A special day at the office

Setting up a company in India is an uphill battle, and I've been fighting it tooth and nail for the past two weeks. Want to sell anything? You need a PAN to get a Labor Registration to get a Professional Tax Registration to get a VAT Registration. Want to get a UPS (battery backup) for your office? You need STPI Registration, Customs Registration, IEC Registration, an STPI Asset Register, and a Karnataka State Pollution Certificate. Some things have to be in black ink, or in triplicate, or need seven passport photos, or need to be on special paper. To unravel this mess, you going to need an army of consultants - two law firms, one tax firm, and two registration consulting companies.

The past two or three weeks have been some of the most stressful in my brief working career. Our deadlines were so tight that if anything slipped by a half-day, it was an emergency. And the red tape in this country is not conducive to urgency. All day I was racing from office to office, getting the appropriate signatures and stamps and forms. And I'm happy to say it: I'm done! We pulled it off. Nobody except me and one or two other people will ever realize how close we came to the brink of disaster.

In celebration of our new company, which really came into existance on December 1st, we had an office party in the cafeteria (which is on the top floor). The enthusiasm of the Indian employees was overwhelming. They've never known the struggles we've had in the US - they only see that the office is growing, and that there are good opportunities for them. It was really refreshing to be around so much positive energy and excitement. We had cake, and the senior leadership spoke, and then people came up for a kind of office talent show. People took turns singing songs, and the highlight (for me at least) was a traditional dance.