 |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
26 May This post is from from my other blog here For the many entrepreneurs I meet with and who will hopefully read my blog posts, I ask you to please stop thinking about code and start thinking about marketing. Positioning is a great place to start.
22 May
22 May 22 May This post is from from my other blog here I am not good at bargaining. I was taught by my mom years ago to bargain well when she sent me grocery and produce shopping but after being in America for ages, those skills just wore off. I think I try to do the win-win negotiation, but quite honestly that does not work in India. Its always someone wins and the other person negotiating loses. Most cases its NOT a negotiation, its just a bargaining. So what's the difference - well let me explain.1. Negotiating: I walked into a local car dealership with my cousin the other day. Good day to buy a new car. There are over 50+ models to choose from - very different from the last time we went car shopping in India - there were 3 models. You either bought a Fiat (localized for India), an Ambassador (from Morris Minor) or a Suzuki (also localized). Well walking into the dealership was interesting in itself. Before we had a chance to acquaint ourselves, there's a nice lady that walks by to "greet" us with a paper in her hand. "Hi" she says with a half smile "Are you looking to buy a car"?We nod in unison. "Okay, here's the price sheet. Please be seated, I'll send you a sales person".Whoa! I thought, price sheet first. Wonder what Seth has to say about this. The price sheet was pretty detailed, cost of the car, taxes, registration fees, insurance - all inclusive. There were 5 models of cars to choose from and about 4 types of cars in each model. From the basic (no power anything (including no power steering!) , no seat belts, manual shift and no AC) to the fully loaded (this still has no airbags, no car stereo - optional, no sun roof, etc).We sat down and Rakesh came to greet us, "So, which car do you want to buy?". My cousin says "Santro". "Okay, do you know which type of car?" he asks. "What's the difference?" I venture.A more detailed explanation of the features ensures.We finally settle on a model and type. Turns out the same prices are valid throughout Southern India for every dealer. The only difference is what options you can purchase. But wait, even with that the prices are set by Hyundai. So putting my best negotiation face I say "Why dont you throw in the stereo for free?" expecting a tough, grueling session ahead. "Okay" replies Rakesh, "If you want free stereo, the I can only give delivery in 2 weeks"."But we want the car tomorrow", my cousin volunteers."Then no free stereo" he explains still smiling."Hmm, what about color" my cousin questions, "We want blue"."No problem we have that in stock" he replies, and before we can ask any further "does not matter which color you want, we have all in stock if you want delivery by tomorrow, without stereo".So much for negotiation. I try the walk tactic "Well if we dont get stereo in the car and by tomorrow, we'll ...
22 May This post is from from my other blog here We need to stop thinking about consumers as highly rational evaluators of the old vs. the new products, lining up pros and cons of each in mental tables and then selecting the winner. Instead, we need to keep in mind three well-documented features of our
21 May This post is from from my other blog here Contrary to expert statements that "one seat is safe as the other," the study found that it is safer to sit in the back.
20 May This post is from from my other blog here Assuming you have been told (or your asked) to go to Bangalore to spend a week with your India team, what's the best set of things to do? How can you get work done and at the same time enjoy what Bangalore has to offer?This is one person's view - YMMV.1. Most likely you are arriving either from Europe (East coast - NYC, Boston, etc.) or via Singapore (SF, Seattle, etc). You are going to land in Bangalore directly (if you arrive from Bombay or Delhi, ignore this point) late in the night (later than 10 pm). All international flights land late at night. Use that to your advantage. Get a quick eye (an hour is fine) on the plane. With the new Bangalore airport its likely going to take you an hour or two to get to your hotel. A pre-paid taxi is the preferred route (if you have not already made arrangements for cab) to get to your hotel. 2. Get some sleep to get over the jet lag. If you're still hungry, grab a quick bite with room service (since most Bangalore restaurants are closed by 10pm) and hit the bed.3. Day 1: Early brisk workout in the gym (if provided at your hotel) or a quick run (if you wake up before 6 am) is ideal before the traffic hits. Stick to running around the hotel or ask your concierge for a quick 1-2 mile path. Most roads will have some form of pavement, but dont expect it.4. If you are up to it a local breakfast (at your hotel) is awesome (idlis and dosas are great, and if your hotel serves Rava idli is a local specialty). Most coffee is served latte style, but you can ask for black if you wish.5. Make arrangements for your taxi / cab ride to your office. If possible leave late since most companies I know that work here start work at 930. There are exceptions, but hopefully you are staying at a hotel close to your office. If not, plan on at least an hour of commute.6. You will be served multiple cups of coffee (or water if you wish) throughout the morning, which you can choose to politely decline. Avoid a buffet style lunch the first day (since there's a big propensity to nap later). I would also avoid salad and US style fast food. Be aware most Indian teams have lunch late (130 pm is usual) and its usually a 1 hour or more affair.7. The lull of the afternoon is the best time to have back to back meetings with interaction & Q&A as opposed to presentations. By late evening you are most likely to be tired and sleepy, so I recommend a quick walk on M. G. road (if you are close to it).8. Dinner at Three Quarter Chinese is would be my bet on day 1. Its a good mix of local and "Indian Chinese" cuisine and the ambiance is just right. Its ...
19 May This post is from from my other blog here So, who are these people coming up with gravity defying business ideas? A wide variety of professionals, as our second annual listing of India’s 10 Hottest Start-Ups reveals: executives, students, professors, and even doctors. To zero in on the most ha
19 May This post is from from my other blog here
I know there are over a billion people in India. Its not lost on me. Also not lost is the sense of pride and self confidence that a job provides, but honestly these three jobs have to be eliminated.1.
17 May This post is from from my other blog here Warning: Long (essay type) post. You would expect Silicon Valley of India to have more software entrepreneurs. I spoke with 4 of my local venture capital friends (2 in Chennai and 2 in Bangalore) who were lamenting the lack of good quality local software startups in Bangalore. Their claim was that there are more “me too, copycat” software attempts with a “local flavor”. No wonder – they saw 7 proposals for “Facebook for India”, 5 for “Indian Admob” and countless mobile social networking ideas. I am going to punt on the existential questions about the necessity of software startups for this post, so let’s assume they are good to have. Here are the main reasons that they claim is the reason for the lack of such ventures.
The IIT’s (Indian Institute of Science) are premier institutions no doubt, but the number of graduates are very small (relative) in number. There are very street smart individuals I have met from the tier 2 regional / state colleges that are more willing to take a risk than your IIT graduate. Even in Silicon Valley this plays out – the number of companies started by Indians from other colleges far outweighs the number started from IIT. Increasingly most of these individuals prefer to stay back in India, where they see a lot of opportunity, unlike 10 years ago. But IIT is a proven name, which is why venture capitalists prefer to fund them. Plus the number of IIT grads are returning per Rediff.
This is true to some extent. In most cases, after you graduate, close friends & family will pressure you to join a “brand name” such as Infosys, Wipro, Oracle, etc. Why? They feel a stigma in mentioning it at dinners, parties, etc. Although software startups are risky so are any of the other kinds of ventures. There’s a perception that starting a new venture in a proven field reduces risk, which is why you see more restaurants, home builders, infrastructure providers than new ground-breaking innovations from India.
This is the same argument as the previous one. Most “fresh” graduates don’t want to take a risk with their first job out of school – they prefer to work for a well established company than a unknown startup. I believe that’s changing. Most of the work done in India the last decade was maintenance & support. Now, there are some good cutting-edge Ruby-on-Rails and AJAX technologies that are being adopted, which is why I believe it will take a few years, but not for another 3 years to see a "new" idea emerge from India.
Services or consulting is immediate revenue, so the need for capital is little and success is mostly assured. For every Infosys (that’s proven) there are 100’s ...
15 May This post is from from my other blog here * Steve Jurvetson, Draper Fisher Jurvetson. * Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures. * Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital. * Roger McNamee, Elevation Partners. * Joe Schoendorf, Accel Partners. * Tony Perkins, of Always On, is the moderato
14 May This post is from from my other blog here  Here's what people are trying to tell you when they sound the car horn in the bay area:1. You almost caused an accident you mo*@n.2. Hey, get off the damm cell phone and concentrate on the road you id#0t, you're getting in my lane.3. The light's been green for the last 20 seconds, move on.In Bangalore however sounding the horn can mean many things. I can personally assure you I have seen every one of the below situations in just the last 4 days:1. Hey I saw my friend.2. Get to the other side faster you pedestrian, I have to go by quickly.3. Hey look, I have a new horn.4. What is this thing in the center?5. This thing sounds really cool, let me press it a couple of times to see if the sound changes.6. Mr. Policeman, I have waited for 30 seconds, now let traffic from our side go forward.7. I am really bored now.8. I am going left (or right), watch out!9. Good morning (to fellow drivers).10. I am a new driver, I was told by my instructor to sound horn frequently.11. I want to pass by or overtake you, lemme go.12. Everyone else is doing it, so maybe its part of the driving experience.13. All the trucks are telling me its ok to sound my horn, so there.14. I was going to fall asleep, so I pressed the horn to wake myself up.15. God, I hate this traffic, so I am going to express my frustration by sounding the horn.16. Its early morning, (or mid afternoon, or late night) so I should let everyone know I am here.17. We are near a hospital zone and the road sign says dont sound the horn, so I am going to express my sense of civil disobedience.18. I have this little kid sitting on my lap (on the drivers seat), and he's the one that's sounding the horn, not me!19. I am backing up, so watch out everyone else behind me. (this is in addition to that annoying noise coming from my reverse gear tune).20. Damm motorcycle drivers, think they own the road.Please feel free to add below situations where you feel you saw the sounding of the horn different from quite possibly its original intention.Photo: Ananth Narayan! Thank you Ananth.
14 May
13 May This post is from from my other blog here
Melissa wrote a few weeks ago about the most important personality trait of an entrepreneur. In her words is "flexibility".I am not sure I agree with her 100% since if I was asked one, I would go with determination to succeed.Either ways, I wanted to give some insight into the
12 May This post is from from my other blog here  "The title is an attempted technical nerd alert ".Trying to embarrass the Bangalore crowd into doing something that is the "right thing to do", just does not work. Let me give you 3 examples.1. On my plane ride from Bangkok to Bangalore, I picked up a copy of Newsweek and the Asian WSJ. Long flight I imagined, might as well get some light reading done. I boarded the plane and sat down at my seat, realizing that I had my contact lenses on, left the reading materials on my seat and put my toothbrush on them and headed to remove and store the lenses.On my return I noticed the man next to me reading the WSJ with the Newsweek on his lap. Trying to be nice, I mentioned they were mine and purchased outside. He looks at me quizzically, looks at both the items and returns the newspaper he was reading and says - "Okay, you read this and give it to me when you are done", still holding the Newsweek in his hand."Huh? (double take). They are mine, I bought them, so let me have them and when I am done I'll let you know" was my response, a little too curt perhaps.He seemed annoyed to say the least (as was I). This is going to be a really long flight I imagined, wondering if I could sweet talk the air hostess into seating me elsewhere. She would not hear of it - "Sir that's your assigned seat, please dont change". Looking around there were a few seats free, so I ventured I'd change after the doors closed. Meanwhile my neighbor was asking the air hostess for some juice. The Thai airways air hostesses had been awesome from HKG to Bangkok so I was a little surprised when she replied with a stiff "Please wait". Turns out the flights from any place to India (and other countries nearby BTW) are the most detested by the Thai airways air hostesses - "The passengers are demanding, very impolite and ill mannered" says the purser. "Not everyone going to India is that way" I countered. "True" he said, "but its hard to discern, so we take the lowest common denominator, and nothing seems to embarrass them".2. Flying from Chennai to Bangalore I was seated at the "waiting area" when a well dressed (Boston loafers, Tag Heuer watch, and a Blackberry 8800 to boot) gentlemen next to me, sat down, opened a piece of hard candy and dropped the wrapper to the ground. My N95 to the rescue I thought and whipped it up to take the video of the incident, the wrapper and him chewing on the candy."What are you doing?" he asks."Taking a video" I responded, ready with arguments of free speech, free country, blah blah, blah.I made it very obvious that I wanted to shame him for littering the place."Oh cool! Nice phone." he says, "Tell me which website you put it up and I'll show it to my kids ...
10 May
09 May This post is from from my other blog here  As I tweeted, I am in Bangalore now and will be for some time working with our team. Landed at midnight (every international flight lands only between 11 pm and 2 am, at night in India - dont even ask why) in Bangalore airport Wed. I had a couple of boxes with me and 2 laptops - one was my PC which has all my files and mail from ages ago and another was my new MacBook (relatively new, its a few months old now). Apparently you are allowed only one laptop when you clear customs in India. So they scan every bag and mark the ones with a laptop with an X in red. I was duly asked to "step aside" to be inspected. There was a customs officer T.P. Ullas who asked me why I have two laptops. I said one was an old (5 years) one, which has my backup and another was the laptop I used. He quickly pointed me to a not so official cartoon that stated "only one laptop per person"."Okay" I said what now? I can "declare it and put it in my passport" (they make an entry in your passport) so I have to take it back when I return. "No" replied T.P. Ullas, "what else do you have?". "Clothes, books, not much" I said. Ullas: "Well you have to pay the duty".Me: "But I am taking these things back". Ullas: "That's not the rule".Me: "What is the rule then?". annoyed.At this point I was tired, bored and really wanting to get this over with. I looked around and there were 3 others going through the same predicament."Okay, what's the duty" I ask.Ullas: "Show me the receipt of original purchase".Me: "I dont have it, I dont carry it around".Ullas: "Okay then wait here. I'll ask around". He goes and asks another guy and a third guy and they quickly start to talk about IPL Cricket.I am totally annoyed at this point. So I get in front of them and confront him with " I want to move quick, tell me the duty and I'll pay it".Again he replies "I need the receipt. We cant do anything without the receipt".Me: "I bought it for about $1000. That's the base price" He goes inside to a room to bring a book with some numbers apparently that indicate duty prices. He says "I cant take your word for it, so it has to be the maximum". Resigning to the fate, I wanted him to get this over with. He then wanted to open all the boxes and assess everything from my Blackberry and iPhone - "Why do you carry 2 phones?" was another question, to my IPod, Kindle and finally came up with a ridiculous "I think the maximum estimate is Rs. 120,000" or about $3000. (Not sure even if the sum total of all my items would amount to that)."You can do this quick or you can do it by the book" he says ...
05 May
04 May This post is from from my other blog here  I was in a discussion with the CEO of a small software company (enterprise software, they sell to large fortune 2000 corporations) about their new version.They had been working on a new version for over 4-6 months (a long time in the Web 2.0 world for sure). Turns out they completely changed their user experience - what they thought was better for their customers based on input.Customers consistently (even those that are "Windows only shops") said - "Why is the User experience not like Apple"?.Even if your customers have never used a Mac, they are possibly iPod or iPhone customers. They know someone or have some experience with someone who has a Mac. Here's what I believe they mean when they want an "apple like User Experience"1. User delight: There's a certain glint in the eye when someone is using their iPhone or the new iPod Touch. Same when I saw several folks using their Apple Mac on the plane. Same when they were using the older iPods. They feel like they're having fun, their "device" or the software in the device is "delighting" them. If software or the device makes the feel like its a chore (like accepting my Linkedin requests) then you can be assured its a matter of time before users give up.2. Intuitive Navigation: Most people in enterprise software focus on "consistency" of the user experience. Like my friend Ashwani was telling me today - an enterprise software feels "antiseptic". Menu's on top, left or right navigation with standard tags etc. Apple products seem to know what are the 1-2 things I want to do when I am at any point of my product usage. The key difference is the fact that they dont try to make it consistent just for the sake of being consistent. My blackberry is also starting to feel like that BTW. Choose something (like a name) and there are only 1-2 things I want to do - like look up address or call someone. If I am on the address, the menu choice is Map on Google maps. Very intuitive.3. Simplicity: I dont have to expound this any more than say even if your product does only 3 things but does those three things well, the simplicity of Google search will beat the cluttered search experience of Yahoo.4. Pleasing color scheme: Colors matter. Dont let anyone tell you otherwise Brushed steel or grey is Apple standard, with lots of simple black and white. But the software color patterns are fairly pleasing on the eye in my Safari browser. Very bright, seems like a "well lit place".5. Never make them feel like an idiot". Even after using my Mac for a long time I dont think I have explored over 20 keystrokes and most important items I'd like to do. But I dont feel like an idiot not knowing the 100 other things I can do, since these are good enough to get back. My Vista experience on the other hand (move ...
02 May This post is from from my other blog here “Not only because it takes a certain level of mental flexibility to understand what users want, but because the plan will probably change. People think that startups grow out of some brilliant initial idea like a plant from a seed. But almost all the fo
02 May This post is from from my other blog here America will close out a 125-year run as the No. 1 economy. We assumed the title in 1890 from - guess who. Britain? France? No. The world's largest economy until 1890 was China's. That's why Maddison says he expects China to "resume its natural role as th
Archives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
by 
