World of Internet

How to blog regularly?

2010-10-11T23:52:00.000-07:00

As promised, I will share my thoughts about this topic.

Let us analyze (non-professional) bloggers for their incentives/roadblocks for blogging:

Incentives:
-------------

1. It is fun to communicate
2. Feedback from known (or random) people.
3. Freedom of speech (O ya..I can say whatever I want to in my blog)
4. Mental stimulation - Some intelligent thoughts do come by while writing

Roadblocks:
--------------

1. Boredom (Ya...people get bored of it)
2. It is not directly related to our business, family or other things deemed important in life
3. No incentive if there are no feedbacks
4. Lack of time
5. Forgetting that I have a blog :)

There would be other points also, but here are some tips for those who want to write regularly. Note: I am going to try these tips myself. Will see if I can follow them religiously or not ;)

1. Have 3-4 topics lined up for writing. This helps in generating ideas when you are in the mood of writing.
2. Read religiously about the topics of your interest. This leads to mental stimulation and which ultimately generates new ideas that you can put on your blog.
3. If possible, give 30 min per day (or every 2-3 days) to your blog.
4. Engage with feedback providers. This leads to discussions, which ultimately loops back into motivation to write.
5. Visit other blogs and engage in discussions.
6. Involve your social graph in the discussion.
7. Use microblog to stream out small snippets of your thoughts

There would be other good ideas as well. Maybe we can brainstorm them later...or in comments.

ciao~

New Developments

2010-10-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I wrote something on this blog. Got a bit too much involved in the biz-at-hand and thats why could not keep up with writing new articles regularly. You are not buying it, are you? Ok..ok...I admit..I became lazy. My bad :(

Now that we are on this topic...all of a sudden I feel that there is something interesting to write about: "Why do majority of bloggers NOT write regularly?" hmmm...I am going to write about this in my next posting.

For now, let me update everyone about what I was doing, where I was and everything else...

So, after the b-school, I moved to Overland Park, KS (yes...Kansas) to work for a company called Embarq. They provided me a great opportunity to work in the CEO's office as an internal consultant. (Yes...I worked in CEO's Office. Dan Hassey was the CEO of Embarq at that time. And currently he is the CEO of Sprint, trying to turn-around that company. Good Luck Dan..I know you can do it). Coming out of the b-school, I got this great opportunity to work in Dan's office...heck ya...I will move to Timbuktu for that :)

Things happened fast in Overland Park. I was full-time employed there. Enjoyed it. Also, I was leading blogoxy.com (which I founded while in School). But good times do not last for ever. n boom...here came the acquisition of Embarq and the layoff (Oct 2009).

This was the time when DSPs and Ad Exchanges started to pop up. Ad Networks started to look so much a "thing-of-past"(To become an ad network was our revenue model for blogoxy) and therefore it was time to say good-bye to blogoxy. Thanks to Vimeo, you can take a look at its video pitch.

So, job is gone. blogoxy.com is gone. Now what to do?

Instead of doing an intensive job search, I decided to start something full-time (remember, blogoxy.com was always a part-time gig: In school and then at work). So, I contacted few of by buddies and we came across the idea of the food business (in India). The country was growing at 9-10% growth rate, middle class was booming, malls were flooded with people, retail revolution was undergoing...how could I not join the bandwagon? So, in Nov'09, I packed my bags and moved to India with a hunger to open a food retail chain in the country. I and my good friend Nimai got together to start our company NIMSAN RETAIL and the brand: Mr. China.

Mr. China:

NIMSAN RETAIL opened its first outlet on Dec 28th'09 in GIP Mall @Noida in Delhi. Yes, I landed in New Delhi on Nov 7th and we opened the outlet on Dec 28th. It really does not take more than 2 months to open a food outlet (knock-knock all brick-n-motor folks). Coming form the Technology world, and planning to open a food chain, we automated our entire business processes.

The company became profitable by May'10 (in 4-5 months). We told ourselves...great...now lets expand it. N here came the roadblock. It is very difficult to raise funding in India (if you do not come from a rich family) for a traditional business. Yes, maybe we could have raised funding for a tech company, but for a food business...NO...there was no money. So, we decided to go with the FOCO model (Franchise Owned, Company Operated) for expansion. Basically, what this meant was that the franchisee would be the investor and NIMSAN would be the operational partner (our core competency). We started meeting investors (franchisees) but by Aug'10, the retail cycle took a dip and we barely made any profit in the next 2 months.

At that time, we decided to give this business some more incubation time before expansion. Our cash reserve was running very low, so we also decided to move out of the operations of Mr China, and to look for new businesses elsewhere. We got a highly seasoned hospitality industry veteran involved with us and I moved to the US in search of new opportunities. Yes, Mr China is alive..and is doing good now :)

Groperty.com

Last month, I and Nimai started a new venture: Groperty.com (Group + Property). Yes, you guessed it right: It is the group buying of new apartments/flats in India (Once again..same logic...economy is growing...real estate is growing...yada yada yada).

Future prospects of Mr. China look good. We will open new outlets and most likely will move into the processed food business. But I am now fully into an investor role there. Groperty.com is still a baby...and we are trying to gauge the market demand for this kindof service in the country.

Will keep you posted with the latest. Ciao.

New frontiers

2009-02-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

Few days ago I was thinking about how the technology has evolved in the past several years. Maybe we are witnessing the fastest growth in innovation since the invention of wheel OR the discovery of gravity.

Focusing primarily on the technology sector, let us revisit the path that the industry (and its main players) have taken. History teaches a lot of lessons. So, the history of personal computing (technology) can throw some light about the current trends (and possibly future trends).

Lets start with the grand-daddy: IBM.

Several years ago (before I was born), there was a company named International Business Machine (IBM). They made big machines (mainframes) which were very succesful. The company kept on focusing on making bigger and more powerful machines. They closed themselves from the changing market dynamics and lost to the "new trends" (at that time): The PC revolution.

Enter Microsoft. The big 800 pound gorilla of the PC age was hugely succesful (and it still is, and so is IBM) in the 90s. It beat IBM hands on but (because History repeats itself) it made the same mistake as IBM did. It kept its focus on the PC (remember those attempts to make PC as the hub in peoples' living rooms) and missed the Internet revolution. Yes, I know that they have Hotmail, MSN (and what not), but hey..they are not Google.

Enter Google. This one of the fastest growing company is the 800 pound gorilla of the Internet age. It weathered the DOT com burst, and has almost single handedly captured the most lucrative marketing/advertising business on Internet. But as we speak, history is repeating itself. Google is the master in searching information on the Internet and has pushed the envelope few times(remember indexing all books in the world), but it is missing the key changes that are happening outside of its domain. It is a very smart company (and so were IBM & Microsoft) but it is bound to make its own mistakes and has to give way to the new company that will ride the new trend.

So, what is the new trend that Google is missing and that will lead to some other company getting the crown?

Enter "Real time web". Internet is changing very fast (exponentially). There is so much information out there that even big-monster companies like Google and Yahoo can not index all information every day/hour. And if you look closely, then this is the most important information (most of the times) for a lot of people. Does it matter what happened 10 years ago in my town? Ofcourse it does. But does it matter more what happened today in my town? Absolutely. Does it matter what "my friend" said to me 10 years ago? No (maybe yes sometimes). But does it matter what "my friend" said to me "today". Absolutely. (Maybe no sometimes :) But you got what I am trying to communicate. Its the realtime web that is gaining more and more traction (and importance), and Google (and Yahoo as well) are missing it. It is by virtue of their strength (Ability to search & index the whole internet) that they are missing out on the new trends.

Real time web is drawing new frontiers in the technology sector. Sooner or later, new companies (or solutions) are bound to come forward and take the lead. Only future will tell us the dimensions of that leader, but some core features could be: blogging, communities, communication, and openness. Some key players to watch might be: Twitter, Facebook, and Widget companies. It will be interesting to watch their revolution.

Startup in bad economy

2009-01-16T15:20:00.001-08:00

What happens to the startup sector when economy goes south? Let us discuss top 3 drivers one by one:
1. Funding: Dries up. Very hard to get money for new ventures. (Negative)
2. Resources: Good opportunity. A lot of high talented people in tech, marketing, operations etc are looking for jobs. Simple rule of demand-supply and you can see the picture. (Positive)
3. Creativity: Necessity is the mother of invention. With that phrase, I would call it positive.

In MBA terms, I would put them as : Finance, Operations, and Innovation. All 3 of them are required to launch a succesful comnpany. With 2 positives and 1 negative (finance), it does not bode well. But..hold on a sec...do we really need a lot of capital to start a new Internet company? Also, bad economy means that operations will become a bit inexpensive as well. So, its not a dire situation.

Overall, it boils down to individuals. Succesful entrepreneurs and VCs would tell you that its the team that matters (not the idea). And in a downward economy, it might matter a bit more. But at the end of the day..it depends on you. If you have that "instinct"..then you will survive. If not, then join the ever increasing club :)

Contextual slideshow: Dig up your old but similar content

2008-12-22T00:53:00.001-08:00

We recently released a new widget: "Contextual slideshow" and have received some very encouraging feedbacks. This is a marvelous product that brings value to blog readers as well as increases page views for bloggers.

Here are some of the features:

1. Displays "contextual images from your blog". This means that your readers will get more similar content which you wrote several days/weeks ago.

2. This beautiful slideshow increases bloggers' page views. Simply put, a reader gets to see more articles..and bloggers get more page views.

3. "Zero" customization required: Absolutely no customization is required. Just get it from the site and display it. It automatically adjusts in the blog page, sideroll or anywhere else.

4. It broadcasts the bloggers' content to other blogs. This enables bloggers to get new readers to their blogs.

We have put a demo slideshow in our sideroll. Get a slideshow of your own and broadcast your blog to the world!!

blogoxy brings more readers to the bloggers

2008-09-03T14:06:00.000-07:00

So, at last http://blogoxy.com is standing on its feet. A lot of hard work has gone in this project and looking back I and my team feel so good!

You can imagine how excited we all are. I hope that our efforts bring color and can help fellow bloggers.

I have been so frustrated because there is no good mechanism to market the blogs. Hopefully, http://blogoxy.com will empower fellow bloggers for marketing their blogs.

We are starting in a very soft way. Thats the reason why we are launching only for food blogs. Yes...I love food. And food is the reason why we all survive. So, in true fashion of a food enthusiast, blogoxy is open for fellow food bloggers.

Please give us your feedback. And yes...do visit our blogoxy blog at: http://blogoxy.com/blog

Banks and M&A

2008-05-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

As I stated in my last post, here are some thoughts from Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/AIRDEF/idUSN0539241020080505

Why did banks advise Yahoo to not go down below $37? O well, simple answer: they did not. It was Yahoo's decision not the bankers' decision to not go below $37. If it was all for the investment banks, they would sell Yahoo for $20 per share. Afterall, they want their commission. Don't they?

Microsoft cancelled bid for Yahoo: Why is it good news?

2008-05-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

M&A is a tricky business and I am happy for Yahoo! as well as for Microsoft that this transaction did not go through.

Reason:

1. Investment banks and consulting companies (almost) always overstate the synergies in the transaction. Its a simple reason: They get a large chunk of money in the form of transaction fees if the merger goes through.

2. Had the deal gone through, it would have been an uphill task for Yahoo & Microsoft to merge the work-cultures, maintain the Yahoo brand equity, and integrate the operations.

3. Consolidation in this space is not a good thing for the market. Yahoo and Microsoft both like to acquire small companies and this trend boosts the innovative landscape in the valley. Imagine what would have happened (for smaller companies’ acquisitions) if Yahoo would have ceased to exist and Microsoft would have spent a considerable chunk of its kitty on the acquisition.

Good luck to Yahoo and Microsoft. Yahoo! has to come back and execute on the “statement” that it deserves more valuation. I have no doubt in their ability but am not sure about what their strategic vision is. There should be an internal “cleansing” operation within Yahoo so that it can find its glory days once again!

Why good education matters

2008-04-19T10:55:00.001-07:00

I am finishing my MBA this week. Looking back, time flew really fast. Things were hectic in school, and here I am, on the verge of graduating. So, what did I learn in these 2 years? Did it make any difference in my life? If yes, then how?

I have been a big supporter of good education. Not because it prepares you for a good job, but because it opens up the mind. It broadens the thinking horizon. Job is a by-product of good education. But more importantly, it grooms an individual for challenges in life.

Personally, for me, the school (MBA) has changed me fundamentally. If I compare myself from what I was 2 years ago, there is a huge difference. Yes, I learned the analytical skills, the formulas, the concepts..yada yada yada. But the core difference that it has made in my life is about the way I see the world. I have never been so confident about myself and my abilities as I am today. I believe that the choice of school matters a lot. Every MBA school teaches the same core MBA concepts, formulas, and analytical skills. But there are other "secondary" skills: overall development, leadership etc that vary hugely depending on the institution.

I am starting a new life from this week onwards. And where I will be 2 years from now, 5 years from now, or even 10 years from now will depend on what "secondary skills" I learned at the school. I am bustling with confidence and positive outlook. My goals and objectives that I have set for myself are much more reachable because of the change that I see in myself. Will keep you updated with the latest.

Venture Capital Industry - Needs overhaul?

2007-06-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

I am currently in Silicon Valley and as most other people, this time I am trying to "feel" it. I lived here in the past but did not try that. Certainly, you cant feel it if you dont want to. But to live the dream, you have to "feel" it. Open your eyes and look around. Almost 20 companies come out every single day. Almost 100 networking events take place every week. Total amount of VC money flowing into the Silicon Valley startups is more than anywhere else in the world. Possibly it is even more than the sum total of money elsewhere in the world.

With this much optimism, there comes the noise. Yes, a lot of good companies are coming up, but with them come up a full breed of companies which were never meant to be successful. Most of the companies fail to take off and die prematurely. Some of them are funded and some of them perish even before that. It is a common perception among VC community that 90% of startups fail. Seems that everyone has agreed to this rule. Looking closely, this rule says that even well seasoned VCs cant figure out which companies will succeed. They make their judgment based on some criteria and 90% of the times those criteria give wrong results.

Bottom line: There is 90% error in choosing the right company for investment.

Is it not a very high number given the fact that we live in this age where more and more focus is on accuracy and error-reduction? Imagine getting a fish-o-fillet sandwich 9 out of 10 times you order a hamburger at McDonald's? Or imagine a calculation error 9 out of every 10 times you buy stocks online? Something is very wrong with the VC money now a days? Is it the lack of good foresight or is the market full of VC firms who make investments as if they are buying a lottery ticket? 90% failure rate can not be caused by just the incompetency of the entrepreneurs. It is a cyclic process; if incompetent entrepreneurs get money; then they run their company shabbily...only to go burst after 6 months. They know that the threshold of getting the money is low and therefore never try hard enough to reach the superior level which is required to execute a successful company. I do not intend to say that getting money is easy. Its not. Should it be made even harder? Maybe. Investors should try harder by tightening the monetary control to elevate the entrepreneur's motivation for succesful exit from the venture. Simple question: Why is Private Equity more successful than Venture Capital industry? Answer: Superb financial control and execution.

Something needs to be done. I don't know what that is, but something has to be done. We can be realistic and try to improve this result in incremental fashion (20%, 30%, 40% success rate), but at least a beginning has to be made so that we do not go back to the Dot com burst stage again. Some well reputed VC firms do invest in a very sophisticated way; and they get good ROI also. My question is about those VC firms who do not have enough experience or credibility for making good decisions. We saw one tech-burst not so long ago; should they be allowed to convert a tech-ride into a possible burst scenario again? Should there be some industry obligations? Or is it ok to accept them as they are...after all its the money of their private investors and they have the right to use it in any way they want?

New adventures in finance

2007-05-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

Last week, I spoke to the CEO of Increditrade about their service. This is a new startup trying to provide Web2.0 capabilities in the Financial industry where rules and regulations are so tight that the independence and freedom of 2.0 is just a dream. There are some players in stock trading arena, such as Zecco who are doing quite OK. Increditrade takes one step forward in the integration of web2.0 in stock trading experience.

Most of us have almost Zero knowledge about how to invest in the Stock market. We read few articles, search few websites, maybe read some analyst reports and eventually invest based on our instincts. Sometime it works, sometime it does not. Increditrade is providing additional feature to the users to help them make sound investment judgements.

Business model of increditrade is dependent on the assumption that an investor who got X% return from the market in past 3-5 years is a good investor. And if customers are given an opportunity to look into his/her investment patterns, then they would be willing to look into it before making their own judgement about investing. Maybe, they will be willing to even pay for this "peek" into some smart investor's portfolio or decision making process. Simply put, as a customer, I have to pay some $$ to increditrade which in return will allow me to look into the portfolio of a trader who has consistently made significant profits in the past few years. In addition to that, I will have all 2.0 features like collaboration, chat, blogging etc.

Technically, increditrade will have seamless integation in the backend with major stock trading players like Etrade or Scottstrade. Also, smart investors will get some payment for sharing their portfolio with the public. Ofcourse, their names and account # will be withheld from public eye.

I like the idea. Its innovative, different, and definitely attractive. It is a differentiating factor for the company. There is a white-space in the market and increditrade is definitely playing with the psyche of the common man. Whether or not people would pay for the service is a diferent question which will be answered in near future.

Some things to consider:
1. How to attract critical mass of users who are willing to pay?
2. What is the payment model? Is it one time fee OR is it a subscription based model? My intution says that the company would go for subscription based model, but we'll see.
3. How do we stop fraud? What if one user makes the payment and decides to copy the content and put it on his/her blog?
4. How do we ensure the security of the account holder?
5. Even smart investors make bad decisions sometimes. How will a customer learn to differentiate good decisions from bad ones.
6. There might be confusion about the investment strategies of different "peekable" smart investors. How can this confusion be minimized so that the end consumer "feels" that the site is providing value rather than adding on to his/her confusion.

Overall, its an innovative idea, and I might be peeking into some smart investors' portfolio very soon.

Web2.0 is getting old. Whats next?

2007-04-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

It is official now that Techcrunch is buying Fuckedcompany. When I heard these rumors, it came as a surprise to me. Why would a company specializing in upcoming startup ventures be possibly interested in another company who makes money (hopefully) on failed ventures. Philosophically, it does not make any sense. But strategically it is a good move by the Techcrunch management. In management principals, they are adopting what MBAs call as "risk mitigation".

As all business cycles, Web 2.0 also has ups and downs. We all saw the hype that was created by the acquisition of Myspace, and Youtube. Even Time magazine could not remain unaffected by the hype and decided to name "You" as the person of the year. That was the peak of Web2.0. Things started to cool off a little after that. We have not seen any mega deal for Web 2.0 companies. New startups are definitely coming up every single day; but most of them seem to be following the same "community" model with "hopeful" advertisement as the main revenue model. This can not be sustained for a long timg. We need something new. Something that would change the landscape. Something that would force people to turn their heards at the technology and say "WOW". As of now, that is missing the Web 2.0 startup scene and thats why experts have started predicting the downward slope of Web2.0.

Recent blog by Peter Rip gave a very interesting comparison of the current user hits for Techcrunch, Gigaom, and Technorati. In liew of recent slowdown in viewership of Techcrunch, I completely agree with Michael's (and Techcrunch Management's) decision to mitigate their risk by preparing themselves for low cycles of Web2.0 businesses.

So, where do we technology savvy people with flair for new ventures stand? Well, if Web2.0 is getting old, then there must be something new coming up. Afterall, its the law of nature. New things replace existing ones which in future get called "old ones". So, whats next? There is big hype about Web3.0. Experts are still arguing about what 3.0 is? Some call it Semantic web, some call it detailed widgets, personalization. My opinion is that technologies that help the users in their daily lives will be the next hype. It happened with Web 1.0 (email, chat, ebay) and 2.0 ( blog, myspace, youtube).

What do people want now? I want everything to be simple. Very simple. Not only on internet, but in my daily life. I want accurate weather information. I want to see news that affects me directly (not interested in whats happening in Afghanistan...unless thats affecting me directly). I want to get traffic report for my route, not for every highway in 100 miles radius. I want internet to give me what I want. I do not want to see advertisements on TV/Internet. Come up with a new method to make revenue. Advertisements have been there for almost 100 years now. Isnt it time to change the model? Come up with technologies that helps me with my daily life. Something that affects me positively and directly. If that means altering existing definitions, then do that. Web2.0 did it quite effectively. Why should we expect less from 3.0?

MyToons: Youtube of Cartoons? In wonderland!!!

2007-02-27T01:43:00.000-08:00

Few days back an interesting site launched its Beta version: Mytoons It looks like a great idea becuase Text, Audio, Video, Pictures...all these types of contents have been completely gobbled up by Internet sites. Noone needs introduction to Youtube, Flickr or Blogs. The only untapped item in the content list is "Animation". On top of that, I think that the content sharing websites will become "vertical". So we will see more and more proliferation of websites specializing in one particular category. MyToon seems to be following the same trend and it is trying to capture the Cartoon/animation segment of the data.

It seems to be a good idea, but I would refrain from putting my money on the site. Some ideas look good on paper but lack the mass appeal because of poor understanding of the market.

Youtube and Flickr are widely popular, primarily because of the fact that the users can generate content for these websites. Digital cameras and Video creating devices are readily available in the marketplace. Most videos and pictures on these websites are home-made. That is the real strength of youtube and flickr. I fail to understand how I can create an animated film by readily available devices in my home/marketplace.

Some Issues with Mytoons:

1. Users will not be able to create content and this will make it extremely hard for the website to reach its critical mass.

2. If users start putting Animated films from Hollywood studios on Mytoons, then it will be in deep trouble because of pending lawsuits.

3. "Barriers of Entry": How will Mytoons compete against giants: Youtube/Flickr if they decide to enter this market segment?

4. Technology: Mytoons supports only Firefox and Flash 9. A lot of users will be disappointed if they are unable to visit the site first time. I had a hard time seeing the product myself. My opinion is that they released the product a bit early. Its not even BETA ready yet.

My two cents: Good luck and make some changes to the business model very fast. In its present form, I am not ready to put my money on it.

MBA and technology

2007-02-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

Most MBA students are not technology savvy. I consider myself (and few others) as exceptions. Having worked in technology companies for several years, I was looking for opportunities outside of my domain, and thats how I ended up in b-school. Guess, it happens with everybody. People get bored. They get bored of their living style, their compensation package, their daily routine jobs. Everything.Coming from a technology background, it was natural for me to get attracted to other domains...exciting world of Finance (???), marketing, operations (!!!), general management. Eventually, I learned that nothing excites me more than the technology. Am I stuck here forever now? Well, it depends on how we look at it. I spend several hours a day searching for "something" on internet. This something could be new technologies, news, music, blogs, articles. I feel unaccomplished if a day goes when I do not do that. I have realized that I love being in my world of Internet. And therefore I am going to live here...if it is forever..then so be it.

I am starting this blog today (Feb 24th 2007) and I am going to use it to analyze new technologies, new companies, and new market trends in my world (Internet).