It is educational to compare and contrast the two tech. booms that this world is witnessing right now. Silicon Valley is going thru a mini deja-vu of sorts, what with the spurt of so called web 2.0 companies mushrooming all over the place. The buzz word this time around is “build to flip” – build […]
No Shanda – MMORPG
I just read this article on Shanda the leading MMORPG ( Massively multiplayer online role playing games) company in China . I have seen number of business plans in the last few months but suprisingly none on gaming. I wonder why ? Clearly online penetration and usage is currently low. Maybe thats the reason ? […]
W3C
I attended a W3C conference in Delhi about a fortnight ago. W3C works on developing standards to make the web more pervasive. They have an office at CDAC in Noida. I am pretty certain that in the next decade some of these standards will help produce elephants just as the http standard created a revolution. […]
Mapping – Ideas & Execution
A lot of us have heard the cliche ” Ideas are a dime a dozen. It is execution that counts” . My previous post on mapping has got some people thinking. Here is a reply that I sent to one of them. “The little that I know of this domain may help you. I would […]
Big picture vs Tactical Entrepreneurs
Recently came across a couple of entrepreneurs who have built significant businesses on back of very tactical opportunities — great ability to spot that niche and move aggressively to service it. Now these entrepreneurs want to go to the next level — in a bid to do so, they need to transform themselves from tactical […]
Eco knowledge
Both in my last assignment with JobsAhead and current, I travelled the length and breadth of country interacting with a number of wannabe enterpreneurs. One thing that clearly stands out is the lack of awareness (or the lack of) of the enterpreneurial support system available within the country. Lot of exposure has been provided to […]
Turning 40
I managed to find the article Jay mentioned in his post. Times of India has an e-paper. Subroto Bagchi talks of angst at 40. I can relate to that. I was 42 when I left Citibank and after trying to do a startup ended up joining the management team of PayPal. Talking of opportunity cost […]
How to bootstrap
So you have a big idea but very little money. The best way to bootstrap is to tap friends and family. There is an amazing amount of work that you can do with very little money. You can build prototypes, get angel employees, study the domain and the competition. In most cases you may be […]
Opportunity Cost
Entrepreneurship is not about taking a lot of risk. Most entrepreneurs operate on the principle of a very big upside if the venture suceeds and a small downside if it fails. If as a young person you have a big idea and you give yourselves two years to give it a shot what do you […]
Who wants to be an Entrepreneur?
I read this beautiful piece written by Subroto Bagchi in today’s TOI. Can anyone locate the clip, I tried but couldn’t. While it’s easy to generalise and say that Mr. Bagchi has a gift in expressing his thoughts lucidly, what he also manages to do is query existing myths and beliefs and perhaps, stir up […]
Four useful books
Prospective entrepreneurs often ask me if there is any reading I recommend. Entrepreneurs often do not have time to read but I did find these books useful ( I normally skip portions that do not interest me like almost the entire first section of CK Prahlads book – I found some of the case studies […]
What should a VC be like?
Munjal Shah profiles some of the traits that he likes amongst VCs. Amongst them: Genuinely and aggressively support the entrepreneur High level of understanding of the business Be straightforward Ability to get into detail on the ground, rather than “armchair feedback” Would love to hear about what else entrepreneurs value. From my own experience as […]