Startup Business

Startup Business
Journey of an Entrepreneur.......

Google Browser Chrome: Is Internet Explorer under Threat?
a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/SL60YXYjGWI/AAAAAAAAACU/UVF5ybQF8dk/s1600-h/logo_sm.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241825346992675170" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/SL60YXYjGWI/AAAAAAAAACU/UVF5ybQF8dk/s320/logo_sm.jpg" border="0" //abr /divGoogle has launched its browser a href="http://www.google.com/chrome"Chrome/a 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?/divbr /divWhether 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. span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"Google's/span 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 span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"appox/span. 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./divbr /divVery interesting space to watch for!!!!/divbr /div/divbr /divCheers/divbr /divspan class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"Abhishek/span/divbr /div/divbr /div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
We are Hiring now
a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/SLZ6yjOFWCI/AAAAAAAAACM/b7xVaUzYVZg/s1600-h/hiring.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5239510225358510114" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/SLZ6yjOFWCI/AAAAAAAAACM/b7xVaUzYVZg/s320/hiring.jpg" border="0" //abr /strong.NET Technical Manager /strongbr /Position: Microsoft.net Technical Managerbr /Location: Punebr /Experience: 5+ Years on Microsoft.NET platformbr /Key Skills: C#, ASP.NET, SQL Serverbr /br /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.br /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).br /Responsibilities:br /?Architecting the product and deciding the technology road mapbr /?Guiding the team on all technology aspects.br /?Interfacing with the customer on technology presentations and consulting.br /br /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 a href="mailto:srivasaa2000@yahoo.com"srivasaa2000@yahoo.com/abr /br /Cheersbr /Abhishekdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Recruiting for Startup: My first impressions
a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/SLYozhNehqI/AAAAAAAAACE/u0b-c9E6QBI/s1600-h/images.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5239420082045486754" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/SLYozhNehqI/AAAAAAAAACE/u0b-c9E6QBI/s320/images.jpg" border="0" //abr /divIt 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:br /br /br /ulbr /br /liSelecting 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 a href="http://www.venturewoods.org/"venturewoods/a, a href="http://www.pluggd.in/"pluggd.in/a, a href="http://www.genportal.org/"genportal /aetc 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.br //libr /liRight 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./li/ulbr /br /pIf 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./pbr /pCheers/pbr /br /pAbhishek/p/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Learnings: Startup Story Part I
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.br /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.br /br /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 span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"SMSs/span. 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.br /Now if I look back, I think I made couple of mistakes:br /· 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.br /· 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.br /br /Will write about part II of the story with a happy ending.br /~Cheersdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Festival of Light in India
a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/RzKzivSnOWI/AAAAAAAAAB8/InhSl8TaHO8/s1600-h/Diwali.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130360334919874914" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/RzKzivSnOWI/AAAAAAAAAB8/InhSl8TaHO8/s320/Diwali.jpg" border="0" //abr /divI wish everyone, who is visiting my page, a very very happy and prosperous Diwali, the Festival of Lights in India./divbr /div/divbr /divCheers/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Dimdim enters Webmeeting Software Space with Free Offering
There is a new entrant into the Webmeeting Software space, a href="http://www.dimdim.com/"Dimdim/a. 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 a href="http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/FX101729061033.aspx?ofcresset=1"LiveMeeting/a and a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.gotomeeting.com/"GoToMeeting/a are the other Webmeeting softwares. So what is different in Dimdim. To start with it is strongspan style="color:#6666cc;"free/span/strong. 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.br /br /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.br /br /Dimdim has started a new model and we will have to wait and watch how this strategy unfolds.br /br /Cheersdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
SAP: SaaS bandwagon
Facing severe pressure from its peers and dwindling profits, a href="http://www.sap.com/"SAP/a, the largest span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"ERP/span solution provider, has launched its span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"ERP/span 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.br /br /It span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"must/span be noted that span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"SalesForce/span and span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"OnDemand/span Oracle has created a serious threat to SAP and it had to launch the span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"ERP/span as a service.The race is becoming interesting.br /br /br /Cheersbr /span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"Abhishek/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Entrepreneur of the Year
Inc.com is inviting nominations for the Entrepreneur of the year. The nominations can be done here:br /br /a href="http://www.inc.com/entrepreneur/2007/submit.php"http://www.inc.com/entrepreneur/2007/submit.php/adiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
What is the date Today?
a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/Ru9bGlLI-dI/AAAAAAAAAB0/rkqZRftbJA8/s1600-h/9.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111404270704982482" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/Ru9bGlLI-dI/AAAAAAAAAB0/rkqZRftbJA8/s320/9.jpg" border="0" //abr /divToday is 18span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"th/span 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./divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Innvotive Startup: Technology for Masses
"emspan class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"Meraki/span is bringing Internet Access to the next Billion People/em"br /br /a href="http://meraki.com/"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"Meraki/span networks /ahas 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 span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"Meraki/span router and it comes in two versions: span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"Meraki/span Mini Outdoor and span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"Meraki/span Mini costing US $ 99 to US $ 49 respectively. I span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"don't/span know if these routers are available in India and what will be the price here, if imported. But definitely span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"Meraki/span Routers are cheaper than the normal routers in the US.br /br /The website further states:br /br /"emTens of thousands of users worldwide are connecting to the Internet with span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"Meraki/span 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./em"br /br /Kudos to the young Entrepreneur span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"Sanjit/span span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"Biswas/span!!!!!br /br /Cheersbr /span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"Abhishek/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is one of the buzz words these days and many authors have written in details about it. But recently I read a href="http://sramanamitra.com/"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"Sramana/span span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"Mitra's/span /aposts on his blog. He has done excellent span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"research/span on the topic and provided an in-depth analysis of web 3.0 with a framework that sounds pretty realistic. He has been span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"writing/span 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.br /br /It is an a href="http://sramanamitra.com/2007/09/06/web-30-and-verticalization/"interesting article /aand is a must read.br /br /Cheersbr /span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"Abhishek/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Verticalization of Non-SN Sites
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 a href="http://www.trip2goa.com/"Trip2Goa/a 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.br /br /Read an a href="http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/management/is-trip2goa-com-your-preferred-portal-for-goa-trip-/17/15/302094"interview with Swapnil Kamat /ahere.div class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Startups, Process automation and Open Source
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 span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"Softwares/span (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 span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"OSSs/span for my span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"startup/span for each and every function. So lately I have been doing a bit of research to figure out span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"OSSs/span 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.br /br /strongOffice Suite:/strong 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 span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"OSSs/span. The span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"OSSs/span come in two flavors:br / br / emspan style="color:#993300;"Office Suites as span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"SaaS/span (Software as a service):/span/em a href="http://docs.google.com/"Google Docs /aand a href="http://www.zoho.com/virtual-office/"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"Zoho/span Virtual Office/a are two of the better products in this category. Though they offer more than just office suite. span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"Zoho/span, for instance, offer span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"webmail/span, Contact management, News and Announcements, Tasks management etc.br /br / emspan style="color:#993300;"Conventional Office Suites: /span/ema href="http://openoffice.org/"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"Openoffice/span.org /a(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.br /br /br /strongFinancial Accounting System:/strong 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 span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11"Openoffice/span.org) to start with, but you need to quickly move to a sophisticated tool because of process efficiency as well as span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"compliance/span. Here is to name a few:br /br / a href="http://www.adaptiveplanning.com/"Adaptive Planning/abr / a href="http://www.osfinancials.org/joomla/"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"osFinancials/span Planning /abr / a href="http://www.openbravo.com/"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"OpenBravo/span/a ? This is a comprehensive span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15"ERP/span suite meant for span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16"SME/span.br /br /br /strongCommunication:/strong a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.skype.com"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17"Skype/span/a 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.br /br /strongServers Other Resources:/strong Sun span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18"Microsystems/span started a href="http://in.sun.com/emrkt/startupessentials/index.jsp)"an alliance program for span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19"Startups/span /afor companies in India, China and the US. It was launched on August 8span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20"th/span, 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.br /br /strongWebsite Design Resources:/strong Web presence is essential for any span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21"startup/span nowadays. a href="http://www.oswd.org/"Open Source web site design/a and a href="http://www.openwebdesign.org/"Open Web Design /awill help you in that. Additionally there are content management websites which helps you in developing and managing complete website e.g. a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.opencms.org"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22"OpenCMS/span/a and a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.umbraco.org"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23"Umbraco/span /a.br /br /strongemDisclaimer: 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.br //em/strongbr /The most prominent open source software repositories are: a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.sourceforge.net"span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24"Sourceforge/span/a and a href="http://www.codeplex.com/"Code span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25"Plex/span /a.br /br /Cheersbr /span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26"Abhishek/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Most Disruptive Startups
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 ?a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/disruptors/"Big Ideas that will change everything (May be the World)/a? . 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.br /br /The a href="http://blogs.business2.com/business2blog/2007/08/disruptors-cove.html"Distruptive Startups list /ais posted here.br /br /Cheersbr /Abhishekdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div
Startup Growth and Success: A Research
divThe success of a span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"startup/span depends on many factors including location, talent, a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5089.html"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5094346378026281298" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_B9YJvuMJ4jc/RrLBCjEN6VI/AAAAAAAAABU/0Mh6WCM1RkE/s320/smalllogo-HBS.gif" border="0" //atiming etc. Well, this is what I thought. But I came across a research done by span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"Mukti/span span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"Khaire/span, who is an assistant professor in the Entrepreneurial Management unit at Harvard Business School, which says that key to success for a span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"startup/span might be some other factors. An E-mail interview "a href="http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5089.html"How Can Start Ups Grow?/a" is published by span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"HBS/span Working Knowledge, which provides insights into the study conducted and success factors identified./divbr /div"emFor new ventures a lack of resources makes growth difficult to come by?just ask those nine out of ten fledgling firms that fail. Professor span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"Mukti/span span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"Khaire/span says the key may be in acquiring intangible resources such as legitimacy, status, and reputation./em"/divbr /div/divbr /divCheers/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"Startup/div

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