Peter Rip of Leapfrog Ventures has a humorous piece on On Everything 2.0 and takes a dig the 2.0 trend with Arithmetic 2.0. Then he gets serious with Venture Capital 2.0 a series on paridgm shift in the (IT) VC space. First in the series, Venture 2.0 – Preamble traces the The sequential evolution of […]
The Laws
When Rajesh pointed out the site couchsurfing it made me think. Here is something that I cannot imagine being done without the internet. It took just a few people to build this community and bring so many people together, in such little time. In addition if you read about when it was almost destroyed by […]
Hacking The Himalayas
Continuing on the thought-provoking post by Sanjay, I wanted to share a very interesting story of human endeavor and social entrepreneurship. The amalgamation of right ideas, right minds and right knowledge can definitely change human perspective and enlighten society. A Silicon Valley escapist, members of the old-school computer security group called the Cult of Dead […]
Leisure Travel
Innovations in Leisure Travel
Creative Destruction
Entrepreneurship induces destructive changes in the underlying system. This is how the famed, uncontemporary economist Joseph Schumpeter defined it. He termed it as Creative Destruction. This rebel economist was the first one to rightly predict economic ecosystems like Silicon Valley, giving a deep existential insight into the mind of the entrepreneur. A far-cry and almost […]
Looking for Ma
China has Jack Ma. India has ____( fill in the blank). According to one of my fellow Band of Angel members quite a few VC’s investing in India are looking for exits by getting say a Net Flix to buy the Indian equivalent just as say Monster bought Jobs Ahead or eBay bought Baazee. They […]
Generation Rest
This article amused me so I thought I would share it with you all. Today’s Hindustan Times has a front page article “No time for homework. Outsource it to Aunt Kaur”. For Rs. 350 you get your summer school project delivered to your doorstep in three hours. Guaranteed grade of B+ or higher. A detailed […]
Of Capital, Fear and Diet
Michael Sikorsky of Cambrian House a Crowd Sourced software play has written an interesting post, Raising capital: Six tips on Eating Fear. Interesting observations include: Most investors invest emotionally and then justify their decisions rationally. … You could have the most amateur answers in the world for how your business is going to operate and […]
Startups – how do you choose your people?
How are startups hiring people in India? What matters – Education, Background, Aptitude… Last few months at Vaatsalya, we have assessed ourselves on how well we have done on our people front. First off a few things about our business which will put this in context, a. All our hospitals are in non-metro areas (semi-urban […]
Rajat Gupta’s article: a classic
Dear readers, This is a nice article written by Rajat Gupta, former MD, McKinsey on “India needs more entrepreneurs”. A classic. Perhaps a little commercial on ISB but good reading: http://www.mckinsey.com/aboutus/mckinseynews/pressarchive/indiaentrenprenership.asp -Shiva Venkatraman 0
How do founders meet and decide to “DO A STARTUP”?
Hey readers, I am always bothered by one question in my mind: How do startup founders “form the initial team” ? For those of you who have read my startup culture report, comparing US, Japan and Indian startup cultures, we touched on some of that. However, I would be very keen on hearing some views […]
Next Big Thing/Bubble ?
In Silicon Valley there are some that believe that 1998 is back and worry again about a bubble building up. They point to a large number of startups being funded pursuing the same ideas. Oopen source etc. reduce barriers to entry . Their argument is that it is a bad time to start a company […]