XYDO.COM: Startups

The Tension of Confidentiality

I’m a huge believer in TAGFEE. But I also respect confidentiality. Every company approaches this differently and it’s important to recognize which context you are in. Following is an example from an email I got (on the all@ list) from a company I’m on the board of (and yes – I checked to make sure I could post this.) You know what they say about flattery, right? That’s an idea worth keeping in mind when someone is talking to you about what we’re doing here at as friendly compliments and questions mask an effort to obtain confidential info. We’ve talked as a group about this frequently, but it merits another mention because we’ve seen a marked increase in the number of people that have various approached members of the team with questions that quickly get to the heart of our core technology. They pay compliments, they smile, they flatter, etc., but they’re looking to understand details that should never be discussed with outsiders, even if there is a NDA in place. As is often the case with being at a hot tech company that’s pushing the envelope on various fronts, it’s a double-edged sword. We’re doing cool stuff and people love it, but some of the attention we can do without. So, another reminder–be wary and keep what we’re doing in house. If you’re in doubt about how to answer sensitive questions, it’s easy–don’t answer. Instead, ask for their contacts and forward them on to me. I’m seeing this more and more from all directions. The most challenging are from VCs who have a competitive investment – it never surprises me how shameless some are about milking entrepreneurs about what they are up to when the VC has zero intention of investing. It’s also pervasive with journalists and tech bloggers who are always looking for a scoop and an angle. It’s always been something big tech companies do with startups in the guise of “business development”, but I’ve seen a few situations recently which clearly crossed a line of “wow – that wasn’t appropriate.” So – be careful out there. Respect the power of TAGFEE but also respect when things should be kept confidential. And remember that most people out there will be asymmetric with information if you let them, especially if they use this information in their line of work.

I want to mentor you in the Shopify Build-A-Business Contest 2012

I recently teamed up with Tim Ferriss, Daymond John, and Tina Roth Eisenberg to help you launch a business from scratch. It's called the Shopify 2012 Build-A-Business Competition and it launches today. Now is the time to take that idea you've been mulling over and put it in motion. All you have to do is come up with a product to sell, open your online store on Shopify, pick one of the awesome mentors, then get to work. We'll be there to help you every step of the way.If you are one of the top sellers at the end of the competition, you'll get:$50,000 investment from your mentor VIP trip to NYC Meetings with all four mentors Fast Company Website Feature $20,000 Google AdWords Credit Plus, just just for entering the Build-A-Business competition, you'll receive a free .CO domain for 12 months, $100 in Google AdWords Credits and $100 in MailChimp Credits. Remember, DOING > TALKING. So if you've been thinking about taking the plunge into entrepreneurship, but are stuck on the fence, let this be an excuse to get started. Tim, take it away: This is the third year of the contest, and so I wanted to get some perspective from past winners. Here is some insight and advice from the two previous winners to help get you started, in their own words. 2011 Winners: Coffee Joulies 1. How to keep the first product minimal:I think Coffee Joulies actually exists because we decided to keep the first product as minimal as we could. Dave and I had both tried to start other companies in the past that had a thesis, but did not provide concrete assumptions and lacked the discipline to identify and test them effectively. I was working in manufacturing studying lean principals on the factory floor when I came up with the idea for Coffee Joulies and asked Dave if he would help me. There were two things that made this idea different. The first is that it was 'the simplest idea I had ever had,' a Joulie has only two parts and no moving parts, and the science behind it was so simple I knew it would work. The second is that we strictly enforced a framework that we called 'Original Vision' early on. Basically it said that we had this idea that we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that we could achieve (make some coffee joulies) and that even though we might come up with some additional good ideas along the way while trying to make them a reality, we were going to focus all of our efforts just to get some Coffee Joulies made and into the hands of customers as fast as possible. It's only the customers opinion that matters, not the opinions of all of your friends who you talk to about your idea. Not even your own additional ideas you come up with along the way are necessarily better. It took months before we could test our original assumption; that people would like a little metal coffee bean filled with phase change material. The reason we were able to make some Joulies on such a small budget and relatively quickly is because we had this framework that allowed us to focus and spend our time only doing things that moved us towards testing that idea. Looking back none of the effort we put into Joulies early on turned out to be wasted.I compared it to taking a long hike. We knew just where we were going, and that we could easily get there. There were a lot of steps we needed to take along the way. Each step is easy and must take them one at a time, adjusting your balance and foot placement each second. You can't skip ahead and you cant plan more than a few steps in advance, but you still know that by the end of the day, you will reach the summit. Hiking is a piece of cake and its always fun. Very similar analogy to Eric's 'driving the car' from his book.2. Things that wasted time that seemed necessary at the time:After we had successfully funded our business on Kickstarter, we had proof that people liked the idea of Coffee Joulies. It was also no longer a hobby, it was all of a sudden much more serious and important, and became both of our full time jobs. The opportunity to waste time and money was way bigger than it was before. We were still very careful to take small incremental steps in order to fulfill our Kickstarter orders. It was obvious that we had to test and iterate on our manufacturing process in the absolute smallest batches, as fast as possible. This helped us get a great and robust manufacturing method figured out relatively quickly, without spending large sums to learn the same lessons using large batches. One thing that we did waste some time on was all of these little details that exist when starting your own business that have these old and ridiculously wasteful methods built up around them. Now we just know how to avoid these. In retrospect it obvious that we can simply look at something and think 'is this a batch for no reason?' and 'is this the fastest, closed feedback loop to test this assumption' but early on it was not so clear.I'll give two examples. First: product packaging. Packaging salesman would come into our office and take up tons of our time. We would go through weeks of 'iteration' on samples so that we could get a quote at the end of it all that was too expensive and had huge minimum order quantities (batches) and long lead times. Working with a great and creative packaging salesman is fun, and can feel great. At the end of the day you're making a cardboard box. Now we get all of our packaging from ULINE which ships next day, has tiny minimums and we print stickers that we design ourselves and can change in one day. The idea of working with someone else to do a simple task like make a box that literally takes weeks to do, and at the end gives you the privilege of ordering in huge batches with long lead times is just crazy. We are still coming up with ways to improve our packaging that can keep the process lean but make an even better finished product. Meanwhile we've already shipped 20,000 little MVP ULINE boxes to our customers. Second: Web design. Dave and I are both mechanical engineers. We're not web designers and we don't know much about hosting a robust website. Since we had all the kickstarter cash in the bank we hired a designer and a developer to make us a good looking Shopify template. Same kind of thing happened with the packaging, a couple weeks turned into a couple months of development. When we finished with Kickstarter orders and decided that the Shopify store HAD to be opened and taking orders for the holidays, the designs were still not done and the store was inoperable. We launched with a bone stock template that Shopify provided instead. Real MVP. The next week we had done tens of thousands of dollars in sales through that template, and not a peep from our customers that it 'looked bad.' We ended up going right through the holiday season and then some, over $300k on that bone stock template. Now if there is ever a choice between a minimal SaaS product and a more custom and powerful solution that requires working with designers or salesman to use, we always pick the off the shelf option to try first. It can feel counter-intuitive but I think people have a tendency to undervalue their own time and the cycle times of installing new parts into their start up.3. How did things change along the way?We actually lucked out. The general concept of Coffee Joulies is written down in a gchat in June 2010, almost exactly as it exists today. When we were able to test the assumption, 'do people want/like using this?' We heard a resounding 'yes.' There were a couple of instances along the way where we had to alter the idea in the absolute minimum way possible because our original idea was putting up unnecessary road blocks. For instance, the original idea was for the material to be copper, and be gold plated. We switched to stainless steel because a factory, and a manufacturing method fell into our lap to make stainless steel parts. The impact it had on the product was immediately measurable and good: it looked better and it was way less expensive.2010 Winners: DODOcase 1. How to keep the first product minimal: Focus, focus, focus! One of the best pieces of advice we received during our first months in business was to make a list of the 10 most important things we wanted to achieve in the first year, then tear off 70% of the list and focus doing the remaining 3 things exceptionally well. We applied this philosophy DODOcase and for the first 5 months of business we focused on product simplicity by offering only one color (black/red http://www.dodocase.com/products/dodo-classic), as well as focusing local scalable manufacturing and building the story and the brand. This allowed us to simplify our production efforts and focus on telling the story that makes our product so special. This 'less is more' approach allowed our eventual introduction of individual specialty cases followed by full collections to be all the more powerful. 2. Things that wasted time that seemed necessary at the time:At DODOcase we made the unique decision to manufacture locally in San Francisco and originally thought we’d handle everything pertaining to the business in-house. We quickly realized we had our hands full just managing production of the physical product, so we immediately identified and outsourced 'non- essential' components of our business to local partners. We found accounting and fulfillment resources that could integrate closely into our business while operating outside our day-to-day infrastructure. We stayed laser focused on building our product offerings and overall brand while leaving the less critical functions to trusted partners. This proved to be the smarter approach overall and to this day we operate in this model. 3. How did things change along the way?We have not pivoted from our original vision of protecting bookbinding from extinction. Our product and manufacturing techniques have evolved over the last two years to include an in-house bookbindery and wood shop operation, but the basic premise of the product and promise of the brand remains the same. And, last, here are a few thoughts from me about the contest:

Behind the Scenes: The Hardware that Powers Basecamp, Campfire and Highrise

A few of us recently attended Velocity Conference in San Jose, CA. In the “hallway track sessions” a number people asked about the hardware that powers Basecamp, Campfire and Highrise. Application Servers All of our Ruby/Rails application roles run on Dell C Series 5220 servers. We chose C5220 servers because they provide high density, high performance, and low cost compute sleds at a decent cost point. The C5220 sleds replaced invidual Dell R710 servers which consumed a greater amount of power and rack space in addition to offering expandability we were not utilizing. We use an 8 sled configuration with E31270 3.40GHz processors, 32/16G of ram, an LSI raid card and 2 non Dell SSDs. (For those of you thinking of ordering these … get the LSI raid card. The built in Intel raid is unreliable.) Each chassis with 8 sleds takes up 4U of rackspace: 3 for the chassis and 1 for cabling. Job / Utility Servers We use a combination of C6100 and C6220 servers to power our utility/jobs and API roles. We exclusively use the 4 sled version (of each) which means we get 4 “servers” in 2U. Each sled has 2x X5650 processors, 48-96G of ram, 2-6 ssds, and 4×1G or 1×10G network interfaces. This design allows to have up to 24 disks in a single chassis while consuming the same space as a single R710 server (which holds 8 disks max). Search For Solr we run R710s filled with SSDs. Each instance varies, but a common configuration is 2x E5530 processors, 48G of ram, 4-8 ssds, and 4×1g network interfaces. For Elastic Search we run a mix of Poweredge 2950 servers and C 5220 sleds with 12-16G of ram and 2×400G ssds in a raid 1. Database and Memcache/Redis Servers For Database roles we use R710s with 2x X5670 processors, 1.2TB Fusion-IO duo cards and varying amounts of memory. (Varies based on the database size.) We also have a number of older R710s powering Memcache and Redis instances. Each of these has has 2x E5530 processors and 2-4 disks with 4×1G network interfaces. Storage We have around 400TB / 9 nodes of Isilon 36 and 72NL storage. We serve all of the user uploaded content off this storage with backups to S3. OS Choice Database servers run RHEL or Centos 6 while application and utility servers run Ubuntu LTS.

Levels of aspiration

Debates over technology, technique, and process often go nowhere because the participants are arguing from different levels of aspiration. You’re unlikely to convince someone they should switch to programming Ruby for its beauty, if they’re merely looking to make a living as a single consultant serving local businesses in Schaumburg, Illinois. Questions such as “does this run on my existing web host?” or “will my clients want something their nephew web designer hasn’t even heard of?” matter far more. Their aspirations are local, finding something that (sorta) works, and getting paid. It’s easy to snub your nose at that if you have grander aspirations, but there’s a lot of software to be written in this world, and we need all sizes and shapes to get it done. The third largest landscaper in Schaumburg is probably operating from the same level of aspiration as our single consultant, so there’s a great fit. You can think of these levels of aspiration in terms of both geographical and technical hierarchies. Here’s a take on what a hierarchy of technical aspirations could look like for programming: You can imagine a similar hierarchy for the geographical angle with the levels being Local, City, Regional, National, Global. The key to a fruitful debate is to first establish at what level the person you’re talking to resides, and then use arguments from the next level up. But if they’re entirely content with where they are, then it’s probably better to live and let live. To help someone move up the hierarchies, they have to have an intrisic desire to do so. Arguments like “but it works” or “it gets the job done” are tell-tell signs of someone happy at the lowest level of the technical hierarchy and your cue to just quietly back out of the debate.

Five Legal Pitfalls That Sink Many Good Startups

Although every startup is unique, there are certain common avoidable mistakes that can lead to legal complications which jeopardize the long-term success of the business. I’m not suggesting that every startup needs a lawyer, but you should definitely pay attention, and not be afraid to consult legal counsel if any of these raise qualms for you. Like other environments, most legal issues don’t result from fraud, but from ignorance on specific requirements, or simply never getting around to doing the things that common sense would tell you to do. Here are five of the most common examples: Failure to document a Founder agreement at the beginning. This oversight can lead to the so-called “forgotten founder” problem. Early partners or co-founders often drop out of the picture early due to disagreements, and you forget about them, but they don’t forget about the verbal or email promises you made. Later, when your venture is trying to close on financing, or even going public, that forgotten partner surfaces, demanding their original share. This problem can be avoided by incorporating immediately after early discussions, and issuing shares to the founders, with normal vesting and other participation rules. Trouble with the IRS over Founders stock value. Many startups delay incorporation until the first formal round of financing, which is too late. At this point your entity may already have several million in valuation, so the IRS will tax your shares at that value immediately as income, just when your cash flow is at its lowest. The solution again is to incorporate early, when Founders shares clearly have trivial value, and filing an “83(b) election” with the IRS within 30 days of the agreement. Then you will only have pay tax on the increasing value of your shares when they are sold. Disclosing inventions before the patent application is filed. Entrepreneurs often put off the hassle and the cost of filing a patent until first funding. Then they realize that they have talked to many people without signing non-disclosure statements, precluding a patent, or someone else has now beat them to the filing docket. There is no excuse for not filing at least a provisional patent early. This will hold your place in the patent line for a year, and the costs and time for this filing are much less. Even trade secrets need to be documented, and reasonable steps taken to keep them secret. Business plans and other documents should always be labeled as confidential. Founders ignore non-compete clauses from former employers. If your new business is even remotely similar to that of your current or former employer, think hard about any written or implied non-compete agreements you might have. Do the same for every business partner or employee you may hire. The best way to short-circuit this problem is to have a frank and open discussion with former employers, perhaps under the guise of asking them to invest in your venture. This is a smooth way to end the relationship, and get some money, or get their lack of interest documented in a note back to them. If a lawsuit is inevitable, better sooner than later. Taking money from unknown or non-professional investors. Investment fraud continues to be a hot subject, even though Bernie Madoff is safely behind bars. It’s not a good idea to take money from anyone, even friends and family, without an experienced investment attorney drafting or reviewing the agreement to make sure it complies with federal and state securities laws. This works to protect you from unscrupulous investors, as well as non-professional investors who may later say that your business plan was misleading. The best advice is to only take investment funds from people who can financially afford to lose, and who qualify as accredited investors. Overall, the biggest legal mistake that a startup can make is to assume that any legal problems can be resolved later. Finding a lawyer early is easy these days, through local networking or even online services like LegalZoom. In reality, it will cost you much less to get it right the first time, when the stakes are still low, compared to the heartache and cost of correcting it later. Marty Zwilling

Instamojo: Sell your stuff by just sharing a link

If landing pages were a parameter, then Instamojo is already a success in my opinion. With a clutter free and minimalistic approach Instamojo aims to simplify the entire process of selling your stuff online with a link. At the heart of the service lies the belief that selling or giving your things online should be as simple as posting it, sharing the link and then giving it away. Co-founded by Sampad Swain, whose previous ecommerce venture WanaMo was acquired and later launched as DealsAndYou, Instamojo surely has a lot of potential. Currently the site Instamojo allows users to set up their account by entering their Facebook credentials and start giving away things for free. In the current model in which the site is operating, there are two sections, either you “give away stuff”, which could be an old book, clothes or something else altogether. When you post about that stuff, you get a small link to share on social networking sites or you can embed it in blogs or even email it. People who need that thing can click on that link and decide upon a mutual location for the exchange to take place. The second option currently is to “schedule an event” under which people give away their time, which is essentially their skill. The members of the co-founding team, a famous VC among a host of other people have given away their time via Instamojo. In the currently operating model, Instamojo doesn’t charge money for “things” and “time” people are giving away for free. According to co-founder Sampad, this will continue to happen even when the site launches it paid platform in the coming weeks. With the launching of the paid platform, people would be able to sell their digital content online via Instamojo. The approach would remain the same as before, where the link to the content is shared across social platforms. This would form the basis of the money stream for Instamojo. The website would provide encryption to prevent digital theft of the content along with a preview of the digital service and the currently available metrics and analytics for the links shared by the creators. The bigger question for Instamojo team is ‘who do you compete with?’ From a classified site (like Quikr which is used by consumers to sell their stuff) to domain service (used by SME players to ‘sell stuff‘) ? Do give Instamojo a spin and share your comments. [Instamojo launched its public beta @UnPluggd, India’s Biggest Startup Event. Check out the 10 startups that demoed @UnPluggd.]

The Council That Kicked The Hornet’s Nest — A Rare Call To Action

This man hates you and your start-up. Hi All, This short post is more like a personal letter, because I just came across something that made me very angry. Namely, a tweet from my bud, Kevin Rose: Wow, a business (Uber) is prevented from lowering its prices.. wait.. what? We live in America, right?http://tcrn.ch/NfYOT3 In full disclosure, I’ve been an advisor to Uber from the beginning. They’re amazing. I work with 20+ start-ups because because I enjoy helping entrepreneurs who want to change the world. Small-business founders are the value creators of our economy. Period, end of story. But sometimes the corrupt (often with a track record) try to stifle the little guys. Incumbents don’t like to compete. They enjoy their defacto monopolies, are accustomed to bilking customers at will, and don’t want to change things. Pardon my Long Island French, but here’s how I feel: Fuck those guys. Protecting the status quo doesn’t impress me. In fact, it really pisses me off. The last time I implored you to spend a few minutes to change laws, we helped successfully ban the distribution and sale of shark fins in Washington and California, the latter being the largest importer of shark fins in the United States. YOUR TINY ACTIONS, PUT TOGETHER, CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS. Below is a snapshot of the Uber situation from the TechCrunch article, and I have a little ask at the end. It’ll get you some good karma: The Council’s intention is to prevent Uber from being a viable alternative to taxis by enacting a price floor to set Uber’s minimum fare at today’s rates and no less than 5 times a taxi’s minimum fare. Consequently they are handicapping a reliable, high-quality transportation alternative so that Uber cannot offer a high quality service at the best possible price. It was hard for us to believe that an elected body would choose to keep prices of a transportation service artificially high – but the goal is essentially to protect a taxi industry that has significant experience in influencing local politicians. They want to make sure there is no viable alternative to a taxi in Washington DC, and so on Tuesday [today!], the DC City Council is going to formalize that principle into law. … Take Action THE COUNCIL VOTES ON THE UBER AMENDMENT [TODAY]! If each of us writes or calls our DC Council people, we could make an impact on this law. What are we asking for? Strike down the MINIMUM FARE language from the Uber Amendment. Here are the City Council members’ contact info. Call/write as many of them as possible! Phil Mendelson (Chairman), (202) 724-8064, pmendelson@dccouncil.us Mary Cheh, Ward 3, (Chairperson of Committee on the Environment, Public Works and Transportation), (202) 724-8062, mcheh@dccouncil.us, @marycheh Michael Brown, at-large, (202) 724-8105, mbrown@dccouncil.us, @cmmichaelabrown Jim Graham, Ward 1, (202) 724-8181, jgraham@dccouncil.us, @jimgrahamward1 Jack Evans, Ward 2, (202) 724-8058, jevans@dccouncil.us, @jackevansward2 Muriel Bowser, Ward 4, (202) 724-8052, mbowser@dccouncil.us, @murielbowser Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 5, (202) 724-8028, kmcduffie@dccouncil.us,@kenyanmcduffie Tommy Wells, Ward 6, (202) 724-8072, twells@dccouncil.us, @tommywells Yvette Alexander, Ward 7, (202) 724-8068, yalexander@dccouncil.us, @cmyma Marion Barry, Ward 8, (202) 724-8045, mbarry@dccouncil.us, @marionbarryjr David Catania, at-large, (202) 724-7772, dcatania@dccouncil.us, @cataniapress Vincent Orange, at-large, (202) 724-8174, vorange@dccouncil.us, @vincentorangedc Those of you who read this blog know that I never write posts like this. But I take this attack on Uber as a DC government-condoned attack on start-ups. I view it as a smug middle finger from lazy incumbents who aren’t willing to improve their product or lower prices. Instead, they resort to underhanded legal means to handicap innovation. It makes my blood boil. So, here’s what I’m going to do. 1) I’m going to e-mail every one of the above people today and tell them to read this post. E-mail helps, but phone is better… 2) Personally, I’m going to call every one of them today and politely but firmly ask them to “strike down the MINIMUM FARE language from the Uber Amendment.” I will have my assistants do the same. This shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes or so, but I won’t ask that of you… 3) I’m going to ask you all — the 1,000,000+ unique readers of this blog — to call as many of the above as possible. Let’s aim for the first four. But there’s more… Politely but firmly, get the name of the person you’re speaking with, tell them you’d like them to “strike down the MINIMUM FARE language from the Uber Amendment” and then ask them if they’re in favor of innovation or incumbents. Last, indicate that you’ll be putting their responses in the comments below. — This DC attack could set a horrible precedent for start-ups trying to improve any space with large incumbents. If you have a few minutes, please make one phone call. It will earn you positive karma… and the knowledge that you didn’t stand still and watch Goliath snuff out David with his thumb. There’s something real to be said for that. Sorry for the rant, but this one is legitimate. To my mind, it cannot go unanswered. As Edmund Burke rightly said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Please spread the call to action far and wide. This is time-sensitive and needs to happen ASAP today.

How to get a job as a Venture capitalist

I get an email or two a week from folks wanting to be a Venture Capitalist. Usually its to ask for introductions to a VC firm or to forward their resume. Most of these folks have a technical background and some have an MBA. Since most people sending the email dont ask me how they could really get a job at a VC firm, I thought I’d outline that for them. There are broadly 3 operating roles in a VC firm – General Partner (GP), Associate / Principal (AP) and Operating partner (OP). There are other roles such as Venture partner, but those are fairly rare. Limited Partners LP’s) are not part of a VC’s fund’s operating roles, they are investors in a VC fund. Most VC firms have between 2-5 GP’s, and 2-5 AP’s and 1-2 OP’s. (source: PDF) GP’s take the most risk, since they raise the fund from institutional investors so they tend to get the highest salaries and profits the firm makes from the investments. To be a GP you should have enough capability to raise funds (the most important aspect) and deploy those funds to provide a better return (which is: invest in startups and ensure they have great exit). Most GP’s (over 60%) I know have a degree from a top notch school (think Harvard MBA, Stanford MBA or in India IIT and IIM). Please see list of VC firms (below) in India. My analysis of GP’s in those firms indicates unless you have been an entrepreneur before with a successful exit OR from a IIT / IIM, with over 10+ years of experience OR you can raise money from other investors, your chances of being a GP are very low (less than 10%). Unless you can raise money to be a fund on your own, you will have to spend 10+ years being an AP and then graduate to being a GP. AP’s are usually junior folks, and of the 120+ AP’s in the firms (largely Indian) below 69 (over 50%) are from IIT, IIM, McKinsey backgrounds. So if you are a fresh grad or someone with 2-5 years of experience, and not from a top school, your chances of getting into a VC firm as an AP are not high. Its not impossible, but there are only 400+ firms in India and so a max of about 1500 AP positions, which means a best case of about 700 (<50%) positions. The good news is over the last 5-10 years the % of IIT, IIM grads as AP’s has dropped from over 80% to less than 60%. Operating partners are usually CFO’s or Legal advisors, so your technology background wont qualify you for a role there. More likely a legal degree or a CPA / CA certification is required. So how do you get a job as a VC if you are not from a top school or you dont have ability to raise money? 1. Be an entrepreneur first: Most VC’s who are not from top schools end up being one because they made money for the VC firm that invested in them. If you are an entrepreneur and you raise money from a VC firm, and then have a successful exit, the chances of you becoming a VC improve dramatically. Surprisingly, even if you dont have a successful exit, your chances of getting into a VC firm improve many fold. If you had a successful exit however, you can possibly raise your own fund, and write your own ticket. 2. Help rich investors make money: As I point out before a key part of being a VC is the ability to raise money. Most folks who I get emails from are like me (15 years ago). I did not have the network to raise funds at that time and neither did I have a lot of money myself to start a VC fund. Raising money from other rich people involves either them trusting and knowing you (they are friends, family, etc.) OR if you have made money for them before. I suspect like me, most of the folks emailing me dont have very rich uncles and aunts, so the best strategy is to help rich folks get richer. This might include introducing them to startups which need investment and then exit to make your investors a profit, or making money for them via the stock market and generating enough returns to both satisfy them and to make a tidy sum for yourself. 3. Work yourself into that role: VC’s dont recruit by going to campus interviews or by posting on job boards. If they do be vary, and run away. Most good VC’s I know only hire from their network or trust a executive search firm to help them get the right AP candidates. Get to know and help executive search (Kornferry or Stanton Chase) recruiters get other candidates (for other roles) and keep your name on the radar. They might come to you when a VC job comes up. The other approach is to network with VC’s so they will let you know when their firm has an opening for an AP. To be on their radar, help them source and talk to great entrepreneurs and send them good quality companies to invest in. Alternately if you have an uncle or aunt at a VC firm, you can get that AP role fairly easily. Of course the easiest way to be a VC is to bankroll the fund with your own money, if you have that much money, then this post is largely useless for you.

Sales isn’t just sexy, its smokin’ hot

[Editorial Notes: Zomato has turned 4 today and the team reflects upon the past 4 years and shares some of the key insights.] We’re turning 4 today (blows candles). Time to go to school now – make the next big leap. We can confidently claim that we have been well brought up by our “parents” – mentors, investors, friends, family and the entire Zomato team. But before we make the next big Rocket Singh Salesman of the year move, this is the perfect opportunity to reflect upon the past 4 years. Everything we dealt with was very typical to any start-up and we also sorted them the start-up way (by hook or by crook, mostly in the 11th hour). However, there was one thing that we approached differently and which we are particularly proud of – sales. Based on our approach and experience, we are sharing some of the stuff that will “set the salesmen apart from the salesboys”. “Now, sales is not a sexy job” We’ve been hearing this forever from pretty much everyone around us – friends in marketing jobs, our families, interview candidates and investors. We wanted to let them know that Sales, especially in a start-up, couldn’t be sexier. Here’s why. Good people make Sales sexy Traditionally, Sales has been a purely commercial job where the product is pretty much standardized and there’s hardly any scope for new ideas, customization or innovation. Even if there is scope, the salesperson is either not trained enough to do so or doesn’t have the authority (true story). The salesperson eats, shoots and leaves… sorry… walks in, negotiates and leaves. Add to that the market’s perception of a typical salesman as an unscrupulous telecom company chap rather than the suave associates from management consulting firms who sell concepts, ideas and hope. Our experience says, hire the latter to make sales sexy. They cost more but ensure that they bring in supernormal returns (revenue) and justify their salaries. Benefits are sexy, Features are not Clients don’t buy features of your product – they buy benefits – and that should be the opening and closing sentence of a salesperson’s pitch. The ideal state is to reach a stage where most of your salespeople become agony aunts for their clients! They should talk stuff that solves clients’ problems. They should be able to dissect the industry and market scenario layer by layer to come up with solutions. They should have networks that the clients can tap into at any point in time for any purpose. For your clients, solutions to any of their problems should be a phone-call away. Here, the role of a salesperson changes from a product / services seller to a consultant – and being a consultant is sexy. Caring about clients is sexy Clients are constantly under pressure from the customers, investors, government, suppliers while barely anyone in the marketplace appreciates them for the entrepreneurs that they are. They have serious business issues and limited market knowledge (in Zomato’s case, due to the hyper-local nature of their business). Become a partner in their woes and act as agents of market efficiency by acting as warehouses of information. Example: We’ve had clients meet us at midnight over a few beers (beer is sexy) to share their sorrows and we make it a point to listen to their needs and provide our best advice. The message to them should be loud and clear – we care about your business as much as you do. Problem solving is sexy A good salesperson asks the right questions, identifies the problem, dissects it, validates it, proposes possible solutions, discusses them and executes them. If he fails, he admits it and works on another solution. If he succeeds, he has a customer for life, a relationship built on results and trust. If he fails, they still remain friends – still a phone call away. #salestip: Litmus test of a good client relationship is whether the client stores your number in his cellphone and picks up your calls / returns missed calls consistently. You want to make Sales in your organization sexy? Turn the concept of traditional sales on its head. Hire stars. Train them on decision-making, not only skills. If you are giving them responsibility, give them authority as well. Make them industry experts. Turn them into problem-solvers. Feel free to write anything on the contract – in spirit, charge your consulting fee. I repeat, Sales isn’t just sexy, its smokin’ hot (cuts the cake) [Guest article contributed by Saurabh Sengupta, Head of India Operations for Zomato.]

How to Make the World Suck Less (my @TEDxMidwest talk)

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Knowing Victory and Defeat

The founders of wildly successful companies - with their world-changing impacts and their awe inspiring wealth creation - receive much well earned praise and financial rewards for turning their great entrepreneurial visions into reality. But what about those with 1-2 degrees of separation who also benefit immensely? Folks like Andy Bechtolsheim - who invested $100,000 into Google in September 1998, a position now worth more than $1.7 billion. Or a Mark Cuban, who rode the Internet wave perfectly, to the tune of selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.9 billion in Yahoo stock. Even better, he had the additional good luck to sell nearly all of that stock near the peak of the Internet bubble. For that matter, how about Mikhail Prokhorov, now with a fortune estimated at over $18 billion, and other rags to riches stories like his driven by having the right friends at the right time?Prokhorov as a young man had as his sponsor Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Potanin - just as many of Russia’s largest state-owned enterprises were being privatized. Prokhorov parlayed this relationship into a controlling interest in the huge Russian nickel business before it became a stand-alone publicly traded company. And he - like Mark Cuban - had the additional boon of turning his equity stake into cash at the absolute right moment (and the circumstances of which are high comedy to say the least). These stories of great luck and fortune are timelessly inspirational for entrepreneurs, investors, and dreamers everywhere. At the same time, they are frustratingly vexing and opaque to turn from descriptive narrative into prescriptive guide.I.E. – if it were only so simple doing “A,” and then having “B” magically appear. But of course luck and good fortune - as a whole lot of business philosophers from Nassim Taleb to Malcolm Gladwell to Joshua Ramo have opined - just doesn’t work that way. There is, however, a LOT that we all can and must do to “let luck in.” Author and speaker Stephen Shapiro offers three great ideas to do so:1. Grasp the Critical Difference Between the Probability of ANY Good Thing, versus a SPECIFIC good thing, Happening. To illustrate, Shapiro puts a twist on the famous birthday example:“…if you ask the question, “How many people do you need in a room to have a 50 percent chance that two people will have the same birthday?” Some people immediately assume it is half of 367, or roughly 184. While that is a logical guess, it is actually incorrect. In fact, you would only need 23 people. Shocking? Try it some time and see what happens. With just 40 people you will have a nearly 90 percent chance that two individuals will have the same birthday.Now I’d like you to consider how many people you would need in a room to have a 50 percent chance that two people share a particular birthday? For example, I was born on April 25. How many people would I need to have in a room to have a 50 percent chance that there is another person with my exact birthday? Surprisingly, the number now increases to over 600.”The business point? While specific goals and objectives are great, be careful to not limit the various permutations that a business journey might take to arrive at a desirous destination. 2. Understand the Difference between The Value of Planning, and being Wed to “A Plan.” Shapiro quotes General and Future President Dwight Eisenhower’s poignant quote that "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." 3. The Great Ones Above All Else, Act. All of the stories of business success are many things, but above all else they are tales of ACTION. Of writing the code. Of making the investment. Of going to the conference. Of talking to that beautiful stranger. Now thinking and being like this does not guarantee that you will become a famous General, or a wildly successful entrepreneur or investor.But the opposite is assured - that without cultivating the mindsets of boldness, of action, of positive expectation, one runs the serious risk of living - as a man of famous great action once so famously said - “with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” read more

The Myth of Persistence Can Ruin Your Life

Kudos to Barbara Taylor for Reaching Your Limit as a Business Owner on the NYTimes blog, a thoughtful reminder about a huge problem: The myth of persistence in business ownership. Given the wrong circumstances, running yourself into a brick wall, over and over, is simply not useful. Her point, put simply: Many owners reach a point in the life of their businesses where they hit a wall, a point beyond which they are either unable or unwilling to go. And her personal story: In my case, I felt like a pinball … I was managing 16 food-service employees, which felt like more than enough for me. My least favorite management tasks – human resources — were consuming the bulk of my time. I knew I needed to scale the business, adding at least one more location to support hiring a full-time manager to take the burden off my husband and me. In short, growth was the answer to our problem, but it would require more money, most likely in the form of a Small Business Administration loan, and I didn’t want to take on either the headache of expanding the business or the worry of incurring debt. My husband and I chose to switch gears and devote the next year to selling our business. She also quotes John Warrilow, author of “Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, with his experience: Somewhere around $3 million dollars of revenue, I went from being the driver of my business to the bottleneck. Each year we stood still, I grew more frustrated. I felt like I was trying to swim in a pair of jeans. Finishing, selling, quitting, or whatever you want to call it, should be obvious, not surprising, and not defeat. It’s far better than getting caught in the myth of persistence, holding on forever, and getting dragged down with it. Don’t go down with your ship.

Morpheus backed Plivo makes it to YCombinator, launches API for SMS & Voice Apps

After Interviewstreet, Morpheus backed Plivo has made it to YCombinator. Plivo provides basic building block APIs in the form of Plivo XML and HTTP API, to create telephony apps, so developers can completely do away with learning the nitty-gritty of the telephony plumbing. Plivo APIs provide functions like Outbound Calling, Fetching Number List, Checking Account Details etc and the company has launched its API platform for voice and SMS applications. Plivo APIs are based on HTTP methods, which make it easy to write applications. You can use any HTTP client in any programming language to interact with the API or even your browser. Plivo uses FreeSWITCH and runs on its own dedicated servers. Plivo was part of Morpheus batch and interestingly, the founders met over GitHub , while trying to integrate telephony into their web applications. The service is currently available only in US and Canada, though one can use their own outgoing carriers or phone numbers (i.e. you can buy numbers from your carrier and integrate with Plivo).

Why You Ought to Build an Online Brand Through Guest Blogging and Not Just Chase SEO Tricks

According to Megan Garber, New York Times revenue is up…and not because of strong SEO but rather the strong brand they built. This makes it a stronger business for the long haul, and has to make us wonder about our own SEO strategies…especially in the face of recent updates like Panda and Penguin. For example, companies like About.com have good SEO going for them, but not so great brand building. And by no means am I trying to throw SEO out the window, it’s just a reminder that a strong online strategy includes both strong brand building and superior SEO techniques. So how do you build that killer brand that will raise revenues? Let me show you. Do you even know what your brand is? If you are like a lot of people and companies, you don’t quite get branding…and you don’t quite know where to start. So, let’s set a foundation real quick with this short little guide: Start with why – Why do you exist? What are you trying to accomplish? Your answer shouldn’t be “To make the best product.” Nobody really wants to do that. Instead, define your brand by virtues that you care about. Think about what you love…what problems you can fix. This is why you exist. Your products are just a means to that end. Create your own market – If you find that the market place is crowded…then redefine it. Find a place in the market place that is not getting served…then serve it and dominate it. Create an awesome customer experience – Your business lives or dies with how your customer experiences your product. If it sucks, then they’ll leave. Always start with your customer in mind and give them what they want. Stay edgy – You may be a company who has gotten some success and even built up a pretty reputable brand, but don’t be satisfied with that! Shake things up to make sure people are still paying attention to you and that you are not getting outdated. Now that you have the foundation for your brand laid out, let’s focus on some specific strategies. Develop your guest writing strategy In general, content marketing is a great way to build your brand and guest posting is the content marketing tactic you want to use. See, ask any online celebrity how they got the success that they have and they will likely tell you that they built up their brand by guest posting. Brian Clark did it. Chris Brogan did it. I do it. Guest posting is a direct line to getting noticed. So, how do you go about writing that guest blog? Whether it’s your first or your hundredth, you need to start out with your strategy: Slow and methodical – This means you will post two or three guest posts a month…if even that. This will help you ease into the role of guest posting. This method will also let you focus on blogs that are a little harder to get writing gigs for, but one post on a big blog like Lifehacker and you could get some serious traffic and subscribers. Fast and furious – The other method is to write as many blog posts as you can. Danny Iny has made a science out of this approach, churning out 11 guest posts in a 6 day period. Sometimes more. If you decide to use this method, then you’ll need to pretty much just accept any guest posting gig anywhere, kind of like what the World’s Strongest Librarian’s did when he wrote 42 blog posts in a 7 week period. The best way to promote this approach is to announce it on your blog or simply email as many blogs as you can. Of course the approach you choose will determine the quality and quantity of your posts. Find the perfect blog to write for Once you’ve decided about your strategy, your next step is to find guest blogging opportunities. Keep in mind that while you are doing these searches that you are looking for blogs that fit into your industry…so use keywords as you try the following techniques: Google – The easiest thing to do is to jump on Google and start searching. Type in phrases like the ones below. With each phrase make sure you include your keyword. For example, “web designer guest posts” or “gamification guest posting submissions.” “Guest post” “Guest post by” “Submit a guest post” “Guest posting submission” Ask prolific guest bloggers – If you see some blogger who always seems to be guest blogging, follow up with him or her and ask them if they can give you some suggestions. Competitor backlinks – Run a backlink analysis of a competitor and see which links are pointing back to their site…and which of those sites has a guest post they wrote. Social search – Use a social search tool like Twitter search and enter the keyword “guest post” to see which people on social channels are sharing the links back to their guest posts. When you find the links, follow them back. MyBlogGuest – Post your request that you want to write guest posts on MyBlogGuest, an online community of bloggers who share information about guest blogging. Once you’ve got options where you want to guest post, your next step is to contact them. Building a professional relationship with your target blogger Of course you could email a blogger and tell them that you want to blog for them. But that’s sort of like cold calling…which doesn’t work very well. There are better ways to do it. Social media makes it easy to start a relationship with A-list bloggers. You can follow them on Twitter or Facebook and even comment on their blog. Those are great places to start! If you are using Twitter and share their content, make sure to share their Twitter handle so they see what you are doing… Then take some time to leave high-quality comment on posts. Another way to get a hold of these guys is to connect with a blogger who has written for this blog in the past. I like this approach because if you can get a recommendation that the blogger knows…you are more likely to get accepted. I think meeting bloggers at conference is also a major way to meet bloggers. There is nothing like meeting them in person! Buy them a drink or dinner and make a good impression on them. Ask them questions and then trade emails before you leave. Once you have that connection with the blogger, take care of it. Email them and tell them you’d love to help them in any way you can. Suggest a small commitment to help them answer comments…as you of course, but in an effort to ease that bloggers work load. Or you could offer to write a free report for them…or find some gap in the content on their website and offer to write the post that fills it. Why is it important to connect with an A-list blogger? This is all part of building your online brand…and a top-notch blogger can really help you get into the big leagues in half the time if you tried to do it on your own. Besides, this person is capable of greasing the slide of success. And you really need to take care of these people…as they will take care of you! Write for the target audience Once you found some blogs that you want to write for and you’ve made the connection, and they’ve accepted your request to write for them… Now you have to figure out who you are writing for. Fortunately there is a fool-proof plan you can use to create content people can’t resist. Read a ton of popular posts on the blog – If you are looking to write a guest post for a big blog like Copyblogger, then read all of their popular articles. Some blogs have a widget that shows a series of different popular posts based on weeks or even months. Read guest posts – Next, hunt down all of the guest posts that other people have written. You can scan them…but what I really want you to do is follow up with that blogger. Tell them great job…and then ask them if they can give you any tips about writing for that blog. Read the comments – Especially on the popular posts. What are people saying? Are they offering ways that the blog post could’ve been improved? What is the host blogger saying? What do the readers like and dislike? This is great stuff to learn from. Create a spreadsheet for this blog – After you’ve collected all this information, put it in a spreadsheet…and create a column for popular post headlines, guest post headlines and for special comments. This may seem like a lot of work to write a blog post, but don’t worry…it will truly pay off in the long run. I promise! And if after all that research you still don’t have a good idea on what you should write then here are two more tips to help you research: Competitor blogs – Hunt down and visit a few blogs that are considered competition with the blogger you want to write a guest post for. Repeat the above process…read all of the popular posts, guest posts and as many comments as you can. And while you’re at it…why not see if you can write for that blog, too? Use trending topic tools – You can also find great ideas by searching for your keywords using tools like Google Trends, Tweetmeme and Google News. Generate cool blog post ideas with this tool Because there is so much competition out there when it comes to writing a guest post…I highly recommend that you use this Google Doc tool by Daniel Butler called the Content Strategy Generator Tool to give you a really incredible edge over the other writers. The tool is pretty simple…just drop in a keyword into cell B3: And let it load. When it finally loads, it will pop up with some pretty sweet data. You’ll get ideas for posts from places like Bing News, Digg, Reddit, YouTube, Topsy, Tiwttorati, Yahoo! Answers and etc. You can find even more ideas if your click over to the “Source and Place” worksheet… Which will then drive you to something pretty cool… You’ll get a bunch of ideas on where you can guest post! In fact, you’ll get a list 50 bloggers and 50 pub editors… This tool is really easy to use and provides a ton of ideas…so give it a shot and let me know what you think of it. Master the components of a high-quality guest post Now that you have a ton of potential ideas, your next step is to actually write the article. Do you want to know the secret to creating rock-solid guest blog post? Here are some tips: Simple – Write to the audience as if it was a class of fifth graders. No, this doesn’t mean you talk down to them…it just means you avoid jargon and slang that they might not understand. You also want to use short sentences and short paragraphs. White space is your friend when it comes to creating content online. People shouldn’t feel like your content is complex…but they should feel like it’s easy to read…no matter the topic. Conversation – Don’t forget that blogging is social media…and what is social media all about? It’s about the community (who you are writing for) and it’s about the conversation (how you are writing). In order to make your article conversational you need to ask questions, use “you” way more than you use “we” or “us” or “them.” Fragments are also okay when it comes to conversation. A great way to learn how to do this is to record a conversation between you and a friend…and then listen to it. Instruct – One of the best ways to write a killer guest post is to write a step-by-step article on a topic that is of interest to the audience. How-to articles are easy to write…because all you have to do to write the article is to write down all of the steps. Then go back and add screen shots. Edit…and you’re done. Links – Before you go emailing this guest post to the blogger, make sure you’ve done your research, and backed that research up with plenty of links…especially internal links. If you want to really impress the blogger, create a post like Ali Luke did with her Copywriting Essentials from A – Z. If you want more help on writing killer guest posts, then check out The Marketer’s Guide to Guest Blogging and the Neil Patel’s Guide to Blogging (or in other words, my guide to blogging). Guest post because you have something to say…not just for links One of the temptations behind writing guest posts is to get the links and traffic back to your site. If that’s you…then you need to start over and make sure you are doing this because you actually have something to contribute to the web. Don’t get me wrong…you want links. But you should also have something very valuable to say. This is why I had you do a bunch of research in the previous step…because it’s impossible to do all that research and not have something valuable to share with a blogging audience. Keep in mind, that Google encourages you to write valuable content for the web…and this includes what you write for a guest blog. Promote your guest post Just because you’ve emailed the post and seen it go live doesn’t mean that you can now sit back and wait for the flood of traffic to arrive. You need to promote your guest post. Building a brand, and I’ll get into this more in a minute, means working the social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Build a brand across your social media profiles I love it when I come across a person or a company that understands what consistency in branding is all about. You’ll see the same image whether you are on Twitter, LinkedIn, their website, Facebook or Pinterest. Here are three brands that are consistent across social media channels: Red Bull - They’ve got the same logo, colors and focus across these medium. And the lifestyle that they promote…extreme sports…is the message that you will find across each social media channel. Vans – What I really like about Vans is that they look like a Fortune 500 company…but act like a mom and pop shop. And their brand is consistent across their social media, whether it is their Tumblr or Twitter account…the language and images are suited to people who love to skate. When you shift from their website to their Twitter account or to their Tumblr…you get the same brand. Comcast – Comcast was one of the first companies to use their Twitter account to handle customer service issues with @ComcastCares. This was lead by a man named Bill Gerth…and the Twitter account was such a success they rolled out even more Twitter accounts and did the same across Facebook, too. So, how do you know if your brand is consistent across your different social media channels? Perform this little test: Wake up in the morning and jump onto your Twitter account. Check out the profile and what you are sharing in the stream. Next, pop on over to your Facebook fan page. Do you get the same feeling? Is the picture even the same? What about the bio? These should all match. Now, check out your blog. What do you see? Run though all of the social media channels you have a profile on. This little exercise should give you a quick picture of how consistent your branding is across your site. Improve your social media engagement quality Most people know that social media is not a one-way advertising tool. Unfortunately, not every brand behaves that way though. Even the big brands are getting it wrong, and not engaging right. For example, a recent study looked at thousands of Twitter mentions for big brands… And found that these big brands were not very good at even responding to complaints that were shared on Twitter. In fact, only about 13% of these complaints got a big brand to respond. 13%. That’s tiny. But that’s not all…for those who did respond they sometimes took over 50 hours to do it! Moreover, some brands stopped responding to tweets during the weekend, which is a huge missed opportunity because only 9% of these tweets are complaints. The bulk of these tweets are from customers who are asking questions. They want the brand to be engaged…but they are dropping the ball. Don’t do that. Waiting ten hours to respond to a tweet is a poor social media strategy…and that will cause you to miss some seriously good opportunities. So how do you improve your social media engagement quality? Understand that social media is not a billboard – You don’t build your brand by plastering advertising messages on Facebook every hour…instead, look to meet the needs of your followers. Ask them what they want…and then give it to them. Understand customer wants – When it comes to social media, all your customer really wants from you is a response. That one little response can go a long way to building a positive brand…so reach out when someone shares your content, asks you a question or messages you. Reply to questions instantly – If someone asks you a question…it’s imperative that you don’t waste time and let the interest of that person grow cold. Answer their question as fast as possible and that will build your brand in a positive way! Monitor brand mentions – Depending how big or popular you are, you should run a search on your brand in Twitter at least twice a day. Or you can use a tool like HootSuite, build a column for brand mentions…and then respond to them right away! This might mean you’ll have to hire someone to do this for you. It’s worth it. Monitor keyword conversations – Follow hashtags to see what people in your industry are talking about…then jump in whenever you get a chance. This is a great way to meet new people and get your brand out there. Share great content – Finally, when you share relevant and useful content from lots of different sources you will easily begin to gain followers or subscribers, and your brand will grow. Conclusion Branding is a huge part of online marketing. In fact, it really should get more emphasis than SEO does when it comes to your strategy. You can have great SEO and a poor brand, but all you’ll do is squander those leads you get from search. Instead, focus on building a solid brand that people love and care about…and then any effort you pour into SEO will get maximized since people finding you by search will be super impressed. What other ways are there to building a brand online?

Why You Ought to Build an Online Brand Through Guest Blogging and Not Just Chase SEO Tricks

The Startup Spouse: On Risks, Trade-Offs And Never Sleeping On The Floor

The following is a guest post by Lisa Rosen, the startup spouse. You can follow her on twitter @entreprenrswife. "He who sleeps on the floor will not fall off the bed." ~Robert Gronock "I quit my job today," announced my husband, Seth Rosen, as he casually dropped his briefcase and strolled through the front door of our apartment. As if it was no big deal. As if quitting one's job is a routine occurrence. To be fair, Seth had talked about leaving his day job to work full time with his best friend, Mike Salguero, on CustomMade.com, a website they had recently purchased. And, to be fair, Seth had asked me repeatedly how I felt about the move. I had assured him that, in no uncertain terms, he had my unequivocal support -- mostly because I didn't think he would actually do it. Yet, here I was, staring at my newly-minted entrepreneur, unsure of whether I should throw up my arms to hug him or strangle him. After all, lots of people talk about starting a company because they think they have a million dollar idea, but very few pull the proverbial trigger. There is a reason for that. Leaving a seemingly safe and reliable salary for the uncertainty and potential perils of a startup company is risky. More startups fail than succeed, especially if a business requires venture capital. A quick search on Wikipedia told me that there are around two million new businesses started in the United States every year, of which less than 800 receive venture financing or 0.04%. CustomMade was already doomed. To make matters worse, it was the summer of 2009 and the US economy was in a deep recession. Was he nuts? Contrary to popular belief, Seth and Mike argued that the height of the Great Recession was an opportune time to start a company. In 2009, talented people were being laid off and investors were looking for better deals. Companies like Disney, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft provided ample precedent that great companies were born during hard economic times. Seth also convinced me that the timing was perfect for a young, well-educated couple with no children and decades of future earning potential to make the leap. Still, trading a plump six-figure salary (and health insurance, as my mother would rightly later point out) for an emaciated startup seemed irrational and incredibly risky to, well, everybody else. "How could you let him jeopardize your financial security?" was the universal cry from friends, family and colleagues. Others probed deeper: "When will Seth start to earn a salary?" "How will you pay your rent?" "Will you have to put off having a baby?" "What does CustomMade do again?" "What if you lose everything?" "Wait, what do you mean you can't afford to come to my wedding?" I was standing in front of a firing squad, dodging the bullets as best I could. Over time it became exhausting and my confidence in Seth and CustomMade began to erode. One afternoon I called Seth at work and told him to be home for dinner, that I was going to cook. He agreed to leave work early only after I told him that chicken parmigiana was on the menu. This was code -- my notoriously limited culinary repertoire consists of any protein that can be breaded and pan fried, and microwave popcorn. If home-style chicken parmigiana is on the dinner menu, then something is up in the Rosen house. The minute Seth stepped through the door my anxiety erupted. "Why are we starting a company now?" I asked. "It seems like too big of a risk." "Well, it depends on how you define risk," Seth said without skipping a beat. He sat down at the kitchen table and poured himself a glass of wine. "How do you define risk?" His knowing look should have tipped me off that this question required more analysis than my first impression. But the answer seemed obvious. Without thinking I responded that "risk" is the chance that something bad will happen. Seth shook his head. "Risk is not just about avoiding bad outcomes. It is the chance of an unexpected outcome good or bad." "Risk is about evaluating trade-offs," he continued. "And evaluating trade-offs requires the consideration of opportunity costs: if I do this, then I can't do that. I could stay at my finance job, continue earning a salary, and insulate myself against the risk of CustomMade's failure. But what about the opportunity cost of my time?" The implication was clear. If he continued as an investment banker, then he could not build CustomMade, attempt to change the way people consume retail goods, and reach for a successful exit. Every day he spent doing the "secure" job was a day he couldn't spend building a company. "Although it seems counterintuitive at first, staying at my day job offers very limited upside financially and professionally. I think that's actually the riskier path." I paused and slowly digested his words. He was right. From the beginning I had been viewing CustomMade through a much different lens. And so had many other people in our lives. This is why the Robert Gronock quote above is so relevant for entrepreneurs and their families. Your interpretation reveals how you define risk. In the years before I married Seth, my life was predictable. As a child, my parents taught me to sit up straight, brush and floss my teeth twice a day, and to always color inside the lines. After high school I followed the safe path from college to law school to the conventional confines of a big Boston law firm that provided me with a reliable paycheck. In those days, after reading Gronock's quote, I would have thought, "Wicked smart!" and promptly traded my injury-prone four-poster bed for a mattress on the floor. But a funny thing happened after I married an entrepreneur. Seth taught me to think differently about the world. The Gronock quote is not sage advice to avoid a bad outcome; it's about a trade-off. By sleeping on the floor you are eliminating a good outcome (a blissful night of sleep) in order to mitigate the chance of a bad outcome (falling off the bed and suffering an injury). Thinking about entrepreneurship in terms of trade-offs and opportunity costs is a better way to think about the associated risks. Based on my discussions with Seth, this analytical framework is the same whether the decision is to start the company or a day-to-day operational matter. In either case, you need to consider your priorities, which are shaped, at least in part, by the opinions of your inner circle. Of course, multiple third-party opinions often complicate matters. This is especially true if you have a spouse like me that Monday morning quarterbacks your decisions. Let me give you an example. Seth's company, CustomMade.com, runs an online marketplace for custom goods and services. They connect their network of makers with consumers who are looking for a durable good (like furniture, jewelry or clothing) to be made custom. In the beginning, I was adamant that the company should do capacity building like how-to-run-a-business workshops and other educational programs for their makers, who range from solo practitioners to large, multi-employee businesses. My thought was that adding extra programs would knit the CustomMade community together. It felt good to make the suggestion, like I was adding value to our company. "Sure," Seth said. "It's a fine idea." I was thrilled. But he never acted on it. Not even after I nagged him for the fifth time. "Listen, it's a good idea. But I have a small team here, and everyone needs to be focused on building the product to make our engines run. If I focus my people on maker workshops, then that takes them away from our core priorities and I risk slowing down product development. See the trade-off?" Oh, right. He was referring to the opportunity costs of his employees' time. I immediately shut up about capacity building, and since then I've tried to keep my backseat driver tendencies to a minimum. When I do provide feedback (solicited and otherwise), I try to frame it in terms of trade-offs. I've even applied the framework to our relationship, but with mixed results. Admittedly, it's hard to stop and consider trade-offs and opportunity costs when you are inherently impulsive, as I am. Unlike me, however, Seth always takes his time to carefully weigh all options before making a decision. But perhaps I should take comfort from that fact. At least I know we'll never be sleeping on the floor.Looking for other startup fanatics? Request access to the OnStartups LinkedIn Group. 130,000+ members and growing daily.Oh, and by the way, you should follow me on twitter: @dharmesh.

Every Entrepreneur Dreams of an Overnight Success

Every startup founder knows implicitly that startup success is a long hard road. Yet we always dream that we are the exception to the rule. So once in a while it’s good to look at some facts to temper our imagination. I was reading an article written by marketing guru Seth Godin a while back where he mentions that “it takes about six years of hard work to become an overnight success”. Based on a small sample of household names from Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg, he is an optimist. Here is some data from Wikipedia: Microsoft – Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Six years later, he managed to land a contract with IBM to provide their IBM PC base operating system. Even still, it was another five years before Microsoft went public in 1986, making him an overnight success worth $350 million. Apple - It took Steve Jobs two decades to become an overnight dot-com billionaire. Established in Cupertino, California in 1976, Apple really didn’t get on the map until the advent of the Macintosh in 1984, eight years later. Even then, it struggled through the 80’s and 90’s, until the advent of the iMac and consumer products. Yahoo! - This company was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994. In April, 1996, Yahoo! had its initial public offering, raising $33.8 million, by selling 2.6 million shares at $13 each. Amazon.com and Yahoo! are the benchmarks in the industry for overnight success, but still required two to three years to really get going. Google - Larry Page and Sergey Brin started working on Google in 1996 – but three years later in 1999, few people had even heard of it yet. But add another five years, and Google had made it, going public in 2004 with a market capitalization of $23B. Facebook - Mark Zuckerberg, while attending Harvard as a sophomore, concocted “Facemash” in 2003 to get a lost girlfriend off his mind. He later changed the name to Facebook. In 2005, Facebook still showed a yearly net loss of $3.63 million. But within five years it became an overnight success, and now has about 400 million users worldwide. Amazon.com - Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994 and took it public three years later, making him a multibillionaire. Amazon's initial business plan was unusual: the company did not expect a profit for four to five years; the strategy was actually more effective than his business plan predicted. Very rare case. Take heed. These examples are generally recognized as the fastest growing companies in recent times, so your odds of matching their speed are not good. Investors will always look askance these days at a business plan which projects Amazon.com results. With most businesses you rarely hear about the months and years of hard work behind the scenes. You rarely hear about the major catastrophes followed by major miracles that brought the businesses back from the brink. You rarely hear about the owners who took out second mortgages to make payroll or to hire a salesperson. If you don’t have realistic expectations, you can quickly get into the wrong state of mind. You’ll be thinking that to be a success your business has to make you a billionaire in three years. Then you’ll give up way too soon. This notion of overnight success is an urban legend, and very misleading. If you're starting something new, expect a long and challenging journey. But that's no excuse to move slowly. Many entrepreneurs think they are running, but find themselves falling farther and farther behind a rapidly moving target. Time passes quickly in this mode. Marty Zwilling

An evening with Google TV [API, App Development]

Attending a recent hackathon sponsored by Google, Sony, and Zenika, I walked off at the end of the event with a Logitech set top box for Google TV. After an entire night of brainstorming, programming, testing, and barely keeping awake during the wee hours, I’ve rested enough and am conscious enough to give you some opinions of Google TV, the technologies involved, and what I think should be your investment in it. For development teams, Google TV is a breeze. If you have noted recent tech talks by Google, this technology doesn’t feature in prime time. That is because, and that is also to your advantage, it does not require anything very different or special than if you were already programming for Android or the web. Since it supports both Android, Google’s mobile platform, and also web technologies, if your current applications employ either of those technologies then with some amount of modifications, you could be up and running on Google TV also. Obviously, you will not find support for technologies that are quite irrelevant for TV – like GPS, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, etc. Though Android for the TV has so far lagged behind that for mobile, even current releases, however, have all the necessary technologies to build relevant apps for TV. Apps relevant for TV are going to face some fundamental differences of usage from the mobile and web. Most of them have to do with the distance of the user from the device and the low-resolution, large screen specifications – text cannot be too small or too much, elements on the screen have to be large to ease selection and choice. Some of the others are just about our existing approach to TV – usually a lazy, laid back disposition. The apps that my team and other teams designed and implemented took these into consideration, and it appeared to me very interesting. I personally like simplicity in applications – useful, functional, regularly used features over complexity. Apps for Google TV, if designed well, by their very nature demands this – selection cannot be fine and delicate as input devices are more coarse than a mouse on your desktop or touch on a smartphone. We had under 12 hours to finish the application. Our team, consisting of Sam, a French-Algerian who suggested the idea, Yakhya from Senegal, and me from India, chose to do a simple mashup between TV and Twitter using Android for the TV. The application would occupy three sections on the screen. Allow the user to select from a list of channels on the left, show the appropriate tv channel in the main part when a selection is made, and below it have a twitter feed that has recent tweets with related hashtags or keywords. The initial hope was to overlay the feeds on the video itself, but that feature is not allowed as of now, though I think that is not because it is technically impossible but probably because it is restricted. Setup was easy with the existing Eclipse environment for Android. From within Eclipse itself we updated to have the development APIs for Google TV. Then we created an emulator for the larger screen size of the TV and we were able to run a sample Android app. We were also using a Logitech device and keyboard that had the Google TV platform in it for both testing and demo on the projector. The setup again was straightforward – the TV box connects to the local WiFi and since our computers were connected to it too, we fed the output from our computers directly over WiFi to the TV. It worked without a hitch. The demo by individual teams at the end of the event showcased a few different applications. Two teams had done web games. Both of them allowed users to login from their mobile device connected to the same site as the TV and play a multiplayer game. Another had created a visual flow of images and text that would eventually combine information from social networks. Others had worked on technical hacks, but which is now difficult to explain in a short article, but which also wouldn’t have been a consumer facing application. The event was an overall success even though I started off with the suspicion that twelve hours was too little to create anything useful on an entirely new device type. None of the participants had previously worked on or at least done anything significant on Google TV. Keeping that in mind and the high quality of the demos, it ought to give one an indication that the hurdles to be productive on the platform are low and very few. If you have existing experience, yourself or within your company, developing applications for the mobile or web, then the barriers to entry are very low. The question then would be the potential upside. Google TV, the tech behemoth’s offer to bring the world in front of your sofa and predicted by ex-CEO Eric Schmidt as going to be on a majority of TVs available by the middle of 2012, has not quite panned out as fast as prophesied. On the other hand, it is not struggling for breath either. If you were to draw up a risk-benefit analysis, the known factor is that the potential investment required is very low. The potential upside, is clearly unpredictable, but my guess is that it is either medium or high. If you are a small company or a big company with a mindset to explore and be at the edge of technology offerings, you should give Google TV a try. Don’t yet entirely, forgive the pun, switch to that channel in lieu of all other business possibilities, but if you are in the mobile and web business, Google TV should definitely remain on your agenda. And here’s something for your goody bag as you leave – a short video from Google I/O 2012 with some app demonstrations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OaKI4mXZ9w. [The author is an independent technology enthusiast with a keen interest in everything technology. He is currently rediscovering the web, mobile, newer programming languages, and businesses around it. You can discover more about him at sathishvj.com.]

Why Indian etailers are bullish about private labels?

Online retail in India has seen rapid growth over the past one year with increasing population of shoppers on the internet. During the initial days of etailing in the country, we have seen the evolution of players such as fashionandyou.com, yebhi.com, 99labels.com and myntra.com selling the branded products (especially in apparels & accessories) on discounted price. As online retail takes off further in India, a host of private labels have gathered to tap the growing population of online buyers in India—27.2 million, according to ComScore, a digital measurement agency. After Shersingh, Zovi and freecultr, latest to join the bandwagon of private label is yepme.com and pudu.com. In addition to that myntra.com, one of the leading etailers of lifestyle and fashion products is also slated to launch its own private label later this year. So the question arises – why these players are bullish on introducing private labels? Ask Michel Piers, co-founder, Pudu.com, a Bangalore based etailer of its own label and he flatly answers, “We strongly believe that the next big lifestyle brand in India will be an ecommerce brand. We already have enough of the Jabongs and Myntras and host of others all selling the same range of products. While the numbers of products they sell per day are impressive to say, the least it begs the question “what are they doing that is different”? We are selling you a “lifestyle” not just a product”. The major reasons for etailers getting into private label seem to be margin as most of the etailers are selling branded products at a very thin margin and importantly, are passionate about creating their own product line. By selling branded products etailers usually make 10 – 15 percent margin; however in private labels it is as high as 30 to 60 percent. Throwing light on margins in private label, Satish Mani, Co founder, Zovi.com said “across the world, private labels enjoy healthy margins of 30 to 60 percent. Zovi’s margins vary in this range across categories of apparel and accessories”. Branded products offered by etailers usually have expensive price tag as opposed to private labels. And around 50 percent of major lifestyle etailer’s orders such as Myntra and Jabong come from non-metro cities where price point is a major factor. Speaking about opportunities for private labels in non-metro cities, Vivek Gaur, CEO, and Yepme.com said “our focus is mainly the non-metro audience and they contribute about 70 per cent to Yepme’s turnover. Consumers in non metros and small towns don’t have easy or at all access to brands; however their aspirations have been growing quite fast. We seek out to democratize fashion. Indians living in even the most remote part of the country can now order the latest merchandises in fashion through our portal”. Meanwhile, wardrobe size of Indians has also grown significantly, creating an opportunity for private clothing labels in online space. According to comScore, in 2011, the apparel and accessories category grew 166% (in terms of unique visitors) over 2010. Pointing out the opportunity in private label space, Ganesh Subramanian, Chief Merchandising Officer, Myntra.com said that we see a good opportunity in filling fashion – value gap for youth in private brands to start with and later stages across other categories. He also added “there are clear customer segments we see who needs great products at an affordable price”. According to India Private Labels Apparels& Accessories Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2017′, the apparel & accessories segment is expected to grow. The consumers have accepted private labels well in the apparel & accessories market as they increase the number of options to choose from. The introduction of private label products in the apparel segment has increased the customer base for organized retailing (including online retail) by attracting people afraid of the high price tags of the branded products. Challenges: The biggest challenge in building a private label brand over internet is to establish credibility and aspiration for the brand , where the customer lacks an offline touch and feel experience to relate to the brand. When consumers buy a “brand” they know what to expect and when they buy a new label, there are bound to be quite a few “doubters” that what they see on the website is what they get or if the fit will be right or not. “The challenge is to get them to buy for the first time and we need to “WOW” each and every one of them because the old adage rings true a satisfied customer is your best brand ambassador”, said Michel. Some of the experts in the industry raise concern over return rate of COD orders attached with private labels and argue that leading etaliers selling branded products have been grappling with higher COD returns. In this scenario private labels are bound to register more COD return rates as trust factor is greater with them in contrast of branded products. However, interestingly zovi.com, one of the early evangelizer of private labels in online space negates the concern over higher COD return rates as they account around 5 percent of COD return rates only. Subramanian has different view to it as he points out “one of the key reasons for returns is fit. With us owning the entire supply chain, we will have a better hold on the consumer needs and product specification. We don’t see any reason why returns would be more”.

The End of Boys

A trend we've followed for a long time is the End of Men. This refers to a growing set of data and trends indicating that men are not as well equipped for the demands and stresses of modern society as women. Because we don't really think men are going to disappear anytime soon, we prefer to call this trend The Rise of Women, and we call their growing economic impact It's a She-conomy. But regardless of what you call it, one of the major drivers of this trend is women are greatly outpacing men educationally. For example, close to 60% of today's college students are women. But it's not just college. Women are outperforming men starting in elementary school. David Brooks New York Times column Honor Code nicely summarizes the problems of boys at school. Key quote: "By 12th grade, male reading test scores are far below female test scores ... 11th-grade boys are now writing at the same level as 8th-grade girls. Boys used to have an advantage in math and science, but that gap is nearly gone." It's not just the U.S. According the article "boys are falling behind not just in the U.S., but in all 35 member-nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development." The reason for the educational decline of boys? Brooks says: "The information age rewards people who mature early, who are verbally and socially sophisticated, who can control their impulses. Girls may, on average, do better at these things." Prior to the Atlantic article The End of Men, we used to get a lot of push back on this trend. The good news is there is growing recognition that men are struggling with our educational system and the struggles start when they are boys.

List: 10 Startups that demoed at UnPluggd

Selected from over 583 entries, here goes the list of 10 startups that demoed at UnPluggd (in no particular order) gitGrow URL: http://www.gitgrow.com | Contact: vinita@vangal.com What is it: gitGrow offers a simple and easy web analytics interpretation and recommendation engine for SaaS companies offering them metrics and insights that matter. Description gitGrow offers a simple and easy web analytics interpretation and recommendation engine for SaaS companies offering them metrics and insights that matter. With integration with Google analytics it pulls key metrics and provides them with a simple dashboard to view the most important indicators that matter. This assessment of the company’s efforts provides a quick view into the customer acquisition funnel and the channels from which they arrive at the company’s website.It then offers comparable benchmarks from companies in their industry vertical and category targeting the same customer segments. This allows the company to baseline its efforts and compares its sources of users, conversion from those sources and cost of user acquisition to other companies. This helps them look for areas to improve.The final part of the solution is the codifying of recommendations and suggestions to improve based on tapping into the expert internal knowledge base within gitGrow instead of hiring expensive experts.These suggestions are based on patterns noticed in the analytics that help the company prioritize its efforts.gitGrow helps companies increases the number of qualified leads to the company, identify new sources of customer acquisition, and lowers cost of customer conversion. All of this with a complete focus on making SIMPLE. Our “”Mobile only”" strategy makes it easy for top executives and stakeholders to consume our recommendations and make it actionable. ——————– Instamojo URL: http://www.instamojo.com | Contact: sampad@instamojo.com What is it? Sell your stuff by just sharing a link. Description Sell your stuff by just sharing a link. Instamojo works in 3 simple steps:Step 1. POST your stuff and get a unique checkout link.Step 2. SHARE this link to your friends, fans & followers.Step 3. SELL your stuff with our simple checkout page. That’s it! ——————–SupportBee URL: http://www.supportbee.com | Contact: prateek@supportbee.com What is it? SupportBee is a simple & snappy help desk software that doesn’t kill your company’s human face Description Apart from a friendly Gmail like interface, SupportBee introduces a new support paradigm. Unlike traditional softwares, tickets in SupportBee have only two states – Answered & Unanswered, resulting in a workflow that works extremely well for small teams.We also have a sensible pricing model. We are the first help desk to offer charge based on support ticket volume rather than number of agents in the system, thereby encouraging you to involve your entire team in customer support.Finally, SupportBee has a well thought out and complete API. Using this API, customers can easily extend/modify the system to their own needs. ——————– INVNTN Wireless URL: http://www.arivu.com | Contact: srini@invntn.com What is it? An AR-based mobile consumer engagement platform giving brands the oomph to create some awesome digital experiences to ‘wow’ their consumers. Description Brands engaging their customers by creative and highly interactive means will increase brand recall and brand loyalty. Marketers are always looking for innovative means to give their product a boost in a market flooded by competitors fighting for the same buck. No matter how simple a product is and no matter how many competitors there are in the market, an out-of-the-box marketing campaign can breathe an incredible amount of life into a product. As opposed to reading a print ad or watching a TV ad, marketing campaigns that let the consumers interact and deeply immerse themselves with the brand have already taken their first step towards a successful sale.Arivu gives brands the power to firmly engage with their customers via digital experiences on smart phones and tablets. Arivu enables brands to use their same print ads on newspapers, magazines and billboards, transform them into digital media and deliver them to their customers. The digital media is way more fun, digestible, complete and something that just cannot be achieved by print ads or other traditional methods of advertising. The experience is something so satiable, it’s hard not to smile :) Snuggly fitting into the device, the media can be 3D artwork, a short video clip, a viral music number, a simple game, a quiz, hidden coupons, a relevant landing page or a point-blank impulsive point of sale. Such engagements will cause intense excitement among consumers turning them into brand evangelizers.The magic behind Arivu is its leading edge cloud and mobile based Augmented Reality technology platform. This technology can be downloaded as a free app into smart phones and tablets. The app shows its user a camera view and enhances the objects in the view by superimposing campaign’s digital media on top of it. The app becomes the lens into the various campaigns of the various brands Arivu supports. As AR technology becomes more mainstream, brands may feel tempted or pressurized to release their own AR app. We at INVNTN believe this is the wrong approach. Leading to fragmentation, such strategies tend towards half-baked and unsatisfactory marketing campaigns and not to mention the time, effort and cost involved. There isn’t one newspaper per brand or one magazine per advertising campaign, and there won’t be one AR app per brand. A unified means of information consumption is key. Arivu steps up and solves this problem. Our app simultaneously runs several campaigns of several brands. Yes, just one app!Arivu’s feedback and rewards system strives to make every campaign as entertaining and encouraging to the consumers as possible without losing focus on the objective and the utility of the campaign. Such incredible experiences will go a long way in affecting brand recall, loyalty and topline. ——————– VacationLabs URL: http://www.vacationlabs.com | Contact: saurabh@vacationlabs.com What is it? Software that enables tour & activity operators to accept online bookings & payments on their website within minutes of signing-up. Description The VacationLabs Tour Management Software gives tour & activity operators all the tools to help them manage their business online. The product enables them to:(a) Accept online bookings & payments on their website within minutes of signing-up(b) Configure booking rules to fit their view of the business.(c) Manage multiple sales channels – online, phone, email, agents, walk-ins – all in one place(d) Market & distribue their products online(e) Manage customer relationships better to increase referral sales ——————–gazeMatrix URL: http://uberlabs.net | Contact: deobrat@uberlabs.net What is it? Using groundbreaking computer vision technology, gazeMetrix measures brand presence in TV streams and internet videos and social platforms. Description gazeMetrix allows media buyers and media monitoring companies to accurately identify, measure and analyze presence of brand logos in video streams coming off live TV streams and even internet videos/photos.Combining our state of the art computer vision technology in the cloud and an amazingly simple UI, gazeMetrix lets you quickly get to the stats that matter to your brand:* total visibility in seconds* logo size wrt the screen* logo position and tilt/rotation information ——————– uniRow URL: http://www.unirow.com | URL: nimit@unirow.com What is it uniRow is an integrated live collaboration product. With uniRow, you can host a video conference, organize webinars and live stream events. Description uniRow is an integrated live collaboration product which brings together the simplicity of browser-based collaboration and the accessibility of telephony. With uniRow, you can host a video conference, organize webinars and live stream events. Our bandwidth-aware video streaming technology ensures maximum adoption in unstable bandwidth conditions uniRow offers a comprehensive collaboration suite which includes:1. Group video calling with upto 10 simultaneous videos2. Document sharing and storage in our vault3. Desktop sharing4. Integrated Text Chat5. Telephony integration to support hybrid conferences6. Q&A management systems for audience engagement in webinars7. APIs and widgets to integrate with other applications and websites. ——————– Reverie Language Technologies Pvt. Ltd. URL: http://www.reverie.co.in | Contact: vivek.pani@reverie.co.in What is it SDK for application developers to enable text display, typing and transliteration in multiple languages. Supports 32 languages including Indian. Description More than 85% of Mobile phones and Tablets do not have support for complex scripts like Indian, Perso-Arabic and other South-Asian languages. Using Reverie’s SDKs for popular platforms like Android, J2ME, etc, application developers can enable their applications to support such languages almost instantly. The SDK for android contains a set of UI controls like buttons, text boxes, edit boxes etc. that are extensions of Android default SDK controls. This makes the application development or porting, seamless. The SDK for J2ME or Symbian also provide a set of easy to use APIs with examples of sample usages. The SDK is delivered as a library that becomes a part of a project which uses it. There is no installation process or any IDE plugin, making the use independent of IDE type of version. The size of the SDK, memory requirement and performance are optimised to work on entry level devices without compromising on functionalities or user experience. The SDK versions are available for entry level phones with fixed font size capabilities, numeric physical keys and low resolution screen to smart phones with scalable fonts support, touch screen and high resolution screen. SDK components can be flexibly added or configured for the languages desired so that the application can be kept light while supporting the languages and features that are most optimally necessary to be provided. With components for multiple languages used together, the SDK also offers utility to process text in multiple languages. This includes unique search and compare APIs in which a string in one language can be compared with a string in another language and the cross language match can be established.The SDK contains the following features & components.1) Text rendering and fonts to enable text display.2) Keypads and predictive input for typing and interactivity.3) Transliteration for phonetic conversion of contents from any language to several other languages.4) Cross language string matching.The aspect of user experience is often neglected while building applications/solutions for regional language users. However, the regional language text consumption till date has largely been in the print media, like newspapers and magazines. Thus, it is imperative to deliver user experience on digital applications and devices, at least on par with print media, if not better. Reverie’s language SDK also delivers the best user experience in the world for complex scripts.Reverie’s language SDK’s guarantee to deliver:• Best user experience in the world across the entire range of their solutions for text display, text input and content handling and processing.• Best complex script fonts in the world for any device or application.• 100% accuracy in rendering of text.• Lowest memory footprint for any device or application.• Fastest time to market for roll-out of any number of new languages. ——————– iXIGo Trip Planner *URL: http://www.ixigo.com | Contact: saurabh@ixigo.com What is it Unlike horizontal search engines that respond to user queries in the form of links to pages with information, iXiGO Trip Planner attempts to understand user inputs and presents curated travel content summarized in a visual representation of options for modes of transportation, directions and rich information about destinations. Description “Trip Planner” – (http://www.ixigo.com/tripplanner), is a first-of-its-kind product for trip planning and travel research. Unlike horizontal search engines that respond to user queries in the form of links to pages with information, iXiGO Trip Planner attempts to understand user inputs and presents curated travel content summarized in a visual representation of options for modes of transportation, directions and rich information about destinations. It further allows travelers to discover the cheapest and fastest ways of going from one town to another and includes ideas on what to do there, where to stay, and where to eat. This user-friendly approach, allowing travelers to type a query in natural language and presenting a unique infographic for the answer, is a global industry first.iXiGO’s Trip Planner is most suitable for travelers who wish to make an informed choice of modes of transportation for their trip, across flights, trains, buses and taxis. In addition, the Trip Planner shows relevant destination information with the top recommendations from the web. A sample query for “Lucknow to Shimla” – http://www.ixigo.com/q/lucknow-to-shimla yielded several interesting options for the journey, ranging from the fastest combination of a flight and a taxi, to the cheapest combination of a train and a bus. In addition, the Trip Planner also showed the distance, driving directions for the trip, and for Shimla – weather, what to see, top restaurants, top hotels in budget, mid-range and luxury categories, and nearby destinations of interest. One can further deep-dive into each category and get detailed information on locations, descriptions, rates / prices / entry fees, opening times, best time to visit and more.With Trip Planner iXiGO is transforming from being a travel search engine to a travel knowledge engine by developing an understanding of common travel-related queries and answering them just like a human being would. * We announced during the nomination process that UnPluggd is also open to established companies (and not just startups) who are launching new products and iXiGo’s TripPlanner belonged to this category. ———– ChargeBee URL: http://www.chargebee.com | Contact: krish@chargebee.com What is it ChargeBee – The affordable subscription billing platform that powers small and emerging businesses. Description ChargeBee provides an intuitive platform to automate the entire recurring billing process to run subscription services. ChargeBee provides a flexible framework to define pricing, discounts and promotion to automate recurring billing for subscription businesses. ChargeBee provides ready integration to multiple payment gateways of merchant’s choice globally and abstracts all the transaction handling complexities with an automated solution. Respond to market conditions better by having ability to change pricing, run promotions without developer dependency and reduced sales outstanding. And the beauty is the invoice generation, email notifications is all automated to ensure your billing is completed in minutes and not weeks. With ChargeBee businesses can integrate via a powerful API with lots of user interface flexibilities or let ChargeBee deliver the payment pages via hosted payment page and still delivering an in-app experience to customer. ChargeBee’s customer engagement and billing support features are designed to help you increase conversions, engage better with customers and help you succeed in the highly competitive subscription business so you have more time and resources to focus on marketing and product development. ————— We invite all our readers to play with these products and connect directly with the startups to explore partnerships. Aside, very soon we will share the selection process we followed for UnPluggd. - Do join UnPluggd Facebook group for more updates.

Indian government appoints Infosys’ Kris Gopalakrishnan to head cloud computing panel

Indian government is formulating policy framework for Cloud computing services and has appointed Infosys’ Executive Co-Chairman, Kris Gopalakrishnan to head the panel. The panel will suggest a framework to promote cloud computing service in and from the country and the government has also asked the Department of Electronics and Information Technology Secretary, Mr J. Sathyanarayana, to discuss cloud computing issues with the industry after the National IT Policy is approved.(source) Cofounder of Infosys, Kris Gopalakrishnan took over the CEO role in 2007 and is currently the Chairman of the International Institute of Information Technology,Bangalore, and Vice Chairman of the Board for Information Technology Education Standards (BITES) set up by the Government of Karnataka. Image credit: wikipedia

10 Famous CEOs Who Think You Should Skip College

The fact that the debate over whether a college degree is a sound investment even exists says volumes about the state of higher education in America today. But not only is the debate real, well-known figures are getting in on the discussion. It would be one thing if musicians or baseball players were making noise about how they skipped college and turned out fine, but it’s another thing to hear millionaire businessmen say college is not a must. These 10 past and present CEOs, founders, and all-around corporate stars bear witness that you might be better off leap-frogging campus for the real world: Peter Thiel: The uncontested leader of the anti-college movement is PayPal co-founder and former CEO Peter Thiel. Himself a billionaire thanks to his entrepreneurial spirit and sound investments in companies like Facebook, Thiel believes college stifles entrepreneurship or gets in the way of business opportunities. He sees the high number of successful CEOs without college degrees as proof that a degree is not necessary. To prove his point, he launched the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, which pays the 20 brightest students under the age of 20 he can find to drop out of school and do their own research and create their own businesses. Mark Cuban: Add “traditional college education” next to “NBA refs” on Mark Cuban’s list of things that rile him up. In a recent blog post, the billionaire Mavericks owner and chairman of HDNet forecasted that soon incoming college students will realize that student loans can’t be “flipped” for great jobs after graduation. Add to that the skyrocketing costs of attending traditional colleges, Cuban said, and students will stop coming, causing the entire system to destabilize. He points to free education resources like Khan Academy and for-profit institutions as effective alternatives for the future. Warren Buffett: Although he went to college and thinks some students should, too, billionaire Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett now says he doesn’t even know where his degrees are. None of his three children went to college either, a fact that hasn’t prevented Buffett from inviting his son Howard to succeed him as head of Berkshire Hathaway. “I don’t think college is for everyone,” Buffett says. According to him, the best education is investing in yourself. Whether this means college or something else, the important thing is to always be improving your abilities. Seth Godin: Squidoo founder Seth Godin is well-known as a business writer and entrepreneur and has been called “America’s greatest marketer.” In a 2010 blog post, this expert marketer described what he saw as “the coming meltdown in higher education.” Among other points, he claimed the correlation between a typical college degree and success is weak. Luckily, he saw plenty of solutions for high school grads willing to think outside the box: gap years, research internships, and entrepreneurial ventures. To Godin, mass-market degrees from traditional colleges will soon be a thing of the past. Steve Jobs: In his lifetime, Steve Jobs transformed the conventional ways of thinking about personal computing. We may soon find that Jobs was also on the right side of the next wave of thinking about higher education. In an interaction with President Obama, made famous in biographer Walter Isaacson’s books Steve Jobs, the former Apple CEO and Reed College dropout explained to the president that his company had had to employ Chinese engineers “because he couldn’t find 30,000 engineers to be able to do the work that needed to be done.” These engineers did not need four-year degrees, just proper training. The president later remarked several times, “We’ve got to find ways to train those 30,000 manufacturing engineers that Jobs told us about.” Ben Nelson: Nelson’s resume includes a stint as the CEO of photo-sharing web service Snapfish. Now he’s casting his net into the waters of higher education, and he’s got his sights trained on the Ivy League. Through a partnership with free online education site Udacity, Nelson and his board of ex-university presidents are launching The Minerva Project, an online-only institution offering classes from world-class instructors to Ivy League-caliber students who couldn’t get into the Ivy League. He says, “At Minerva, we care about two things only: Are you brilliant, and do you have potential to change the world?” If you do, skipping the traditional college experience for Minerva might be just the ticket. Sean Parker: Remember Napster? If you ever used the music-sharing site (which we know you did), you can thank John and Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, who was also the first president of Facebook. When Forbes wanted tips from billionaires who never went to college, they turned to Parker. His response? Skip college and Google your education. “When these incredible tools of knowledge and learning are available to the whole world, formal education becomes less and less important,” he said. “We should expect to see the emergence of a new kind of entrepreneur who has acquired most of their knowledge through self- exploration.” Richard Branson: We don’t want to put words in the Virgin CEO’s mouth, but based on some of his quotes, Richard Branson certainly seems to think it’s OK to skip college. “You certainly can’t guarantee [success] just by following someone else’s formula,” he says. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing…” We do know he at least thinks half of college can be skipped; he recently wrote that college courses around the world need to be slashed in half to keep student debt down and get young people out into the working world faster. Bill Gates: Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates famously dropped out of Harvard when the software company began to take off. Today he is regularly cited as proof positive that a lack of a college degree does not preclude a dropout from becoming a billionaire. Recently, he made the case that if you’re a motivated student, you soon won’t need college at all. He told a tech conference audience, “Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university.” Caterina Fake: You may not know the name Caterina Fake, but she helped found Flickr, an image hosting site that now hosts nearly one picture for every person on the planet. In a 2010 article, she channeled Peter Thiel by saying colleges are like factories, which take in students and turn out scholars. In other words, they kill entrepreneurs. To learn how to be an entrepreneur means immersing yourself in an industry, watching other entrepreneurs, building things yourself, and gaining real-world experience. Take a few years off to go to college and you may find yourself hopelessly behind. This article was first posted in Online MBA.

Missoula Marathon

Marathon #22 is in the books. I ran the Missoula Marathon today in 4:48:00. It’s my first marathon since the American River 50 Mile Race and it put the demons from the 50 miler firmly in my rear view mirror. I was a little nervous going into this one as my longest run since the 50 miler was only 12 miles (last weekend). I’ve been running consistently up in Keystone the last month, but shorter distances because of the altitude (9000 feet), the hills (lots of them), and the trails (most of my runs). Last week was my first week over six hours of running and I got to around 32 miles, but I felt very light on the distance going into this marathon. I knew I had a huge base from my training for the 50 miler but I hadn’t really started enjoying running again until the beginning of June. So I started off slow using an 8:2 pattern (8 minutes running, 2 minutes walking). It took a few miles for me to settle down but my goal was to do the first half in 2:30 and then see what I had in me. I went through the first half in 2:31:38 right on target. I felt really strong and decided to just keep cruising to mile 18 and then open it up and see what I had left. Mile 17 was 11:34 and then the following miles were 10:19, 10:06, 9:57, 9:58, 10:11, 10:21, 10:02, 10:08, 9:14 with a 7:54 for the last 0.2. Eight of the last nine miles used an 8:2 pattern (I ran the last 1.2 without a walk break) so the times are even more powerful since my running pace during these segments was often sub 9 minute miles, which is very fast for me. Basically, I scorched the second half. 2:16:22. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s a big negative split (2:31, 2:16). While I was glad to be done, I had plenty in the tank when I crossed the finish and could have easily kept going for a while. Missoula has been really fun. I can’t remember if I’ve been here before (I’ve been to Bozeman plenty) but it’s a neat town, the people are super friendly and smart, and there’s a budding startup community which I’m going to blog about tomorrow. For everyone who has welcomed me here the past few days, thank you! For those of you who supported my random act of kindness for Justin Salcedo, we ended up raising $11,487 for him. Wow. Huge thanks and hugs to everyone. And Amy, once again, you are an amazing sherpa. I couldn’t do this without you.

How bundling benefits sellers and buyers

There is a widespread belief in technology circles that bundling of cable TV, newspaper, magazine and other information goods will go away now that those products can be distributed à la carte on the internet. The assumption seems to be that bundling is an artifact of another era when distribution was physical. But this reasoning misses the economic logic behind bundling: under assumptions that apply to most information-based businesses, bundling benefits buyers and sellers. Consider the following simple model for the willingness-to-pay of two cable buyers, the “sports lover” and the “history lover”: What price should the cable companies charge to maximize revenues? Note that optimal prices are always somewhere below the buyers’ willingness-to-pay. Otherwise the buyer wouldn’t benefit from the purchase. For simplicity, assume prices are set 10% lower than willingness-to-pay. If ESPN and the History Channel were sold individually, the revenue maximizing price would be $9 ($10 with a 10% discount). Sports lovers would buy ESPN and history lovers would buy the History Channel. The cable company would get $18 in revenue. By bundling channels, the cable company can charge each customer $11.70 ($13 discounted 10%) for the bundle, yielding combined revenue of $23.40. The consumer surplus would be $2 in the non-bundle and $2.60 in the bundle. Thus both buyers and sellers benefit from bundling. This model is obviously dramatically oversimplified. In real life, bundling tends to flatten the demand curve (here is some background on demand curves, and here is academic paper that presents this argument in rigorous mathematical terms). Suppose the demand curves for ESPN and the History Channel look like this: The green boxes represent revenue for the seller. The deadweight loss areas to the right of the green boxes are transactions that would have benefited buyers and sellers but are not occurring because the revenue-maximizing prices are set too high. Now consider what happens when you bundle channels. The key assumption is that individual buyers lie on different x-axis points of the demand curves of different channels. Sports lovers lie on the left of the ESPN demand curve but on the right side of the History Channel curve. To aggregate demand curves, you don’t stack one on top of the other. You add consumers’ willingness-to-pay separately for each channel. Using the above simplified model, the two demand curves that go from $10 to $3 become one curve that stays flat at $13. In general, adding the individual demand curves creates a flatter demand curve: A flatter demand curve lets sellers charge prices that capture larger areas under the curve and pass more surplus back to consumers. The only loser is the deadweight loss area. Some things to note about bundled pricing: 1. Bundled pricing is one reason why subscription models like Spotify should ultimately win out over à la carte models like iTunes. Subscription commerce can also be thought of as a form of bundling. 2. There are other ways to get some of the benefits of bundled pricing – for example versioning goods, and offering bulk discounts. 3. The benefits of bundled pricing are proportionate the buyers’ variance of preferences for the goods. Hence bundled pricing works best in highly “taste-based” goods like media, and wouldn’t have any benefit for fully commoditized goods (e.g. a bundle of stocks) 4. Bundled pricing can also hurt consumers if it is used by incumbents to exploit their broader catalog to “deter entry” by new competitors. This was a common complaint against Microsoft in the 90′s when they bundled applications like Internet Explorer with Windows.

View from yesterday’s training session. Don’t let the serene, picturesque view fool...

View from yesterday’s training session. Don’t let the serene, picturesque view fool you. I was gasping for air and sweaty when we stopped to take the snap #founderlife

How bundling benefits sellers and buyers

Startup Professionals Musings: If You See Yourself Here, Skip the Startup Dream

People who can’t manage their own lives don’t make good entrepreneurs. Small businesses require multi-tasking, work prioritization, and decision-making, with no entourage of assistants and specialists. That’s why Fortune 500 executives usually don’t survive as startup CEOs. First you have to learn to accept total responsibility for things that happen to your business, just like you are responsible for everything in your personal life. Maybe you are comfortable with having a spouse in control of your personal life, but couples running a business are high risk. If you recognize yourself in these clues below, you may not be fully managing yourself. These points represent real problems for entrepreneurs trying to manage a startup: You often feel overwhelmed and out of control. There is always more to do than time to do it. Usually the stress people feel does not really come from having too much to do, but from having to make decisions on what to do first, and not setting reasonable targets. Starting many things, but completing few. Productivity is all about the ability to complete tasks. It requires tradeoffs and decisions, to declare that something is finished. Get in the habit of finishing what you start. Perfectionists need not apply. You like to defer big things until later. If you catch yourself deferring important tasks, in favor of smaller easy things, that’s a management problem. Adopt a “do it now” motto, and tackle your to-do list in priority order, rather than crisis order. Over-thinking and second-guessing yourself. If you spend more time thinking and worrying about a task, than doing the task, then you are not managing yourself. Don’t waste your precious creative energy. Finish items, and get them off your mind. Avoiding new opportunities due to fear of failure. Real entrepreneurs look at every new opportunity as an exciting and new-life experience. They are energized by the risk, and learn from every failure. Counting your weaknesses. Good business leaders never criticize themselves for their weaknesses. Smart ones recognize their undeveloped skills and higher potential, but they are confident that they can change, and constantly work at it. Lack of confidence and enthusiasm. If you have a “downer” day at least once a week, and can’t remember the last time you were truly enthusiastic about something in your life or work, you are not ready to manage a business. Self-confidence is key to success. You like to work alone. Every business and every relationship is a team effort. Loners hide from others because they don’t want anyone to see that they are not in control. Make an effort to network with others to stay informed and contribute, but not dominate. Stop being a control freak. Believe it or not, many people who don’t manage themselves very well are control freaks, when it comes to their business and other people. Practice the art of delegating and the joy of being spontaneous. Managing yourself effectively is the best preparation for managing a new business. It means you understand yourself, and are likely able to read other people and understand them, leading to a trusting relationship with your team and your customers. More importantly, managing yourself gives you a deeper understanding of what you value and how you define success. It means that you can make the hard choices about your real goals in business, and help you reach those goals. Above all, you will be able to truly enjoy your successes. Marty Zwilling

UnPluggd – A Smashing Success!! Thank You all.

On behalf of the entire Pluggd.in team, I’d like to thank all our sponsors, partners, speakers, demoing startups for making UnPluggd an amazing experience! UnPluggd: Sponsors UnPluggd is delighted to partner with .net – the web domain for innovative ideas. Through this partnership, Unpluggd aims to empower startups to establish a web presence and grow their business online. .net is one of the fastest growing domains, with a community of over 14 million startups, tech innovators and entrepreneurs. Some of the advantages of .net are: • An identity that’s instantly recognizable across the globe • A trusted and credible destination that customers can find quickly and easily • A domain that’s synonymous with the Internet and innovative online businesses • A community of forward-thinking entrepreneurs who collaborate and share ideas —————– Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful. —————– Nexus Venture Partners is India’s leading venture fund and invests in early stage companies across sectors. The Nexus team comprises successful entrepreneurs and plays an active role in helping build market leading businesses We also have a seed program to support high potential entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas. —————– Qualcomm Ventures is the strategic venture investment group of Qualcomm Inc. with an initial $500 mn allocation. It started in India in 2007 and invested in 8 companies. QPRIZE 2012 is its investment competition for most promising early-stage tech companies. QPRIZE India winner will get US$100k of convertible note funding from Qualcomm Inc. and can compete with other regional finalists in QPRIZE Grand Finale for an additional US$150k. Registrations open at qprize.com —– QuickBooks, a global brand from Intuit , has been around for 25 years and is now available in India! QuickBooks Online is a simple, feature-rich online version of one of the world’s most popular accounting software for small business accounting, yet powerful enough for experienced online accounting professionals. QuickBooks Online makes financial management easy for small businesses without needing to install accounting software on your computer. Designed with Indian small businesses in mind, QuickBooks Online; the world’s leading online financial management software makes it easy to manage critical business tasks. ——-InnozWhat will you get if you paired the best sms search platform with smart developers and told them they had 36 hours to re-invent internet on sms? That is the question we’re going to pose when we host our first HACKATHON. Win upto Rs. 1 Lakh. Register at www.55444.in/hackathon. Innoz team also helped us with setting up the directions service for UnPluggd participants. ————————-Vittbi VITTBI supports creation of knowledge based start ups by being a focal point of various interventions and being a catalyst for promotion of Entrepreneurship. The value proposition of VITTBI is anchored on three important components of innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem namely Knowledge, Networks and Access to Markets & Finance. ——— Inolyst Inolyst is a niche IP consulting and advisory firm committed to extracting maximum value for intellectual property assets with expertise in Patent consulting, Monetizing and Licensing. Protecting intellectual property — the property of ideas — demands experience, substantive knowledge of law, technology and business. We love dealing with entrepreneurs and emerging growth companies, it is our passion. Shopo gifting partner, Shopo.in is the marketplace where designers dream and grow. The place that showcases everything beautiful, with an Indian Heart! UnPluggd: Speakers UnPluggd is all about the UnPluggd content and we’d like to sincerely thank our speakers -Amit Ranjan, Paul Shoker, Hitesh Dhingra, Aloke Bajpai for sharing their entrepreneurial experience/journey with the audience. UnPluggd: The Team It took us a few months of planning to deliver the awesome experience @UnPluggd. All the team members had complete ownership of the decision and how they want to drive the event. An awesome team with a strong focus on building a super amazing event for entrepreneurs showed up in the results! In no particular order, I’d like to thank the Pi team members: 1. Pratyush Prasanna: he was part of the demo selection team and also anchored the show. 2. Kunal: Managed the entire operation. 3. Srikanth: Handed a whole lot of Tweeting and putting up the messaging on the giveaways. 4. Ishan: The cool dude handled design related work single-handedly. 5. Lokesh Chauhan: Helped manage all startup interactions with Nexus Venture Partners team. 5. And a whole lot of people, including Ankit Ihila, Mrinali and several other folks who turned up at the last moment and helped us create the experience. — We will soon share event videos, pictures and startup details and would like to sincerely thank all our attendees for being an important part of UnPluggd journey!! For more updates on UnPluggd, do join our Facebook group. - Ashish. On behalf of Team Pi.

Pitch for Bitrix24

Company / App Name: Bitrix24 http://bitrix24.comTwitter – bitrix24 What does it do? Bitrix24 is Bitrix24 is a social enterprise network that\’s 100% free to small businesses (under 12 employees). It combines Yammer (social intranet), SalesForice (CRM), FaceBook (likes), BaseCamp (project management), DropBox (files). Why do we need it? Because it saves money Who is it for? Small companies and solo entrepreneurs What makes it stand out from the crowd? Awesome freemium option What’s next? Microsoft just bought Yammer for 1.2 billion. Gosh, I hope something like that is next. Pitch Video http://bitrix24.com

lately

The latest stage of my wardrobe rebuild project is almost done, finally. I still need a certain shoe color and a few other things. But it’s the time of the season where it’s likely best to hold off. Shopping for tops last night and today got me thinking. It’s interesting to think about what might be next for shopping. There’s a lot of talk about ‘mobile’ but that’s always been when scenario by the organic nature and bigger picture of the internet as a platform. The sexy gray area is actually in devices and objects overall — imagine if you could program your refrigerator with what you love to stock it with, and when you started to notice things were running out you could hit a button and it’d send the list to the market. Including payment. It could then either be picked up or delivered, depending on what you wanted. Don’t be surprised if Amazon starts doing really cool stuff like this. If only everybody understood that the internet as a platform can and will do these kinds of things and more. It has the power to enable some magical stuff, but it needs a combination of devices/objects and software. The software side of the platform is currently very focused on ‘social.’ Which is the internet’s communications functionality at a very early and relatively crude stage. What the platform will do here is going to be amazing, also. Device makers are getting better in terms of innovating, and there are a lot of ‘smart’ products that go beyond tablets and smart phones now. When the innovation catches up with the true functionality of the internet it’s going to be awesome. With it, what will change the most is how, when, where and what. Most of business, and especially how consumers operate, will largely stay the same. In platform business, the head that wags the tail is never the users but the platform itself.

News Panel with William Quigley and Vivek Wadhwa – TWiST #272

Click here to stream the audio version of this episode. Join our mailing list and be the first to learn about upcoming guests! Today on the TWiST News Panel, we were joined by Clearstone Venture’s William Quigley and the educator and journalist Vivek Wadhwa. They, along with Lon Harris of Ranker, discussed Facebook’s recent user

How do I balance user satisfaction versus virality?

Originally asked on Quora. If you find yourself mostly thinking about balancing satisfaction versus virality, you’re probably doing it wrong. The Quora question is a false dilemma, because it asks you to choose between satisfaction and virality, and then quantifying the tradeoff. Most of the time, if you’re working on naturally viral products, you spend most of your time elsewhere. The world of product decisions is more like: That is, you have features in your product that either drive growth or don’t, and you have features in your product that either really help the value proposition, or don’t. These are actually pretty independent factors and you can build product features that hit each different quadrant. For example, if you are building a product like Skype, finding your friends and sending invites is clearly a high value prop, high virality action. After all, you can’t use Skype by yourself. But if you take the exact same feature, and try to bolt it onto a non-viral product like, say, a travel search engine, then you’re just creating spam. There’s really no great reason to “find friends” in a travel product, though it might be useful to share your itinerary. A feature that’s high-value in one product is spam in the other. And if you think about each quadrant, you get something like this: Let’s talk about each bucket: Awesome features grow your product and also people love them. The Skype “find friends” feature is a great one, but so is Quora’s “share to Twitter” feature. After I write this post, I want people to comment and upvote, so something that lets me publish to my audience, which is both viral and part of the value prop is awesome. Do it anyway features are just the core of your UX. Writing on walls on Facebook may not be inherently viral in themselves, but it’s important to the product experience, keeps people coming back, and indirectly helps drive the virality of the product. The more people you have coming back, the more changes you have for them to create content or invite people Spam features are high virality actions that your users don’t really want to do, and don’t add to the product value prop. I think this is the bucket that the tradeoff lives of a question like, “should I be viral, or offer a great product?” If you are spending a lot of time in this quadrant, then you are shaky ground. WTF needs no explanation Ideally, you want to pick a proven product category that’s naturally viral and high-retention, for instance communication, publishing, payments, photos, etc. – and then spend as much time building awesome features that both drive growth and also make your users happy. Stay away from spam features as much as you can, or use them sparingly lest your product becomes spam.

Startup Professionals Musings: Think Again Before Declaring Business Bankruptcy

If you are just plain tired of working so hard, or your startup is not getting the traction you expected, should you shut down cleanly, or just file for bankruptcy and walk away? For those who think that bankruptcy is the easy way out, think again. Bankruptcy should always be the absolutely last resort. The “advantage” of filing for bankruptcy, of course, is that it gets creditors permanently off your back, with no continuing lawsuits, based on funds derived from selling all assets. You can hand the stressful job of liquidating assets and negotiating with creditors over to the court. The disadvantages are many and long lasting. Your credit rating will be lost for six to ten years, and your business image will likely be permanently damaged. Once declared bankrupt, you as the business owner will likely always face problems opening new business accounts. To add insult to injury, for a Chapter 7 filing, most courts charge a $245 case filing fee, a $39 miscellaneous administrative fee, and a $15 trustee surcharge, payable in advance (does anyone see the irony in charging for bankruptcy?). There are many other negative implications to bankruptcy. These include the fact that some loans may not be forgiven, your bankruptcy records are open to public review, and any irregularities spotted later can lead to criminal charges. The best alternative is always to get the business back on track, and sell it at a reasonable value, or do a normal closedown with full payout to vendors and investors. The next best alternative to avoid the stigma of bankruptcy (and the cost) is to privately negotiate partial business settlements with your creditors. Making the business healthy may be easier than you think. Usually the top problem is pressing debt or cashflow, so here are some approaches to these problems you should try before giving up on the business and damaging your ability to start future ventures: Get a short-term loan. Visit some banks for the best rate and repayment plan that will help your business weather the financial storm. Do not rush out and sign for the first loan that is offered to you, or give up after the first bank declines. Sell assets to raise cash. Now is the time for a thorough inventory of all assets in your business. Chances are that you will find some items you can sell, or property to mortgage, to help alleviate your short-term cash flow problems. Trim expenses down to the minimum. If you have employees on your payroll, enlist their help. Be honest with them — let them know you might be able to save their jobs, at a reduced salary, if they can help you trim expenses down to the bare minimum. Find a friend or family-member investor. If they believe in you, there is always someone who will invest additional cash into your business to help you get back on your feet. You just have to find the right one. At this stage, honesty is the best policy. As a rule of thumb, only after you have exhausted all these options, and you still calculate that it will take more than seven years to repay your debt, then you should consider bankruptcy. The question is which of the many U.S. bankruptcy filing types you should choose. For business bankruptcy, there is really only one choice – Chapter 7 liquidation, with partial payments to creditors. Chapter 11 is for large businesses seeking to restructure their debt and continue operation, and Chapter 13 bankruptcy is only for individuals. But the worst thing about bankruptcy is the emotional impact. It will hit you over the head like a death in the family, a major illness, or a natural disaster. For your own well-being, as well as your business image, I recommend you hand off a running business. It may look like more work, but you will keep your sanity, your integrity, and your will to come back strong. Marty Zwilling

Twitter Digest: 2012-07-06

Say you had been thinking of being bitten by a venomous bug in Colorado backcountry. My experience-driven suggestion: Don't. -> On @BloombergTV rocking an Overlook Hotel t-shirt #TheShiningHomage -> What's a Higgs Boson? Watch Brooklyn hipsters guess what it is. (VIDEO) http://t.co/umft8qqk -> The Fires This Time – http://t.co/vVYDvXtX -> Federer. Nice. ->

When I Turn 30….

Today, I turn 30! It feels strange and familiar all at the same time. Being a goal oriented person, there were a great many things I used to motivate myself with, most of them started with “When I turn 30….” Today, as I look back at many of the goals I had set for myself I am grateful to be able to say that I have achieved far more than I imagined in some areas as also less in others! However, achievements and goals being one aspect, the one, most important goal I did not set for myself was… “When I turn 30, I want to be happy.” I am so very grateful to know, understand and be thankful for the fact that when I woke up this morning…I was very happy! The question then boils down to…How does one work towards achieving this goal of being happy, when you turn 30? This question has sparked some amazing conversations and I am putting together a short ebook about this that I hope to publish sometime in the next year. Without leaving you hanging out there, here are some of the things that I do believe have helped me getting here: 1. Help others as much as you can. I did not get this till a couple of years ago, now, I go out of my way to help whoever reaches out to me, in whatever small way I can. 2. Treat life as an experiment. Being an entrepreneur makes this easier, because all we do is experimentations. However, this applies to everyone, learn to discover new things and experiences. This helps getting you closer to finding the “Why” in your life. 3. Do not try to make everyone happy. It is simply not possible, you will waste too much energy, dwelling on something that is not worth it, will make you feel unworthy. As a side note, have a strict “No Assholes Rule” in life. When you come across any, do your best to keep them out of your life. 4. Continue to put yourself outside your comfort zone. This could be writing a book, becoming a chef, starting a cafe or simply asking for help when you need it. Holding yourself back has far too many long term consequences. 5. Learn to smell the roses and be grateful for what you have. My mother has said this to me throughout this last decade. Often I did not follow this, but when I did, it helped me get some great perspective on so many things I seemed to be watching pass me by. 6. Choose your friends wisely. They have enormous impact on your life, if you are friends with people who are not happy with their life is; chances are neither will you be. Find friends with shared values, goals and aspirations. They will be a defining pillars in your life and success. 7. Do not forget about family. When all is said and done, they are the ones who care the most for you. Chances are when your chips are down they are the ones who will be there for you. I happen to have been blessed by an awesome family, I am very grateful for this blessing. 8. Read and learn as much as you can. Unfortunately this is something many people are just not doing anymore. Reading has helped me broaden my thinking, my ability to discuss a variety of topics, above all, it helps get the creative juices flowing. 9. When something is not working, stop doing it. This could your career, business or a relationship. The longer you put up with something that you have tried your level best to fix, the harder it is to move on to more positive and constructive paths. 10. Learn about yourself. Being self aware is where it all starts. Many of us never really look into who we are, and morph ourselves into being what we think society wants us to be. Being true to yourself is a critical step to ensure that you take the path to being happy and peaceful. These are 10 things I have so far. Feedback would be great. If you have something you would have liked to tell yourself before you turned 30 please do share it with all of us in the comments below. In the end, there are several people I want to thank, they are the ones who have helped me get where I am today. My Mother: Selecting the path less traveled resulted in lots of highs and lows. Thank you for always being there and being a pillar of love and support. Love you very much. Attached is finally an article clipping about “what I do for a living“! My Father: Thank you for all the advice and support through the years. Learning from the lessons you have learned has helped me from making many mistakes. My Brother: I am really grateful that we have been able to develop a much stronger bond over the last decade. All your help has been awesome and I am really looking forward to seeing what the rest of the decade has in store for you and both of us together. My Sister: Our regular calls have been awesome, thank you for helping me get perspective on the bigger picture and for making me laugh all the time. Love you very much! My Grandfather: You were a role model for me growing up. Even though you left us just as I was getting started for college, there are so many things that I have learned from you that have helped me so definitively in getting to where I am today. My Grandmother: I have the fondest memories of the times we spent together and our time here when I was in college. Even though you are not with us today, you were an unshakeable source of love and inspiration growing up. Thank you. My Family: There are so many of people within this blessed circle who have helped me get to where I am today. I am so very grateful for all their advice, support and guidance. Song Kwang: It has a been a pleasure working side by side with you building Hatch Media. Your dedication, commitment and drive to help the youth has been inspirational. I look forward to the next decade and taking the business forward. Shahzaib Khan: Building IDENTIFI with you has been quite the ride so far. Your continued push for perfection, commitment and fanatical dedication to ship has been amazing to watch. Just seeing your growth in the last couple of years has been awesome. I am really looking forward to what happens next! Friends: There are many, many people who have been instrumental in pushing me forward. The times when it was easier to give up, you were there to push me on and helped me get back on track. Thank you very much! As I begin the next decade of my life, the goal still remains the same: “When I turn 40, I want to happy.” Wishing all of you the very best! Thank you.

SendGrid Startup of the Week #1 – Stephen Svajian of YBUY

Click here to stream the audio version of this episode. Join our mailing list and be the first to learn about upcoming guests! On the inaugural episode of our SendGrid Startup of the Week show, Stephen Svajian of YBUY discussed his new rent-to-own model for high-end merchandise. 1:00 Welcome everyone, I’m here today with the

UnPluggd – Live.

You can watch UnPluggd live @http://www.pluggd.in/live You can also follow us on Twitter (@pluggdin) for live-coverage (official hashtag #unpluggd).

Pitch for Recmnd.Me

Company / App Name: Recmnd.Me https://recmnd.me/Twitter – @RecmndMe What does it do? Recmnd.Me is an easy and fun way for working professionals to recommend and rate each other. It’s great for employers and recruiters looking to quickly hire the best talent around. Why do we need it? Over 50% of jobs and 74% of brand introductions come through referrals. This app frees users from the need to write lengthy recommendations to one another, streamlining the process down to data that is quickly assimilated and used. Who is it for? The application is for job seekers and professionals looking to accumulate recommendations as well as hiring managers and recruiters seeking the top talent. What makes it stand out from the crowd? Employers are able to search through different kinds of professionals to determine top talent by noting the number of recommendations that each professional has receivedThe app helps to manage your career while saving valuable time. What’s next? Recmnd.Us and Recmnd.It are in the works so you can find and recommend companies and products. Pitch Video https://recmnd.me/about

It's a good sign when people upload screencaps of your website to @flickr (@thehipmunk) #MSPL

via flickr.com I'll take this as a good sign! Thanks, guspim. Permalink | Leave a comment »

interesting

There was an article today about Amazon expanding its device play into smart phones. It’s interesting who the new device makers are in the market - Apple, expanding out of the traditional PC category, Microsoft, and now Amazon. I wonder what the legacy device makers are thinking. I wonder what, if any, startups might come into the picture, or other companies that nobody’s thought of. Devices, really, can be made by anything, and consumers who use them are often driven by price which means there is always likely room. At least, today. The key to understanding where and what to create a position in devices is to understand the internet for what it is — a delivery and communications platform, unified into a single, seamless environment. That’s the base point. The opportunities for devices, both those everybody’s widely thinking about already (tablets, smart phones) and those that many are not (appliances, other objects), are kind of a little endless from there. For Amazon, the smart phone makes sense but likely isn’t about taking that market specifically, but the ability to create a seamless, unified product offering that probably more ties to the future of internet-connected televisions and other objects that directly tie to Amazon’s growing content play. There isn’t likely much value in the late market of smart phones, but there is to the eco-system of internet-connected devices of all kinds and in it a smart phone offering (even if late to the party) makes sense. That’s likely what Amazon may also see. Anticipate Amazon to likely start to marry up to a carrier (or carriers) soon if it hasn’t already.

Starting Somewhere

With the first few weeks of my internship complete, I’ve learned a lot. Mostly, I’ve learned that I don’t know much. College teaches you how to study, not how to work. It’s certainly humbling to be thrust into an established work culture where everyone has a specific job and knows exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. And I don’t. It is intimidating, for sure, but I try to remind myself that’s why I’m here: to learn. As I navigate my way through my internship this summer, I’ll periodically share my insights with you. I’m excited to see how I change throughout these next few months; to see what I’ve learned. So far: I’ve learned what PPC stands for, and ROI and SOW. I’d share my whole list with you (yes, I made a list–it’s still growing), but I’ll spare you the acronym soup. I’ve learned how to sift through lots of information quickly to find the good stuff, and I’ve learned how to respond to a reporter’s request without too much editing required. I’ve learned why it’s important to be direct in a business call–and what happens when you aren’t. I’ve learned that lunch is short. I’ve learned that there’s a science behind every Google search, and every single click. I’ve learned that some people get angry at customer service. Very angry. I’ve learned that it’s okay to ask questions. Questions, in fact, are encouraged–by both interns and small business owners. I hope every workplace is this welcoming to its employees and clients. I’ve learned to appreciate the sun more, and the weekend more. And sleep more. I’ve learned that I don’t know much at all about the world of software, or even really the world of business. But I’ve learned that I want to know more. And being here, I’m pretty sure that I will.

Did They Copy Your Idea? Deal With It.

This troubles me. App Developer Says Facebook Stole Idea for “Find Friends Nearby”. I don’t know the app, haven’t used it, and I’m not a lawyer, but I hate it when people complain about some big company stealing their ideas. Ideas get copied all the time. Have you seen the web? Have you seen books, movies, or TV? Good ideas get copied. I don’t mean software piracy or plagiarism, which I hate, isn’t legal, but is also inevitable. I do mean reverse engineering and just plain copying good idea. Like movie and fiction formulas that work. Selling points, tag lines, icons, apps, functionality, features, packaging, design … copycats get around them easily without strictly violating the law. It’s a fact of life. Think of the history of high tech in the last generation or so. DOS copied and improved CP/M which copied something else. The original Mac copied and improved Xerox and Windows copied Mac. Lotus 1-2-3 copied and improved Visicalc and Microsoft Excel copied and improved Lotus 1-2-3. As a writer, I hate it when people just copy my work and pretend they wrote it. But it does happen constantly. As a software developer and publisher, I hate it when people copy my product’s tag lines and positioning but it happens all the time. Ethical? You be the judge. Legal? I’m not an attorney, I can’t say. But I will say this: It happens all the time.

Startup Professionals Musings: What To Do When Your Startup Profits Hit the Wall

A good many startups I know have been “successful” over a couple of years in overcoming the challenges of starting the business, including incorporation, services development, funding, and setting up operations. Yet they still haven’t achieved a healthy growing profit, even though this was one of the main reasons they went into business for themselves in the first place. It’s no fun on this plateau, just “making payroll,” and watching some employees make more then you as the founder. At this stage you were expecting to be working on creating a good business valuation to attract future buyers, or at least funding college accounts for your kids. If you are in this category, first know that you are not alone, but then you need to take a look at the advice given by Patricia Sigmon in her book “Six Steps to Creating Profit: A Guide for Small and Mid-Sized Service-Based Businesses.” I recommend her six tried-and-true tips to deal with the challenges that may be holding back your profits: Stay visible and connected. It’s important to stand up to competition and wear your reputation on your sleeve. Accreditations, licenses, and certification – for your business or for individual employees – can set you apart from your competition. Take your reputation online, utilizing social media, your website, and a blog to connect to clients and make strategic alliances. Maximize cash flow. One of the best ways to achieve a stable cash flow is to offer prepaid retainers or ongoing payment plans. Maintenance contracts are another great way to create a brand-new revenue stream. Consider once-a-year or once-a-month contract renewal fees, and manage credit payments to avoid fees or to take advantage of discounts and better terms. Streamline management costs. Create a user-friendly system for employees and be sure to build in back-office, administrative time into your project fees, hourly rates, or ongoing charges. Automation will allow your business to run more efficiently, and will streamline your management overhead. Raise the marketing bar. Today, marketing is all about immediacy. Give your business an instant presence through online networks, including Facebook and LinkedIn. Set up group meetings, sales presentations, and special promotions using webinars, webcasts, and podcasts, rather than travel and personal meetings. Don’t forget to measure all of your marketing efforts to see which ones are indeed cost effective. Make everyone a salesperson. Ask employees what they would do to grow your business, fix business issues, or cut costs. Mix things up. Break the mold of the “rigid job description,” and open the door for employees to be involved in sales, profit-generating actions, and idea development. Reward employees who make an extra effort to represent the company inside and outside of work. Change the rules of operations. The challenge here is to generate more sales, while reducing expenses and tweaking costly administrative processes. For services, switch to a “relationship-based” sales model by building in plenty of reasons (and financial incentives) for your clients to come back to you. Keep you office running lean and mean. Is your service being replaced? Reinvent yourself to meet a modern market: If you are a paid technical instructor and your classes are shrinking, offer training over the internet. Instead of selling your services to everyone, expand your services “vertically” by targeting industries where you’ve already been successful. An entrepreneur who has nurtured his startup like a beloved child may be reluctant to take a step backward and make the changes that need to be made. But don’t worry. If starting a business once brought out your creative juices, changing your business model to meet the demands of a new marketplace – resulting in a more profitable structure – can be equally exhilarating! Marty Zwilling

The UnPluggd Agenda and FAQs

We are almost there!! UnPluggd is scheduled for Saturday (July 7th) and the energy has already started flowing in! Here are the final details: 1. Event Agenda Link: http://www.pluggd.in/unpluggd/agenda/ That is, a day packed with powerful talks and great startup demos. 2. Speakers Amit Ranjan Cofounder of Slideshare, which was recently acquired by Linkedin. Hitesh DhingraHitesh Founded Letsbuy.com, Co-founded Tyroo (An online Ad network), Founding member at Quasar Media (Online digital agency – bought by WPP). Aloke BajpaiFounder of iXiGo, Alokes topic is : Fifty Shades of Orange ! Paul ShokerPaul is a serial entrepreneur with 27 years Senior Executive Management experience in communications and new media.Worked across N America, Europe and Asia. Having held senior positions in Siemens and BT plc primarily in business development and sales. 3. Venue/Direction Venue: MLR Convention Center, Brigade Millennium Campus, 7th Phase J.P.Nagar, Bangalore – 560 078 [Map]. SMS : #unpluggd directions to 55444. Contact Details: 08067309100. 4. FAQs Q: Do you have option for spot-registration? A: Yes. You can directly come over, register and pay at the venue. Please note that all discount coupons were valid only for online purchases and not at the venue (you will have to pay Rs. 700/person for the ticket). Qn: Are VCs attending the event? A: Yep! Lots of them! From all over the country. Qn: What about angel investors? A: Yes, we have angels flying from all over the country to attend UnPluggd. Qn: Will you serve lunch as well? A: Oh YES! It’s a day-long event and you are our guest. We will take good care of you ! :=) Qn: How do I book my ticket? A: You can book your tickets from our ticketing partner: MeraEvents OR Ayojak or even pay @venue (or do spot-registration as well). Qn: Official hashtag? #unpluggd - UnPluggd Sponsors//Partners | Ticket Booking page We look forward to having you @UnPluggd! - Team Pluggd.in.

Tips to ensure Office safety for Businesses

Modern offices have come a long way in the past few decades. No longer is y our average office an uncomfortable place where you’re forced to while away time to get your paycheck.Nowadays, offices are designed with employees’ comfort and safety in mind; some of the world’s most attractive employers such as Google and Facebook also go a long way to ensure that employees are given access to some pretty neat facilities such as gyms, common areas for relaxation, and even gaming rooms!However, before you go about trying to make your office or workplace a similarly inviting place, you have to focus on the most important issue that relates to employee comfort: safety.While offices have indeed changed over the past few years, the safety aspect cannot be ignore; if anything, it’s become even more vital that you ensure your employees’ well-being.Here are some important office safety tips for business:Do ensure that there are adequate fire escapes – which are clearly markedYour office should meet the local building laws and fire safety requirements. Keep enough fire extinguishers on hand and get them services regularly – most extinguishers need to be checked and certified once every year.If you are required to fit smoke detectors, fire alarms and sprinklers, do so! Have this examined every year by certified technicians. This is a very important safety rule for businesses!Your office should have adequate lighting, including emergency lighting.Make sure that the backup power supply is adequateKeep electrical generators far away from employee areas. The exhaust must be directed away from your office.Ensure that all ramps and lift access meets the requirements set by the local municipality.You should also hold regular fire drills – perhaps every month.If you have any old insulation or fittings that use asbestos, change them immediately! Get certified technicians to do this as asbestos can be very dangerous!Your electrical system should be maintained properly. Never exceed the recommended load on any power outlet. Make sure that all devices connected to the electrical supply are certified for office use.Keep a track of employees entering and leaving the building. This is essential in th e event of an emergency.Do not allow outsiders to enter your premises unescorted.Give employees secure storage for their valuables.Make sure that your employees are familiarised with the office safety equipment and fire escapes.Never use elevators in times of crisis. Always use the stairs to exit the building.Keep first aid equipment on hand. If your office is large enough that you are required to have trained medical staff on call, do so!Make sure that floors are not left wet or slippery. Have spillages cleaned up immediately.Keep hazardous chemicals and office cleaning supplies locked away in storage inaccessible by employeesCarry out an earthquake safety assessment of your premises.Make sure that your office receives some natural light and fresh air. Have the HVAC systems serviced regularly.With these tips, your office should be a safer place – making it more enticing to employees!

Book Review - Why Good People Can't Get Jobs

One of the most perplexing aspects of the current recovery is our high unemployment and under employment rates are coupled with a constant stream of complaints by companies that they can't find qualified job candidates. The most recent example is the New York Times article A Sea of Job Seekers, but Some Companies Aren't Getting Any Bites. Key quote: “Companies all over are having a difficult time recruiting the kind of people they’re looking for ..." Wharton professor Peter Capelli's most recent book - Why Good People Can't Get Jobs - explains that a big part of the problem is not the lack of qualified candidates, but the hiring companies themselves. Capelli has a great book summary quote in an article on his book from Knowledge@Wharton: ... it turns out it's typically the case that employers' requirements are crazy, they're not paying enough or their applicant screening is so rigid that nobody gets through. Between these 3 reasons companies end up searching for "purple squirrels" - people that simply don't exist or are very rare. Capelli also laments the lack of training companies provide these days. Companies simply aren't willing to spend the money to train people - in part because of the cost and in part because of the fear they will leave. So instead they focus on trying to hire the perfect candidate, one with direct job experience and all the required skills. Why Good People Can't Get Jobs is an important book that highlights a major problem with our current employment system. In particular it highlights the plight of young adults looking for their first jobs and facing the requirement that they already have to have experience to get one. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to this problem. But at least Cappelli helps us understand the problem is not just a lack of qualified candidates.

Intuit launches QuickBooks in India – Super Affordable Accounting for Startups and SMEs

Intuit has launched accounting software, QuickBooks in India. QuickBooks Online helps SMEs organise their finances and keep track of all activities related to your business (also complies with managerial accounting standards). In terms of features, QuickBooks offers great set of functionalities - Creating Invoice: QuickBooks Online helps you automatically track who owes you money and when their payments are due so you can get paid on time. Client information is pre–filled and total charges are calculated automatically, saving you time and improving accuracy. You can also streamline customer billing by emailing invoices to your customers. If you bill the same customers each month, you can schedule automatically generated invoices to be delivered at regular intervals. And should you want to mail paper invoices, it’s easy to print them out, and they’ll look great. - Multiple users: QuickBooks Online helps you specify permission levels for users in the system and also enables one to share the data with accountant. There are 4 levels of users – Administrator, Standard user (you can limit access to Customers and Sales, Suppliers and Purchases, or both Sales and Purchases), Reports-only users (read-only access) and Accountant. - Multicurrency support: QuickBooks Online allows you to trade in over 145 currencies . You can work with customers in their home currencies and then convert into Indian Rupee using the latest exchange rates, so you know exactly where you stand. - Track sales and Expenses In terms of pricing, the software is super affordable – basic package is available for only Rs. 3999/year and Plus package for Rs. 5999/year (free trial for 30 days), makes it a great Tally alternative for SMEs/startups. Intuit has also launched QuickBooks Partner program for accountants. Watch this intro video: At UnPluggd, Intuit team will be demoing QuickBooksOnline at the “Friends of Startups” stalls and will be available to answer your queries.

Twitter Link Roundup #138 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week! The video above is a fun look at the strange weather we’ve been experiencing. Godzilla makes a guest appearance. Enough said. Your Startup Or Small Business Sucks But You Can Fix It (learn how) – http://bit.ly/MDNJZn Small business and the Affordable Care Act: 5 Reasons Why Obamacare May Help – http://bit.ly/MP4kva The Cheap and Easy Guide to Crowdsourcing – http://amex.co/MZBbMf Financing Your Business: Debt Vs Equity – http://bit.ly/LMUXNt Your Startup Or Small Business Sucks But You Can Fix It (learn how) – http://bit.ly/MDNJZn A good reading list (books) for entrepreneurs – http://bit.ly/Ocvu0v Why I Hate White Labeling For Startups – http://bit.ly/KQX4M6 The Cheap and Easy Guide to Crowdsourcing – http://amex.co/MZBbMf Mentoring the mentors: Advice and inspiration for startup mentors – http://bit.ly/L2vAYs Financing Your Business: Debt Vs Equity – http://bit.ly/LMUXNt How Serial Innovators Find The Best Problems To Solve – http://bit.ly/LPN4Th 12 Rules For Building Your First Profitable Startup – http://bit.ly/L2ndMx Pricing to the demand curve – http://bit.ly/O96NPe A Quick Guide To The Funding Landscape For Startups – http://bit.ly/KQVI8T What does a growth team work on day-to-day? – http://bit.ly/L2rdwI Facebook Says It Can Take A YEAR To Get Results From Its Ads – http://read.bi/MSr0sS In the red: 73% of tech IPOs aren’t profitable when they debut – http://bit.ly/O93lE1 TechStars’ David Cohen on transparency, growth and funding trends – http://bit.ly/MkabLj 7 Must-Read Books on the Art & Science of Happiness – http://bit.ly/L2taZW The myth of the serial entrepreneur – http://bit.ly/LXMIMF Love that 37signalsis making some of their internal Basecamp projects public – http://bit.ly/NaSHiK Why Hipmunk Is The World’s Best Travel Site – http://onforb.es/Mh6hTx Its I.P.O. Botched, Facebook Looks Hard at Nasdaq – http://nyti.ms/NczNX4 Survey: Barely Half Of E-Mails To Major Retailers Receive Adequate Responses – http://bit.ly/N3joEi 30 Unbelievably Awesome Print Advertising Examples – http://bit.ly/MOWJN4 The Brand Bubble is Bursting – http://bit.ly/O96WlF Google vs everyone: an epic war on many fronts – http://bit.ly/MdIJin Facebook’s Rocks and Hard Places – http://bit.ly/L38Urf 11 reasons your infographic isn’t an infographic – http://bit.ly/MdIvI5 Twitter Cuts Off LinkedIn — Who’s Next? – http://dthin.gs/LXJGIu A Solution to the Twitter API Problem – http://bit.ly/LKisqr New Facebook Study Reveals Motivation Behind Facebook Visits – http://bit.ly/N3CF8v Google continues to focus its efforts (closes more services/products) – http://tcrn.ch/LPMQva The iPhone Is 5 Years Old — Let’s Pause And Gawk In Awe At How It Has Changed The World – http://read.bi/LXMu8v The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In – http://bit.ly/KQWj5H A Collection of 75 Beautiful Fonts from 2012 to Spice up Your Typography – http://bit.ly/Ocj6O1 Fresh Free Fonts #05 – http://bit.ly/OcjdZZ Showcase of Unusual and Creative Product Designs – http://bit.ly/MOWQYT 33 Attractive and Elegant Fonts – http://bit.ly/MOWXUn 26 Brand New Adobe Photoshop CS6 Tutorials – http://bit.ly/Ocjufr 40 Fresh jQuery Plugins And Tutorials Available For Free – http://bit.ly/MOYVEk 30 Fresh Examples of Very Creative And Bold Business Cards – http://bit.ly/Pegj8E Font Nostalgia: Vintage Sign Styles – http://bit.ly/OcnUTy 20 Creative City Postcard Designs – http://bit.ly/OcnnBf 15 Superb Postcard Examples – http://bit.ly/KQVB8v 48 Latest Free Fonts To Enhance Your Designs – http://bit.ly/Pe7jAl Showcase of 46 Superb Movie Posters of 2012 – http://bit.ly/KQVo5l 30 Outstanding Black Business Cards – http://bit.ly/O9r0UW 17 Cool New Fonts That You Should Use – http://bit.ly/PefQDj 18 Awesome and Super Creative Tin Box Designs – http://bit.ly/KQVwSm 7 New Creative Ideas in Modern Business Card Design – http://bit.ly/PefmgB Design Schools Evolving – http://bit.ly/Nbg5gc Interesting project by a designer to re-imagine branding for Microsoft, in three days – http://bit.ly/O98egn Fresh And High Quality Adobe Photoshop Tutorials – http://bit.ly/KQVdHa 50 Beautiful Black and White Business Cards – http://bit.ly/OcmW9W 30 Unbelievably Awesome Print Advertising Examples – http://bit.ly/MOWJN4 Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – http://bit.ly/1ySfi Legal Contracts for Graphic Designers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – http://bit.ly/XTLkS A Collection of 75 Beautiful Fonts from 2012 to Spice up Your Typography – http://bit.ly/Ocj6O1 48 Latest Free Fonts To Enhance Your Designs – http://bit.ly/Pe7jAl 17 Cool New Fonts That You Should Use – http://bit.ly/PefQDj Fresh Free Fonts #05 – http://bit.ly/OcjdZZ 33 Attractive and Elegant Fonts – http://bit.ly/MOWXUn 23 Inspiring Logos – http://bit.ly/OcjM6d 30 Complex Logo Designs – http://bit.ly/LMT3fL 30+ Inspirational Logo Designs – http://bit.ly/Peg8dg Inspiration – 25 Brilliant Financial Logo Designs – http://bit.ly/Pegtwx Music Logo Designs: 15 Examples of Piano Concepts – http://bit.ly/KQVslq A Collection of Incredibly Simple and Sleek Logo Designs – http://bit.ly/MOYIRn 40 Creative Restaurant themed Logo Design examples for your inspiration – http://bit.ly/KQVidM Responsive Web Design: New Tools, Articles and Tutorials – http://bit.ly/MOWqBW Very cool site showing the evolution of the Web and various technologies – http://bit.ly/NTaFUf Website Navigation Trends for Various Layouts – http://bit.ly/Oco3GO Inspiring Examples of Orange in Web Design – http://bit.ly/KQV7zg Worst Web Design Trends: What NOT to do? – http://bit.ly/PefIDI Building a Responsive, Mobile-First Navigation Menu – http://bit.ly/KQVcCV Great Collection of Free UI Libraries and Frameworks – http://bit.ly/KQWmOY 25 Inspiring Examples Of Website Contact Form Designs – http://bit.ly/O9q5DW 25 All-Time Favorite Examples of Textures in Web Design – http://bit.ly/KQVEkG 21 Amazing Examples of Clean and Minimal Web Designs – http://bit.ly/LMSUcp 60 Inspiring Examples Of Responsive Web Designs – http://bit.ly/LMSJh1 Creative 404 Pages for Inspiration – http://bit.ly/LMSyCn How did the remote control get so awful and confusing? – http://slate.me/KQV0Iy Immortality only 20 years away says scientist – http://bit.ly/L2qLhS How to predict the end of the human species – http://bit.ly/L2s945 On YouTube, Amateur Is the New Pro – http://nyti.ms/MZizue 7 Must-Read Books on the Art & Science of Happiness – http://bit.ly/L2taZW An amputee,Pistorius, Will Be on South Africa’s Olympic Team http://bit.ly/Pda7Pj The harm of solitary confinement in prisons – http://bit.ly/LQQLOJ Chicago to get hyper-connected under Rahm Emanuel’s grand Wi-Fi plan – http://bit.ly/LXv7SI Best. Weather. Report. Ever – http://post.ly/89Ku7 CERN Physicists May Have Discovered Higgs Boson Particle – http://bit.ly/RbqbhQ Apple’s crackdown on app-ranking manipulation: Confused developers caught in the dragnet – http://bit.ly/O95Ia8 Soon We Might Spray-Paint Batteries Onto Any Surface – http://onforb.es/LYdkNQ RIM Is Hurting, But It’s Not Dead Just Yet http://tcrn.ch/Nm0yWY The Scientific Cure for Hangovers – http://bit.ly/NbamoL Diabetes Linked to Memory Problems in Older Adults – http://nyti.ms/MdJic9 I hope you enjoy these links! Please leave a comment and let me know what you liked/didn’t like. Related posts:Twitter Link Roundup #137 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More Twitter Link Roundup #92 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More Twitter Link Roundup #91 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Indian Government formulating policy framework for Cloud Computing

In the last few months we have spoken at length about cloud computing, its benefits, concerns and framework issues – the technology lacks legal framework, companies are sceptical to implement it and adoption rate is low. While global figures are soaring with Japan and Australia topping the charts in cloud adoption, India ranks as low as 19th in the list. Why? What are the reasons? The problem is though cloud as a technology is growing rapidly there are issues of privacy, security, compliance, reliability because of the absence of physical infrastructure at the user-end. Even with security systems implemented cloud architectures can easily be hacked and data stolen or leaked. You have no control over these and the worst part is that the provider does not take any responsibility. And you can’t do anything about it because the court of law does not have stringent policies to penalise the vendors. Organizations are also concerned about the lack of auditability and transparency associated with cloud environments. The Indian government is now evolving a policy framework for cloud computing to address concerns as well as drive the cloud revolution. This was revealed by Minister of Communications & IT, Mr Kapil Sibal at the 2012 cloud Summit organised by CII. ”The government is willing to collaborate with the industry and academia to develop a secure and progressive ecosystem for cloud services in India.” he said. Highlighting the need for outlining technical and other parameters for cloud providers, standardization of contracts, privacy and security conditions, the Minister urged the industry to work out details for setting up cloud services. Describing cloud computing as a fine economic solution in a complex knowledge economy, the Minister suggested that the focus could be on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the starting point could be clusters, which have commonality of purpose and vision. This is correct because it is the SME’s/SMB’s that can highly benefit from the technology because they neither have the funds nor the resources to manage brick-mortar data centre’s at their end. According to a study by EMC Corporation, the total cloud spend as a percentage of the total IT spend is expected to rise to 8.2 per cent in 2015. But can that really be achieved given the concerns and challenges surrounding it? Cloud computing is a technological paradigm that is certain to be a new engine of the global economy. Attaining those benefits will require the Government to establish the proper legal and regulatory framework to support cloud computing. Data protection and privacy is a major concern and unless a framework is developed around it, efforts to encourage the spread of the technology will be thwarted. We need to know what the Government is doing in that regard. How is it taking the vendors under its purview and what can be the immediate resolutions to these concerns. What is your opinion?