Interesting account of how Backblaze navigated through an M&A discussion, and what to watch out for, read here.
A Billion Dollar Indian Internet Company
I have always (after coming into the VC industry) heard the concept of $1 bn company while evaluating early stage businesses. “Can it become a $ 1 bn company?” has been a perpetual question. I always doubted on the concept of $ 1 bn market cap internet company out of India. However; last week our […]
Launching GrexIt – Your shared email memory
I have been working for the last couple of months building this tool: www.grexit.com. If you use Google Apps for your email, you’ll most likely find it useful. A small description of where we are trying to get at with GrexIt follows (It uses a browser plugin that we currently build only for FF 3.x): This is […]
Criticality of getting product roadmap right in early stage ventures
This is a cross post from my blog. Thought it might be relevant to share it in this forum. It is common knowledge that the success or failure for a new venture is primarily dependent on three factors – market, product and team. Entrepreneurs are traditionally good at identifying a market need and hence the two potential areas […]
The ‘Cost’ of Facebook Marketing (Wall Street Journal)
There are frequent debates in our workshops about whether the time and effort spent on building a Facebook marketing or brand experience is worth it. Is it really positive when it comes to return on investment? Let me walk you through an interesting example of an ROI evaluation of an Indian brand’s community on Facebook. Ching’s […]
The Guy who sold 2 Cos. to Flextronics
At Venture Intelligence, we recently did a podcast with K.V. Ramani, Founder of Future Software and Co-Founder of Hughes Software Systems – both of which were acquired by Flextronics in 2004. KVR’s story is a fascinating account of the tribulations and success of an early mover in the Indian software industry, who chose – in […]
Startup talks from TED
Read write web has a good compilation of startup talks from TED – enjoy! On the topic, who do you think are the best presenters in startup space in India – on the big stage, not workshops…
Tracking Your Company Facebook Page (Wall Street Journal)
In my previous posts on community building on Facebook, I mapped out a way to create a Facebook strategy and promote your company’s Facebook Page. Monitoring it continuously and making sure it occupies the right position in the consumer’s mind, though, will require you to use the right analytics. Your business objectives for launching a community on Facebook […]
Hemu Ramaiah – Story of an Indian Retail Pioneer
At Venture Intelligence, we recently had a great experience interviewing Hemu Ramaiah, founder of the Landmark bookstore chain (in which the Tatas acquired a majority stake in 2005). For me, the interview (which is part our Entrepreneur Podcast series “Entrevista”) served as a confirmation that a customer facing role is the best start to an […]
Why Will People Come to Your Company Facebook Page? (Wall Street Journ...
Communicating the presence of your company Facebook page and keeping users or readers engaged is a second important part of building a company page on Facebook. I had written last week about developing a strategy and an execution plan as a first step. After you’ve identified your community-building objectives and the target audience, the key question to […]
India to gain in PE investments?
A Coller Capital report suggests that India and China might be net beneficiaries of the degradation in PE returns in developed markets. It predicts that PE investments in India and China will continue to climb despite higher risk. Key question: will it happen just in growth investing, or also in venture capital?
Potential of Mobile as a platform for new ventures
In December 2009, mobile data traffic (surfing the net, checking email, exploring social networks etc.) officially exceeded the volume of voice calls across the world’s wireless networks for the first time. Global data traffic has nearly tripled in each of the last few years with some 400 million mobile broadband subscribers generating more traffic than […]