Entrepreneurship--Through My Eyes

Don't Start a Business

2009-04-21T04:27:00.000-07:00

Unless you have people willing to pay for your services

http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/B-School/-Don-t-Start-A-Business.html
Philip Anderson, professor of entrepreneurship at INSEAD

Its a great article and touched a nerve. A lot of my ventures have revolved around starting a business rather than figuring how its going to pay for itself. I've always thought that if i built a great service, the money would come. I suppose, in part, i've been led by services websites around me but that really hasnt happened. I may have gained some experience but i've also lost a whole lot more in terms of opportunity and time.

When i started the math website, i had the alternate opportunity to become a coder at a pay that was 50% better as opposed to what i am getting right now as a GA. And this is about 5years ago. If i had stuck to it, i would have been doing a whole lot better. Ass that i am, i "didnt want to code" and so preferred to stick it out with the math website. End result-- Peanut husks for all my efforts.

I was exploring setting up another services thingy when i read the above article. Given that i am in the middle of a job hunt and end of term, i've put that on hold. I was never sure how i'd make money off it anyways and my job is more important right now.

Lets see if i ever come back to it.

500+ Users!!!

2009-03-06T08:55:00.000-08:00

My app on facebook currently has 614 users! That's a huge number! With about 60+ daily users. That's a small but steady stream. Should figure out a way to monetise them now :D

installing wordpress

2009-01-21T23:48:00.001-08:00

For the .info domain that I have been working on, i had to install Wordpress on the various sub-domains. The problem is that i have a huge number of sub-domains. At last count it was some 70+. And for some reason Fantastico wasn't installing wordpress correctly. So i had to install them manually. Let me tell you what a huge pain it is! If you've ever tried installing WP on one domain, then you know how cumbersome the process can be. Imagine 70! I had to copy the installation files, manually create the databases and run the installation. Theming is still left. I gave up and focussed on my top 13 sub-domains. I have begun populating them via FireScribe so hoping that makes my job easy. Not sure though since FireScribe seems to be buggy. Or atleast 1 installation of wordpress is.

I also decided i need a mouse. However, given my past record of spending before making a dollar, i decided to not make a purchase till i get some money selling some text-books. Not sure if this is a good idea. On the one hand, if i do go ahead and buy the mouse, its pressure on me to make up that money. On the other, i have used a similar excuse and still not lived up to it. I need the mouse badly and i'm sure the inconvenience will only spur me to make the money faster.

Here's to people buying my text-books :D

Social Experiment

2008-11-26T15:53:00.001-08:00

On the off chance that deals2buy might have something interesting, i hit jackpot!! A .com domain for only 99cents!! usually, depending on the registrant, anything between $7 to $10.

So yeah, i went and got myself one. Will have to start keeping track of all these domians :D AND make some money off them as well :D

This time its for a little experiment. I dont expect to make any money off this one except in donations, and while people do tend to be generous,i'm hoping that they'll be generous enough for me to be able to recover my renewal fees and hosting expense for next year. This year, hosting is free but i dont know about the next.

Oh well, High Risk High Reward :)

Welcome a new domain

2008-10-30T08:53:00.001-07:00

A .info domain to my little kitty of domains. Admittedly not a very big kitty, but it still excites me every time i buy a new domain :)

My investment in building this site is only going to be $1.19 and time. I have free hosting from IFTK Hosting (thanks to facebook forums and thank you to IFTK too for re-activating it so quickly after i let it go inactive)and am using Google apps for e-mail. Might use Weebly for the frontpage. Am definitely using Social Media Toolkit

I did want to use Alstrasoft's StartPage software but the price is prohibitive, i dont have SSL with IFTK( cant expect everything on a free account no?) and Alstrasoft doesnt seem to have a free co-branded option.

Quite a lot seems to be getting done for free :D

If you have an Idea

2008-10-28T18:37:00.001-07:00

What do you do when you have an idea but

* Dont know if a Market Need exists as such
* Dont know if you'll make any money
* Know implementation will cost you a bit in money and a lot in time

Do you go ahead and implement it anyway?? Or do you just get a move on and look for something that can be more profitable?

Teach India!

2008-07-09T00:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.teach.timesofindia.com/

From their website

" Teach India will bring together those who need some hope

and those who have some to spare"

I think by far the most awesome initiative ever undertaken. As part of my course-work in Class 10, I taught tribal children Hindi(those in ICSE will remember we had SUPW that was graded by the school) the joy you feel when at the end of the year they can recognise and write Hindi alphabets, the way they laugh when they read out stuff to you can make the whole thing worthwhile. That was the point i really got hooked into teaching.

All TOI is asking is for something more valuable than your funds--Your time. 2hrs to be precise.

Share some hope :)

Weird Stat

2008-07-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

For one of my apps, the facebook Insight tracking throws up the following graph.

What is weird about this graph that it seems to have a uniform rise and fall throughout the week. Rising at the beginning of the week and dropping over the weekend. Since all my app users are office-going people makes me wonder if they only access the app once they reach office and forget about it once they reach home.

Isn't FB blocked in office??

:D

Approved on Facebook

2008-06-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

My second app is Approved on FB :) This incidentally is my first app to get approved. (My first app has the required number of users, I just never got around to getting it approved. Will do it sometime later. Its not that pressing since there are no active users and I dont expect any till about next year.)

Not bad for someone who can hates coding and so can barely code. I've managed to rack up 57users and 9Active users and my first "About Page" fan who I dont know directly or indirectly.

Am hoping i can hold on to my hosting account though :D

Money also does flow in!!

2008-05-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

Between the 13th and 21st, I've had 7orders(technically 9 but 2 are distant shipping so they have to pay twice) and i made 1 refund because the customer didn't respond to repeated mails. Actually, the mails kept bouncing so I preferred to do the refund.

Good feeling though to have so many orders coming in even though suddenly, it looks like i'm not going to be able to meet them all in time. I've placed the order for things i need to fulfill the order but I dont know when I'm going to get them. And that is a bit worrying.

Business is up!

2008-05-19T03:49:00.000-07:00

Awesome to be able to say that!! With the new season about to swing into full flow, i'm suddenly making quite a few sales. 3 are done and 3 more are expected! All in a span of 4days!!

Compared to last year where i did 2 in 6months if not longer. And plenty of international orders too! Let's just hope I can make some profit on the international orders. I did try and work out a tie-up with another company but haven't heard from them since.

Fingers crossed!

Do you know what you want?

2008-05-06T06:57:00.000-07:00

Struggling with the vast amounts of data in a particular area, i chanced upon the idea of using a CMS to aggregate it in a useful way. However, deciding on what I want to offer my end user and whether it will be really useful to them is something I am still trying to figure out.

In other words, I haven't written down what i want. I only have an idea in my head and i'm already out trying to implement it, exploring options on how to make it better and derive some benefit as well as invite users. Cue Deja-vu.

Really gotta work on this impulse of rushing into things before figuring out what i really want to do.

Research Wisely

2008-04-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

before you spend money. I spent $50 on code which i don't use. In fact, i researched enough to use code i found for free and use it without any trouble.

What a waste! That's money i could have used for so many other things. The worse part is that i haven't even made a Re off the app that i needed the code for. So what was the point in spending that money then?

Will somebody please take away my credit card??

Ideas, IDeas, idEas!!

2008-04-15T01:10:00.001-07:00

For some strange reason, today is a day i am overflowing with ideas to try out and implement. Are they useful? I would like to think so. Are they easy to implement? Heck No! Involves way too much coding for my liking

So what exactly am i doing coming up with these ideas? And why?

Will I ever implement them? I most certainly hope so.

A new domain!

2008-04-14T02:22:00.000-07:00

Can't believe i didnt give this a whole post. I mentioned hosting but I never mentioned that i also registered a whole new domain!! That my dear solitary reader, is a big BIGGIE!!

So go on, cheer for me!! I'm certainly enjoying having a new e-mail id :D

Lots of Updates

2008-04-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since i last made my post. In that time, i've learned to navigate around Joyent, though i dont think i'm making the most of their offerings. I've partially finished coding(Ha! can you believe it?? I'm coding!!) my study app and it's even gone live. Lots of code to learn here, a lot of it was new(FBML,PHP and MYSQL) but i like to think i've coped well.

Now, while not a lot of the people who've added it have utilised it, i guess i just have to show more patience. Its been only 3days ( I launched on Friday, today is Monday) and i've spent a while today marketing it to people so hopefully the numbers should go up. This btw, is Idea3 that was mentioned below.

I also signed up for and was alloted free hosting on another server. I havent started using that yet but the interface there appears to be more like GoDaddy so i guess it should be easy to use that. That said, took me quite a while to figure out how to work Joyent and i'm really pleased with myself. Especially since its a Solais interface which means i had to SSH/SFTP. That took some getting used to.

I also migrated all my e-mails to Google Apps. Find it very convenient and i love Google apps so it was no-brainer really.

All in all, an extremely useful phase of learning and work.

Damn!/ Joyent!

2008-03-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

All the money i spent on hosting now appears to be a waste. I had applied for a Joyent account(which if you dont know is a free account for 1yr for you to server your fb app) but given what i was seeing on the forums, it appeared to be a long wait. So i went ahead and bought a 2month hosting with GoDaddy.

Only to get a Joyent account last night :-|

Should i laugh or should i smile wryly at this???

Some more money flows out

2008-03-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

Source Code $50
Hosting $11 (approx)

After plenty of e-mails sent back and forth, in which some things were mentioned as possible but finally not delivered and some things which were promised earlier but still not delivered i'm now the proud(?) owner of code for a quiz, 2months hosting and 1domain name registered for 1year.

I've got some semblance of user base waiting to try it all. Not sure if i'll make any money out of it. Though i'd like to think as a stepping stone to bigger things.

Let's see how it goes :)

It sucks to have no money...

2008-02-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

when you have all these great (as always, its my idea so either you accept its great or buzz off!) ideas and no money to make them work. As of now, i have 3 ideas.

Idea 1 has been in limbo for like forever so i dont think it minds too much.
Idea 2 just came into my life. However, people with MBAs are making my life miserable on the amount of background research i should do before launching it(yeah launching this one should be pretty easy though there's a lot of work involved post launch)
Idea 3 is new and Horror of Horros!! It involves coding!! And i've got to do it. Now, those of you'll who follow this blog, know how much i absolutely abhor coding. However, it doesnt seem like i have much choice in this matter. So i'm doing it. And i think this is the one time i just might enjoy myself.

In the meantime, those of you'll interested in investing 30Lakhs in me please do get in touch. :)

Meebo Me-2

2008-01-17T04:07:00.000-08:00

I've just added the MeeboMe widget on the 2nd website as well. Now that i'm spending so much time online might as well make the most of it.

I got an order nearly a week ago. Thanks to the location shifting, i havent been able to fulfill it. Will make a partial refund and hopefully fulfill the order by saturday. That way atleast the customer should be happy. Though i'm not sure he's going to appreciate the fact that its taken longer than it should have.

my bad :(

Seriously?

2007-12-11T02:04:00.000-08:00

Started this blog a while ago and i like to believe i've grown a lot over the years. i've posted sporadically so is that what's contributing to such a high level??

Hmm the benefits of delayed posting :D

New Beginnings

2007-12-05T01:46:00.000-08:00

I've been in Mumbai for a while now (arrived here last sunday) and its been good so far. Travelling is a bit of a pain but there's a healthy walk at the end of it. Then again, i've been gettin home really late each day.

Work's interesting. I dont know if i've honestly done anything worthwhile so far :D but i'm working with a really small team that's young and fun. Work's been a joy so far and i guess its going to remain that way.

The sad things however is that I have no net at home. I have the (ex)company laptop but that has to go back soon and i dont see where i'm going to place my desktop. A lot of things are suffering because of this lack of internet. Didnt realise i was so dependent on it :-| Even my pendrive's burnt out due to faulty wiring at the office :'(

Lots of stuff needs to be done.

Ideas/Follow Ups

2007-11-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

I really should start to index every idea i get. Otherwise i'm apt to forget about it. Sometime last week, Neha reminded me about something that I had completely forgotten. It is/was a great idea( Hey! I'm the one with the idea so you either accept its great or Keep Quiet :-P ) but i've done absolutely no work on it. Sure, I've got the first few pages set.... atleast i know what the first few pages should be but I havent done a thing beyond that. I havent even put the first few pages together. Think i should be start sometime soon no?

I also should keep things ready for a presentation. The other day, I realised that I should have started promoting the 3rd Company product at the earliest. Arranged to meet a member of the market i wanted to target, but when push came to shove, I wasnt even the least bit ready. Now i'm only partially ready, I have to still burn a cd with the software.

But i've begun pursuing people in colleges and other people for registerting the company.

Funny, just when i'm about to leave Hyd do i start to put things into overdrive :-|

Lots of Water...

2007-11-09T19:44:00.000-08:00

has flown under the bridge since my last post. Things have changed and i'm beginning to see different things. Where once i saw trust and loyalty I've now seen betrayal.Where once i saw excitement and possibility i now see boredom and non-existence.

It was during this period of betrayal that another door opened up for me. It involves me moving out to Mumbai, the pay is good( as an afterthought, so is the job :D ) and its Mumbai!! A place where i've always wanted to spend some more time. I'm far too comfortable where I am right now, the city is not at all fast paced and change would be a good thing for me. The question is "Am i ever going to make that change?"

So

2007-10-06T20:36:00.001-07:00

So i finally log in with my desktop only to find that my account for the first website has been suspended. I wondered if it was going to be worth it to renew as I really wasnt making any money off it. I thought about shifting servers as I was anyway going to launch another site and I could use the same for hosting two different websites. I've mailed my original service provider to find out what's the cost to activate the account because the other one doesnt come cheap. Either way that site will be back up soon.

Feedback on my Business Plan

2007-09-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP NETWORK

SCREENING FORM

Criterion	Factors	Max. Score	Score

Potential Impact	Understanding of Market Situation	10	06
(40 marks)	Competitive Analysis	10	03
	Identification of opportunity	5	03
	The Idea and its Innovation	10	08
	Potential to disrupt status quo	5	03
Potential Executability	Strength of current team	20	10
(40 marks)	Marketing and sales strategy	10	04
	Finance Strategy	5	02
	Unique Selling Points	5	03
Potential Fundability	Revenue and growth potential	10	07
(20 marks)	Potential to go public / get acquired	10	06
Grand Total:			55

SUGGESTIONS:

COMMENTS: Idea is good but is presented with very poor analysis. Many of the important aspects are presumed to be granted which need to be dealt in proper perspective.

IS THE ENTRY FIT TO PROCEED TO THE NEXT STAGE? In the present form is should not be proceed to the next stage.

First Sale!

2007-09-02T08:17:00.001-07:00

I remember how excited I was when I made my first sale from the other site. I called up everyone who knew about what i was doing to share the news :-D

Today, I made my "First" sale from the second site. "First" is because somebody had already made a purchase before we realised that I didnt deliver till there. So i had to refund their money. Now, another person has made a purchase so i guess this must count as First Sale right??

:-D

Timing!

2007-08-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of my GMAT prep, my job isnt going exactly the way I want it to and I'm wondering what I can do to improve my candidature, make money and i start to toss ideas around in my head. And then it hits me!! I stick to what I'm good at-- Teaching! and i do something that revolves around that. So after a little searching i figure out what I can do.

The problem is that i can get pretty obsessive with an idea. I'll think about only that to the exclusion of everything else. I've spent the last coupla days obsessing over it. I think i should be ready by next year. I've spoken to one who could have been a prospective client. She thinks its a good idea. Spoke to a coupla other people. One person asked me to focus on the GMAT. The other is neutral.

As of now, i still think its possible. It would be awesome if I could pull off something like this!! Then again, the timing is all off. I have GMAT in a few weeks time and i really need to be studying for it.

Fingers crossed!

Opposites

2007-08-22T02:30:00.000-07:00

Last night I did two opposite things.

Tired of the way things are going at my current job, I sent in an interview request with a company that's had a lot more success doing what i originally set out to do.

Then i sent in a Executive Summary to GenPortal hoping to get selected which basically means i'll be doing something entrepreneurial then.

Nice opposites no? One a corporate job and the other an entrepreneurial venture but even here i'll still be reporting progress and fund spending to somebody or the other.

This is probably why I want an MBA. So that i never have to do two oh-so-contrasting job hunts again!

Sometimes a mistake can be good

2007-08-19T17:54:00.000-07:00

Lots of learning in a span of 2hours today!

Learning No: 1 Clearly mention the places you will ship to.

From Company 2 i made my first sale today. so Yaayyy!!

I then had to refund it as the address was a US address and shipping there would have meant a Loss on my first sale!!

Learning No:2 : My version of Msgtag works!!! In order to initiate a refund i transferred a mail from one account to another. i use Google mail in the sense my company mail is hosted on Gmail and i didnt expect my version of msgtag to work. Atleast, that's what even the website says. But it DOES!!!

I'm going to have to re-think my original intent to purchase the more expensive version of msgtag because apparently i dont need to anymore.

I wanted to shift company 1 ka mail also to Gmail so that should happen by the end of the day :D

Good fun no?? :D

Patience!

2007-08-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

Its now 24hours or thereabouts since i sent out the e-mail blast for site2. However analytics doesnt show any increase in numbers :-( Now i'm beginning to think i should have gotten the MSGTAG linking. Atleast I would know what's happening to my mails. DAMN!! this is so frustrating!!

Pricing Pricing Pricing and of course Marketing

2007-08-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Last night I decided to forsake profits for market share. I slashed prices(well actually, inspired by the MSGTAG people i put up a discount coupon)by 40%. This should hopefully start bringing in the people. With the discount offering, the price is really really low and with a price-conscious Indian market its the only thing i could do. I also sat and mailed nearly 50addresses that I had collected over a few weeks. Analytics hasn't started to show anything but its early days. I actually wanted to upgrade my MSGTAG product and then send out the mails, but decided to wait till i bring in some money. I know you need to spend money to make money but i've spent enough already.

I've also activated adwords for the other site. Currently I have 2 ads running which while getting a lot of impressions havent generated any clicks. I'm targetting a niche category so i suppose that plays a part.

Waiting with fingers crossed.

Dumped!!

2007-07-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

Just like that. Up until a few days ago I could proudly say I was the Center Manager for the place where I worked. Even though I knew it was only temp I still enjoyed it, took it seriously. From the previous post you'll know that the Big Boss Man wasnt entirely happy with my performance vis-a-vis target sales. I've always sucked at Marketing/Sales hell my first company would have done a whole lot better if i'd been any good at marketing :D

But I still didnt expect this.

On a weekly Tuesday meeting, it was announced that somebody else was the new CM. I was shocked. When they wanted it, they asked me but if they were going to replace me, the decent thing would have been to atleast inform me about it? I spent the rest of the meeting in numb silence.

Given the amount of crazy paper work that CMs are now being asked to fill, in some ways I am glad I am no longer the CM. That still doesnt take the sting out of what happened. While I have no intention to brood over it, I havent told the family yet. I have no idea how they are going to react and I dont want to know. All i'm going to do is focus on company2, my GMAT and my MBA prep.

$100!!

2007-06-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

Just closed a student :-) Not only is it my largest sale till date its worth more than all my previous transactions put together. Which is kinda sad if you think about it. I had so many hopes and dreams for this and it never did take off the way I had hoped it would. The Big Boss Man recently told me that the one thing he saw lacking in me was "Fire in my Belly" the desire to meet deadlines. I was more laid back more content to let things happen and he said that that way, I would never be able to achieve much no matter which field I chose. In some ways, I had already been wondering if that was true about me and this direct pointing out only confirmed it for me. I looked back on the website venture or any other venture and saw that each time i started something, I never followed it through. I was content to let things happen.

This has got to change. After all, even the $100 student hasnt paid up. Only promised to.

Prototyping Prototyping

2007-06-24T10:34:00.001-07:00

So I finally get my hands on one model. Its a beauty!! I've shown it off to a few people as well as to the lady who's helping me with the import tax part and even she liked it!! Minor hitches with respect to hardware required ( power adaptor, card reader) but both should soon be sorted out. Once all this gets sorted, then only Marketing and Sales is left. Wishful thinking na :-D

On the other hand, for the other company i thought prototyping and then manufacturing would be easier than this. However things hardly seem to have improved. I dont even have a single prototype and that's pretty sad considering it shouldnt have take so long. Its a pretty simple thing so why on earth am i taking so long??

Many things to work.

A look back

2007-05-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

over the past 3months since I quit my job. Wow! When I though about writing this post I wanted to do it exactly 3months, thinking 5th. I just realised that 2nd was the day I quit my previous job so it all works out well.

So, the past 3months have been interesting. It was fun in the beginning. I got to attend seminars, bataao gyaan and talk to students abt GD/PIs and CAT. I guess after having given the CAT 3 times I am reasonably qualified so I enjoyed the process. Since the Boss Man was busy with his other venture, I got sent to the Ameerpet center where I am to this day. My responsibility there was simple-- take classes, counsel students and generally lend a helping hand.

That was 2months ago. Now I am beginning to tire of it all. Its getting boring. I havent been paid properly even once since i started work so that's on my mind too. Its the same old routine--Get up, go to the center, stay till closing time come back home. If there's a class, prep for it and take it. The annoying thing is that sometimes I get Monday morning class while there have been times when I've got early morning class Saturday to Monday!! I am now Center InCharge but that's not a big thing. As usual, there's no one at the center to handle stuff so I get the position. Funny na, even at Exaband i was becoming Team Lead because there was nobody else. If this is how I am going to get all my promotions in life, I am going to be one sad little boy in life :-p

The heat as usual is bad. The only saving grace is that unlike last year, where I was all alone, this year atleast Ronnie's in town. So every once in a while I get to catch a movie. Which is, I assure you, a whole lot better than last year :-D

Mom is putting pressure that I should seriously think abt leaving this. I had a cushier job at Exaband. Paid well too. I would have been getting 42 there compared to the 24 I am making now. Sundays AND Saturdays were off. The only way i console myself is by knowing that if we were to start what we are actually supposed to start, then its going to be worth it.

The Question is--When are we actually going to Start?

5/3

2007-04-26T02:05:00.000-07:00

No! I know my Maths!! And No! I havent typed it wrong. No it isn't a date! Yes I wear specs but No! that's not my number. No that's not the number of failed to successful businesses. No its not the ratio of failed to successful love stories either.

So then???

Its my Google Rank!! Atleast for the new site. But still!!! 5 or 3!!! Depending on the way I search for the term!!!
5 if I use the term i think is most likely to be searched for and 3 with a slight tweaking.

I had a read a bit about SEO for my earlier venture and I remember, when deciding on the name, that a correctly chosen name would shoot me up the Google rankings. I certainly didnt expect to be on the first page! Ok, I hoped to be there but still to actually see it is well :-D

Have been having trouble with the image creation. I initially asked an artist friend if he would do it and at that point I told him I didnt have much money so asked if he would do it for free/some small token amount. When's he's almost done the job he asks for 5k! I mean, wtf???
We've finally settled on 1K but that experience was rather weird to say the least.

Anyway, time to go make some money off my new rankings :-D

Sabbatical!

2007-03-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

Well it certainly feels that way. After I quit Exaband, I've been hanging out at one of India's top MBA coaching institute helping out with the place, taking classes, counselling students, pretending to be a mentor, attending college fests, acting as a judge , acting as an interviewer, ......... :-)

I've really enjoyed myself this past 1 month. Doing all of the above things is a welcome change from my old IT job. Working on my public speaking skills, presentation skills, time management-- lots of things that I probably wouldnt have done had I continued in my old job.

Feels Good :-)

p.s. Company 3 seems to have hit a roadblock but Company 4 seems to have hit an unexpected smooth patch. Win some to lose some I guess. No complaints :-)

Isn't she a Beauty :-)

2007-03-02T06:52:00.000-08:00

Isn't she??

The Acer5571.

My newest sweetheart :-D

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow/Thank You EXABAND

2007-02-06T22:42:00.001-08:00

Friday was my last working day at Exaband. For those of you who know me, you also know how much I cribbed about having to work there. Yet, when I finally had my papers in hand, I couldnt bring myself to leave. Exaband was my first job and I met a lot of people whom I know I will stay in touch with for the rest of my life. I spent only 2 years there and yet, I felt more sad at leaving that place than I did when I was leaving college. I wandered the office for a little over an hour remembering incidents at each floor. I was periliously close to tears. Nowhere have I ever received the warmth and love as I did at Exaband. The people there genuinely cared about me, the knew I lived alone so if I didnt turn up for work without prior intimation, they'd call me up to check what was happening. They put up with me during my mood swings,brought me sweets during their festivals, encouraged and helped me improve my Telugu and were genuinely happy for me when I told them I was leaving to start-up a company.

In many ways, this post is tribute, a Thank You to EXABAND. Words cannot describe how much I love you or how much I am going to miss you.

Hmm...

2007-01-21T18:10:00.001-08:00

I remember the first time I made a sale, I was so excited I couldn't stop laughing and prancing all over the house. I called up everybody close to me and those who knew about what I was doing to share the good news.
Today morning I saw that I had made another sale. And all I could think of was "Hmm, I hope she mails in everything correctly" and quickly shot off a "Welcome" mail. No excitement over it.

Hmm...

p.s. I really should start remembering to log in to Meebo.

Awesome Feeling!!

2007-01-16T09:49:00.001-08:00

The other day my future boss(The Boss Man) called me because sitting in front of him was someone who was into Market Research and TheBossMan wanted to know if we should/would utilise his services :-) He ended the call saying that I should think of the type of people I would want working under me.

What an awesome feeling that was!! I get to decide whom we hire!! And they'll be working under ME!!!

He then calls the next day to know more about the same since apparently he's been meeting a lot of people who are looking for a job and who he thinks could be a fit.

Man I couldnt stop grinning all day.

I met him today over dinner and go to work tomorrow. I also have to buy a laptop :-)

Awesome feeling!!!!

Cut your losses!

2007-01-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

Cancelled the ad today. Man that was a bad investment. I've run it for a while and got only a few clicks early on. After that it was just throwing money away. And I really hate doing that. So I finally cancelled the ad. Pointless really.

Instead what I did was buy a MSGTAG Plus version. Really nifty little tool and I've totally enjoyed it. Since it was on Christmas sale, i got a license for the same price that I was putting on the ad. So while the ad wont run for Jan-Feb, I'll still have spent the same amount of money. This time,however, I think it's money well spent.

That's all the update for now. More later as and when it happens :-D

Meebo!

2006-11-24T09:50:00.001-08:00

Logged into Meebo after a long time today. Wanted to talk to mom. Clicked on " Products" out of sheer curiosity. Noticed the "meebo me " widget.

Its now live on the site!!

Yayy!!

New Beginnings!

2006-11-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

In 2 hours I turn 25! A quarter of century. Wondering whether I've really achieved something worthwhile.

New Beginnings!! Isn't that what this post is all about. Isn't it what New Year's Resolutions are all about? Don't we all resolve to turn over a new leaf on Birthdays??

So here's my Resolution for this year

1. To be leaner and fitter. (Really putting on too much weight)
2. To be a nicer person!!! ( Apart from actually nice, appear to be a lot more well read, genuinely smarter, less of a jerk, more of a success.... you know the works!! )
3. To learn to dance :-) ( Now this is something I really want to do)
4. To learn to play the guitar ( This I've been saying for the past 10 years! Long time no?)

Now, since we are talking about new beginnings I have a new job in hand! One that I am really going to take up. Someone I know wants to get into the ___ and he's asked me to join him
Yay!!!
Apart fm the fact that I get a decent salary, I get a stake in the company( we are still working out the details), I get into management and I get to do something I really love. He's also asked me to quit my job! So this is pretty serious!!

Cheers to New Beginnings!!!

Time is Money

2006-10-02T04:58:00.000-07:00

Last week I was 1 step away from paying for advertising. So why didnt I? Money!! I was going to pay by Credit Card but there were a coupla things I hadnt completed(The About Us page and 1 lesson) so I held it off. The major contributing factor was that my Credit Card billing date is the 6th and any purchase made after that is payable on the 26th of the next month. So I've postponed the billing till the 6th. Obviously my ad wont show till the 7th.

And there's my worry.

Just to save a few bucks, am I losing out big time? I like to think not. The people who are going to find me from the advertising are not likely to not buy anything simply because I am a coupla weeks late. However, the class program that I am advertising-- will that get affected?I will have lost 1 month of the academic year so how am I going to balance that out?? Today is already the 2nd and 5 more days!! That's all I need. Unfortunately 6th is a Saturday so there wont be anything happening till the 9th,Monday.

I only hope I dont lose too much because of this decision.

Biz Skool Business Plan Competitions

2006-09-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

So there are two business plan competitions--One at MICA and the other at IIT-Mumbai.
The deadline for MICA's is 28th and for the other is 1st October. I've decided to submit a BP to both but the best part is I havent gotten down to writing one.I've already got enough work to do with changing the front page,finish writing the content for the site, put up a "About Us" page ASAP since the place I am going to advertise is waiting for my moolah and I'd rather have the new content up before going live.
I should mention that the plan I am going with for the Biz Skool is not the idea on which this blog is based :-). I've decided to keep that to myself and go with the other. For the other, I even ran a survey on Surveymonkey but I dont need it yet. What I really liked about that survey was that in filled in a very short time.

Ok enough rambling.

Over the past few weeks, as my site builder got busy and vanished completely, I realised I had to start learning sooner or later how to do what I wanted done to the site. So I did! I fixed the links, I got the Social Media tags working and I started writing more for content(Ok, so the onus of writing content for the site was always on me but :-P ). Plus, I found a new place to advertise and they were more than happy to knock $25 off their set-up fee if only I'd link to their site. Done!! :-D

Also new is my job hunt. I've grown tired of working at the same place, where I realise what I considered important was not considered important by the management(I was drawing on my experience as an entrepreneur and failed online marketeer) so they preferred to continue fixing the Online Leave Management System for the office and I continued to push to optimise the company's product website
Not to mention we had no perks, pay was lousy, and motivation at an all time low. Really, going there to work was a drag and hopefully I'll get out of there soon. I'm talking to somebody for a job and really, if that comes through there's a lot I can now pursue so am really praying for that!

I forgot to mention that I have a somebody who's paid up but hasnt utilised the service available to her.I think I'll be waiting for a few days before writing to her :-)

Yikes!!!

2006-08-27T09:29:00.000-07:00

On August 15th, my domain registration expired. I, of course, was blissfully unaware having registered with a different e-mail address that I dont normally check(which btw i totally love Google for for not having disabled my account!) . Dufus that I am, I dont realise for quite a while, possibly because even the domain registrants didnt (whatever it is they do to unpaid domains) for a coupla days.

Then a frantic run-around to deposit the money, inform the registrants and beg them to have the site back up as soon as possible.

Just to be safe, this time I've paid for 2 years :-)

10K

2006-08-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

That's the price somebody was willing to buy me out for!!!!

Exciting! Somebody actually thought what I did was exciting enough for them to consider buying me out.

I turned him/her down though. :-)

Obviously I would. This is still my baby. I've spent countless hours on it, solving questions, agonising over my decisions, answering kids,.....................
Still quite emotionally attached to it.

Not to mention that 10K didnt even cover my expenses till date :-D

Big Blow.

2006-07-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

Today, the person I was counting on to bring in new students decided to shut down her venture in favour of being able to spend more time with her kids.

The news is slowly sinking in.

I had so many hopes on this. While I now realise it was foolish to pin so much on 1 thing I so badly wanted this to happen. It would mean so many things

Freedom to quit my tech job
Freedom to do my own thing
Freedom to do something i really enjoy
Freedom from financial worries
Freedom..............

I guess its time to grin, put my chin up and go look for the next big wave .

Long while eh?

2006-05-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

Yeah its been a while since my last post. 3 months? Lots has happened in between . Lotsa good things and a few bad things.So this is going to be another long post. Atleast I hope so. I never realised how much of a job it is writing a blog. Then again, this is more like a record for me than something i enjoy doing(atleast for the time being) so I guess its bound to feel a little dreary.

Ok, let's see Way back in March, just after my last post, someone I know made a very interesting offer to me. It involved me shifting base from Hyderabad to Nagpur- something i wouldnt have minded if the work(and pay :-D) was good! So I went to Nagpur, checked out the place and the job and the offer(nearly 3 times my then salary).I come back to Hyd and my boss calls me to tell me he wants to talk to me. So I go meet him on a Saturday(when the office is closed btw) where he offers me a pay equivalent to the Nagpur offer plus 3 more. The only hitch was that half was cash and half was stock encashable at the end of the year. Funny na-- get paid peanuts for the greater part of a year and then suddenly everybody wants to give me money :-)

After a lot of talking and thinking, I turned down the Nagpur offer.

That was difficult. That offer also involved teaching as well as the freedom to run my website and to use the resources of my workplace!! What more could i ask for?? Plus they promised to pay for my MBA if i stuck around for three years(an offer matched by my Hyd boss though he didnt give it in writing but then neither did my nagpur boss) and the fact that I'd come back to Hyd in just about a year's time or less. My biggest concern was what I would actually be doing in Nagpur and the fact that it was Nagpur. If I think Hyd's a dead place and I should get outta here, nagpur's worse even by my standards.

Anyway, Nagpur got a No and Hyd got a Yes

I got an interview call from TISS!!

That was thrilling!! I was just glad I got a call from somewhere.Something to show for a year's work. Something to prove "Hey me good too!!"

Turns out they called 750 candidates for 60 seats with the usual reservation thrown in. Given that I was an engineer in a software company, well, you know what my chances were.

Moving on. Somewhere in end April, I got ripped off :-( . A kid mailed me with questions, paid up, and received the solutions. Two days later, he cancelled the payment. A friend told me that 100% of Online-Frauds are committed by Indians or Pakistanis. Unfortunately, this kid was definitely one of them so................................

And finally, one day I was just randomly surfing the net checking out a Free Online Collaboration tool when I chanced upon a post. 1 thing led to another, and I just might be coming into some serious money. Finally!! And the timing couldnt have been more perfect. I was almost going to shut this down since money only seemed to be going out and not coming in. Just keeping my fingers crossed now!!

Hmm, not so long after all. Anyway who cares :-)

Patience

2006-03-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

That's the one thing I am slowly learning from this venture. I need to have Patience. I sit and answer kids questions for free day after day, week after week, month after month.
Things will not happen overnight that I know. Yet I've also learnt that just because things are happening very slowly doesnt mean they wont happen at all. My first sale was a year AFTER I started doing this. I made 3 sales in a rush and nothing after that! Luck? I hope not.

Its taken me a year,three and a half grand and God alone knows how many hours to make a grand. A grand!!! That's all. And the best part is I still havent gotten that grand for the simple reason that my Payment Vendor says and I quote

"Due to the total balance being under 35, this amount will be carried-over and paid to you on the next payment cycle, if you have any questions regarding this, please contact your account manager."

My balance is $23.16.

Up to Speed!

2006-03-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

I should give credit where its due-- in this case my Mom. She came home fm Mumbai,in Feb2005, carrying a paper clipping in her bag about how CL was tutoring kids online and she wondered why I couldnt do something similar. Well, I had always said I was fond of teaching, I had 24hrs Internet access and I was decently good at Math so I thought "why the hell not?"

And so I started.

I took it nice and slow at first. While I researched the competition, I also started posting at various sites, looking at the type of questions being asked, why particular posters were more enthusiastically received and what worked for the student.I also made a list of the things I would need to seriously take up this.Top on my list was a computer(though that didnt arrive) till Jan2006.

I researched hosting options, domain name registrations, compared competitors and drew rough drafts of what I wanted the site to look at.
However, my real piece of luck came when I met 64BitWhore via PagalGuy.com(India's largest MBA forum). He really kick-started everything.I hadnt yet registered a domain name so over 2 sleepless days and nights we thrashed over a domain name and I finally registered that. A little later I got my server as well. He really helped me a lot--fm Domain Name selection+registration to setting up the pages and the advertising and general advice and really a whole lot more that I can put down here.

I registered the domain on 13/8. 13/8!!! 6 whole months after I had started doing this. Sure I had a Tripod page up but that couldnt really be considered anything worthwhile. 6 months is a long time. Had I registered earlier, the search engines would have found me earlier, and perhaps I would be better off than I am today.

My mistakes?? Plenty!!
I waited too long to register a domain name.
I really didnt search thoroughly for the lowest prices. I found a hosting solution with Rediff that would have cost me 2.5k. Instead I got everything done for less that 1.5K.
I hadnt researched payment vendors enough. I was going to go with PayPal!!
I had no idea how I was going to advertise or make the site popular

Guess I've come a long way since then. Still there are plenty of things I could improve. But isnt that the best part on entrepreneurship? Learning and whatever mistake you make, is --well whatever... :-)

p.s. Though it may look like I make a post only when I make a sale, that's not true! Been working on this for a while but yeah sale count is now 3! :-)

Why?

2006-03-01T09:42:00.000-08:00

Why do people blog? I always thought Blogging was kinda egoistic(or is it egotistic--i forget which is the correct word). I mean, I know that some blogs are downright hilarious, for e.g. Sidin's blog, but the rest? What made them think that total strangers would be interested in reading their blog?

Why should you be reading even this in the first place? Apart from wasting atleast 2 mins of your time, what purpose does it serve? And what do you gain from it?

So why am I blogging? Show-Off obviously!!! Well, also the fact that I promised myself I would start a blog when I made my first sale.

Why?

Like I said--Ego. Leaving my marks for posterity. Someday when I become really famous somebody's gonna discover this blog and then you'll get a peek into my life from the time it started to get exciting!

Or perhaps I'll cringe at how idioticly naive I was. And Arrogant. And stupid.

Oh, and the count is now 2 sales!! :-)

My first Sale

2006-02-28T10:16:00.000-08:00

Today I made my first sale.