eViral: Spreading virally by connecting electronically.

New Year, Important Beginnings

2012-01-09T09:44:00.000+05:30

It's 4AM and I have not been able to catch a minute of sleep after the marathon meeting at office yesterday. Yes, a marathon meeting on a Sunday, that's what makes startups fun and really separates team members from company employees. While the meeting was lighter than expected, even though we came back home at midnight, the last 1 hour of the day at a coffee shop with my colleagues has been very valuable. It has made me step back and think on where I was going. Maybe something around what Annkur pointed about the reality distortion field. For the past 4 hours I have not been able to stop my thoughts. It has left me sleepless and inspired. Wish I could share more on that.

Meanwhile, there is something more interesting for you to know. Which coffee shop in South Bangalore is open till midnight? Costa at Koramangala 1st block. Yes, it was surprising for me as well. The only other place we could think of had a "midnight cover charge" of Rs.250 per person to access the cafe. This is probably the first of its kind I have come across. Anyways, guess that is what being in a metro is all about. You never get the feel of it until it throws surprises at you. No matter how small.

Side note - While I type this, I can experience that the new interface of Blogger is so much better. There is more focus on what you are writing.

So, the new year is suppose to be about putting a refresh button to your life and making resolutions. More importantly, making an obligatory announcement of the resolution irrespective of whether you follow it or not. So here it is, my contribution to the long lived tradition. I am not sure if these would really be called resolutions because then I would need to follow the tradition and break the resolutions. Anyways, in no particular order, following are few things that I wish to accomplish over the next few weeks.

1. Learn to ride a bike- My fear of speed, or rather I should say fearing of hurting someone and falling into trouble, has kept me away from learning how to ride a bike. I have tried this every time I am at home for the past 6 years, all in vain. My colleagues and friends say I have a delay flipflop, ie. it takes me more time than normal person to react to things and that is one reason of my failure at this. I acknowledge that but I also realized that helps me concentrate at what I am doing, so I intend to keep it that way. I guess the fear has something to do with my risk taking appetite as well. Certainly I will have to overcome that if ever I have to run my own business. So the first step I have taken is to agree to buy my colleague's bike. It is now parked at the office so that I can practice during breaks. Why bike, because I don't want to start everyday haggling my way with an autowala to work.

2. Talking of business, one of my goals is to figure out a business for myself, even though I don't intend to start it this year. Something that I wish to run all my life. It's amazing that I am one of the only three members in my extended family who doesn't have a business of their own. The common thing though is that all 3 and only we 3 are engineers. Did that reduce our risk taking appetite? Do we analyze too much. Anyways, as a first step I have started talking more openly about it. This being the first.

3. Running - From being under weight to over weight is what I have gone through in last 3 years. Last year, most people who saw me after an interval of few days would first point at my ever growing tummy. This is gone from embarrassing to unhealthy. Even I could feel the difference when I would get tired after a kilometers of walk. So, as a first step I have decided to run atleast 3KMs/day for atleast 5days/week. Last week I did 4 days. The inspiration was a colleague who finished 3rd at the Bangalore half marathon. Technically first amongst non-pro runners. It was 21KMs. I wish I can do that much by end of year. No I am not setting any targets now.

4. No non-sense weekends - In the past 2 years of staying away from home I have developed this bad habit of singing up for just anything for weekends, specially the last 6 months in Bangalore. From hat-trick movie weekends to visiting the same mall 4 times a month. Yes, a mall, the worst place to spend a weekend evening I guess. I end up watching most pathetic movies, just for the heck of it. And above all not thinking even once before spending. I spent 3K on a Levi's last month and about another 4K on 2 T-shirts. I am in love with that brand but that's a post for another day. I still remember the day in Mumbai when at ShopperStop I was scared on seeing the 3K price tag on a FCUK and a 3.5K on an Ed Hardy. Yes, scared is the word. Though some part of me also wished that I could buy that. The wish has been achieved, I need to decide whether I liked it. If not, revert to my previous avatar. While I needed to get out my habbit of thinking too much about money, specially while spending on myself, but this is getting out of hands. It even ended up spoiling my New year eve when I bought tickets to a rip-off party without thinking twice. I guess I need to go back to my coupon/bargain hunting days. I need to better plan my weekends and ~~spend~~ invest in experiences that I will cheris for longer.

I guess that's it. This will take care of my time, money, health and happiness for the year - in that order.

Few more things, I finally unsubscribed from Techcrunch as that was creating too much noise in my reader and keeping me away from the better blogs I follow. Keeping it only on twitter for now and trusting the ecosystem to bubble up the interesting reads. I will rather invest that time to read a book. I haven't read a single book last year. Wish finish atleast one this year. Lets see if I am able to pick up a good one before my next post.

And yeah, happy new year!

Of GM Diet, Nasscom and Fresh Beginnings

2011-11-13T10:15:00.006+05:30

Now that I mostly blog on Pluggd.in, i thought of converting this space into a personal blog. Though blogs are always suppose to be personal but I particularly mean things about myself. This will also hopefully help me keep up my writing habbit and archive whatever extra stuff is going on in my brain. Hoping to make it a regular affair.

Last week was particularly interesting for me. I see myself growing on personal front. I practiced the GM Diet in the past 7 days. It started with a push from my one of my teammates at work and I thought of really giving it a try, more to test my perseverance than to prove anything else. I read some bit online and then felt encouraged when it said "lose 10-17 lbs in 7 days". For the past few months my growing weight was my most bothering issue so I thought of giving it a try.

It started on an easy note with having soup at my own birthday treat. Over the week, more than feeling hungry the tough part was ignoring all the free food at NASSCOM Product Conclave. I am a big fan of elaborate buffet spread and even a bigger fan of free lunches. Add Paneer, Pasta and Gulab Jamun to the menu and I would kill for it.

So the big question is, after all the hard effort of keeping away from temptations, was it worth? Though I did not measure but I feel like having lost about 5KGs and am wearing my belt 2 holes shorter, that is about 1.5 inches. I am definitely walking faster and effortlessly. Earlier even 1KM would cause leg pain but now it's better. The diet left a severe headache. It's been 1 day since the diet ended and I had my regular food today but still the headache persists. I just wrote to friend asking about the weight loss:

"GM Diet. Not recommended though. Unlike popular belief the side effects are there. This is more like buying insta noodles if you are too hungry, helps but not healthy."

I called mom to share about the weight loss, expecting that she would be happy. To my dismay she already knew about this "popular 7 day diet that a lot of people had tried but put on weight at a greater speed later". Given that my mom herself is overweight and generally doesn't read alot I thought she would never know about such "diet stuff" but I should have known, she's my mom. She did surprise me though.

One other important event last week was NASSCOM Product Conclave. Important because it changed how I looked at things and at myself, a lot at that and of course for the tech. startup industry in India this is the biggest event. I wanted to attend the event for obvious reasons and given that ZipDial was being used there meant being there all 2 days on duty.

An evening before the event I was called for the organizing committee meeting. I thought it would be only 3-4 people checking on ZipDial's preparedness and solving some last minute issues. I not a big fan of in-person meetings. In fact i hate it. Detailing and cross checking should always happen over emails and in group of two, never more. On reaching there I found out it was the whole organizing committee present there. One of members I was suppose to meet asked me wait outside this meeting room. Given that I was late by a good 25 mins, I also did not feel like entering the meeting room. The meeting was at Vivanta by Taj. There were well groomed waiters carrying heavy kettles and cups into the room. Few old people, 40-50yrs of age, typically looking like government babus walking in and out of the room. I could hear loud laughs from inside. Nothing of it looked like a serious meeting. A typical govt. org. meeting in a big hotel where no one is concerned about real work. All that I had ever heard about NASSCOM was all happening and every bit of that was negative. I was still outside the room, seating on a comfortable couch, trying to look busy into my blackberry and my back turned towards the room.

After few minutes I entered the room. I felt comfortable seeing a known face. A little later i realized this wasn't a status check or detailing meeting but more to raise team spirits. No one was working inside, they were having fun doing a rehearsal of roles. Mocking at each other. And most importantly, having fun. That is what team meetings are meant for. After I left the room, I felt really low of my momentary thoughts. A typical judging the book by its cover.

Over the next 2 days, I had to work almost 14-15hrs. This was testing my stamina. I was hungry and working for about 15hrs a day. None of which i hard tried lately and both together for the first time after the first server crash at Freecharge. This helped me gain more respect for myself.

I attended few session and they were useful. The sessions that I had least expectation from delivered the most and vice versa. Particularly two people from the ecosystem whom I respected ended up talking about I, me and myself.

One of the sessions was suppose to be aired on the The Starting Up Show on ET Now. The same show that I had been on last year. The session included a live audience pitch by 3 shortlisted startups. One of the startups was Kabutar. A simple app to share pics to announce "What's happening right now". I was amazed to see that the Indian audience, VCs and so called angel investors disgusted the app after the session. Even going to the extent of saying, "it is a silly app that someone can make over a weekend". It can be made over weekend is true but silly by no means. It is as silly as twitter, a multi-billion dollar valuation company that the same VCs and investors would die to get a pie of. I think this is one reason we don't have world capturing products from India. Nobody understands emotion based apps. Even after phenomena like Twitter no one is able to see through it. The adaption of such apps have to be driven by ecosystem in early days but the stickiness is huge. One non-Indian judge gave it full 10 but everyone else is still looking for "real business". I wish they could understand the concept of "shakti" as motivation for product adoption that Dr. Devdutt Patnaik shared in the much applauded session just minutes earlier. I would really appreciate if someone could point a genuine feature issue in the app. Disgusting the concept is just be shortsightedly cynical.

Overall the event was end to end perfect. Everything that you expect from such an event was there. Inspiration, learning, networking, punctuality, detailed management, good food(it seemed so and that's what everybody else said), free booze, glamour, TV interviews, et. al.

Nothing about NASSCOM that i had ever heard was happening. The negative image that I had was tarnished. Also, whatever I had heard about the management abilities of one of the key members of NASSCOM was all true. He is simply superb. Simple and Super.

One of the teammates at pluggd.in always advocated that we were not in an eco-system but in an echo-chamber. He was right. Guess it is time i set myself free of it. I need to experience things myslef before concluding on it. I need to see things with fresh perspective.

The takeaway was that a lot of my apprehensions were holding me back. I need to give things a chance. I need to give myself a chance. Things change. Your self-apprehension and the echo-chamber never lets you experience the change.

After a changed outlook, I did one other thing that I was scared of. I lent money to a friend. My past experience hasn't been good. One friend had returned a loan after 10 months instead of the promised 4. Another one is still to return, it's been 11 more months from the promised 2 months. The amount is 5x this time but I somehow trust this new friend more than the old ones.

I also started a weekend project with a couple of friends. Too early to comment on what will happen with it.

The new Indian TV. Quality content still rules

2010-04-07T17:48:00.000+05:30

Its been long since saas-bahu family drama from the Ekta Kapoor clan lost its mark on Indian TV. The family dramas are still alive but new dramas are more realistic. They talk about real life, real situation in real language. Nothing made up. Colors rode on such soaps to number one and has mostly maintained that stand.

On the other hand the reality shows are doing really bad mostly owing to the air time being skewed to show more of judges' comments and anchors' explanation and less of real content. India's Got Talent was a no nonsense show that did not get enough news channel coverage but still kept audience glued.
Emotinal Atyachar is one other show that shows more of the participants and not the moderators. And is doing pretty good.

Audience likes original content and not repetitive and weak space fillers. Controversial stunts might get you eye balls and PR but not enough to retain them. In the long run its kills you. Remember Roadies, Saregama? All brilliant when started but moderators have taken over the participants, the real content creators. More talk, less action.
Same thing on web. The blogs with most subscribers are ones that make a point and shut up. No pretext. No futuristic predictions.
Quality always rules for the ones who matter.

You work for someone else!?...

2010-03-13T12:19:00.003+05:30

"You work for someone else!?". That is what my school time friend asked over a chat when i discovered him on Facebook last week. Next question was, "How much do you earn?". I answered and there came another question, "Per month or per annum?".

He found it amazing that a guy who belonged to a business family like mine would ever work for someone else and that too for that kind of money. For once he even put me into thinking but then i am confident of what i was doing.

But for some reason his statement, "You work for someone else!?" seems to be stuck with me for the past one week, hope it passes away soon.

Just wondering, if Entrepreneurship was a brand would this statement be the perfect tagline for it. Is it strong enough or insulting enough to provoke you to make a shift?

India is Sexually Frustrated (Reassured)

2010-02-26T16:31:00.000+05:30

I have been blogging at Pluggd.in for quite some time now. While the general reader base is intellectually sound and appreciates good writeups but then most of such articles get lost after 2-3 days. Surprisingly, one of the the articles that i wrote just out of fun has got the most attention. The article was on SavitaBhabhi changing into Kirtu. 3 months into writing this piece, it is my most searched article, week after week. More so it is one of the top articles on pluggd.in on most days. This is getting me a lot of readers but not really the kind i want.

My latest piece was a review of KuLacak-a GPS tracker from Indonesia. Took me 6 hrs, as Indonesia is a completely unknown territory. Hopefully readers would bother to comment on it. It was thrown to me by Arvind all of a sudden but i enjoyed the 6 hrs invested. Actually, it was the Pizza that i was enjoying.

Happy blogging to me!

PS: Would you have read this post if it had a non-sexual title?

Tax on Taste

2010-01-15T17:20:00.004+05:30

Went for the monthly grocery shopping yesterday. Things you have to do when living alone. Just 2 points to make.

1. The VAT on Kurkure is 12.5% but on Lays is 4%. Both serve the same need and are from the same company. Similar case with Everest Sabji Masala(4%) and Chole Masala (12%). Government wants me to pay taxes according to my taste buds.

2. Aashirwad Salt is available for Rs.11 a KG and Tata Salt lite(low sodium) is for Rs.18.

The health proposition of marketing is worth so much!

Justified??

Science of choosing better brand names (Luxury/Rich brands)

2009-06-15T11:18:00.000+05:30

Make it long.
Difficult to pronounce.
Must have silent letters.
Being able to pronounce the brand name correctly should itself become a mark of status and knowledge.

Science of choosing better brand names (web)

2009-06-12T23:53:00.001+05:30

Summary- 2 syllable or two word brand names are easier for conversations.

I have been studying the names of some of the top websites for past few months and one thing i noticed is mostly all of them are either 2 syllable or a 2 words combined as one. Some examples - FaceBook(2 words), Google(2 syllable). MSN is 3 syllable and could never beat Yahoo(2 syllable). Asklaila(2), Justdial(2), Onyomo is 3 syllabe and is still to make a mark.

Infact, according to what brand names i can think of, anything that is pronounced in 2 parts, it could be 2 known words combined as 1 or 1 word of 2 syllables, is easier to promote and people tend to remember and have an ease in mentioning in oral communication. For written communication people will use acronym rather, even if it is a 2 syllable name because most readers are aware of the context and hence can guess out the full name even if the acronym is not intelligent or popular. People like to mention wikipedia as wiki, just for the ease of communication. Infosys(3 sylable) becomes Infy but Wipro(2 syllable) is not changed.

I suppose this is only true for web and not for offline brands.

Not that a good name will make you a big hit but it helps in conversation.

Neutral vs Positive New Customer

2009-04-23T23:31:00.000+05:30

In my last post i ended with the line "You get a positive customer to begin with, not at neutral or below."
I thought deep whether it is good or bad to have a new customer who already has heard so much good things about you and carries a positive mindset for you or your service. When a customer is positive towards you, he is expecting better than usual and now its a pressure upon you to stand upto his expectations. It depends whether you think like Sachin Tendulkar and believe pressure to be a privilege. But it is not your business to deliver better than usual at the same usual price. But than isn't this one of the differentiators.

One point where i can really think it to be a benefit is that suppose if you or your team/subordinates screw the service for him, there are good chances that you still have a 50% success rate for him. He will believe that this was the only time where you screwed up, otherwise you deliver better than usual as that is what the customer's recommendee had experienced. In this case, the customers opinion about you would really depend on where or whom the recommendation came from. If he has a positive outlook for the recommendee than probably he would leave with a neutral mindset.

Mathematically speaking:

((+ve mindset about recommendee) * (+ve experience of recommendee) )+ (-ve experience of self) = almost neutral mindset about the service

You can similarly try other mathematical expressions to see what will this referred customer think. Human brain doesn't comply with mathematics but this is the closest you can get.

Good vs. Sounding Good

2009-04-22T23:24:00.001+05:30

Fruits in breakfast and lunch. Dessert in dinner. Unlimited milk and curd, paneer and ice-cream on Sundays.
This is the menu of my college mess. Sounds tempting! Above average for an Indian college mess. But nobody mentioned the bad quality of these stuff and basically the quality of chapati and rice(the essentials). So basically you have a lot of add-on or extra features but you missed to serve the basics good.

90% of my college campus is WiFi enabled. The remaining 10% is where the students need it, the hostels.

All these features help my college attract many new students but they don't realise that they are actually creating or graduating many unsatisfied customers who are only going to create a bad WoM for the college. My college made a bad choice in this case as they saw the short term gains only. The students do not have a choice because one can only talk about quality once they have experienced it. By then it is too late to change college or switch your service provider. As a result by the time student passes out he is so frustrated he is only going to talk bad about the service and even the good things will be over shadowed.

You must choose between giving your customers features that sound good and features that are good.No harm if you can give both but what if you have to make a choice.

Features that sound good help when you are seeking a one time customer like a tea vendor on a railway station. I remember one tea vendor on New Delhi station who gave 4 slices of fruit cake free with tea, served tea in cup and saucer that looked different from other vendors who served in a disposable glass(i would prefer this for hygiene) all for the same price of Rs. 5 but his tea tasted awful. Almost no milk, bad quality tea leaves, less sugar... basically awful. He doesn't need to worry because probably i wouldn't recognize him next time i visit the place and in this case any kind of WoM is hardly going to make much difference.

Some examples:
Telecom company - Bad network but allows mobile payment, ticket booking etc
Local search - outdated, unauthenticated data but allows forwarding of address through SMS
Free web to SMS - too delayed service but supports email to SMS.

If you are any of the above you probably know the reason why your business isn't picking up. Giving good service may mean a narrow operating margin and may be a less number of customers who come to you asking about your features but it surely help you gain a lot of positive WoM. The customer wont come to you asking whether you really offer certain feature but he would come to you expecting that you will offer it better than anyone else at the same price. You get a positive customer to begin with, not at neutral or below.

Alchemist-lesson 1- Never promise what you dont have

2009-04-11T18:33:00.000+05:30

The Alchemist, is the most influencing book i have read, yet. The lessons from this master piece has changed the way i think, the way i take my life and the way i deal with people.

One of the important lessons that i learnt was "Never promise something that you dont have".
Say, you are a web startup and offer activity points to your users and these points can be redeemed with your redemption partners for goodies. You have just thought about this promotion campaign and not thought about the redemption partners yet. You believe you will drive traffic to their site and in return they will redeem those points for your users.

It was all your expectation and you promised the deal to your users. As a result your users never believed you because you could never tell them the exact deal. In turn, the users did not turn up as expected and you couldn't drive enough traffic to your partners. So as expected, the partners, who were yet to be your partners, never became your partners.

Had you talked to your partners earlier and given a lesser attractive deal to your users, atleast you wouldn't have lost your integrity and credibility. Now nobody in the tribe wants to write about your new deals, your new website, your new features; just because you hurt the credibility of the tribe.

Same goes with hiring people. You might find it safe to say, "I am expecting a million $ in profits and as CTO you will get 10 % of it". Now as the owner, you expect to get a work worth $ 100 thousand from your CTO but you never realised that you did not promise him that amount. You know your company will do only as good as your CTO but now your CTO will do only as good as you company. So it would have been better if you had set standards for atleast one of them. This way there would be a sense of responsibility and obligation amongst the parties in the deal. You will get only as much as you can give. If you promise to give an expectation, you will get only an expectation of success.

You might argue that Obama also promised a dream and became successful. You are wrong. He is not successful yet. He has been given a chance to be successful. The tribe is with him now but just wait and watch his destiny if he cannot deliver what he promised. By not fulfilling promises you are actually destroying the credibility of your tribe. If the tribe kicks you out, no one will accept you.

Purposeful mistakes to attaract attention

2009-04-11T01:19:00.000+05:30

I remember my first year of college when i was new to the world of presentations, seminars, reports , viva etc. I was always afraid of the query round. Mostly because i did not want to fall prey to some top brain who knows all about the topic. I started using this trick that i had learned by mistake.
I started making purposeful, noticeable silly mistakes just hoping to attract attention. Once the mistake caught eyeballs or vice versa, i felt relaxed. I could now eat up the query time explaining or justifying the mistake. Like if i wanted the jury to ask me more about slide 1 than slide 2, i used to make a simple mistake on slide 1.
It is more likely that people will point to your mistake in such a situation than your so called correct points. The mistake can be anything like spelling mistakes, data error etc.
But when i really made a mistake by mistake, i would just say that it was a purposeful mistake, just to find out whether anybody reads these long reports or not.

In professional world you can do purposeful mistakes and gain from it. Just be thankful to the person who pointed out the mistake and then build a relation from there. Its like making a relation from an error. To start a relation you should have some bond and this error just worked as that bond; you made it, he noticed it.

blog blogger blogging

2009-04-10T22:43:00.000+05:30

Blogging generally attracts 3 generations of people.

1. Who know something through a lot of sources and actually want to share it with people. They have long term goals. You will never know when that person actually sold you something. Like seth godin, pluggd.in

2. They want to blog only for short term gains. They believe in releasing as many posts as possible no matter how dumb or useful. These bloggers go on to read other blogs so that they have something to blog about. Like watblog.com and techcrunch.com

3. These people blog because everyone else they know online is a blogger. They do start a blog but then are confused about what style to carry. They are not sure whether to write long posts like techcrunch and watblog that people will not bother to read after the first 2 sentences or short ones like Godin and pluggd.in. These people actually stop updating there blogs after the first few posts.

I hope you fall in one of the three categories.

Shoe the Neta

2009-04-09T19:19:00.000+05:30

Back in Kathmandu, i had a friend who had this very disobedient dog. My friend expected him to fetch the mails and newspaper but the dog never did that. The dog never understood the word "newspaper" "mails" etc. So each time the master, my friend, wanted the dog to work, he had to throw his slippers towards the main gate of his house. The dog then went running after the slippers and fetch both the newspaper and the slippers.
With recent shoe attack on PC it makes me feel whether the Indian netas are like that dog. Just read this on indiatimes.com "Sonia to Tytler: Withdraw your candidature" and "If Congress party wants, I will quit: Tytler"

Moral: Don't wait for the user to report bugs else he might put it on your face. Prevention is better than cure.

shifting focus vs loosing focus

2009-04-08T22:58:00.000+05:30

There is a thin line between the two. The line is of success and accomplishment.

1. When you have completed product A, and without making much efforts to gain from it, started making product B you are actually loosing focus. It is likely that you will do the same with product B also. What you end up with is a huge portfolio of obscure products. Then just to satisfy your ego you put up a set of links at the bottom of your homepage saying "Our Network Sites".

2. When you start product B after product A has reached a milestone development mark but still continue to work on product A as well, you are not loosing focus but actually shifting focus. Remember that when you shift focus you don't kill your earlier product, you just hit a pause button not a stop button.

3. If you cannot relate your new product to your old one then you are actually loosing focus. The new product is a new field with new customers and new dynamics you might want a newer one after some time.

Get paid for practicing democracy

2008-07-19T23:12:00.000+05:30

Imagine getting paid for practicing your rights in a democracy. Onyomo.com, a local search engine, recently launched community credits which aims to do the same. Onyomo is rewarding its users for speaking out and voting.
As a rewards program for encouraging user activity onyomo is offering redeemable points for every positive contribution to the site.

- writing a review on their favorite joints
- voting on a review as a great review
- inviting their friends to the service
- adding new outlet

Onyomo is being quite generous in rewarding the users as the no. of points for each activity is quite high. The concept of rewarding users for there contribution is not new but Onyomo has gone a step ahead by giving quite high rewards. The Indian users do not seem to be taking to the idea as the growth is pretty slow. May be its too early to comment on this. We will have to wait to see how it turns out. till then do give it a spin and share your experience.

How to convert words into loyality

2008-05-08T00:29:00.000+05:30

You must have heard of those contests where you are asked to write about a service or product to enter a big-prize raffle. Something like, "Describe in no more than 30 words, why you like our product".
Well, what do you think those words that you have written are meant for? Testimonials? Yes, but thats not it.
The 30 words that you used to describe the service/product actually go on to become binding promises that make you keep coming back to the product. Its human nature to respect ones own words, even if you know its a lie, you will tend to live up to your words. You do that just to prove that you were not lying and that people should not find you dishonest. Marketers bank up on this aspect of human nature and create those competitions.
Its important to know that the hard work(survey and research) and creativity is involved in framing the right question. The question would typically depend on the kind market you are targeting and how do you want your product to be seen. For a cola brand the questions could be put up like:

A. Why do you think eViral cola is best thirst quencher?
B. Why do you think eViral cola is very refreshing?
C. Why do you always think of eViral cola when you feel thirsty?
D. I always drink eViral cola because.....
E. I drink eViral cola everyday in lunch because...
F. I always carry eViral cola when i am traveling because...
G. Eviral cola is the the best cola because....
H. I always make sure there is a can on eViral cola in my refrigerator because...

There are endless questions that could be framed but it depends completely on how you want to place your product in the market.

Now, of the above questions, B would get people scratching their heads but would rarely bring them to something they can write (until one knows the secret formula of the cola).
E,F and H are strictly targeting a particular segment of the market. G is an all rounder.

Decide what kind of words would your customers feel committed to and get them to write that. Feel free to share a few interesting questions that you can think of.

PS: never drink a cola with that kind of name.

Important points for a successful brand makeover

2008-05-07T23:20:00.000+05:30

some random points for a good brand makeover

1. make sure the coverage is big
2. have some connection to old color and logo
3. do not look for a complete change but an evolution
4. do not change the domain name yet
5. convey the message first to your employees. If they don't get the idea then you don't get your target.
6. the announcement should be at one go and not slowly spreading to other regions like you do with a product launch

Getting them to say yes

2008-05-07T23:09:00.000+05:30

You must have read a lot about getting people to say yes before you actually put in the real question. It does work and is important in selling to humans.
Its just about the inertia. When you have just said 3 YES to my 3 questions, you have actually made a short relation with me, my questions and my thoughts. So now when i put in the BIG question you actually find it an obligation to say Yes. It just that your brain believes that by saying NO you are betraying the short relation that we just made. You don't want to carry the burden of being a betrayer so you just say yes, even if half hearted.

Get media attention in one line, Facebook style

2008-05-06T17:14:00.000+05:30

People are dying to get media attention and this fact would go good even for the already rich and famous. Anything simple action or word can get media talking about your activity. This was recently proved by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. In his internal mail, which was purposefully leaked, Mark writes:

“Hey Everyone –

I’m writing from India to share with you the good news that Elliot Schrage will be joining our management team as.....

And this one line got all the bloggers speculating Facebook's India launch. The original article on TC has more comment relating to this one line than the actual news of the article. Indian technology blogs have already started spreading the speculation.
Even if there is no India launch, Facebook will surely manage to get a lot of media attention in India. This will be enough to get some more Indian accounts signed up on Facebook.
Good work Mark!

Sulekha: Creating word of mouth

2008-05-05T01:26:00.000+05:30

With the marketing strategy called BlogPrint, Sulekha is jumping into cat fight of bringing in serious bloggers in their bag. They will be publishing chosen blogs and posts as books and sharing the revenue with the bloggers.

"...One blogger will be selected every month whose blogs will be featured in a book. It will be a 'Single author' book dedicated to featuring the contributions of one featured blogger on Sulekha.com and will showcase a selection of his work..."

By this promotion Sulekha is sure to catch eye of some serious bloggers and also some of the newbies who buy the very idea of blogging just for money and not for passionate writing. Sure Sulekha will be successful in its approach to rope in the best bloggers that there are and also some good writers who are yet to take upon this idea of blogging. The new writers will be the ones who will be driving traffic to Sulekha and get their friends to read their posts. Its like the social network's friends invite system that will actually go on to create a WoM for Sulekha.

New look means more business. Really?

2008-05-04T18:40:00.000+05:30

I had blogged in my first post that i would be changing my blogs lay out very soon. And here it is, the blogs new look. I am not sure when i will be giving my blog a makeover again, but i am sure i will so i am posting a snapshot of the current layout as a time capsule.

Well the question arises why did i change the layout. Well in my case the older layout was very broad so the posts did not take much length. The sidebar on the blog did not run in neck with the posts. I also did not want to increase the number of posts in the main page to increase the length. So, all the reasons turn out to be non-technical ones and just to make the blog more attractive and appealing to the first time visitors. Get them to read the posts, make sure they find value and subscribe to the blog. Isn't that what marketing is all about?
My point here is that the real appeal should always be in the product, in this case, the posts, but to get people to try the product your packaging should be appealing.
So, how important is a makeover for brands? Brand makeovers are all about giving your brand a fresh start. When you have a change in ideology, your motives or change in target customers, a brand makeover helps you deliver this point to the world.
But there should always be a reason for brand makeover. Some times brand makeover can be done just as an excuse for the new ad campaign or just for the sake of change, like Ceat did.

From to

In the past, we have had UTI Bank changing to Axis Bank. The reason in this case was the end of contract between the bank and the parent company but it did wonders for the bank. It helped create a more trustful name for the bank as the name UTI had lost public faith after the US-64 issue. Others in the banking industry in India who opted a makeover in the recent past are Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank. For both the banks the new look helped target a new market and get a new set of loyal customers.
Brand makeover is a costly marketing initiative but can do a great deal to lift the company's turnover if planned properly and executed with all other factors and the real product in proper shape. Remember its the product that will ultimately get your cash register ringing and marketing is just an art that can help.

No one reads what BlogRush syndicates

2008-05-02T22:05:00.000+05:30

So, you are finally reading the posts here. Well if you have arrived here from the BlogRush widget on some other blog you will be happy to know that this is the first post on this blog that is receiving readers through BlogRush.It could also be that you are the first reader here through BlogRush. If so, i must first congratulate you of this distinction and also myself for finally getting my first reader through BlogRush. Well my earlier post had been syndicated 359 times but did not receive any readers.

Is it only me or is this the case with other bloggers as well. Given the fact that i am new to blogging and using tools such as BlogRush, there are two possibilities that i can think of. Either my titles are not too attractive and catchy or may be readers do not really bother about those widgets.
If the first is true than i believe i should start giving some misleading titles or change the subjects that i cover on this blog. But if the second point is true than we will soon see the end of BlogRush and other distribution media as well. John Chow in his blog reported that even with 24K subscribers through Feedburner his revenue percentage from Feedburner was lowest.
So let me know if you really think there is a future for such media. Also drop in numbers for your percentage of readers who reach through Blogrush. Is Blogrush only eating up space or is it really worth it? For those advertising through Blogrush, please give it a thought.

7 ways to spread Word of Mouth

2008-04-30T00:52:00.000+05:30

Word of mouth is the best to market any product or website. A trusted word of mouth is sure conversion from prospective customer to loyal customer. But then what are the best ways to generate WoM. You might find some of the following ones useful.

1. Give user an interesting fact about your company.
2. Give the user some incentives, not money but fame.
3. Let the user know that he is a unique user in his area for a certain action that he performed.
4. Give out freebies. Tell freebies announcement blogs about it.
5. Do something cute and stupid and let the world laugh about it.
6. Do something for the community just for the sake of it. Avoid hidden gains or cheap things like, we will donate $ 0.001 to charity for every user registration.
7. Deliver a good product or service.

add some more in the comments

Important points for registration page of your website

2008-04-28T01:55:00.000+05:30

So your homepage has managed to convince the user and drive them to the registration page. Now what? How do you make sure that he signs up?
The registration page of your website should be like the reception of a brick and mortar office. Its like the beginning of a new relation between your website and the user. If a user returns from the registration page of your site he will never come back. This will not only result in loss of a prospective user but this lost prospective user(oops! no more prospective now) might even go on to spread negative WoM about your service.
First and foremost thing to be kept in mind while designing your site's registration page is that the user should feel welcomed to the site through this page. It should not be a pain to fill in the registration form. The following points should be kept in mind while designing your registration page.

1. Keep the registration page short.
2. Categorize the fields under proper headings and also mention which are required and which are optional.
3. Give a default value for the objective fields(option, check box etc). This default value should be the one most favorable to your business.
4. Ask for only relevant fields. Do not ask for any redundant information that you think is not required now but you might need it later. Such information can be asked later by directing the user to account update page when he logs in.
5. As mentioned in the above point don't ask for all information on day one but instead ask questions and get the form filled up little by little each time the user logs in. This kind of habit should be followed depending on the service offered by the website. For eg. if it is a blogging service user wouldn't mind spending a minute extra to fill in a requested information but in case it is a free SMSing site, user would be annoyed by having to wait an extra minute to send the SMS.
6. Make sure whether you want the user to fill in their real names or some screen name. If you keep a single field for name the user is most likely to fill in a screen name (user name). So, if you want him to fill in the real name than ask for first name and last name separately.
7. Clearly indicate what are the valid parameters for each field. If you do not want any "_" (underscore) in the user name, makes sure you let the user know this fact. Don't just say "invalid parameters" but also mention what are the valid parameters. Consider giving examples.
8. All the possible validations should be done in client side scripting. Repeated error submissions to the server will not only increase load on server but also irritate the user.
9. Do some kind of validation if you do not want multiple accounts form the same user. Although the conventional way is to send a validation email for this purpose but since multiple email accounts are quite easy to create so one might consider validating the mobile number of the user by sending a validation code in an SMS and the user would be required to provide the code during the registration. Allowing single registration for each IP address is not a good idea since dynamic IP addresses might be allotted by the ISP.
10. If you are going to provide the user with an individual page, make sure the page ID is not a serial number. Like "www.xyz.com/userpage?userid=1556", the userid is actually a serial number in this case so it might be very easy for other users to know the total number of registered users when they sign up. Good, if this number is too high but in the initial days of the website it can be very tough to get the user to believe in the acceptance of the service if this number is too low. Also, even a little exaggeration in press releases about the total number of users would not be possible. Try a longer userid with alphanumeric characters.
11. Make sure every jargon is properly explained or the mentioning of such a term is linked to a page where all explanation is done.
12. Instead of having multiple pages for registration trying keeping a single page with different sections minimized under category heading.
13. Some of the FAQs must be mentioned in the registration page itself but very neatly. The answers to these must open in a new window. Make sure the registration page is never lost because, as mentioned earlier, the user is not likely to visit the registration page of a website twice.
14.. It is not a bad idea to keep a small registration box in the homepage itself.
15. After a successful registration directly point the user to their first action.

The list could go on. Will add some more in upcoming posts. Please share if you can think of something mentionable.