Thought Garage

A choice between money now and money later.

Steve Blank's presentation on "Why Accountants Don't Run Businesses" discusses about how the eco-system of Entrepreneurship and startups is fast changing around the world: costs, venture capital, incubators and others. And more importantly what is different now and what matters the most for today's startups and entrepreneurs. Watch live video from Startup Lessons Learned on Justin.tv

Just came to know that Dennis Ritchie, known to the world as the creator of C Programming Language has passed away recently. May he rest in peace. C has been at the foundation of almost all software systems and the world of software owes a great deal to this genius. For me personally, if I hadn’t been introduced to C on that wonderful day by my friend Naga Sreenu, I wouldn’t be where I am, most importantly I wouldn’t be what I am today.  The initial infatuation and then love of C language, on Unix and that initial romance and excitement of solving C programming samples has turned my career forever.  And it changed the way I approach any problem since then. Thank you so much and may he rest in peace.

If you haven't watched this video earlier, most probably you wouldn't know how Silicon Valley got started in the first place. Or its just me. [Recorded: November 20, 2008] Today, Silicon Valley is known around the world as a fount of technology innovation and development fueled by private venture capital and peopled by fabled entrepreneurs. But it wasn't always so. Unbeknownst to even seasoned inhabitants, today's Silicon Valley had its start in government secrecy and wartime urgency. In this lecture, renowned serial entrepreneur Steve Blank presents how the roots of Silicon Valley sprang not from the later development of the silicon semiconductor but instead from the earlier technology duel over the skies of Germany and secret efforts around (and over) the Soviet Union. World War II, the Cold War and one Stanford professor set the stage for the creation and explosive growth of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. The world was forever changed when the Def...

Steve Blank - Founder Pioneer of Customer Development "Founders are artists in the true sense of the word." Steve is inspiring founders and challenging the establishment on how to approach launching startups. website: www.steveblank.com twitter: @sgblank

Steve Jobs, back in the day, telling us how simple brands really need to be.

Vinod Khosla, Founding Partner, Khosla Ventures was a Keynote Speaker at TiEcon 2011.

Richard Branson speaking with Seth Godin about learning from failure. http://innerpreneuring.com/report/2009/July/27/204/

You need a lot of passion for what you're doing because its so hard. Without passion, any rational person would give up. So if youre not having fun doing it, if you dont absolutely love it, youre going to give up. And thats what happens to most people, actually. If you look at the ones that ended up being successful in the eyes of society, often times its the ones who love what they do, so they could persevere when it got really tough. And the ones that didnt love it, quit. Because theyre sane, right? Who would put up with this stuff if you dont love it? So its a lot of hard work and its a lot of worrying constantly. If you dont love it, youre going to fail.

In today's Apple Special event , the CEO showed a nice graph of iPod cumulative sales and mentioned that Apple sold more than 300 Million units. It is an amazing number in itself. But what caught my eye is the graph showing the cumulative growth itself. Wondering why it took so long, until 2005 to gain momentum. And what was that pivotal moment in 2005 that changed the whole scene for iPods. Cumulative iPod Sales If you remember, the iPod was introduced in 2001 and iTunes was introduced in 2003. But if you look at the graph, it took off around 2005, almost 4 years later after it was first introduced. What happened? What was that some thing amazing happened around 2005 that turned the tide in favor of iPods ?  And here is another important question, why 'cumulative' graph was included in the presentation instead of year on year growth?  It's much easier to guess that, I think. If not so obvious, check the following more detailed graph from Wikipedia .  ...

I have been telling all this year that we couldn't find good .NET Developers. It appears, its an industry wide trend across the US. According to technology job board   Dice’s   October report, there’s one particular tech talent now in short supply across the U.S.: Microsoft’s .NET. Job postings requiring .NET are up more than 25% year-over-year, the company says – faster growth than the total job postings on all of Dice.com. -- Techcrunch   Looking for a job, make your search faster here .

Looked so simple on the outset and thought it is totally theoretical when I first heard about this. But once I start using these concepts I realized how totally mind blowing these concepts are. Now so many things appear to make sense. Amazing. Glad I stumbled upon it. A 2 minute overview of the Business Model Canvas, a tool for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. This method from the bestselling management book Business Model Generation is applied in leading organizations and start-ups worldwide. Find out more at http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com

For most of the day during and after today's iPhone event at Apple, we could barely access their web site consistently. Glad its back now. Not only full web site is accessible, but also the streaming video of today's event is now available for us to watch. Watch Apple's 4th October "Let's Talk iPhone" event here .

Here is a nice info graphic on the history of iPhone. What you know is already history and I believe the best of iPhone is yet to come. via Mashable .

Part of 2010 Conference on Entrepreneurship. Description: A group of entrepreneurs talk about what they learned in the trenches that they never could have learned in a classroom. The panelists will also share the courses that were most helpful to them in their entrepreneurial ventures, the courses that they wished they had taken, and the topics that business schools should be teaching to aspiring entrepreneurs.

The Lean Startup movement is taking hold in companies both new and established to help entrepreneurs and managers do one important thing: make better, faster business decisions. Vastly better, faster business decisions. Bringing principles from lean manufacturing and agile development to the process of innovation, the Lean Startup helps companies succeed in a business landscape riddled with risk. This book shows you how. Google hosts Eric Ries author of, "The Lean Startup" Eric is the author of the popular blog Startup Lessons Learned and the creator of the Lean Startup methodology. He co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU, his third startup, which has today has over 40 million users and 2009 revenue over $22 million. An entrepreneur in residence at Harvard Business School and a frequent speaker at business events, he advises startups on business and product strategy using the Lean Startup approach. http://theleanstartup.com/

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