Sumit Gupta (aka sumit4all)

Building the Right Product versus Building the Product Right

Sumit Gupta — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:56:56 +0000

In my 7 years in the industry, I have seen that the relationship between the product and engineering teams can make or break the product, and the whole business around it. Product management is about building the ‘right‘ product while Engineering is all about building the product ‘right‘. However, in a business both are equally important and myopic views about any one of them will end up hurting the business in the long term. This hold more true for startups and internet based companies than for established and growth companies where the ‘right‘ product is already identified.

Part of the Same Team

Product management and Engineering need to work together as they are part of the same team, while having very different roles. It is critical that the two see themselves as peers, and on the same side of the table. In most companies these two teams sit far away from each other, limiting interaction, which is critical especially in the beginning stages of any product. It is important to understand that out of PM and Engineering, none is subordinate to another, and steps must be taken to introduce a cohesive working environment between the two to enable better understanding and co-operation.

Make Engineers Understand the Customer

Most of the times engineers are unaware of why they are building what they are building. Their focus is on getting the requirement spec from product management, and then working on implementing that. But without an intricate knowledge of why they are building that product, and for whom, they can never get a complete understanding of their place in the whole company and fully contribute to it. In my view, making each and every developer in the engineering team aware of why they are doing what they are doing is critical to discovering problems in time and preventing frustration and despair later on.

Is this the story in your company?

Encourage Engineers to Come Up with Ideas

Your engineers are the ones who are the closest to the product, and they know the technology best. They have the best idea of what can be done and what not, and the relative complexities of implementing any two different solutions. Involving them in idea generation and encouraging them to come up with ideas can prove vital in reducing the PM-Engineering mail clutter to come up with better solutions sooner. At the same time, it also gives engineering a sense of ownership about what they are going to implement.

Product Manager should focus on Minimal Product, then regular Increments

It is often considered fancy to come up with a product plan which will take 2-3 months for engineering to build. The product team think they have done a great job detailing every feature and detail in the spec, while the engineering team devotes their best resources to doing it right. But after the product ships (or sometimes even before), the product team (together with sales and marketing) gets valuable feedback from the customer and wants to drop some features, change a few, and add a couple of new ones. This becomes the Product Spec v2. All the while engineering has no idea why their efforts of the last 3 months have gone down the drain, which leads to frustration and reduced productivity. And the cycle continues.

Another way to approach this situation could be to come up with a minimal set of features to build in the first version of the product. It is critical that both PM and Engineering sit together and decide this based on each other’s inputs. If the two work cohesively together on a minimal product, and then add small increments as customer inputs start coming in, the kind of productivity that can be generated could be awesome for both teams, and for the company as a whole.

Ten Frank and Straight from the Gut Tips If You are Angry at Someone

Sumit Gupta — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:26:00 +0000

1. If you are angry, irritated or frustrated, seal your mouth. Don’t say anything, don’t send any email, text to anyone. No-one wants to hear about your misery. The best thing I can think of is go out and take a walk. Maybe exercise. Take that anger out and burn it in the form of sweat.

2. You are angry because of your emotions, not because of what someone else did. Your emotions are your responsibility. Own up to it. You made yourself angry, so don’t blame anybody else for it. And only you can stop being so.

3. If you happen to open your mouth, do not raise your voice. Do not make threats. Do not make expressions to show your anger. Do not play the ‘sympathy‘ card.

4. Don’t drink or smoke. It will only make things worse.

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ~Malachy McCourt

5. Learn to respect others opinions, even if you disagree. Even if you think they are wrong, even if you can prove they are wrong. Respect their opinions.

6. If you said or did something you shouldn’t have, apologize. If you said or did something which you know is right but the other person got hurt, still apologize. (Not for being right, but for hurting someone else’s feelings)

7. Listen. Listen. Listen. And understand.

8. You have nothing to prove to anybody. Accept what you get and what you didn’t get. And move ahead. Maybe come back later to fight another day.

9. Don’t assume things for others. If you have a doubt, ask. But don’t make stories in your head.

10. If you still have any thoughts, write it down on paper. Then read it again and see if they are still valid. Cut off what is not important.

How can we break the safety wall?

Sumit Gupta — Wed, 02 May 2012 05:00:48 +0000

Some seven months back I wrote an article about why we should break the safety walls around us to be happy. After the wonderful response I got from that article, I have taken some steps like quitting my job and starting up on my own again. Lately I felt that I was again getting caught in a comfort zone which was stopping me from playing a big game. And that’s what led me to reading that article again today, and I decided to follow it up with this article giving my views on – How to break the safety walls?

Start Small
If you want to do something in an area, the best way is to just start it in whatever little way you can. Do anything in that direction, and then continue doing it, step by step. Soon, you will see that all the resistance will give way as you get into a habit. Once that happens, take another small step forward and let that become comfortable over a period of time. This is beautifully summed up by this quote by Martin Luther King Jr – “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. - Randy Pausch

Be Who You Are
Each one of us have something unique – it could be a talent, skill, way of being or something else. Never loose that. Do what you like to do. Say what you want to say. Be authentic. Smile when you are happy. Cry when you are sad. Don’t wear a mask. Be authentic.

Let Go of the Dark Glasses
We all have our filters through which we see the world. Whenever we start something new and look beyond our safety walls, these filters act as dark glasses and cloud our view of the future. Thoughts like ‘not possible’, ‘very difficult’, ‘can’t be done’ are all a result of these dark glasses. Be aware of such thoughts whenever they pop up in your head, and let go of them. Recognize them as just your thoughts and not the reality, and you are free of them.

Don’t Pull Yourself Down
When you take a step beyond the comfort zone, the ground is bound to feel a little shaky and the road a little foggy. There are bound to be breakthroughs and breakdowns on the way, but never pull yourself down at the first sight of a breakdown. Don’t get into arguments like - “Am I worth it?”, “Can I do it?” Many times this happens very subconsciously, so be conscious at all times, and catch yourself whenever you start pulling yourself down, and get back up. Clear your mind of the clutter and focus on doing rather than thinking about doing.

Have Fun
Doing something new doesn’t have to be boring or serious. Just continue having fun while you move into the unconquered zone, and never let your artistic spirit die. Listen to music, indulge in some painting or sketching, watch your favorite team play, cook your favourite dish, or travel to that destination you always wanted to. Laugh often, jump and play like a child and always keep a smile on your face.

Things That Do Not Matter vs People Who Matter

Sumit Gupta — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 02:08:58 +0000

In our day to day lives, we very often loose the bigger perspective and be consumed by many small issues which don’t matter too much in the long term. In the heat of the moment, it is not uncommon for people to see other people with a ‘what can you do for me?‘ attitude only. Placing undue attention on materialistic things weakens our ability to see the value of basic human to human bonding. There is also a famous quote by Spencer W. Kimball -

“Love people, not things; use things, not people. ”

If we take the bigger perspective of life into the picture, people are always more important than anything materialistic. All materialistic things have been created by humans only and never has any materialistic thing created a human being. Remembering the value of human life and relationships can help us realize that things can always be replaced – houses can be rebuilt, lost possessions can be regained but the people in our lives are not replaceable. And during tough times, it is always the people in our lives who help us weather the storms and never our possessions. Yet in our good times, how easy it becomes to become attached to our jobs, money and ‘what we can buy‘ when the real joys of life are always free.

"People were created to be loved, Things were created to be used, The reason the world is in chaos, is because things are being loved, and people are being used."

Decide What is Important, the Person or the Matter
Before getting into any conversation, we should always ask ourselves “Who is more important, the person or the task at hand?” and then never forget this during the conversation. There might be times when our ego can drive us to say mean things which could harm the relationship, even if we get the desired outcome. But is it worth it? And at what cost? It is very important to recognize when we are driven by our ego, and then STOP.

What if we are right?
Even if we strongly believe that what we are saying is right, we should not hurt the other person’s ego by trying to prove him wrong, or acting in an aggressive and rude manner. What one ego is saying can never be countered by the ego of another, but the other person can always be brought to reason by being compassionate and patient. The point I am trying to make is that if we realize that the conversation is driven by ego, we should allow the other person to get away with it, in the better interests of the relationship. Sooner or later, that person will realize it too.

Materialistic Things are Important too
All this is not to suggest that we should stop using our brain to design and manufacture new machines, factories, industries, ideas and services. All these materialistic things have been the greatest achievement of human beings. In the last two centuries, first with the industrial revolution (factories, cars, electricity, assembly lines) and the progress in science we made with that, and now with the knowledge revolution (computers, internet, globalization) we have totally changed the quality of human life on earth. So while materialistic things must be the output of our ever growing and creative mind, but they are only created to serve us and make our lives better, not the other way round.

In conclusion, love for others creates happiness for us and for others too. It’s easy to believe that money and things bring happiness, but they don’t. Happiness is a habit, and not an outcome of something. It is therefore much wiser to love people and use things, than to love things and use people.

The Top Three Tragic Myths of the Times we Live in

Sumit Gupta — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:02:14 +0000

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”, said Albert Einstein. Taking this notion forward, this article of mine is going to dwell upon why life itself is a myth, and how each one of us is driven by some ‘absolute‘ truths that are nothing more than widely accepted myths. These myths drain the life out of our days and take us onto paths of mediocrity and obscurity. Below are the top three such myths I think we all encounter in everyday life. (Give them some time to sink in, as they very well might be absolute truths for you.)

You Have to Work to Survive
The biggest myth of our times is ‘having to work‘ to earn a living for surviving. Right from our birth, everything is setup to create this illusion. Our education system, the college system, all the news and shows on TV and the movies we watch. As we grow up, this myth becomes very ‘real‘ for us. The only thing from our childhood which we term as illusions are the cartoons we watch. Did you ever wonder why everyone loves cartoons?

There is a common misconception that work is necessary. Over decades and centuries, every rock is chipped away into sand and dust. Work does the same to our lives and souls. Day by day, hour by hour, our work chips us away into disintegration. If somebody tells you they are “making a living“, they can’t be more wrong. They are dying, fast spending whatever little time they have doing things out of compulsion rather than the pure desire of doing it.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” - Confucius

Instead, PLAY. Go out and do what you want. Find something you love doing, something you are passionate about. Many people say they don’t know their passion or hobbies, or they have not discovered them yet. Here is a formula – Look into your life, and the things you do for which you pay others are your hobbies and passions, and for which you get paid and compelled to do is work. DO NOT spend the vast majority of your life working so that you can play in the end. The end which might never come, or which might be tomorrow itself, for all you know.

Planning and Living for the Future
We live in a world where insurance and pension policies, investments, education, business, almost everything is done with an objective to achieve something in the future. Utter non-sense! Who gave you the guarantee that you will not die tomorrow, next week or next month? What made you believe that you are going to die at 70 or 80, and not at 20 or 30 or 40. If you don’t believe it, read and watch the news. People are dying everyday at all ages. The average age might be 70 or 80, but ask yourself – Do you really want to live your life based on a statistic?

Instead, LIVE NOW. Enjoy whichever phase of life you are in. Be in each day fully, rather than counting the days in your life. Live your life in a way that you are satisfied even if you die tomorrow, or the next second. Make every breath count. Don’t wait for tomorrow if you want to fall in love, travel to your dream destination, or eat that favorite ice-cream of yours. Do it NOW. Fall in LOVE with life, not just with a few selected people, things and ideas. Whether you make 1 grand or 1 million, whether you live in an apartment or a mansion, embrace life fully NOW and don’t let your goals and milestones in life decide the level of your happiness or joy.

Control and Consistency
The next biggest myth we base our lives on is aiming for control and consistency. We plan and build systems, processes and organize things to make our lives more comfortable and cozy. That we can control life is the biggest lie that we tell ourselves. Life, by its very nature, is messy and unpredictable. It is not fair and nobody is entitled to get anything out of it. In school, if you study more, you get more marks and vice versa. The same doesn’t hold true in life. The sooner we realize this the better. Good and bad things will happen to you. Your education, job, country you live in, or any other parameter which gives you the illusion of safety, is a very bad armor against life.

Instead, be FREE from the controls. Embrace the uncertainty of life and experience real FREEDOM. Go out and play. Learn a new language, take a new job, live in different countries and experience and soak in different cultures, write, paint, or do anything else that drives you towards life rather than draining the life out of you. Don’t try to be nice or do what is expected. Don’t live for the gallery. For a change, LIVE for YOURSELF. Let yourself be misunderstood, hated, judged or whatever, but live by your convictions. It is better to be assassinated by another human being than being assassinated by death.

Conclusion
Our thoughts (and idea of reality) shape our circumstances. It is like watching the same movie again and again. If we want to play a different movie in our life, we have to change the cassette. And rejecting the above myths might be the first step for it. Thoughts arise in the mind, and we become aware of them. But over time, we stop seeing them as thoughts and see them as reality. Therefore, we never stop to question its reality.

Life is a mirage. An earing and a bangle are both made out of gold. But our thoughts make them an earing and a bangle, in essence both are only gold. Yet we only term what we see while asleep as dreams and not what we see while awake. In essence, both are illusions created by our senses. In the night many times we get scared of an insect or a rat, but when we switch on the light they are just objects lying around. But our senses gave them an illusion of an insect or a rat. Everything in life, our riches, our troubles, our possessions are illusions and a mirage created by the mind – and we must never loose sight of that.

Why CricketRadius? The problem and the market

Sumit Gupta — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:44:07 +0000

As you know, I launched CricketRadius.com on April 2nd. It is my second stint at entrepreneurship after SaleRaja earlier. In this article I will try to answer what idea I had so as to convince me to leave Yahoo and jump full time into this. Being very frank, I got the idea (and it is still refining) after leaving Yahoo. I had a very basic vision of doing something to connect fans when I left Yahoo, but the idea of a social network and what all features it will have have only come in the last three months. See below paragraphs to know more about the problem, the market and the solution.

The Problem
As a cricket fan, right now there are websites where you can check scores, read articles and stories written by former players and experts. Cricinfo, CricBuzz, CricketNext, Yahoo Cricket are some of the popular names. There are also a lot of fan blogs where bloggers share their views about the game. But there is no platform which gives you a cricket profile, where you can express your love for your favorite teams, players, stadiums and matches. There is no platform where all the fans can come together and share the experience which comes when our team wins, or our favourite player gets a century or a hat-trick. We watch cricket and enjoy it with our friends and family, and that is where the real love and joy for the game comes out.

We can obviously share about cricket on social networks like facebook and twitter. But it is annoying when you share about your favorite team on social networks, and every other non-cricket update gets in the way? Like someone’s birthday wishes, or what dish has one cooked, or some funny pic about a guy getting hit by a car. Wouldn’t it be great if you could talk just about Cricket?

CricketRadius - Because Fans Deserve Better

The Product?
CricketRadius is a social network for cricket fans by cricket fans. Interact with others who have cricket in their blood, and discuss about your favorite players, teams and ongoing matches. Check in to the players and teams you are watching, score runs and let the world know your cricket acumen. Also, score runs and get rewarded on the way.

The Market
Currently there are more than 100 million Indian internet users, of which 45 million are on facebook. There is no need to quantify in numbers the popularity of cricket and how many of these users visit various cricket websites or share about cricket on facebook and twitter. This number is expected to rise to 300 million by 2014, according to Google India. A large young population (more than 50% of Indians will be under 30 by 2015) with better incomes and a growing economy are all reasons for this impending growth.

Online advertising in India is only worth $200 million, of which $100 million is of Google alone. Online ads and engagement models have yet to catch on in India, considering the global online ad market is $ 80 billion while global revenue for Google is $29 billion. This despite the fact that India is the third largest internet populace, only behind US and China. Some more figures can be found at http://thenextweb.com/in/2011/09/16/internet-users-to-triple-in-india-by-2014-google/

This presents to me a huge gap and a product missing for an ardent cricket fan like me. Cricket is something about which I am really passionate about, and it has been a dream come true creating a product which more than anyone else, I want to use and share with my cricket lover friends.

I thought, But

Sumit Gupta — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:56:46 +0000

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” – Havelock Ellis

I thought I could forget you,
How foolish was I?
I was ready to bid adieu,
But then you passed by!!

I thought I would not miss you,
But from inside I felt empty!
As I didn’t even knew,
You were now a part of me!!

I thought I could move forward,
Without ever turning to look back!
It soon became very awkward,
As you were part of every flashback!!

I thought it would be alright,
And I will find a new path to tread!
But something just didn’t feel right,
As every time you smiled my heart bled!!

I thought it was just a crush,
And it would pass away like a flu!
But just your thought makes me blush,
And I know my heart whispers – “I love you!”!!

I thought I could let you go,
And that it would be an easy choice!
But I never stopped hearing the echo,
And feeling like when I first heard your voice!!

No related posts.

Idea or Execution, What is more Important?

Sumit Gupta — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:41:18 +0000

It is a very difficult question to answer, and I can take any side and debate endlessly for its merits. One important point from a business point of view is that both are critical, and there can be no successful business without either idea or execution. In a way, both are inseparable. What will you execute if you don’t have an idea to start with? And there is no such thing as the perfect idea. As you get out in the world and start executing, your idea will obviously change and refine itself based on market feedback and knowledge of realities which you were not present to earlier.

For Idea
Start up is the art of executing an idea, so obviously the idea is critical. If you are hell bent upon executing a stupid idea, no matter what your execution is, it just doesn’t add up. The idea in turn is the key to attract good investment and people, which are critical for the execution. A bad idea will simply not get enough traction to survive in the market place. A great idea is a way to attract other resources who will do the execution. Obviously execution is important, but it is zilch without the idea first. In short, the idea must be executable for the execution to matter.

For Execution
An idea is just an initial vision for a product, or a solution by the founder. To develop it as a business, the whole business model has to be considered. Who are your customers, how will you reach them, what is your USP, what will be the key resources for you, and most importantly, what all will you incur expense for and what all will fetch you money. An idea without answering these questions is well, just an idea. Sometimes no matter how great your product or service is, you simply can’t make the economics work and you end up in the dead pool.

The choice of market, the team, its persistence, timing, and how good you are at adapting the business along the way based on what you learn all comes in the execution sphere. And it is very important to be mature enough to realize that no idea is the ‘final’ idea. You need to pivot your idea and product, and try out different products, marketing strategies, revenue models before you find a product market fit. For example – We all know solar is a good idea, but it has not been successful because there are huge upfront costs which customers are unwilling to pay. But there are many companies like Simpa who have changed their business model by partnering with banks and offer their solutions to the customers at the same expense they are incurring now. The idea is the same, but the execution is the differentiator here.

The bottom line – execution is required for any enterprise to succeed, either with a good idea or a mediocre idea. Of course, nobody can help you if you have a bad idea.

Idea or Execution

Derek Siver’s Explanation
He believes an idea is just a multiplier, and formulates its relation to execution as follows:

Awful idea = -1
Weak idea = 1
So-so idea = 5
Good idea = 10
Great idea = 15
Brilliant idea = 20

No execution = $1
Weak execution = $1000
So-so execution = $10,000
Good execution = $100,000
Great execution = $1,000,000
Brilliant execution = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

( My) Conclusion
Seth Godin says that just about every successful venture is based on an unoriginal idea, beautifully executed. Nearly every startup morphs their idea, often in very significant ways, once they enter the market. I would say that both are inseparable, you have to continuously refine your idea while you execute, and that is the key. So I would probably put the split at 40/60 in favor of execution. But there is hardly any business success story without both.

What does ‘Work is Worship’ means and what our work can be?

Sumit Gupta — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 03:54:16 +0000

Work is where we spend most of our lives, especially in these super competitive times and in a tough economy. Most of us work for around 50-60 hours per week (at a minimum), which makes it around 108 to 130 days every year. The only other activity we do as much as work is sleeping. Thus work and sleep each takes around 33% or one-third of all our days in a year. In many surveys (here and here and here) organized by universities and other institutions around the world, it is known that most people (more than 50% of them) are not happy in their work and seek life outside of it, ie, in the 33% or one-third of the remaining time they have.

If time is our most important resource, think about it this way – We are giving two-thirds of our time away daily, and spend the rest one-third left thinking why we have so little time left. It is like giving a tax of 66% on our time. Now imagine giving back two-thirds of every salary away, and keeping only the one-third for ourselves. If we imagine this situation, we will feel anger, frustration and all other kinds of emotions. It is the same with time, but we don’t realize it because in our perspective money is something more real and substantive (which we can hold, see in our bank account) but time looks like a never-ending resource. But time does have a limit, and every minute you are not spending living your life, it is akin to giving away money. Imagine yourself giving away money physically every time you feel you spent any time which can be termed as ‘not living your life‘.

A popular and old proverb says that “Work is Worship“. It looks good only as a proverb and something very unreal in the times we live in. The common (and agreed about) perspective about work looks at it only as a tool to earn some money or achievement or reward so as to live your life in the spare time you have left. In this article, I am presenting another perspective on work according to which our work is a vehicle, a chance, an opportunity for each one of us to express ourselves and shine like a light and set an example for the whole world.

Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana - The sanskrit phrase in Gita which translates to "You have a right to perform your prescribed action, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action." is also on the same lines

Have you watched Sachin Tendulkar walk into a stadium to play (which is his work)? How does the audience respond to that? Every time he walks in to bat, he gets a standing ovation from the audience and they stand and applaud. I guess this is what the adage – Work is Worship means, which is beautifully expressed in the way a Sachin Tendulkar or a Rahul Dravid bats. Before I divert to cricket, let me get back to the topic here. Now imagine every time you walk into your office, everybody notices and gives a standing ovation to you. Everybody recognizes the champion in you that has come to work for producing some amazing results which others will only dream about and watch from the stands.

Just changing the perspective can change everything about how we see our work, and what and how much it can contribute to our life. It is not something where we spend one-third of our time to get some money to spend in the remaining one-third. Instead, work is a platform where we can unveil the very best in ourselves. Work itself is our life, it is our chance to grow and become all we ever wanted to be. It is the most important, and the best thing in our lives, we shouldn’t miss or waste even a single second of it. It is a vehicle to become all that we ever wanted to become, and to have the life we always wanted to have. Life happens inside of work, not outside it.

I will end with a very powerful quote by James A. Michener -
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both. ”

Every Obstacle has an Opportunity Hidden beneath it

Sumit Gupta — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:00:47 +0000

The only people I have ever known to have no problems are in the cemetery, says Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. If this reality hasn’t hit you in the face, let me make it clear – If you are alive, you will have problems and obstacles in your life. It is as much a truth as the air we breathe, and the earth we walk on. Yet we live all our lives avoiding problems or solving them. What an irony?

When Lance Armstrong says that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to him, and that if he would have to choose between his Tour de France wins and cancer, he would choose cancer, he is saying a lot. He won the Tour de France seven times after recovering from cancer to give a light of hope to the millions of cancer patients out there, and his tryst with cancer has given him the purpose of his life, the LiveStrong Foundation.

Even in the Mahabharata, Krishna saw fighting as an opportunity which Arjuna saw as a problem. The way we see the problem is the real problem, and if every time we face a problem we ask ourselves – “What is the opportunity here?”, we can open closed doors of new opportunities which can enliven us and the people around us.

If we can learn to do this everytime, our life is taken care of

Let’s take an example. In the current tough economy, let’s say one is out of a job. It might look as a problem, but we can ask “What is the opportunity here?”. What are the answers we can get? Being without a job could actually be an opportunity to start a business, or to go back to study or take some time off to travel. When we are in a job, we are often too stuck in our comfort zone that we don’t even look at what all we are capable of. But when we are shocked by some so-called problem, we often are forced to do what we never thought we could, and that always leaves behind a better version of us.

If I look back at my life, the best things have come out from the times which I have considered my worst. Whether it was the dissatisfaction at work which led me to create Sukip and SaleRaja, or later the failure of SaleRaja which led me to writing which has now led me to another entrepreneurial venture (CricketRadius), the times which I have considered my worst at one time have given me the best results.

In times when we think the whole world is against us, what we need is the maturity to seek the hidden opportunity. We also need the patience which will allow us to wait and bide time till we can see the opportunity hidden in that obstacle. We might not be able to see the opportunity at that time, but if we can show faith in life, we will only come out stronger and better prepared for the future. I will end with this quote by John Ruskin -
“The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.”

The Two Kinds of Choices and Decisions