Stories around the campfire

Stories around the campfire
Sreekant Khandekar

For all of you out there who can't sleep thinking of big money being madeovernight in the Internet revolution, here's perspective.

Many years ago, I made a little money on the stock market. Encouraged, I putin more. Harshad Mehta came along. The market crashed. I burnt my fingers.That's when I heard of the saying: ``If you're really lucky on the stockmarket, you'll burn your fingers the first time.'' Had that happened to me,I would have lost less rather than more.

I learnt many things from that experience including the fact that peopleonly discuss success -- never the failure on which it is built. The stockmarket was replete with stories of investors who had made a killingovernight. Nobody talked of the millions of poor suckers who had lost theirsavings unless they chose a dramatic manner of announcing this fact byleaping off a building.

It is the same in every perceived boom. Remember the real estate boom andthe thousands of crores large companies said they'd make? Their CEOs wouldpay hush money today not to be reminded. Or the TV channel boom where anyonewith a video camera and a home video behind him thought of ruling the waves?Remember the free-the-skies boom when any businessman who could stretch hisarms and run down a public road thought he'd take off as a private airline?Remember? Remember?

There is nothing to suggest that the Internet boom is any different. Ifanything, the losses will be even greater and more numerous except youprobably won't hear of them. That's because anybody with a computer canstart a web site. And it's the thing to do.

Besides, the promise of wealth is drawing people whose only big idea is theidea of making quick money. This lot is especially susceptible to failure.Investors in India believe that more than 80 per cent of the web sites weread about will be defunct in the next six to nine months. And they willtake down with them dozens if not hundreds of crores and many bruisedegos. New sites will replace them and sink again until a much smaller numberof hardy and battle-scarred survivors emerge from the melee. These will bethe stars of tomorrow.

I have realised over time that the line dividing success and failure can befrighteningly thin. And yet, we revere one and abhor the other.

Maybe we like to build legends in our mind and remind ourselves of what wecan achieve. Maybe this instinct of inducing courage is as old as our raceitself. And maybe the tradition first began when our forefathers enacted thesuccessful hunt around a campfire.

The writer runs agencyfaqs.com, an advertising, media and marketingsite.