ABOVAC

Name: Vasant Davé

Location: Baroda, Gujarat

Type of Business:
India based subcontractor to Virtual Assistants in U.S.A., Canada and U.K.

What does your business do?
ABOVAC helps Virtual Assistants earn more. We use Information Technology to sell the skills of people in one country to the business entities in another. We join a V.A. professional in the client country, and enable her offer ‘local service at internationally competitive rates’. The V.A. can subcontract to us assignments in Typing, Word processing, Data entry, Computing, Business communication and Technical writing.

When and why did you start the biz?
To build a ‘better mousetrap’ to sell, I worked on my strengths. They were: my experience and understanding of the American business, my ability to organize, and my location in India. With these, I could provide a cost effective off-shore back office and assist the V.A.s in 2 ways: (i) To reduce processing costs and share the savings with their clients, and (ii) To get free to take up more profitable assignments. Considering these aspects, I started ABOVAC, Asian Back Office for the Virtual Assistance Companies, in August, 2000.

How Many People are in your Company?
7. Myself, wife Bharti who is a teacher, daughter Swati who is a librarian, and son Sachin who studies at the university. We also have three employees to do data entry and word processing.

Where's your office?
One room at home converted into an office. We are located in a neighborhood that is fast developing as a commercial hub in Baroda, an industrial city in Western India.

What's the toughest part of running your biz?
Our potential clients are Virtual Assistants in far off countries. Since we have never met, the toughest part is to earn their trust through internet. Seeing the hoaxes that pervade business on the net, extreme precaution on the part of our prospects is not only natural, but also justified. However, I have experienced that a market that is awfully difficult to enter is more likely to stick to you after it accepts you. So we are patiently striving to build client confidence.

What's the most fun part?
I feel blissfully liberated from office politics and bureaucracy. Now I am able to devote more time to networking, management reading and creative thinking. I believe that I have added more value to my business and professional development in these 2 years of independence than any 2 years earlier.

Anything you would have done differently?
As soon as ABOVAC was born, we should have visited U.S.A., Canada and U.K. to meet prospective clients. With personal interaction, the V.A.s would have judged us faster. That would have helped a lot to create trust and book orders.

What's next on the horizon for your biz?
We plan to participate in a small way in the First Annual IVAA Summit organized by International Virtual Assistants Association, scheduled in October, 2002 ( http://www.vasummit.org/ ). We also intend to be event partners in Administrative Professionals Conference scheduled in April, 2003 (http://www.apconference.com/ )

What advice do you have for others?
In India it is said that an entrepreneur generally does not get any returns till he toils for at least 1,000 days. For roughly that period, you ought to have the ability to bear all expenses from your savings and family members’ salary. You need to take your spouse and children into confidence, earn their co-operation in being somewhat frugal, and get them mentally prepared to sacrifice some of the comforts they are used to. Your spending priorities either build or break your business. We have invested in high quality office equipment and software, focused publicity, training and salaries of proficient personnel. As a family we have resisted the temptation to renovate the office, install an air conditioner, go on a vacation, and get a new car.

How do you use Idea Cafe to help your biz?
We discovered Idea Cafe like Ali Baba chanced upon the treasure of the 40 thieves. Most of your articles are so universal that we can apply them to enrich our start-up here in India. Idea Cafe is the ‘Bible of the Small Biz’; you hold our hand and lead us to improve the key areas of our operations -- Budgeting, Financing, Marketing, and more. ‘Coffee Talk with Experts’ not only gives sound advice, but also triggers brainstorming on some critical aspects that we had neglected earlier.

School (where, still in school, degree)?
B.Engg. from the University of Bombay, India; & Post Graduate Certificate in Marketing from M.S. University of Baroda, India

Prior jobs or business?
I have had 24 years’ marketing experience with 2 leading Indian firms. I have gained expertise in market research and business development of Electronic, Electrical and Hydraulic equipment. Presently I am Country Communications Director in India of the Association for International Business Inc. For details, you might like to see http://www.abovac.biz/b2b/index.html .

Favorite Food?
My favorite is a vegetarian dish called ‘Handwo’. It is a sour cake concocted from a mixture of rice and gram flour, curd, fine potato chips, fried onion pieces and all spices of the East.

What are your pets' names?
Though we don't have any pets, some robins have built nests in the tall ‘Asopalav’ trees in our backyard. They tolerate us as unavoidable intruders who are often messing with garden tools and water hose in their territory!

Do any of these pets help with your biz?
They awaken us every dawn with excited tweets. They help us set an enthusiastic frame of mind everyday.

Is there any one person or event in your life that led you to go into business for yourself?
I served a state-run company that manufactured Navigation, Broadcasting and Telecommunication equipment. When India joined the W.T.O., liberalized imports broke our monopoly in the market. Foreign competition made our operations unviable. We closed down in 2000, when I was 51 -- too old to land a suitable job in India, and not yet old enough to retire. All these years I had hesitated to leave the security of a 9 to 5 job. But when that disappeared, we accepted the situation as God’s will and perhaps His unfathomable way of telling me to start our own business.

Anyone you publicly want to thank?
I greet my good friends from the Association for International Business Inc., a powerful virtual community of 10,000 professionals in 200 countries ( http://www.aibworld.com/ ): Ray Gabriel, the Founder and Joan Faber, the Chairman.

Contact Info:
Vasant Davé
4, Param Bungalows, Atma Jyoti Ashram Road
Baroda, Gujarat 390021
+91 265 239 0822
vasant@abovac.biz

Website:
http://www.abovac.biz/index.html