Few years before I worked for a client who told me Nazar technology is not a bigger thing you can implement it at any time but the biggest thing is understanding our business and understanding about our people who owe it.
I laughed at him and told why should I care about people and business when I can just built the product right here as per the requirement, I was impatient and don't want to get into the deep details to focus on just product, I provided him a list of questionnaire and asked him to fill it after discussing with their staff. In next meeting he came up with filled details and told me yes I believe Nazar that you can build a good product but again I want you to come at our place and see how things work up.
I was busy involving myself in multiple activities although I was not able to handle and ignored his advice .I told politely yes I would come but I have to attend some other meeting as well and it's just a billing software I will guarantee you that it will be the best. Within a two weeks I provided him a sample software with all multi tasking features and guess what happened ? The software was built with great features but the people to whom it was for and the business both not able to handle it.
In next meeting we met and I asked about the performance of the software. He was upset I can read from his eyes , I was expecting some mind blowing words from him but he just said Nazar my people feel easy to work with calculators than on your Software. He complaint about that though we want billing software but not a complex one , we want a software that can generate automatic receipts just entering some numbers we don't want these complex features. I got dumbstruck after providing such a good product he is telling me he just want crud product.
I had given him emphasis on technology and blah blah things that was the feature in software. He told me No. He asked me to visit his store and spend time with people and learn the business. I told him okay I will visit you in this Sunday as I have to attend college I can't come on weekdays. I never visited him because I got the placement in one of the MNC on that week , I left all the projects in mid way and completed none. Those people kept on calling for two weeks, first I ignored the calls and then I told them that I don't work anymore in this business due to personal reasons . They understood and never called that I am running from my promises with them. I was unable to realize the importance of people and business at that time all I cared about technology.
In last two years in MNC what I saw is all they care about its people and business , there is very little care for technology . In my journey where I started as an entrepreneur and became an employee I realize that yes 80% is people and businesses and it's just 20% technology. The word he told me three years back and requested me to understand are the same word I worked for in last two years of my tenure by being a part of a crowd.
You know when anybody goes for pitching an idea to an investor , investors don't believe on product and neither they believe in presentation they believe in the personality and how the person is handling employees, emotions with company and bonding with co-founders . They fund the person not because the product is going g to be next apple but attitude of a person is like Steve jobs.