Vijay Anand | The Startup Guy.

What Yahoo Should Possibly Go After. Part II

// October 17th, 2008 // No Comments » // Business, Entrepreneurship, Ideas to Toss, India, Technology, Web 2.0

This is a continuation to a Post that I had written Earlier.

“Yahoo could emerge with an edge, if they leapfrog into other verticals following the same web-based advertisement network.”

For a company which has entrenched itself in the media space, managing advertisements networks i probably the holy grail. I wouldnt recommend that Yahoo give up that leverage. Instead of going head on with Google and losing out on that battle, all they need to do is leverage that asset in a different vertical.

I wrote about perhaps using advertising networks, especially multimedia (audio/video) ads in Radio and television networks. One could argue that the ad server requirements, the infrastructure requirement and cost of operations would significantly vary because of the medium. I’d agree to some extent. But there is also a way to deploy the already existing asset, as-is, into different verticals. Read on.

(more…)

The Startup WorkForce : A Proposal to the Community.

// October 12th, 2008 // 35 Comments » // Entrepreneurship, Ideas to Toss, India, Open Source Innovation, Technology, Web 2.0, tips

This is a wonderful time to be starting up. You will come across very few people who will give comparisons to all the benefits they get working for big corporates. Its one such time. Hiring will be slightly easier, and retaining them will be even more easier.

Even in the midst of all that, it does seem that a lot of the Startup Companies are hardpressed for resources here in India. Here’s a solution.

A few of us have been talking about putting together a centre that trains people (as blank slated as freshers) on the common technologies that people use while building products – the usual PHP, Python, AJAX, MySQL, etc etc and getting them upto speed on mashups, APIs, documentation, and moving forward. That is the level of skill that most of the startup community folks are looking for it seems. Or am I wrong here?

If I am right, then there is a simple way around it. Every chapter of OCC in the country is doing quite well. I heard from Santhosh that Pune is a 300 people group now (though I do suspect that the turn out ratio would be still less), but who knew Pune had 300 people who would be open to being part of a community right? And the same case has gone on with Bangalore, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, and even now and then with Mumbai.

Here’s the thought. What if in one of the OCCs a dozen of the startup companies, especially the folks who can code and code really well, commit that they will run a two month training program for people in these languages? It is going to take a bit of time and commitment, but there are a lot of resources already on the web, and with a couple of screencasts, and proper documentation, you could essentially also use it as training material for the next batch of people that you hire in your company later on.

What I am proposing is that a batch of technology entrepreneurs, each taking a week to cover different aspects of the course, could put their hands together to collaboratively solve an issue which is haunting a great many of them. (more…)

What Yahoo Should Possibly Go After. Part I

// September 12th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Ask Vijay, Business, Ideas to Toss, India, Open Source Innovation, Technology, Web 2.0, tips

So I know that there are a gazillion guys out there in the whole wide world, who have given “open” advise to Yahoo as to what they should do. I am neither an expert, nor am vested into the company to have such generosity towards them

A friend of mine and I, over some conversations were discussing about some of the bigger brands that we see around us and something along the topics of Return on Equity. Not sure if you are aware of, but Microsoft has a 52% return on equity. Yahoo has roughly about 7% and falling drastically and Google has one which stands at around 26% – and growing steadily. Whatever you may say, Microsoft has played this game with a whole new set of balls and one most people simply won’t understand. And if you ask me, they are a much better company in terms of strategy and products compared to Google, anyday.

Yahoo could emerge with an edge, if they leapfrog into other verticals following the same web-based advertisement network.

But that’s not the focus of this post.

The conversation was that, if a company has Advertisement as its core strength and has built a competence in it, then its going to be very hard for the company to drop that and adapt the advertising network of its partner/rival. Well, for the case of survival they might, but since they do have the core competence, the resources and the minds that can think in that direction, what could they possibly do, was the question.

Fact: Yahoo makes most of its money via advertisement, and that too on banner ads.

This becomes an issue when you have so much internet portals and properties, but just simply have to fill them with advertisements in order to make them viable. And in this day and age of APIs, nobody might even come visit the site to get hit by the advertisement. You are forced to rethink in terms of strategically placing the advertisement within the content, but thats a very very hard thing.

My Take: I think this is probably the same route as making fiber out of rocks. There might be some way to do it, but whatever it is, its one rare, long process.

I’d say, flip the coin, and lets look out to the horizon. Go after other streams, television and Radio… to be precise.

(more…)

The “Chennai” City Wall Project.

// September 10th, 2008 // 8 Comments » // Chennai, India, Technology

You must know by now that we get involved in quite a bit of work related to the city. I believe that a city is a representation, collection and expression of the people living in it. If you walk into a city and cannot hear the voices, and expressions of its people, the city … aint quite alive. And I love having cities which are alive.

Mahesh Radhakrishnan, a friend of mine who is behind MOAD and is one really talented architect and I often meet to discuss about something we can do to solve these issues.

One latest such initiative is to setup something like this in Chennai. We are going to need some hands on this, but if and when it comes out, it will be quite something to boast about. What do you think?

This is an installation done in (Helsinski) Europe. We are planning to build the same at a fraction of the cost.

Youtube Link of the Wall in Action.

The Irony in the Media World.

// September 10th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Entrepreneurship, India, tips

If there is one vertical that you MUST follow if you want to see some drastic changes happening, its essentially the media world. The way “media” is distributed, consumed and monetized is going to such drastic morphism that its hard to predict how its going to look like at the end. Like all things natural, a few business models would evolve, but the path to that is going to be quite a bumpy one with such established heavy weights.

We’ll most certainly get into the juicy details about this vertical, partly cause I am very much interested in it, but this post is not about that.

There was once a man who said that if you are looking at change, then you must go back to the fundamentals, look at the system at its bare bone and then see how it should go from there. That’s quite a solid piece of advice actually.

So this is the irony. Whats the difference between a jingle and a track? Quite literally none. While costs money to get it “aired”, the other demands money for people to buy and listen to it. Aint that quite interesting…

Ideas to Toss: Energy Storage FAT?

// September 9th, 2008 // 7 Comments » // Entrepreneurship, Ideas to Toss, India, Open Source Innovation, Technology

It’s quite possible that I am just plain simply crazy, but if you bear with me and try to understand how my brain and thought process works, I think there is most certainly an idea here.

Energy is a Pressing Matter and Hot Topic in all Circles, but I think the basis of our problem isnt focused on.

So I was sitting through a Sustainability Conference in IIT Madras today and there was one talk on Energy Consumption. The talk essentially mentioned how we ascertain energy demands by our peak hours. The problem being we need that at the most, and at times when its not the peak, we have to “shed” the load, and it usually ends up being dumped into the grid, and thanks to our grids not being designed properly, it usually ends up overloading half of rural India. That’s a different story all together.

The hint was in a passing by comment that the problem with energy is that it has to be consumed as and when its produced. There is simply no way to store it. If you want to store it in batteries and such, its simply not viable for large quantities, since its very expensive.

I have no idea what happened for the rest of the talk, apart for when he showed graphs and numbers – which always catches my attention, but he also mentioned that they were not accurate, which made me go “bleh” and back to my thinking process.

The Idea:

So Energy. The basis is that all energy is created from one form or the other. So Lets accept that we cant break this rule and make newton roll over in his grave. Knowing limitations are a plus point.

Lets learn a little bit of inspiration from biology. We take food, we break it down into amino acids, the smallest and easily metabolic form of food, and then the system burns it into energy as per the demands of the body. Compare it with however it is that we create energy, saying that one form of energy – coal or whatever is converted into energy which is converted into electricity which is probably the simplest form of energy.

If you look at biology, the food that is intaken, if the broken down food is more than the “demand” of the system, then the system quickly converts them into FAT and stores them all around the body – which is what provides all those funky love handles that people put so much energy to get rid of. But quite strictly speaking, its just the systems way of saying that we are consuming more than we need, and it is storing it away for a rainy day. The first signs of starvation and thats the storage unit that the system starts feeding off of.

Whats the FAT version of electricity? That’s the question.

Now, I am thinking that there is a possibility here that one cannot go directly from coal into  free flowing electrons. And we are probably missing a middle step that might help us with efficiency.

Secondly, there must be a way to join these electrons to become something that is more passive and with a trigger break them down into simpler free flowing electrons again.

And you know what? If that is possible… you and I would never have to wait for ages for our phones or ipods t get charged. We can technically dump these “FAT” into our devices, and let the device trigger these substance into electrons so that we get a full charge. But the deal is that, just like it doesnt take the body more than a few enzymes to break down FAT back into Amino acids and use them, we have to have these in a form that the devices themselves can transform without elaborate machinery – aka. combustion chambers and engines.

I think it should be possible. These are days when I wish I was a physicist and a chemist put together. But if, and I think it can be, it is possible, then technically we should be able to catch “energy” as and when it happens – from the lightnings, to tornadoes, to cyclones, save up all the energy and use it for when we need it. We can harvest all of the Sunlight hitting the earth and probably setup plants that can fight some of the global warming, and probably use energy in a way that is not as harmful to the planet as our current barbaric ways are.

What Do Startups Need?

// September 9th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Business, Entrepreneurship, India, Technology

"What do Startups need" is the Question asked these days.

Seems like that’s the kind of question a lot of companies which are looking to support, nurture and grow alongside Startups are asking themselves these days.

I’m invited to be part of a fairly small panel that is to discuss on this very topic tomorrow in Bangalore in a short meetup that Sun Microsystems is putting together.

The more I think about it, I think the sheer number of pages where business opportunities, support systems, efficiencies can be made all seem to just go on and on and on.

I think the key element that it comes down to is not “selling”, but “enabling”. Really, if you think about it and put all the power law distribution to  a graph of economy (financial status and revenues) versus size of the company, it’d be quite easy to see the bigger corporates easily contributing to 80% of the economic wealth that is being garnered. That’s almost a no brainer.

I think the insight is this: An average startup entrepreneur is young, imaginative and full of ambitions and dreams. The key is to enable them. Not sell to them, but help them achieve their dreams. Its going to be pretty much the same way that you would want to support artists to come out with more creativity.

Someone wise once said that the role of a supporting organization to a startup should help startups make truck loads of money and make a small slice out of it. We need to tie in our success with that of the startup. Everyone wins in the end.

So now, most organizations are not gonna want this headache. Go after all the small companies, give them that additional support and handholding, just for 20% of the revenue. But isnt 20% quite a lot? I dont think it would ever make sense for a company to focus on just this 20%, but if they were already saturated with the market share in the corporate world, a 20% extra market share will give these companies a lot of footing, wouldnt it?

Now obviously, the number of companies very much increases. The queue of companies to support would almost be as long as the infinitely long tail itself. Thats when shared resources make a lot of sense. Technology helps to scale. Thats what it does beautifully. And if a technology company says that it cannot cater to this group,.. they woe.. something is truly terribly wrong.

Related Posts from Before:

Selling to the Unaffordable – Part I

Selling to the Unaffordable – Part II

A Lesson to Learn. Reflecting on the Mirror of Global Startups.

// September 8th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Business, Entrepreneurship, India, Proto.in, Technology

My mentor oft used to say that everyone had something to teach us. It was all a matter of either what you should do, or what you should never do. If you look back at everyone in your life, that’d probably quite nicely fit the bill.

If you are at all interested in Startups, or are an entrepreneur, its quite hard to not notice whats happening in the Silicon Valley from time to time. And right about this time, it seems to be the humorous series of incidents – or some might call “planned coups” – that are going on in the valley amongst DEMO and Techcrunch, all in the name of “giving startups a platform”. There are 50 techcrunch companies, and close to 70+ DEMO companies going head on today, and amongst all the angry voice of one group accusing, and the other group defending, and then silly bystanders calling all the startups stupid to be sucky, they have all seemed to have forgotten the one reason for their existence – startups. Seems like in an attempt to settle the feuds amongst them, the startups are essentially the ones taking the beating by the supporters of both sides who are trying to discredit the both equally reputed conferences. Both are equally great conferences, which cost equally high amounts of money to pull through and lets not kid ourselves from the fact that both of them have equally made enough money through all this.

I have no interest in all these silly disputes. But it goes to say how even the “valley” can get distracted from whom their customer is. The startups.

We will, and trust me, we will soon come to that point as well – and I doubt that it will be too early when there are going to be a gazillion new startup showcases going on. If its a good thing, people are going to swarm and imitate, and there is absolutely no harm in that – just as long as they remember what the whole ordeal is all for.

I think India is doing amazingly well. Compared to most of the companies that are taking the stage, I am real proud of the kind of companies this country is churning out. We probably still dont have the reach or the spotlight, but there are equally amazing ideas, teams, talents and companies out here – probably better in some cases. I’m lately coming across a host of companies, some in the design space – making of intelligent home appliances, and a company that does design services – and is designing the torch for the commonwealth games (and its said to be quite sophisticated), companies in biotechnology, energy etc etc, that I have no doubts that in a few years, we will be more than what we ever dream, or dreamt to be.

This is also a time when the lack of support for an entrepreneur is probably the least pronounced issue. From capital to mentors, if you are knocking on the right doors, the right support is available and with local support peers such as Open Coffee Clubs and Startup Saturdays, I am really happy at the way we are strengthening this community.

As I am watching the companies at DEMO and TC, there is just one yearning in my soul. If we make better companies, and if we are darn better in hard work, and are more than well aided in terms of talent and capacity, whats it going to take us to the global spotlight. I think its going to take the support of the community as a whole to make that happen. This December as the fifth edition of Proto.in comes together in Bangalore, we’ll definitely take a shot at that – but not without your support. How do we make that happen? Now thats something I want you to help us, nah, ourselves with.

May the startups always win. For a long, long time to come.

Speed is Important. Accuracy is Crucial.

// August 15th, 2008 // 4 Comments » // Ask Vijay, Entrepreneurship, India, Technology, tips

Startup Entrepreneurs are oodles of Fun to work with. Perhaps its that drive within them to change things, and the paranoia of taking on a bigger industry which adds to all that. As hectic as it could be, its nothing short of exhilarating – I seem to be gasping for breathe during the slow times for sure.

So the point is speed. Its a crucial element. I think its the first criteria anyone looks at to evaluate and measure the strength of an entrepreneur. “Fire in the belly” “passion”, are all just variables of the same thing being described, I’d say.

I think the second most crucial aspect when it comes to that is the accuracy – The quality of implementation so to speak.

I wanted to briefly write about this, for a couple of reasons. There are quite a bit of early stage ventures out there – almost 2000 of them at any given point in time, and the truth of the matter is that less than 10% of them survive the first two years. That’s a lot of enterprises dying out. And if you really look at it, what stands as foremost in the list of reasons is the lack of guidance in terms of implementation and execution that counts towards it.

There are this couple of folks who are in the back of my mind (Who are part of the incubator) while I am writing this, and I am wondering if they would survive out there in the world, if not for day to day guidance. Probably not is what i’d say.

In a recent discussion with some investors, the enlightening moment was when someone made the statement that ‘investment is pretty much rocket fuel. It’ll help you go faster, dont know where though”. And I think there is more than an ounce of truth in that matter. Investments, especially money will accelerate the direction that you are aiming for – and God help you if you are aimed at the wrong direction looking at the wall, because the thud will just be that much louder. And as much as everyone claims that they will provide support, guidance and all that, ping me whenever that really does happen.

The truth of the matter is that early stage ventures require almost a weekly review meet. That’s essentially the time period when the company is accelerating and the strategy starts to fall in place. In three months (between board meetings), the company would have gone so off the tracks that it would take years before you can bring it back on track – and dont complain if that window of opportunity you were chasing, isnt there.

So if you are an early stage venture and someone promises you guidance, demand that the minimum guidance you require is one where he/she is available to you any time of the day, and will meet with you for atleast an hour once in a week or fortnight. Its crucial to be accurate when you are racing like a cheetah to take down the elephants.

If you are an advisor, I would suggest sitting with the team in the beginning and doing a brainstorm of all the possibilities in terms of directions, products, market trends and potential exits (its good to think of that distant tunnels). If a company has no scope of going IPO on its own, but will just create a whirlwind of an opportunity and spin to be part of another company, I dont think there is anything wrong with that – and having that clarity will make a lot of difference, because you start focusing on strategic partnerships much more intently.

So coming back to the advisor. Do one elaborate meeting – which you can continue to hold during every three months, and in the meantime meet every two weeks or so and talk about everything that goes towards that. Revenues, Morale, productivity, Team, partners – everything. Jot down all the questions, and start working out possible solutions. The percentage of solution creation is what should shift slowly – starting off with the mentor contributing the most, to a half and half to a point where the mentor just listens and corrects if something goes terribly wrong, and letting the entrepreneur take the helm. You gotta teach them to fish at somepoint Mister!

So Run, as fast as you could. Also make sure you are running in the right direction and doubly make sure that there is infact a door on that wall, and its open.

Ask Vijay: From Employee to Entrepreneur. How?

// August 7th, 2008 // 11 Comments » // Ask Vijay, Entrepreneurship, India, tips

Question: I am interested in starting my own venture and have been doing the groundwork for it. I currently work for a company, but would like to do the pilot run while still holding my day job and as the venture stabilizes, take the plunge fulltime. What would you suggest?

Dear X,

There are a couple of ways to do this and a few things to keep in mind.

1. Usually all job offers have this clause that you have to solely focused on the job you are hired for at your primary workplace. Hence usually taking up another offer or even a consultancy (even if the employer may never find out) is done by getting a letter of permission allowing the employee to be involved with other things.

a) Though this is not required, it gets you a lot of brownie points with your employer, just for the sheer honesty. As much as Proto.in does not interfere with any of the activities of what I do here in the incubation centre – but only enhances it – I still wrote a mail asking for permission and to let folks know that i am involved in something. They go easy on me whenever proto.in is around the corner.

The point: Keep everyone informed so that they can give their support in whatever manner that they could.

2. If you are going to do this as a proprietary thing, then even step 1 wont help, cause its assumed that you are fulltime with the venture – when you are the 100% shareholder and the guy running operations. So what some folks do is register the company in the name of the spouse – if she is not employed, or if her employment contract is not so stringent.

3. One thing to keep in mind is something called the corporate veil. When a company becomes a ‘corporation’ it becomes an entity by itself, that even the founder is nothing more than an employee in it. Because of that structure, if the company goes down under, it still doesnt take the founders along with it – nor their assets, since they were just employees. But there are cases when they consider the corporate veil to be broken, which would be when the personal assets of the founder are mixed up with the assets of the company and in such cases, the founder can be sued – if in the future the venture gets funded and things go awry.

I don’t mean to scare you, but just giving you a heads up on all the things involved.

I would suggest:

1. Go ahead and register the company – if you are sure you want to do this venture.
2. This would be the time to bring onboard some advisors and get them involved in the venture – since there has to be a minimum of two directors to incorporate the firm
3. Get the permission from your current job to be involved.
4. Keep going with that setup, till you are comfortable making the flip – hopefully which wont be too far away.
5. During the process of step 4, at some point your venture will possibly take enough time out of you as your day job. Do talk to the management to perhaps transition into a part-time role if possible. Its good to stay clear with your conscience.

I hope that helps.

Vijay