Another event round the corner- Headstart 2009

Posted by Headstart

HeadStart is an event for entrepreneurs which marks the culmination of monthly Startup Saturdays across the country. You can get more information about it HeadStart here, and about Startup Saturdays here.
If you are an entrepreneur looking for Funding, we have arranged exclusive 1 to 1 "Meet a VC" slots over the 2 days of the event. Please refer to this blog post to view the names of the VCs along with the times at which they would be available.Please send an email to Vinayak Hegde on vinayak@headstart.in to help him arrange for a 1 to 1 meeting between you and the VC you want to contact. Ideally you should be a startup with a working prototype of your product being demoed at the demo pit as described in the following paragraph.
Besides,If you have built an innovative product/service and would like to demo it (and get feedback, meet prospective customers etc), then we invite you to nominate your startup's offering by filling up this nomination form. I am sorry about informing you so late, but the last date for nominations is tomorrow, so please send it at the earliest! This is absolutely free of charge.
Lastly, If you want to register for the event, you can do so here. The event fee is about 45$ if you avail the early bird discount. We have tried to keep it as low as possible to enable unfunded entrepreneurs to attend it.
We also have a rich collaboration with Corporates who want to either work with Startups or want to learn how to bring forth innovation/intrapreneurship in their organization. Feel free to connect me [amit@headstart.in] to your company's decision makers if you feel they would be interested. (We are a not for profit btw)
We are very passionate about building an ecosystem in India where entrepreneurship can thrive. Please help us spread the word by blogging about it or posting the information on relevant mailing lists. Please do drop me a line informing me about the same so that I can thank you personally!

-- For Entrepreneurs: www.headstart.in www.startupsaturday.in

Apple Story

On the birth of the iPhone"We all had cellphones. We just hated them, they were so awful to use. The software was terrible. The hardware wasn't very good. We talked to our friends, and they all hated their cellphones too. Everybody seemed to hate their phones. And we saw that these things really could become much more powerful and interesting to license. It's a huge market. I mean a billion phones get shipped every year, and that's almost an order of magnitude greater than the number of music players. It's four times the number of PCs that ship every year."It was a great challenge. Let's make a great phone that we fall in love with. And we've got the technology. We've got the miniaturization from the iPod. We've got the sophisticated operating system from Mac. Nobody had ever thought about putting operating systems as sophisticated as OS X inside a phone, so that was a real question. We had a big debate inside the company whether we could do that or not. And that was one where I had to adjudicate it and just say, 'We're going to do it. Let's try.' The smartest software guys were saying they can do it, so let's give them a shot. And they did."On Apple's connection with the consumer"We did iTunes because we all love music. We made what we thought was the best jukebox in iTunes. Then we all wanted to carry our whole music libraries around with us. The team worked really hard. And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one. You know? I mean, the first few hundred customers were us."It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do."So you can't go out and ask people, you know, what the next big [thing.] There's a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, 'If I'd have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me "A faster horse." ' "On choosing strategy"We do no market research. We don't hire consultants. The only consultants I've ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway's retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products."When we created the iTunes Music Store, we did that because we thought it would be great to be able to buy music electronically, not because we had plans to redefine the music industry. I mean, it just seemed like writing on the wall, that eventually all music would be distributed electronically. That seemed obvious because why have the cost? The music industry has huge returns. Why have all this [overhead] when you can just send electrons around easily?"On what drives Apple employees"We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the [executive team] could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we've all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is."On why people want to work at Apple:"The reason is, is because you can't do what you can do at Apple anywhere else. The engineering is long gone in most PC companies. In the consumer electronics companies, they don't understand the software parts of it. And so you really can't make the products that you can make at Apple anywhere else right now. Apple's the only company that has everything under one roof."There's no other company that could make a MacBook Air and the reason is that not only do we control the hardware, but we control the operating system. And it is the intimate interaction between the operating system and the hardware that allows us to do that. There is no intimate interaction between Windows and a Dell notebook."Our DNA is as a consumer company -- for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply."On whether Apple could live without him"We've got really capable people at Apple. I made Tim [Cook] COO and gave him the Mac division and he's done brilliantly. I mean, some people say, 'Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. And the board would have some good choices about who to pick as CEO. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do."On his demanding reputation:"My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be."On Apple's focus"Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we've got less than 30 major products. I don't know if that's ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully."I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don't put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market's going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won't really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn't have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn't have seen it coming."On his management style"We've got 25,000 people at Apple. About 10,000 of them are in the stores. And my job is to work with sort of the top 100 people, that's what I do. That doesn't mean they're all vice presidents. Some of them are just key individual contributors. So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know - just explore things."On finding talent:"When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They'll want to do what's best for Apple, not what's best for them, what's best for Steve, or anybody else."Recruiting is hard. It's just finding the needles in the haystack. We do it ourselves and we spend a lot of time at it. I've participated in the hiring of maybe 5,000-plus people in my life. So I take it very seriously. You can't know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it's ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they're challenged? Why are they here? I ask everybody that: 'Why are you here?' The answers themselves are not what you're looking for. It's the meta-data."On the benefits of owning an operating system"That allows us to innovate at a much faster rate than if we had to wait for Microsoft, like Dell and HP and everybody else does. Because Microsoft has their own timetable, for probably good reasons. I mean Vista took what -- seven or eight years? It's hard to get your new feature that you need for your new hardware if it has to wait eight years. So we can set our own priorities and look at things in a more holistic way from the point of view of the customer. It also means that we can take it and we can make a version of it to fit in the iPhone and the iPod. And, you know, we certainly couldn't do that if we didn't own it."On his marathon Monday meetings"When you hire really good people you have to give them a piece of the business and let them run with it. That doesn't mean I don't get to kibitz a lot. But the reason you're hiring them is because you're going to give them the reins. I want [them] making as good or better decisions than I would. So the way to do that is to have them know everything, not just in their part of the business, but in every part of the business."So what we do every Monday is we review the whole business. We look at what we sold the week before. We look at every single product under development, products we're having trouble with, products where the demand is larger than we can make. All the stuff in development, we review. And we do it every single week. I put out an agenda -- 80% is the same as it was the last week, and we just walk down it every single week."We don't have a lot of process at Apple, but that's one of the few things we do just to all stay on the same page."On dealing with roadblocks"At Pixar when we were making Toy Story, there came a time when we were forced to admit that the story wasn't great. It just wasn't great. We stopped production for five months.... We paid them all to twiddle their thumbs while the team perfected the story into what became Toy Story. And if they hadn't had the courage to stop, there would have never been a Toy Story the way it is, and there probably would have never been a Pixar."We called that the 'story crisis,' and we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There's been one on every film. We don't stop production for five months. We've gotten a little smarter about it. But there always seems to come a moment where it's just not working, and it's so easy to fool yourself - to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn't."Well, you know what? It's been that way with [almost] every major project at Apple, too.... Take the iPhone. We had a different enclosure design for this iPhone until way too close to the introduction to ever change it. And I came in one Monday morning, I said, 'I just don't love this. I can't convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we've ever done.'"And we pushed the reset button. We went through all of the zillions of models we'd made and ideas we'd had. And we ended up creating what you see here as the iPhone, which is dramatically better. It was hell because we had to go to the team and say, 'All this work you've [done] for the last year, we're going to have to throw it away and start over, and we're going to have to work twice as hard now because we don't have enough time.' And you know what everybody said? 'Sign us up.'"That happens more than you think, because this is not just engineering and science. There is art, too. Sometimes when you're in the middle of one of these crises, you're not sure you're going to make it to the other end. But we've always made it, and so we have a certain degree of confidence, although sometimes you wonder. I think the key thing is that we're not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things."On the iPod tipping point"It was difficult for a while because for various reasons the Mac had not been accepted by a lot of people, who went with Windows. And we were just working really hard, and our market share wasn't going up. It makes you wonder sometimes whether you're wrong. Maybe our stuff isn't better, although we thought it was. Or maybe people don't care, which is even more depressing."It turns out with the iPod we kind of got out from that operating-system glass ceiling and it was great because [it showed that] Apple innovation, Apple engineering, Apple design did matter. The iPod captured 70% market share. I cannot tell you how important that was after so many years of laboring and seeing a 4% to 5% market share on the Mac. To see something like that happen with the iPod was a great shot in the arm for everybody."On what they did next:"We made more. We worked harder. We said: 'This is great. Let's do more.' I mean, the Mac market share is going up every single quarter. We're growing four times faster than the industry. People are starting to pay a little more attention. We've helped it along. We put Intel processors in and we can run PC apps alongside Mac apps. We helped it along. But I think a lot of it is people have finally started to realize that they don't have to put up with Windows - that there is an alternative. I think nobody really thought about it that way before."On launching the Apple store"It was very simple. The Mac faithful will drive to a destination, right? They'll drive somewhere special just to do that. But people who own Windows - we want to convert them to Mac. They will not drive somewhere special. They don't think they want a Mac. They will not take the risk of a 20-minute drive in case they don't like it."But if we put our store in a mall or on a street that they're walking by, and we reduce that risk from a 20-minute drive to 20 footsteps, then they're more likely to go in because there's really no risk. So we decided to put our stores in high-traffic locations. And it works."On catching tech's next wave"Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you're going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years."One of our biggest insights [years ago] was that we didn't want to get into any business where we didn't own or control the primary technology because you'll get your head handed to you."We realized that almost all - maybe all - of future consumer electronics, the primary technology was going to be software. And we were pretty good at software. We could do the operating system software. We could write applications on the Mac or even PC, like iTunes. We could write the software in the device, like you might put in an iPod or an iPhone or something. And we could write the back-end software that runs on a cloud, like iTunes."So we could write all these different kinds of software and make it work seamlessly. And you ask yourself, What other companies can do that? It's a pretty short list. The reason that we were very excited about the phone, beyond that fact that we all hated our phones, was that we didn't see anyone else who could make that kind of contribution. None of the handset manufacturers really are strong in software."On failing, so far, with Apple TV"Here's how I look at it. Everybody's tried to make a great product for the living room. Microsoft's tried, we've tried -- everybody's tried. And everybody's failed. We failed, so far."So there's a whole bunch of people that have tried, and every single one of them's failed, including us. And that's why I call it a hobby. It's not a business yet, it's a hobby."We've come out with our second try -- 'Apple TV, Take 2' is what we call it internally. We realized that the first product we did was about helping you view the content of whatever you had in iTunes on your Mac or PC, and wirelessly sending it to your widescreen TV."Well, it turns out that's not what people really wanted to do. I mean, yeah, it's nice to see your photos up on the big screen. That's frosting on the cake, but it's not the cake. What everybody really wanted, it turned out, was movies."So we began the process of talking to Hollywood studios and were able to get all the major studios to license their movies for rental. And we only have about 600 movies so far ingested on iTunes, but we'll have thousands later this year. We lowered the price to $229. And we'll see how it does. Will this resonate and be something that you just can't live without and love? We'll see. I think it's got a shot."On managing through the economic downturn"We've had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren't going to lay off people, that we'd taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place -- the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding. In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that's exactly what we did. And it worked. And that's exactly what we'll do this time."

Passion

Just inspired by the first mail I read today that was written by my cousin Tara Kola, the following in being written.

I was just wondering what is the glamour that is hidden in "Entrepreneurship". Why is it so close to every person I meet, why do they say irrespective of practicalities "Hey I wish I could be an entrepreneur".

I realise that entrepreneurship is not just state of mind or an art a person pursues but a latent element existing is every person. It takes shape when the favourable circumstances trigger the person to take it up.

For many of us it is difficult to leave a cozy job and go behind our passions (entrepreneurship), well I decided today that it takes a lot of courage to do that. I congratulate all those people up there who have managed to take up this adventure and also to all those who soon are going to...[me being one of them] :-)

The Age of Ambition

Courtesy: The NewYork Times

With the American presidential campaign in full swing, the obvious way to change the world might seem to be through politics.
But growing numbers of young people are leaping into the fray and doing the job themselves. These are the social entrepreneurs, the 21st-century answer to the student protesters of the 1960s, and they are some of the most interesting people here at the World Economic Forum (not only because they’re half the age of everyone else).
Andrew Klaber, a 26-year-old playing hooky from Harvard Business School to come here (don’t tell his professors!), is an example of the social entrepreneur. He spent the summer after his sophomore year in college in Thailand and was aghast to see teenage girls being forced into prostitution after their parents had died of AIDS.
So he started Orphans Against AIDS (www.orphansagainstaids.org), which pays school-related expenses for hundreds of children who have been orphaned or otherwise affected by AIDS in poor countries. He and his friends volunteer their time and pay administrative costs out of their own pockets so that every penny goes to the children.
Mr. Klaber was able to expand the nonprofit organization in Africa through introductions made by Jennifer Staple, who was a year ahead of him when they were in college. When she was a sophomore, Ms. Staple founded an organization in her dorm room to collect old reading glasses in the United States and ship them to poor countries. That group, Unite for Sight, has ballooned, and last year it provided eye care to 200,000 people (www.uniteforsight.org).
In the ’60s, perhaps the most remarkable Americans were the civil rights workers and antiwar protesters who started movements that transformed the country. In the 1980s, the most fascinating people were entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who started companies and ended up revolutionizing the way we use technology.
Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is. John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan title their new book on social entrepreneurs “The Power of Unreasonable People.”
Universities are now offering classes in social entrepreneurship, and there are a growing number of role models. Wendy Kopp turned her thesis at Princeton into Teach for America and has had far more impact on schools than the average secretary of education.
One of the social entrepreneurs here is Soraya Salti, a 37-year-old Jordanian woman who is trying to transform the Arab world by teaching entrepreneurship in schools. Her organization, Injaz, is now training 100,000 Arab students each year to find a market niche, construct a business plan and then launch and nurture a business.
The program (www.injaz.org.jo) has spread to 12 Arab countries and is aiming to teach one million students a year. Ms. Salti argues that entrepreneurs can stimulate the economy, give young people a purpose and revitalize the Arab world. Girls in particular have flourished in the program, which has had excellent reviews and is getting support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. My hunch is that Ms. Salti will contribute more to stability and peace in the Middle East than any number of tanks in Iraq, U.N. resolutions or summit meetings.
“If you can capture the youth and change the way they think, then you can change the future,” she said.
Another young person on a mission is Ariel Zylbersztejn, a 27-year-old Mexican who founded and runs a company called Cinepop, which projects movies onto inflatable screens and shows them free in public parks. Mr. Zylbersztejn realized that 90 percent of Mexicans can’t afford to go to movies, so he started his own business model: He sells sponsorships to companies to advertise to the thousands of viewers who come to watch the free entertainment.
Mr. Zylbersztejn works with microcredit agencies and social welfare groups to engage the families that come to his movies and help them start businesses or try other strategies to overcome poverty. Cinepop is only three years old, but already 250,000 people a year watch movies on his screens — and his goal is to take the model to Brazil, India, China and other countries.
So as we follow the presidential campaign, let’s not forget that the winner isn’t the only one who will shape the world. Only one person can become president of the United States, but there’s no limit to the number of social entrepreneurs who can make this planet a better place.

Vote 4 me: 60 million cell users get spammed as politicos go tech savvy

Source: The Economic Times


NEW DELHI: Here’s one mobile phone application that most users might find too bugging—political SMS campaigns via mobile phones. Yet that’s what
unfolded in the recent elections. While the NSG commandos were fighting a pitched battle with terrorists in Mumbai last month, the country’s political parties were engaged in a high-pitched m-campaign, bombarding users with political messages on mobile phones. The recent election campaign in five states saw over 60 million mobile subscribers being spammed with about double the number of SMSes! Delhi alone witnessed about five million SMSes sent out by each of the main parties in the fray. And many messages were sent without scrubbing the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry list. According to the watchdog, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), spamming mobile phones of registered subscribers is illegal. If a public interest litigation is filed against them the parties may have to shell out lot of money as compensation. Taking an average of Rs 1,000 per incident, for just about one crore SMSes (far more were sent out), the size of the penalty on political parties reaches to about Rs 1,000 crore! However value added services (VAS) providers who were engaged to send the political messages said they had scrubbed the data. One97 Communication CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma said: “On an average, two SMSes per person were sent by each party. We have worked for all the political parties and sent out close to 50 million messages. We have scrubbed numbers from DNC and have sent out messages only to those numbers which are not registered. The parties have spent close to 6% of their total budget in this mode of promotion.” In contrast, the CEO of one of the leading SMS sending websites said that: “The mode these parties have used is illegal and their basic modus operandi was spamming. The parties did not scrub numbers with DNC registry and sent messages to people irrespective of whether they are registered with DNC or not. More than 50 lakh SMSes were sent out by each party. This apparently is banned following the scam when some messages were sent out defaming the ruling party (Congress). The parties approached us too but we refused simply because of the legal angle attached to it.” Political parties however plead ignorance. Speaking to ET, Delhi BJP unit chief Dr Harshvardhan said: “SMSes were mostly sent by party members to inform others about party meetings and announcements. However we need more clarity on it.” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi declined to comment on the issue. Another major bulk messaging and VAS provider Valuefirst said that it scrubbed all data through the DNC database which has about one crore out of 30 crore mobile subscribers in India. “We provide application tools to independents and political parties which they can integrate with a simple spreadsheet or database, to send them SMSes,” said a Valuefirst spokesperson.

A TRAI source however said that implicating a candidate in the fray will be very difficult as a mobile operator can take action only by
disconnecting a line, and they are not regular telemarketers. “We are deliberating on this technical issue as anybody can send any anti-national SMS to a large population and get away by just discarding the SIM. With IP based communication, tracing a sender becomes difficult sometimes.” There are divergent views on the legality as well. Internet and Mobile Association of India president Subho Ray maintains that it’s a violation of law if a candidate sends a SMS to a voter registered with the Do Not Call Registry. But a Delhi-based telecom analyst Mahesh Uppal offers another view. “These messages are a nuisance. However, these cannot be treated as a violation of a norm since the DNC has no mechanism to deal with non-telemarketing operators. The power to act in this case lies only in the hands of the Election Commission,” he said.

Startup Checklist

I have been drilling my head, pooling some time to kick start my business and there are so many elements involved in this process.
I thought let me put a checklist together which will help other entrepreneurs too.
Please leave your comments if there is anything to add.

Ideation and Plan building

• Assess your strengths and weaknesses
• Market and sector research
• Look for mentors - very helpful at times!!
• Look at your financial resources and see how you can use it at best
• Determine your startup costs - keep it low and be a miser in this case
• Develop a marketing plan
• Who are your customers going to be?
• Talk to people to find if what your approach is the right one
• What would be the possible financial Risks
• Source your suppliers

Operational Plan

• Decide your office location
• Choose a form of organisation
• Get a logo and marketing collateral
• register your firm
• look for an insurance agent
• create a bank account
• get an accountant
• get business cards
• get a business license if required
• look at the tax norms

A letter from my fellow citizen to the Prime Minister

Dear Mr. Prime minister I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mouse. Mouse at least squeak but we don't even do that. Today I heard your speech. In which you said 'NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED'. I would like to remind you that fourteen years has passed since serial bomb blast in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our bolywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king meets him but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him everybody will be exposed. Your statement 'NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED' is nothing but a cruel joke on this unfortunate people of India.Enough is enough. As such after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys I realize that if same thing continues days are not away when terrorist will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactor and there will be one more Hiroshima. We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug.Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn't it? I am born and bought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar. Look at all the politician, Sharad Pawar, Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Bal Thackray , Gopinath Munde, Raj Thackray, Vilasrao Deshmukh all are rolling in money. Vilasrao Deshmukh is one of the worst Chief minister I have seen. His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhiso Congress can fight next election. Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fisherman so they can build concrete house right on sea shore. Next time terrorist can comfortably live in those house , enjoy the beauty of sea and then attack the Mumbai at their will.Recently I had to purchase house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders.. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI you and your finance minister are not aware of it. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn't it? Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything. If this has been land of fools, idiots then I would not have ever cared to write you this letter. Just see the tragedy, on one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent and on other side you politician has converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, Creamy Schedule caste only what I am not is INDIAN. You politician have raped every part of mother Indiaby your policy of divide and rule. Take example of former president Abdul Kalam. Such a intelligent person, such a fine human being. You politician didn't even spare him. Your party along with opposition joined the hands, because politician feels they are supreme and there is no place for good person.Dear Mr Prime minister you are one of the most intelligent person, most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost expose all selfish politician. Ask Swiss bank to give name of all Indian account holder. Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolf among us. There will be political upheaval but that will better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambient where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of. Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people?

Pride and Shame for shooting

Source: From a Forward

An Olympic shooter wins Gold (Only a game) & Government gives him 3 Crores.

Another Shooter dies, fighting with terrorists (Saving our country and our live) & government pays his family 5 lakhs.

1. Do not worry about those who have come thru boats... Our forces can easily defeat them. WORRY about those who have come thru votes.... Those are our REAL ENEMIES.... 2. What a shame and disgrace to every citizen of India that the elite NSG Force was transported into ordinary BEST buses, whereas our cricketers are transported into state of the art luxury buses, these Jawans lay down their lives to protect every Indian and these cricketers get paid even if they lose a match, we worship these cricketers and forget the martyrdom of these brave Jawans. The Jawans should be paid the salaries of the cricketers and the cricketers should be paid the salaries of the Jawans. 3. An ace shooter shoots and gets gold medal, govt gives 3cr, another shooter dies while shooting terrorist, govt gives 5 lakh. WHO DESERVES MORE? Please be a patriot and forward this to everyone u know. Really great!!!!!!!!!!! Hats off to India !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who are we breeding? Terrorists?

Today after the attacks we are raising fingers at the Pakistani govt for letting the training camps prevail in their country but what is India any different in this matter?
We are allowing non-immigrants stay without any check and just breeding them without any proper regulation and monitoring.
Sick and tired of such bad structure. If we find any such people we have to raise questions to the govt and ask them about why are they allowed to stay??

MUMBAI 9/11 vs 26/11

After a long time I am reminded of my blog to share something with the readers.
What has made me do that? The overwhelming 3 day fight at Mumbai, as the media titles it as "THE INDIA 9/11".

Where is all this leading to? Why are people getting so barbaric? Is this the purpose of life? Is this what is representation of today's youth?

Bharat entrepreneurs need to look at this issue to solve. Entrepreneurs are people who can actively take up problems and efficiently provide solutions to such issues. We need to create an army fund, crisis management system and an organisation to monitor the political instability in this country.

Wake up and let start a movement.

Many Lives Many Masters

The might sound mystical to people who do not believe in concepts like reincarnation, after-life and spirits. Well it is a part of our life and has to be accepted by the non believers some day or the other.
For people who do believe in these concepts it is a treasure as it takes the reader through the conversations with various masters and the purpose of life.
Read more about this in the book, " Many Lives, Many Masters" written by Dr.Brian Weiss.

info@nenonline.org

Coffee Club for Thinkers

Thinking is what triggers an idea that has been dormant in the mind of an entrepreneur. It would be very resourceful if one gets a platform where all the thinking could happen and take it to the next level of an actionable business plan. There is one such forum in Bangalore called Open Coffee Club where thinkers meet up to evolve into entrepreneurs.
This time it was on a Sunday, (May 11, 2008) where Ms.Anjana Vivek kindly came over to the forum to give all the aspiring entrepreneurs gathered at Core Objects an insight about how difficult or easy, is a journey of an entrepreneur.
The participants had a lot of questions about how to finance their startup, attrition of human resources, filing patents, scaling up the business fast, choosing mentors, creative revenue models and many more.
I many interesting startups, enthusiastic entrepreneurs and most of all exciting thinkers.

bharatentrepreneurship

Three Waves Of Outsourcing

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Funding, IP & Commercialisation

This is a key topic of discussion for the technology entrepreneurs. Though a technology has been created, the credit of the creation is not always given to the inventor; sometimes it is given to the owner.
Sounds confusing!!!
The inventor of a technology is not always the owner of it, who gains profits out of it. It is the person who patents it.
This was the discussion at IIIT Bangalore which held a one day free workshop on May 8th, 2008 focusing on the topic “Govt Initiatives for Industry Academia Collaboration – Funding, Intellectual Property and Collaboration”.

The workshop opened with the first session on “ GOI Initiatives in Academia Industry Collaboration including entrepreneurship and patent support”, which was addressed by Dr. Garg, Joint Director from Ministry of Communications and Information technology.
Focus points for entrepreneurs while addressing IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights).
1.Require a written IP policy for any process or product to protect innovation within your company.
2.Create an IP Audit before you start a R&D project.
Example: Sasken Communications conducted an IP audit after the R&D project of an anonymous product (which took 2 years to create and incurred Rs.2 crore) and realized that they had infringed 20 patents due to which the product commercialization had to be dismissed.
3.Do IP due diligence – have a checklist.
4.Prioritize patenting needs for budget purpose (cost effective)
5.Look into parameters such as velocity of patenting and patent mapping process.
Challenges faced by entrepreneurs in Patent process
1.Cost involved in IP due diligence is high.
2.IP Infrastructure unavailable.
3.No effective Search system.
GOI Initiatives
1.IPR Promotion Program
2.Trademark Tool: to avoid names with verbal similarities.
3.SIP-EIT for SMEs & Technology Start ups
4.Tide Program
5.Multiplier brand scheme
To know more about these initiatives visit http://www.mit.gov.in/

Session 2 was presented by Mr. Meenakshi Sundaram and Ranjith Menon from IDG Ventures. http://www.idgventures.com/
As VCs they focused on the challenges faced by their entrepreneurs, and how patents helped them.
Note to the entrepreneurs: Find a lawyer who can write your IP covering a broader spectrum to create monopoly.
Do not encourage people as employees to carry IP from one company to another; it is unethical. Have a strong written IP policy in the employee contract.

Later Sunil Maheswari, CEO of Mango Technologies (Incubated out of IIM-B) spoke his journey as an entrepreneur and the importance of patents. He emphasized on the support and encouragement received from the GOI.
http://www.mangotechno.com/

Where should I go?

Events in May

22 year old MD

Aadith Vikram, 22, MD and Vice Chairman of PGC Industries and Group asks "Where is my boss?"
If you are wondering what this is all about.........well it is about a new portal started by PGC Infotech which offers online live interview between employee and employer.
To know more about his innovations visit http://www.whereismyboss.com/.
He proudly mentions that 670 companies have shown interest in participating on this portal.
With other major players like naukri, ibibo, monster...we need to wait and watch how far this innovation would go.........

Start up Saturday

This month we have a renowed person Ms

Pangea Day

Pangea Day is a global event held on May 10thIST: 11.00 PM to 3.00 AM. It is being celebrated and organised with an objective to remove the differences and borders among people. This is being implemented by hosting 24 films in different languages.
If you also want to be a part of it check out your nearest venue at http://www.pangeaday.org/aboutPangeaDay.php.

Interested souls gather together.

Startup city Event

This is great opportunity for all VCs and start up firm to know and meet prople from their ecosystem. Thanks to Smart Techie and Silicon India who are hosting a start up show where all start ups would showcase their companies and have a chance to meet few of the top most VCs in the country.
Time: 9.00 AM to 6.00 PM.
Day: May 24, 2008
Venue: Nimhans Covention Center, Bangalore
Registration Free.
To know more visit http://www.thesmarttechie.com/startupcity/

Entrepreneur Addas in Bangalore

For all entrepreneurs who want to network more and meet more like minded people... here are a few virtual places which would help you guys.
Barcamp Bangalore
Bangalore Dotnet group
Dev Camp
SPIN
Computer Society of India
Coffee Club House
Nokia Forum India

You could google the rest for the respective links.

Baggit

Here is what might shock you that an initial investment of Rs.7,000 is now a Rs. 9 crore worth business.
Who bagged it all?
It is the 42 year old Nina Lekhi who made this fortune by manufacturing and designing unique hand bags. She started this business when she was as early as 19 years. Initially she managed the show single handed and now the firm Baggit has been scaled up to 150 employees.
Bravo Lady Entreprenuer!!!!!!!

Entrepreneur behind passion

Here is a budding entrepreneur who works for his passion. He calls himself a simple guy with big dreams.
He has created a very interesting and up to date website about the events happening in Bangalore which help Bangaloreans to know their city better.
He is working on many such projects which are useful to people.
Anybody who would want to know more about branding should reach him at his blog netbramha.

BARCAMP

It has been long since I published.
Here is something that caught my interest and would also interest most entrepreneurs.
"BARCAMPS" is the word.
They are very helpful for young entrepreneurs to network and know about different things during the discussions.
The cities in India which hold them actively are Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi and so on.
To know more reach out to Barcamp.org