 (This post was triggered by Alok’ s recent post about  new capital efficient, profitable models of ecommerce) The current crop of poster boys of ecommerce ventures in India – FK, Snapdeal, FnY etc are all horizontal – sell everything to everybody. They have built a business which has scaled – they have served millions of […]
Don’t let the ecommerce bust fool you
It seems that past 6-9 months have played out a full boom and bust cycle as far as ecommerce in India is concerned. Where as in july-august timeframe, 10 million dollar fundraises were being inflated to 40, and investors seemed to be willing to pay 5-8 times the gross merchandize value as premoney valuations, suddenly […]
Brave new world…
Think about what role the mobile operator has been playing to-date: They own a pipe to transmit information (voice + data) They own a touch point to the customer (and hence impact the choices I make) They own a mechanism to charge the customer – either stored value or monthly billing Long-term which of these […]
Connecting a World Changer / George Page
Every now and then, my team stumbles upon an amazing individual who is destined to change the world. I try and tell these stories to as many people as I can. So forgive me if you have received a personal note but enjoy the story if you haven’t. George Page is an extraordinary inventor. He […]
Steve Jobs – Book Review
Just finished reading Steve Jobs’ Biography by Walter Isaacson — Great account of a genius. As someone whose only impressions of Steve Jobs are formed by this book, it is an amazing story of personal passion and entrepreneurial possibilities. At a more sublime level, its a story of a person who almost everyone would have […]
Visiting India
Folks: I run Tandem Entrepreneurs, a mobile accelerator in San Francisco Bay Area. I am visiting India and will be in Pune from Tuesday 7th Feb for about 10 days. I would be happy to meet with a few entrepreneurs if you want to use me as a sounding board. At Tandem we work with […]
Will the record high VC investments, catalyzed by E-Commerce deals, su...
Hi All, The following data points from the Venture Intelligence India Venture Capital Report-2011 report quantifies the resurgence of VC investments in India catalyzed by the well known excitement for the E-Commerce segment: Venture Capital firms invested about $1.09 billion over 209 deals in India during the twelve months ended December 2011 to touch all […]
Delivering Happiness – Must Read
Just finished reading Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh of Zappos. Most amazing story of an entrepreneurs undying conviction, ability to think first principles, focus on customers and employees, just sound business, and great sense of humor. Grab a copy.
Andreessen-Horowitz raises $1.5B for its new fund
As the New York Times reported last week, Andreessen-Horowitz has raised, yet again, a Very Large fund. Andreessen Horowitz (or a16z, as it’s sometimes called) announced today that it has raised $1.5 billion for its Fund III. The venture capital firm has now raised a total of $2.7 billion since its founding in June 2009. […]