Book Review - Entrepreneur Journeys : Bootstrapping, weapon of Mass Reconstruction

Earlier on ThoughtsPrevail; we reviewed Sramana Mitra's book Entrepreneur Journeys-Volume I here & here, in this article we review her book Entrepreneur Journey's [BootStrapping : Weapon of Mass Reconstruction]

Like her previous book, Sramana follows the same format where she interviews successful entrepreneurs however this time around they are the ones who have successfully bootstrapped their business. The interviews provide vital answers as to whether a startup really needs VC funding or it can be entirely bootstrapped. It also gives some insights into why mentorship is so important for any startup.

Notably the book includes interviews of the so called sultans of blogosphere-Om Malik of GigaOm and Rafat Ali of paidContent [which was acquired by Guardian for $30M].

Though there are many inspiring interviews, the only downside of the book was that the focus was mainly on US based startups but this does not take away the core message delivered through the book i.e "How to bootstrap a business"

Some of the useful tips from the bootstrappers interviewed in the book are given below -

Greg Gianforte, RightNow

• Find an entrepreneurial mentor, and if you are going to bootstrap, find a mentor who has already bootstrapped a business
• Bootstrapping is a discovery process. Rather than building an ark, waiting for animals to come, and hoping the tide rises-you take an incremental approach and discover a legitimate, real world value proposition.

Cree Lawson, Travel Ad Network

• Nothing is more expensive for a business on a personal and financial level than client and customer churn.
• The right relationship with an experienced operator is more important than the valuation you can achieve in fund raising.

Beatrice Tarka, Mobissimo

• You can have the best technology and the best product on the market, but without good team chemistry your business will fail.

Om Malik, GigaOM

• I think that a lot of people do things for money, and it's the stupidest thing we can do for ourselves. Everybody thinks money is the answer, but it is not. What made me tick was writing; that's what I was born to do. How can you ignore your natural animal instinct ?
• A lot of people make the mistake that when they outsource, they outsource it all. The reality is you outsource the physical function of it, but not the mental piece.

Rafat Ali, paidContent

• The thing about email newsletters, which is still true today, is that you have a viral presence in somebody's inbox day in and day out.
• I learnt that when you start a company, you need to spend money on keeping the books in order.
  

J.R. Johnson, VirtualTourist

• We always knew that in the worst-case scenario, we could go into the cockroach mode and just hide out in the dark for a while and let the content grow.

Guillaume Cohen, Veodia

• One of the biggest experiences for me, as a first-time CEO, is bringing in smart people who are much better than I am in their fields, then staying out of their way.

Wayne Krause, Hydro Green Energy

• I remember seeing National Geographic drawing of a big ocean device to create energy, and I kept thinking that there had to be a way to make energy out of those waves. That's how it started.

Scott Wainner, SysOpt & ResellerRatings

• For me, being an entrepreneur is so much trial and error that I would rather make the mistakes in the lower dollar range than at the Super Bowl advertising level.

Ramu Yalamanchi, Hi5

• No matter how many businesses you start, it just takes one successful business to make up for all the other attempts.
• If you are going to build a service and it has a good chance of becoming very popular, make sure you address the scale needs up first.

Murli Thirumale, Ocarina

• Everybody who tried our product wanted it. All we had to do was get into the taste test.
• A lot of startups are based on hypothesis- they build something and start interacting with customers, but they never verify it. What they are doing is rationalizing the hypothesis rather than evaluating & verifying it.
  

Manoj Saxena, Webify

• If you raise a lot of money, you are leveraging the hell out of yourself. And you probably have a lot of people wanting to grab the steering wheel if things don't go right.
• A Lead User is typically a person who has such a strong need or pain that they go out and build something on their own to solve the pain.
  

Lars Dalgaard, SuccessFactors

• I didn't care about the title; I cared about the learning.

In few words, it is an interesting as well as inspiring read for Entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping or wannabe entrepreneurs thinking of bootstrapping.Let's wait to see what Sramana has to offer in her Volume-III !!!

What makes a winning CULTURE ....

There is a general tendency of we humans to compare whatever we can. One thing that gets compared first when someone joins a new company is the "Company Culture". Culture becomes SO very important especially if you are a startup.

Just came across quite an interesting presentation that describes NetFlix's winning culture especially focusing on it's core points which are listed below:

• Values are what we value
• High performance
• Freedom and responsibility
• Context, not control
• Highly aligned, loosely coupled
• Pay top of market
• Promotions and Development

As you can see it is more for reading than for presenting; hope you enjoy reading the same.

Thanks to JoeManna for the tweet

Why should you work for a startup

As an Engineer, all of us wanted to work in companies like Infosys, Wipro, Satyam Mahindra Satyam & many other so called Indian MNCs. However, times seem to have changed now due to accessibility to lot of resources available on the internet & some credit also goes to the change in our mindset. Startups have really become a buzz word & guys don't feel shy that they are now working in a startup !!! In fact, many of them even prefer working in startups than working in MNCs.

As per the recent update in my LinkedIn profile, last 2 years provided me with the best learning(s) in my professional career and it was entirely in startups. In fact, I was thinking of an appropriate title for this article and one which struck me was "Why should you AT LEAST ONCE work in a startup". Each one of us have a reason to do or not to do a thing, so if you are interested to work in startup than the following reasons may help you to decide "Whether you should or should not" ....

Entrepreneurial litmus test
If you aspire to be an entrepreneur, it is very important to work in an early stage startup or should we say "To pass the litmus test". There are MORE ups & downs in a startup which not only teach you to deal with difficulties but also help you understand yourself better. As for me, startups have taught me to survive on less money & also to understand "Whether I can myself startup sometime?". Working in a startup becomes the very first step to look within yourself & say "Can I do it?"...

Relationships Matter
In a startup, it becomes difficult to isolate from the startup community which in turn teaches the Art of Networking. This not only helps to build the startup's brand through WOM but also to network with fellow startup guys. Not to forget relationships inside the office; it is very important to keep best of the relations with every person inside the startup as well since, you cannot stay isolated neither inside nor outside your startup. It is a small world and you never know when you would again work with your colleague

Learn to save[for present & future]
There is a famous one liner "It's all about the money honey". Every person in a startup always hopes for the best but is prepared for the worst.In other words, once you enter the startup arena, the first to do IMHO is to become a bit stingy and keep check on your finances. Hence,a startup would also turn out to be a finance institution !!!

Contribution
If you are a person who is interested in multiple things [being an expert in one], your startup may become "fuel to your interest/passion". Since the barriers are low in a small company, it becomes easy to contribute in multiple areas & prove your passion eg. Engineer with an inclination to marketing can help market the service/product which might be impossible to do in an established company.

ONLY results matter
Big corporations focus on the process along with the results however, startups look out only for results. Hence, if you are a fresher looking out for some interesting work, startup would give you the push-up and later on MNC would give the necessary branding. Startups are less hierarchical and more result focused.

Bootstrapping
As mentioned before, startups help to bring out your other qualities some of which you might have never exploited !!! This helps you master the Art of Bootstrapping. This would become an important step not only when you startup but also when you are in a crisis situation[like the current tumbling economy].May be sometimes, it becomes necessary to be "Jack of ALL trades than be a master of NONE"

If you have some more reasons to share, please leave them in the comments and it would be added to the article.

Non business books for Entrepreneurs

In the past, there have lot of articles mentioning useful books on Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Management etc. Today we have a look at some of the non-business books that would be useful for Entrepreneurs [or we can say for any working professional], let's have a look at them.

[Hat tip : Amber Johnson of Online Universities]

Communication

1. The Elements of Style: Write and communicate clearly with the help of this book.


2. The Definitive Book of Body Language: Read this book to learn the essentials of reading and communicating with body language.


3. Crucial Conversations: This book offers skills that can improve your communication and relationships, as well as prevent arguments and misunderstandings.


4. You Can Read Anyone: Read this book to find out how to pick up underlying clues from others.


5. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Learn the essentials of punctuation in this humorous book.


6. Messages: Messages offers a book of communication skills.


7. Line by Line: This book offers an effective guide to editing your own writing.


8. Difficult Conversations: Thrive in difficult conversations with the help of this book.


9. The Lost Art of the Great Speech: Read this book to learn how to write and deliver excellent speeches.


10. The Art of Talking So That People Will Listen: This book will teach you how to get through to anyone you’re speaking with.


11. Presentation Zen: In this book, you’ll learn how to make your presentations simple and perfect.


12. On Speaking Well: Peggy Noonan shares advice and ideas for writing and giving effective speeches.


13. 101 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills Instantly: Use this book to find methods for communicating more effectively.


14. Lincoln At Gettysburg: Take a lesson from Lincoln and learn how to improve your communication skills to demand attention.


15. Grammatically Correct: In this book, you’ll find the definitive guide to correct grammar.


16. It’s Not What You Say, It’s How You Say It: Follow this book’s advice for communication, presentations, speeches, and more.


17. Getting to Yes: Read this book to improve your negotiation skills.


18. Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln: Learn the secrets of effective speakers in history from this book.


19. The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking: Dale Carnegie shares his knowledge and advice for effective speaking in this book.


20. Choosing Powerful Words: Develop your eloquence and public speaking with the help of this book.


21. 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing: Use this reference to learn how to become a better writer and communicator.


22. Great Speeches for Better Speaking: In this book and CD, you’ll be able to listen to and learn from important speeches throughout history.


23. Guerilla Negotiating: Learn unconventional strategies for getting what you want from this book.


24. The World’s Great Speeches: Learn communication skills from some of the greatest speeches in the world, found in this book.


25. Emotional Intelligence: Learn about emotional intelligence from this book and find out why it’s so important.

Leadership

26. Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World: Get a unique view of leadership, groups, and change in this book.


27. Developing the Leader Within You: This book offers a useful look at becoming a great leader.


28. If It Is To Be It’s Up To Me: This book will help you develop the attitude of a true leader.


29. Primal Leadership: Read this book to learn how you can use emotional intelligence to be a better leader.


30. The Servant: The Servant offers a look into what’s most important in leadership.

Success

31. Yes Man: This book will show you how just saying yes more can change your life.


32. The Fountainhead: Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead offers themes including individual strength and the tug between good and evil.


33. The Tipping Point: This book explains how ideas, messages, and behaviors can spread like viruses. The Greatest Secret in the World: Og Mandino shares an explanation of his Ten Greatest Scrolls of Success in this book.


34. The Go Getter: Read this book to learn how to be a go-getter.


35. Talent is Overrated: Read this book to find out why talent isn’t the most important factor to success.


36. Our Iceberg is Melting: Read this book to learn how to change and succeed no matter what conditions you’re in.


37. Think and Grow Rich: Apply the techniques revealed in this book to find lasting success.


38. The Magic of Thinking Big: Use the methods in this book to think big and conquer your achievements.


39. The Greatest Miracle in the World: Read Og Mandino’s story to learn secrets of happiness and success.


40. The 80/20 Principle: The 80/20 Principle shares the secret to being successful with less.


41. Outliers: Malcolm Gladwell explains why some people succeed, and some fall short.


42. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: In this classic, you’ll learn how to improve your personal effectiveness.


43. The Lorax: This book by Dr. Seuss shares the dangers of exploiting the Earth.


44. The Power of Positive Thinking: Use this book to put the power of faith in action.


45. The Art of Looking Sideways: Learn to deconstruct your preconceived notions with the help of this book.


46. The Magic of Thinking Big: Use this book’s methods to get the most out of your life and your new venture.


47. The Secret: Although criticized as unrealistic and irresponsible, this book’s message is a useful one — think positively to improve your life and work.


48. Atlas Shrugged: Understand the philosophy of objective reasoning through this book.


49. Influencer: This book will teach you how to change just about anything through influence.

Personal

50. The Art of Possibility: This self improvement book will help you change your outlook on life and open yourself up to possibilities.


51. The Da Vinci Method: Use The Da Vinci Method’s advice to learn how to break out of what hinders your greatness.


52. Living an Extraordinary Life: Read this book to find out how you can live an extraordinary life.


53. The Art of Happiness: Dalai Lama offers his handbook for living happily.


54. The Four Agreements: In this book, you will learn about personal freedom.


55. Nudge: Nudge will help you make better decisions throughout your life.


56. Transitions: Endure and make the most of changes in life by reading this book.


57. Awake in the Wild: Use nature as a path to self discovery with the help of this book.


58. The Alchemist: The Alchemist tells an everyman story of the struggle to pursue your life’s dreams.

Relationships & Personality

59. How to Win Friends and Influence People: Improve your influential skills using the lessons in this classic book.


60. Personality Plus: With this book, you’ll gain a better understanding of yourself, and other people as well.


61. People Skills: Find out how to assert yourself and deal well with others in this book.


62. Goodbye to Shy: Become more outgoing with the help of these "shybusters."


63. Groundswell: This book explains how to be successful among social technologies.


64. The Power of Charm: Read this book, and you’ll learn how to use charm to win people over.


65. Extraordinary Relationships: This book offers a new way of thinking about human interactions.


66. How to Talk to Anyone: Learn these tricks to find success in your relationships.


67. Social Media is a Cocktail Party: This book will help you learn how to make the most of social media.


68. Crucial Confrontations: With the help of this book, you’ll learn how to make it through difficult conversations and confrontations.


69. The Developing Mind: This book explains how relationships work to shape who we are.


70. How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less: Read this book to learn how to instantly win people over.


71. What to Say When You Talk to Yourself: Check out this book, and you’ll see how you can become what you tell yourself.

Psychology

72. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: This book explains the psychological foundations of influencing people.


73. The Psychology of Winning: In The Psychology of Winning, you’ll get a look at the qualities of winners.


74. Predictibly Irrational: Read this book, and you’ll get a better understanding of what is perceived to be irrational behavior.


75. How We Decide: This book will help you understand how you and other people make decisions.


76. The Paradox of Choice: Read this book to find out why fewer choices are better.


77. The Drunkard’s Walk: In this book, you will learn how randomness influences our lives more than you think.


78. On Being Certain: This book will help you learn to effectively question yourself.


79. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology: This book offers an essential look at psychology.


80. Psychology of Achievement: In this book, you’ll learn how to develop the mindset of a top achiever.


81. Covert Persuasion: This book shares psychological tactics and tricks for winning at persuasion.


82. Psychology of Success: Read this book to learn about the psychology behind succeeding.


83. The Psychology of Judgment and Decisions Making: Learn more about the thought behind judgment and decision making from this book.


84. Animal Spirits: Animal Spirits explains how human psychology drives the economy.


85. The Psychology of Persuasion: This book will help you learn how to use psychology in order to persuade others to your way of thinking.

Finance

86. The Millionaire Next Door: This book will teach you the rules to becoming a millionaire while living a simple life.


87. Rich Dad, Poor Dad: In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you’ll learn what the rich teach their children about money.


88. Total Money Makeover: Read this book, and you’ll find out why it’s so important to pay cash and stay out of debt.


89. The Millionaire Mind: Read this book to make your mindset more like a millionaire’s.


90. Freakonomics: Find out how to illuminate financial mysteries and more just by asking the right questions.


91. Small is Beautiful: This economics book keeps people in mind.


92. The Richest Man in Babylon: This classic book has a lot to teach about investment and finances.


93. Think and Grow Rich: By reading this book, you’ll learn how to thrive even in economic downturns.

Strategy & Innovation

94. The Now Habit: Read The Now Habit to create a program that will help you overcome procrastination.


95. Eat That Frog!: In this book, you’ll find 21 effective methods for conquering procrastination.


96. Blink: Malcolm Gladwell’s book will teach you to rely on your adaptive unconscious.


97. I Dare You!: Read I Dare You! to become one of the daring few on the way to somewhere.


98. The Art of War: Read this book, and you’ll learn how to gain advantage of your opponents in any situation.


99. The Prince: Study this book to broaden your political and strategic philosophies.


100. The Medici Effect: Read this book, and you’ll find out how innovate by approaching situations differently.

[Reproduced from Online Universities Blog]. I guess it is time for me to pick up some of these books from the nearby bookstore

Tribes, we need them ....

All of us know about the famous saying "Birds of a feather flock together", needless to say that all of us are always in search of like minded people i.e. the guys with whom you can share your passion & interest;be it anything- Technology, Movies, Travel etc.The search for the very first like-minded person becomes very critical since (s)he would be backbone of the entire group a.k.a Tribe.

My current read is a short interesting book- Tribes by Seth Godin.As explained above "Tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader and connected to an idea".A group needs two things to be a tribe - shared interest and way to communicate.

The book has some great case studies on the so called Tribal Movement and focuses on "How either a Single person/Tribe or a small group of Tribes or a large group of Tribes can make a significant difference.

Every Tribe has a leader but a Tribe needs followers too.But a follower can be a person who is eagerly following[eg. every blogger would be passionately following Techcrunch since,it has changed the complete blogosphere] or is compelled to follow[eg. A person who has less interest in technology is forced to follow Techcrunch ], a single word compel makes a HUGE difference.The book had a short paragraph[quoted below] on how a single word- Compel can create a difference in an organization.

Any organization needs people who aren't just willing to follow, but are eager to follow.It's a mistake to believe that the best tribe recruits are the blind sheep.Folks who do nothing but mindlessly follow instructions let you down in two ways -

First, they are not going to do the local leadership required when the tribe members interact.They are going to be so busy following the playbook that they will hesitate about engaging in the interactions that make a tight tribe such a vibrant organization.People don't engage merely to remind one another of the status quo.Instead, they eagerly engage when they want something to improve.This micro-leadership is essential to the health of your organization.

Second, they are not going to do a very good job of recruiting new members to your tribe.That's because evangelism requires leadership. Leading someone towards giving up one worldview and embracing yours isn't easy and it is not always comfortable, consider any vibrant group-political activities, nonprofit volunteers or brand fanatics.In each case, it's the microleaders in the trenches and their enthusiastic followers who make the difference, not the leader who is ostensibly running the group.

Tribes are meant to make a difference but the Tribe that really MAKES a difference is the one each one of us need/create !!! To summarize, the title of the book says it all "Tribes - We need YOU to lead US"

Either you start off or sit on the shore - Tarun Bhalla,CEO SimplyLearnt

In this article, we speak to Tarun Bhalla,Founder & CEO of SimplyLearnt.SimplyLearnt is Learning marketplace having excellent salient features...so, let's start-off with our Q&A

In brief, tell us something about SimplyLearnt
SimplyLearnt is a Learning Marketplace where students can buy courses, tests, test Series and even lectures from any of their favorite educational institutes or educators. You can think of SimplyLearnt as the Makemytrip of Educational world – with higher margins and a bigger market.

With so many services already into e-learning, what was your driving force to start SimplyLearnt ?
e-Learning is a very broad term and is used very casually. The only e-Learning that has been happening has been in the world of Corporate training. There’s no significant usage of e-Learning in the world of school/college education. So, on the whole there’s no credible supply happening as far as school/college education is concerned whereas if you look at the demand, its astronomical may be not realized but still astronomical.

So, what we see is that there’s a huge potential in e-Learning in the School/College education market that can be captured via a product like SimplyLearnt with its unique proposition and business model.

Is SimplyLearnt only restricted to the courses that are available online ?
Currently, yes! We are offering our partner’s courses only online either on our platform or on their website. However, very soon we will be launching a desktop version where students can consume these courses/tests offline as well.

If SimplyLearnt is also powered by UGC, how does a person become a tutor with SimplyLearnt ?
It’s fairly simple, the user can register here as a normal member. Further, the user needs to register as a tutor by populating their expertise information and their hourly rates as well.

How do you manage the revenue sharing with the tutor who provides premium service ?
First, let me clarify we work both with individual tutors/teachers and educational institutes. In the former case, the revenue share is very simple and flat 80% [tutor] and 20% [SimplyLearnt]. However, our partnerships, with coaching institutes or content companies, are always on a case-by-case basis. For instance, if we market a product for our partner, we seek a higher revenue share.

Can you let us know about some of the recent tie-ups of SimplyLearnt with the content providers especially coaching classes ?
We have done fairly well in the Engineering and Medical domain with strong partnerships with Sahil Study Circle, Narayana Institute and Quest Tutorials. We are in advanced stage of talks with couple of top nation wide coaching institutes in the domain of MBA test preparation [We will let you know when that deal is closed ]

We have also tied with few star teachers of different domains to launch their content online. For instance, we are launching NTSE preparation courses by Vineesh Kumar [who is a NTSE top ranker].

Do you plan to go into the offline mode where you provide your copyrighted online material through CD's/DVD's
Very soon, but the material/content would be not ours – again of our partners.

With low broadband internet penetration in India, how has been the acceptance of SimplyLearnt ?
Well, it has been very promising, our registrations already span more than five thousand users !!!

Can you guide us through a simple process on how a student can use SimplyLearnt for exams like GRE,GMAT etc.
Very Simple – just go to SimplyLearnt homepage and depending on which domain you are interested in – enter into the respective domain [MBA, GMAT/GRE, Engineering, Medical] and buy courses/tests from the respective coaching institutes. If you have a credit card then you can make the purchase online, else, you can buy a coupon code from the respective coaching institute.

According to you, which are some of the outstanding features of SimplyLearnt in comparison to the other services ?
Actually, I do not think a comparable product exists in the market currently. However, since you ask, I would mention some of the salient points of SimplyLearnt -

• It is an aggregation platform for educational institutes–none exist in the market so far.
• It has features like composite courses and test series–nothing like this exists so far.
• All the content [paid/unpaid] on SimplyLearnt can be embedded in any other website– essentially creating a very powerful affiliate experience – again this does not exist in the market.

How are currently marketing SimplyLearnt ?
We would like to believe that we are smart about marketing. As a die-hard Web 2.0 believer, we do not spend a single penny on marketing until we have a clear ROI model. We do get a lot of promotional space via our content partners. For instance, check out this link at SahilStudyCircle - these solutions are present on Sahil’s website using our embeddable document player. This page has been hugely marketed in the print media.You can check out this as well, we get additional users when someone gives the above test on UptuPlus.

So, in a nutshell, we believe that the Web 2.0 treatment of our content, indirect promotion from our existing partners in addition to some social network apps that we intend to build would power the usage of SimplyLearnt. However, we will definitely do paid marketing for courses/test series that would have a clear ROI.

How can a content provider of SimplyLearnt share his/her content with the readers of his blog/website ?
SimplyLearnt has been designed keeping embeddability of all our content in mind. For instance, the courses, tests, test series and even lectures are embeddable. Again, check out the experience here, here and here.

After the drop in economy,the number of students applying for GRE has reduced quite drastically, how are you guys fighting these changing market dynamics ?
Actually, SimplyLearnt is insured in that sense because of our aggregator approach. If GRE goes down, we always have a good scope with GATE or CAT for that matter.

You started your career with Wipro and then studied & worked in US. What made you return back to India ?
Well it was a combination of personal priorities and economic opportunism that brought me back to India.

How is SimplyLearnt currently funded and are you looking out for more funding ?
Well, SimplyLearnt is personally funded currently, I was involved with another venture Building Blocks which has started to yield some results – so that helps. Our goal is to make the business cash flow positive before we look for outside funding – we may be close to that.

What are the key barriers you faced while starting off with SimplyLearnt ?
I do not think that we faced any barriers on starting off SimplyLearnt – I have personally run this kind of business in United States – Rhapsody and Yogita, our development head has an incredible User Interface background from Microsoft, Seattle and Adobe, India. So from a strategy and development standpoint – we have been very sound from the beginning.

Of course, There have been challenges with the partners not forthcoming initially, however, with a clear value proposition for them they have also joined hands.

Recession has come as a blessing in disguise for startups, how has SimplyLearnt capitalized on this ?
Indeed, our hiring has been much smoother and the quality of people joining in has been good.

Your word of advice for people who sitting on the shore and want to start-off ?
Honestly, I do not believe in the idea of sitting on shore – either you are an entrepreneur or you are just doing it to please the gallery. So if you are an entrepreneur, you may not need a push to start and in case if you are not – please do not come, the pressure would be difficult to handle.

In case you have any questions for Tarun Bhalla, kindly leave them in the comments and we would include them in our interview.

[LinkedIn] Success stories through Twitter ...

It has been almost a month since my last article & once again busy schedule has distanced me away from my blog Few weeks back, there was an article on this blog about Twitter and since, than I have been much more active on it

Well, we all know about Twitter & it's usefulness for business. However, there has not been [at least I have not read about it] similar news like this one where startup/company has generated sales through Twitter.Below is the question that I have posted on LinkedIn and to answer it, you can leave a comment below or head-on directly to LinkedIn

There would be many more startups/companies [apart from Dell, Sun etc.] generating SALES through Twitter

Twitter, a company that is making news without making any revenue is familiar to all of us. Though, most of us on Twitter use it for personal use; I would like to know about the following:

1. Is your company/startup using Twitter ?
2. If the answer to (1) is yes, how have you used the medium e.g in generating sales, getting feedback ?
3. Is there any success story [apart from Dell making $1 Million in sales through Twitter] where a startup/company has been able to generate sales through Twitter.

PS - I posted this question after I could not gather much information from leading blogs/ websites/newspapers.

"Go GREEN" this February...

In this tumbling economy, Entrepreneurship and Startups have definitely become the flavor of the season.With more and more newcomers opting to work in startups, an event like Entrepreneurship Week would definitely be an icing on the cake

What is E-Week,09
E-Week is a project initiated by the National Entrepreneurship Network [NEN] with an aim to embrace innovation, engage communities and inspire young people to think big.

As per the E-Week wesbite :

E Week India 2009 will connect young people across the country through a range of activities and programs to harness their potential as innovators and problem-solvers. Industry captains, experts, non-profit leaders, and faculty members will be in attendance in large numbers to encourage, guide, and inspire students to take action. In doing so, students will begin to acquire the knowledge, skills and values required to grow high-potential, sustainable enterprises for a brighter tomorrow.

Theme for E-Week,2009

"Go Green" is the theme for this year's E-Week.The main attention would be on sustainable development, green business opportunities and innovative solutions to environmental problems.There would be expert panel discussions on alternative forms of energy, competitions to identify and debate on green opportunities, educational movie screenings, exhibitions to showcase ideas etc.

Green Leader of the week
Mohanjit Jolly, executive director at DFJ is the Green Leader of the week.May be he was the ideal choice since, he is really betting big on cleantech in 2009.In his article "Predictions of 2009", he states that "Cleantech would be most invested sector in 2009"

The event would be celebrated from February,7th to 14th and you can find the complete details here

Proto.in : The startup event ...

Proto[derived from Prototype],the startup event will be held on 23rd & 24th January,2009 in Bangalore.There is a very interesting presentation by Pictualize which gives you an insight into Proto & the benefits of being there for the event !!!



You can register for the event here. If you liked the work by Pictualize,you might be interested in checking out the Q&A we had with Pictualize team[here and here].

Like Proto-4,I won't be able to attend Proto-5;hopefully the sixth edition is in Hyderabad

Book Review : Entrepreneur Journeys [Part-II]

In continuation to the review of Entrepreneur Journeys by Sramana Mitra, today we have look at the other Entrepreneurs featured in the book & some useful tips for the Entrepreneurial community.

Philippe Courtot,CEO Qualsys

• Too many people crack under stress. In venture, you must thrive on bad news. If you don’t thrive on bad news, move over, because every day represents something uncharted and new where you sort of sit down and say, “How do we deal with this?” And you make mistakes every single day too. As soon as you realize you made those mistakes you go back and you fix them.
• On "not" getting selected for a job in France : In France, we have psychological tests and when they turned you down, they did not tell you why.So when I wrote a letter to them, they wrote me back saying that their policy was not to tell why they had turned down people.But I insisted..insisted and finally they responded saying that my Psychological test showed me that I was far too much of an independent thinker.They were looking for people who were willing to be directed and they said that I would not be happy working with them.
• It is very important to see yourself, what you do and what you have with the eyes of the customer.
• American society was based on what you can do.So,it was than I realized that it would be best for me to come to US and work internationally.
• I went extreme skiing for 9 months.I have done that every time between jobs- take a sabbatical.It allows me to digest what I have learnt.To digest and forget, essentially and than I come back fresh and new.
• Lessons learnt from skiing : I learnt to push myself from a physical standpoint.The biggest thing I learnt to address was fear.In business it is the same.If you look at your competition, if you are afraid of your competition and you focus on that, and you don't look at where you should go, you get lost.The big trick in business is to transcend your fears and be aware of the obstacles, and then focus not on the problems but on the solutions.
• Difference between Asian and Western mentality is that Asian people look at life as a complete interaction, while the Western mentality is about the immediate success.
• A lot of VC(s) micromanage everything and they are on your back constantly, which doesn't work for me.
• The only piece of technology missing today is ubiquitous broadband wireless access.

Steve Singh,CEO Concur

• My professional background is very engineering oriented.I happened to have a passion for the business side as well, so I migrated in that direction.
• The ideation story is quite interesting.During my days of extensive travel[in my job at Contract Software], one of the things the CFO told me was I had a week to get my expense reports in [before the acquisition by Symantec] and if I didn't , I was going to loose out on my expenses.As expected I lost money, but this made me wonder that there was no easier way to do this and this is how the idea of Concur evolved.
• Our view is that you must confront the issues that exist in your business as soon as humanly possible and solve them.
• One of the great things about an on-demand business model is you can drive your cost structure down to the point that it is very compelling for companies of any size.
  

Edward Fields,Co-founder Hotchalk

• My parents were educators.I launched Hotchalk to actively involve myself in raising the quality of education worldwide.
• Through the experiences, I realized the tremendous potential of web-based educational technology resources.I was inspired by my own experience as a parent and the frustration that parent teacher conferences always seemed filled with surprises.Since I did not have any continuous visibility into the daily or weekly goings at the school, I discovered all sorts of things at these meetings.
• We[Hotchalk] know teachers intimately.We speak with them daily through surveys, feedback forms and phone dialogues.These open lines of communication with teachers enable us to offer resources on their sites known to provide value to educators.Schools cannot afford to waste funding on products that do not benefit their teachers, yet it happens all the time.
• When teachers work together with students and parents, academic achievement follows. We don’t try to work with school administrators. We work with the teachers, and they’re the most crucial element of the education value chain.
• It can take a long, long time to sell any new product to the schools, by going through the school administrators.
• We do not accept advertising from fast food companies or anything that is sexually abusive.Hotchalk only presents tasteful advertising to meet the needs of students in a positive way.
• Leaders work for their followers and it's the leader's job to make sure that the team has the tools, training and resources necessary to carry the day.
• 2.8 million teachers need to be recruited over the next eight years to meet education demands. These future teachers are students in universities who use Web 2.0 applications daily, so using a web-based application is second nature.Hotchalk's product is simple and easy to use, so even less technology-savvy teachers can get on board.
• It's time we remove politics from education and support teachers, making sure that they are given the best resources they need.
  

Harish Hande,Founder SELCO

• SELCO is my first job and hopefully it is my last.
• A lot of things get lost in translation.Between Orissa and Bangalore[since my mother is from Karnataka], we chose the latter.Another factor was the lack of money in my pocket, and I had relatives there who could subsidize my cost of living.
• The focus in the initial period was not looking at where money was, but rather looking at what the success level of the technology was and if people would accept it.When you have no money, you tend to become more innovative.
• In our company, we have to think of ways to help the poor, not sympathized with them.
• You can always create a product that matches poor people's needs,it does not matter how poor they are.World bank has always said that solar does not make sense for them because they were not poor, but here you can see if the need is matched, then it is a productive fit.
• The pressures I see today are when young people want to join the company, and their parents call up and ask how long we are going to be there.Convincing the families of my applicants is a difficult task.
• Message to Entrepreneurs : There is no short cut to creating good processes.A lot of people try to solve it quick, and that can't happen.Some people do it by numbers, I would never do that.Concentrate more on the processes and the numbers will come.

Book Review : Entrepreneur Journeys [Part-I]

With the new year starting off on a good note, I had the fortune to read Entrepreneur, Blogger & Forbes columnist Sramana Mitra's book Entrepreneur Journeys.Though, I am a voracious reader;this article would be the start of a new innings - my very first book review

Anyone who is interested in startups would definitely be a reader of her blog but after reading this book, I feel it is a great boon to the existing as well as aspiring Entrepreneurial community !!! The book touches the various aspects of startups namely Bootstrapping, Venture Funding, Business Models, Ups & Downs in the life of an Entrepreneur etc. using a simple medium of Q&A. She also focuses on how Internet has changed the entire game of Business & why Web 3.0 is the next big thing.

Though these simple words describe the simplicity & depth of the book, I would like to couple it with some of the notable excerpts:

Jerry Rawls, Co-founder - Finisar

• We did not have any outside investors, so it was clear that we did not have enough money to support both of us. So, I stayed at Raychem and Frank Levinson went off and got started. At the end of the year I left Raychem and joined him fulltime in Finisar.
• While we were doing product development we supported ourselves, probably for four years doing mostly consulting work.
• I heard a guy a few years ago give a talk and somehow in the talk, he threw a line "Culture eats strategy for breakfast" & I completely agree with that.
• We have a culture where we accept nothing, there are no sacred cows.We want to continually improve every part of our operation.We have a culture that says we are going to hire bright people who have good interpersonal skills and can really handle pressure & work well in small groups.
• Because it is a company policy that everybody travels Economy, I myself also travel economy.

Sridhar Vembu, Founder of Adventnet

• We at Adventnet hire young professionals whom others disregard.We don't look at colleges,degrees or grades.Not everyone in India comes from a socio-economic background to get the opportunity to go to a top engineering school, but many are really smart.We train them and in nine months, they produce results at the level of college grads.Their resumes are not marketable but these kids can code just as well as the rest, sometimes even better !!!
• We found we could reach customers directly.Today we have most of the new customers through the internet.It has become much easier to supply companies directly.The internet is allowing us to reach all these customers.
• I am not ashamed to compete on price, that is our main strategy.
• Keep the marketing costs low, that is our strategy.If we do the SalesForce economics, 75% of their revenue is spent on acquiring customers.There should be a better way of doing business than charging the customer for acquiring him.Why not give it away for free,if all the money will be spent on acquiring the money elsewhere.
• Most attrition happens from boredom related issues.We try to keep our team motivated and challenged with interesting work, and as a result, they don't leave.
  

Steve Hafner, Co-Founder - Kayak

• On working at Orbitz: I saw a company start from a few PowerPoint pages and grow to the point that when I left it was booking $4 billion a year in tickets and hotel rooms.
• Kayak helps users find deals from all of the other travel websites.We thought by doing a bit what Google does, which is build a very simple and sleek interface which goes out and searches on behalf of consumers & brings back the results in a comprehensive display, we would give consumers a choice of where to buy.
• In the first year or two of Kayak, we focussed on building a great product.We felt if we build a great product, consumers would stumble on it, like it and tell their friends.
• We are of the mentality that for every dollar which could be placed into marketing, we would rather place it into engineering and make the product better.We spend next to nothing on marketing.
• On the internet, there is always going to be a lot of competition because it is easy to build a website.The hard part is to make the website scale.
• There are three things you need to do to have a viable Vertical Ad network.You need to get a set of publishers, you need to get an audience and you need to match them with technology.
  

Gautam Godhwani, Co-Founder - SimplyHired

• What we saw in the employment space was an incredibly large market.There is a market of $100 billion market in US alone.At the same time,the market had services that we called pain killers versus vitamins.If you needed a job,you really needed a job.If you had to hire someone,you really needed to hire someone.
• From the beginning, I have believed the value of a vertical player, search engine or otherwise, is able to participate in a greater lifecycle of the user.
  

I hope you enjoyed reading the review cum insights of the book Entrepreneur Journeys.There are many more exciting lessons from the other Entrepreneurs featured in the book which would be unveiled in the Part-II of the review...till then, keep breathing the fresh air of Startups

How can startups survive the economic storm ?

My blogging rate has gone down drastically due to the lack of internet connection in my residence [Blame it on my my recent relocation but I am sure that ThoughtsPrevail would bounce back !!!].Today, we have a guest article by Kelly Kilpatrick who shares some mantras on "How to keep your startup afloat during the economic crisis".Kelly writes on the subject of best business schools and can be contacted via her email

No one likes a downturn, least of all when it has to do with the economy, not just of a company or even a country, but of the entire world. It’s a domino effect that we’re witnessing now, as the mighty fall of a few big names are bringing down others associated with them and causing a global crisis the likes of which have not been seen for a long time now. When even the huge conglomerates are known to be shaking in their boots, is it any wonder that the little startups and fledgling businesses in doubt about their future? However, all is not lost, not yet. To use a cliched expression, where there’s a will, there’s a way; so hold your head high and let your positive attitude take you forward in these difficult times:

Believe in your abilities
A bird on a shaky branch is not afraid, because it is confident in its ability to fly even if the branch does give way. An apt analogy for our present situation – even if the economy of the world is unstable, as long as you believe in your abilities to make it through this bad patch, you’re going to be ok.

Adopt conservative measures
It’s not the time for risks, not when people are struggling to stay afloat. It’s best to be as conservative as you can, both in terms of current business principles and future plans.

Go back to the basics
It’s now more than ever that you need your customers to stand by you; so pick up the phone and let them know that you’re counting on their support and that you’re committed to providing them with the same kind of service they’ve been receiving all this time. True, you already have a relationship with them, but in these tough times, you must focus on re-affirming the relationships that you already have rather than looking to forge new ones.

Cut unnecessary expenses
Money is definitely going to be tight for a while, so it’s best to cut back on your overhead costs and any expenses that could be considered as frivolous. Focus on reducing the recurring expenses – these, even if not a large amount, could add up each month to a significantly huge sum.

Ditch unprofitable ventures
If there’s a department that’s not doing too well, it’s best not to persist with it at this time, not when money is hard to come by and you’re struggling to cut your losses.

Cut production costs
If you can do so without compromising on the quality of your products. If you can’t, and if you know your market is secure, raise the price of your products. Of course, you will have to deal with unhappy customers, but if you put it across to them in a positive way, they’re likely to understand.

Boost your employee morale
Unhappy employees cost you a lot in terms of time, money and productivity. So make sure your employees are mentally secure; even if you have to lay off a few of them, make the rest realize that their jobs are safe. Or if you could get them all to take a pay cut rather than force them out of a job altogether, that would work fine too.

Getting a new business to grow is hard work even in the best of times; and now that we’re going through the worst, you must work even harder to make sure you stay afloat.If you have to lay-off people, this article by Guy Kawasaki , would definitely help you in laying off people while making others feel safe .

Hurry up & start early - Vineesh Kumar, Pictualize

Last week, we had an interesting interview with Vineesh Kumar of Pictualize where he shared his thoughts about Pictualize & Entrepreneurship.In the final episode of this interview, we question Vineesh Kumar about Pictualize's future plans with usual glimpse on Entrepreneurship !!!

Do you have any fixed marketing strategy for Pictualize?
At the moment, we are actually marketing our work and we are finding takers for the same. The BarCamp Delhi [BCD] presentation helped us reach out to some clients and our recent work on the credit crisis has reached out to a much larger number of people due to solid efforts that we put in to get the word out.The plan to market Pictualize to the world is through carrying out innovative communication that enraptures the hearts of people and bring this power to other businesses and help them succeed too.There isn't a very hard plan as such and we are going with the flow. Just paddling, when we start losing direction.

As per your opinion, which are the three most striking things that makes IITs different from others?
In IIT Delhi [IITD], it's tough to tell how striking it actually is , because the daily grind actually makes one abhor the entire IIT system. But now being an outsider, I realize that the rigor of IIT has fundamentally affected my being and the same happens with everyone.

1. In my opinion, IITs are a little different from other institutions mainly because of the amount of raw talent that one can see and feel each day.
2. Apart from that IITD particularly provides quite a lot of exposure, so I had opportunities to see entrepreneurship closely before taking to it.
3. The third point would be that being through the IITs instills a certain degree of confidence, that helps tremendously in facing the opposition to entrepreneurship.

How do you filter valid/invalid user feedback [especially after BCD presentation]?
The BCD presentation majorly brought us positive feedback, so we didn't actually filter anything and just enjoyed the moment . We actually don't aim to filter feedback, but take all of it seriously and see how can we improve with it.

Has the risk appetite increased or what are some of the reasons that more youngsters are willing to startup/join a startup?
I wouldn't call it an increase in the risk appetite. The numbers seems to be growing proportionately to the opportunities available.
In my opinion, all entrepreneurs are rebels of sorts, looking to create the future. As we advance, there are more and more of such exciting opportunities and it is just the issue of mind over matter for a person to shift to the entrepreneurial world.

What are three most important things that you see when you guys formed the team?
We actually didn't think that we were forming a team. We are just a bunch of friends. Each has a different view of life and each has big dreams, but each of us have a vision to grow, improve, enjoy and succeed. As they say in love that two people needn't look at each other but in the same direction, the same I feel is true for a team.

Can you share some key learnings before/after co-founding Pictualize?
I would like to share learnings that I obtained in the last 5-6 months but prior to Pictualize.

1. Team building is not as easy as it seems and team members are though not tough to find, but they aren't easy to find either.
2. When you work and meet, make notes. Keep things in written. Helps in disputes later and is extremely important for facing clients, since their needs change by the minute.
3. [For students & wannabe entrepreneurs] If you are starting up after you are passing out you are already late. Hurry up and start earlier. You really need to earn money by the time you pass out.

In a place like India where families are close-knit, how important is "Family support" for any startup's success?
IMHO, family support would contribute to over 90% in the success of a startup running without external funding. As long as family can tolerate a productive person doing seemingly non-productive things [like starting up], the person is in the best of his situations to actually build a successful business. Without family support, it becomes a multi-dimensional problem and multiplies the risk of failure.

Enjoy another presentation by Pictualize which shows the Current Economic problems in a hilarious as well as meaningful way

Not knowing about business is sometimes useful - Vineesh Kumar, Pictualize

Entrepreneurship right after college seems risky as well as cool.In this article, we have a Q&A with Vineesh Kumar [co-founder of an interesting & cool startup Pictualize], who jumped into this idea after completing his graduation from IIT-Delhi.

Everyone knows that "Pictures speak louder than words" and this is where Vineesh and his co-founders felt there lies an opportunity !!!

Q&A is done in two parts where Part-I would focus on Pictualize and Part-II would focus on Entrepreneurship [and many aspects related to Straight-Out-Of-College-Entrepreneurship].

Note:
If you have any questions for Pictualize,please leave them in the comments section & it would be included in the Part-II of this interview

Let's start off with the interview ...

Everything starts with a problem, how did the concept of Pictualize arise ?
Pictualize, was born out of the realization that we need to change the current system of communication. It is just too ineffective, incomplete, lacking simplicity and possessing many other issues. The logical solution seemed pictures - the universal language, simple or complex, it is about expressing the core matter and with that came Pictualize.

Pictualize is a catchy name, which are the other names that you came up with while brainstorming & why did you choose Pictualize ?
Anirudh Maitra, our Idea Catalyst had put down numerous names for us to choose from. Pixlr8, Pictualate, and a variety of other names. Am not sure who exactly thought of Pictualize, but the moment it came onto the table we all fell in love with it instantly. Seemed to be love at first sight with the name and then the tag-line "Visualize. Actualize. Realize" followed almost effortlessly.

Who are the current team members and their roles?
Current team members are Aakanksha Gaur, who is currently our Visual Architect and she is the one who churns out all our imagination on paper.Anirudh is the idea catalyst and his wacky ideas are mostly out of this world. He leads in churning out ideas that rock, not just with us, but with others too.I am among the lesser mortals in awe of both of them, who gets to connect them to the rest of the world, i.e. bring us business and think about all the other things.Despite our roles being segregated, we all have an immense amount of fun, brain-jamming together and imagining and dreaming .You can know more about us here

Pictures speak louder than words, how do you guys ensure to bring the same creative feeling with each picture ?
It is precisely this effort that differentiates us from all the others who can doodle. We doodle, with a purpose and apply a lot of our mind to it. Three creative beings doing stuff they enjoy, certainly spew out tons of ideas and then it's more or less a war to select the best.We don't strive to maintain the creative feeling. The aim is to constantly improve.

What are some of the services that you are planning to offer like Marketing, Branding etc ?
More than marketing or branding, we are aiming to deal with "Communications". As individuals we all have been brought up with a certain sanctity of the written word and an unusual fear of drawing. We intend to bridge this gap and bring visual communications and understanding within individuals as well as corporations as well as help everyone express themselves visually.

Our current services deal with creating visual presentations for corporations to reach out to their clients/customers in a more understandable and personalized way. Additionally, we are aiding in marketing efforts of our clients.

In the near term, we are targeting to move to clients like UNDP, Micro-finance organizations and NGOs that deal with a large number of people from different backgrounds and it is obviously tough to manage the diversity. We believe that we can offer some order in this chaos of communication through pictures.

You guys started fresh out from college[some like Aakanksha are still studying], what are the pros & cons of doing the same ?
Pros:
1. We have sufficient time to experiment, fail, learn and start over again.
2. [The beaten down one] Risk is a lot lower since liabilities are lesser [though this isn't true in general].
3. Not knowing anything about business is sometimes extremely useful, since the person doesn't know what the real roadblocks are and when you aren't worried about certain things, those happen most easily.

Cons:
1. Most people don't take out-of-college entrepreneurship too seriously. It sounds like a frivolous idea of fools who are just trying to run away from the "real world".
2. Support for out-of-college entrepreneurs is just too less or usually absent, since they don't have any experience.
3. Out-of-college entrepreneurship is perhaps still a bit late and it is certainly way better to start while studying, since the risk of failure is totally absent

Does your startup have mentors and how important is mentorship for a startup ?
Mentors are perhaps the life line of any entrepreneur or a startup. Personally, I wasn't able to discover/find a mentor for quite a while until we met Mr. Kris Nair. He met us for some other venture and it was his initiative that we actually met him [since he has his own venture capital firm, we were a little skeptical about meeting him ]. But I guess, Kris is the next best thing that has happened to me on my entrepreneurial journey after I, Aakanksha and Anirudh started working on Pictualize.

For any startup dreamers, would-be entrepreneurs or just anyone willing to take the route less trodden, always seek a mentor. There always comes one who changes the course of your thoughts and also your life.

You guys come from different backgrounds[and colleges], how did you guys get along ?
All the three of us are friends and each met the other only by chance and through random connections. The difference in familial background is not very significant and colleges don't seem to make any difference at all. It is just the matching that we have mentally that makes us go along. Creativity, passion and the fun we have in each other's company solves the issues that come our way.

How was the response to your BarCamp Delhi presentation ?
The BarCamp Delhi presentation had a cracker response. We were expecting it to be well-received but the amount of appreciation we got was well beyond expectations and was a major confidence booster.

Enjoy the creativity of Pictualize in the presentation below:

Hope you liked this interview, stay tuned for the Part-II of this interview !!!