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Designations and mapping a startup

A few of us were discussing startups, and the point/purpose of a designation arose, and what it actually meant in a startup. So far in life I have been a Founder, Co-founder, CEO, CTO, Vice president, Chief product Officer, Chief of Business Strategy,Executive Vice president, Director, Founding member, Advisor, Board Advisor, and a few other […]

Online Media spend India

Motley fool did a write up on Rediff. The interesting items to me were Users – 53.6 million Revenues: $30MM annually ARPU annual : 0.56 cents. 10 advertisers accounted for 55% of revenues. Maybe all revenues were not advertising related. If say Rediff has 10% ( wild guess) of all online ad media spend then […]

Delighting Customers/ Time

This post builds on the Dhando Investor post which with 20 comments was getting a bit cumbersome. Deepak Nadiger made an interesting comment and I wanted to respond and decided to do it with a fresh post. The hurdle rate discussion is an opportunity to be innovative and delight customers. In the businesses I have […]

Dhandho Investor

I just finished reading “The Dhandho Investor” by Mohnish Pabrai ( the man behind Dakshana). I enjoyed it and it stimulated some new thinking. I also looked at my investing in India over the last two years. On a portfolio with 85% exposure to equities I managed a 45% CAGR(cumulative annual growth rate). I guess […]

How VCs Work :-?

Broadly there are two kind of stock investors – those who know the companies they are investing in and those who don’t. The first ones use insider information or put their analytical skills at work to predict which company would/should/must do well. They take a calculated risk. The second ones (like me) just buy stocks […]

Young Innovation

I was impressed with what I saw at an Amity school in Noida. In the Maths area there were some excellent and fun brain teasers and puzzles put together by the teachers and kids quite a few of which stumped a “late 40 to early fifties ” bunch of IIT folks ( I was one […]

Fear of Failure/ Work Ethic

This is a pet theory of mine and I happily acknowledge it could be wrong. A difference I noticed in how I was raised and how I think kids in USA are raised was that for me it was always ” If you do not do xyz then pqr will happen” Xyz was like drinking […]

Second Life tour

On Friday, 27 April 2007 5 PM, I will be conducting a small tour of interesting places to go and things to do in the virtual world of Second Life, for anyone who is interested. In case you are a member, please IM me and I’ll send you a TP link. To those who have […]

Rebuttal – Social Networking a Waste of Time in India?

Just saw this article from Avnish, Matrix Partners. Avnish, I know you are around somewhere on venturewoods, so please do participate in this friendly discussion! A followup would be unnecessary if I agreed with this statement. However, I must say that I myself do believe that the “kids hanging out” variety of social networks are […]

Dakshana

The site is up. Still a work in progress. It is nice that atleast for some people if they have the merit means will not be a problem. The idea of having a lifelong relationship with scholars is also interesting and may induce some of them to give back. anyone with ideas/suggestions please contact the […]

Kota Opportunity

Kota has established itself as a center of excellence for IIT coaching. Students after class X spend two years in Kota which costs them around 2.5 lacs. I met a value investor from the US , yesterday who has done very well and has set up a foundation in India so that students who do […]

Points of Inflexion

In the US the point of inflexion with the internet was probably 1998/1999 and a lot of the big money was made in the 1998 – 2002 period. Prior to 1998 there were many attempts that were slow to take off. China the inflexion point was probably later. Do not know too much about when […]