^th December. For a moment I felt it’s a birthday present as the date approximately coincides with the same.

An hour later I was working on my cv, designing it again as a literal winter was coming. A day later I had an account with iimjobs.com, my linkedin tagline felt the metamorphosis. A fear of insecurity hovers over the fear of delay.

This is not my story. This is the story of 15+ people hired by Runnr from IIT Kharagpur, and a similar figure hired from IIT Rorkee and other colleges. Except for a few, joining dates were deferred to September or December. It was a date so late that romance might suffer.

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Hopscotch hired 8 people from IIT Kharagpur and delayed its joining date to October. Verity Solutions has sent letter of joining imprinted with March 2017. Stayzilla, covered up all speculations of cancelling offers by restructuring salary framework. BabaJobs revoked all the offers from IIT Kharagpur just 10 days ago. Flipkart decided to delay till December with a compensation lumpsum to IIMs and smiles to IITs. GoZommo decided to cancel its pre placement offers to keep themselves going. These are the stories I know and I know very little. The Question is what went wrong?  

Career Development Committee brings companies to campus, make their arrangements, and decide their slots of interview. Big thumbs up. Yet the chase for statistics sometimes backfires. With an objective to place maximum number of students in minimum number of days, with an objective to break all past records, firms like Runnr with not a single year balance sheet gets a day three slot. So is the case with Hopscotch and Stayzilla which managed to get early slots just because they promised a significant statistics in hiring. AIPC needs to revise its priorities while bringing companies. IIT Kharagpur placed 1000 students in 10 days. This reminds me of a quote from a wall street book: “99 percent of all statistics only tell 49 percent of the story”(Gents with No Cents).

Having said that, I must mention however, not everything is wrong with a chase for statistics. There is an alternative and solid perspective. The purpose of campus placement is just not to place a candidate skilled and strong, but also one lagging and slow. A chase for statistics is boon for them. As the firms defaulting with joining dates are mostly all early slot startups, hiring people having an edge over the rest, these people have enough potential to switch over under stressed conditions. I am one of them and I believe in the same. So it’s better to place 1000 in 10 days with an expected default of 30, than to prioritize the companies on the basis of their stabilities and balance sheets, thus placing 700 in 10 days. This is a boon for those 300 people who got placed on day 8, 9 and 10^th. As it is very obvious that the firms like Runnr are going to take large intakes only if they come early.

The question is why these start-ups intend to hire in chunks without a rock solid backup on the balance sheet? Is it the chase for valuation and branding? Just give me a minute and I will build a curious case. Yesterday, 25^th May 2016, I got a call from Runnr, the one which delayed my joining to December. The HR on call wanted me to join as soon as possible, by 1^st June. In next few minutes an email invitation for telephonic discussion was framed and the next day I was explained the work details. The work was to take care of revenue and profit details of firm, business finance(not analytical finance), something a CA can do efficiently. If a CA can do the same work more efficiently and more precise, then why me ? Why an IIT graduate? Why pay more when just a little can rock the floor. This is certainly a chase for valuation and branding. I took a tough call, rejected the offer. When will IIT and AIPC learn to take tough call?

When I am writing this story, Helpchat is busy firing 150 people and shutting down its chat-wing business, Tinyowl is getting tinier to adjust itself in the wings of Runnr, Rahul Yadav’s AI version is failing to make a point, Peepertap and Amber Business are drawing their shutters down. Is something wrong with the script? It is, it certainly is and blaming sluggish global demand and melting Yuan can’t camouflage this wrongly written script. Stagnancy in funding is because of script, not because of a melting down market finance.

Startup to solve a problem not just to take benefit of an idea driven un-utilitarian arbitrage available in market. Because when market slumps, when return distribution skews down to negativity, when recession strikes nobody is going to order food via an app, un-utilitarian arbitrage will die overnight.