Startup Business

Google Browser Chrome: Is Internet Explorer under Threat?

2008-09-03T21:17:00.006+05:30

Google has launched its browser Chrome this week. Though it is a beta release and is released for windows platform only, it is an interesting development and the Google-Microsoft war is hotting up. Microsoft has been the dominant player in the market and controls more than 70% market share. In recent times, Mozilla has done well and now enjoys a market share of around 20+%. How will Chrome change the market scenario or will it be able to do so?

Whether Chrome will be able to spoil Microsoft's party or not, it will certainly force Microsoft to allocate more resources towards IE. It will not be easy for Microsoft to kill Chrome as it did in the case of Netscape with offering free browser. Google's offering is anyways free. There are couple of areas, where Chrome can certainly score over IE. If you use IE, you will notice that it is resource hungry and that's a big negative for me. On my laptop using Vista, IE 7 with 3 tabs open, consumes approx 140 MB of memory. Whereas Chrome with 3 tabs, consumes appox. 25 MB of memory, wow, that's pretty cool. Secondly, Google will definitely offer Chrome on all platforms like Mozilla and that is going to be a killer. Microsoft, it seems, will be watching Chrome's journey more closely than any one of us.

Very interesting space to watch for!!!!

Cheers

Abhishek

We are Hiring now

2008-08-28T15:39:00.004+05:30

.NET Technical Manager
Position: Microsoft.net Technical Manager
Location: Pune
Experience: 5+ Years on Microsoft.NET platform
Key Skills: C#, ASP.NET, SQL Server

The Technical Manager will assume the responsibility of leading the product development team. The person must have excellent grasp of .NET technology and its deployment aspects in different scenarios. The person will be the owner of the product right from the requirement to packaging stage.
The technical manager will also be working closely with the sales team in AP and the USA. We look at this role as one of the key roles in the organization. The person can grow up to at least Director (Engineering).
Responsibilities:
—Architecting the product and deciding the technology road map
—Guiding the team on all technology aspects.
—Interfacing with the customer on technology presentations and consulting.

We are in process of starting the development of the product which will initially be targeted towards customers in Asia Pacific and the USA. This product is being developed to cater to corporates, educational institutions and schools and is into e-learning 2.0 space. We will be offering a package comprising of sustenance salary, profit sharing in product and services sales and equity.You can contact me at +91 98212 15890 or srivasaa2000@yahoo.com

Cheers
Abhishek

Recruiting for Startup: My first impressions

2008-08-25T09:24:00.006+05:30

It is a known fact that putting together the right talent for your start up is critical for your success. Startups face a lot of problems in attracting right talent for key positions primarily owing to inability to pay high salaries. This is because cashflow is always a constraint. For a product based startup, it is even more difficult as the revenues from product starting flowing in once it is ready for the market. So how do you go about finding the right talent. I would highlight 2 points which I feel are important to get the right set of people:

Selecting right channel for recruitment: How would you let know others that you are hiring keeping in mind the constraint in terms of time and money. You don't want to be sitting on a pile of CVs shortlisting and spending time with each one of them. There are are lot of things which needs your time. In my corporate experience, the selection ratio has gone down from 5:1 to 20:1 or even higher, through the normal channels. Basically, you need channels which give you best fit profiles so that you can spend more time in understanding the compatbility. For me, it is very very important. I have been using venturewoods, pluggd.in, genportal etc to advertise my jobs. The response has been encouraging as I receive profiles which are extremely good fits with desire to work for the start up. And the bonus is that the numbers are very limited.

Right Package- This section is more relevant for startups which are bootstrapped (read it as limited funding). Let us understand, why do people want to join your startup, even if they have the option of joining an established brand and earn comfortable salary. As I understand after talking to many people, these people are ambitious and want to make a difference. They want to enjoy the feeling of building an organization with their effort, which is rewarding both in tangible and intangible terms. These rewards, if defined correctly, will attract good people to your startup. So what should constitute the right package, well it can be a mixture of sustenance salary (not full salary), equity (spread over a period of years and target linked) and profit sharing. Share your wealth with the key people as that's the way you can taste success.

If you are interested to know what kind of packages we are offering, do get in touch with me. Will be happy to share it with you.

Cheers

Abhishek

Learnings: Startup Story Part I

2008-08-21T14:16:00.004+05:30

It’s been a long hiatus from the blog because of various reasons. I have missed out on one hand but have become wiser as well. The last few months have taught me some important lessons. I thought to share it.
Around November 2007, my idea of starting a venture was taking some shape and I was getting ready for a March 2008 launch. I had couple of partners with me in this venture. It all started when I got in touch with two gentlemen during ideation phase. We started to brainstorm the idea and brought it to execution stage and that's when things took a turn for the worse and at the end of it, the idea was shelved. Well, I feel it was for a good reason that it did not work out else it would have given us more pains.

As our idea was taking shape, our interactions also increased and inspite of being in Mumbai and Bangalore, we made sure to meet up once in a month at a place. Otherwise we were always on Skype and emails. Once the idea got developed, we reached a stage where we started to invest in office space, business cards etc. Everybody sounded so upbeat. Suddenly one day, one of my partners said he is not interested. It was the shock of my life and took me some time to recover from it. I thought, ok, let us forget about it and move ahead. One of the partners, Mr Y, had couple of concepts and we started to work on that. Anyways, what happened next, was even more appalling for me. Mr. Y suddenly stopped responding to our calls and SMSs. There was absolutely no response. It took me at least two months to recover from it and start afresh. Interestingly, I came to know that Mr. Y has started his own venture during the same time meaning he was parallely working on the same. That's the part I of the story with sad ending.
Now if I look back, I think I made couple of mistakes:
· Associating idea of the venture with partners: An idea or a concept must be seen as an independent entity. When we carried out the feasibility, it looked good from the market size and state perspective. That’s the reason we decided to go ahead with it.
· Lack of confidence in myself: In the back of my mind, I always felt that I cannot do it on my own or cannot carry it forward if these people are not with me. That’s made me pull out as soon as one of the partners pulled out. I could have continued with the other but I could not. I just did not have the courage the do so.

Will write about part II of the story with a happy ending.
~Cheers

Festival of Light in India

2007-11-08T12:25:00.000+05:30

I wish everyone, who is visiting my page, a very very happy and prosperous Diwali, the Festival of Lights in India.

Cheers

Dimdim enters Webmeeting Software Space with Free Offering

2007-09-26T11:10:00.000+05:30

There is a new entrant into the Webmeeting Software space, Dimdim. Well, it is entering into the market which already has names like Cisco and Microsoft. Cisco owned WebEx is the market leader in this space. Microsoft’s LiveMeeting and GoToMeeting are the other Webmeeting softwares. So what is different in Dimdim. To start with it is free. Secondly, participants’ do not need to download any software, unlike other products in the market which is a big irritant. I have to still check how does this work, but it is cool.

The webmeeting software allows you to host meetings on the Internet using your office presentations. You can share your desktop and also allow participants to access applications running on your desktop. Webcam will enable you to even have video chat using these softwares. I have been using WebEx for the past three years and it has served me well except on couple of occasions where I found the performance wanting.

Dimdim has started a new model and we will have to wait and watch how this strategy unfolds.

Cheers

SAP: SaaS bandwagon

2007-09-21T20:50:00.000+05:30

Facing severe pressure from its peers and dwindling profits, SAP, the largest ERP solution provider, has launched its ERP solution as a service for small enterprises with 100 to 500 users. The pricing is US$ 54 for 5 user licenses, which is competitive. It is called business byDemand.

It must be noted that SalesForce and OnDemand Oracle has created a serious threat to SAP and it had to launch the ERP as a service.The race is becoming interesting.

Cheers
Abhishek

Entrepreneur of the Year

2007-09-21T20:47:00.000+05:30

Inc.com is inviting nominations for the Entrepreneur of the year. The nominations can be done here:

http://www.inc.com/entrepreneur/2007/submit.php

What is the date Today?

2007-09-18T10:00:00.000+05:30

Today is 18th September, 2007. Look at the 3 parts of the date, 18 = 1+8 = 9. The month is also 9 i.e. September. The year is 2007 = 2 +0 +0+7 =9. Interesting. Numerologist might be interested.

Innvotive Startup: Technology for Masses

2007-09-11T12:42:00.000+05:30

"Meraki is bringing Internet Access to the next Billion People"

Meraki networks has leveraged the existing wireless network mechanism to create wireless mesh networks which allows you to extend your broadband connection to hundreds of people in your neighbourhood. It is a kind of intelligent mesh network which keeps the signal transmission efficient and strong and travels much longer. The key to this solution is Meraki router and it comes in two versions: Meraki Mini Outdoor and Meraki Mini costing US $ 99 to US $ 49 respectively. I don't know if these routers are available in India and what will be the price here, if imported. But definitely Meraki Routers are cheaper than the normal routers in the US.

The website further states:

"Tens of thousands of users worldwide are connecting to the Internet with Meraki mesh networks. From university students in Slovakia, to children in villages in rural Ecuador, to low-income housing in the United States. And the best part, everyday people are making it happen without the help of IT experts. This is the opportunity to free the net wherever you are."

Kudos to the young Entrepreneur Sanjit Biswas!!!!!

Cheers
Abhishek

Web 3.0

2007-09-10T13:26:00.000+05:30

Web 3.0 is one of the buzz words these days and many authors have written in details about it. But recently I read Sramana Mitra's posts on his blog. He has done excellent research on the topic and provided an in-depth analysis of web 3.0 with a framework that sounds pretty realistic. He has been writing on this article for quite some time and his latest post is a consolidation of his thoughts. He has also analyzed a number of verticals with Web 3.0 framework and that is very well written.

It is an interesting article and is a must read.

Cheers
Abhishek

Verticalization of Non-SN Sites

2007-09-10T11:48:00.000+05:30

Verticalization of Social networking sites is a well written subject. Many bloggers have spent considerable time in reasearching. But I want to draw attention towards verticalization happening in other online space as well. In last couple of years, there have been plethora of online travel portals like Makemytrip, Yaatra, IndiaTimes Travel and many more. Now, Swapnil Kamat started Trip2Goa which is concentrating on Goa with travel packages, hotel deals and festival bonanzas. This is interesting and I am sure many more such efforts will be made in other business spaces as well as predicted by many fellow bloggers.

Read an interview with Swapnil Kamat here.

Startups, Process automation and Open Source

2007-09-04T17:28:00.000+05:30

Open Source Community is doing a great service by consistently coming out with new products and upgrading the existing products. I have been a user of Open Source Softwares (OSS) for a long time and have used OSS for Project Management, Expense management, Software Development, Relational Database and even Office suite. So as a natural choice, I have decided to use OSSs for my startup for each and every function. So lately I have been doing a bit of research to figure out OSSs for various functions. While compiling the list, I realized there are plenty of them and I thought it will be useful if I post them as reference.

Office Suite: Typically an office suite includes Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation tools (Like Microsoft Office Suite). The best product in this category is by Microsoft, by far. Anyways, I was discussing about OSSs. The OSSs come in two flavors:

Office Suites as SaaS (Software as a service): Google Docs and Zoho Virtual Office are two of the better products in this category. Though they offer more than just office suite. Zoho, for instance, offer webmail, Contact management, News and Announcements, Tasks management etc.

Conventional Office Suites: Openoffice.org (It is now named as such because of trademark issues with Open Office) is the best alternative to MS Office. It has now a much improved interoperability with MS Office i.e. you can create and share documents compatible with MS Office.

Financial Accounting System: You have to take care of your finances, right so you need some tool to handle this function. Excel is an excellent tool (so is Openoffice.org) to start with, but you need to quickly move to a sophisticated tool because of process efficiency as well as compliance. Here is to name a few:

Adaptive Planning
osFinancials Planning
OpenBravo – This is a comprehensive ERP suite meant for SME.

Communication: Skype is one of the best communication tools to handle text and voice chat at a low cost. For emailing, I don’t need to say anything.

Servers & Other Resources: Sun Microsystems started an alliance program for Startups for companies in India, China and the US. It was launched on August 8th, 2007 for India. It is a great way of offering support to people like us. Under this scheme they propose to provide discounted pricing for servers and licensed software. However, There is a qualifying and joining formality.

Website Design Resources: Web presence is essential for any startup nowadays. Open Source web site design and Open Web Design will help you in that. Additionally there are content management websites which helps you in developing and managing complete website e.g. OpenCMS and Umbraco .

Disclaimer: The references given above are by no means complete. These are indicative at the best. In case you need to explore further, I have given below names of the two most prominent OSS repositories.

The most prominent open source software repositories are: Sourceforge and Code Plex .

Cheers
Abhishek

Most Disruptive Startups

2007-09-03T10:40:00.000+05:30

The Business 2.0 (a Business Magazine by CNN Money) has published a list of most disruptive startups for the year. These companies are chosen on the basis of the simple words “Big Ideas that will change everything (May be the World)” . Erick Schonfeld is the brain behind this brilliant list and this is the second year when he has published this list. Needless to say, these companies are innovative. The last year list included Applied Location (a GPS based traffic assistance system), SalesForce ( Sales Force Management System), BlueLithium (Google’c competitor), Zopa ( a peer-to-peer banking system) etc. This year’s list includes 3 indian origin entrepreneurs as well.

The Distruptive Startups list is posted here.

Cheers
Abhishek

Startup Growth and Success: A Research

2007-08-03T11:12:00.000+05:30

The success of a startup depends on many factors including location, talent, timing etc. Well, this is what I thought. But I came across a research done by Mukti Khaire, who is an assistant professor in the Entrepreneurial Management unit at Harvard Business School, which says that key to success for a startup might be some other factors. An E-mail interview "How Can Start Ups Grow?" is published by HBS Working Knowledge, which provides insights into the study conducted and success factors identified.

"For new ventures a lack of resources makes growth difficult to come by—just ask those nine out of ten fledgling firms that fail. Professor Mukti Khaire says the key may be in acquiring intangible resources such as legitimacy, status, and reputation."

Cheers

Loan for Startups

2007-07-20T13:50:00.000+05:30

As our startup has reached a critical phase, it is getting difficult for me to manage time juggling between Job and the startup. As far as Job is concerned, it is as usual. For my coming venture, Our current focus is to arrange for finance. We are looking at two options:

Bank/FI loans
Small Loans from Friends/Any Interested Investor

So we are searching for Financial Institutions which can extend loans for our startup. Not surprisingly, the response has not been good. We shortlisted 4 Banks who we believed could be of help. Most of them are from Public sector and as per the Government's SSI charter, it is a priority sector. We first went to a large private sector bank which is advertising SMEs as one of its focus areas. We were told that the loan is only for SMEs which are one year old. Bad...... Then we went to a public sector bank which is setup to finance small sector industries. We met a senior manager there and were pleasantly surprised. He was a professional manager. Though he was very outspoken but was articulate and provided us with lot of informations we needed to apply for the loan. So now we are working on the business report and Expected Cost of the Project (ECOP) to submit.

We have yet to meet the other two banks and hope to get surprised there.

In one of my posts I will explain how to calculate ECOP.

Cheers
Abhishek

Friends2Support:Blood Donation Web Site

2007-07-18T18:21:00.001+05:30

A bunch of entrepreneurs, all IT professionals from multiple countries, have got together and started friends2support. This website is started with the vision of providing information on Blood donation and supporting child donation. You can search for blood donors and related information in any city and area. It is a really noble and wonderful effort on part of the promoters. People can get information, when in real crisis.
The website has a nice and simple interface with all the services clearly visible. Currently you can register:
1) Your services as a blood donor
2) Your request for blood
3) As F2S volunteer
One of the nicest things is telephone number they have provided. In case of emergency, it can prove real handy to get information of blood donors.

Kudos to the creators of this site!!!

Cheers
Abhishek

Extending Single sign-on: from my earlier post

2007-07-03T14:57:00.000+05:30

In one of my previous posts, I had mentioned about the need for a single sign-on service for the internet. It is exceedingly getting difficult to maintain access credentials to the multiple web sites, people use.

Well, let me tell you that some of the software companies have taken giant steps towards it but for proprietary use only. Microsoft has CardSpace to share identity across its own services be it e-mails or applications. Similar initiatives have been taken by Liberty Alliance and Open ID. All of these are concrete steps towards achieving Single Sign-on on the Internet but the problem so far has been that they can’t interoperate. They are meant for their own world.

But the good news now is that there is a concerted effort to achieve the feat. The interested parties, under the banner Concordia group, met in San Francisco recently to take it further. GM, Boeing, AOL, the U.S. General Services Administration, and the government of the Canadian province of British Columbia participated as Customers to explain how they intend to use this universal single sign-on concept in their organizations. Well started though it will be a while before it turns into a reality but I am waiting!!!

Micro-credit to Entrepreneurs:Kiva

2007-06-27T16:44:00.000+05:30

Kiva has provided a platform for all small entrepreneurs to get financial support from people around the world. I appreciate the noble effort and the vision of Mr. Prem pal. This has benefited a lot of people around the world and will be doing a lot.

Thought to join this noble cause. I am putting up a couple of entrepreneurs from Kiva who need support. Once their loans are raised 100%, new ones will be featured automatically.

Abhishek

Hiring for your startup

2007-06-26T12:39:00.000+05:30

It is always a challenge to hire the right people for your startup because there is no margin of error for a startup. Which attribute in a resume makes someone right for your company? Is it working with great companies or working on great projects/assignments? What is it that one should look for?
I guess the most important attributes of the right person for the job are the abilities to learn and adapt to new challenges and work hard to develop the skills required for it (of course with time. A startup poses new challenges every day and requires more than great experience to handle it.
How to find such people in the market place which is getting extremely difficult these days? Well, this is the million dollar question.
Read this story how Toyota found and developed the right people?

Out of Action

2007-06-25T11:05:00.000+05:30

I was not able to write anything for the last two weeks as I was extremely busy with my parents who visited us after two years. We visited a few places in and around Mumbai.

My Dad and Mom are now done with their responsibilities of bringing us up and want to catch up with all they could not do because of various reasons.

Will start soon.

Cheers

Success Story of a young Entrepreneur

2007-06-07T13:49:00.000+05:30

Alex Tew, a college bound student, came up with a business idea and executed it perfectly to generate revenues of more than $ 1million against an expense of $ 40,000 in quick time. The most brilliant aspect of this success story is the quick thinking and the brilliance in using the various channels to quickly mop up the revenues.
Read Alex Tew storyStartup

New Computing Platform on Coffee Table Surface

2007-06-01T11:56:00.000+05:30

Microsoft has recently launched a new age computing platform called Microsoft Surface(codenamed Milan Project). This new platform is in the form of a coffee table and has the potential to change the way we look at the current computing platform i.e. PCs and Notebooks, especially how we interact with them.

This new coffee table like device will use MS Surface to present a totally new kind of interface. You just need to touch and use your two fingers to work unlike your normal platform where you need to use mouse (or mouse pointer) and a key board at the least.

What can you do with this?
1) You put your cell phone containing images on the coffee table and the table will show you all the pictures of the cell phone. Use your two fingers on the table surface to re size the image and transfer it to the coffee table storage.
2) Put your Zune on the top and drag its files to your cell phone and it will be transferred or listen to the song or watch video on the table.
3) Use Maps and its various features to store data and transfer data and effortlessly and navigate through it. Use all actions using your finger tip or two fingers which you now do using mouse.
4) Multiple users can sit around the table and use it together to achieve the above.
Wonderful, isn't it? This is like working with virtual contents and physical objects interchangeably. I am amazed by the technology to say the least looking at the possibility of it making the interaction with digital medium so simple.
How does it work?

There are 3 core components to this new computing platform - Multi-touch screen, DLP light Engine as Projector, Machine-vision

Multi-Touch screen is the Coffee table surface which identifies multiple input signals from multiple users. This technology has been into research since 80s.It can also identify objects by its shape or coded 'Domino tags'.

Then there is machine vision which uses near infrared spectrum to identify physical objects like cell phone, PDAs, Zune using the reflected rays.

The third core component is the DLP projector for projection. The communication between the objects and the system is handled using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The operating system for MS Surface is an updated version of Windows Vista.

Universality

I am not aware if it is going to support devices from other vendors like Apple iPod. Looking at Microsoft, it is not thereby reducing the universal appeal. But whatever said and done, this is an amazing innovation.

Cheers
Abhishek

Business Plan Competition 2007

2007-05-25T14:26:00.000+05:30

A business plan competition by Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs got completed on April 24, 2007. This competition was founded in 1998.

As the published article on knowledge@wharton reveals that only two of the 8 finalists were from computer technology category as opposed to previous two years when it was dominated by computer tech ventures. Out of the 8 finalists, the winner was NP solutions which is from Biotechnology field and has a solution to treat lower back pain. It is going to start the tests on Animals.

Read the full article "Business Plan Competition 2007"

Knowledge of Finance for Entrepreneurs

2007-05-23T16:24:00.000+05:30

It is quite obvious that knowledge of Finance is required to understand the financial status and performance of their enterprise. Over the last couple of months, I am trying to learn the basics as my dabba is gole in this subject. Googling is the verb which best describes "finding useful reference materials" and I have collected some good resources over the period. I am sharing some of the resources on the net, hopefully it will be useful for people like me. The list given here is by no means complete but they are sufficient enough to get the basic knowledge of finance.

Net MBA

Damodaran online(Professor of Finance at Stern School of Business of New York University)

University of Arizona Finance Study

Wachowicz's Web World

Accounting Coach

Bean Counter

Stanford Audi Video lectures

If anybody would like to explore more resources, do write in to me. I would also welcome if somebody suggests to me the best way to learn it. I might invite that person to be a guest at my blog.

~Cheers

Abhishek

Single Sign-on (SSO) for the Internet: Weird or Logical

2007-05-21T15:52:00.000+05:30

The Internet has become a part of life for many and I am one of them. I use various services available on the Internet like e-mails, SN Sites, Tech new sites, Search sites, Blogging sites etc etc. To list a few which I use:

1) Gmail for collaboration
2) Rediff mail for Job searches etc
3) Yahoo mail for close friends and financial activities
4) TechTribe, Technocrati for Networking
5) Blogspot for Blogging
6) Microsoft and Sun websites for my Job related activities

I guess, most of us use 10 or more sites frequently for various reasons. Most of these sites require some form of identity typically comprising of user ids and passwords and profile information. As an aware user, I know that I should keep on changing the passwords. This requires me to go through all the websites and change it. Additionally, if I need to update my profile or similar info, I have to repeat the same thing and quite a number of times; I avoid doing that because that's a cumbersome process.

A Single sign-on (SSO) and unified view on the Internet will solve the problem. You just need to have access to one site which in turn will manage identity and authorization to other websites. The SSO and UV have been enterprise level solutions for many years and can it be extended to Internet, the extended enterprise. Am I sounding weird or it makes sense? Well this is one of the thoughts came across to me and I have put it across. I understand that are serious issues involved in this:

1) The trust relationship between these websites addressing the privacy issue of users.

2) The mutually beneficial business model and hence the motivation

But I believe Portals like Rediff and Yahoo are in the best position to resolve these problems however they need to share a part of their revenues in order to achieve that. In return, they can get increased traffic and more revenues.

~Cheers
Abhishek

Media Outsourcing Big Opportunity:More Insight

2007-05-18T15:29:00.000+05:30

Last week, I had written about the big opportunity in Media outsourcing and I received a few mails on whether I can expand on this opportunity and give more insights. I am not an expert by any means but my current profession requires me to have a broader understanding of the new concepts and opportunities. So I thought to do a bit of research on this. Here it goes.

Media Outsourcing is not a new word by any means and many bloggers have written about it. What I would try and do is to explain two key words/Technologies relevant to Media outsourcing- Digitization and content repurposing. I believe understanding these terms would also help in understanding the opportunity, I mentioned in my previous post.

Digitization

Our World is a humongous store of books, articles, research papers, movies, Audio tapes etc etc which are in analogue or Print format. The problem with Analogue content is that it is pretty difficult and costly to maintain them and thereby their life is short. The other problem with analogue content is finding information or searching through it. In the context of Media companies, the story remains the same. The TV or Media companies own existing contents in Analogue format. Now look at it from our perspective, we would like to see News items, discussions, movies, celebrity events or interviews, celebrity footage and what not of the past for whatever reasons. So there is an opportunity for the Media companies to offer such contents to the public and increase viewership (which is what the game is all about).

Secondly, making these contents searchable is of paramount importance so that content of choice can be easily found. So, what is Digitization? Digitization is the technique of converting Analogue contents to a digital format and Meta-tagging them. Tagging is generally used to link key words to content so that relevant part can be searched easily and in quick time. Most of the search engines and Wiki use these tags and not to forget the Bloggers etc. Worldwide, serious successful efforts have been made. I will list a few of them (This list is complete by no means):

Library of books, Journals etc
Google Books
Project Gutenberg
The Perseus Digital Library

Library of Heritage and Cultural literature

Collaborative Digitization Program
NC ECHO - North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online

Entertainment

Internet Movie Database, Now acquired by Amazon.com

Internet Library

Archive of Web and Multimedia resources

Some of the renowned universities across the world are also putting in their effort. Now coming to another related key word, once the contents are digitized, it has to be preserved and that is called digital preservation. There are two fundamental reference works for the digital preservation:

Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)
Attributes of a Trusted Digital Repository (TDR)

More Information on this can be found in the following links:

Moving Theory into Practice: A digital imaging tutorial
Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-term strategies for long-term problems

Content Re-purposing

The Media companies generate a lot of content which is suitable for Television audience and to an extent can be viewed on PCs. But in today's world there are number of mediums which are used extensively by people to access content which are interesting to them. The case in point is Mobile phones and the ring tones of music. The ring tones are examples of content repurposing but this is just the simplest example. In the larger context, any content developed for television or owned by television companies can be made available to the people having access to other devices like Mobiles phones, PDAs etc. Imagine watching Shakira's "Hips dont Lie" Video, Gibbs’ six sixes in an over , Mayawati’s post victory speech, LIVE Ash-Abhi saat phere etc on your handset on the move and on demand . This is a huge opportunity for Software as well as Media companies to explore and that's what NDTV and TV18 intend to do.

So, what is content repurposing? Simply put, it means using methods or techniques to develop contents or modify contents in order to make them available for more than one delivery medium. However it is also influenced by many other factors such as user age and gender, types of activities, time availability, and prior knowledge of the subject matter. Developing content for every device, network, usage and their combinations is almost impossible task. Content repurposing addresses these variables by taking content designed for a particular platform and automatically repurposing it to suit another. In content repurposing a single copy of the content is maintained in its original form and repurposed it to fit the desired scenario in automated fashion.

Further reading

Content Repurposing of Slide presentation
Content repurposing
Multimedia Content Repurposing
Digital Interactive Video Exploration and Reflection

I hope this post will be useful to some.

~Cheers
Abhishek

Media Outsourcing: Great opportunities

2007-05-15T09:50:00.000+05:30

Infosys BPO and TV18 group have created a joint venture namely Source 18 to cater to the ever growing Media outsourcing. Earlier NDTV had joined hands with Genpact with a similar intention a year back. Media outsourcing is a growing business and is expected to be around US $ 2 trillion by 2008.

The media outsourcing business offers a great opportunity. In recent times, the content delivery channels have expanded out and includes mobile as well. Most of the existing media content is in Analogue format and needs to be digitized and re-purposed for Mobiles and other delivery channels. The joint ventures between the media and the software company creates further synergies . The media company will create the contents quickly (as that is their expertise) and the software company will provide the services to digitize and re-purpose the content.

Read more here.

The NDTV Story

TV 18 Story

~Cheers

Physical Size does not guarantee success;What matters is mental size

2007-05-14T18:09:00.000+05:30

Knowledge@wharton published an interview with MindTree COO Subroto Bagchi about his book titled "The High performance Entrepreneur:Golden Rules for Success in Today's World". The most important part of this interview is where he talks about "Why Entrepreneurs fail" and the Price/Empathy ratio (P/E Ratio) to measure process success.

Apart from that he makes two interesting statements:

a) The startups should pretend to be big
b) The mental makeup or size is more important than the physical size

Read the full interview here
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4188

~Cheers
Abhishek

IBM Next Five:Biggest Innovations

2007-05-03T16:21:00.000+05:30

IBM, International Business Machine has recently published the "IBM Next Five in Five" study. The company has selected five innovations which have the potential to revolutionize the world we live in. These are obviously related to application of technologies. These five innovations are:

Healthcare facilities available remotely allowing millions of poor people get the best of healthcare guidance without physically presence from the best providers
Using "Presence Technology", the mobile phones and PDAs will become a real companion.
Real-time speech recognition
3-D internet which has the ability to change the whole paradigm of how we interact with Internet today.
Nanotechnology -- the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules to form tiny new structures -- has already had a major impact on microprocessors, making electronic products like PCs and mobile phones smaller, better and cheaper.

Even if all of them dont happen, we are destined to have really exciting times ahead.

The biggest innovation or medical research, however, is the stem cell therapy. This has the potential to change the human life forever. Stem cells have been used to treat patients with heart ailments,patients paralysed because of spinal injuries, patients with diabetes and what not....The potential is immense and if the clinical research and pilot treatments go as intended, we are in for a world which will have probably no disabled person.....what about that.
I just cant stop dreaming about that..........

Cheers

TV Program for Entrepreneurs

2007-04-26T15:22:00.000+05:30

CNBC-TV18 has launched an half-an-hour program namely "The Entrepreneur". It recenly showed highlights of the Entrepreneur challenge held by TiE and Canaan Partners selecting 3 winners who will be funded by Canaan partners. It is the second program after "Young Turks" where young entrepreneurs (of course only successful ones) were interviewed.

Good work by the TV channel.....

~Cheers

Out of Comfort Zone

2007-04-26T15:01:00.000+05:30

Couple of months back, while thinking about starting my own venture, I invariably used to get stuck with the comparison with my friends (I have 4 close college friends in Mumbai). Once I leave my job and start my venture, what will be my standing ? It used to vex me no end and believe me, it was one of the biggest obstacle I faced. Though finally I overcame it. And now it is cool......

It is very important to realize that once you start your venture, you are out of the comfort zone. The cocoon you used to live in, is broken and you should be prepared for hardship (not necessarily but in most the cases) and challenges of all kinds. Stop comparing yourself with your peers and focus on the job. Remember, your biggest reward is your effort to decide your own destiny and do things the way you wanted it.

More here.....

~Cheers

Women Entrepreneurs of Rural India

2007-04-24T10:51:00.000+05:30

It is an amazing story of entrepreneural success of illiterate women of a village named Dasi in Orissa.This is an old story but I read it last night and thought to put it again on my blog to remind all the people like me that adversity and sheer hopelessness should not deter you, it might be the stepping stone for future success.

People lived here in extreme poverty and malnutrition. The situation was compounded by a bhatti (an illicit liquor bar) situated at the entrance of the village. Women were constantly subjected to ridicule and insult by the inebriated men at the bhatti. The situation was pathetic but women of this village with the help of an organization turned this situation around.

Enter a Development organization called Palivartan. They formed a self help group called Ma Thakurani Self Help Group of the womenfolk of this village in 2000. The SHG started to organize a weekly Haat with a credit of INR 81,000/-. These weekly Haats catered to the customers of villages nearby and offered daily household items. The model has worked well and now more 300 sellers come to this Haat selling their products. The revenue comes from the rent provided by each seller on a weekly basis. It is a profitable business model and is business plan was conceptualized by illiterate women of this village.
I salute these women who turned adversity on its head and created a profitable venture.

~Cheers

Who is an Entrepreneur ?

2007-04-18T11:43:00.000+05:30

The literal meaning (taken from the dictionary) of Entrepreneur is "A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture." or "One who starts a business or other venture that promises economic gain but that also entails risks". The keywords here are Venture, risk and economic gains. Venture and risk are almost synonmous as venture also means risk, speculation or gamble(!!!). But I would like to take the other meaning that refers to a business initiative or undertaking.

Let us look at the other theories on Entrepreneurship. There are demand and supply theories for Entrepreneurs as stated by Economists. The demand theory suggets that Entrepreneurs are made out of the opportunities and circumstances. On the other hand, the supply-side theory suggests that the desire to control one's destiny creates Entrepreneurs. But the most generally held theory is that entrepreneurs emerge from the population on demand, from the combination of opportunities and people well-positioned to take advantage of them. The entrepreneur may perceive that they are among the few to recognize or be able to solve a problem.

Another theory suggests that an Entrepreneur is the one who can see what others who came before missed, to make connections between things that others had not, to get land, capital and labor to work together to create that which had not existed before. An

article by Tom W. Glaser published in St. Petersburg Journal gives an example of an Entrepreneur. Oliver Winchester was a successful shirt maker, but he bought the patents for the Henry lever-action repeating rifle. His faith in this invention, along with his efforts in marketing it, made it the most widely known rifle of its day and earned it the nickname of "The Gun That Won the West." The writer says that "Often the entrepreneur is not the person or persons who actually create the new good or service. Rather, he or she is the one who has the vision of how that idea can be turned into reality for the benefit of everyone".

We have impressive examples of two of the biggest Indian businesses (One in Telecom and one in IT) where these entreprenuers didnot start with an idea that ultimately made them successful. But it was the ability to identify the trends early, when it came along.

So who is an entrepreneur ? In my view ,

---An Enreprenuer is one who has the conviction to lead his destiny. He just doesnot wait for a great sounding/revolutionary idea a la Google forever but goes out and try. Of course, it doesnot mean that your idea should have no business value.

---An Entrepreneur understands that it's not necessary that one will always succeed with the venture one started with. So also lookout for opportunities and trends and who knows, you might also stumble upon a million-dollar idea. Your experience with the ongoing venture will always be handy....

Cheers

Partnership in Startup

2007-04-17T14:52:00.000+05:30

Have you grappled with the thought-whether to accept a partnership with your friend who is interested in your startup? Recently I was reading an article published on Wall street journal, centre for Entrepreneurs, by Kelly Spors and the columnist has raised pertinent questions to be asked to oneself before taking this decision. The partnership in business is a professional relationship and that is very different from the friendship, as we understand. Are you going to hurt your frinedship for the business partnership ? Are you going to hurt your business for friendship ? Do you see your friend as having complementary skills? Or are you just looking at your friend just as a source of finance ?

All the above questions are important for an entrepreneur and it is impossible to find answers that-suits-all. It's the individual who has to get an answer to these questions and then decide. Sometimes, though, one of these questions can outweigh all the others and then probably you dont have a choice. Nevertheless, read the full article here:

http://www.startupjournal.com/columnists/smalltalk/20070307-smalltalk.html?refresh=on

2007-04-12T13:53:00.000+05:30

For the last few days, I am trying to search for an organization who conducts surveys. There are , of course, big names like ORG-MARG, AC nielson etc but what about small surveys covering only one city. Most importantly I dont have that kind of budget to hire them. How much one can spend who is looking to start on his own ?

My objective is simple, I want to understand public opinion (of a certain set of people visiting malls) about a segment and present offerings. May be it is a job of 10-15 days. I hope many people might have grappled with this issue and somehow managed to get across the same. I would like to know from them how did they get across this. Is there a way out?

2007-04-10T12:25:00.000+05:30

Well, it is been a while that I didnot have any postings on my blog.Nevertheless, I must mention my meeting with one young guy last sunday. I got in touch with him through Genportal. He had worked on a business idea and converted it into a business plan. What I liked about him was the level of confidence he exuded. He is done sufficient amount of research. Even though there are a few areas in which he needs to put in more effort but it's an innovative idea and should work here in India. He is looking for funding and anybody who is interested can post your comment and I will redirect you to him.
As I have already mentioned previously that funding for a startup is a big challenge in India. There are VCs operating in India but the number is very limited. There are a few banks and FIs who claim that they give SMEs financing high priority. So far I dont have any personal experiences but couple of my friends have and their experience is not very encouraging. However let me list some of them and I hope you might have a better experience.
ICICI Bank - www.sme.icicibank.com

SBI - Search for SME

SIDBI Bank

IL & FS Investment - http://www.ilfsinvestmentmanagers.com/iimlnew/empower.htm

I came across a good technology breakthorugh called ZINK. It is a printing technology that works in a unique way. The key to this breakthrough is the composite material having Dye crystals embedded in the paper itself. As these crytals are colourless, the printing paper also looks white, like any other printing paper. There is a protective layer over the paper. Now, the printer emanates heat to enable dye crystals in the required colour. The printer plays a minor role in this and that's what sets it apart from the normal printing, we are used to. They call it "Zero-ink or ZINK" printing. You can find more by visiting http://www.zink.com/.

2007-03-02T16:18:00.000+05:30

Funding

The most challenging aspect of becoming an entrepreneur is funding. Additionally, one needs help on business plans, on financial planning, on markets, on issues related to management. A few lucky entrepreneurs ...........

The full article is here. http://www.businessworld.in/leadership/innovation_03.asp

2007-02-27T16:29:00.000+05:30

Business Ideas

I have been reading a lot nowadays on entrepeneurship skills, startup challenges, funding etc etc. Have also gone through a few forums and have seen questions from people - what first ? Do you need to have a business idea first or do you decide to be an entrepreneur first ? Well, like they say, it is a million dollar question. I have a simple thinking on this.

First of all, why do you want to become an entrepremeur ? Is this because of the business idea you have or you want to trade on the path you want to create ? This simple question has answered my thinking. For me, I want to be in control of what I plan to do. I am ready to face whatever is in store for me. It is not easy as I understand by reading experiences of others. But That's the driver for me. My experience and limited knowledge of entrepreneurship tell me that:

1) You need to have a drive to be an entrepreneur. Be ready to face any challenges. There will be phases where you will feel that everything is lost. But be there, experience it, go through it as that will make you stronger and be the stepping stones for your success. This principle has nothing to do with entrepreneurship, this is a simple rule of life--Failure is the pillar of success. I have experienced it dring my school days and I will be thankful to my uncle to utter this simple 6 word sentence at the most crucial time.

2) Good Business ideas are a great starting point. But it is important to convert this ideas into a business plan. Dont want to tell anything more as there are lot of informations available on this.

3) Funding for SMEs is the most challenging aspect in INDIA. There are many VCs, Angel Investors, Government agencies and of course Banks. In fact some of the Indian banks publicize that SMEs finance are the priority areas but that's quite away from the truth. Keep trying if you dont have the money. I am in this category as of now. Wish me success in this.

I came across this blog http://iqbalgandham.wordpress.com/. It is really a nice one. Iqbal has listed a lot of good online business ideas already fructified or in the process of fructification.

~Cheers

Family Support

2007-02-20T17:22:00.000+05:30

The comfort of a 9-to-5 job is too compelling!!! Add to that the family responsibility as you dont know when will you start earning profits. So first of all, I thought to discuss the idea with my family. I tossed up this idea to my wife . I knew that once I get into the startup, it will be a while before I start providing financial support to my family. Obviously starting with strange looks to disbelief and so on...., she understood my desire and conviction. I also shared the basic thought process of my concept , she started to raise questions. Very relevant ones and that has forced me to explore further and much deeper. So right now, I am conducting market study and exploring......

As per me, the next step is to find a mentor or a guide (not necessarily who provides funding) to look at my conceptual plan from business perspective. I expect him to give me inputs so that I can refine my plans.

About Me.....

2007-02-20T16:52:00.000+05:30

My Name is Abhishek Srivastava and I have been associated with Software Industry for the last 14 years. It is been a real good journey for me and I enjoyed it to the hilt. But now I am on a journey to start up on my own. The journey has just started and I am planning to start my venture in next 8-10 months. Obviously this is the period where I have started to explore the details on the concept. I wanted to chronicle the joy, excitement, pains, pitfalls, failures, successes etc etc throughout this journey as and when it happens.

Sometimes I feel am I doing the right thing ? Am I taking too much of risk ? Do I have the right skills to be an entrepreneur ? Will I get the needed funding and from where ? What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur ? Does my concept make business sense ?

In the future postings, I will put my thoughts as I get/experience answers to the above...................

I welcome thoughts/experiences from people who have succeeded, failed or are trying because the experiences/learnings from the real life are invaluable.

~Cheers