As the regulators try to curb the menace of unwanted calls, telcos are appealing that their unsolicited calls should be allowed. Masking it under “service-related communications”, some of them have asked for not just upselling, but even calls to past and prospective customers — in my view, this is no different than any other party […]

First of all, let me take the opportunity to wish you all a very successful Year in the days to come in 2007. The Team at Proto have been working quite hard to ensure that the companies that are presenting, the VCs that would be arriving, and the rest of the attendees find the event […]

Venkat, of Deccanet fame, has put an initiative in place to find a solution to lack of rural education – Billionways. It focuses on finding an entrepreneurial solution to the problem of illiteracy, and seeks to jumpstart the same through a non-profit fund. There is emphasis on sustainability, where after a while, each of these […]

The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate While browsing I came across this SMR (MIT Sloan Management Review) abstract. Wanted to share with you as innovation is important for both the start-ups and VCs. According to Mohanbir Sawhney, Robert C. Wolcott and Inigo Arroniz, a company can innovate along any of 12 different dimensions […]

Business Standard has a write up on an initiative by IIT – Mumbai to create a resource for entrepreneurs. The article says that within a week of the soft launch 100 business plans have been uploaded. They plan to have a meet in January for the formal launch and hope to get 4000-5000 entrepreneurs registered […]

I am reading a book by Subroto Bagchi, one of the founders of Mindtree. So far I like what I have read. It is called “The High Performance Entrepreneur”. A quote follows: In the Hindu pantheon , wealth is granted by a goddess named Lakshmi. She is extremely jealous and possessive.She does not come to […]

so it’s not just the business…lines from google: “We hope that someday this institution will eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.“ – Sergey Brin & Larry Page What are they upto: google.org includes the work of the Google Foundation, some […]

I see atleast two examples of attempts at viral marketing by “Make my Trip” – High 5 program and “Seventymm” free six program. None of these pays for getting a user to sign up. They have to buy a ticket or continue being a member for the refferer to receive benefits. In pay per impression […]