When entrepreneurs begin their journey, human capital is not typically the first thing their mind drifts towards. Most likely, they are trying to figure out what customers they are going to serve or sell to and what they need to make or do to create a profit. In this webinar for leaders and entrepreneurs, CEO Rahul Singh will explain how to integrate human capital development into the culture of a startup - even when it is comprised of just one or two people. Singh will show us why a company that emphasizes communications, organization, and training will be a leading one because it's people will be better, faster, and more qualified than the competition. Singh will address: • Communications strategies • Leadership development through knowledge management • Team building through real world examples while starting and growing an internet technology and software architecture firm. • How his company's growth has been directly tied to building up the team's individuals into better team members. About the Presenter: Rahul Singh has spent the last 15 years working on Internet companies. At the age of 16, he started his first company in his parents basement to service 3000 hosting customers while going to High School. After designing, building, and migrating everything to a datacenter, he decided to try consulting. He helped his clients solve difficult problems related to creating highly scalable internet applications in organizations large and small such as MCI, ATT, Merrill Lynch, American Legacy Foundation. After a year learning the meaning of service in the restaurant industry, he took off from entrepreneurship to finish his education at Georgetown and worked at various consulting firms to service clients such as USPS, Miller Brewery and later with non-profits such as Feeding America, AICPA, AFT and ACLU.

1. Anant Corporation
Anant Corporation
Leadership & Management
Building People First - Lessons in Team
Effectiveness and Happiness

2. Anant Corporation
Agenda
• Communication - The Backbone of a
Company
Every failure and success of our company has come down to good or bad
communication. How do we coordinate a diverse team over the Internet?
• Leadership & Management / Knowledge -
Knowledge creation and distribution is a function in our “Leadership &
Management” responsibility. How were we faring before we changed, what do
we do now?
• Enterprise Knowledge - When we “Woke” Up.
When we realized how important knowledge was to our company, we took it
very seriously. This is how.
• Team Building - Team of Teams
Some of us are full time, others are part time. Some of us are employees,
others are contractors. Some of us are onsite, others are remote.
• Building People - Teams are made up of
people.

3. Anant Corporation
Old Boss : Individuals Leading Teams
Leaders : Company
Teams: Department Teams, Project Teams
Customers & Clients
Leaders : Departments, Projects

4. Anant Corporation
Communication - Early Days
• Conference Calls
Our company started with 3 calls a week among
3 team members.
• Basecamp / Project Management Tool
We had the cheapest plan to manage internal
and external projects. We decided to use “GTD”
• Emails
We created some groups in our Google Apps.
We mostly used CC’s to communicate, without a
centralized information system.

5. Anant Corporation
Communication - Kaizen Feedback from Team
• General Unresponsiveness
Members complained about phone, chat, email
unresponsiveness during business hours.
• Vague / Unclear Tasks
Some people were better at assigning / clarifying
outcomes for tasks than others. More
complaints.
• Availability Expectations
Some people were better available than others
at different times. More complaints, frustration.

6. Anant Corporation
Communication - Today
• Singular Communication Pipeline (Client to
Team)
All client issues are managed through a singular
system through one customer service
process.
• Clarity is Contextual to the Work (Team to
Team)
Processes are documented. Tasks have
outcomes. Projects all have a “Mini” project
document.
• Tools for Different Needs (Member to
Member)

7. Anant Corporation
Knowledge - Early Days
• “Check out this link”
We either had the knowledge in our heads or we
didn’t. There was no “team knowledge.”
• Different Document Standards
We had client project documents, but there
wasn’t a standard.
• Basic Onboarding / Orientation
People knew where to generally find things, but
each team member wasn’t “onboarded”
contextually with specific skills.

8. Anant Corporation
Knowledge - Today
• Articles on the “Internal Blog” every Week
We read books or executive summaries all the
time. We privately blog about what we learn.
• Several “KB” entries every Week
Everything that can be reused as knowledge is
added to the KB. All learning, all research.
• Links on Pinterest/Scoop.it every Week
Each team has a quota of new links to add to the
Pinterest or Scoop.it - We review on our cowork.

9. Anant Corporation
Knowledge - What
Knowledge
Guides &
Resources
Blogs, Links, KB
Assets &
Documents
Files & Code
Structured
Information
Org, Client,
Project
DriveDeltaNutshellLeavesKBWPSourceDriveDB/OC

10. Anant Corporation
Knowledge - Corporate
• Strategic / Tactical
• Strategic knowledge helps us execute on
the Corporate Strategic Goals (Phoenix)
• Tactical knowledge helps us execute on our
daily, weekly, project, and client tasks.
• Internal / External
• Internal knowledge is what is pertinent to
our company.
• External knowledge is what is pertinent to
our clients, market, industry, and sector.
• Explicit / Meta
• Explicit knowledge means that it is what it
is.
• Meta knowledge may be a blog or kb entry
about a concept, a book that we’re writing.

11. Anant Corporation
Knowledge - Where
Knowledge
Project
Information
Client
Service
Information
Corporate
Guides
Collaborativ
e
Documents
Assets
& Files
Corporate
Resources
Appleseed Services Search
G Drive
Delta
DropBox
G Drive
Delta
Nutshell
Dropbox
Freshbooks
G Drive
G Sites (KB)
G Drive
Workflowy
Evernote
G Drive
DropBox
OwnCloud
Pocket
Leaves
AIC (WP)
Anant (WP)

12. Anant Corporation
Team Building - Team of Teams
• Employees / Contractors / PT / FT / Remote
Our company engages ~40 people or “entities”
globally.
• Good Talent is Everywhere / Every time
We can’t profess “Everyone an Entrepreneur”
and not encourage other small companies to
work with us.
• The Criteria for “Good” vs. “Bad” is hard to
set.
We give “exams” before we interview technical
members or teams.

13. Anant Corporation
Building People - How we Grow
• Respect for Apprentices as Team Members
We don’t have interns. We have apprentices.
They are expected to become Analysts.
• Respect for “External Partners” = Our Team
We’ve received close to half our business from
people that work with us as contractors.
• Members all have “Mastery” Goals
From apprentices to partners, we are always
learning and we’re always documenting.

14. Anant Corporation
Today - Phoenix - The New Backbone
• Yearly - Organizational + Team Phoenix
Shows everyone in the company what are the
most important objectives & key results.
• Quarterly - Member Phoenix
Each member and their supervisor agree to
certain individual objectives & key results.
• Weekly - Individual ACM Goals + Review
Each person has 3-6 goals they are working
toward each day.

15. Anant Corporation
New Boss : Knowledge Leading Teams
Phoenix
Goals, Objectives, Results,
Weekly, Monthly, Yearly
Leaders : Team, Project, Company
Teams: Practices, Responsibilities, Project
People: Company, Clients, Members
Knowledge,
Communication
Delta, Documents,
Scrums, Cowork,
...
Feedback
Client Kaizens,
Team Kaizens,
Weekly Review

16. Anant Corporation
Best Practices – Some Great Books
• Getting Things Done by David Allen
Good basic standard for having clarity to work.
• What it Takes: Seven Secrets of Success
from the World's Greatest Professional Firms
by Charles Ellis
• The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of
the Learning Organization by Peter Senge
• Harvard Business Review on Knowledge
Management by Harvard Business Press

17. Anant Corporation
Feedback & Call to Action
rahul@anant.us
• Worked?
• Didn’t Work?
• Could be
Improved?
Events & Jobs
• Enterprise Tech
Meetup
–http://www.meetup.com/DC-
Enterprise-Tech-Meetup/
• Bagels + Coffee
–http://anantlabs.eventbrite.co
m
• Apprenticeships
–http://anant.us/339

18. Anant Corporation
Contact
Rahul Singh
• Click on the Icons Below
Anant
• Web: http://anant.us
• Email: sales@anant.us
• Phone: 1.855.ANANTCO
• 1010 Wisconsin Ave. NW,
Suite 250
Washington, D.C. 20007