Lucky Murari's Blog

Giving back to alma mater makes you Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Sat, 26 May 2012 13:52:00 +0000

My Learnings

Last one year has been the most exciting phase of my life (or a quarter life. It's only 25 years since I am born). I did many things and got some very good recognition. I met few awesome people and made some good friends. My personal clout increased and I learnt some important lessons in life and career during this period. There were some nice opportunities that came along. And, before you ask, yes all these happened in the last one year or so.

The central point of this phase lies around my role as VP at BITS Spark Mentors. For the uninitiated, BITS Spark is an initiative by BITSian alumni that is setup with a very ambitious vision of making my alma mater BITS Pilani a top 3 Institute for entrepreneurship in Asia. Shivaraaj and I serve as VPs to one of the three pillars of the program - BITS Spark Mentors. More about BITS Spark in an another post.

When I came on board, BITS Spark was in a very nascent stage. Abhinav Khushraj and Vijay Sharma (The God Fathers behind the initiative) gave me a brief about the program and trusted me for Spark Mentors. This was the first time I had taken up a leadership role (if you exclude the entrepreneurial experience). I had no expectations on the role. I just love BITS Pilani and Startups :D When I get such an awesome opportunity to work for something that is a great mix of both, I just couldn't resist. I thought I am going to help a few awesome BITSian startups during their growth phases. But moving forward, I could see that not only that I was able to involve in the growth of young BITSian startups, but I was also able to benefit myself in the process.

During this short period, I was able to meet and work with amazing people like Raju Reddy, Chandra Bhople, Satish Gupta etc. My network has grown to a great level. One of the most important lessons I learned was that everyone wants to help. We only need to ask for it. We hear the maxim "Ask and it will be given to you;" very often. I thought that is just a cliche until I experienced it first hand at BITS Spark. When we were looking for building the initial pool of mentors for the Spark Mentors, all we needed to do was ask. We got hold of email Ids of few of the vast BITSian alumni base and sent them a mail asking for help. Most of them immediately came forward for help. Few even helped us in connecting to few more alumni.

I was able to connect with many BITSians through my position. Surprisingly, I observed that senior BITSians are much more easily approachable than young guns. I never expected them to be such a sport. My communication skills were/are very bad. This was a perfect platform for me to hone my skills.

The most important benefit I got out of working with my alumni was my selection into the prestigious IIM (Indian Institute of Management), Calcutta. I used the experience I gained at my leadership position at BITSAA to get through the GD&PI process. More than half of my interview process involved me speaking and relating my experience at BITSAA. I am sure that I wouldn't have got through the process if not for my position at BITSAA and previous entrepreneurial experience.

What you Get :)

Since everyone loves lists, here is a list of 10 reasons to contribute to your alma mater :

Lots of fun
Meet awesome people
Make some very good friends
Grow your network
Enhance your CV
Work on stuff that you love. Do things that you love to do but not allowed at work
Give back to your alma mater
Learn some great lessons in life and career
Hone your leadership qualities
Be involved

Note to BITSians:
BITSAA is recruiting new batch of BITSAA Leaders.
Apply to be a BITSAA Leader over here – BITSAA Leadership Program 2012

An analysis of Facebook Instagram Acquisition

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:13:00 +0000

The news that is buzzing all around now is of Facebook's $1Bn acquisition of Instagram. While few are terming it as a bold strategic move by Facebook, many are talking of the bubble. Inspired by Dan Frommer's numerous posts at SplatF, I decided to my own version of what I think of this move by Facebook.

First things first - as Zuckerberg of Facebook and Kevin of Instagram already said, Instagram will be remain an independent entity and hence it is more of like Google's acquisition of Youtube than Google's acquisition of Doubleclick.

Should Facebook buy Instagram ?

I would say downright that Facebook should have bought Instagram. Reasons are here:

Instagram has 30Million+ users . Not to forget that that number is only on iOS platform. The number is only going to explode after its recent launch on Android platform. ( Android holds >50% of Smartphone market share and Instagram's Android app was downloaded more than a million times in 24 hours of launch ). It is the fastest growing Mobile social network.
Facebook gained its popularity on web due to Photos. Though it is both photos and apps that draw more crowds to Facebook these days, the start is through photos. Instagram is a photo based mobile social network and could become a potential competitor to Facebook on mobile.
Every smart phone has a camera and hence photos play a much bigger role than they played on web during Facebook's initial days. You can't just ignore the most popular mobile photo social network.
While instagram's growth rates are astonishing, they are a super lean organization with just 13 employees. It will be super easy for Facebook to integrate Instagram's small team into Facebook.
Facebook is one of the most popular mobile apps but its app really is shitty. Attempts to bring out a better Facebook mobile app did not work till now. They could probably use someone from Mike and Kevin's team in planning a better mobile app in future. ( I know it is not a talent acquisition but I think the effect of having a great mobile developer team around can always teach a lesson or two for others )
Mobile is going to be the future of social networking. Mobiles are more intuitive, well-equipped and accessible for social networking and hence they are going to rule the future of social networking space. Apps like Instagram and Path are going to play a major role in this change and Facebook cannot deny the reality.

Was 1Bn$ justifiable?

While almost everyone agrees that there are all reasons why Facebook could buy Instagram, many people can't understand why Facebook paid such a huge amount of money for a startup that is earning zero revenues. Like every time, people started talking about bubble. But, there are sufficient reasons as to why Facebook, rightly, decided to pay so much of money on Instagram.

When Yahoo previously had a chance to buy Facebook for the same 1Bn$, they backed off thinking that it was too pricey. It surely was pricey at that moment, but Facebook has soon outgrown Yahoo and there was an opportunity missed for them. Now, Facebook is in a similar position now. Infact, it is even more forced to buy Instagram because it has potential to become a competitor to Facebook. Though Instagram may or may not worth a billion, they are going to lose much more if they are going to ignore it.

Secondly, Instagram has shown the ability to maintain stickiness. One of the factors that helped Facebook was the stickiness and they know the importance. In addition, Instagram is a content generator. It has 5 Million photos uploaded everyday and hence will surely be worth a lot for Facebook.

The Instagram team can help Facebook in future, in its mobile strategy and help them grow there. Mobile is the place where Facebook can gain a lot in future.

Finally, my conclusion is that the 1Bn$ might be high on the scale of valuation but Facebook is playing a safe game here and doesn't want to take risk of ignoring competition. Taking that into consideration, the valuation is justifiable.

Emotions - Love

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:36:00 +0000

Today's rambling is about love. Not the brotherly love, or parental love. It is about the love that is shown a lot in Indian movies - the love between a boy and a girl. I am not a romantic, so don't expect to see the filmy, romantic stuff here. I have not even tasted love. So, I am mostly wrong about what I say here. Nevertheless, I like writing and so be it. People already in love, please excuse me.

Love is an emotional thing, more than anything else. Once, I did a short survey by asking different friends of mine about their definition of love. Unsurprisingly, their definitions said about themselves more than anything else. A sensitive person says stuff like 'Love is life. Love is everywhere. Love is eternal.' etc. A disturbed person says "Love is trash.There is nothing like a true love". A so-called practical thinker says something like "Love is one of the ways in which you get to choose a person whom you are going to share life with " . A confused soul says "Love is that feeling of sleeplessness, dreams and late night chats". They don't know that it is actually called insomnia. A romantic, in his charming style, says "Love - an exhilarating experience that brings two little souls together to form a romantic bond". Well, I did not understand it.

What I know about love is that it is just another name for friendship. There is a difference between love and friendship though. When it is friendship, it is a reciprocal thing . You are a friend with the opposite person because he is your friend. There are no responsibilities or promises in here. There is a lot of freedom here. In contrast, love is more than being just a friend. You have a responsibility in here. You want to see the opposite person happy. The lack of freedom here is not a hindrance coz, in return, you are getting a person who is acting out of responsibility for you and is more reliable. It is simple, but many don't really get it. Our hearts are more powerful than the brains!

There are expectations in love. Actually, you have more expectations in this form of love than in any other relation. The problem with having lot of expectations is that you are going to be disappointed when they are not met. And, as much special the 'love' relationship is, it is the most fragile of the relations. You can just break the relation and move away unlike the others like father-son, brother-sister etc., relations. And , it is also a relation that is the most difficult to fix once broken.

I came across this quote on Quora, which I totally believe in -

Marry your best friend: If the person you're the most comfortable with isn't your spouse, make them! (Assuming this person is not your family member)

Love is a relation where we get to have choice. And, still we let only our hearts do the thinking. We act totally aligned with the cliche 'Love is Blind'. Even though, we have an obvious choice beside us, we go around shopping for the 'love'. We don't let the brain come in and just go behind someone we know nothing about. This is the only relation where you have a choice, and it is the only chance for you. Logically, you think that you would weigh in all your options before taking a step. But, no. You like someone, even without knowing anything about them. Sometimes you get lucky and the person will be a perfect spouse for you. But most of the times, you are in for a bumpy ride. People who can bear it, just endure it silently. People who can't take it anymore, say bye bye to the relation.

I typed so much of wisdom above but even I fell for such a mindless stuff. The heart simply overpowers our mind. Involvement of heart is totally important but only heart and no brain is a perfect recipe for a disaster. You may call it love, but I will call it a disaster.

Steve Jobs - The World is not the same again!

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:06:00 +0000

Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

There are people who dream of changing the world. And then there are a selected few who actually change it.

This post is made to commemorate one such great person. Steve Jobs who passed away silently on October 5th has left behind him a great void in the tech world. He has been a man of many things and his life has been very inspirational to lot of us. He left his profound mark on different sects of people - Techies, Entrepreneurs, Sales persons, Musicians, Animators, Developers, Designers and , importantly, the common man.

On me, Steve has left a lasting influence. He appears in most of my dreams, my thoughts, my talks and my life. "What would Steve do?" is the question I ask when given with confusing choices. He is the person changed the way I think and made me better from what I was before. This video by Steve used to be my most played video in College Days. I used to listen to it almost every day.

Steve Jobs most Inspirational Speech

Here is a simple list of things what Steve Jobs has done:

Steve inspired lot of people to become Entrepreneurs.
He gave a new meaning to design and showed that it is an important part of our life.
He made the letter 'i' iNdispensable in our life and made it the best of all alphabets.
He brought us the "Graphics" in computers.
He brought us the cute, little Mouse.
He showed "Smart Phones" can be Sexy.
He made listening to Songs easy.
He changed the entire Music industry through iTunes and other iProducts.
He changed the Animation industry through Pixar.
He changed the computing industry and brought Computers to every household.
He changed the Mobile industry through iPhone.
He created a new industry- Tablets through iPads.
He showed how best your Supply Chain can be through iStores.
He made Sales Persons sexy through his Pitches.
He made Apple bigger than Microsoft and intel combined.
He showed the world how you need to give sales pitches.
He created a new and easier way for developers to earn through his "App Stores".
He made Animation movies which are not just for kids and people are no more embarrassed to watch them.
He made people to be proud of their creations.

The above are just some of what Steve has given to the world. With 313 patents, he is the CEO with most number of patents. This shows how much of hands on he is with the products, rather than just signing off the checks!

And with the below gem, I would say Rest in Peace, Steve! 'i' am made by you!

God took away Steve 'coz he wanted his own iPhone! RIP Steve.

Week 1 (1x1) - Startup Quote Images Grabber - 1x52 - A project a Week

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:00:00 +0000

I got attracted by Katie's Project which she aptly named 1x52. Basically, 1x52 is a challenge where the pursuers aim at creating a project per week round the year. At first look, I thought that it is a humongous task and will be very difficult to continue. But, I also understood that it will be very helpful in improving my Skills. Also, from my experience I realized that I work better with deadlines. By having just one week for every project, my effectiveness ( mind you, not efficiency ) should improve a lot. If I am successful in this, I may also improve my perseverance, which I think is a bit not upto the level of other qualities of mine. And as always, if successful , it brings me some fame too :P

Though, I am going to play by the ground rules laid down by Katie, I will be taking freedom to mend the rules or introduce my own. For now, the rules I am going to play with are these:

1) Every week, there will be a project without any lapse. ( IMO, This is the most difficult rule )

2) Every project will be followed by a blog post {I will mend this rule -> I can write the post any time (no deadline), but they should be sequential :) }.

3) Project may not always be related to programming/tech ( This is the big deviation I will be taking from Katie's idea ).

4) Project's size doesn't matter -> but it should be finished in a week!!

5) Project should be useful to someone (me, or my audience or some unknown).

6) Every project should be aimed towards benefiting me ( through learnings, Moooney or recognition )

7) Don't aim to conquer the world using these projects.

8) Do not break any of the above rules.

My first Project - StartupQuote Images Grabber

For the first 1x52 project, I had many ideas. I shortlisted one of those ideas and thought of working on it. But my work life took over me and I realized that I cannot finish that project for this week. So, as a starting project, I wanted to do something small but useful to me. Startup Quote is a website that collects Quotes by various people (real and fictional!!) involved with Startups and display them in nice images. The site is hosted on Tumblr. I wanted to aggregate all those images at one place, so that I can refer to them easily. I also wanted to upload them all into my Facebook albums. I will be adding my own commentary on those quotes, as and when I get time. Midway through the project, I realized that I need to host it online. I previously worked with SVN but never with Git. So, I decided to host it on Github.

Problem Statement :

Create a script to mine all the Startup Quote images from StartupQuote website and share them on Facebook. Also, learn how to host projects on Github.

Solution :

I initially thought of doing it in Python because I don't know Python. But due to lack of time, I decided against it. Then, I thought to use Wget+SED but I decided not to as I have worked on projects using them previously and it is just too easy. So, I decided on doing it using PHP. I was good at PHP, but I kind of forgot it as stopped coding in it. After an hour of setting up XAMPP and Curl, I wrote the code that grabs all images from StartupQuote. After uploading those images on Facebook, I used the documentation from Github to set up a project - Startup Quote Images Grabber.

Learnings:

1) How to use CURL to download and save images. ( Re-learned )

2) You can upload only 200 photos per Facebook album.

3) How to setup projects on Github.

65 Lessons I learned about Entrepreneurship

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:04:00 +0000

For starters, I started a personalized merchandise company with couple of my friends while in my final year of graduation. When we jumped into this business , we knew nothing about Entrepreneurship. Not just that, we even did not know anything about merchandising, the core of our business. All we had was the zeal for making money and the knowledge that the top market players in this business are not yet indomitable. We thought that is all that is needed, as we had high esteem about our skills. But as every first time entrepreneur experiences, the ground realities are different. Once you are into it, you will learn a lot of lessons.

Though I parted with my first company within an year and a half, my interest in entrepreneurship has never left me. During the course of the year that followed, I learnt many more lessons. Here goes the compilation of lessons I learnt and probably you are not told when jumping into Entrepreneurship.

1) Entrepreneurship is not a fun job. In the initial stages, you will be forced to do a lot of dirty work, which you may not like at all. Of course, if the business is right for your personality, this dissatisfaction should be easily over powered by the happiness you gain from running the core of the business.

2) There are no holidays in Entrepreneurship.

3) Starting the business with zero/minimal investment is a very bad idea. Start with at least 6 months' operating costs as investment.

4) Legal processes of incorporation take much more time than expected and eat up a lot of your time. So, even if costly, hire a pretty good CA who takes care of it all.

5) Idea without proper execution is worth nothing. Spend more time discussing the idea in order to perfect it and more importantly, execute it.

6) No one is going to steal your idea. Even if they steal, they won't execute it as good as you can. So, don't at all worry about the confidentiality of your idea.

7) Pivoting is not at all bad. Actually, it's a very good thing. Every top company now, has pivoted at least once in the past.

8) Don't do a lot of things. Focus on one thing, make it near perfect and then go for the next thing. Do things sequentially, than simultaneously.

9) Implement something in your product/service that attracts press. Most of the times, silly and unusual stuff garners a lot of attention.

10) Decide on your differentiating factor viz., price, quality or uniqueness and work towards achieving it. By the way, competing based on price is not always bad.

11) Ideas that generate maximum business are the ones that reach the masses. You may be hip, high quality etc., but if there are very less number of affordable customers, most of the times, it doesn't help. Try to target the market which is going to generate the maximum business.

12) Google is not going to kill you. They have many other better things to do. Even if they come, first thing they think of is an acquisition.

13) You can't take on a market leader head on( unless you have boatloads of money ). So always start in a niche, make a dent there and then expand into mainstream.

14) Lot of Entrepreneurs are too possessive and don't want to dilute their share in the company. But, remember liquidation is not bad. Liquidation comes with lot of benefits that help your business grow massively.

15) Get an awesome mentor/guide for your business. A right mentor can make your business grow at a 10 times faster rate.

16) Decide on an exit strategy. Acquisition and IPO are the most common exit strategies.

17) Fix a salary for yourself and compulsorily take it. Most often, bootstrapped startup founders forgo their salary for sometime. This is bad. Taking salary keeps you motivated and also saves you from pressures from personal life.

18) Setup a very good work culture. You need to lead by example. Your first few employees follow you and your company's work culture will be totally dependent on those first few employees.

19) Incentivize your employees with Stock Options. Stock Options keep your employees as motivated as you are and also makes them committed to you for a period of time.

20) Hiring in startups is a very big pain. Startups are the ones where the best of talent is needed but they are the ones where least of talent goes to.

21) Be ready for attrition. Every employee is bound to leave. It is just a matter of time. When an employee is leaving, be nice to them. Be in touch with them. Most of the times, they are the ones who are going to refer your next great employee.

22) People may say "What's there in a name?". But name matters a lot for a startup. Your name should be easily rememberable, pronounced and importantly, appealing to your target customers.

23) Networking doesn't help in bringing in customers if your product is bad. But networking can help in introducing and spreading your company. But be sure that the networking is with the target audience.

24) People are willing to pay for a good product/service. You may think they it is difficult to make people pay, but if the product/service is good, you can be sure that they are going to pay for it.

25) Use a lot of guerrilla+network marketing techniques. Affiliate, Ambassador, and MLM models work very good if implement properly. They also cause network effect and spread it virally.

26) Document all the processes and how to do them . Make it your bible. It helps a lot when you are scaling up and have not enough time to train each and every one.

27) Use PR extensively. Be agressive. Funding news, Number of customers, controversies etc sell a lot.

28) It is not compulsory that you cater to all the market in your business. But be sure to cater to everyone that is going to profit your business in long term.

29) Set targets and move towards them. When setting up targets, be realistic. Targets keep you focused.

30) Don't spend a lot of time in discussions.

31) Argue on issues but always reach a consensus and more importantly argue only on important issues.

32) Mistakes do happen. Don't get tensed. Actually, be tensed if there are no mistakes (which is not going to happen). Try to ensure that the mistake doesn't happen again. Or, at least that when the mistake happens again, there is a damage control in place.

33) Things don't go as planned. Not more often, always.

31) Location of business matters a lot. So, setup your business at a location that is best for it, even if that means you have to move out of your house.

34) Know about taxes and pay them promptly. You don't want problems in future for those small mistakes.

35) Be fast in your execution even if the idea is not perfect. Speed is the first deciding factor. Perfection is worthless if u r not fast enough.

36) Make a team with people of diverse skill set. Most of the times, people start companies with friends, who generally have same skill set. That doesn't help and you will be forced to hire some unknown person for that skill set.

37) Start with problem and not with technology. Don't be obsessed with technology. Cool products are sold only when then they are helpful. Use technology only when needed.

38) Set some basic rules of operation for your business. Never do anything that doesn't confirm with those.

39) Scale your business very fast without worrying much about costs. Without scaling your business is not going to go anywhere.

40) Communication skills count a lot. They help you in closing the deals, pitching to investors, selling your product and what not.

41) Write accounts. notes. Document everything. They help you in analyzing your business in future and learning from them.

42) Don't over hire. Firing people is easy but it damages the company's reputation and increases insecurity among employees.

43) Never neglect any stakeholder. Make everyone feel that they are the most important ones to you.

44) Take feedback. Lots of it. But you need not implement everything. Just tell the loyal customer why you are not going to implement their suggestion. And when you implement something they suggested, tell them. Even better if you announce it to all other of your customers. This makes your customer feel important to you.

45) Don't get obsessed with optimizing your product/service. You need to know when to stop and focus on a new issue.

46) There is always going to be a phase where you will feel like quitting. You need to take a wise decision there. Remember The Startup Hockey Stick.

47) Don't be emotional with your business. Be objective in your thinking about it. Difference between a good manager and a founder is that the manager sees it objectively, whereas founder takes it to heart.

48) Inculcate healthy habits - drink a lot of water, eat food on time, exercise. You need to be healthy, for your business to be healthy.

49) Don't mix business and friendship. You may fight in business, but don't let those affect your friendship and vice versa.

50) Don't Bullshit to yourself. Be ready to accept your mistakes and blunders.

51) Do a lot of bullshitting. It brings you a lot of PR.

52) Don't get emotionally attached to any idea/opinion. Most often you are wrong.

53) Follow your intuition but be ready to change your decision when proved wrong.

54) Have a life other than work.

55) Attend a lot of startup conferences, *when you have time*. Food there is very good :)

56) Entrepreneurship and Freelancing are not the same.

57) Be realistic. Not every company can be a Google/Facebook. But it surely can be acquired by them.

58) Get yourself a Business Card. Wear your company's Tshirts wherever you can.

59) Have a very good story. Stories make your customers get into emotional attachment with you. Remember how Steve Jobs always starts his keynote with a story.

60) Learn from everyone and anyone around you. Don't stop learning.

61) Be funny, laugh often. Laugh at yourself, make others laugh!!

62) When you are going for a negotiation be clear about what you want and what you can forgo for getting them. Negotiation skills are very important for any business.

63) Gift/Incentivize your valuable customers.

64) Don't show negativity in front of your employees. Always emit positive energy, at least in front of them.

65) Don't get tensed at anything. Tension doesn't solve anything. Cool mind solves everything.

7 Things I observed about Mumbai

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:12:00 +0000

Disclaimer: This post is intended and has to be taken with pinch of humor. It is not written to hurt anyone and if you feel offended, feel free to make it controversial. I really love controversies. In this era of Delhi Belly, I don't think this is too out of acceptable limits.

I went to Mumbai recently for the opening of my TJY friends' food joint by name "Idlicious". I happened to be there couple other times during TATA Jagriti Yatra 2010. During these short visits , I made some interesting observations about Mumbai. I wrote them down and here are the most striking things that I have observed.

Cleavages are a Common Sight

Wherever you go in Mumbai, be in the posh Bandra area or the out of the city Virar, one thing is very common. Women just love to flaunt their assets. Too bad that not many Delhi girls live in Mumbai. Also, age is no barrier to flaunt assets. Standup comedian Vipul puts it nicely "Whats there in age? All we want is package"

All the World's Population is in Mumbai

I haven't yet seen the KolKata ( Calcutta - Kal Ka Tha ). So when I saw the crowds in Mumbai, I can't help but wonder if the entire world's population is in Mumbai. At the same time, whole of Mumbai stays in Railway Stations. In Mumbai, every place is a public place. With the no smoking in public rule in place, I wonder how smokers survive there.

Love is in Public

I can't help but feel pity for those poor love birds who have to carry on their sweet private activities in public. The compound walls of any public place - be it beach, college ground or road dividers, are filled with couples. If was in some other city, I would have been totally excited to peek into their activities. Here there are too many couples on the wall that I can't even concentrate on any of them.

Matchboxes are Rented as Houses

I really don't know how the Mumbaikars live in so called "houses". I have seen the Jugaad of people in the form of sofa-cum-cots, foldable beds, wall-mounted chairs etc. Still, I can't imagine me living inside those matchboxes. I am not claustrophobic, but still living in Mumbai "houses" just beats me to hell.

Mumbai Local Trains are Empty

See how even the above statement has made you confused. The world knows how 'insurmountable' Mumbai Local Trains are. Be ready to be kicked , pushed, dragged and if you are lucky kissed. There is just no other way around.

Be Ready for a Sweat Bath

Mumbai is very near to sea. Mumbai has high population density. Mumbai local trains are main mode of transport. Mumbai weather is dry. Need I say that you should be carrying a towel and deo with you wherever you go.

Ass roast

If you are a lucky soul to get a seat in Mumbai local trains ( which is possible, with 0.1 probability, only if you stay at the starting point of the local ), be prepared to get your ass roasted. The seats in local train are so convenient that sitting in the sun on gravel is not even a problem.

In Pursuit of Awesomeness - Things I did

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Yesterday, I wrote my 30 Under 30 which is a list of the 30 things I plan to do before I am 30. The list was a collection of things which I haven't yet done. But there are already a lot of things I have done in the pursuit of Awesomeness. Here are some of them jotted down. I hope some of you will get inspiration for their 30 Under 30 from this list.

Initially, I am only putting 30 things in things I did. But, I will be adding more to this list as and when I do something worth mentioning.

In pursuit of Awesomeness by Lucky

1) Steal Something
2) Start a Web venture ( BITSexam )
3) Start a Company ( Colon K )
4) Do rafting ( At Rishikesh )
5) Go on a Roadtrip to an unknown destination ( on 26th Jan 2011 )
6) Travel around the country on a train ( TATA Jagriti Yatra )
7) Write to a Magazine ( wrote to Bhelpuri magazine )
8) Work as a freelancer, social media guy, programmer and a writer
9) Write Poems in two languages (Telugu and English)
10) Cry out loud ( Most difficult phase of my life till now )
11) Jump from 2nd floor of a building ( in 7th or 8th class )
12) Pay a bribe and Refuse to bribe ( Traffic Constable and LLR )
13) Eat in more than 10 Star Hotels ( Thanks to Startup conferences :P )
14) Help organize a national level event (Event Management)
15) Watch movies continuously for 20+ hours
16) Hack a website ( Secret shhhhh! )
17) Make a software Crack ( Desktop Icon Toy )
18) Quadboot from a single Hard Disk ( Ubuntu, Suse, OSx86 and Windows Vista )
19) Earn 1 Lakh+ in a month ( via Eureka Tips )
20) Take bath on the railway tracks ( During TATA Jagriti Yatra )
21) Study in a premier institute ( BITS Pilani )
22) Deeply Hated, Loved and Respected by at least one person each
23) Travel more than 50,000 Kms on Trains ( cumulative - during my different trips )
24) Stay awake for 48+ hours ( OASIS rocks! )
25) Lie under water for more than 2 minutes.
26) Donate Blood ( 5 times till now )
27) Watch a match (actually a live telecast) in stadium ( World Cup 2011 Finals at Gachibowli Stadium, Hyd )
28) Sleep on a highway ( Also on stairs,grass, portico etc)
29) Travel 200+Kms on top of a bus with a girl ( From Pilani to Delhi )
30) Receive award/prize infront of an audience of more than 1000full post

My 30 under 30

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:43:00 +0000

I recently stumbled upon a few 30 Under 30 Lists. Gaurav and Keerthi Kiran 's list of 30 things to do before 30 inspired me to make my list of 30 things to do before I turn 30. I actually have a list of things to do already but this one will be a written on stone kind of list.

The 30Under30 should act as a light house that guides me during the busy phases of life. I will make it a point to revisit this list and update the progress. I am sure that I will be happy doing that. I will not be putting any things that I have already done under this list.

Lucky's 30 Under 30

1) Play administrative role in a Sports organization.
2) Make a world tour.
3) Learn Chinese.
4) Host a talk show.
5) Somehow get involved with a movie/tele-film/TV Ad.
6) Go to Kulu-Manali, Ladakh and nearby places.
7) Bungee Jump.
8) Teach in an Engineering College.
9) Give a talk to an audience of at least 500.
10) Write to a News Paper.
11) Publish a Book.
12) Make a video of Bicycle stunts by me.
13) Rank first in any significant exam.
14) Get a story about me published in media.
15) Own an educational institution.
16) Spy on someone/something and probably get paid for that.
17) Own a food business.
18) Get a passive income source.
19) Learn to perform somersault in the air (front flip)
20) Get disconnected from everyone I know and stay at an unknown place for a month.
21) Become a VC/Investor.
22) Save someone's life.
23) Design a dress and wear it.
24) Run in a Marathon.
25) Create/Initiate a Viral Campaign.
26) Own/Rent a house on the banks of a water body.
27) Run an Incubator.
28) Shoot a Gun at a shooting range.
29) Do standup comedy to an audience.
30) Ride a Horse.

Why there is need for a Better Payment Gateway in India ?

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:56:00 +0000

Payment gateways in India suck. It is not just me but many people who have planned/implemented an e-commerce application would agree with me. There are many reasons as to why I arrived at this conclusion about Indian Payment Gateways.

Firstly, none of the big players support recurring payments. No recurring payments means you cannot have subscription based services. That means SaaS applications, membership portals, member clubs etc will have to live with the hassle of making customers to pay every once in a while. This makes you to convince/lure the customer each and every time you want them to pay. So, customer acquisition costs rise.

Setup charges are high for Indian Payment Gateways. Their global counterparts like Paypal, Alertpay etc., do not charge any setup costs. Indian Payment Gateways are thriving because players like Paypal don't support Indian Rupee and Indian debit cards directly. A startup has to shell out anywhere between 10,000 to 50,000 INR to get their accounts setup. Add to it the costs of e-commerce website development, integration with the payment gateway APIs etc., which makes it not a simple deal to start an e-commerce website. This rules out the possibility of selling online for a small-time seller.

From my experience, no Indian Payment Gateway is secure. By now, everyone might have known got to know about CC Avenue hacked Fiasco. Whatever the truth is, it is now known that CC Avenue stores the user passwords unencrypted. It is now become a defacto industry standard that all passwords have to be hashed such that they cannot be retrieved. But here India's top payment gateway stores passwords in retrievable format. That makes the already averse Indian customer to keep away from online purchases.

The way in which accounts are setup is not handled seemlessly. I hear reports from many entrepreneurs who claim that once the payment is done, the account setup process is not done properly. The Payment Gateways are clueless as to what papers to submit, which type of businesses are supported etc. Apparently, customer support also has showed a difference before and after payment. The paperwork related problems may be not due to bad handling of Payment gateways but due to unorganized structure among banks. But there could surely be an improvement in the customer support part.

Taking the above information, I feel there is scope for a good payment gateway to come up in India. Though it may appear CC Avenue has already acquired the market, if the above problems are addressed, I am sure that the new entrant can quickly grab the market. Any payment gateway which supports recurring payments, low/no setup fees and is highly secure can dethrone current payment gateways and make its way to the top.

How I landed in a well-paying job even though I know nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:04:00 +0000

For folks who don't know it yet, I recently joined a job in a startup that pays me well. But I am not going to describe the job in here. If you are looking for the job description look at this link. But I will explain how I landed in this job even though I know nothing about the technologies mentioned. I know I can make it an e-book with the title "How I got a job that pays me Million bucks per hour" and sell, but as a valuable dormant reader of this blog, I will give it to you for free.

Once I decided that I need to take a break from Entrepreneurship stuff and land in a programming job, I started to realize how tough the journey is going to be. I expected people to lay red carpet to their companies inviting me to join so as to utilize my entrepreneurial-socialmedia-seo-webmarketing-analytical abilities. But the reality is different. Companies want people who give results and apparently results come only with relevant experience. So, my two years sabbatical with entrepreneurship, social media, internet marketing etc is counted as no experience in these companies. And hence I started applying to fresher roles. But too bad that I was considered old for those roles and hence resume was never shortlisted. Moreover, I was told that it takes at least 1-2 months for the calls to start appear as resumes move very slowly in the corporate hierarchy. This made me restless.

I come from the world where things happen very quickly. In that world, if you are late by even a minute you might have shut the door on a life-time opportunity. But here it is different. Two months seemed too long to me. So, I laid out a plan on how I am going to minimize this time and land in a job that fits to my requirements. The plan I chalked out was as follows:

1. Prepare a Resume

Everyone knows that a resume is the first step in your job preparation. But the problem is not many people allocate sufficient time in resume preparation. For me, as I knew that my major problem is getting shortlisted (as I am confident I can get through once shortlisted), resume was a matter of utmost importance. Firstly, I selected a template that was very suitable for me to highlight my strengths and hide my weaknesses. I am not asking you to lie here, but asking you to hide. Luckily, my resume had enough points to fill 4 pages. Now, I shared this draft resume with at least 30 of my friends and took suggestions from them. Important of their suggestions was to reduce the size of resume. Recruiters have to wade through hundreds of resumes and hence their attention span is very low. So, you need to keep your resume as short as possible highlighting all your strengths. With their help, I reduced the resume to 2 pages. Then I got two friends, who possessed the best writing skills among my friends, to proof read the resume. With that done, I have finished the resume preparation. We need to make our resume easily shareable. So, I uploaded it on Scribd so that anyone who finds it good can forward to recruiting companies easily.

2.Job Portals suck

Everyone knows it. Still, I do not want to leave any stone unturned. After all, I am looking to land in a job very quick. So, I uploaded my resume into all the job portals. When people apply for jobs, they concentrate only on top job portals. But the real jobs are at niche job portals. They are more focussed and the companies advertising jobs over there are very clear about their requirements. Moreover, it is comparatively easier to grab the attention of recruiters there. So, I scoured for the niche job portals and applied in them too.

3. Set your expectations

When most people go out on job search they are not very clear about their requirements. They get desperate in job search and opt for any job. But if you don't choose a job that reaches your expectations, there is a high chance that you will repent in your job. So, define your expectations clearly. My expectations were that the job has to offer me high experience of programming, very good pay , job security and a good growth rate. I think most of them will have the same expectations. I even wrote them on the whiteboard in my room so as to not get tempted by jobs that have most of these qualities except one. I want my job to have all these not one less.

4. Learn the most popular technology

As I said before, I was considered a nobody because I did not have proper programming experience. I was so low on confidence that I believed what they said was right - that I know nothing about programming. It was good in a way. This led to me to decide that I have to do some learning before attending job interviews. As, my expectations did not include work in specific technology, I decided I will learn the technology that has high number of jobs and growth rate. A small research in the job portals, world wide web and my network made me choose JAVA as the programming language that I need to learn to get the job I wanted. So, I decided to learn JAVA. Not just programming, for any field you want to do a job in, I think, it is important that you be equipped with the knowledge of most-popular technology.

5. Leverage your network

Network is everything. We heard it many a time. But this should be the best time that you can utilize your network. Everyone has a network. Your college friends, your alumni, friends of friends, School friends, relatives, colleagues of parents, Online friends etc., all are part of this network. As any job consultant/ job portal would tell you, the maximum number of jobs are attained through network rather than portals, walkins etc. So, I decided to use my big network for my job search. Using your network means not just you but all the people in your network doing the job search for you. As I can't reach to each and everyone telling about my job search, I used the social media. I published my resume, along with what I am looking for, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. I put the same as status message on my IM accounts and made sure they remained online for the most part of the day. I also mailed to my alumni groups, startup jobs mailing lists, and my friend groups. Many people contacted me after this blast saying that they are referring me/ forwarding my resume in their company. Some good people even offered to send my resume to people in their network. It really worked.

6. Don't be shy

The most important thing you must realize is that we are begging for a job. Beggars can't be shy. If they are shy, they can't earn their bread. Most people are shy at asking others for help in their job search. That doesn't work. I decided that I am not going to be shy. I know that people are going to ask me why I am quitting entrepreneurship, or how I did wrong by going for entrepreneurship etc. But that doesn't matter. And I need not hide my decision. So, I told everyone that I am looking for a job and I was not shy in doing so.

7. Practice daily

Though I was completely immersed in doing the above activities, I never stopped practising. I don't know if the maxim "Practice makes man perfect" is right but I am sure practice makes you learn things easily and remember them better. So, I picked up random problems and tried solving them in different ways. StackOverflow is a very good source to pick up IT related problems and learn from.

8. Be humble

All the points above are pre-interview strategies. The real war starts when you are actually shortlisted and being interviewed. I made sure that I utilize my learnings before to get through the interview. While answering the questions is important in interview, it is also important that you be humble while answering them. Your confidence shouldn't be misunderstood as over-confidence. Adding a bit of humbleness in your answers will surely help in this. You can show humbleness by using a soft voice, ensuring no bragging in your talk, giving succint responses etc

9. Be Yourself/ Be honest

You need to open up with recruiters. Many people try to answer the generic questions "Tell about yourself" with the most generic by-hearted responses. I made sure that I don't prepare for these questions before hand and speak my heart out. Because of this act, I may not get the job but I will be sure that the interviewer knew what I want before offering me the job.

10. Understand your limitations

Everyone thinks that they know their limitations. But the problem is we don't understand them. I made sure that I list my limitations before the interview and when the question landed in that area, I clearly said them that that is my limitation. Agreed that I tried to hide my limitations in the Resume but in the interview I wanted to be true about the limitations. If I don't say that I am weak in that particular area, the recruiter might ask more questions related to that making the most part of interview hapless.

If you are not yet bored with the above stuff, here goes the simpler stuff of how my job happened. After following the above points, I got many people to help. One of my long-forgotten friends has seen my status message in GTalk and referred me about a job in an exciting startup. I forwarded my resume to them and that happened to be the first and last interview in this job search :) I said I do not know the technologies ( JAVA, Spring and Hibernate ) they needed yet but they were happy about my resume and my performance in the interview that they believed I can learn it very soon.

Though I was not really excited about my job while joining, I can now say that this is the best programming job that can happen to me at this phase of my career.

Oh, by the way my company is hiring now. Here is the JD. If you are interested mail me your resume at santosh.lakshman(at)yahoo(DOT)com

10+ Reasons Why I bunked most of my College Classroom sessions

noreply@blogger.com (LuckyMurari) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:17:00 +0000

Well, college life is the most awesome phase of life for everyone. That is the time when we enjoy the life in its pristine form. We don't have the pressure of parents forcing us to pursue their unfulfilled dreams. We don't need to worry about the future phase of life that is infested with worries that come in different forms and sizes like job, marriage, kids etc.

My college life is no less. Like everyone, I too feel that my college life is the best of all. This is the time I made some great friends, got attracted to some marvelous girls, faced some unpleasant rejections, enjoyed some lucky successes and discovered a lot of new passions. This is the time I had lot of happy moments, a few very sad moments, and many memorable moments.

Whenever some one asks me why my college life was like what it was - my reason is that I bunked most of my engineering classes. Every college student likes bunking classes. I am no less. My college too helped the cause by not making attendance compulsory. They probably believe that we are mature enough to make our own decisions and that is the reason why I love my college a lot.

So, I wondered why did I bunk most of my College classes. Then I arrived at the following 10+ reasons for why I bunked my classes.

1. Friendships don't happen in Classrooms

Everyone knows that you can't have fun in a classroom. And, you also know that friendships are formed during fun time. So, if I don't want to remain alone through my college life, then I have to go out and make friends. I need to go for fun trips, watch some random worthless movies and play games that are designed for kids. After all, friends are the ones who are going to help you in preparing for exams :)

2. Lecture Slides/Notes Zindabad

As the Gen-y students we need to be advanced in every aspect of life and adopt the new technology.So why not adopt the latest revolution that is Lecture slides ? There are some class room notes that need to be photocopied, for everything else there are lecture slides. My college being one of the premier institutes in the country there is no dearth for lecture slides at all. There are even advanced versions made using the imaginary flow chart given below.

3. Professors Bore me to Death

Well don't get me wrong. I love my professors and they are knowledgeable enough to teach. But most of the professors are old and they are too slow. The entire lecture explained by them in a 1 hour class can be grasped by glancing over the lecture slides for 15 minutes. Moreover, we anyways refer lecture slides at the eleventh hour. So, why do we need double work?

4. The Curriculum Sucks

The world knows it. The curriculum that is designed in archaic times is no way in sync with the current industry. I know it and you know it. Why should we waste our time in these closed spaces? Instead we can go out into the world and keep ourselves informed with the latest advancements.

5. Love doesn't blossom between closed walls

College is our best chance to get a girl friend. We need to make the best of this opportunity or else we run the risk of spending a lot of our youth without a partner eventually falling into the trap of arranged marriage. But love doesn't happen in those classrooms. Love is out there flowing in the parks, food-joints and hangout places. So, off I go in finding my lady love.

6. Time is valuable

College life is very short. Before and after it is cluttered with all those panic attacks and hence we need to make the most of college life. We need to find time to do innumerable activities like watching movies, playing online games, offline sports, hanging out with friends, planning parties, outdoor trips, pursuing passions etc. Amidst all these allocating one-third of a day for lectures is too unrealistic.

7. I already know it all

Having got admission into the college via the prestigious entrance test, we already know a lot. Much of the curriculum in the early days is already known to us during our preparation for the entrance and hence we need not attend the classes. Moreover, as intelligent as we are , we know lot of stuff that was learnt during our pursuit of topics of personal interest.

8. Self Study is the best Study

We are mature enough to learn all by ourselves. In addition, the advent of the internet has made it easier for us to learn from. There is abundant amount of information available out there that can be learnt by only self-study and not by lecturer's age old methods.

9. Practical Knowledge is essential

While theory bores you out and makes your brain empty, it is the practical experience that is going to make you wiser. So, we bunk our classes in pursuit of practical experience at the places where it is more probable to be found.

10. Classes are Bonus

My friend Manoj Lambo was recently mentioning on Facebook that he is spending approximately 100 INR per hour for lectures. (His assumption was that fee per semester is 50K and number of hours per semester is 500 so its 100 per hour) But my thinking during college days was different. We pay our college for the Degree they confer us. The lectures are the free offer that comes with them. So, as a staunch believer of the maxim - You get what your pay for - I decided that lectures are not worthy enough.

Now, don't ask why I said 10+ but there are only 10 here. I just lied to you :)

The above were my excuses during college time. My thinking is a lot different and matured now. Do wait for my next post "10+ reasons why my reasons for bunking classes are not reasonable"

Life(?) without Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:05:00 +0000

I had been totally addicted to Facebook until I was forced to quit it (well since Sept 13th 2010) indefinitely. Ever since I passed out of my college, Facebook had become a part of my biological routine and was eating more than needed amount of my valuable time. I couldn't really manage my work with the distraction from Facebook. The much efficient E-mail notifications have made it all the more difficult to ignore. As I have been preparing for CAT these days, I saw it as a heavy distraction for my preparation. The frustration reached its peak when a friend ( name hidden for obvious reasons ) pinged me and said that I reduce my Facebook activity and concentrate on studies.

So, I decided to quit Facebook and started to chalk out a 3-step process to quit Facebook without deleting your profile.

Quit Facebook Addiction in 3 steps

Announce your Facebook Death using a wall update
Go and disable all your Facebook Notifications (E-mail especially)
Start from 1 if you couldn't control yourself

At first look, you may want to shout out to me that my strategy is a big big failure.

But, unless you try out you surely can't realize its power.

Anyway, I followed my strategy and was successful (as it appeared). I was absolutely elated. I was on top of the world. I have done something only Bat Man will be able to do.

Soon, I felt like I am the elite. I was thinking of why people are so addicted to Facebook. I searched net for "Why is everyone on Facebook" (Well, I am not the only one who search for stuff like that. So, stop thinking mean about me). I came across this quote

Everyone is on Facebook because everyone is on Facebook.

Now, what the stupidity is this? Why are people so stupid to like something so stupid like Facebook ? Do they not have a job to do? So, I asked Google " Why are people so stupid to like Facebook?". Google replied me with this:

Now that I am officially out of that group, I suddenly felt like the most intelligent of all. I felt my IQ has risen to 397. I saw CAT being murdered by me. I am going to be the topper of the batch. Then came the reality.

Where are my friends? Where is the latest news? Where is my future horoscope? Where are my farms? Where is my mafia? Now, I am missing them all. Facebook has become my face in recent days and all I have earned these days is on it. Facebook is not my face. It is my life. So, when someone asks me How is life without Facebook? I strongly feel like saying,

But, I don't want to be a Stupid. So, I tell with an air of pride that I have proudly Quit Facebook (indefinitely)

Being Organized, Taking Action and Realizing Results

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 05:31:00 +0000

I always used to wonder why a seemingly simple goal-tracking website like 43Things is so popular among the blogger community. I couldn't realize the importance of goal setting until yesterday. Yesterday, I came across The Millionaire Entrepreneur Forum and my usual interest to read random threads has made me realize that goal-setting, planning, becoming organized and tracking results are the very important aspects for someone to become successful.

The first thing I realized is that I am managing my time very badly. I am currently juggling with my websites, CAT preparation, new business ideas, family, friends and others. One day, I am totally immersed in my websites, the other day for new ideas and sometimes with friends. But, never did I do things in an organized way. I still am enjoying life/ reaping benefits. But, now I feel may be I will get more if I am bit organized.

So, I am now determined to get it all organized. The first task I am going to do now is buy a wall-board. I also am thinking of taking up The Challenge. So, from now on my regular schedule will include - The Challenge, Blogging on Eureka Tips and here, CAT preparation, and Exploring new Opportunities (Yeah I am going to do it as a task).

Tell the world before you are going to quit smoking because if you ever want to start it again, you would be afraid of them - A Telugu Proverb

The Revival of the Zombie

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:43:00 +0000

I'm Back from the Zombieland

Well, its quite (also quiet) sometime since I made a new post. I know, every blog experiences this and also that this blog itself has experienced it sometimes. Now, for the good, I'm back. I am back to revive this zombie blog for the sake of those 10 Google Friend Connect Followers (two of which are myself). I'm back to make myself improve so-called writing skills. I'm back to vent out my anger and my frustrations. I'm back to share my happy moments and my silly moments. So, its loud and clear I'm back.

Of late, lot has been happening with me. I came out of the personalized merchandise company I founded with two of my friends (Chaitanya and Sasank are running it successfully now ). Me and Arvind took BITSexam - BITSAT Sample Papers to the next level with new testing platform that simulates the exact replica experience for BITSAT. Our work of advising BITS aspirants through BITSAT Tips and Advice continued this year too. The site and blog recorded 250.79% and 280.23% growth in the number of visitors in July 2009-June 2010 period as compared to the same period last year. The tremendous growth has increased our responsibility even more. For the record, the total number of unique visitors of BE Site and BE Blog in this period are 88,469 and 318,383 respectively. The huge difference in numbers for blog and site is due to two reasons - Blog serves other related news too (like AIEEE Results, IIST's ISAT information etc), and because people still search more for information than practice papers online. We are planning to get paid test series next year. It was planned this year, but couldn't do it due to lack of time and our laziness.

My Eureka Tips website, which was initially serving Tech news took a totally different turn this year (since April 10,2010 to be precise). Now, Eureka Tips serves Latest News and Results. The shift in the strategy helped a lot. The blog became a hit, got accepted into Google News as a news website and now earns big amounts to me :) Eureka Tips recorded 184,438 (332,662) visits in April, 269,646 (471,029) in May and 530,989 (905,698) in June (according to Google Analytics). I am aiming to make it receive 1 Million visits by the December 2010. I am already making a moolah on the website with Google Adsense and Infolinks. Not to mention the peanuts via Linkworth, Reviewme etc.

I made a major change in my career plan and now am aspiring for CAT 2010. I joined T.I.M.E, the best coaching institute in the country for CAT. I haven't started the preparation full-fledged. All I do now is attend classes and take AIMCATs. Took 2 AIMCATs till now - got just 87.11 percentile in first one and in second, results are awaited.

I am now looking forward to attend Seth GODin's Benefit Event/Speech in Hyderabad that is about to happen this Wednesday. I am sure it will be interesting and I am anticipating to learn from him. If you too are coming, do inform me :)

Life pushes all of us around. Some give up. Others fight. A few learn the lesson and move on. They welcome life pushing them around. To these few people, it means they need and want to learn something. They learn and move on - Robert Kiyosaki (through Rich Dad)

How to Catch a Lion

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:18:00 +0000

It has been long since I made a post here.Recently, I was searching through my good old Yahoo! Mail and found this forward over there about How to Catch a Lion? Have Fun

Let, the lion catch you. For every action there is
equal and opposite
reaction.Implies you caught lion

Einstein Method:

Run in the direction opposite to that of the lion.Due
to higher
relative velocity, the lion will also run faster and
will get tired soon. Now
you can trap it easily.

Schrodinger Method:

At any given moment, there is a positive probability
that lion to be in
the cage. So set the trap, sit down and wait.

Inverse Transformation Method:

We place a spherical cage in the forest and enter
it.Perform an inverse
transformation with respect to lion. Lion is in and we
are out.

Thermodynamic Procedure:

We construct a semi-permeable membrane which allows
everything to pass
it except lions. Then sweep the entire forest with it.

Integration Differential Method:

Integrate the forest over the entire area. The lion is
some where in
the result. So differentiate the result PARTIALLY
w.r.t lion to trace out
the lion

Software Engineer Method:

Catch a cat and claim that your testing has proven
that its a Lion. If
anyone comes back with issues tell that you will
upgrade it to Lion.

Indian Police Method:

catch any animal and interrogate it to accept that its
a Lion.

GOT FRUSTRATED

Now lets kill the lion...

Rajnikanth Method :

Keep warning the lion that u may come and attack
anytime. The lion will
live in fear and die soon in fear itself.

Ramarajan Method :

Remove the make-up and put it over lion. The lion will
die
notwithstanding that heavy weight.

Jayalalitha Method:

Send Police commissioner Muthukaruppan around 2AM and
kill it, while
it's sleeping !

Manirathnam Method (director):

Make sure the lion does not get sun light and put the
lion in a dark
room with a single candle lighted.Keep murmuring
something in its ears.
The lion will be highly irritated and commit suicide.

Karan Johar Method (director):

Send a lioness into the forest. our lion and lioness
fall in love with
each other. Send another lioness in to the
forest,followed by another
lion. First lion loves the first lioness and the
second lion loves the
2nd lioness. But 2nd lioness loves both lions. Now
send another
lioness(third) into the forest. You don't understand
right... ok....read it
after 15 yrs, then also u wont !

Yash Chopra method (director):

Take the lion to Australia or US.. and kill it in a
good scenic
location.

Govinda method:

Continuously dance before the lion for 5 or 6 days.

Rahul dravid method:

Ask the lion to bowl at u.U bat for 200 balls and
score 1 run.

Menaka Gandhi method:

Save the lion from a danger and feed him with some
vegetables
continuously.

George bush method:

Link the lion with osama bin laden and shoot him.

001- Imaginary Beautiful Girls in my college

noreply@blogger.com (LuckyMurari) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:05:00 +0000

Lovers love lovely loveless life

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:38:00 +0000

Most of the 'Single' humans around me are always yearning for a life with a loving partner. Agreed, that since long , I have been (and am ) desperate for a GF of my own :) . And, that has been one of the major factors that has allowed me to observe those love birds around me. With that kind of experience, I can say the following deductions.

Become more responsible:

If the love is really on the air, you can observe that the people who are in it will become more responsible. The life (especially student life) which used to be more of fun and enjoyment will now become responsibilities, aims, goals etc. Agreed, you would anyway have to take up responsibilities in future, but now it comes somewhat early.

Change of Goals/aims:

I am a believer in Change (this is not Obama hype ). Still, this change is different. Especially, if you wanted to take some unconventional path like not applying for a job or taking a filmi career <as opposed to engineering> etc., then you will be forced to change your path. As the responsibilities increased, you need to get settled faster. And, most of the times , decision of the other half will be on priority.

No risks, no adventures:

If you are like me you would like taking risks in life. You might also yearning for adventures. But once you have fallen for someone, you got to lose your risk-taking attitude. There is something/someone you have gained recently and hence don't want to lose them. You might think, before also you had parents, siblings etc., who stop you from taking risks. But the attitude is different. Previously, you would have thought, if something happens to me there are my parents to take care of. Now its different. If something happens to me, who will take care of my loved one?

No freedom of..:

Previously, taking advantage of your 'single' status you could have flirted with anyone, commented on a girl/guy, boozed out with friends etc. Now you don't have that freedom. Obviously, your loved one wouldn't allow you to flirt with someone else. Moreover, everyone knows you are nomore 'single' and hence you won't get a person to flirt with eventhough your lover is generous enough to allow you to flirt. You couldn't comment on a girl/guy coz most of the times that person will turn out to be a friend or relative to your loved ones. Booze out with friends- forget that coz now you are health, money, and lover-conscious.

PS: I am still single and am in search of a GF. Anyone interested can forget what is said above and contact me :)

Types of Companies (Business entities) in India

noreply@blogger.com (LuckyMurari) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:12:00 +0000

As newbie Entrepreneurs, when we wanted to register our personalized merchandise firm, Colon K, we were stuck by lots of doubts about types of companies and what is the best option for our firm within our limitations. We had to do a mini research to know all the details as there were lot of people out there who want to take us for a ride. So, to avoid this kind of hassle for others, I thought of posting some information regading these. In this first post (assuming I will make a series of posts), I will explain about different types of companies available and some basic details about them. I will try to keep the post short and sweet.

While registering a company it is always better to get it done by a CA rather than you doing it yourself as the process involves a lot of paper work and time. If you are from Hyderabad, I would recommend you the services of my CA - Mr. Madhusudhan Bojja in Abids Hyderabad. But, ofcourse before going to a CA, you need to decide upon which type of company are you going to start.

The companies can be classified into four types

Sole Proprietorship
Partnership Firm
Private/Public Limited
Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)

Sole Proprietorship:

Most people are not aware of this form of company but own it. A Sole Proprietorship doesn't require any legal documents, registrations etc. A Sole Proprietorship is no different than an individual. If you are planning to start a Sole Proprietorship, you need to do nothing but to start functioning your business. All taxes etc., are taken care in the Individual's IT returns only and there is no separate distinction for the business entity from individual. The Con for this kind of business entity is that,as the name itself suggests, it involves only a single individual and hence no chance of getting investors for the business. The scope of this kind of business is very limited. There is personal liability- if you go bankrupt, your personal posessions could be seized.

Partnership Firm:

A very common business entity among companies that don't require any external funding is Partnership Firm. Forming a partnership firm is not a very costly process and generally involves 3 to 6 partners. A partnership firm is officially bound by the details mentioned in the agreement made between partners known as a Partnership Deed. A partnership firm is essentially a collaborated sole proprietorship. The advantage in a Partnership firm is that the individual skills of the partners add up to provide the ultimate value.It is always preferred to form a partnership only with trusted person because in the Partnership Firm, it is unlimited liability meaning if any partner does a mistake in the business, everyone is liable to the after effects. For example, if your partner does a cheating act in your business without your knowledge, you will still be held for prosecution and jail term. Getting a VC to fund a Partnership Firm is very difficult.

Pvt./ Public Ltd.:

This is the costliest form of incorporation and involves a big amount of legal procedure. Most companies expecting a funding will form a Pvt. Ltd. company. Though the initial incorporation involves lot of time and effort, this kind of firms do have a very structured form. The company is very different entity from the shareholders in this form of business. So, the liability of the shareholders is limited. So, if you hold a share of 10% in the company, you are responsible only to that part of loss/profit. It is very easy to add new people or remove old people in this form of organization. One another advantage is that the VCs generally prefer to invest in a Pvt. Ltd. company. On the darker side, there will be additional overhead of keeping the records as they are subject to auditing at any point of time.

Limited Liability Partnership:

This is the newest form of the business entity that is legalised. Though this was available in western countries since long, it entered India only recently and hence has very less number (around 25000) of them. This business entity can be classified as a mixture of Partnership Firm and Limited Company taking the good things of them. The formation of an LLP involves lesser costs, time and effort. As a partnership firm the partners can share their profits. The advantage of this over the Partnership firm is that here the partners' liability is only limited. So, you will not be responsible for your partner's mistakes. This makes it an ideal kind of business entity. Though, the limited liability in an LLP is not the same as that in a Ltd. Company. On the other side, there are not so high chances here to get a VC funding. Chances are that your CA wouldn't even know what an LLP is.

Lastly, the registration process for a company involves some other factors too like Bank Current Accounts, Service/Sales Tax registeration etc. So don't assume the above process finishes all your legal oblogations :)

Yahoo acquired Xoopit Photo Application

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:19:00 +0000

I have been a big fan of Xoopit since I came to know of it during HackDay Bangalore . Currently, new registrations are not allowed for this application. So can't give you the experience. But anyways, Xoopit is a great application to manage your photos in E-Mail. This has created a lot of buzz in Yahoo circles since long. I was expecting, rather say hoping, Yahoo would take hold of it. One reason, I doubted this happenign was that Xoopit was more concentrating on GMail and has prepared plugins for GMail and not Yahoo Mail. I saw a Facebook update mentioning Yahoo! acquiring Xoopit and was elated.

According Y! Corp Blog,

In short, Xoopit will bring phenomenal photo organization, improved photo sharing, and the serendipity of discovering forgotten photos to Yahoo! Mail.

I now only hope that Y! Mail revamps and brings out features like this which willmake me return back to using it (Disclaimer: I no longer use Yahoo! Mail directly. I am redirceting everythignt o my GMail) .

What it means to Yahoo?

With this acquisition, surprisingly which Google has not tried to acquire, Yahoo! now grows its lead in Photo media which is heavily supported by Flickr. People can undoubtedly say Yahoo! is the best with respect to Photo Media. I onyl wish now for a desktop application to augment the use and ease of Flickr.

A model for a Startup Community Website

noreply@blogger.com (LuckyMurari) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 04:42:00 +0000

Web 2.0 startup Logos :)

I wrote this post a while back but lost the draft somewhere. So I am writing it here once again :(. I take it as a punishment for my lazyness in updating here. The main reason is I got caught up in the vicious circle of No-Reader No-Content and not finding either motivation or time to update it.

Since long, I have been dreaming of taking part in an active startup ecosystem that is as highly developed as that of the mighty Silicon Valley. But, once I realised that the dream is not so achievable in the near future, I began thinking of creating a startup community website that tries to build an ecosystem and develop a platform for them to interact. I know, you will say there are many like that, but my idea is different from the current scene. So, I started observing the startup community sites like Headstart, Proto and Your Story. I tried to create the following model for my ideal startup community website. My model here is decided upon comparing them with the very famous StartupNation.Another article that loosely influenced this is AnandNataraj's blog post( I intially tried to get involved in this, but looks like Anand has stopped working on it).

So the proposed features in the community website are:

Central and Sub Blogs
Startup and Member Profiles
Interviews
Service Providers
Resources
Forum
Chat/IRC
Calendar
Classifieds

Central and Sub Blogs: This Blog will first be fed with very generic and task-based posts like 'What is a partnership firm?', 'How to write your accounts?' etc.The content will be written by qualified personalities- Legal issues by legal advisors, Accounting by CAs etc.The motivation for the authors is from the publicity they get and the trust they develop.Non-qualified persons' articles are not into this section.The rather abstract posts like '5 common mistakes of Entrepreneurs' etc., will be written by any of the community members and are posted in the sub-Blogs. Select articles are publicised on the homepage.

Startup and Member Profiles: This will be a user edited wiki that profiles the members and startups - almost like CrunchBase. It lists all the details about the startups and also categorizes them as well as possible. If a visitor wants to know all web-based ecommerce startups, then he should be able to using the categories. The wiki will be writable by only mods who are provided with the company/member information by the concerned persons. It will have the maximum information possible. This, in my opinion, is the most difficult taks of all.

Interviews: This will be a place for interviews with the Entrepreneurs, VCs and other emintent persons. To be interviewd you need not be an established persoanlity. You need to be as famous as at least one person would like to interview you :) Obviously, the individuals, be it interviewer or interviewed, both are motivated to provide their interview due to the ezposure they get.

Service Providers: A database of stakeholders important in running of a company but not employees of it - like Charterer Accountants, Lawyers, Landlords, Brokers etc. They will be user submitted and user rated so as to build credibility. Can be used as a resource for deciding upon a stakeholder. Can be made as a directory.

Resources: This contains resources, downloads for important documents like Resumes, IT Returns, Partnership Deed samplesn etc. This would be taken from publicly available reources and modify them to the needs and put for download. This is oen another category where user contribution is less but usage is more. So requires to put our work into this.

Forum : A forum is always the best choice in running a site which requires user activity. This does also require a forum. This will nurture activity based communities, their meets and discussions regarding those using this arena. All planning for meetings and everything is done here. In future may be a wiki also wikl be needed for this task. Usergroups are used to categorize as web-based , offline startups etc. Can be used to arrange chat sessions, meetings etc. It can have a marketplace (other than the classifieds one), VCs , Entrepreneurs, Students categories etc.

Chat/IRC : A simple chat system or may be an IRC node(I don't think IRC suits well due to relative ignorance about its usage) which will be used to onduct regular chat sessions targetted at specific topic. They are helpful when visitors can't allocate tim3e for a real world meet. Poto implements this kind of system weekly.

Calendar: This will be a publicly hosted calendar where users can add startup events and important meetups etc. Will be very useful if it can implement mail notifications for subscribed events.

Classifieds: It is the same as your guess goes. It will be a place where any one can post their classified. It can also be developed as a professional marketplace. StartupNation has a very good implementation of this(ofcourse, not relevant for Indians )

I have written all this at one-go. Due to me writing it twice in a row and not checking back, there might be some typos and some unclear ideas. As you know you can always comment here and get clarified or advise or correct me. After all, more comments means I am out of this No-Reader No-Content Cycle :)

Its Tweet Time Baby

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:37:00 +0000


if(web2.0){
 if(isUser){
  post=askPost();
  if(post<140)
   echo "Thanks for the twit" ;
  else
   echo "Go back you douchebag";
 }
 else
  beg2register();
 }
else{
 killhim();
}

'Praja Rajyam' Movie Review

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:57:00 +0000

Geetha Arts magnum opus movie produced by Allu Aravind has failed to reach expectations of audience. Here is a brief review of the movie -

Banner: Geetha Arts
Producer: Allu Aravind
Directed by: Mitra
Cast: Chiranjeevi, Pawan Kalyan, Nagendra Babu. (Allu Arjun and Ram Charan guest roles)
Writers: Paruchuri Brothers
Parental Guidance: Some obcene language by Posani and Shobha Rani

Story: The title cards are played for too long with Allu Aravind telling people to wait for the train. Finally the said train arrives and the party is launched in Tirupathi with a solo number by Chiranjeevi.
The initial response in theaters is terrific and the story starts to unfold. The movie gets boring in the first half with no punch dialogues by Chiranjeevi and same old stale lines of Paruchuri Brothers. The dialogue “Ganji Benji” got good response from audience but being a serious movie, the audience were expecting to see some intelligent lines about themselves, not the hero. As we start to doze off listening to the same old cliched lines, things start getting serious when the slums in Bheem Rao wada are vacated by ruling party politicians to build party office.

Interval bang: Pawan Kalyan erects vinyls of ruling party leaders in the middle of road and makes controversial remarks about all of them. Lot of whistles in theater and everybody is back on track.

The movie becomes interesting all of a sudden. Provoked by village ex sarpanch CBN, school teacher Roja makes remarks on Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan. Chiranjeevi’s assistant Shobha Rani and house servant Posani lash out at Roja and she lashes right back at them. Things get real ugly and the village people are surprised by the beautiful language these guys are using to get at each other. Chiranjeevi declines to apologize for the behavior of his assistant. The ex sarpanch is also quite on the issue. Much to the audience’s relief, we have Pawan Kalyan and Renu Desai’s wedding and a brief melody song follows.

After a lot of drama, finally the election dates are announced. As the story proceeds towards climax, we see some twists when friends like Parakala leave the party and start telling everybody that it is not a party but a company owned by Chiranjeevi and Allu Aravind.

There is a side thread running with Allu Arvind playing full fledged detective as opposed to detective’s assistant in Chantabbai. In this movie he is trying to find who the two coverts are. He knows the exact number of coverts but he cannot identify who they are. The character of Allu Arvind is confusing as he does comedy some times saying they will win 292 seats, does drama by challenging dasari to come to Anakapalli and plays the villain to party cadre and hero’s fans of 30 years.

Right before climax, there is confusion as to who is going to stay till the end and who is going to leave the train. Finally the train reaches its destination but realizes that all the compartments are lost on the way. We see the hero walking towards the evening sun when the end title start to roll.

Analysis: The movie started sooraj Barjatya style with promise by Chiranjeevi to keep it a clean entertainer but audience were shocked to see obscenities from artists such as Shobha Rani and Posani.
Rumor has it that director Mitra has left the movie midway and producer Allu finished it.

Artists Performance: Chiranjeevi looked tired and uninterested. Although there were moments where he has shown spark by being different from other actors, he failed deliver a memorable performance. The surprise element of the movie is Pawan Kalyan who sadly disappeared 20 minutes before the climax and his character was ended abruptly. Nagendra Babu has a brief role in the beginning of the movie. Devender Goud is passable. Shobha Rani did some over acting while Padma scored as dignified lady.

Who the hell is LuckyMurari?

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:19:00 +0000

I realized recently that I have a link in my navigation for my about page but it pointed only to the home page of my blog. So I took this huge task of writing an about page.

According to an estimate, a little less than 7 billion people are currently living in this beautiful world.But how many of them enjoy the pleasure being famous? Not even a million right? That is what I would like to see myself in .

Though my parents named me Santosh Lakshman with a surname "Murari Shetty" which came as a bonus, like many of the youngsters, I named myself LuckyMurari. Ofcourse Lucky came from Lakshman and Murari from my surname.

I just completed my Bachelors of Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. Though my specialization there was Electricals and Electronics, I was never really into it. Since my early college days, I was interested in Computers and Internet. Added to that is my zeal for fame which got me into Entrepreneurship.

I am involved with different internet ventures. I used to flip websites initially.Now-a-days I build multiple websites with different content and stuff. In doing these tasks, I learnt a lot about SEO and internet marketing. I can confidently say that, I am your SEO consultant with lots of tricks up his sleeve.

I did an internship at Yahoo! India for a period of 5 months and during this time I went deep into programming. Though I was involved with doing basic front-end stuff previously, here I got myself neck deep in PHP, C++ and Webservices programming. I am good enough in those but got fed up with the routine kind of work. So, no, I am not a WebDeveloper. But I am good at prototyping web 2.0 applications. So this explains my ability as a web 2.0 applications architect .

I started up an offline venture with 2 of my other friends. The venture was named Colon K and it is your one stop personalized merchandise solution. Currently I am working on it.

I am already involved with the BITSexam - BITSAT sample papers website. With my friend, Arvind we try to help the students who try to clear the admissions test BITSAT of our college.

I am awarded Mantra "Entrepreneur of the year" award and was also winner of the IBM quiz (I won a damn cool netbook in it :)) held at BITS-Pilani during APOGEE 2009.

In this blog, I try to blog some random stuff and try to keep it as personal as possible.

The metamorphosis of a family called BITS-Pilani

noreply@blogger.com (Santosh Lakshman M) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:08:00 +0000

BITS-Pilani Meri jaan...

I joined BITS in the year of 2005 as a kiddo.. and now I am at the last stages of my BITSian life in my fourth year... So what are the changes seen in this family from the first year to the fourth year?

Before 2005, the family was like in Ukraine, where the female race outnumbered male race. Enter 2005, the era of child killings started. Females children were considered too dangerous to the community and the entry of new female children was restricted. Some thought the theory of evolution will make only the best of the females to have their presence in the family. But by 2009 it turned into Vatican city.

Long before 2005, as the legend would say, there used to be flushes of grass grown in the QTs of bhawans , which made the grass growers reach the nirvana for their service. By 2005, the Ganga water and agarbathis have become the only source for the Nirvana. Cometh 2009, the Retro trend emerged back. We again see the grass going here and there with the eco-green slogans flowing around. Though not as in those legendary stories, the patches of grass are showering rays of hope on the Future lighters.

Before 2005, there were those mighty Departments which used to provide job for a lot of the family members. There were also some clubs which gave the berojgar youth some respite.2005, the giant Departments started to feel the heat of the absence of female family members, which was their only source of attracting the male members to takeup jobs with them. The clubs which were based on hobbies and acads started to gain prominence among the individuals. Cometh 2009, the picture is blown out of imagination. The trend now is that of startups. Every individual who plans to start his own club. The number of clubs that offer jobs to family members have increased 4-fold in 4 years.

Before 2005, Chatting over the LAN( lanchat) was the favorite past time. In 2005, the big G(Google) started making people talk and IPs started barter Exchange. Cometh the 2009, the hubs and pubs emerged. +trivia and **** became the regular activity. Brothers(Wingies) now talk to each other through wires and the corridors have been population controlled.

Before 2005, the bus was mostly empty. Cometh 2005, the bus filled full. And now, the bus is over crowded and people are loaded like in the GOAn mini buses. There were rebellions and outcries asking to replace the old bus with a Volvo. Some great thinkers are making suggestions to replace the bus with a train instead. On the other hand, the Placement division has offered the Bus authorities to replace it with their buses which are now remaining mostly unfilled due to the recent accident on Recession Street

There were also many other major changes in the family which I might throw the light later.Meanwhile, make me feel happy (and you know what to do for that :)).