The world is no place for a logical/rational person.

— Swaroop C H

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.

— Albert Einstein

A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry, without object; putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends.

— Arabian Proverb

Question for you: How do you distinguish incompetence, laziness and unprofessionalism?

“People are good and trustworthy and generally just concerned with getting through the day,” Newmark says. If most people are good and their needs are simple, all you have to do to serve them well is build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get together and work things out for themselves. Any additional features are almost certainly superfluous and could even be damaging.”

– Craig Newmark (of CraigsList fame)

So what are there real needs?

I’m trying to (naively?) boil down all the successful software, websites and web applications out there and see if it can be mapped into as few categories as possible:

1. Communication (Social networks, Basecamp, etc.)
2. Organization (Google Docs, Flickr, Backpack, etc.)
3. Information (Content websites, News websites, Search engines, etc.)
4. Entertainment (YouTube, Nautanki.tv, Blogs/Journals/Twitter, etc.)
5. E-Commerce (Amazon, Paypal, etc.) (Category added thanks to Ankesh)

Note that the website that you use may fit into different categories in different circumstances.

The idea is to not search for a comprehensive or accurate classification.

The idea is: If you brainstorm an idea or come across someone else’s idea, can you trace it back to one of these categories? If yes, what does it mean? If no, what does it mean?

Is this a useful angle to evaluate an idea, or not?

1. Everything gets magnified. Whether it is minor differences or personal shortcomings or the multitasking required. What you think of as a small weakness, will become your biggest weakness. What you think of as a small strength, will be a very big strength.
2. It is an emotional rollercoaster ride. You can never be prepared for it. But realize what you’re going through.
3. Expect rejection. Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted.
4. Shut up, make a core working version first. And get people to use it, even if you have to beg or force people. And keep iterating. After the first few iterations, you will figure out what is the interesting part that makes it work for the user. Focus on that, not on the list of features. Otherwise, you’ll end up like Zahdoo.
5. Have a plan in writing. Be clear starting from things like how long you can survive, open understanding of when each individual would want to quit, open understanding of why each person in this, etc. right up to imagining you’re going to be doing this for the next ten years, does your plan still remain the same?
6. Short-term wins are important. Psychological boosts can keep your startup alive. Plan for short-term tangible goals. And keep iterating over your plan with weekly reviews. If you don’t see progress three weeks in a row, the alarm bells should be ringing.
7. Always start with one person fully dedicated to the business side of things, especially a marketing/sales person or a product manager. Working part-time tech and part-time business is a disaster-in-the-making.
8. When you’re making a six-month plan, understand what parts are on the critical path that will make or break your startup. And make sure things on that critical path are in your control. Pay attention to dependencies on outsiders, whether they are web designers or outsourcing companies.
9. If you don’t have enough funds, find people who can fund you before you jump in, or start your own services/consultation business to keep the cash flow going. Otherwise, you’ll end up skydiving.
10. Do not be wrapped inside your own bubble. Go out and talk to interesting people, find mentors, know what is happening in the field that you are working on. You have to know where dangers for your startup lurk, and you never know where unanticipated opportunities for your startup will come from.
11. Bonus: If it’s a problem, it’s always a people problem. Learn to understanding each others’ psyche.

Here is a guy who sells dosas and rice items in his push cart every evening.

I didn’t realize that he was my entrepreneurial benchmark until my friend explained it to me:

• He has at least 100 customers everyday because he is there for 4-5 hours every evening, and we’ve never seen him without customers.
• 100 customers * 40 rupees per customer = 4000 rupees per day
• 4000 rupees per day * 30 days = 1,20,000 rupees per month
• ⇒ A roadside push cart wallah makes more than a lakh a month!

And he doesn’t intend to go to VCs any time soon

It’s only when you get into this entrepreneurship thing that you realize how hard it is to make money.

I hope every wannabe will plan to have at least as good as this guy’s cash flow ASAP for their startup.

I have a guest post up at StartupDunia. Please do read and chip in your thoughts and comments.

Every now and then, I try to build a group of people to talk about specific topics but it quickly dies because of inactivity. Although I really saw the value in having such a community, I just didn’t know how to build one. Even if one person keeps pumping in content, how do you actually get the community to interact with each other?

It is the same kind of problem being faced by, say StartupBuzz.org which, I am guessing, wants to be the Hacker News of India. There are indeed topics that apply only to startups in India, from “Startup Morning”, to India’s first in-taxi magazine. Such interesting events and ideas are worthy of discussion.

There is value in such a community, but again, how to build it? StartupDunia has already put its thoughts on the subject but the question still remains.

Here are some of my thoughts.

Does it require credibility?

• Hacker News has Paul Graham and YCombinator behind it.
• ProBlogger Forums have ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse behind it.
• And the most recent example of StackOverflow.com that has Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood behind it.

So the question is whether there each community should be backed by up by a credible person who has a reasonable authority on the subject?

(more…)

Note: I no longer work with IonLab since Nov 12 of 2009.

Amazon conducted a poll just before the start of the year 2009 asking people on what are their New Year Resolutions. The top two resolutions were (1) Lose Weight and (2) Get Your Finances in Order.

What is strange is that you and I would think these are solved problems, right? But yet these are the top resolutions for the new year!

We all know how to lose weight – eat less and exercise more. But it requires discipline. We all know how to get our finances in order – spend less and earn more. But it requires discipline.

Our vision for the “Track Every Coin” system that we are building is to exactly help you do this – to help you spend less, save more, and in the process help you get your personal finances in order.

So what is the problem again?

We tried out many personal finance websites and software existing in the market, and we faced the same issue again and again – they are either cumbersome or are afterthoughts.

Most of the software that we tried out did not make it easy to make entries such as expenses and made it a boring chore. And yet, this is the starting point to use all their features.

The ones that work automatically with your bank account are afterthoughts – they are good for overviews and for viewing graphs at the end of the month, but do not help in actively managing your money at all.

So we started adding in our own ideas on what we would want to use.

So what is the product?

It consists of two parts:

• The active agent where you make your entries – which is either a hardware device or a mobile phone application, based on your preference.
  • The hardware device is for those who like to have a cool-looking gadget to carry around, and want to make entries within 10 seconds.
  • The mobile phone application is for those who have GPRS connections on their mobile phones.
• The data analyzer – which is a website where you get to slice and dice your data.

I like to think of it as analogous to the “iPod-iTunes” combination – the iPod was designed to do one thing well: play music, and it left the complicated parts of managing music to the iTunes software. We intend to achieve the same effect for personal finance. This is our unique twist.

Features

At its core, the system is an expense tracking system, simply because that is the first step that every personal finance writer recommends. If you don’t know where the money is going, you won’t know how to manage it.

The logic is simple : We need data to improve, whether it is the school score cards for your kids or the mileage for your car or statistics for your favorite cricketers. We bring over the same facility to you for your money!

Now, how is this different from a spreadsheet? Well, the data collection mechanism, obviously, and lots of features, but most of all – this is a specific system that helps you with so many aspects:

1. Expenses
   • Know what you are spending on – categorize, tag and add notes to your expenditure
2. Reimbursements
   • Know how much money you have to get back from your company – save time wasted in filing expense reports
3. Income
   • Plan your money – How much money from your income is budgeted for expenditure and how much money goes to savings and goals
   • Never forget to pay your bills on time again – Reminders will be automatically be saved as expenses
4. Goals
   • Buy that thing you really want – Save money every month towards your goal, whether it is downpayment for a car or that big trip you’ve been dreaming of
5. Budgets
   • Never overspend again – Set limits on how much you want to spend and you will be reminded every time you are about to spend
6. Sharing
   • Never worry again about splitting bills – Keep running counts of expenses shared with your roommate or when you go for dinner with friends, and settle easily
7. Events and Trips
   • Know how much an occasion will cost you – Stay within your trip budget, know how much a weekend trip will cost you, know how much transportation accounts towards your trips, and more.
8. Graphs
   • Analyze where your money is going – Know if you are spending more on fuel, if you are spending too less on your hobbies, or how much money you need on an average day.

To know more, visit our website www.TrackEveryCoin.com

We aim to launch the product in July 2009. Sign up now at the website to get special offers when we launch!

We’ll be writing more about how we have designed and built TrackEveryCoin on our company blog. We look forward to your feedback either here on this blog or via email.

What is it that I like about IMDB?

• Shows me what are the movies that are popular in theatres right now
• Shows what new movies are releasing this week
• The first item on every movie page is the average user rating
• It links to every individual artiste involved (actor, director, etc.) so that if I like to follow a particular actor like Russell Crowe, then I just have to visit his page and I have all the details right there in a compact list.
• Trivia and Quotes from the movie – the amusing/fun aspect.
• The information is not cluttered with random reviews, that is on a separate page if you are so inclined.

But IMDB is for movies only.

What about an IMDB for music?

Yes, there is last.fm but it concentrates on the actual playing of the existing music content that they have (which it is very good at), but not about the people who make the music or their discographies. For example, I don’t think they list albums/songs that are upcoming or are not part of their playlists.

What about an IMDB for books?

Yes, there is Amazon and there is WeRead.com but I notice the same problems as last.fm.

What I’m looking for is something like the burrp of music and books: showcasing (1) the latest, (2) the best and (3) the right kind of information, nothing else.

Also, are there similar sites for India? For example, I’d love to see the list of the top rated movie soundtracks in 2009 by “Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy” or the top songs ever by Pentagram (I just love “Bad Man”), and so on. Are there such lists and information already out there?

I think IMDB-equivalents for music and for books can be successful online businesses and communities.

Update : “Good Reads” seems to be a good option for books.

Update 2 : Looks like “MovieDB.in” wants to be the IMDB of Indian movies.

Note: This blog post is part of the “Ideas are Cheap. Execution is Everything.” series where I pen down thoughts on what I see is a need in the market or what could be a successful idea/business.

Note: I no longer work with IonLab since Nov 12 of 2009.

Today is the second birthday of our ION USB Charger and we are happy to announce that it is now available in a new and improved packaging!

We needed some improvements to our packaging because:

1. Our previous packaging did not have the product visible.
2. The packaging needs to have a hook so it can be hung – that is how all accessories are placed in a retail store these days.
3. We had room for improvement on the look of the box.

The new packages arrived in a box:

And we soon formed an assembly line. I removed the ions from the previous packaging:

Vikram filtered out the new packages, including rejecting any damaged ones:

Varun folded the boxes and put the new ions in them:

It doesn’t sound glamorous, isn’t prestigious to talk about, but it sure was a lot fun and exciting. That’s what startups are about!

Here are the newly-packaged ions stacked back in the box:

Just to put things in perspective, here is our packaging and its size compared to the competition:

And here is our previous and new packaging:

Here is the sleek “product photography” version:

You can grab an ION with the new improved packaging at www.ion.co.in

Note: Cross-posted from our company blog

I just finished reading “Idli, Orchid and Will Power”, the autobiography of Vithal Venkatesh Kamat.

Just a few days back, a friend was telling me that the famous Utility building Kamat restaurant in Bangalore no longer has quality food and hence no longer a popular place. I read this book and it gave the background to this situation – it is no longer being run by the Kamats for whom hospitality is everything, it is now being run by the Kamat that usurped the properties. At least, that’s what the book says.

But that’s not what the book is about. The book is about the entrepreneur’s journey. What I liked about the book was that it was written in plain and simple English, and Vithal writes about his life and the hard work he put in, the mistakes made and the lessons learned from it. It sounds familiar like any other entrepreneur’s autobiography, but what made it special for me was that this was an Indian and almost everyone has heard about the famous Kamat restaurants! It was good to read the story of the restaurants and the people who make the place what it is.

During the story, some good traits of entrepreneurs were demonstrated:

• Having knowledge, great ideas and executing them. For example, when Vithal was a kid, his uncle’s son was getting married and in that event, the soft drinks were not cooled and there was just 15-20 min before the guests started arriving. Young Vithal then used his knowledge of how kulfis are made, took fistfuls of salt and threw it on the ice which made it drastically go down in temperature and hence all the soft drinks were chilled in 15 min. The same goes for many of his tactics such as putting free buses to and fro the airport to his hotel, the Kamat Plaza, to make waiting less stressful for travellers and that became an instant hit. He said that brought in more customers than any amount of advertising could have done. Eventually, the airways people would suggest travellers to rest at Kamat so as to make them less annoyed about delayed flights, etc. A win-win-win situation indeed.
• Doing a lot of networking. Vithal proves time and again how his networking and at the same time being known for their hospitality and credibility helped him in many a situation.
• The importance of preparation. This is everything in the hotel business, he says. For example, that’s how you get your food so quickly when you order (instead of the hours that it would take if you cooked at home yourself).
• Having a great dream, a great passion. Vithal has lost a lot while trying to make his dream ‘The Orchid’ come true, especially after all the property was usurped by his younger brother, and he had taken many high-interest loans so that he could build his dream hotel while his father was alive (who was dying of cancer). And yet, all the goodwill that he had generated and his will power slowly helped him eke out of the pit and the dream came true. This part of the story was heart-wrenching and inspiring at the same time. These are the kinds of stories that we see in movies but this is a real true story.

The only downside to the book is that you have to read the parts about the perfect character/attitude with a pinch of salt, because it sounds preachy at times and frankly, sounds too good to be true.

If you ever wanted to know what entrepreneurship is about, don’t read MBA sites, just read this book, if you can find it*. And then decide whether you are prepared for it. At the same time, you’ll finish the book feeling inspired.

^* It is such a tragedy that this book is not available in any online Indian book store that I know of.