exploring-the-reality: In search of balanced coexistence with Nature

After a bit of meditation about our relationship with the existence around, it soon starts to amaze us as to how every organism on this planet, apart from human beings, have found a balance with surrounding environment. Every organism only consumes from the nature exactly what is required to survive. Even the organisms who hibernate during winters only store enough to go through the hibernation.

Accumulation beyond what is absolutely required for co-existence with nature is absolutely a no in all plant & animal life around us. Every organism also contributes to well being of existence by performing important functions of cleaning & rejuvenating natural resources as one's limited existence allows.

This reality is in stark contrast to the great imbalance human race has created with nature. From this perspective, when I meditate on the reason for this imbalance, it is not very difficult to see.

Read more... exploring-the-reality: In search of balanced coexistence with Nature

Why spend trillions in decoding human machine when we are ones who run it everyday?

With trillions of dollars being spent on understanding how human body/mind system work, I wonder

1. Aren't we the ones who run this system day in and day out?

2. Shouldn't these dollars be spent on efforts to discover dimensions of our consciousness that are able to connect to the pre-embedded knowledge within each of us?

Lets spend time and effort to break the barriers of limited extent of our 5 senses bound time-space. The question is How?

Deadline or to not deadline - Exploring reality

Deadlines are a bad idea when

1. Teams or individuals working on creating something new

2. Initial stages of unstructured or complex work

Deadlines work best when

1. Individual pieces of work are almost complete and integration is required to give product complete shape

2. Repetitive & well understood tasks that require that extra push to reach the finish line

Summary - When the path is clear deadlines help to reach the finish line fast, on the other hand, if one is discovering the path, deadlines are best avoided.

Is United Attack on Libyan Govt Forces a Good Idea?

Why

1. Sends a signal to dictators about repercussions of carrying out genocide in their countries

2. Sends a signal that the forces of democracy are stronger than the forces of oppression

3. UN sanctioned it signalling that predominant world view is against Libyan govt designs

Why Not

1. Presumption of outside forces about what people want in other countries can be terribly wrong

2. Raises questions about sovereign rights of individual nations

3. Armed actions in past have had limited successes in establishing peaceful social systems

World Should Dump Nuclear Power - Really?

World Should Dump Nuclear Power

Why?

1. Catastrophic fallouts of failures

2. No feasible way to cleanly dispose the waste

3. Long gestation time of setting up power plants

4. Over dependence on established nuclear fuel suppliers

Why Not?

1. Cleanest way to product power

2. Reduces dependence on Oil for energy needs

3. Very reliable long term energy source

4. Cost equation does not change too much over the life time - Unlike coal/oil powered plants

Twitter Marketing Series - Step 1 of N

Twitter Marketing Series - An attempt to bring out twitter marketing reality in a few words

Step I of N

1. Select a niche that is broad enough - A segment of 10000 may be

2. Select a twitter handle that forms a problem statement - Four words max - Something that people search on Google

3. Start following experts in your Niche

4. Post something of specific value to your segment every day

2011 Starting Thought - What if we were not Slaves of our Egos?

2011 has arrived - I wish more power & success to new venture ecosystem in India.

If one asks me to name one defining characteristic of entrepreneurs, the answer would undoubtedly be the fact that we are all slaves of our Egos - slaves of a wish to be seen as different from others.

A strange question crossed my mind as I started 2011 - What would I do differently if I was not a slave of my ego?

The answer touched me as nothing else so far in my life -

I would create purely for the pleasure of just plain creation and not for the appreciation, or lack of it, it generates from others.

Three cheers to the new venture creation that we are all part of & a very happy new year to all who are part of this game.

TiE Chennai’s Mentoring Program for Young Entrepreneurs -“TiE MENTORS”

Chennai, October 12, 2010: TiE Chennai today formally launched TiE MENTOR – a mentorship program that is focused on guiding and fostering entrepreneurial spirit among young and next generation entrepreneurs. The program is structured based on recommendations from a comprehensive research conducted amongst various stakeholders in the city. A unique facet of the

program is its one-to-one mentoring approach - which pairs an experienced and successful entrepreneur with a new one - combined with a global platform which makes available the experience of a galaxy of successful entrepreneurs from the global TiE community to the Mentee entrepreneur.

Commenting on the program, R Ramaraj, President, TiE Chennai said, “Mentoring has been an integral part of our ancient educational system. However, the concept of mentoring and offering guidance to build confident and successful entrepreneurs has been tried out systematically only in the past few decades. Today Mentoring is viewed as the most powerful support for

entrepreneurs who dream to create the enterprise of tomorrow. This is one of the strong pillars of TiE. The program is quite structured with focused workshops for mentors and mentees. We have currently about 27 TiE Chennai members as Mentors and Mentees. We expect this to grow further in this year as we increase our emphasis and focus on this important aspect of nurturing entrepreneurship.”

According to Chandu Nair, a Charter Member and Leader of the TiE Mentor programme, “The initial response has been highly encouraging with SmartlearnWebTV and Schoolmate emerging as two success stories through the program. As the economy picks

up further and opportunities abound, we expect this program to benefit more young entrepreneurs.” Under the program, the Mentees get periodic (typically once a month) face to face interactions of about two hours with the paired mentor to discuss various aspects of the business and how to grow it. Apart from this, mentees also have the option to contact the mentors on an ad-hoc basis to bounce off specific concerns or issues.

The Mentor, on the other hand, helps the Mentee by providing access to his network and contacts, besides offering guidance. TiE’s Global/ Remote Mentoring platform also provides opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to access, regardless of their location, a global pool of experts and successful businessmen from within the TiE fraternity.

About TiE Chennai: TiE Chennai is the Chennai chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a global not-for-profit organization that helps budding entrepreneurs by way of advice, guidance and assistance from successful and experienced entrepreneurs and

professionals. It currently has over 350 members, including 90 charter members. Founded in Silicon Valley in 1992 by successful entrepreneurs and professionals with roots in the Indus region, today, TiE has 55 Chapters in 13 countries, spread across 5 continents. The TiE ecosystem comprises 11,000 members and 2,500 charter members, who are the top entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, lawyers and management professionals in their chosen field. For more information on TiE Chennai, visit: chennai.tie.org

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Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of HireMantra & ADPS Consulting and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com

New Product Success - One Question That can Make or Break your Venture

As an Alumni, last week, while I was trying to assist young MBA students at one of the top business schools of India with their post MBA life & entrepreneurship related questions, one of the students asked me a very simple sounding yet a very difficult question to answer.

The question was, what is the most important question that an entrepreneur must ask to ensure new product success in the market. Even after thinking for a while when I could not come up with a convincing answer, I promised the young lady that I would jog my memory, go through my numerous product launch failures and a few successes & get back with an answer.

The answer was a deeper understanding of a common fact that every one of us know, yet, very few of us appreciate as the starting principle behind any new product success.

The trick is not even the question that I am sure everyone thinks they know the answer for, the real question is "Where did the answer come from?"

The question is an oft repeated line in entrepreneurial circle -- Which problem does your product solve & what value a target customer willing to pay for solution of that problem.

Doesn't every entrepreneur seem to know the answer to this question-- why would anyone start an enterprise otherwise -- yet 90% of the ventures fail miserably.

What makes the difference between 90% that failed and 10% that succeeded?

My answer to that young student?

The difference is in the source of that answer.

To me, a go-no-go decision of a product venture lies in a simple question, does your product solve a real problem & can you provide a solution at a price that is more economical than the competition.

Now the million dollar question is - Who did you ask that question in the first place?

Go and ask real prospects, at least 4-5 of them, if the proposed product solves their real problem(s) and if they are willing to pay a price that sounds interesting. An affirmative answer is the first and only recipe of new product success.

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Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of ADPS Consulting and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com

How to NOT have a high blood pressure and migrane when running a small business

In a recent inner entrepreneurs circle meeting, I came across a common theme of "pressures the entrepreneurs face everyday and impact on their physical & Mental health".

So we got together with people who have made it big & brainstormed the common Dilemma. What came out was very powerful wisdom.  

Interesting Read - something that very closely reflects what almost 99% of startup entrepreneurs go through.

My doctor recently diagnosed me with High Blood Pressure & said I need to de-stress.

As a small entrepreneur I spoke with my mentor, a seasoned entrepreneur (a very successful one), and shared my problem of over involvement, ensuing stress and results such as burn outs, headaches, stress & high blood pressure. Above all I don't have time left to think about important things and issues important to grow my business.

He didn't seem surprised and said 100% of the small business owners have this problem and the solution is simple yet difficult. Nevertheless, solution is required if business owners have to take company from status of a small enterprise to medium or big one.

So what is the solution? Sounding skeptical, I asked politely yet impatiently

Solution is a simple word called delegation. It is not a noun, it is a verb & signifies action.

Delegation frees up owners time to work ON the business and not IN the business. Owners should never work in the business, they should have capable people doing low to medium value execution jobs so that they can focus on tasks critical to grow the business and to make it successful and big.

You mean let someone else do what is critical for my customers? Business Operations? are you crazy? They can sink my business.

Yes, that is what I mean & that is exactly what is required to not die young as an owner of a small enterprise, but to die old and happy owning a billion dollar business.

Ok, ok, I got to believe you for all the problems I have. But how do you do it? and make sure people do not kill your business?

It is simple to to delegate effectively. But beware, If not done properly, it can kill the business itself. All the steps are necessary, you skip one and you are doomed. You do it all and you have an easy life.

Yes I am all ears to listen, please tell me how to do it?

1. Before doing anything and everything ask a simple questions, Can any one else do it?

2. If the answer is yes (it is yes for most of the non-strategic & execution related things), identify that person who can do it for you.

3. If you don't have that person HIRE him/her. It may sound like unnecessary expenditure, but your job is to grow business to cover that expense.

Tell yourself, you have two options, do it & keep doing it and never have time to grow the business or take some risk, hire some one capable & focus on growing the business.

4. The most difficult part is to Give him/her the job

It is simple but you gotta be careful .  Beware your business depends on that job being done on time & accurately. Follow these simple steps and you are on the way

1. Provide the person

A> Complete information on what needs to be done

B> Skills required to do the job. Don't assume people automatically have skills, if required arrange for training

C> Empower and provide authority & access needed for the job

D> Provide practical time that would take to complete the job

E> Instill a sense of urgency and importance. Make sure you say that it is important that it is completed on time. Dont assume people would automatically take the job seriously.

D> Define what do you mean by completion. Can you check for A, B, C, D items & verify that it is complete? Tell him/her the deadline and need to deliver A, B, C, D, E items and meet you or communicate to you the completion on all of them.

Dillegently track completion - People would not take you seriously the next time, if you didn't!

Simple isn't it!

If you followed these simple steps, soon you would realize you have all the money to pay all the people working IN the business because now most capable of them all YOU has enough time to work ON the business.

A simple test of leadership is to count how many leaders have you grown to run your business.

Happy Growing!

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Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of ADPS Consulting & Ghoomo.com and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com

Entrepreneurial Upside of Gloom @ IIM Placements

Shaken Global economy is showing its impact at IIM Campuses as never before. Gloom is palpable and to say the least things are rough for students graduating out of even the top most management & engineering institutions.

The most visible proof of such a scenario is an abrupt switch of Indian media obsession from stratospheric salaries offered at IIM Campuses to sensational stories of availability of top end brain pool to start-ups at bargain basement prices.

I see a significant positive scenario emerging from this gloom that can expedite the Indian transformation to the top of innovation & entrepreneurial league.

World has seen and talked about two kinds of entrepreneurial activity, one that contributes to more than 90% of the business starts, namely no-other-option scenario that pushes people to start on their own. Generally such businesses are commodity driven & do not count for much of innovation in the world.

The second more interesting category of ventures are High Expectation Entrepreneurship. These are the ventures that are started by people who are highly capable, who have very high earning potential options in corporate world.

Today's gloom scenario creates an Interesting melting pot of the two types. Very high potential people left with no options but to start on their own can give rise to innovation on unprecedented scale. This interesting merger gives us a significant reason to smile (if not cheer) at this ironical seminal moment of opportunity for innovation, enterprise & change (Pun not intended).

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Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of ADPS Consulting & Ghoomo.com and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com

Liquidity Crunch - A Startup Opportunity

Everyone in the world seems to be preoccupied with corroborating the popular rhyme that its going to tough for businesses especially start-ups to survive the ongoing economic meltdown.

The logic sounds too strong to ignore, drying up market demand and the fact that increasingly capital finds cash more interesting than a risky asset in hand (or any asset in hand for that matter). Any thought of start-ups having a chance looks naive at best.

I take unpopular stand and see this turbulence as a great opportunity for startups. Startups who can provide disruptive models for cash preservation & growth for struggling enterprises.

When companies are struggling to survive, they are willing to try risky options that give them hope. The alternatives are far too gloomy.

Startups are always risky options to do business with, but these options can look more attractive than ever before if they can offer hope of longevity and survival for struggling enterprises.

My suggestion to budding entrepreneurs? Evolve an interesting model that creates real cash burn reduction options for struggling CEOs. You would be surprised, how enthusiastically market laps up your services.

Its time to think out of box and that's the only way startups can survive.

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Subodh Vinchurkar, is founder of ADPS Consulting and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting.com

UGC Play YouMagix goes Vertical

Here is official Press Release

In spite of all the buzz about Internet products, Internet landscape in India lacks basic & reliable services that people take for granted in western world. Today, Indian Internet story requires not merely cool technology but a reliable service delivery & content infrastructure that can deliver powerful productivity enhancements to millions over world wide web.

In this context Ghoomo.com's launch of movies & show time finder services signals an important value addition milestone in Indian Internet consumer space.

What makes Ghoomo.com unique is the breadth and depth of movie finder services that Ghoomo makes available to consumers in India. At present, Ghoomo covers 25 Indian cities and over 500 movie screens. In near future, Ghoomo plans to make movie finder services available to 50 cities & over 1000 movie screens in India.

Another significant aspect of Ghoomo services is an effective marriage of User Generated Content & credible content driven by robust backend processes to provide a powerful and useful movies & show time search experience.

Ghoomo.com is a part of YouMagix.com, an experimental stage family of products. YouMagix product range intends to fill content availability gaps in countries such as India by innovative application of User Generated Content.

As Ghoomo.com rolls out complete service offerings in coming days, a hassle free & seamless movie planning experience can no longer be a dream for movie goers in India.

Why did Lightspeed take AskLaila bet?

Ever since I heard the news of LightSpeed led $10 million investment in AskLaila, I have been scratching my head and searching for answers. For starters, AskLaila is a purely India focused local yellowpage website with an added layer of basic value added services such as user reviews.

How much ever I may wish to laugh away this investment as one of the 90% VC investments that go down the drain, the reality is that nobody, especially hardened breed known as venture capitalist, invests $10million without a clear glimpse of potential high payoff.

Here is a clue, when we look at Indian Market there are two clear realities that strike an aware mind

1. One one hand, we see a growing economy, that clearly has a potential to be one of the largest in the world in next couple of decades. With a vibrant economy comes phenomenal consumption demand that can raise many billion dollar companies in basic customer facing services alone.

2. On the other hand, we have an utterly underdeveloped consumer services infrastructure. A casual visitor from western world can clearly appreciate that India lacks basic services that everybody in the West takes for granted.

Now you start to see some method in the investment madness across sectors in India. We are talking about basic consumer facing infrastructure that can deliver reliable services day in and day out, which does not exist in India today.

When it comes to basic infrastructure, It may take a lot of investment & efforts to build something that works, but successful players will have the last laugh.

Three cheers for hundreds of AskLailas, Lightspeed Ventures, entrepreneurs and investors who have decided to take a plunge.

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Writer is founder of youmagix.com and can be reached at subodhv AT gmail.com

Produce in Silicon Valley Sell in India

Very interesting news bytes appeared at WSJ. This story is unlike popular talk about production hub in India and marketing and sales centre point in USA. The story also emphasizes the importance of a vibrant ecosystem to support innovations and developments.

The core of the story is that there is increasing evidence that companies are choosing silicon valley for hi-tech product development even if the primary target market is developing economy. Primary reason -- such products are only possible in silicon valley that has a vibrant ecosystem of technology expertize, capital availability combined with hi-tech startup culture that are critical for success.

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Subodh Vinchurkar, is founder of youmagix.com and can be reached at subodhv AT gmail.com

Corporate Venture Investment Revisited

In one of my earlier writings on corporate venture investment I had discussed economic fundamentals of venturing and why it may and may not work.

Today, I see a very elaborate analysis of Google's venture investment activity in business week. The article lists strategic reasons why corporates may want to invest in early stage startups. Some of the notable reasons given are

1. To get first right to acquire the startup in case it succeeds and a potential bidding war can risk invaluable IP going to competitor's hand

2. To deploy oodles of cash lying undeployed & get better returns on idle cash.

While I accept the first as a valid strategic reason, I reject the second as an inferior way to deploy idle cash as this can potentially harm investors interest.

In short, Google's core competence is technology innovation and not financial investment and that's what investors would like Google to do first (For theoretically inclined, there is vibrant literature available on why it is better to return cash to investors by buying back shares or paying dividends rather than venturing beyond core competence.)

Well, again, as an entrepreneur, one can only be happy to find competition for the right to acquire a share in future.

Entrepreneurial EcoSystem -What is important?

In an interesting article, Blodget, Merrill Lynch tech analyst, compared entrepreneurial ecosystem in Silicon Valley to that of NY. As one of the noteworthy arguments he states that proximity to previous generation of successful players is more significant contributor to startup ecosystem success than that of proximity to great engineering institutions (read Stanford). The basis? -- An increasingly global engineering talent that is virtually accessible from anywhere.

May I venture to imagine that the flood of green-field investment by global tech firms in India will eventually lead to a vibrant tech innovation environment. Not a bad thought though.

Interesting article worth a read checkout

Google Flags End of Commodity Yellow Page Local Search Game in India

Google has silently introduced its killer Google local application to Indian web audience. An interesting development for Indian Internet Space & this is how I look at the impact of this launch on Indian web space.

On one hand, I see big cheers from the Indian internet users who will get the most relevant yellow page results on top of Google searches for local businesses and they will get to write reviews on those businesses. On the other hand, it signals end of idea arbitrage era in this lucrative segment. Be prepared to see demise of a lot of pure play yellowpage and local search based web models in Indian internet space.

Copycat and pure no additional value plays such as business listings on Internet were destined to this fate as no one can claim copyright over a business address and a phone number. Google can always crawl all the content or listing from any website making them available to its users and a mind-share battle with Google is a non-starter.

This may not be a good news for models such as Sulekha Business Listings or new Indian startup ventures such as asklaila. Nevertheless, I do not see it as end of the road for all the players in this segment.

Internet players who are innovative and are able to provide unique value to its visitors over and beyond pure business listings or simple value additions such as plain reviews (Google listing features) will survive. Though I am biased, I list YouMagix as one of the probable survivors as it is uniquely positioned and is beyond the clutter of pure yellow page listing models under threat from Google's entry in this space.

I welcome Google local to India as it forces Indian net players to think beyond the obvious and drives them hard to innovate in order to survive and thrive in this interesting space.

YouMagix: Is it Web-2.0 or is it UGC Portal?

There is a debate in blogosphere about whether YouMagix is a web2.0 portal or a yellow page portal or just another user generated content attempt.

Checkout YouMagix team's thoughts about the question.

YouMagix.com - Find your Options

A very late update as your truly was busy in launching his new venture YouMagix

Checkout YouMagix website and YouMagix Blog for more information about this venture.

Your feedback is welcome!

India New Venture Ecosystem Update - 05-July-2007

Vinod Dham on India Plans

Vinod Dham, who is working through NEA IndoUS Ventures fund for India plans, on investing in India. The article also mentions he has $189 million fund for his India plans. Checkout...

VCs on funding ventures targeting lower Income segments

Indian Venture Capital Known Names talk about investing in social entreprises working targeting lower income segments that CK Pralhad refers as bottom of the pyramid. You may find some of it (if not the most of it) interesting.

Advertising to Paid Audience - A Cool Idea or an Economic Non Starter

Advertising to paid audience is an economic non-starter. The businesses have little reasons to advertise on such platforms because on is perverse economic incentive. as the receiver of ads are solely driven by incentive to make money will not have need in most of the cases for services/products that they choose to receive communication for.

enidhi blog has an interesting analysis of mGinger business model. Checkout if you want to understand the economics around a model that leverages paid audience as ad consumers.