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How A Tenacious Entrepreneur Made An Imprint On Your Credit CardIt was a cold winter in 1954 and it was clearly the low point of Stanley Dashew’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Dashew) life. Dashew Business Machines, the company he started after arriving in Los Angeles in 1950, faced financial collapse, even though they just received the largest order ever in its four-year history from the U.S. Air Force. There was a severe cash-flow problem that threatened to bring the company to bankruptcy before it could fulfill the order for a new metal plate identification system based on Stanley’s invention, the Databosser. The machine embossed unique metal identification plates, which we called Dashaplates. But they only had thirteen hundred dollars. Stanley was left with no other choice but to sell his most prized worldly object Constellation a wooden crafted seventy-six-foot sailboat. He found a buyer and used the $45,000 to fund all the suppliers and workers at his company.Radical Late 1950s TechnologyStanley’s Databosser was radical expansion to embossing technology that was used up until his invention. The Addressograph-Graphotype from the Addressograph-Multigraph Company most advanced machine was a keyboard based embossing machine that used a set of dies and punches to emboss or to deboss plates or tags for a given ID application. It was strictly a manual process where the operator used the keyboard to select individual characters at speeds from fifty to one hundred plates per hour. With the Databosser production was up to one thousand embossed plates per hour directly from punch cards or punch tape and later computers.In 1949, Frank X. McNamara, head of the Hamilton Credit Corporation (later, Diners Club) was eating with friends at "Major's Cabin Grill" in New York and when the check came he noticed he had forgotten his wallet. This sparked a Payment Card revolution. By 1950, Diner's Club released the first multiuse Charge card. Thees very first Payment Cards used a very simple "technology", a person's unique Signature and later a unique account number sequence printed on the cardboard card. This process held for most of the 1950s as American Express also released its own Charge Card.The Cardboard Diner’s Club Card Goes PlasticBy 1961, it became clear to Diner’s Club that a more robust material was needed to produce its card products. They also need a more automated system for the merchant to process the transaction. The company thought the only option was to use Plastic cards and turned to the Addressograph-Multigraph Company for the embossing machines to personalize the cards. These manual machines would have required rooms filled of typists creating metal dies or reusing existing dies to emboss a card, the process have had a great expense and up to a $15 cost per card however they had little choice, or so they thought.Addressograph Graphotype Embossing MachineDisruption 1960s StyleIn this era Stanley’s company still considered a “start-up” company and he was poised ready to change the entire Payment Card Industry. By 1961 there were over 1.2 million Diner’s Clubs members and Stanley demonstrated how the Databosser could mass produce charge cards. It was not an easy task to get attention to his rather new company even though he had far better technology. Stanley had to think creatively to get the Databosser in the hands of the production people at Diner’s Club to actually see how they worked. He devised a plan to pose as a delivery person and roll the machine and sample cards right into the production area of Diner’s Club. The unorthodox demonstration was a resounding success and by mid 1961 shiny new plastic cards were sent to all members using the Databosser. Needless to say the Addressograph-Multigraph Company machines were surrounding the Databosser as they were used to create print the letters and address the envelopes that delivered the cards.By 1962 Stanley captured the Carte Blanche account. But the real challenge was landing the American Express account. They were considered the most influential and prestigious company in the world at the time. The Addressograph-Multigraph company was none too happy to lose the other card companies and began production on its own automated embossing system. It would be hard to compete as virtually every company owned on an Addressograph-Multigraph business machine for mass producing form letters and American Express was a very large customer for them.Relentless Salesman Sells American ExpressAmerican Express would be a challenge but Stanley was not going to wait for the other company to copy his technology. After a great deal of letters, phone calls and personal visits Stanley finally was granted one chance to make a presentation. He said,“To have any chance to capture the American Express account we needed to do our homework. We found out exactly which American Express executives would be attending our client presentation. When it came time for the meeting, we presented each of the executives with a prototype American Express card, complete with the artwork still used today (which we borrowed from their traveler’s checks) and each one embossed with the executives’ names, and a faux account number and expiration date.As a final flourish, which underscored Amex’s extraordinary customer loyalty, each card included a reference to “a member since…. I can still see the faces of the American Express executives who were at the meeting. The whole thing was sheer show tell. Ok, call it a gimmick if you like but whatever you call it, it won the account.Here’s the lesson: Don’t just tell potential clients or investors what you can do for then. Show them – in the most dramatic and creative way you can.”The Databosser V100 went on to become a rather huge success. The company was later sold to Howard Hughes. The technology from Stanley and later the Addressograph-Multigraph Company is still in use today. Although there is now a small trend to eliminate the Embossing for a colored hot printing of the acount holder's name and account number on the back of the card. Although this has thus far only used by Chase Bank on some of it’s limited products.Embossing Allowed For The Explosion Of Payment CardsEmbossing allowed for a very rapid system of recording all the important information off the face of the Payment Card by using, at that time carbon slips that were placed over the card and creating a multipart record of the transaction. The three part carbon receipt allowed for a copy for the customer, the merchant and the card company. The merchant would mail the signed copies for payment, usually a check sent to them about 30 days later, keep copy and present the customer copy.In many ways this technology revolutionized the Payment Card just as much as the Magnetic Strip (When was the first credit card with a magnetic stripe issued?). We still live with the vestige of this 1960s can-do technology as a memorial to how some good ideas stick around long after the entire world changes.Creating Products At 95 Years OldAs for Stanley, he stuck around too, now 95 years old and still inventing products. His latest is the Dashaway, a rethinking and hot rod version of the Grandparents walker (no tennis balls on the feet of this thing).Although he never got back Constellation, his prized Sail Boat sold in 1954, Stanley can still be seen sailing the Pacific at the helm facing his next challange.

I have got so much help from everyone who shared their experiences here in my preparations. Now, it is my time to give back to future aspirants. :-)**This is a long one but it will be worth the read. Promise.**So, let me start this with my profile.99.78% in CAT'15.7 months work-ex at American Express as of interview time.5 year Integrated Master's from IIT Kanpur in Mathematics and Scientific Computing10th-12th : 90+IIM Calcutta Interview on 13th Feb'2016 in DelhiWAT topic:Everyday 368 people die in road accidents in India. What are the measures you will take to improve upon this situation?Interview:There were total 4 panels and except one other 3 were extremely grilling. I was lucky to be in the 4th panel. :DI was the 5th in my panel and candidates before me had good interviews too. They came out smiling. I was a little relieved that the panel is friendly.Total time: 25 minutes.Two male professors were in my panel. One around 60 years old (P1) and other around 45 years old (P2). Me (M).I entered the room and wished both the professors and gave my form and other documents to them.P1 asked me to have a seat.P1: So why don't you start by telling us something about yourself?M: Started. In my 4th-5th line, I mentioned about Rubik's cube and my timing of 33 seconds.They stopped me in between and asked me about how I learnt solving Rubik's cube, and what are the algorithms I use. I told them about Beginner's method and how I moved on to complex methods of solving as well. Then P1 asked me about blindfold method of solving Rubik's cube and I told them what difference is there in algorithms and how one approaches to do that.At this point P2 asked me about the world record (4.9 s) and joked that I still lag by some 28 seconds.I smiled and saw it as an opportunity to tell them about all other kind of cubes I can solve as well. So, I told them about 7 different kind of cubes I can solve and told them about Mirror cube which I learned to solve recently.They seemed to be very happy about all of it.Since the "Tell me something about yourself" question was deviated into Cube's discussion, I couldn't tell them about other highlights of my profile and things I prepared for the interview. *Just thinking to not screw anything from here*P1: Are you a fresher or do you work?M: Sir, I am working at American Express, Gurgaon in Risk Management department where I got my Pre Placement Offer from the pre-final year intern-ship I did.*Feeling proud of myself as I slipped the "Getting the PPO" thing so well in the answer:P*P2: How does American Express work?M: Explained the current businesses American Express is in and tried to connect it with the company's history *which I prepared beforehand ;)*. Somewhere, I mentioned Fraud detection and Management which P1 took a special note of.(Otherwise he was going through my forms and certificates quite peacefully)*I was trying to keep the panel on my work-ex as prepared some 5-6 courses in academics. Also, Calcutta is known to be Quant oriented and I majored in Maths, so I was afraid that they may catch me off-guard in some of the unprepared part**At this point of time, the environment was very friendly in the room and the whole interview thing became more of a discussion which I was loving, by the way :D**P2 mentions about his Green Card and then discussed with me his experience with American Express which I was more than happy to listen too :D*P1: So do you think that fraud can be curbed 100% for Credit Cards algorithmically? *I did a workshop on Cryptography which I mentioned on my form and I felt that it came from there plus me mentioning about fraud detection models above*M: *Took some 30 seconds to analyse whether shall I get into Cryptography and discuss the shortcomings or challenges stuff* Instead I explained what currently American Express is doing to curb fraud and finally connected it with the trade off between theoretic possibility of achieving a 100% with customer experience which might suffer due to n-number of checks. (As it appeared more MBA oriented :P)I extended this to new wallets like PayTm coming up and doing transactions in just 2-3 clicks and high customer satisfaction because of this.P1 pretty satisfied.(Meanwhile P2 literally checked each and every grade in my college grade-sheet and believe me, they are not good :P)P2: What is a bipartite graph? *A sitter question from Graph Theory*M: Didn't know the answer, told them so.P2: This is a very basic question, I expected you to answer this.M: Sir, its been sometime I did this course and don't remember now. I am sorry.But I have used the concepts of this course in a project. Started to tell them about my projects when P2 interrupted.P2: What are the topics you did in Number theory course?M: I mentioned some topics but I guess I didn't tell him much. He kept on staring me long after I stopped answering and in return I sheepishly smiled.P2: You don't seem to be the academic kind of guy. *smiling, I think that was sarcastic. Also I got a little nervous as I derailed a little from track*M: I smiled and said that I have done some application based projects but he cuts me in middle to ask my class rank. Told them.P2 asked me about Regression (where I scored poorly in college) then and asked me to explain it from the scratch. I explained the Ordinary Least Square method to him and he asked me a lot of questions while I was doing the same. I explained all those questions to the best I could.P2 then appreciated my whole explanation in a very positive manner. P2 said that he is done and asked P1 to continue. P1 smiled and told me that he is done too. I thanked both of them and asked if I shall send the next candidate in. They said No and I left then.Positives: All the time the environment in the room was extremely friendly. I never thought this much friendliness is possible in IIM-C interview, known for a lot of grilling.Negatives: I couldn't answer two academic questions which were very basic. Also, I couldn't mention about my Germany intern anywhere. I tried my best to bring it into situation but failed.Verdict: Converted!!My 2 cents to future aspirants:1. The most important thing is to stay calm in the interview and try to make it more of a discussion.2. No matter how much you prepare, there will be some strengths and some weaknesses in your profile. Try your best to show all your strengths. And try what you learnt out of your failures in a more positive manner.3. Try to come up with something which differentiates you from others by and large and try selling it out.

I have got so much help from everyone who shared their experiences here in my preparations. Now, it is my time to give back to future aspirants. :-)**This is a long one but it will be worth the read. Promise.**So, let me start this with my profile.99.78% in CAT'15.7 months work-ex at American Express as of interview time.5 year Integrated Master's from IIT Kanpur in Mathematics and Scientific Computing10th-12th : 90+IIM Calcutta Interview on 13th Feb'2016 in DelhiWAT topic:Everyday 368 people die in road accidents in India. What are the measures you will take to improve upon this situation?Interview:There were total 4 panels and except one other 3 were extremely grilling. I was lucky to be in the 4th panel. :DI was the 5th in my panel and candidates before me had good interviews too. They came out smiling. I was a little relieved that the panel is friendly.Total time: 25 minutes.Two male professors were in my panel. One around 60 years old (P1) and other around 45 years old (P2). Me (M).I entered the room and wished both the professors and gave my form and other documents to them.P1 asked me to have a seat.P1: So why don't you start by telling us something about yourself?M: Started. In my 4th-5th line, I mentioned aboutRubik's cube and my timing of 33 seconds.They stopped me in between and asked me about how I learnt solving Rubik's cube, and what are the algorithms I use. I told them aboutBeginner's method and how I moved on to complex methods of solving as well. Then P1asked me about blindfold method of solving Rubik's cube and I told them what difference is there in algorithms and how one approaches to do that.At this point P2 asked me about the world record (4.9 s) and joked that I still lag by some 28 seconds.I smiled and saw it as an opportunity to tell them about all other kind of cubes I can solve as well. So, I told them about 7 different kind of cubes I can solve and told them about Mirror cube which I learned to solve recently.They seemed to be very happy about all of it.Since the "Tell me something about yourself" question was deviated into Cube's discussion, I couldn't tell them about other highlights of my profile and things I prepared for the interview. *Just thinking to not screw anything from here*P1: Are you a fresher or do you work?M: Sir, I am working at American Express, Gurgaon in Risk Management department where I got my Pre Placement Offer from the pre-final year intern-ship I did.*Feeling proud of myself as I slipped the "Getting the PPO" thing so well in the answer:P*P2: How does American Express work?M: Explained the current businesses American Express is in and tried to connect it with the company's history *which I prepared beforehand ;)*. Somewhere, I mentioned Fraud detection and Management which P1 took a special note of.(Otherwise he was going through my forms and certificates quite peacefully)*I was trying to keep the panel on my work-ex as prepared some 5-6 courses in academics. Also, Calcutta is known to be Quant oriented and I majored in Maths, so I was afraid that they may catch me off-guard in some of the unprepared part**At this point of time, the environment was very friendly in the room and the whole interview thing became more of a discussion which I was loving, by the way :D**P2 mentions about his Green Card and then discussed with me his experience with American Express which I was more than happy to listen too :D*P1: So do you think that fraud can be curbed 100% for Credit Cards algorithmically? *I did a workshop on Cryptography which I mentioned on my form and I felt that it came from there plus me mentioning about fraud detection models above*M: *Took some 30 seconds to analyse whether shall I get into Cryptography and discuss the shortcomings or challenges stuff* Instead I explained what currently American Express is doing to curb fraud and finally connected it with the trade off between theoretic possibility of achieving a 100% with customer experiencewhich might suffer due to n-number of checks. (As it appeared more MBA oriented :P)I extended this to new wallets like PayTm coming up and doing transactions in just 2-3 clicks and high customer satisfaction because of this.P1 pretty satisfied.(Meanwhile P2 literally checked each and every grade in my college grade-sheet and believe me, they are not good :P)P2: What is a bipartite graph? *A sitter question from Graph Theory*M: Didn't know the answer, told them so.P2: This is a very basic question, I expected you to answer this.M: Sir, its been sometime I did this course and don't remember now. I am sorry.But I have used the concepts of this course in a project. Started to tell them about my projects when P2interrupted.P2: What are the topics you did in Number theory course?M: I mentioned some topics but I guess I didn't tell him much. He kept on staring me long after I stopped answering and in return I sheepishly smiled.P2: You don't seem to be the academic kind of guy. *smiling, I think that was sarcastic. Also I got a little nervous as I derailed a little from track*M: I smiled and said that I have done some application based projects but he cuts me in middle to ask my class rank. Told them.P2 asked me about Regression (where I scored poorly in college) then and asked me to explain it from the scratch. I explained the Ordinary Least Square method to him and he asked me a lot of questions while I was doing the same. I explained all those questions to the best I could.P2 then appreciated my whole explanation in a very positive manner. P2 said that he is done and asked P1 to continue. P1 smiled and told me that he is done too. I thanked both of them and asked if I shall send the next candidate in. They said No and I left then.Positives: All the time the environment in the room was extremely friendly. I never thought this much friendliness is possible in IIM-C interview, known for a lot of grilling.Negatives: I couldn't answer two academic questions which were very basic. Also, I couldn't mention about my Germany intern anywhere. I tried my best to bring it into situation but failed.Verdict: Converted!!My 2 cents to future aspirants:1. The most important thing is to stay calm in the interview and try to make it more of a discussion.2. No matter how much you prepare, there will be some strengths and some weaknesses in your profile. Try your best to show all your strengths. And try what you learnt out of your failures in a more positive manner.3. Try to come up with something which differentiates you from others by and large and try selling it out.