Big V

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2009-03-26T20:56:00.001-07:00

Not sure how long Border's been doing this, but found it refreshing that they at least tried implementing a recommendation tool in their stores.Not sure if this is the best way to do it though. Any ideas how you'd make it better?

Front Men

2009-03-26T16:44:00.000-07:00

Every boss has one guarding its office. These front desk guys are trained to act as terrible filters. They default to saying "No", since its much easier and is less risky. Kinda like baseball - they will swing only if there is a sure home-run, but most time they will give it a miss. No points lost for missing a shot. The boss is happy to make them do the dirty work. They are happier to believe

Middle Men

2009-03-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

We put a bid on a house recently, but it was rejected by the sellers who thought it was far lower that what the house deserved. The problem is, it didn't. The house is worth lower than what the sellers think it is. The recent sales data in the market says so. The disclosure documents of the house say so. But the sellers hallucinate about making far more from the house, even as the market slumps

Innovation vs. Improvements

2008-08-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've found myself in several debates with various people on what exactly constitutes innovation. The debate has largely been around two areas - (1) improvements cannot be classified as innovation and (2) not all technology successes have been due to a technology innovationPer wikipedia, "Invention that gets out in to the world is innovation". In other words, if it's already out "there",

Indian business strategy: Eat until we burst?

2008-07-26T03:23:00.000-07:00

Have been wanting to blog this for a while, but never got around to doing it. Sanjeev Bhikchandani, one of the most candid, outspoken and entertaining speakers I have heard, said something that almost made me fall off the chair. A reporter, apparently disturbed by their incoherent assortment of investments so far, questioned what their growth strategy really was. A normal answer would have been

Fuckin' tabs

2008-05-25T03:34:00.000-07:00

Wide or Deep? Is the question...Everytime a product manager comes up with a product feature... it goes up as a tab on the home page. Mere mortals like us land on the page, scratch on our heads, bend over backwards and finally leave not knowing where we are supposed to go.Tabs, to me, are the bane of product management. If you have a new feature for me, tell me when i need it, don't stick it up

Call me antisocial but

2008-05-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

I am getting really sick and tired of people (bloggers & consultants, especially) who talk about social media, social networking, social graph - basically, everything social.Other words that make me puke - tagging, collaboration, monetization, revenue model, web 2.0, strategy, execution, viral, unique, branding, marketing (strategy)Here's some words that we use internally, might be

Some excuses I have heard lately

2008-02-26T01:14:00.000-08:00

- "Uncle fell sick, so had to visit him in the hospital"- "One of our employees has met with an accident. But we'll definitely deliver by next week"- "Sent you three emails, but never heard back from you"- "The person who does this had to visit his village"- "Have too much work come up. I promise this will be done by tomorrow"- "Have a friend's wedding to go to"Heard any lately?In a country of

Whisper of Mouth?

2008-02-25T03:31:00.000-08:00

Nothing's more powerful for marketing than the Word of Mouth. When you reach a point when a single user recommends your product to more than one of his friends, your business tips. But not all words of mouth (or is it word of mouths?) are created equal.Some are pushy ones - like a person using a "Tell a friend" feature. Its like selling Amway products, more like "Spam an Enemy". All social

Contextual Ad Messages

2008-02-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

Saw this ad-banner on contentsutra yesterday (Feb 20).Contextual Ad Messages work awesome, and a targeted message displayed at the right time and the right place can work magnitudes of time better than generic ones. Context could be anything - spatial, time-driven, user-driven or topic-driven.But they are equally risky. Contexts are, by definition, niches and do not scale. Especially time-driven

Customers are Babies

2008-02-20T16:08:00.001-08:00

I was reading a feedback email from one of our users saying "Great going guys!Keep up the good work.....", which evidently drew a smile from me. Right next to me was my sister-in-law teaching her toddler how to say "thanks" and smiling victoriously when he finally said it.Managing a 6 month old startup and seeing my 2 year old nephew grow up right next door, I can't help but compare my

What's your last name? 16D?

2008-02-16T16:47:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of debate around the true battery life for the Macbook Air, but what surprises me is that 5 hours is supposedly the bare minimum battery life people expect from a notebook. Why? Because that's roughly what is needed for a coast to coast flight in the US.Well, unless you actually live on the plane, why bother? Who wants a notebook up there anyway?I travel a lot and see far more

Its not a website, damn it!

2008-02-16T16:05:00.000-08:00

When we first started working on FirstPhera, people often asked me "How's the website doing?", to which I'd immediately respond correcting them that it's a business, not a website.This distinction might be minor and probably unimportant to most, but it's perhaps the most important thing for the entrepreneur to understand. What is it about "websites" like google.com, yahoo.com or craigslist.com

When P<>NP is good

2008-02-15T07:32:00.000-08:00

Back in grad school doing my Math major, I dreaded problems where P <> NP - which in layman's terms meant that the problem exploldes in complexity beyond a certain size and gets impossibly harder to solve.Now, as it comes to marketing, I dread situations where P=NP. Now, I do want the problem to explode, to reach a tipping point.I had thought I had solved the equality problem. The quest continues

When "Free" is too cheap

2008-02-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

Its getting awfully hard these days to charge money for your products - especially if you are delving in the digital soft goods world. Everyone wants a "Deal" and many a time, no thing less than "free" would suffice.Unless of course, there is emotion involved. Imagine gifting a free rose to your valentine. Or buying a cheap discounted engagement ring for your spouse. Or framing a 25-year old

The Generation Gap

2008-02-11T15:15:00.001-08:00

Ever wonder while growing up that your parents just never got "it". And ever tell yourself that when you grow old, you are not going to be like them? That you will be open-minded and try understand the younger generation?Well, good luck.I am 31, and am probably going through the worst identity crisis - I neither belong to the young, cool and hip school & college-going generation, neither am I

Wedding Website at FirstPhera = "Cool"

2008-02-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

Seth Godin is my favorite blogger and there is seldom something he says that doesn't make you wonder "Why didn't I think of it before?". Although, chances are, you did think about it; just not as cleanly as he does.In his latest post, Seth talks about how the brilliance of marketing is in associating your product with a desirable attribute, such as fun, respect, success, kindness or hope. That,

Profiting from the default? Risky proposition...

2008-02-08T15:37:00.000-08:00

While searching for a link to place on the book "The Brand Gap" in my previous post, i googled the term, almost assured that the top result would take me to an Amazon.com page.Here's what I got instead -The top result is a "Google Books" (not linked intentionally) page. Not only is it not presented as an advertisement (which is what it is), but its presented much more neatly than the Amazon

The world of logos

2008-02-07T17:31:00.000-08:00

A few months before we launched firstphera.com, I was looking around to get the logo done for the website. Having no prior background whatsoever, I picked up a book Brand Gap - in the hope of teaching myself how to do a logo. And equipped with my new found knowledge, I asked the designer to "make me something" that has the following characteristics -1) Must be exquisite - like a bride wants her

Microsoft Weds Yahoo

2008-02-04T14:01:00.000-08:00

Curious what a Microsoft / Yahoo marriage would look like? Check out this hilarious wedsite put together at the FirstPhera blog. Its fun :)

We serve you all

2008-01-31T15:37:00.001-08:00

Check out the top line on google search results. For the ignorant dumb mortals - it shows how to save a nano-second while searching. Why? I can't imagine more than a very small fraction of population finding this useful. Secondly, who cares? Finally, where do they make keyboards with "return" key these days? Stupid!

Download until I die

2008-01-31T03:05:00.000-08:00

Windows thinks that it will take me 48,851 days (~133.83 years) to download a 134MB file. This was while I downloading at a quick speed of 1 meg every 2 seconds.Did they just do the math wrong or is this some sick prank? Sure, things are just slower at Microsoft these days, but how sluggish is that :)

Customers are smarter than you think...

2008-01-28T11:19:00.001-08:00

Marketing is THE most difficult, painful and important task for any consumer facing business. All of us who are in the process of building a consumer brand will recognize that and will agree that often times it's tempting to do things that arent' quite right. But, what the heck! In the long run, we figure, when you are a "BRAND", no one really gives a damn about a few wrong things you did while

Fools rush in

2008-01-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

I could not help but laugh off the reaction by the hordes of dumb investors who were affected by the stock market blood bath in the last few days. The news snippet below, cited by trak.in - is worth a chuckle :)In Mumbai, a huge number of ambulances were pressed into service between brokers’ offices and nearby hospitals to reach persons complaining of chest pain or uneasiness. Doctors in

Yahoo sucks... big-time!

2008-01-17T21:47:00.000-08:00

Google's dominance in the search market is well-documented. Its always surprised me quite a bit that Y! just cannot make any gains in its market share. Sure, Y! has more cluttered interface, its focus might be somewhere else and its algorithm might be inferior. These things are obviously fixable and it might over time.But what makes Y! so unpardonably pathetic is that their SEM program sucks.