Kota has established itself as a center of excellence for IIT coaching. Students after class X spend two years in Kota which costs them around 2.5 lacs. I met a value investor from the US , yesterday who has done very well and has set up a foundation in India so that students who do […]
Points of Inflexion
In the US the point of inflexion with the internet was probably 1998/1999 and a lot of the big money was made in the 1998 – 2002 period. Prior to 1998 there were many attempts that were slow to take off. China the inflexion point was probably later. Do not know too much about when […]
Delighting Customers
In all the businesses that I have been involved in building delighting customers has been a key priority. In India I have observed based on my experiences as a customer that with a few exceptions ( jet airways, spice jet, PVR,some 5 star hotels) customer delight does not seem important. I have a large LCD […]
Indian VC funds wait on tax bracket decision
I recall a conversation with Alok on this topic, on the day the budget was presented. The Economic Times has an article today that outlines the issue, but presents no clear resolution one way or another. Would some of the knowledgable folks here comment? The worst isn’t over for venture capital funds (VCFs). The million-dollar […]
Informal getto in Bangalore
Hi, some of us — mostly entrepreneurs — are getting together in bangalore tomorrow for a beer. Other folks who are interested are invited. No specific agenda, just some chat around beer. Time: 29th Mar (3.30 – 5.00 pm) Venue: Pecos — situated at Rest House Road, off Brigade Road, right hand side, Black board, […]
Red Herring 100 Asia awards
Hi folks The countdown for the Red Herring annual listing of 100 innovative companies from Asia has begun. Application form is in this link: http://www.herringevents.com/asia07/asiaherring100.doc Companies must be headquartered in Asia to qualify. Please pass on this information so we get a large bunch of startups to choose from. Kalpana 0
Mobile Payment Value Chain and Business Models
A high level analysis of Mobile Payment Services. 0
Selling commercial rights to work already released under a Creative Co...
My friend Cory Doctorow (one of the more interesting of the current crop of Science Fiction writers, though he may be more well-known from his work with the EFF and his role with the award-winning blog boing boing) has posted a very interesting piece about how one can commercially exploit CC-licensed content: Lots of people […]
P2P micropayments – mediated by your cellphone operator!
I think that the best way to kickstart a working micropayment infrastructure may lie with mobile phone operators – the billing and tracking infrastructure is in place, and they don’t have the baggage that the credit card issuers do. Here’s an interesting piece about such a scheme in Kenya. The ping of a text message […]
Career Management
I have tried to develop a social networking cum saas type of application idea for managing careers – check it out 0
Viral Marketing & Social Networking
India finally seems to be responding to viral marketing. After Orkut that seems to have taken off on back of viral marketing, last month Tagged.com showed a brilliant run (globally, but in India as well – its Alexa 33 for India already) on back of suck-email-addresses-and-send-invites functionality. Some of the local social networking sites also […]
Fred Wilson’s take on Superdistribution
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures with an interesting take on Superdistribution – the practice of turning each consumer into a retailer of the good in question. […] superdistribution is something I’ve become obsessed with. Superdistribution means turning every consumer into a distribution partner. Every person who buys a record, a movie, reads a newspaper, […]