The tale of Micromax is one which our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com may wish to learn from. Although we do not think of our freelancers as companies, the reality is that each freelancers can, in a sense, be considered his or her own small company. They each have services which are offered, they each do work and are paid for their work. They even have the ability to place a small advertisement on IndiaFreelancers.com to advertise their services (see “recommended” on IndiaFreelancers.com). And, lastly and most importantly, each freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com may at some point grow such that they consider taking on a partner or partners.

If a freelancer on IndiaFreelancers.com starts to attract a large following and a large amount of work orders, please be careful to manage that growth. Grow slowly and in an organized manner. Too much growth can be as hurtful as not growing enough. More importantly, as we will see below, growing with the wrong partners can be even more devastating.

Let’s take a look at the tale of Micromax. The company which today we know as Micromax, which has its headquaters in Gurgaon, Haryana was founded in the year 2000 by Rahul Sharma, Vikas Jain, Sumeet Arora and Rajesh Agarwal. Micromax started life working in electronic embedded devices but by the year 2008 had moved to mobile telephones. Powered by Rahul Sharma’s vision of a long-lasting mobile phone battery, by 2014 Micromax became the mobile phone manufacturer in India which was shipping the most telephones in one quarter. They shipped numbers which even exceeded those of giant Samsung. This was pretty impressive stuff for a company started in India by four friends.

Then the problems started. Fresh from the reports of these heady numbers in 2014, the founders  brought in outside managers to lead the company – and the problems started. Understandably, tensions soon started to arise between the founders and their new executives. This is not unusual. This happens all the time in business. The newcomers were not there during the heady, inspired days of the start of the company and their views often clash with the view of the founders to whom the company is “their baby.”

These clashes between the old and the new have, of course, caused problems. There is now not a single voice with a single focus on how best to move the company forward – there are a number of voices. Many of which conflict with others. As such, investors such as Alibaba, who was considering investing $1.2 Billion dollars in Micromax for a 20% ownership of the company, in May of 2015 decided to not invest. Unfortunately, in the wake of Alibaba’s decision, other potential investors also did the same. To make matters worse, the disconnect at the top has also affected the company’s performance itself.

The leadership, in its turmoil, was not quick to realize and react to the fact that their original Chinese outsource partners were themselves entering into the “white-hot” India mobile telephone market with products of their own. Thus, Micromax has this month (March 2016) seen their market share drop by nearly 50%. Truly sad. To be complete, it is important to note that Micromax had other problems (for example, the Rajesh Agarwal bribing scandal and the Ericsson patent infringement litigation to name two), but the bringing in of new people was a particularly salient issue.

So what is the lesson in this for our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com? The lesson is simple and yet complex at the same time. In a nutshell, the lesson is “chose your partners wisely.”

Remember, we have seen this movie before and it did not end well. On April 8, 1983 Steve Jobs brought in John Sculley to head Apple Computers thinking that Sculley could be a great “organizer” for Apple. What happened next is, of course, now history. Sculley and Jobs soon clashed and Sculley soon led a Board of Directors take over which included encouraging the Board to fire Steve Jobs – which they did.

Therefore, when the Micromax founders decided to bring in their OWN “John Sculleys” into Micromax, they would have been well served to have learned from Apple’s example. They should have considered the almost inevitable clash between the newcomers and the old guard.

Therefore, as our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com grow and consider taking on partners. Please bear in mind the Micromax and Apple stories above. Be very careful who you bring on board to your company and your efforts. Great new partners can be a blessing, but the wrong new partners can mean the possible demise of your company.

Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com