Thought Garage

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

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.

One of the best Talks I have ever listened to on Entrepreneurship, may consider this as the Entrepreneurship 101, not for how to become an Entrepreneur but to understand what is Entrepreneurship is all about. Of course, the definition may be biased and based on what valley firms are doing, but a much better definition overall. Part of the annual GSB Entrepreneurship Conference. As traditional barriers to scale erode, product life cycles compress, and the costs of starting a business fall, the opportunities for entrepreneurship have expanded. Steve Blank , the author of "Four Steps to the Ephiphany" and leading advocate for the "Customer Development" model of entrepreneurship, focuses on the new opportunities and challenges in a world in which entrepreneurship has become democratized.

Entrepreneurship is an emotional and economic roller coaster, says venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Mark Suster. In this candid and informative lecture, Suster defies some of Silicon Valley's conventional wisdom. Based on his extensive experience with multiple companies, Suster shares his thoughts on the real day-to-day life of startups, smart ways to raise the right kind of funds, and offers honest advice in making your way as an entrepreneur. – Stanford’s e-corner Source : Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner

This video takes a look Y Combinator's successful efforts in transforming startup companies into multi-million dollar businesses. By taking a close look at the past 6 years of Y Combinator data, it highlights the numbers that show how successful they have been so far and ends with the outlook for potential continuing success.

It was an amazing presentation by Garrett Dimon at RefreshDallas last night, took us through the memory lane of bootstrapping SifterApp , filled with full of choices they made (both right and wrong) and occasional anecdotes. I made it little late but I am glad I went in.   If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.- Isaac Newton I have just kicked of building my software product a couple of days ago and the timing of this presentation couldn’t be any better. It cleared so many clouds and answered quite a few questions. I was too tempted to include ‘custom statuses’ and now its totally off the list.

Raising money from an angel investor. Pre-money and post-money valuation.

David, aka DHH of 37signals that also created the most coveted web frameworks of the day Ruby on Rails , delivers this revelation of making money online : have a price and charge your customers . ( Startup School , 2008) The blog of 37signals called ‘ Signal vs. Noise ’ is my favorite and source of inspiration for my own entrepreneurial journey. 

While discussing about the trend charts of .NET Versions over lunch yesterday, the discussion led to ASP.NET MVC and how does it fare against Ruby On Rails (ROR). Ofcourse, we are just talking about Search Patterns here.  So here is the search Patterns chart between RoR and ASP.NET MVC. It is quite a surprising chart though. Try interpreting the chart and let us know your thoughts.

I stumbled upon eggSunday on LinkedIn and I fell in love with the concept of eggSunday.  And the way they brought the concept to life is equally admirable and scrumptious. On the web : eggs unday .com Egg sunday or eggs unday was born out of a vision shared by two entrepreneurs who just loved eggs. Eggsunday is a food court brand that serves simply mouth watering varieties of egg dishes competitively priced and with new recipes added every month. The first outlet is located at a Food court on Mumbai - Pune highway. (images from ideaspice.com )

There is an old saying : “Price, Quality, and Time. Pick any Two.”.  It is quite difficult to argue or find an example that proves otherwise not because it is not possible, but because most businesses model their pricing based on this widely ‘accepted’ perception. But Netflix has been different.  Its lot cheaper . E xcellent quality. And yet it is simply super fast .  Add ‘streaming’ movies to the list, there is no comparison, not only in it’s own market but anywhere else. Netflix has been delivering that ‘aha’ experience all these years and after watching this presentation, I will have no doubt that Netflix can deliver even better in the years to come. This presentation is about the Culture that drives Netflix and it is totally awesome. Culture View more presentations from Reed Hastings .

Stumbled upon this website that appears to be a Mint.com for Indian consumers. Collect data from all your Banks, Credit cards, investments etc and provide analysis, alerts and reports at one place. Perfios is for anyone who wishes to solve the problem of managing wealth distributed among various asset classes and among various institutions. If you have bank accounts, credit cards, Mutual Funds, Equity etc with multiple institutions, how often have you felt that - ‘what if all of this could be accessed at one place?’ Perfios addresses exactly this aspect (and more!) and provides access across asset classes on one platform and in the process takes care of your other worries too! Source: Perfios Website

If you ever wonder about this or believe in one way or the other, it may be worth looking at this wiki page : List of Nobel Laureates by University Affiliation . Almost every other day I read or hear somebody comparing India’s IITs with MIT. As per my understanding, its ridiculous. As much as I love India, I hate this fake image. There is no comparison, other than IITs as the Best You get in India to MIT being one of the Best in the world. I have no doubt, they are the Best in India, but they are not comparable on a world scale. Every attribute I think worth of comparing two universities, IITs are no where closer to most American universities, leave alone MIT.  In fact, they are even behind some of Chinese universities in most attributes. Disclaimer: I did not go to any of those IITs or any American or Chinese universities. I studied in an NIT (previously called RECs) instead.

The essence of problem solving is in fact not solving a problem, but detecting one before it becomes one. And the way, problems are solved in a corporate world is anything but a mystery. Disclaimer(s) : For illustration, I used Software Developers. You are free to use your own imagination to see any role in a corporate. It really fits the story. Any possible similarities to my current or previous work place are not intentional but mere coincidences. It is impossible not to have these coincidences in any corporate and it is totally beyond my control. There are exceptions and they are really exceptions. If you are a Manager, you may get offended by getting closer to reality. There are 1000s of great software developers that can solve a problem once you define what is your problem.  But, unfortunately, many of them are good at just that.  They are really great at doing what they are told to do. And, of course, Managers love them, as they rarely question, anything. But the...

Well, it depends. Want to know what options are available and how to choose one for your own application, read this wonderful article by James Hamilton. Though this article does not include all possible options (particularly those on the cloud), but its a nice introduction to classify databases based on what you need. Relational databases have become so ubiquitous that the term “database” is often treated as synonymous with relational databases like Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, or DB2. However, the term preceded the invention and implementation of the relational model and non-relational data stores remain important today. Relational databases are incredibly rich and able to support a very broad class of applications but with incredible breadth comes significant complexity. Many applications don’t need the rich programming model of relational systems and some applications are better serviced by lighter-weight, easier-to-administer, and easier-to-scale solutions. Both relational...

The Audio version of "FREE : The Future Of A Radical Price" by Chris Anderson is available for download from Audible or through iTunes for, what else, absolutely FREE.

Very interesting. More I think about these strategies outlined in this post, the more I could relate to various shopping experiences. Now I know, how products are priced, it is difficult to resist the temptation to see beyond the price tag (:-)) Just as most of us must rely on relative pitch to discriminate amongst various tones, so too must the vast majority of consumers rely on relative price cues in order to determine what they’re willing to pay. What this means, according to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, is that the price of everything is “up in the air.” That’s where menu engineering comes in. Source: What We Can Learn About Pricing From Menu Engineers

“..software is perhaps the ultimate building material: it springs from pure thought and is intrinsically malleable, yet it can be made manifest in our hardware systems, limited only by our vision ..” – Grady Booch Mint.com is an idea about 3 years back. Now its a 170M business (with projections running in Billions of dollars in next few years) that helps millions of people save money and organize their finances. There is no doubt, it would be every aspiring entrepreneur’s dream to convert their idea into a multi million dollar business. If you are one of those, this 22 minute talk by Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint.com is a must watch. There are some great tips on mechanics but also quite an invaluable advice on the most important aspect of any business, managing finances.   Mint CEO Aaron Patzer on Startups from Techcrunch on Vimeo . Towards the end of the presentation, Aaron talks about what building Mint.com really meant to him (along with tons of money tha...

Morpheus doesn’t bring cash, unlike the Venture Capital firm across the corner. They bring “sweat” capital (read as expertise and IP). The team at Morpheus even call itself as an Accelerator instead. So what do they want in return? Of course, equity in the startup. If you are a startup or just interested in Indian startup scene, listen to the RWW interview with one of Morpheus team members here . Is it a fund, an angel network, or an incubator? Are these labels even still relevant? What segments does it focus on? What is early-stage innovation in India like? -  Morpheus: Y Combinator-Like Incubator in India (RWS Interview) - ReadWriteStart Startups that are in Morpheus portfolio include Vericar does used-car certification and appraisal, catering to the used-car market in India, which is at a million units every year. Robots Alive is the second company in India to have manufactured a robotics arm from the ground up. Quite a novel concept to make money from ...

I gave my Honda vehicle for a service at a Dealer this weekend. Everything went well. And then I got an email little later asking for feedback on how did the service went and whether I was satisfied with the service.  Here is the text of the Email. The third paragraph was bold text in the email itself. I only replaced the Dealer name and contact details of the Service manager with xxx.   Thank you for choosing XXX  for your recent service needs. It is important to me that you were completely satisfied with your service or repairs. Only you can tell us if we have met or exceeded your expectations. We would appreciate receiving your impressions of this visit. Please take the time to answer the questions and click submit to send your answers back to me. If you prefer a more personal approach, you may call me directly at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Your comments will make a difference, so do not hesitate to make your views known. You may be receiving a survey directly ...