There is something good about being in a University campus, and working there. You sometimes feel younger beyond your years, and sometimes you just feel out of place. In either case, it provides you an alternate reality – not that I wish for it, but the difference in perspective in opinion and viewpoint is one that I thoroughly enjoy.

I overall liked the talk. It was simple, casual, touched upon personal lives – had a wee bit of self promotion – was optimistic, and the tone was real. But perhaps the message was exaggerated.

See, Gandhi said the words “Be the change that you want to see”. Quite powerful words, and one that finds itself many meanings, depending on what lens you are wearing. Nandita felt free to use those words to stir up a moment, and even an applause from an audience. I dont blame her, but I think its a very common mistake. Let me tell you why.

Those words are around sixty years old. Look around you and tell me what has changed. Probably a little. Thats what nobody tells us about. I think we have developed this over-romantic ideology of what “Change” is. It’s really the simple things, and the little steps really. India going from a country which was under an empire, to becoming self-governing, to actually being one of the “positive” news in the economic situation – That’s change. But none of it comes easily. And if you look at things from an individual standpoint, you probably wont even have much to talk about.

Societal changes take ages to come into being. I have almost come to the conclusion that people never change. Its nice to stand on stage and talk about not getting angry when we are insulted. But the man was right, man is social and we are animals. And the first instinct is to get angry. And those who do act differently are either insane or, saints – both of which takes some working internally. The masses simply don’t comply with those rules.

So why am I writing about this topic in a supposedly “Startup guy’s” perspective. Because I think change is at the essence of entrepreneurship. We all aspire for it. We would love for what we create to take the world by storm, but most of us will live to see that thats not true. The world in most cases will act quite indifferent to it – not even hate it, which is the worst part. My mentor raised me repeating those words as I was making my baby steps. That was his way of preparing me for the real world. I couldn’t thank him more for it.

So does radical change ever happen? Absolutely. It happens only twice. One, if people are chasing after something that they desperately want. Its the romantic change. People will go to hell and come out unscathed to get that girl, that house, that future for their child. And there is one other occassion when that beautiful transformation happens – when we are at the brink of extinction.

Tell the world now that we need to save energy, and preserve water, and take care of this planet. They wont. But when our own life is going to be threatened, we would shut down all of our gadgets in a heartbeat, and happily prefer to live in the forests, in an unconnected world, oh so easily. Drastic change does happen… yep, but when we are in the precipice of extinction. If you are a startup though, that’s probably not the scenario you want to aim for

Be the Change… inspiring words, but somehow I have a feeling that those words will be scribed in futuristic placards and placed in a museum eons from now, and we still wouldnt notice the changes around us… because we missed everything. Because the change really is in the smaller things. When you can raise the tolerance level amongst ourselves by a few seconds, when one atleast starts listening to another for his viewpoint, and simply when we start reaching out for our ancient trait – of being an argumentative Indian, I believe thats where change really takes place.

What did didn’t expect is the sheer push of some magical moment that has happened within the community to attend the event. we are nearing 400 attendees for the event, and that’s a “significant” jump from the 250 that we had last time – and trust me when I say that I am genuinely surprised. I always thought that the southern states were more entrepreneur-centric. I suppose it takes a good shot to really prove and debunk theories and myths as well.

In the following two days I am going to be writing to you to prep you to help set some expectations and in terms of some of the activities that we are planning at the event. The Innovation brainjam on the second day is something I am personally looking forward to. The credit goes to Amit Somani of Google, who threw open this open-ended way of brainstorming that they practice at google and as we pondered over the possibility of doing that in a conference. It should be loads of fun.

If you are a blogger by any means are a little rusty, this is the time to sharpen your skills. It’s going to be a liveblogging marathon this time, and we even have a surprise for the best live-blogged summary of the event. If you are the logical, knowledgeable one, well take heed. The quizzes are there to die for. I’m sure you’ve enjoyed the quizzes on the blog, and you’ll see more of it live in action, and as random teams come together to compete.

We are still looking for folks to take up various activities (If you are a good photographer, do let us know). So if you would like to help volunteer, the mailing list for the same is the first place to start, Have fun, keep your heads up high, and as we get together, let the voice that we always echo, echo once more – may the startups win!

PS: We’ll mostly be lurking around the venue starting tommorrow. Feel free to drop by and say hello. We do take encouragement in terms of homemade cookies too – Just kidding.

Some of the key observations for the weekend:

Democracy – More critics, and extremely less participants. Atleast thats the way it feels like. We started an initiative called I Fix (which has taken off to other cities) and are planning our next activity. I am really wishing that someday there is going to be a significant turn out in one of the planning meets – given that there are close to a 100 volunteers on the mailing list. So far haven’t achieved that, but is it always this way – that there are few planners and the rest all just fall in place?

Comedy: Went to the Laughter Fest in the evening with a colleague and friend, and must say that yesterday’s play was much better than some of the ones I had seen earlier within the same fest. Theatre is fun I must admit, though the flaws of a poor done script stands out blatantly at your face. Yesterday’s play “Twice around the block” was a stellar performance, except for the bit in the second play (most of the plays were multi-part) the lady who played the wife seemed to have this monologue going on with her at most times, when there was another character on stage (perhaps the quality of a wife she was trying to become?). I heard that Amit Singh who put together this entire idea to bring together so many directors and plays together, is bent on making a living in theatre – and one that is quite nascent here in Chennai, if I may say so. I am sure he knows that better than most others. It certainly is applaudable in that case trying to live as an artist.

Identity: I still don’t understand why folks don’t adapt scripts for India, or take some of the work of an Indian writer (Anyone noticed the spurge of indian writers lately?) and would adapt it into a play – it would make much more sense than trying to make vague jokes about Iowa and Idaho which no one here seems to be able to place. That’s a much longer topic that I’d like to discuss someday.

Death: It’s sunday morning and I just heard that someone close, and someone who was very wise passed away two days ago and the funeral was yesterday. I have been bothered by something for the past two days, and I am wondering if this event had something or anything to do with it. Immanuel, was a man who stood for nothing of ice-glacing, told the truth as it is, never got too emotional to lose perspective, was a loving father, a great man and husband, and one who met his end in his sleep. They say the end of a man’s life depicts his entire life, and knowing the way he finished his journey, it feels as if his ability to plan stands out till the end.

I remember some of my friends growing up in other countries, that whenever they met people who had lived their entire lives in India, they’d ask them something about the hometown of their parents and some remote village, or some news which was a headlines for a while, and they’d draw a blank. I knew that they always whispered under their breathe that this kid was pretentious, when he or she really wasnt.

That’s not where the issue ended. The issue really began there. The issue really got worse when it came to social engagements. Now Whom would an ABCD marry? An indian girl – in which case the girl would beat him with a worn out pair of slippers cause he’d be clueless about any of the local customs, or a foreigner of the land who’d possibly adjust well with him, but his parents and family would have a hard time reconciling?

This is a question that people spoke about, lived out and reconciled as the first generation of American Indians were born and raised. We have a similar issue brewing up.

I essentially believe that there are three generations of people living in India – or types if you may call it so.

The Conservative. The Emancipated Male and Female. And the Pretentious ones.

The Conservatives are the easiest ones to handle with. They wish things were as they were, and they wish things will be as they are now. Change is an enemy and most of the reasons to stop change are always dropped upon the commonly sought out excuses of culture, value, family prestige, etc etc.

The Emancipated Male and Female. This is the new generation of the youth which are coming up. These are the Indians 2.0, if you may call them so. These are the folks who have strong values, and do not compromise them for anything or anyone – even when it at times stands in the way of something else that they are equally passionate about. This is the target group that is our hope.

The Pretentious. This are the group of people who’d fling depending on which side would make the most sense and which seems to be the trend in the cool-o-meter. If going around sipping coolade was cool, they’d do that. If sipping wine and cognac was, then so it would be. If sleeping around, getting drunk, and growing hair and wearing ‘blink’ got them what they wanted, they are a content lot. The wanna-bes. There are quite a few of these around, which is the group which makes the most amount of noise despite very few productive contribution.

The Dilemma of the ABCD has found a new home in the lives of the Emancipated. The pretentious depending on when the going gets tough usually hops onto the bandwagon of the conservatives – at heart he is one anyways – and usually ends up quite happy. It’s the emancipated and enlightened souls which actually get stuck with the same questions that taunted the first generation of foreign born indians.

I am mostly talking about relationships here. I am lately talking to quite a few folks, and realizing that most of the folks in my circle of friends are folks who are quite strong headed about something, do have an absolute direction and conviction about where they want to go (Artists, Writers, Lawyers, Investment Bankers, IAS Officers, Life-changing-social-work) and all of them are… single. Most of them are also women, and the excuse one of them gave was that “The Indian male isnt truly ready to accept an emancipated woman yet”. Perhaps there is truth to that.

The previous generation before us wasnt all that picky. My dad and mom tell me tales as to how they got married, and it was as simple as their parents meeting, my parents meeting (once) and the wedding that followed. Fino. By the end of it, I am always gasping for breathe with the millions of questions that rush into my head. The expectations of the present day generation are quite high. From values, to social commitments, to goals, aims, religious beliefs, to the community we belong in and the circles that we run in seem to play a role as to whether a potential spouse will find us compatible or not. Now thats just the preliminaries. There is more to it when it comes to the actual conversations, and let alone the dance that follows that.

I have observed that there are three issues that plague and complicate these relationships. The Mental combination is the first. Most of these folks do require their personal space and their freedom to pursue their dreams. The Second requirement is that of the expectations each of them have in terms of their potential partners – all the way from the height, to things like – she should be someone who appreciates food, language and cultures of other lands, should love to travel, and perhaps be musically inclined. The third bit is the part where the family comes in, where community, values, and other issues have to be ensured to align.

Mind you though, this is not a common problem. This is a problem that that rare 1% will face. And that one percent is a million in India. And if you take the less than 50% of the population being below 25, and perhaps a much smaller percentage being in the age group of 21 to 27, you will soon realize that though small, the power house of the next indian economy is not socially adept yet.

They say that its not social policies, nor the government, but an entrepreneur who looks for social inefficiencies and brings about the needed fixes to cater to the social segment that might most benefit. For one, I refuse to believe that the 20 odd people, the most fabulous people in my life, do have to compromise on something – most of them quite personal – to even look at the possibility of a marriage. I refuse to believe that there is not a fit available out there who’d make their relationship, values, and expectations fit like a glove. Bharatmatrimony, Shaadi.com, Second Shaadi, or Idontwantdowry.com, are not going to, and arent cutting it. You tell me, how you’d fix an issue like this? I’m personally interested – on the business side.

So lately I am on a spree of trying out some UMPCs and HCL was nice enough to send the Mileap Y series to the office the other day. That machine, given that its an indian product is quite stunning. The looks are okay – there seem to be much nicer looking ones out there – but the functionality quite measures up. I got to hang on to it for a few days, and had to return it back – not without a teary eye and all.

There were a couple of ASUS EEE PC that were lying around in the office and I’ve picked up one of them, to use them for emails and such, and essentially move all my “communications” out of the desktop PC, and get it into this small, mean, machine.

For one, I am absolutely adapting and loving it. To a point where my normal Vaio is starting to feel heavy, bulky and hmm… inconvenient. Well, I know i couldn’t type this much without a full-fledged laptop, so it aint going anywhere – if at all you were even daring to think about sending me a msg asking if my laptop was for giveaway.

The Point is this. I still think that the Mileap ones, for its touch capabilities, is a better bargain. its slightly more expensive, but the fact that I could use it as a tablet PC is just uber cool. Most times you are taking notes, and this puny keyboard could stand in the way of all that. Plus, with a tablet, you could start drawing things – which could come quite in handy for some of the things I try to explain in this blog, me thinks.

So, the overall consensus is that once touch screens become ubiquitous, there is a whole new world waiting to be awakened.

As Always I’ve tried going through the list of things I’d like on the phone, and here they are:
1. I do check mail on the go, and do very much need it.
2. Ability to hop to a wireless lan when available would be great.
3. Should be type friendly.

Now My options are to go with an Apple Iphone, a Blackberry Curve, or a Sony Xperia.

I love the Apple Iphone, because its an Iphone – does anyone need any other reason than that? It obviously has a slick interface, and gmail on an Iphone is a dream come true. It is not quite push email, but I guess do whatever I am doing currently, and logon whenever I do find the time and catch up with emails. And the fact that it can hop to a wireless lan, and has an awesome screen space, is tempting enough.

The Cons:
1. Given as to how many text messages I shoot out – its much simpler to co-ordinate, remind and respond – the iphone’s interface seems very hard to do that. I have been practicing on the interface of the Ipod Touch, but its still very irky. Do things get better? Is there a way to calibrate the touch? Would like to know.

2. I do connect my laptop to the net using my mobile, and apparently the Iphone wont allow me to do that.
3. There is apparently a new version coming out, which means I have got to wait.

The next option is the Blackberry curve. Its one emailing machine for sure. And it has a nice interface, quite easy to use and it can get your addicted. That’s saying quite a bit. I am so proud of this canadian company, and I have used a blackberry before and the only thing that scares you is how you are “always on”.

The Cons:
1. Emails will be pushed to you. That’s definitely an advantage, but I am trying to get my online experience in some healthy format. I have a feeling that I am spending too much time in the connected world.
2. Cant switch to Wireless Lan, no matter what.
3. Monthly connection fees is an extra Rs. 1000. I dont know why, when you can get an unlimited GPRS pack for some Rs. 300.
4. Smaller screen. Which means, no other stuff.

The third option is the Sony Xperia and the Nokia Tablet PC will also come close on this one. I love these two options because of the qwerty keyboard. I like the Sony option better, the styling is much nice. But then again, I am known to have sold my soul to Sony quite a long time back. The good thing about this phone is that it will offer the best of both worlds, but will fall short of an iphone experience. Now that the SDK of the Iphone is out, I am curious to see what sort of apps start coming out. But that’s going to be a dampner with the Xperia option.

There are actually no cons with this option. I think the phone runs windows Mobile, so getting online through GPRS or Wireless lan is never an issue. And it will come with most office apps installed. I need to check how the Gmail experience will be. I am not about to switch to some email app and all. I wonder where I could step in and check out an Xperia in action.

So you the readers, any suggestions? Or is there a totally fourth option that I am missing? And Nope that LG phone is not an option.

It sounds like a dream, but isnt too far.

Try the Zoho Suite. I had mentioned in the first part that you should get a corporate email. It seems Zoho offers that as well. Apart from Email, they offer the calendar suite, and everything from applications to take notes, to Wikis, to CRM, etc etc.

Google Analytics. The first thing you need to do after your website is up, is to essentially track your visitors, and ensure that the one channel that serves and mediates your image to the outside world is well taken care of. The second bit to this is to know how to use Google analytics. There are some very spiffy tools and insights that it can provide. See if you can leverage that.

If you can, get a Blackberry. There was a time when affording a blackberry was unthinkable. These days given that its price has touched just about the price point of a normal phone, its a luxury worth having. Email on the go, is something that once you get used to, will not depart away from.

Get a Project management tool in place. This is tough. And trust me, it will take its own sweet time for everyone to fall in place and start using it, but believe me when I say that without this you are not going to scale anywhere. You will end up baby sitting everyone. The only way to scale is to bring accountability and a mindless, neutral system to monitor everyone helps. Recommendation: Basecamp / Activecollab.

Financial Software: Your Excels are not going to hold those data for long. It is better to switch to a financial accounting software from the beginning to start with. There are plenty of freelancing accountants who will setup this process for you.

Invoice Application. Very soon, I assume you are going to run something for clients, and they are going to require invoices. By the time you figure out what template to use and what all is required, the client would have moved on to so many better things. Try Zoho’s Invoice Suite. Another option is Freshbooks.com

VNC: Virtual access is your best friend when you come home, and want to login to your development machine to get something out – after SSH. Block that darn FTP port and dont allow anything apart from secure access.

Anti-Virus. Firewall. AntiSpamware. You cannot afford to be stopped by these measly pests. Enough said.

Block Bittorrent. If you are on office lan, block the ports that Bittorrent uses. The sheer amount of network congestion that BT causes is not good for a productive environment. Block it at all means. Orkut is next on that list – you need to setup a HTTP Proxy for that.

Go Wireless. For Rs.3000 flat, you can go wireless. Eventually people are going to bring in their wireless and the fun element in a startup is the ability to be flexible. Go wireless from day one.

Theme the Office: You could be very cheap and not really look that way. A good chair will set you back by Rs. 5000 to anywhere upto 8000. But imagine if you can get bean bags, or even a few of those gym balls. I’ve been to offices where they have used floorings from Fabmall, thrown a couple of pillows on the ground, and had done an entire japanese – sitting on floor – with low tables and such. It looked fabulous. One could never pull off such things in a MNC.

Corporate Benefits:

When you are running a startup, the first thing your employees will feel is the lack of benefits. It doesnt take much to put together a few and bridge that gap.

1. Income Tax Filing: If you are paying fairly well, your employees will need to file their taxes in time. MYITReturn.com allows you to do it online. Set apart a date and get it all done, with an accountant.

2. Bring in a Financial Planner for Advice. If your Employees pinch the pennies, and do some planning, trust me, it helps you in the long run. Employees who dont save and burn everything every month, end up as liabilities when you yourself are on thin ice every month. Just before the end of the fiscal year, get a financial planner to come, and have a chat with everyone and get them all on a plan to save.

3. Corporate Mobile Plans. If you are anything more than a five people team, any mobile company would be interested to sell you some plans. Get a corporate plan for all your employees, and offer to cover upto Rs.500 in their bill. Also most corporate plans come with the option of being able to talk to each other for free. Will certainly go a distance in making sure they call and talk to each other when necessary. Picking up the phone and talking is still the best way to get something resolved Immediately.

3.b If you can get a guy to come and collect the payment every month as well, that’s even awesome stuff.

4. Suggest to your employees to stay close to where you work – not more than 30 mins commute time. Help them find a place nearby if required.

More to Follow.

Part One. Part Two. of this series.

You know, for the sheer amount of noise and echo that used to be carried around under the tag of “Long Tail”, things have mellowed down quite a bit lately. But I think there is an increasing awareness among internet startups on the 3P model (Product x Price = Profit) which is looking at means of revenues beyond just Advertising. Not all services can be free. It simply cant be so. While providing the service for Free to the end-user and charging someone else is one model, its just that – just one of the models.

Unlimited creation, creates unlimited consumption. That was what was spoken about the Long tail. If we have to cut through the middle and divide the “people” of the long tail, they are essentially the 80% of the people who arent contributing to the top of the pyramid. They are producing content which is probably not upto par yet. They are major consumers of alternate products. They have their own way of doing things – cult / opensource etc etc.

All of these are opportunities to monetize, while you are serving this segment.

Point #1: Consumers are the ones who really benefit from the Long tail.

Search Youtube for just about anything and you would find it. Because the range of production is so vast, any consumer has the option to consume what he wants. Look at blogs. There are blogs ranging in the millions out there which amount to a significant chunk of content that is getting churned out – including this very one. Anyone who is looking for stuff to read, has plenty of options. The concept of the “long tail” greatly favors the consumers in terms of options, and drowns the producers taking away attention.

Point #2: Consumer options, dont translate to revenues.

So what if there are 250 million blogs out there? Most blogs dont even get a single person visiting them. So from a producer perspective, the long tail does not benefit by much, if it has to be for monetization.

Point #3: There is plenty of hope.

If there are 80% of the folks within the long tail who are “producers”, its actually very very good news, and the best chance for monetization. The rule is simple. Anyone who can help any segment of this 80% – higher or lower, to “professionalize” their service to move into the higher 20% and make more money, will be more than happy to depart from some of that revenue as service fee to you. So build a product or service that enables these masses to make money, and out of that money, take what is yours.

Thats a reason why salesforce.com makes sense.

More to follow on this.

PS: Do a search on “The long tail” and you will realize that the long tail concept applies to everything from digital media, to internet voice applications, to the sale of wallpapers, to chip making companies, etc etc etc. The applications are wide as the options in the long tail itself.

A few months later they broke up. I knew I had to kiss goodbye to my DVDs that day. After some major protests, a few of the DVDs returned, some of them were just the boxes.

I don’t blame my room mate and friend about this. Its the way some people are wired. Some people are born with the sense of urgency to constantly get things done, throw out the waste, keep improving and keep moving, but others arent.

For one, I know for a fact that I cant sit on something. I rent a DVD from my store for three days and If I watch it on the first day, right after its over I’ll make sure it goes into my car and is duly handed in into the store the next time I pass by. I could rarely hold on to a book that I had borrowed – past its reasonable deadline, not to anything that I am holding onto, which belongs to someone else.

We all eventually will, and with a certain magnitude of determination and passion will get the things done, the way we want it. But how soon, and with what preparation and to what quality is what sorts the losers from the winners. I absolutely believe in that. If you want to spot a winner, spot one that can’t sit on her hands, but is constantly moving, and aiming for that imaginary face before her, getting ready for the big fight. That’s a winner you need to bet on.

Everything that is poised as the questions of life, haunt an entrepreneur. The existential questions, some of which can only be answered by “it depends”, face an entrepreneur over and over again over the course of life, career and during the course of the venture. I sometimes wish that starting off a company and ending it was nothing more than a fixed set of rules and line item numbers of tasks to follow, but it really isnt. To quote Sahil of Deskaway who had commented on a previous post, sometimes running a company is very much the dance you do with philosophy, and entrepreneurship has a lot to do with your personality, and how it develops.

A lot of folks today are in a rush to succeed. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know and when asked, nobody has a straight answer. It seems to be taken as the norm that if you are an entrepreneur, the defacto is to make money and make it fast. Sometimes the truth couldnt be miles further.

Getting Rich Young.
Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Rose, The Youtube Fellas, Nichalas Zennstorm: These are just a few examples of people who have made money in a short period of time – both in terms of age, and in terms of how fast they have created “value”. How do you do get there, if getting there is the agenda, and what do you do when you get there?

Whats the Agenda?
Start something that has a “purpose” says Guy Kawasaki in his talk “The Art of the start”.

To me, being an entrepreneur means that you are one of those gifted individuals who can look at the world, see its problems and come up with a solution. The solution might make sense to be groomed as a business, or it could simply be a solution that could change the way we think and see things around us.

Understand Timelines and Prioritize
If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, one of the key “needs” of an individual that comes up is the very notion of existence. How long will you be around in this world? When will death come meet you? And when it does, how will people remember you and for how long? If we knew that we’d be gone in a year, two or three, would we still be postponing the things we want to do and be chasing after riches that we won’t even be able to enjoy?

The answers are very personal and really does depend on each individual and the moral fibre that binds them. Personally, Existence means being able to define oneself expressively in the form of something that comes out of them, with their signature on it. Something that is an extension of yourself, and lives on beyond the person from whom it was born.

Be Aggressive, but Keep your Character.
My mentor often used to quote me the words “Talent will take you to the top, but only character will keep you there”. I know that I have to repeat those words to myself everyday, whenever I am by nature trying to respond in a not-so-positive way to the not-so-positive things that sometimes are thrown at you. Character is very much how we react to what happens to us. Bad things happen to people. if it happens to Good people, the reaction is always a good or better thing. It’s the reaction that essentially is an answer to the question of one’s character.

As part of being young, and many entrepreneurs being young, being agressive and moving fast has become a standard routine to follow. It’s the only way to get noticed, be taken seriously and to move up the so-called ladder. It’s important to keep the cool while doing that. Gotta play along with others. Put up with people who aren’t fast enough. Respect elders for their experience. And most of all bear with the little ones who arent showing maturity, but do get affected by those who do define it. They will say a lot of nasty things, just because they can. How you react is how you will be defined.

When? And How old?

I believe it was a quote by Craig Newmark (of Craigslist), who said that “We both know some people who own more than a billion (dollars) and they’re not any the happier”. It’s when you hear statements as that when you have to step back a bit and wonder, and sometimes even run through those existential questions one more time to ask what is it that one really wants to achieve.

You are 25 and you are a billionaire. What do you do after that? I’m sure the obvious answer is to go blow up that money, treat everyone around you with fancy gifts, world tours, your private jet, and maybe even own an island. All of that can be done in a month, and at a max of a year. What after that?

Age and maturity, though can be manipulated, do go hand in hand. I personally know that a lot of people think I am older than I am, and life has thrown me a fair share of trials (was diagnosed with tumor when I was quite young) which has contributed to all that, but at the end of the day, I know I am what my age is. The needs, how society categorizes you, and how you feel when you are alone with no one watching, reflects the age you are in. A lot of folks have become rich and famous at such a young age thanks to their talent, but not everyone can handle it. Money, comes with a fair bit of attention, a lot of pretentious love and care, and a lot of fabricated relationships. It can get a lot harder to see through what is what without losing your radar and moral compass.

Whats the hurry?
When I recently Met Subho Roi of IAMAI, he was casually mentioning how these days everybody is in a hurry to build a company, a product and sell it all under six months and max a year and move on. He rightly was expressing how much of a sad thing it is, and how most mature and stable businesses are built over time – and so are markets and products. I do concur with him.

A stable product takes atleast five years to mature. The Linux kernel, The Google search engine and even look at skype and companies which have built companies and products that have revolutionized things. The so-called first release was after a rough period of four to five years. The time it takes to build a service on the web, and the development process per se has been radically altered lately, but six months is still cutting it close – very close. The market analysis and product evolution would barely begin within a year or two. Market tractions take time, and so does customer adoption and loyalty building. Only time can build a company that can stand its test.

As much as revenue models are essential for a business, clarity in direction and vision for an entrepreneur as an individual is extremely important. At the end of the day, when all is said and done,you want to be satisfied with what you leave behind – and not some skeletons of the past by-gone era, a legacy worth remembering, and an impact that atleast a few would not forget. Take it easy. In the words of David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) of 37signals, there will always be work in a startup. From bootstrapping to growing to scaling, you will always have plenty of work which will constantly keep overwhelming you. But define your own pace. Define what you want. Define who you are, and what are the values you hold. Evolve your own principles of what you will do and what you will never do. Live by it. If you don’t know who you are, moreso who you are not, survival itself will become an issue.