Dawn hasn't visited Mumbai as yet. It's 3.30 in the morning, and Ajit Balakrishnan, the 49-year old CEO of Rediff On The Net (www.rediff.com), wears the sobriquet of the country's foremost Netpreneur lightly. He crouches, pajama-clad before a PC. For the next two-and-a-half hours, he will read and tackle the approximately 600 pieces of e-mail he gets every day. Two hours later, after an hour-long walk with his 2 dogs, Balakrishnan checks into his office in Worli. Click: check the prices of books available on Rediff against Amazon.com. For now, Rediff wins.

As the CEO of a pioneering 4-year-old start-up in India. Balakrishnan lords it over the desi Net economy. Rediff attracts 1.80 million unique visitors per month-including 45 percent of all Net-users in the country-and leads the nascent e-commerce market in India. Its swathe of businesses, covering connectivity in the form of portal service to all subjects related to India; content via news and features; community-building through free e-mail, chat sites, and homepages; and on-line retailing of books, music, and travel services has ensured that there are few competitors in the country matching it in either scope or scale. Analyses Rohan Bulchandani, 27, the CEO of Annet Communications, which runs the e-retail store, Indi-shop (www.indishop.com) "Conventional wisdom would say Balakrishnan has his fingers in too many pies. But that is what is required now since having wider presence is an advantage."

Only Rajesh Jain's Indiaworld (www.indiaworld.com) - which consists of 10 focused sites, among them Samachar, Khel and Khoj - operates anywhere near the same level. Affirms Arvindra Kanwal, 37, Director (Operations), India Express Online Media. "Rediff's biggest strengths lie in the fact that it is the only India 3C (Content, Community, Commerce) site. And it has continued to out-strategies everyone else." Like most global Net businesses, Rediff isn't making money yet, but is it almost certain that when major e-biz ventures from India do turn in profits, Rediff will be the first.

Rediff has, indeed, been first - and fast. A heady cocktail of risk-taking ability, vision, innovation, and customer-service has driven eyeballs to Rediff, which was set up in 1995 by the ad agency, Rediffusion-Dentsu Young & Rubicam (No.6 in billings in 1998-99). And now, the man behind what began as a news and information-based site-driven by Non-Resident Indians' (NRIS) hunger for news from home- has redefined Rediff's mission statement. Balakrishnan, a soft-spoken 6-footer with dark, brooding eyes, wants Rediff to become a megaportal - a gateway to anything and everything else on the Net. Or, more specifically, an India-centric market-space that caters to a worldwide audience. Says Balakrishnan. "What we eventually want Rediff to become is a kind of all-things-to-all-people Website."

So, it's ambition with a capital A. On the Net, that's what counts. Rediff will have to compete for eyeballs with global portals like Yahoo! And Lycos. Yahoo! Plans to launch a portal for India in the next 12 months as do America Online and Lycos. Geographic boundaries and foreign investment policies do not bind Rediff's established competitors; in fact, they lie just a mouse-click away. In even modulated tones, Balakrishnan agrees. "We are way ahead of the Indian sites. The real worry lies elsewhere. No other business in India has to face this kind of global competition. We just have to be internationally competitive." For that, Balakrishnan is prepared to venture continuously into uncharted territory.

THE VISIONARY RISK-TAKER

He is, after all, no stranger to risk. The man who calls himself a "serial entrepremeur" has been taking them all his life. In 1974, Balakrishnan set up the advertising agency, Rediffusion, alongwith Arun Nanda, who continues to run the adshop. Then, he was part of the team that started the Balgalore-based PSI Data Systems in the 1980s. While he has sold the controlloing rights, he is still the largest single shareholder in the company.

So, it was hardly out of the ordinary when Balakrishnan announced that he was taking a year off to "give this whole Net thing a shot." He smiles "At that time, nobody in India or in he world had a clue about how the Net would go, or where the incomes would come from. But that didn't stop us." With 5 journalists, 3 technologists, and 2 designers, Rediff set up India's first Web-server from its 800 sq. ft. office, in the shadow of the VSNL building in Mumbai's Fort area, becoming one of the first Web firms in India.

To start with, Balakrishnan had a simple brief: explore all the possibilities of the Net as a medium. So, as a first step, Rediff posted a newsmagazine-and Balakrishnan got the best shock of his life when the site reported 1 million hits in the first month. Most of the hits were from the US, from news and information-starved first-generation NRIs. Even today, two-thirds of Rediff's user-base is international, most of it from the US. Says Indiaworld's Jain, 31: `NRIs account for 50 to 60 per cent of the traffic on Indian sites."

The absence of fixed ideas about the Web, coupled with an ability to constantly change tack, is what has kept Rediff on top of a constantly-changing business environment. Nothing was taboo for Balakrishnan. Jasmeet Singh, 26, who designs new products at Rediff, remembers Balakrishnan's reply to his query on the future of the Net: Balakrishnan said, "It is like seeing a small baby on the ground... crawling... nobody knows what it will grow up to become." That's why Balakrishnan is not even talking profits-yet. He reckons that the site needs Rs.25 crore of investment per year for 4 years before it can reach any position of stability. Venture capitalists like Warner Pincus and Draper International, besides Intel Corp., have approved-with their wallets. He says: "Anyone who thinks he can make profits in an emerging industry in the first 4 years is crazy. Basically, they had to believe what I was saying, and I guess they did."

So, with no fuss and fanfare, Rediff decided to meet this need of the diaspora. Balakrishnan started re-positioning the site as an access-point for all India-related information. In 3 months, it expanded its team, and refined its mandate. News was categorised. Chat services were introduced in early 1996. The early-mover advantage worked in Rediff's favour. Apart from The Hindu, Rediff was the only source of Indian news on the Net in 1996. And although, in 1997, several other newspapers and magazines went on-line, it took them some time to learn the tricks of the trade. Balakrishnan claims that, solely for its news-service, the site has 3 times the audience worldwide of The Times of India, its most aggressive competitor, He smiles: "Even now, the others haven't got it-and it is too late." Says Hemant Sharma, 30, CEO, Trisoft Design, which runs CPMall (www.cpmall.com): "Historically, first-movers have captured the market. Balakrishnan has brought that advantage to Rediff."

The rename drive was kicked off simultaneously. To start with, Rediff went searching for companies interested in advertising to an NRI audience. Balakrishnan first spoke to Citibank in Chennai, who jumped at the idea. Among Rediff's first clients were also Hindustan Lever and Ranbaxy. And, since they did not have Websites to start with, "by total serendipity," says Balakrishnan, Rediff got into the site-building business. Again, the first-mover advantage helped. According to Balakrishnan, Rediff has built about 70 per cent of the Indian sites. Says he: "The international business and the site-building business grew, but slowly. And I ended up writing lots of personal cheques-but serial entrepreneurs know how to do these things." Rediff, and Balakrishnan, were quick on the ball when it came to e-Commerce too. The strategy started unfolding in early 1998, by when it was clear that e-commerce would soon be available to Indian consumers. That's how, on August 15, 1998- the day of Independence for Indian shoppers"- Rediff was quick off the chips. Within hours, it launched a bookshop, music shop, and on-line hotel-reservations, backing it up with free e-mail and homepages. Behind the scenes, Balakrishnan's team had worked round-the-clock for the previous 4 months. Says Aditya Jha, 33, Aditi Technologies, a technology affiliate of Rediff's: "Today, e-Commerce in India is equal to Rediff."

THE POWER PLAYER

With competition around the corner, Balakrishnan is a man possessed. He says: " I am acutely aware of the fact that we will just have to out-think, outdeliver, and out-brand the competition if we are to survive. We have a narrow window left now to build marketshare, and we're going for it." Balakrishnan is relying on portal stickiness-an established phenomenon that slows down the ability to shift to another site. For instance, the biggest brick-and-mortar book vendor, Barnes & Nobel, is still trying to catch up with pioneer Amazon.com in the marketspace. Sums up Sanjay Shetty, 27 CEO, DBS Internet Services: "Rediff has played the eyeball-attraction game well by keeping customers hooked through a succession of offerings: information, the opportunity to trade, free e-mail, and so on."

Balakrishnan is also trying to ensure that Rediff does not spread itself too thin. He avers: "The growth of Rediff can only happen through the Indian-ness, if you like, of its services." Of course, with the Net in its infancy in India-the Net user-base in India, at 3.40 lakh surfers, is minuscule-Rediff has to look outwards. So, Balakrishnan continues to emphasise news-and information-services as the main plank for NRI visitors to the site. And Rediff's originality in terms of these services will not change, avers Balakrishnan. Ergo, it will rely on its own team of reporters and editors rather than provide links to others news-services or Indian newspapers on its site.

This might be Balakrishnan's biggest risk. While original content scores on the Net, can Rediff continue to provide up-to-date, original news from India, particularly in the face of competition from newspapers and news-agencies? Argues Kanwal: "Rediff is not strong on content; they have a small team of journalists. Once competition hots up, the costs will be killing" Counters a member of Rediff's editorial team: "The challenge is to constantly build on that advantage, enhance our content keeping the numbers low without our ambitious plans being affected in any way or affecting the bottomline."

What should worry Balakrishnan is that Rediff's news pitch is hardly a USP for the Indian market. Even among its NRI audiences, the site is not generating attention worthy of a news site. Rediff's claim of 1.80 million unique visitors per month, taken in conjunction with its claim of 12 million page-views monthly, yields a figure of 6 page-views a month per person. A benchmark: Star Media, a Latin American portal that recently listed on

THE VERSATILE INNOVATOR

So, how is Balakrishnan planning to be the gorilla in the industry? By constantly innovating to keep, and attract the surfers. The thinking that he has embedded in Rediff: move fast, and, if a particular step hasn't delivered, cut your losses and shift to the next idea. Of course, he has to benchmark against the best. To attract domestic users, a gifts section, flowers, jewellery, and chocolates have followed books and music. In a medium where the competition can latch on quickly, Rediff aims to be a constant leader in innovation. It was the first site to offer hotel-and airline reservations, and a singles site (on-line match-making). There are links to the airline reservation system, the central railway reservation system, and a portfolio tracker, which is connected to the stock exchanges.

All this is backed by constant promotions and contests. For instance, there are special events like the Cricket World Cup, Father's Day, or Valentine's Day. Says Balakrishnan: "If your keep them on the site long enough and get them to keep coming back, they will, usually, find something to buy." In any case, Rediff has realised that generating traffic is not good enough; only 1 out of 1,000 visitors to the site makes a purchase- a rate Rediff has to increase. That's why Balakrishnan wants to make the site easier to navigate and increase the check-out speed.

Low credit-card penetration in India poses an added problem. Rediff estimates that only 40 percent of Net-users in the country possess a credit-card. Even among those who do, there's a marked reluctance to surrender the number on the Net. That's why Rediff offered a cheque option for e-commerce transactions and, in May, 1999, launched a V (alue) P(ayable) P(ost) option as well. Rediff claims that, by and large, they have not had any problems with the 28,000-odd e-Commerce transactions on the site since August, 1998. It does, however, have to deal with the fact that the cheque-payments cycle can take more than 15 days. It is also planning to add on a bank of vendors in the US to save on delivery-costs for US customers.

At the same time, Balakrishnan is acutely aware that people getting onto the Net are not as infotech-savvy as the first generation of Net users. Ease of navigation, reliable backroom support, and excellent customer service are necessary ingredients. With that aim, Balakrishnan is managing relationships on 4 fronts. With Rediff's technology partners, affiliates, customers, and Rediff's employees.

The Technology Tactician

Balakrishnan wants the best technology. And that's no surprise considering there's too high a price to pay: if the customer cannot get into the site after a couple of tries, there's a high probability of her giving up on you altogether. Says D.B. Jagdish, 40, Country Manager (e-Business), IBM: "Your order-processing procedure has to be top-class." Morever, technology is not an entry-barrier-for a price; propriety technologies are available. Balakrishnan now propounds a "2-click" rule-of-thumb to Rediff's Website-designers and software staff. Simply put, a viewers should be able to get to wherever she wants in the site by clicking twice-and no more.

Last month, Rediff announced that its search-engine-the tool to ferret out information on the Net-is now based on Inktomi technology, which is also being used by portals like Yahoo!, America Online, and MSN. Inktomi hosts 110 million sites. A search would first yield the Rediff Editor's Choice of Top Ten sites, and then, the next 10 as per Inktomi's database. Just this one step, which establishes parity with the major portals, will retain visitors apart from increasing the potential for advertising revenue.

Rediff has kept technology in mind while choosing IBM's Net. Commerce as its e-Commerce platform. Particularly because it can be connected into back-end processes which come in useful. Agrees Ashok Tayal, 28, Regional Manager, Net Across: "Portal is about being the first one in, but managing growth needs strong back-end processes." Similar care went into the choosing of its e-mail provider: Aditi Technologies, the firm that developed Talisma, the software that drives Rediff's free e-mail service.

So, Rediff's partners play critical roles. Says Balakrishnan: "I told our partners that we would be remembered as India's first e-Commerce site, and if there was any goof-up in delivery or security, they would have to share the bad publicity!" Rediff's alliance-partners-like Federal Express (FedEx), which provides the logistics of product-despatch and delivery in response to an e-order-have risen to the occasion. Rediff has installed an intranet, linking its vendors. Once an order comes in, it is downloaded and routed to the vendor's site automatically, which generates a bill in a FedEx-supplied software. The packet is then picked up by FedEx. To streamline the process further, Rediff facilities on-line connectivity with the vendors, which helps in cutting down the time required to download.

The Customer's Champion

Once a customer buys from the site, the key is to lock her in with superb on-line service. The new thinking is that the key to success in e-commerce is customer service, not technology, and I agree," says Balakrishnan. In the first month of the e-Commerce service, Rediff used free chocolates to appease customers if orders were delayed or not executed flawlessly. Since there were several teething problems, and chocolate boxes were bought. But is helped the site to lock in the initial customers. Laughs Balakrishnan: "I must say, though, that our expenditure on chocolates has dropped dramatically since last August."

But issues concerning on-line shopping are much more complex. Rediff has discovered, for instance, that Indian customers are uncomfortable with the term, `Add To Shopping Cart' - the universal terminology on the Net. It would like to change that, but is still struggling with a term that would be acceptable to buyers. Morever, Rediff has cut down the ordering-process from 9 steps to 2 as this was causing potential customers to abandon the shopping-carts. Explains Balakrishnan: "The early users were sophisticated. With incremental users, the knowledge base about on-line shopping is far more basic and, therefore, the shopping experience has to be simpler."

It's a job Balakrishnan is taking seriously. Every time a new product or service is launched, the feedback click is aimed at Balakrishnan's e-mail for 90 days so that he can personally check out consumer feedback. The Rediff team is encouraged to not skimp on customer service. Reminisces Balakrishnan: "One of my colleagues who attended an e-Commerce conference in Ahmedabad was told that Rediff was crazy. They said, we'd go broke if we kept giving away boxes of chocolates. But we said, hey, if we do, that's good way to go broke, taking all the goodwill of our customers."

Staying in touch with the customer-and the world she inhabits-is a compulsion, almost a fetish. Everyone receives and answers copious amounts of e-mail, and checks the competition first-hand by browsing, subscribing to news-groups, and reading reports.

The portal has continuously been adding depth to customer-service. In 1999, it launched a live, 24-hour, 5-day week customer service cell. This has been a big success, perhaps highlighting that people still like to talk-whether they're on the Net or not. Rediff also allows the worldwide user to query the portal on any issue regarding its service, including the status of an order placed. The site also encourages visitors to fill in personal information about their interests. This way, Rediff hopes to build communities in vertical interests like technology, music movies, or cricket. Reckons Balakrishnan: "The fact that 35,000 Indians have created their home pages on Rediff means that all of them chose us over a whole host of others offering the same facility."

Finally, Balakrishnan is leading a young, energetic team at Rediff. The average age at Rediffs 30, with most of its staffers in the 25-year-old bracket. While getting good people to join up at the Net start-up was a problem, Balakrishnan claims that's all past now. He smiles: "We get applications from people working in Coca-Cola and IBM in the US, all wanting to come back to India and join us." Muses Arti Dwarkadas, 27, who heads Rediff's Web solutions team: "It's a high like none other. Coming from advertising, where everybody had been there, done that many times over, every day is a learning experience here. There is something new happening somewhere in the world all the time, and it is necessary to stay abreast-or you will get left behind. There are trends that need to be adapted to, mistakes to learn from ideas to run with..."

Balakrishnan's approach to managing his people is so simple that it wouldn't have needed enunciation but for the fact that his tenets are so rarely implemented in most organisations. For one, Balakrishnan offers exciting work and freedom. He says: "Really, the only thing a leader needs to do in a creative business like this is to manage with a light hand. Put together a talented team, and let them be. Salaries are important-no one will work for less than market parities-but paying them more isn't going to make them stay if the work isn't exciting and challenging."

Confirms a member of the editorial team: "Some of the most breath taking site-enhancements have come from the tykes on the team. Rediff's structure and culture are such that anyone can suggest an idea, and if it meets customers needs, it is quickly executed." Fortunately for Balakrishnan, the adrenalin is bubbling over in the sheer excitement of being part of something totally new. Says Jasmeet Singh: "Two hands are not enough, and 24 hours are just too short. All the budding Sabeer Bhatias of the world want to work with us, and are now crawling out of the woodworks with ideas and dollar-signs in their eyes. Evaluating their ideas and bringing them down to earth takes most of my day."

Until now, Balakrishnan has been homestading new ground-with all the excitements, risks, and potential rewards of the gold-seekers who trekked to California in 1849. But soon, he'll have to start thinking of profits. After all, he has to ensure that the money invested earlier in Rediff as well as the funds being put in by the venture capitalists turn in returns-especially since an initial public offering is on the cards in 2000-01. So, Balakrishnan now plans to consolidate his portal identity, following the business model of occupying virtually all of the Netspace-from gateways to e-commerce, and even further to Webpage-hosting-expect that of the ISP.

"I don't see any change in the next 5 years." he says. "I see Rediff only as a portal. We hope to be India's No. I portal. We don't want to become a niche player." Thus, editions in different Indian languages are on their way as is an expansion of services. "We have only 5 percent of what we hope to have in the next 5 years." he asserts. That will tie Rediff's success strongly to the growth of Net advertising, since its primary revenue source besides-e-tail margins-will be from New Media spending. It's a long-term bet that Balakrishnan had placed, but the rewards could be rich. Oncecorporate India feels the compulsion to advertise to customers in the Netspace, they'll have to start with the biggest player-which is what Balakrishnan is counting on.

Sure, competition to Rediff is emerging at a furious pace right here in India. Says Sanjiv Bichandani, 36, CEO, Infoedge, which set up the jobsite Naukri (www.naukri.com): "Balakrishnan's contribution to Rediff has been enormous. That's why it is he who will personally have to head off the challenges to Rediff." He will. For, who knows better than him that the Rediff rainbow could, indeed, lead to e-IDorado?

India's first-both historically and heirachically entrepreneur speaks his mind in an exclusive interview with BT's Roopa Pai.

Q. What is a typical day in the life of Ajit Balakrishnan like?

A. Well, I wake up at 3:30 a.m.. Check and answer mail till 6 a.m.. Go for an hour-long walk with my 2 dogs. Get in to work by about 8:45 a.m... At work, I spend about 40 percent of my day involved in new product development-discussing it, reviewing it, brainstorming about it, We are constantly refining, updating, upgrading our site at Rediff. A Website is a moving target, and you've just got to be on the ball. We're benchmarked with Yahoo!, Infoseek, and Lycos. For you as a visitor, Rediff, Geocities, and Tripod are all equally accessible. Unless our site is easier to use, or offers more or better features, you will just go away with a click of your mouse.

The business we are in is unlike any other; no other business in India has to face this kind of global competition. If you are reading news on Rediff, that implies that we have won against at least a hundred newspaper organisations who are on the Net. The fact that 35,000 Indians have created their homepages on Rediff means they chose us over a whole host of others offering the same facility. We just have to be internationally competitive. No other industry, not even software-development, has that imperative.

A lot of my working day is spent in licensing issues; any new product we develop has to get special licences from abroad for some technology. About 25 percent of each day is spent in recruitment because this is a business driven by people. You need HR talent, managerial talent; if we're launching a product, you need to hire people to manage that. I also spend some part of the day with my CEO and the financial department looking at numbers, and another sizeable chunk of time managing investors relations. We have investors from the Valley now: Bill Draper, Intel, Warburg-Pinkus. Plus, there's time spent on brainstorming and reviewing whatever brand-building we're doing. Needless to say, the part I enjoy most is the first part.

How did you manage to get all these big guys to believe in your business?

See, Draper and Intel operate from the Valley and Warburg Pinkus is the star investor in Net stocks. Talking to them is like preaching to the choir. They are tough investors; they aren't going to throw any money about. There were months and moths of meetings involved where we, basically, talked long-term strategy and the validity of our business plan. We had to see that there was a meeting of minds. That our business strategy was something they intuitively bought into. It can only work then, and stable shareholder relationship is key to the success of any enterprise. So, we talked a lot and, at the end of the day, US-style venture capital firms are all about people-you discuss numbers, of course, but, in a field like technology, who is to say what will happen in the future, and what fresh twist the evolution of the Net may take? Basically, they have to believe what I am saying as a person, and I guess they did.

What's your strategy for handling the global competition that you're so keenly aware of?

I am acutely-acutely-aware of the fact that we'll just have to out-think, out-deliver, and out-brand them if we are to survive. No one will come to us because of loyalty if we don't offer the same or better features that someone else. We have a narrow windows left now to build marketshare, and we're going for it. We have 99 per cent marketshare in the e-Commerce business right now, and we want to hold on to it as long as we can. This whole business, at least at this stage, is all about marketshare. We cannot think of profits for another 2 years. Anyone who thinks he can make profits in an emerging industry in the first 4 years is crazy. You have got to be the gorilla in the industry. The only way to cut costs is to cut customer-service, and you can't to that.

Customer satisfaction must be a difficult thing in this business given that customers are on-line, and can react immediately and furiously, and also since they can take their business else where with a simple click of the mouse...

Oh yes. It's an on -going thing; it never ends, and the customer's always right-even if he is wrong. The way I keep in touch with my customers-because, actually, some of the best ideas come from them, and they know what they want-is to put my address on the feedback from when we launch a product and keep it there for the first 3 months. That way, I know how it is working and how it needs to be refined.

But I don't just get feedback about the new product. Being a pioneer in this business, we are at the receiving end of plenty of freely-given advice. Some of the "Dear Ajit' letters I get are amazing. "Dear Ajit, I think Prem Panicker's column about cricket is unfair to Pakistan. Can't you do something about? Isn't it your job as CEO?" There's plenty more on the shopping side, though. "Dear Ajit, it was my girlfriend's birthday on the 23rd, and I'd asked for delivery on that day but the flowers were delivered on the 22nd and she was really mad at me..." I get this kind of of letters all the time. I try and answer most of them myself, but I get about 600 a day, so I can't really get back to everyone.

Some of the other common problems customers have are when they are accessing Rediff through a corporate LAN. Unless the system administrator of the LAN disables or enables something to allow users access into a secure zone, the screen will go blank as soon as they order a book or a cassette, and that really throws them. We post a little note saying, If you are using a corporate LAN, click here, but, of course, no one sees it. So, I get letters saying. "Dear Ajit, you say all this bull about being the best corporate site when you give interviews to BT, but look what happens when I try to use your services."

You see, from the user's point of view, the problem is with Rediff, and I agree absolutely. It's up to us to tell them what can go wrong. What makes everything difficult is that every wave of new users on the Net is less and less infotech-savvy than the last. But, if we want the Net to become a truly far reaching medium, we are going to have to make getting on to Rediff attractive for this kind of person. We have to put in a lot of technology to make navigating Rediff and its services really easy for him.

We even get questions like, `You've asked me to press the Return key. What's the Return Key?' To handle this kind of query, we've introduced Live Customer Service for the first time in the world. There's a person manning it 24 hours a day, and simple things like this are resolved quickly on-line.

What about your own people? It must be difficult to induce people to join a business that still doesn't know where it is going?

Getting good people in any business is an issue, and I admit that it was difficult in the beginning to convince people to join, but it's getting easier. In the last 2 years, it has become much simpler, especially where people in their 20s are concerned. They know where the action is. We get applications from people working in Coca-Cola and IBM in the US, all wanting to come back to India and join us. And Rediff is, basically, very young. I'm probably double the age of most of my colleagues. The next rung is around 37, and after that, it is all kids of 24 and 25.

Basically, you need to create a terrific work atmosphere. Salaries are important; on one will work for less than what the market pays, but paying them more isn't going to make them stay if the work isn't exciting and challenging. What youngsters today want is the freedom to work. They want their assignments clearly-defined, the resources provided, and then, they want to be left alone to work in peace. They want a politics-free culture, where they can work competitively but trusingly without having to look over their shoulders all the time. They want work to be stimulating and fun, and not drudgery; posh offices aren't as important as a good work-environment.

Our offices are pretty basic, but the work is fun, and you're held accountable for ultimate results; people enjoy that. Young people need a culture that is supportive of their ability to achieve things of their own. A culture that gives them the ability to try and fail. A culture which says: "If you didn't do it, you will get kicked but, if you did, and it didn't work out, it doesn't matter." At Rediff, we've also introduced a stock options scheme which is a first in this industry. That's an incentive to persuade people to stay on. But I think what really causes all the excitement is that everyone here is part of building something new in a culture of creativity. Really, the only thing a leader needs to do in a creative business like this is to manage with a light hand. The new thinking is that the key to success in e-Commerce is customer service-not technology-and I agree.

Do you take any time off at all?

Yes, I try and leave by 7 p.m. these days, and take Sundays off. I read a lot-lots on strategy, lots on technology. Give me a good strategy book, and I'll curl up immediately. I'have been reading a fantastic book called Customer.com. The way we do business is being totally transformed by the Net. Just keeping track of that can be life-long passion.

Thank you, Ajit.