I recently attended the TiE Entrepreneurial Summit 2009 held in Mumbai. It was one of the best organized conference. Hats off to TiE.

For the first time I heard all the big industrialist of India speak on stage. This was a three day event and every day was better than the previous.

First day the main highlight was the talk of Ratan Tata and Narayan Murthy. I was hoping this talk would be more about their experience and how they had built such an empire, but for some reason it was not moderated that well.

The talk was more of a political twist than an Entrepreneurial journey. Nevertheless they both answered the questions asked very well.

After this I heard Capt. Gopinath speak.

He really seems like the guy who has started from scratch. It was amazing to hear his talk about how he built such a big industry and sold it. He had a vision, a vision that everyone can travel and afford to travel by flight. How he raised money when no one was giving him any money. How he started off with just one aircraft by taking a loan. A very inspiring talk.

Now Entrepreneurship has become his lifestyle. He seems to have started a new logistics company.

Read the rest of this entry »

Finally uploaded our wedding pictures! Yessss… I’m married now!!! The whole marriage event felt like I was doing too many things in too little time. I now cant believe it has been a month since I’m married now! I’m loving every moment of this new life. Even though you loose more than 60% of your wardrobe… yes it is a lot of fun!

Click here to see the wedding site for more pictures

When I first met Roopa she had got me a gift from Brussels. It was a make your own ship kit. I was excited about the whole project. This was the first project together. I had seen a lot of these models when I was at Germany.

The Pirate Ship…

Making of the ship… We first started of finding all the different pieces and putting them together…

We enjoyed building the whole ship. It is best to do these small projects over the weekends. Keeps your mind occupied and a productive outcome

View all the pics here.

It has been almost an year since we quit our regular jobs and have been working on our new product TrackEveryCoin. The product will be out in July 2009.

This is a pre-launch site, we are letting everyone know what the product is all about and we request everyone to signup if they are interested in the product. This will help us to be better prepared when we launch.

Track every coin is a personal financial tool that will help you get organized in your financial life. If you ever thought you had no idea how much you were spending per month, what were you spending it on, or how much is your saving, then this product is for you. It also helps you do a lot more than tracking your expenditure, like goal setting, reminders, sharing, events etc.

We appreciate it if you blog about it, tweet about it, let all your friends know about it. Let people know that such a product is going to come soon to solve their financial management problem and help them.

Pre-book the product to get special offers when we launch it.

Please visit: www.trackeverycoin.com

We see so many problems around us and always wonder why doesn’t the Government do anything about it! We always say the Govt is corrupt and say nothing can be done about it. I always wondered if there is anything that we can do to make a difference in India or is it only in the hands of govt.

 Here are a few things that I tried my hands. Might be worth giving it a shot!

1. Traffic and noise

When I came back from the US the first striking thing that hits you is the honking. When you sit down and think for min about honking it is very interesting. Honking has different meanings in different countries. In US it means – “Dude you are making a mistake watch out”, and in India it means – “Dude watch out I’m coming, give way”. How can we make a difference in the noise levels of traffic. The first thing that I did is – “I NEVER HONK IN BANGALORE”. When I first said this, most of them say it is not possible. I’d say it is. If you think about yourself while driving then you have to honk. If you think about others while driving and yield, you will never need to honk. I’d say take this up as a challenge and make a difference!

2. Garbage on the street

There are a few wonderful things that I learned in the west. One of them is not to litter. Most of us don’t know that we shouldn’t litter. If a small boy is given a chocolate, the first thing he does is he opens it and throws the wrapper down there. Why does this happen? We have never been taught not to litter on the streets. We don’t realize that we play a big role in the society and not just the Govt. My solution to this is: 1. I never litter any place. 2. If I see someone doing it and if he doesn’t look like a big guy, I give a BIG smile and say, sir please don’t litter the place!

3. People urinating in the city

It is very sad to see that urinating in public is legal but kissing in public is questionable! This is a hard one. There is no use in blaming people or the Govt. I’m really glad for Nirmala for installing so many public toilets in the city. But here we need a social movement to make a difference. If everyone of us object people who do it in a very polite way it just might work! The other day when I was running in lalbagh this guy was urinating right next to the public toilet!!! After he was done, I waked up to him and said – “Sir please use the toilet next time”. Don’t know if it helped, but I did my job.

 Again these are very small problems, might not even be considered as real life problems in India, but, the point is to act on every problem to make a difference.

 Germany rebuilt itself from ashes after the world war. If someone says it was the Govt alone, I’d disagree. I believe a country can do better only if people work towards the betterment. We as Indians should believe in our own people only then we can make a HUGE difference.

I have been wanting to implement rainwater harvesting at my home for a long time. Finally I did it today. It took me less than an hour to complete it.

There are different types of rainwater harvesting. The one that I have done is putting the rain water back to the under ground water. Because of so many roads and houses, the rain water doesn’t go back to the ground anymore. It is mostly evaporated. 

To start with I first got some pipes, joints and some glue:

We were very lucky to have a well in our house. It was all about filtering the water a little bit and leave the water to the well.

Install the filter in the pipe. This will block all the leaves and other suspended particles from entering the well.

Read the rest of this entry »

Should you have the perfect business model to become success?

Should people like your product before you launch it?

Should everything be perfect before you think about starting a venture?

Here are my thoughts on this, please feel free to comment on it or add your own views.

1. Idea

It is not important to have the right idea. It is important how you execute it. As engineers we always focus on the idea, we wait till we get the best idea and then think about jumping into it. I feel that should not be the case. Even if you have a simple idea and you think you can do it better, then you should jump into it. Consider the case of Cane-O-LA, all they do is make sugarcane juice. The idea is so simple, people made sugarcane juice for years. But still we have a whole new venture out there with sugarcane juice!

2. Design

Once you have selected your idea, focus on getting the best design. When we are making a product you should not neglect the design. “First impression is the best impression”. You could have the most useful product but if the look and feel is not good, then it is hard for people to get started with it. Good design will help you overcome people’s resistance for trying a new product.

3. Engineering

For most of us this is our domain. Lets make no mistake here. Finally we are building our own product. It is time to bring the passion out. Make sure everything in the product goes well. Give your best here. There is no manager’s pressure to just finish the work. Give your best you can’t go wrong.

4. Packaging

We have learnt the hard way here. We have done repacking of ION, USB Charger. Never compromise on the packaging. Different things that can be done here. 1. To do what everyone else is doing. Follow a standard packing. 2. Make something totally different. But understand the minimum requirement of your product packaging. Eg: If you are a small electronic product make sure you have provision to hang the product.

5. Sales

Lot of times people will say no one will buy your product. I don’t believe in this. No one will buy your product if you don’t know how to sell it. The key is to sell it right. You need a good sales person if your product is bad or your pricing is bad. But for a good sales person it doesn’t matter. Again if you have screwed up in the above 4, then make sure to get the best sales person. 

Conclusion:

It does not matter if you have the perfect things to start or not. It is ok if you are not able to prove in the beginning that people will like your product or not. Just make sure you keep your passion together and do the right things. Things will fall into place!

Often in companies we always hear about new ideas. If you are brain-storming for an idea there are many ideas tossed around, how do you develop all these ideas? How do you make sure there is no ego conflict of ideas?

Here in this post I have put down my thoughts about new ideas and how one can manage it and develop these ideas in a team.

1. Never criticize: 

It is very important to listen to what the other person has to say. Hear the idea out completely. DO NOT critic it. Not matter what you think of the idea DO NOT put it down. A person must have put in a lot of effort/courage to talk about it. The culture of thinking new ideas is good. If you criticize all the ideas, all the time, he/she will not come up with new ideas anymore.

2. If you can’t appreciate it, improve it: 

This one is my favorite. When you hear to an idea and you don’t like it, most of the time we want to put the idea down. We say “No it is not a good idea”. “It will not work”. “That is a bad idea”. Instead of putting out these negative thoughts, think about why do you think it will not work, and find out for your self how you can address it to make it work. It doesn’t matter if you cannot come up with a solution to fix it, throw it out there, may be someone else will think in the same direction and fix it.

3. Always complement good ideas:

It is important to complement good ideas and good thought flows in a discussion. This helps people to think better. When a persons idea is appreciated he comes up with better ideas.

4. The EGO

This is the worst nightmare of ideas. Most ideas are shot down because of personal egos. The big question is, How do you handle this. i.e. If you have an ego clash with someone in the team and he/she gives a great idea, don’t think about criticizing the idea or ways to put the idea down. Instead detach the idea from the person and imagine the idea being out there. Now develop it! 

After all an idea is like a seed, waiting to be nurtured and taken care to become the a big tree one day!

I wished most VCs thought this way

Name

During your start-up company time you must have struggled with that perfect company name. What name should we select for our company? Do we have a choice in the name or is it about getting the domain name first? Should we get a name that makes meaning or that sounds cool?

The truth is that none of the above matter. What matters most is to make a product / service very useful to your customer. If you build a product which everyone likes, your name is automatically liked. By doing cool things your make your name cool. Eg: how did some random name “Google” is now looked upon as a cool company. Or let us say Yahoo, why do we smile with that name. The point is don’t waste too much time to get the perfect name, it doesn’t matter. Spend all your time and energy to build the right product!

Brand building

I have never understood this. People offer brand building as a package these days and just design your logo, business cards, letter heads and charge you a bomb! This is not brand building. In fact just like the name, the logo of a company doesn’t matter. If you make the coolest looking logo you don’t become better. Let us look an example, do you think apple’s logo is cool? It is a half eaten apple for God sake! So what made this half eaten apple as one of the coolest logo? 

Brand building is all about making the best product and selling it. Make sure the quality of the product is at its best. The look and feel of the product, packaging and reliability should be top class. For me this is brand building! 

Didn’t you wish someone offered this kind of brand building service!

This New year’s eve 2009, we decided to goto goa. We stayed there for 5 days and it felt too less. Goa is very unique in its own way. It is definately my top palce for vacation. It is one place where you go and do “nothing”, but just relax. Turn your mind off, lie on the beach and relax!

It was nice to see how people would get lost seeing the sea:

Read the rest of this entry »