“Had it not been you”…

As mentioned in my previous post, my steps towards “Randomness” wouldn’t have been so firm “Had it not been you!” Yes, I am kinda acknowledging the ones who got me closer to my dream track. Who helped overhaul this fear and gave me confidence to stride ahead…

Like all acknowledgements, I’ll start off with my parents. What I got from them is blend of support and resistance. On one hand, their support helped me gain confidence on my decision their resistance helped me collect myself together and have a critical look at the decision that I am taking. You know at times we tend to get overly optimistic about future and this is where criticisms like these come into picture. Along with so many things that I have learnt in the last couple of years, I have also learnt how to take and respond to criticisms positively.

Next in queue, are my classmates from my engineering days. They were of two types, one who seemed to have that unflinching faith on me and my capabilities and they did communicate it to me frequently and then there were people somehow believed I am too capable of doing things and made sure that they innovate ways to tie me down. While the type 1 inspired me the type 2 always kept me on my toes. Type 1 always told me what I am worth and Type 2 always told me how ugly can politics get. But both of them taken together, in their own funny ways, ensured that I don’t get settled down with a “Commoners’ ” lifestyle. And how can I forget my lecturers!!! Their constant mentoring outside class and patience (with my dozing off after lunch break) inside were priceless!

Now it’s the turn for “My Group” that I made during college days and which is still holding strong. These 8 people (including a lecturer) have been like a family to me. I can’t tell you the number of people we have surprised just by demonstrating the strength of our group. They are the closest confidants that I have in this big bad world. The most peculiar thing about this whole group is we may forget to congratulate each other on achievements, forget the birthdays (And at times shamelessly wish a day before due to memory issues!). But come bad time and see how we regroup! This group has attributed to my decision making process in so many ways that I can’t just account them. All I would say is “indispensible” is an understatement for them!

Finally, I would talk about the “catalysts”(personified) who actually helped me zoom past the “procrastination” phase and actually get me on start up track. These weer the people who never got tired discussing business with me (and they still don’t). They stuck to me when I was giving fancy ideas (non feasible ones too!!!). Slogged their a*** preparing mockups and presentations for my fancies without ever asking back for a favor. To worsen it more, I did not use any of the mock ups and presentations made by them! Cause only after huge much amount of effort from their side, I was able to see that the idea has no value! And guess what, they still feel that my ideas were great. You know what, they were the ones to lend “Wings to my imagination” and see today finally I look like taking off!


I dare to make yet another understatement… “Thanks” to all of you!

Firm steps towards “Randomness”

It’s an amazing feeling, as I traverse from a world of conventionality and alignment to an entirely new world of “Randomness”, a world of enterprise! Yes, My own “Venture”. Sounds exciting right? Ya it definitely will, to every onlooker. I myself have got several pats on back for such a bold decision. But then there lies a fear deep inside my heart as to what if I mess it up!!! Till now (And for two more months, i.e. the notice period at Cognizant) I was being supported by a back up cushion, a steady support that gave me an assurance, a security and a guaranteed growth story! But two months from now, I’ll be open to big bad world without this support. Sounds menacing right?




This “Tight Rope Walk” feeling is scary enough to hurry you back to the pole from you started. To top it off you need to convince all the stake holders i.e. people getting directly impacted from this decision. Just think of the plight! No wonder why people who once get into jobs are never able to come out of it. They complain, they cry, they adjust, they compromise, they hate what they do, they dream of doing what they want to do, but they never dare to venture out! After all, why be foolish enough to leave such cushy and posh life for heat and dust of startup!



Well I guess I have an answer to this. (As I say this, I am also trying to convince myself with this write up!). I am getting into this not because I am frustrated from the job or for that matter the limitations associated with it. In my near three years of career as a SE, I have really given above average performance, never failed a deliverable, never upset my managers and never remained stuck in an issue for more than a day… I am getting into this because of a recurrent inner call. A call that has sustained within me since ten years! And this call was coupled with a tremendous opportunity to make a difference. That’s it.

I believe at all stages of your life, you will come across a split road. One that leads to easier but less rewarding track and another that’s tougher and “Supposedly” more rewarding. When in job, every time I make or achieve something, I get appreciations. But in reality, the impact created by this achievement is too miniscule when seen in the larger scheme of things. No wonder why, even the best of achievements fade away with time and you really don’t see much of an impact in your life or on society. Now take another scene. Your venture, your enterprise, that is being run by you! Here every decision is close to make or break situation. Every second moment you feel adrenalin rush about the things you do and every little action (It may or may not be an achievement) has a major impact in not only your’s life but the life your company’s associates. Howz that for starters?



Well, if you ask me, I can come up with many more such “Pious” analogies; after all I have lived with this call for ten years now. I put my papers in yesterday and the moment I clicked submit button for resignation a strong sense of fear rushed through my heart! I think that was the first “True Adrenalin Rush” that I ever had and I believe I am gonna have them every moment for the rest of my life! But what overpowered the fear in a blink was the faces of all those who believed in me and my capabilities and always told me that I’ll do something big someday. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to live up to their expectations, but I definitely know that I have started. I am gonna call them soon and give them a surprise by telling them that I have off boarded the train of conventionality and taken altogether a different route!



I am no Steve Jobs, but definitely I would love to conclude with …

“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!!!”

Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast

Copy Paste from the mail!!!! An interesting management article from Dr.YLR Moorthi.


Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast!


Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?


Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the
above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not
cameras but cell phones.


Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone
cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera
outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sony’s and Canons are
taking note.


Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is
HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that
play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by
selling music albums (that run for hours).


Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service
provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor
is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have
identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia
and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from
truth.


Nokia confessed that they all but missed the Smartphone bus. They admit
that Apple's I phone and Google's Android can make life difficult in
future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If
these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is
not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?


The "Mahabharata" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is
tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a
palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big
battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – "who is my
competitor?"


Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says
"What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get
the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from
the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into
their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as
a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony
think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak
defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as
"digital."


In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between
going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films
and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in
both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for
tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it
from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet
is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to
bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's
competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.


In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India?
Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are
better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and
others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence
services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT
executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use
videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad
scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in
2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They
were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think
that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I
would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no.
Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is applicable
besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the
prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to
one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped from hundreds
of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then
telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As
it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!


India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly
different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The
filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans
who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket
or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed
into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was
reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor.
On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners
requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang
on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is
likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with
IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are
called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might push films
out of the market.


Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When
did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain
pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above
is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the
typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came
the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys
like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are
nowhere to be seen.


One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them
up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a
monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day
to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you
up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker.
They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do
we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of
clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch
companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your
competitor is hiding!


On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing
machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a
Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon
Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary!
The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal
called competition. He said "Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast"! That sums
it up rather neatly.


—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management
Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and
a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore.

Can we cater to their needs...

It  was an evening of celebration inside Infosys Campus, as SI (Systems Integration unit) had touched 5000 employees mark. This indeed was a memorable day in the history of SI unit. But there was something which made the event even more special. It was a performance by Apann Vidyalaya students (It is an institute in Pimpri Chinchwad area of Pune for differently abled underprivileged kids).

What goes below is a Social Media Marketing pitch for those who may not be able to reach out to Internet to make a pitch for them.

1.       First of all I am proud that my unit took this opportunity to give stage to these students. As such the Infosys has many well known social service campaigns running all over India. One of them being Sparsh Foundation, Pune.

2.       The students put up a group performance on song “sone ki chidiyaan”. At one hand while this feat was spell bounding, on the other it gave us a heartrending experience. There were kids who could barely manage to stand but were taking the lead on the stage dancing to the tunes of the legendary song, kids who could barely see but were dressed as “Sone ki chidiyaan” and were doing rounds of the stage, and a lot more. What immediately followed after that performance was a standing ovation by Infoscions (which continued till the last kid was on stage.)

3.       This was followed by a small speech by trustee who thanked the society for their patronage and giving a chance to the students to showcase their talent.

4.       And this was followed by an array of questions that came to my mind right at that moment… I recount few of them here:

a.       Does a long standing ovation suffice? Can it give these students what they have dreamt of?

b.      If not standing ovations, will monetary help suffice? Can just money get them what they always wanted?

c.       Oh well, first of all do we know what is it that they want?

d.      So does that mean we spend time with them to figure out what they want?

e.      Ok, given you have got time to share with them… will it solve their problems or for that matter problems of the trustee managing the institute?

And the toughest realization rather the question that followed was…

Are we just a result of our birth? Had I been born in a slum, I would had been underprivileged. But since I was born in a well to do middle class Indian family, I became an engineer. So does that mean it’s a mere bad luck that these kids are not only underprivileged but also differently abled?

A ten minute of deep thinking on this topic can get you a severe headache and make you stand before a mirror and ask yourself who you are… But the point is… even this won’t help the cause of these kids!!!

As of now, I see just one solution… It can be through talking to them, listening to them, helping them support each other, energizing the ones with extraordinary determination and making him an example for others and finally… Embracing them as an integral part of our society rather our family and responsibility!!!

Any second thoughts???

After a long time....

“Time will pass on; summers will come and go,
My assets may wither; the relations may get on low,
But nothing can tear me away from my ambitions,
And that is something I surely know”

I return back to the world of blogging with this note. (Check out the time of my last post. I will give you an idea that how long I have been offline. And the subject would tell you why I was Offline :-)) To the few readers, which I have... I am sorry for such a long break. But then life at times gets you on back foot and you are not left with any other options but to postpone all your plans and do what destiny dictates. All said and done... the fact remains that any emotional or professional setback can cut only as deep as you let it cut. Unfortunately for me, I gave my setback more time than it ever deserved. Notwithstanding, I have finally decided to return to my blog.

Getting back to business , I would like to remind you that the blog is about Entrepreneurship, start ups and GMAT. In the meanwhile I’ll also chip in with some book reviews and movie reviews (new). Off course the trivia , which has turned out to be more of centi”Mental” drama will continue to feature in my blogs. I simply can’t help it.

What’s new??? This time around, I have definitely matured in terms of start ups. So my new posts would ne now based more on ground work than Internet research. As here onwards I’ll be bringing to table the data from real markets; Retail, IT and other sectors. Now one thing that’s obvious as of now is the data would be too close to Indian market (I am yet to become a global citizen).

Now, a word on current impositions on bloggers put by Supreme Court in India. For those who don’t know about it, certain rules and restrictions have been imposed on bloggers from India in wake of some audacious posts put in by some bloggers (Even I am not very sure about it). As far as I feel my blog is far away from politics and public matter. However, you never know what may offend who... so to be on the safer side, I’ll request all my readers to intimate me immediately in case they see anything offensive on the blog. The post will either be edited or taken off altogether. You see just like everyone else, even I don’t want to attract unnecessary attention and issues.

Happy reading.....

The beauty of life is realized after loosing it...

Where was I? What was I doing? When did I loose it all? Why wasn’t I given a warning? Where am I heading now? What am I up to? For whom or for what am I doing all this? What have I achieved? What have I lost ...

I see myself hopelessly lost, messed up by these questions, the more I try to solve them the more I get strangled and suffocated. I long for breathe but get no signs of air around, my clueless eyes look for water in deserts and my heart hopes for a rain in this draught ridden terrain.

You may be enjoying this as a piece of poetry, but then that is what you call “From heart to black and white” .The paradox of life is you realise the value of ”something” when you loose it. As long as this “something” is yours, you expect it do favours, you expect it to remain good after whatever you do, you look forward to it in thins of your life, but you are absconding when it’s your turn to do favours. Then comes one fine day when “something” decides to leave you and makes way for itself. From this day onwards, your life changes. You get a feeling that “something” is missing from your life. It’s not a well pronounced feeling but then you know it at the back of your mind that something is wrong in life, there is something that is destabilizing your life and what follows is “PAIN”

There is a constant prick that keeps telling that “something” is gone. Its no more there, to be by your side. Every second thing reminds you of the time spent together, the incidents and the moments associated with it. You cry, your heart shouts , you punch wall, you kick stones but all in waste and then you give up. Not the relation but faith. Faith in your capabilities, faith in what you can do to this relation and you hopelessly look up to others to help.

At this juncture, you ask few valid questions, one of them being... “Do I actually deserve this?” The answer to this depends on how your life has been all this time. As far I know about my life, I am accustomed to learning things the hard way round. I know the more I get accustomed to it, the harder it gets for me. May be it’s the sins of my previous incarnation or may be God wants to make me perfect, the Best (You see there is a positive side to everything on earth!!!)

The Sharp Curves of Life

If life is a journey, and days the road, then challenges are the Sharp blind curve. As I negotiate one such curve in my life now, the experience is heart trending and disturbing. But then I know I am not faced with choices. All I know is the blind curve has come and I need to negotiate it. Irrespective of me wanting it or no.

But then was I totally unaware of it? Did it take me by surprise? Didn’t I notice the gradual bends leading to this sharp curve? I need to ponder over this. The fact is I knew it was coming. I was also suspicious about it. But what has surprised me is my own ignorance and single mindedness that prevented me from taking actions to nip the bud. Now I know I am in a severe mess and I really have no explanation for this. I messed it up all myself and have no one to give explanation to.

At times I ponder what kept me from taking actions. The result comes with a mixed bag. In parts it was my lethargy, in parts it was inability to come out of comfort zone and in parts it I used my pseudo self belief to confirm the fact that I am doing it all right. Now I know I was wrong by all means, but then is it only my fault? Are relations just one person’s responsibility? Isn’t there anything called bilateral commitment in relation. I think at this juncture I have no rights to ask questions. I had better ask them when I get through these rough seas successfully.

Today as I stand just a shade away from the blind curve, I have my own speculations. I have however kept my fingers crossed whether I’ll be able to see through. I know the life has to go on and I am no exception, but then whether I’ll get back what I have lost or I’ll have to live with this mistake of mine for rest of my life will be decided after I negotiate the curve. I have done all the required preparations and not leaving any stone unturned. But then I really have no clue what’s gonna happen. Hey stop getting excited, Its no video game with a reset key (How I wish real life had one). Here if you loose you cannot restart the game all over again and keep playing till you have got your hands set into it. Life gives just one chance. You win or you losse, you’ll have to stay with it.

To conclude, I would quote a couplet from Enrique’s song,
“There is a storm in my head,
And its raining on my bed!!!”

Long Break for life

I usually write posts on word first and then copy it on blogger. But this time I am writing straight away on blogger, (please bear up with discrepancies). Its long time now since I wrote my last post. The reason being I was and still am caught up with some personal issues. The motive of this post is to simply share my feelings. What I have realized is life is not all about one thing. I mean you can’t say life is all about love or for that matter making money or anything else. Life is about balancing all of these and the aspects where you fail really gets messed up. To an extent that some irreversible damages are done. All this while you keep feeling when will these bad times get over. When will these rough seas calm out. That’s what I am actually going through now. All I am doing is praying day and night that I see through it soon.

But does that help? Will I be able to repair the damages done by my own faults? How I wish I had never ever commit such mistakes. But then life has very bad ways of making you wise. It actually punishes you to make you realize what you have done and this punitive action is really tough at times. All your nightmares start turning true. Your both hands are tied, All you can do is watch. Watch helplessly. You can’t even help it. All you can do is cry and adjust to whatever comes your way. The reason why I feel that life is severely determined by destiny and not your choices. But then the choices you take reflects your character.

Whatever is it, times with internal turmoil also help you distinguish friends from pretenders, well wishers from well talkers (the ones who only talk about your well being but do nothing for it) and finally love from dependency... You may have got an idea what is it that’s actually ailing me!!! Wish me luck. I’ll be back with GMAT Data Sufficiency section soon.

GMAT AWA: Analysis of Argument, Preparation continues

A sample question from Analysis of argument section :

The following appeared as a part of an advertisement for Adams, who is seeking reelection as governor:
“Re-elect Adams and you will be voting for proven leadership in improving the state’s economy. Over the past year alone, 70 percent of the state’s workers have had increases in their wages, 5,000 new jobs have been created, and six corporations have located their headquarters here. Most of the respondents in a recent poll said they believed that the economy is likely to continue to improve if Adams is re-elected. Adams’s opponent, Zebulon, would lead our state in the wrong direction, because Zebulon disagrees with many of Adams’s economic policies.”
Discuss how logically convincing you find this argument. In your discussion, you should analyze the argument's line of reasoning and use of evidence. It may be appropriate in your critique to call into question certain assumptions underlying the argument and/or to indicate what evidence might weaken or strengthen the argument. It may also be appropriate to discuss how you would alter the argument to make it more convincing and/or discuss what additional evidence, if any, would aid in evaluating the argument. (Taken from mba.com’s official question pool.)

The Analysis of argument section tests your ability to bring out the logical inconsistencies in the given argument, simultaneously testing your skills in three dimensions: critical, analytical and writing. The sample question above is clearly distributed in two parts, first the argument and then the directive. The argument gives you the base for analysis while the directive tells you what to do with the paragraph quoted above. Once again the structuring details discussed in Analysis of Issue post remains to be the same. Also plotting out examples continues to help here also as it did in Analysis of Issue.

There are however some differences from the Issue section, First one being you are not supposed to take sides here. You just have to examine the post in question like a “Wise” critic. Do not try to prove the author wrong or right, all you need to do is just point out the unsubstantiated facts and anecdotes plotted out by the author and then back up your arguments with examples. Don’t worry, in general the questions that appear for this section has cases where author has made some assumptions. All you need to do is feed on them.

Now Lets start preparing:

1. I hope you have set aside adequate time for preparing for this section. Anyways, follow this link to EssayEdge website. Of all the sites available I found it to be most useful. The website covers the main features to be covered for Analysis of Argument section, along with the timings. The link is as follows: Game Plan for Analysis of Argument.

2. This done, you may now find the sample essay. What’s the most striking thing here is there are hardly any conflicts between the suggestions given above and the sample here.

3. Still, analyse the essay from length perspective, example perspective, structure and itsconsistency with the suggestions given in Essay edge section. This exercise will help the suggestions sink in.

4. This done, you can goo through the official question pool. But then don’t start preparing answers for each of them. This is just to give you an idea of what to look out for while researching.

5. Yes now comes the researching part. Try to find the generic examples from Google. You will be required to fit and quote them in the essay.

6. Start practicing at least one or two essay under timed mode.

As usual, this post too is not my brainchild, rather it is a product of rigorous research work. Following are the links of the site that I rate best (Even Google does so!!!). Other than the sites linked above , I recommend Rediff page for some more tips.

Book Review: The Monk who sold his Ferrari

This one review was pending since a long time. I read this book quite sometime back. After that I read its “Counter” book “I bought the monk’s Ferrari” and just went ahead to write its review. But then there was a reason why I waited so long. Actually the review of this book should not ideally be on the blog, (why? You’ll find that out soon), but then you see I am so talkative that I just can’t stop ranting about everything I know.

First of all I rate the book five out of five for the point it makes. The protagonist Julian Mantle, who is a hotshot lawyer, is hugely successful professionally. A descends from reputed family background. A brave, intelligent and hard working lawyer who rarely looses a case, just collapses with heart seizure on one fine day. Reason? As Julian fought his way to the top, he started loosing out on personal front. The hectic hearings schedules and his drinking habits had severely taken a toll on his health.

By now you must have guessed it what follows. Yes Julian sells off all his belongings along with a Ferrari and goes on search of salvation to Himalayas. Julian also happens to be a lucky ones to make it the Shivanas (The holy adobe of great Indian Saints and not easily accessible to everyone). Till this part the story is narrated by his secretary. After sometime, Julian returns back from his journey to spread what he learnt.

The author makes much sense here as he talks about self improvement, self realization and goes on to give a must do for a better life. But then I was not able to make it to the end of the book. As I went ahead reading the book I kept getting a feeling that bug of ambition within me was getting starved by the thoughts imparted by the author. There is something that I am striving for, something that all Entrepreneurs are striving for and while you are into this pursuit someone comes and makes you believe that whatever you long for is worthless!!! How will you react to this? Once again the reaction depends on your determination.Once again I reiterate, the book is one of the best life improvement books available in market, but then be clear of your priorities before you get a copy for yourself. Cause the author’s persuasive style of writing is just irresistible.

I signed up for PPP (Pay Per Post), A stride towards fund raising

“You as a person are identified with the kind of Decisions you make”. You may associate this dialogue with a popular SpiderMan series, but then the sentence carries a million dollar sense. As an aspiring Entrepreneur I finally decided to go for Payperpost program that pays you for blogging. The site is a market leader in its domain and has a robust system in place.

The Type of blogger I am...

I am a blogger and not Internet marketer. My posts are not the best SEO articles. I do want to earn , but then I want to make money by blogging not just blog for making money. Making life easier for my readers remains at the top of my priorities.

Why did I decide to go with Payperpost as my Income Source?

I did monetize my blog before with advertisements, but that has restricted scope. Something most impressive about Payperpost is the multiple streams of Income that you can benefit from.

To name a few:

1. Get paid to post.

2. Affiliate Income

3. Get paid to get your article reviewed

4. Increase your income by increasing your visibility by networking with experienced fellow bloggers

5. Get the advantage of using well researched blog improvement tips and a lot more.

That “lot more” tag comes because I am a new blogger at PPP and it will take me some time to
find out about all the opportunities available.

How did I stumble upon it?

I firmly believe that if you want to blog more, you should read more and thus that makes me a blog hopper. It was just another day when I came across a blog which said you can make money blogging with PPP. The idea fired a series of queries in my mind, which I fired back at Google and after considerable amount of research I found the standings of the site.

At the end of the day what matters is your credibility and ability to create a buzz in the Blogosphere. This will come only when you associate yourself with market leaders and that is what I am precisely aiming at!!!

Book Review: Who moved my cheese?

It’s been long since I wrote on Book reviews now. One reason being my inability to read new books now. The GMAT thing has just taken the better of me. Anyways I couldn’t resist this book as I was about to make a two hour journey to my sister’s place.

“Who moved my cheese?”, I heard the name of this book for the first time when the VP of a subunit from my organization cited the relevance of this book in today’s scenario. The book is two hours read, but serves as a life time guide. What makes it different is not the story, but the review and application of the main story in question. The book follows a very curious style of narration followed by friends who actually discuss the ways how they applied the story in their real life in different scenarios.

The book is about school friends’ reunion, where one of the friend actually goes ahead to narrate the story of “Who moved my cheese?” The story is about two mice Sniffy and Scurry and two little people “Hem” and “Haw”. These creatures lived in some sort of maze land having cheese stations. Every morning they would run around in the maze to find cheese, till one day when they found a cheese station with huge cheese reserve. All four of them were excited to find it and happily started feeding on it. However one fine day the cheese got over and they had nothing to eat. Sniffy and Scurry who had already sensed this much before, moved ahead into the dark maze to find the new cheese station. How ever Hem and Haw, being little people had complex thought, stayed back to cry over the loss. The story is about how Haw, later, went ahead to find his cheese.

The book has motivating and insightful points highlighted in separate pages (A thing worth going for). What makes the book even more beautiful is the discussion that follows. First of all, the friends decide the character they resembled the most in their real life and then they discuss how they propose to apply it in their real life. The application they discussed ranged from their current Business to how they propose to improve their married life with the help of this story.

To sum up, the book weighs much more than it looks like, but then how much one imbibes from it depends on whether you are Hem, Haw, Sniffy or Scurry!!!

Start Up Plan - Time your actions

As I mentioned in my previous post on start up that things start getting infinitely postponed once the unknown director is missing. So the first important thing in a start up is Start Up Plan. The Start Up plan requires setting up a Goal. As I have mentioned in my Entrepreneurship Basics post. Then the goal needs to be broken up into Long term, mid term and short term goals. Each short term goal has some characteristics. Find out more about them here. Having done this, now you need to map your goal to the actions. These actions will in turn be bound by plans. Now the factors that you should keep in mind for planning:
1. Your own capabilities. Do not over or underestimate yourself. Try keeping those tasks first in which you have some experience. Don’t hesitate from outsourcing or taking help from the right resources when you are not sure about something.
2. Keep flexible timelines in beginning. You can tighten up your schedule as you gain experience with the work.
3. Give time for letting learning curve develop. The better it gets the faster you become.
Now the things you will be required to do for getting a right Start Up in place:
1. As I mentioned set up a SMART goal. Chase the short term goal first. Modularize the goal into set of actions. Bind these actions into time frame, and stick to it.
2. Now comes the concept that gave birth to your start up. This needs to be effectively conveyed to masses. The media for this conveyance is your brand. Your brand represents the soul of your Start up. It’s your brand that actually needs to be promoted.
3. Know who you are selling your products or services to. Find out their purchasing capabilities, the disposable income they possess the requirement for your product or service. Armed with this fact, you can customise your product.
4. Further steps would require your budget in place. Once you have decided the upper limit, you may channelize the budgets proportionately.
5. It’s now the turn for advertisement. This part requires you to know the various media prevalent in the target audience region. You may choose any or all media based on your budget.
6. Now create the benchmarks for you progress. The parameters for success or failure of any step will be defined by these benchmarks as you go ahead
7. Create a plan keeping all the above factors in mind. But keep in mind the “Paralysis of Analysis” adage. Once the start up plan is in place, stick to it.
8. Once the modules start getting implemented, check its progress against the benchmarks you have set. Find out the variance of the actual from projected. This helps in further planning.
Last but not the least; Take all your time to put together the Start Up plan. But once outlined, stick to it against the heaviest of odds.
Note: The concept of the post is derived in parts from http://www.startups.co.uk/ site.

"Too late to go for this kinda Start up"

You said that??? You feel you have a brilliant idea backed by plan, but then there are already established players who are into the sector and that there is no part of market left for you to capture? Wait a second; you need to reconsider your view. If you are a good strategist, you can very well make out that the global market is too big for any one to capture all alone. The market is huge and you never know which section of it may lap up your product or service. Yahoo! Mail is the market leader in its section, but then that never stopped Google to join the league with Gmail and I suppose Gmail is faring well... Isn’t it? Well you may argue that Gmail was backed by Google and that you don’t have even nuts backing you (Gosh you are so pessimistic). Well then here goes a legendary story from Indian software sector, which has now made deep impressions across the world IT community.
Cognizant Technologies (CTS), which is usually termed as “Johnny-come-lately” in India’s IT sector, now features in Top four of the sector, only after Infosys, TCS and Wipro which came in market a decade before CTS. Earlier the companies that ranked with it are nowhere in the league now. There is famous story that every CTS employee loves to narrate. The story goes as... During early days of CTS, there was a lucrative project up for bidding. There were big players bidding for that along with TCS. TCS which was already an established player by then gave the presentation demonstrating it’s credentials and experience in similar kind of project. The clients looked nearly convinced and TCS was all set to take away the project, when Laxmi Narayanan, now the chairman of CTS, came in with his team for a short presentation and went on to say “I know TCS has given a great presentation and that it has demonstrated its experience in the field. But then for I am a product of TCS, my team mates are a product of TCS and the projects and tools which TCS was talking about were developed by us, who are not with CTS” The rest they say was history.
Moral of the story? Irrespective of who you are, what kind backing you have (or for that matter, you don’t have any); if you are clear with your strategy, you have right kind of expertise and experience then there is nothing stopping you. But let me reiterate the three basics... Clear strategy , experience and expertise are a must. Cause in case you venture into a new field with inexperience, you wont be sure of yourself, then how do you expect your clients to be sure of you? Do i llok like making some point here???

Naming a Start Up and Branding

Sources: Kishore Biyani’s “It happened in India”, Internet and my online experiences.

I decide to play safe as I move ahead with my views and ramblings. As such whatever information you have on start ups or for that matter any other issue, you get it from some book, some site or magazine, but then if you write about them people hold you up for Intellectual property rights violation, however if you mention the source you are not offending the cause of the writer, thus this post begins with source’s list. Lest my segment on Start ups (along with the full blog) ends up even before it starts up. However as you can make out, a lot of reading has gone into creation of this article of naming and branding of a start up. (This usually is the case with my other articles too)
Coming to point... Once you have thought of going ahead with a start up, the first thing you do is think of the naming your start up. How ever what immediately crops up in our mind is “Why create so much fuss about naming a Start up and is it all that a serious issue worth a eight hundred word discussion?” I suppose yes it is. As a common man, we commit a serious mistake of ignoring the minute but obvious details of business. My personal learning of this issue comes from my experience with Google Adsense. Once you have an account approved you’ll get know that Google has gone to an extent of minimizing our eye movement as we read through an ad or an article. No wonder Google is a leader in its segment. Talking on same lines, giving a right name to a start up is one such detail. Actually a name is something with which a start up gets recognized with. Mark me when I use the word recognise. Actually the word “Recognize” not only means being known, rather it also refers to the brand that takes the onus of our product or service. Yes, that’s the point I was dying to mention, before naming your start up keep in mind a long term vision of your product or service going places and that it will be known by the brand name you keep now.
Thus a name like “sam’s cafe” or “tom dick and harry consulting” is a strict no no for any kind of start up. Rather a name should be such that it should be able to click some kind of curiosity in the prospective customer’s mind. Always remember that whenever you start up finds a new customer, it won’t be because the customer had a premonition that you have got a great product or service but it will be because of your branding and advertisement. What’s worth noticing here is that the name of your start up plays a prominent role in both brand building and advertisement.
So here are the few characteristics of good name:
1. The sole purpose of a well thought name for your start up should be creating a stir in the brains of customer and at the same time relate closely to your start up’s product or service. Just think, in one day how many advertisements do you come across? How many of them you actually remember? The names you remember would usually fall in two categories. First one, you come across a familiar name and the second one the name clicking the chemical process of thought and logic in your brain. However under any circumstances you will not even bother to recall what product or service the company named XYZ corp had to offer. So as an owner of budding start up I have just one of the two choices left, i.e. Going for a start up name that clicks logic and reasoning in a human brain. Cause becoming a familiar name for everyone is actually not possible for nascent start up.
2. The name should relate directly to product or service your start up has to offer. Don’t ever get emotional enough use your start up for carrying your family name or for that matter your kids’ name. However your name can also be used to carry forward your vision for your business, you society or country or your countrymen. Doing that will certainly endear your product to masses.
Once you have taken care of these two facts, I suppose your brand can have the potential to rename that product or service. Confused??? What the hell do I mean with renaming a product or service? Well then tell me what will you do when you want information on something on internet. Will you search it out or will you “GOOGLE” it out??? That’s what a name is!!!

The First issue with start up

This journal entry is a true narration of what I have been going through ever since I forayed into my home based business. As I continue to work with my current employer, I found the idea of home based online business as the most feasible one. But then I am severely dissatisfied by the progress I have made. Reason... Lack of discipline. All my plans in place but my discipline is not. This fact though displeasing, appears to be quite obvious. As a person I have been working under the supervision some unknown force (The unknown director). This director decided my course of action for most of the time. Some times the pressure of impending semester exams played the role of this director and sometimes it was my job, and thus most of my plans were followed. Fortunately (Rather unfortunately), this director is missing in the start up and thus I hardly have any director monitoring me. Result... A totally haphazard approach towards the business. I do set plans for the weekend (not the movie plans), but then when the weekend actually arrives , I end up doing something else and the task that was supposed to be done, either gets infinitely postponed or cancelled.
With this, I would love to share my first learning about goal setting, planning and abiding by it (of course):
1. Be very precise and a hardliner about what you want. Do not give up your plans for some other apparently lucrative opportunity, till it actually is justifiable.
2. Take a good deal of time to plan. Though that may sound funny but then the better thought the plan is, the more are the chances of it getting followed.
3. A plan doesn’t get followed only in two cases (applies only to start ups). First, the planner has got a lucrative offer or an opportunity and thus he does not find it rational to execute the preset plan. Second, the planning was done without keeping time and personal constraints in mind.
4. Be proactive instead of being reactive. Stick to the preset plans instead of reacting to every second lucrative opportunity.
5. Set a time bound goal (Entrepreneurship basics 1) for all you activities. Modularize it and take them one by one, instead of biting bigger that you can chew.
Last but not the least, at very step you’ll be faced with choice between a seducing immediate profit and a visionary long term profit. The decision here solely depends on the kind of business model followed, and thus good or bad cannot be decided in this case at least.

Some action on cards now!!!

Views you can use:

Going forward from now, I will try coming up with more interesting issues through my blog, to my readers delight. With this in mind I have decided to come up with new topics, information and internet research. I also welcome suggestions on this front. As usual my mail remains saurav.craze@gmail.com. The new topics that I propose to come up with are

Writing business plans and business start ups ideas

My reviews on online business

Internet evolution

Extracts from books, newspaper and journals pertaining to Business, Life of some great business leaders

News and views on latest business developments

Online resources and links to sites relating to entrepreneurship, start ups and business

Entrepreneurship within organization, etc

What will continue to stay unaltered will be my book reviews (I love books, you see), the
Entrepreneurship “GYAN” (The extracts from my training), The trivia thing may slow down a bit, as it already has.
In the nutshell, I propose to make this blog a one stop destination for all those who aspire to make it big in their life. Standing true to the name ... Spectrum, from ambitions to observations.
One more promise... I’ll be far more regular than one article a month :D.

Note: The views you can use articles will be tagged with “VYU” tag on the top left.

The Unknown Director

The books of psychology bear it as a fact that at any moment nearly 2000 forces act on us and that the most dominant of them determine our course of action for that day. The forces can be categorized as Physical forces, mental forces, emotional forces and spiritual forces. These forces can be further classified as professional forces, relational forces i.e. the forces exerted by relations, financial forces and so on. How I define life is a combination of these forces. But then what hurts most here is the fact that our life is controlled by something external to us. The concept is quite simple, those who break out of these forces to follow the force internal to them wins. The world out there is extremely competitive, but then when you take the road less travelled, you don’t find many competitors. This competition wanes into a group of elite few trying to carve out their own destiny. I may be sounding quite philosophical, but then that’s the reality.

Keeping the achievers aside for some time, let us talk about our lives. Few may not concede with me. Lets take an example, every morning when you wake up, you have a dominant professional force acting on you. Thus you quickly dress up and make it to office on time. But what about your weekends? Can you figure out what you are going to do this weekend. Why? What went wrong rather say missing? It’s your most hated professional force, and thus you have a severely directionless day. Is this all we are worth? At this point I strongly recommend that we pause for a while and ponder, which direction are we taking our life in?
The motive of this post is to sow a seed of thought can incite you to view your life from a different perspective, a different view and with refined aspirations. Even if this post helps one person to redirect life in a more meaningful direction, I’ll consider my purpose served.

Switching a Job as a form of self employment

So the buzz is about, "Attrition". Now my perspective on it may be quite different and premature (as you may think) according to you. But then I am going to put forward my priorities that I’ll look into before actually changing the job. Go ahead and find them out, who knows, it may help!!!

So getting right on the topic, switching job can be a form of self employment. Where in, you are actually able to rate yourself in the market of your specializations. Moreover, you may have an opportunity to choose between couple of offers (This is the factor which I feel is a notch above being just an employee, it’s near to getting self employed).Ok, but before actually jumping into a totally new environment, following issues may crop up: (that's strictly what I feel, no impositions)

1. In case you are changing for job satisfaction .Then there is no point in changing. You are not going to get it anywhere. Because the nature of job will essentially remain same and if you are not enjoying your present job, then you probably won’t enjoy new job too! A suggestion in this case is to actually reflect upon yourself to find out what is it that you are looking for!!!

2. If money is the issue, then wait a minute. Simply running behind higher pay packet doesn’t help. Why? See... when you join at a higher pay than the people working in that organization (and of course your current pay), then it’s highly unlikely that you'll get raises in the same frequency, as the employees working in the organization from before. So at some point of time things level off. Worse even is you may get a news from your former colleagues that they have crossed your present pay continuing in the organization you left couple of years back.

3. The new environment may not necessarily be friendly. You may be taken as an outsider and avoided or (in case you are lucky) you may be welcomed as a new comer, and people will be anxious to help you (yawns!!!).

So before jumping keep following points in mind:

1. Jump only when you know you'll get a band or a role change in new organization. (Like if currently you are SE, in the new org. you'll be PL, etc)

2. Know your field. You may not be in the hottest field. Today Business intelligence is hot, Testing field is hot. Development has slowed down a bit. So in case you are going into a "Hotter" field, change is recommended. Other way round, in case you are in a hot field now, but you aren't sure of what you are going to work on at your new organization, Do Not Jump!!! 3. Pay package should be considerably higher than your current one.

4. The Organization you are going for should be close to your home (I mean your Native place where your parents live, that does save some bucks).

5. Suppose you are working in Pune, and you get job in Mumbai based company at say 20% more salary. Then the moral of the story remains same. Mumbai is distinctly costlier than Pune. (There are many more such examples).


Thus, what I recommend is, before jumping first plot out your priorities, and then rate them according to importance you attach to them. That done you may go ahead and rate your current job and the job you propose to join, against these points. The one that wins will of course be your choice.

But at the end of the day, do what your instincts say!!!(Sorry for confusing you here...)

Note: An extract from this blog was rated 4 out 5 and featured as "Best Response"
at Ammas.com Advisors website

Book Review : I Bought the Monk's Ferrari

After a huge success of "If God was a Banker", Ravi Subramanian has cooked another food for thought, "I bought the Monk's Ferrari". What amused me the most was the coincidence of me reading Robin Sharma's "Monk who sold his Ferrari" just a a couple of days before i came across this book. I knew one thing for sure, that even the author has gone through the book before writing his version of it, and that even he had got a blatant feeling of the fact that "To sold a Ferrari you need to have one", and thus began a story of how a young man dreams of a Ferrari and achieves it.
The book is divided into well organized sections. First to come is, the author's close brush off with his dream car. What comes next is the Ten Commandments for success (Owning a Ferrari).Finally the author talks about what a Ferrari actually is, (His perception of Ferrari). The book is quite engaging right from the first page where the author dedicates his book to all those for whom "Any car other than Ferrari is a shame". With first few chapters, the Author seamlessly breathes life into the masterpiece by FIAT Company. Then the ten commandants’ section leaves no aspect of being successful untouched. Though at times the reader feels like too much of pious thought to take, but then the author successfully avoids the pit by quoting right examples at right occasions. Rather, for all commandments, the author has plotted convincing examples which actually keep the readers bound to the book.

To sum up, what’s most convincing in the whole book is the methodology adopted by author, “Explain it by examples”. The methodology not only convinces you about the fact that success is achievable, but also helps you make role models for success, which I suppose is very important in today’s scenario. However I should point at a fact that the book fails to touch a larger crossection of Indian society, and that it skims through the society of elites… Notwithstanding, the book does well to lay down a general guideline for success. The ground work is off course up to you sir!!!