In my book, entrepreneurs are those unsung heroes who get set to transform the way – hopefully for the better.

That’s quite a long topic, if we step into that world, and let me narrow it down to the aspect of understanding your end users. Time and time again, we hear phrases such as “Understand your customer” “The Customer is always right” “User-centric design” which in most cases is defined as keeping the customer, and his demands at the centre of the equation and coming up with solutions around them. Do Customers, and users… and most of all humans know of what they really need?

I think this is a crucial question to ask, because analyzing needs and the capacity for a user to pay for a service defines sustainability and in some cases survival for companies – and in this economic situation, for a whole lot of them. So what do users want? Men or Women, as they might be.

I think we have kind of oversimplified the equation at most times asking direct questions about a product. If you get into the details of a product asking questions such as “Imagine if you had an ipod, but better and cheaper, would you get it?”, the obvious answer would be a yes. What one needs to understand, especially an innovator or an entrepreneur is to understand the intangibles. How would buying that product do in terms of the pride, and show-off calibre of that person. A lot usually tends to matter. Long story short, I’d strongly recommend not to ask direct questions. The answers are always in-between the lines. If you interpret it right, you win, otherwise not. But you get better at it over time. Thats the good part.

There is a reason why I am writing this. There was a recent study that I came across that was asked to a group of single men and women as to what is it that they look for in potential spouses. The answers were all tabulated, and then they were observed over a couple of sessions of speed dates. Most of the time, the kind of people that we are “attracted” to, arent the ones that we define as our perfect spouses. And the eerie thing is that, when they did the same survey right after a date, depending of whether a candidate liked a person who didnt match their previous opinion, the answers would sway totally on the other direction. Come back to them after four more weeks and you’d get their old answers back – as the infactuation wears off.

In Summary, we arent capable of knowing what we want. Thats why B2C businesses have such a hard time understanding what their customers are looking for, what ticks, what doesnt, and what makes it all worse.

B2B businesses in that sense are slightly easier, since businesses do tend to have measured and analyzed every process in terms of metrics – either as costs, expenditures, manpower, transactions, or revenue and its all about making a number rise and one go down, and thats easier to measure and deal with.

Do keep that in the back of your head, if you are ideating. As much as customers are king, and their word is final, in most times they also don’t know what they want. You would have to do a little match-making on their behalf. And with time, you’ll get really good at it, if you like doing such things – and that’s the thrill of building a product that clicks.

It seems  to me as if there are a couple of theories floating around these past few weeks.

a) Entrepreneurship is overrated. Entrepreneurship is romanticized, and the often tweeted and retweeted phrase seems to be “My son is without a job, ah! he is an entrepreneur”. Well, That’s probably pushing it far, and yep, perhaps we are breaking the elitism that was once associated with being an “entrepreneur”, but isn’t this what we wanted with all the publicizing that we did and urging one another to chase their dreams? I do see that this could dampen the ones that pride in elitism, but as far as things go, there will always be a gulf between those who can dream, ideate and implement, and those who just wear the badge and do nothing. And really, the more the merrier in this party.

b) There is also this other camp, that seems to think that, Entrepreneurship is too Web 2.0-ised. I can emphatize with this camp.  I dont think entrepreneurship in India is equated with a venture in the web 2.0 world, but most of us derive our first impression from the media that we consume and web 2.0 is essentially Media and new age consumption of those content. You get hit by it in the face over and over again, till you find something interesting. That doesn’t mean that there arent other sort of ventures going on out there. Manufacturing is still one of our strongest sectors and there are plenty of neat things cooking up in that camp. So for those of you freaking out with the thought of drowning in Web 2.0 Gyaan, take heeed, there is a bigger world out there – you just need to step out more.

c) There is a third theory out there that there are a lot of NRIs returning home. And Rajiv Gandhi is rightly quoted that whatever happened a few decades ago was not brain drain, but brain banking. Along with those returning is returning a renewed sense of nationalism, pride, and a whole lot of global interaction practices, that really help us get our quality of work a notch higher to match global capabilities. The complaint is that, along with them comes the baggage to convert the cities of India, into New York and Boston, or London. They do have a point. But sooner or later as these fresh entrepreneurs hit the Registrar of Companies to get their incorporation work done, they will know that things work slightly in a different order in this country.

So, really gentlemen (and ladies), there is not much to fret. You can relax and enjoy the process as our landscape changes before our eyes.

We Really Don’t Dream Big Enough.

What I want to talk about really is not the concerns, but my own concern as to how we aren’t dreaming big enough.  I came across a video at India Interacts, an interview with Gopal Srinivasan of TVS yesterday. There seems to be mention of all the orgs out there, including some blip about “The Proto.in Mindset’. Following the interview closely, I hear him saying that there are lots of Indians trying to do US businesses here in India and its simply not working. That is a very good point and something I strongly believe in. As part of the work at TeNeT and RTBI in IITM, we do incubate companies that aim at Rural India. Trust me, when I say that my heart sinks when people try to fit super-sized urban technologies into that space. Technology has to invisible when it becomes a solution – as for it to really become part of the lifestyle. It’s a mantra i’ve really tried to live by.

What worries me is that the examples that he quotes, the poultry example, or the hospital example are just one angles of entrepreneurship. I agree that education and healthcare are the biggest intervention areas that we need to work in India, but creating any radical change will mean that we need radical policy changes. There are 700 million Indians in Rural India without much health care, but they aren’t dying. They are all getting treated by Rural health professionals (in other words, unqualified doctors, or by trained nurses also diagonising and treating, or pharmacists who are prescribing). We need to find a way to incorporate these things and formalize them as a system. Tell me which Venture capital firm, is willing to stand with a venture that will have to change the way the government thinks? Yet, we do that in IIT. But trust me when I say that it is quite a uphill task and one cant expect changes before three to five years. Most of these investors would be expecting a return and a profit by then. You see what I mean? Change, especially basic lifestyle change will also mean a longhaul game. Are Investors dreaming big enough?

I also think that Technology has to be nurtured. Yes we can think about solutions for our own country, and create poultry farms and money-spinning hospitals, but really how is that going to give us a leverage for us in the global arena? How are our aspirations to become a global nation going to come close to that. The issue with Poultry and Healthcare is that, at the rate the world is moving, there is always going to be a group of people who are going to fall behind. The question is. Are we going to take a stance to have our primary focus taking care of them, or keep our primary focus higher to reach a global audience, find a solution to some of our global problems (climate, energy, finance, communications etc), and then find the means to solve the problems of the lower pyramid?

If I sound a bit too far fetched, let me try this: Take any of the technological advancement or anything that you have, own or find entrenched in your life. Everything from computers to music systems to radios to mobile phones to aircrafts, to submarines to energy, came into our life because someone invested in them. Most of these technologies find their roots in either Military or Space research. Thats the reason why our first step into space is quite a critical one. But some might call that a “Baggage attitude” as well  perhaps. The question comes down to, are we going to outsource all the mainstream innovation to the west and remain a consumer for ever, or are we going to get into the game or not.

I think it is common knowledge now that the two greatest threats that we face are energy and climate. The financial crisis will solve itself – its all a matter of time. The worst that can happen is that we’ll go back to our ways of growing our own crops and working in the farm,but that doesn’t sound so bad as the world shutting down, and us gasping for breathe – or worse, drowning in the molten icecaps. What I fear even worse than that is our children and the generation that follows them taking the flak for what we’ve done to this planet.

I would say that we are already far behind in the investments that we should have put in these areas. If we had focused and invested on terraforming, we probably would have an answer to atleast avert some of the greenhouse effect that we are trapped in. If we had started imagining how we would fuel our cars once we reach mars (where there is no gasoline), we probably would have started to develop engines that can run on Helium and Hydrogen much before its too late.

I do not think we have the liberty to just play a catch-up game anymore (atleast not just that alone. We need to balance both). I am sorry to break that news to the old-timers, but thats the world we are in. We have an opening and a window to design the way this world is going to be tomorrow. We need social responsibilities (I totally agree), but we also need to invest in technologies that can make our lives efficient – not productivity wise alone, but also consumption wise, and that means we need people who can try, test, experiment and learn so that we can do that iterations faster.

We need entrepreneurs who will give this country its vision for the next twenty to thirty years. Where will our dreams be in terms of space, defense, lifestyle, and how will be take care of the poor and the weak amongst us. And more than all that, we also need investors and visionaries (like the likes of Khosla, who can think ahead of the curve), and not take sides of the spectrum, but be supportive and think long term as well.

With the economy slowing down a little, I guess the 3G talk is going to be dampened a bit here in India. But I dont think it should be. The consumerist trend hasnt slowed down and Indians have woken up to enjoying the usage of digital media, devices and services, that 3G as a service could very much consolidate and bank on. This post is partly written with the knowledge I’ve gathered being on both sides of the camp, as part of the Telecom group (and the plans that they are making with IMS – IP Multimedia Subsystem) and where the web, and industry have evolved.

Lets start with a Picture.

Ubiquitous Computing, will not be just a term anymore. Centralized, easily accessible, and convergence. I think that’s the three keywords which are almost mantras in the new lifestyle that is emerging.

Trends:

Follow the numbers on the diagram with the explanations below.

1. Your mobile phone is not just a phone. Ask Nokia and they will tell you that. If we start with the way of 3G, its also the means to a broadband pipe, and 3G is just the beginning. HSDPA, LTE, and all the planned roadmap of the GSM Data Network, seems to be only getting faster and faster. Now, why would I advocate relying on my mobile’s data network as the crucial pipe for everything?

Simply because its personal. I wouldnt use most of these devices on this diagram, unless I was home. Secondly, the “Base” would have an inbuilt GSM device, that would continue the connection even when the device is removed. The Device, if inserted will enable the SIM card, and hence authenticating the user being “home”

2. There are already Cordless devices available from Siemens and the likes who allow you to “add” as many handsets as you want. I’d imagine that the Home Communications device would be something like that. When you come home and plugin your Communication Device into the base, that would configure the Home Telephony system to handle all your phone calls. I think this is where the beauty of Social networks come in. Do you realize why OpenSocial, and especially Dataportability makes a lot of sense? Partly cause of this. Spam. Imagine, you knowing someone and them knowing someone else. If Person C calls you, you might want to pick up the phone. If a random person who has no connection to you in your “Social Map” calls you, there is a high chance it might be a spam. The VoIP Gateway, will be smart enough to also have a routing engine, which will put such calls directly into the voicemail. When you are home, you wont be bringing work home, especially the calls. There will be provisions for different profiles – such as Busy, Family Time, Free and Available Etc, which will allow a person to configure their settings.

There will also be another capability for this system. Notice how there is more than one “Base” in the architecture? The extra bases are for other members in the family. If the spouse comes home and puts his/her PCD into the base, whenever he/she gets a call, the Home Telephone System would pick up the call, and do the same thing, except with his/her settings, and will ring with a distinct ring. Wouldn’t that be neat? No more running around the house searching for your mobile to pick up a call.

Note: Iotum used to have something named a relevance engine to do this. Servion, an Indian Company, has a product named UQE – Universal Queuing Engine which does call routing based on rules as well.

3. The Shared Media Server concept is already happening. I used to be working on a Smart home project sometime back, and the first and foremost thing was a shared Media Server. Sony, along with its Vaio range of products offers a software that can access shared resources. The Songs that you purchase, be it from iTunes, Amazon, or anywhere, will automatically reside on the shared media server. It will also have the podcasts that you are subscribed to, both video and audio, the Television Shows that you have bought from iTunes, the Movies that you have rented over the net from the likes of Netflicks or Bigflicks, and will also be the storage for your Slingbox, or time-place shifted Television programs.

4. Television. Its nothing more than a screen actually. The only difference is that it will have an IP input (most televisions are starting to ship with it), instead of a Cable, and it will have the capability to directly interface with the media server or go online. Another option to configure this would be to allow your Xbox, PS3, or Apple TV Box to do the IP interface and connect the output to the television and shift the intelligence to the Box. With most Gaming consoles coming with an IP interface to go “Live”, and all of them obviously eying for this space in the system, they most probably will make it there.

5. Gone are the days when one used to have clunky and huge music and entertainment systems. I doubt we’d be buying those huge devices which can play music in the masses. There will be a need for such specialized hardware, but if you have a portable device, that is most probably going to go into a dock that can amplify the sound. That’ll pretty much be the extend of the use for home theatres and music systems. The portable systems would have the ability to purchase, download, and navigate to the internet to initiate a purchase/rental download to the media server and some integration to access the media on the Media server.

6. Computers. You will most probably not feel a difference at all. The computer has been the most flexible sandbox as technologies have evolved. The interaction mechanisms obviously would evolve, as touch, voice based technologies mature and become mainstream.

Other Scopes:

We will soon have centralized speaker systems and controls that would allow us to listen to music all around the space, and also zone off areas where we want to listen. Wireless speaker systems will play a part in all this.

RFID controls will factor in somewhere. If I do set the control to “follow me”, the music should follow me whichever room that I go to. RFIDs will also be a basic element for Smart homes.

Smart homes are definitely on the way in. Biometric keys, computer controlled lighting,  automatic curtain open settings, burglar sensors, vacuum robots, Digital Picture Frames, etc are already available in the market, and it wont take long before they all go mainstream.

Smart Toys, such as the Nabaztag, the Chumby are going to get more and more in the face, until people start adapting them. These devices apart from giving the impression of a rich-spoilt-brat, will also be aids for older people, assisting them, taking voice commands and getting things done for them. In markets like Japan where the population is more old than the young will especially go for such products – which is also the reason why there is heavy investments into robots. I’d give it another ten to twelve years before this becomes mainstream. But the Geekery toys are on their way much sooner for sure.

If you look closely at this system, most of them are already around us in some form or the other. It just needs to evolve a step further to become a reality – and that too not too high of a step. That’s where there is a lot of opportunity for startups to focus on. Perhaps that will happen, and we wont look at 3G as just a fat pipe, and keep scratching our head for more Value Added Services to appear to make it viable. Since the Subscription for the services such as the Gaming Console “Live”, the Music Store, the Television, Internet Access can be authenticated using the SIM card, there is a scope for Mobile Phone operators to leverage that. That’d be the secret to the ROI dilemma, in my opinion.

Ofcourse, this is just the first draft. What are your thoughts?

Download: Higher Resolution Image of Diagram

“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.

I am not sure how many of you are aware of the CSCs coming up. The Community Service Centres, or Common Service Centres, are essentially Internet kiosks, each fitted with a fairly decent hardware and broadband connectivity, and the idea is to utilize those as hubs to deliver services into Rural India. It could be anything from eGovernance, health, Banking, Telecommunications, etc etc. There are a lot of private bidders who have won the tenders for regions (so the service delivery will be upto par on standards), and organizations in the likes of 3i Infotech, Reliance, Comat etc have come into this.

So Whats the opportunity for Yahoo or Google in all this? Well, there is a computer and its connected to the internet. Find a way to build a lightweight application that acts as a screensaver, which would display advertisements – pulling it from the internet – when the computer is idling. The advertisement can be focused to the rural space, and there is everyone from the likes of HLL, to your Cellphone companies, dying to get the attention of that market share.

The reason why the operators would be open to this idea is simply because everyone is trying to figure out how to break even in this business. As you could imagine, Rural India and technology are like lotus leaves and water drops. They just dont have a history of blending so far. And there is going to be that initial adoption curve issue for these services to pick up. And as a means of ensuring that the Kiosk Operator has some viable means of keeping at it, advertisements, and complementary services begin to play a role.

I believe there is a company which recently started in this space, and got funded by Sequoia. But yep, its definitely a market to explore.

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.

So if you could fix one of the startups offices as the centre for this activity, Put up a wiki where people can sign up for this course, and these 12 startup entrepreneurs/programmers get a chance to do a round of questioning and if they think that the candidate would be able to perform with some guidance, then the community as a whole comes together to train these few candidates and at the end of it, can assimilate them into the company.

There are a couple of reasons why I think this can be made to work:

1. Most freshers are scared of working for startups. The first question I face all the time is “Will they train us?”

2. People who do undergo any sort of training, usually go for some MS Certification and those courses are expensive. Its not like you can afford to get the developmental licenses anyways, and since they have themselves invested in getting trained, the salary expectations are going to be higher from you.

3. At the moment there are very few people who can talk about these technologies for the mass community to learn from. Perhaps contributing to the general knowledge of the masses to improve their skill level, if reached critical mass, will start churning on its own.

4. More people trained on OpenSource Technologies (that’s really what enables Startups), might also slightly increase the chances of people contributing back to Opensource. *fingers crossed*

5. I also think that most startup founders struggle to explain what they have in their head to others. And teaching concepts to others gets you to that level where tomorrow when you need to grow a community around your product, you can converse in a manner that the people can comprehend.

And ofcourse, none of this has to be done for free. I’d strongly suggest that the teams charge the candidate 3000 – 4000Rs a month for this. That is also additional revenue, so its not technically charity either.

So, there is only one question that lingers. Worth giving it a try? What do you think?

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.

So go down memory lane and you will remember how there was a time when all the internet properties used to have a sales team to go chase after advertisers and get them onboard and once the term was over the havoc began all over again. Most of them knew that they could make more money if they managed the deal directly with the advertisers, but the cost that went into chasing orders, and managing the clients was too much an ordeal that when the concept of advertisement networks came about, people were more than glad to give up a marginal cost to have these services “managed”.

It happened for the web medium, and it can happen for the television and Radio network as well. Because they face the very same problems.

If you don’t believe me, check out this company. There is a company named Spotrunner. What they do is that they build an inventory of ads that the local television operators, while doing the programming, can draw advertisements out of. I think thats a very neat bloody idea. I know of people who are running campaigns and they get the sweetest deals out of this television networks during “off seasons”. And when its off seasons, oh boy, the inventories are really bad that they’ll run just about anything to keep those media streams flowing. During rainy seasons, nobody wants to sell or buy cars, consumer goods etc, and that usually is what constitutes a large chunk of the advertisement revenue. So, they usually fill it up with fillers and Awareness Advertisements.

But imagine if… a centralized network would manage all the advertisements with vendors, create an inventory, and as broadcast partners sign up, all they would have to do is enter in the keywords for the show, and they’d see options of which ads they can play. They can pick, and queue it and go about their work. When the ad gets played, whatever amount was agreed upon with the vendor gets deducted from the advertising account – this could technically even be a prepaid account. Now this totally leverages the broadcaster, since he has options of playing an ad of a sponsor that they have, and use the flexibility of the ad inventory to fill whatever is required, and hence maximizing his revenue potential. If laziness is one to bet on, eventually they’ll scrap their sales force, and resort to doing programming with most of these advertisements running in.

This is also brilliant, cause imagine if there is a talk show happening and knowing how most programmers can flip through the show quickly, they can even generate keywords – manually, or there could be a simple app that extracts out the audio and picks up keywords, and can “suggest” advertisements that would make the most sense. THAT would be relevant advertising indeed.

I think television stations get away with it, by a little bit. But Radio stations really struggle. If you do the same for them, with just audio, they’d keeel (spelling intentional) over themselves for it. I have closely observed how some of these radio stations work, including the popular and well known ones and having friends in that circle, one only hears one thing over and over again – finding sponsors and advertisers is a tough job.

So you’d start with something like this, and move on to the second phase, and then there is even a third. That, we’ll talk about tomorrow.

But Yahoo, I really hope you’ll see this, and more so, I’d like you to come back to your former glory. I think my first email account ever was a yahoo one, and perhaps that bit of loyalty still runs.

Ofcourse all of this is a one way broadcast. Apart from adult sites which are apparently making their niche through two way interaction, there is not much that is happening in this space.

Is there any of that, that can be adapted into the “green” scenario? A couple of light bulbs went on and off and here’s the thought (or Idea):

The forest department today plans thousands of saplings every year on barren lands to convert them into lush green forests, but the biggest problem with it has been the case of watering them. There is not enough manpower to do those menial tasks – at the salary that the govt is providing – and there is also the issue of accountability where all the saplings near the roadside stand straight and well watered, but the ones in the interior die away because laziness kicks in for most of these workers. They are not to be blamed either when the scorching sun is merciless on them and they are poorly prepped for all that.

The idea is to basically plant all the saplings as the forest department does and then have water drums which can be filled periodically with water from trucks (much simpler task). The pipes to the saplings will be set on drip irrigation and there will be a soil moisture sensor in the soil which measures if there is water or not. Set a Camera that overlooks this area, connect it to the Internet and create a frontend to a MMORPG (Massively Multi-user Online Role Playing Game). If that’s too much of an acronym, think Second Life. People can “adopt” grids of these fields and take care of them. All they have to do is, once the soil moisture turns a bit low, hit the buttons that will start the drip irrigation and stop them when the moisture level is optimal.

There are already countless number of such “events” that happen in Second Life, where if one plants a sapling in the virtual world, an organization instead plants one in the real world somewhere. This would just be an extension of that.

Now, technically you can take this to the next level. Think of all the Wild Life Sanctuaries. The biggest problem today is Poachers (I am still worried if I have to show stuffed toys of Tigers as our National Animal to my kids someday), and the forest officers are not nearly paid enough to scout the areas – and they are very ill armed to protect themselves from these animals as well. What if we could setup a range of Wifi cameras, stream the videos and let people monitor them. I’m sure there are enough animal activists around the world that some might even take it up while we sleep. All they would have to do is to hit a button which will alert the officer if a Poacher is spotted. And give the front end the control to click a snap if they want to document something and we might capture poachers and exotic wildlife as souvenirs.

I think finally, and its about time that the conscious of having to go green is kicking in. And we are gonna have to do everything – not just to sustain – but positively influence this planet to make it sustainable and even stay on the existential path. Maybe entrepreneurship, technology and the enthusiasm of the global audience can create a network of Global Watchers, to take care of the assets around us – All this while getting to “play” their roles.

So there goes the past weekend, which has just about been the most amazing weekend ever – after a really really long time, and partly thanks to meeting some of the folks from the startup scene in bangalore.

So here’s a thought that’s been on my mind. How many kinds of entrepreneurs are there? Well, it seems there are two kinds. The Incremental ones and the Iterative ones.

The incremental one is that guy who wants to be an entrepreneur, is very calculative, and goes on and takes up a job in that large firm, and after years of carefully planning his networks, funds and contigencies makes a leap to build one product, putting together a company with his colleagues. You could almost say that Mindtree was one such firm. The firm immediately attracts investors, because the experience of the founders talks volumes, the contacts are well established and the product/idea is usually something that is closely related to the domain that they have been working in.

This is pretty much your typical VC fundable business.

But there is this other kind. The kind that starts off young, comes up with an idea and grows the idea. The idea is usually nothing significant, but an improvement none the less. The grow the idea, and make an exit – small, okay or in most cases nothing at all, move on to the next idea, and with each new ideation and execution grow exponentially in terms of thinking, visions and execution style. These are your radical mavericks.

But you know what? In most cases the incremental ones, as great as they are, will only become what they are, if they are not funded. If they learn lessons the hard way. If they learn to bootstrap, learn to live in the trenches, and they grow from there.

I strongly believe, and there are quite a few others who agree, that we are destroying these genre of entrepreneurs by either cushioning them with hopes of investments, in the name of incubation centres (totally taking away their risk appetite)and by simply not letting that first idea fail.

If statistics are true, then its usually the third venture of an incremental entrepreneur that will or should get funded. Anything before that is all premature, and just part of the process.

So I am trying to validate this theory and it kinda starts to make sense. They say that for any product to be built, it takes roughly about 2.4 iterations before it can hit the market and scale. With an iterative entrepreneur, I really believe that the entrepreneur himself is the product – really think about it. Every icon that you can imagine is one of those. Do you really think they made it in their first shot?

The first step really doesn’t have to be that big idea. And i’ll repeat that over and over again. With Michael dell it was the idea of buying stamps for cheap and selling them. He writes in his book that he learnt things in that first venture which helped him put together Dell. It’s also the reason that I strongly believe that they should start as early as possible – right in High school or college if possible. It could be just about anything from running a local canteen to trying your hand with home made jewellery. What you understand about working and interacting with people will go a long way.

Trust me, it wont be easy. And as a audience in OCC Bangalore noted during discussions, it is a terrible experience when your first idea bombs when asked for feedback from peers. But you know what… its all part of building you as the product. It’s an excercise to shed that extra weight that you have in you – that air of confidence and assumptions sometimes. Really, for an iterative entrepreneur, its all about falling nine times and getting up ten times. It really is.

So if you are one that falls into the first category, well You probably wont be reading this cause you’ll be busy trying to keep those investors and partners in bay. As for the iterative kind, unless you are in your third or fourth venture, dont waste your time trying to raise money and all. Be smart, save some money here and there, be frugal and stick it out. See how far you can build and take a product without having to raise money – its very much like holding your breathe to see how far you can control yourself from now having to depend on oxygen. But when you do attain that balance – or even control in it, thats when you know you are ready for the olympics to show the world what you really got.

So according to one entity’s claim, there are 800 startups in Bangalore. I know that as part of tracking startups, we see an average of about 500 – 600 new startups coming up every year, and these are just in the Technology space, and product focused.

Do we really think that we have the manpower to fuel all these dreams? I am really starting to doubt that. Loads of Opportunities, shortage of talent, and high density of clusters – which is going to be mean more and more people are going to leave startups to probably freelance and make use of this opportunity. I wouldn’t blame them. They are just tapping into the opportunity.

nGenera an entity founded by the guy who wrote the book on Wikinomics, which helps larger organizations optimize their task forces has this to say about Workforces: “…Enterprises have shed pyramid-style organization structures and instead view talent as a “marketplace” where workgroups with the right skills and experience can be quickly assembled, put on a given task and rewarded for the value they provide.” Does that sound Familiar? Will the same make sense for a Startup?

One of the primary reasons why a startup is pushed to go hunt for an Investor much before the focus, solution and customer has been identified, has been primarily because of this reason – the need to hire. if you want to hire, and someone none other than the best, he/she also comes with her own charade of questions as to how the startup is funded, and what are the options that the individual will benefit from. None of which makes sense, nor has a concrete founding unless there is a bank statement which shows some balance with lots of zeros following it – or atleast a term sheet.

So really, the eye of the hurricane is the issue with attracting talent. If that is solved in anyway, then a whole lot of issues along with it, including that of funding will slow down a bit. And time, even borrowed time is godsend for a startup.

Here is a gist of the issues:

I’ll repeat, there is common theory that any investor will back a good team. Perhaps we need a slight change of thinking on that regard. It is not the team size, the numbers, nor the profiles that should matter. If there is an individual at the helm who could ideate, plan, execute and deliver then it should suffice right?

I’ll get to what I am trying to say.

I am thinking outsourcing. Did you know that Digg was mostly build over elance? The most touted Kevin rose, was not one of those developers who went nuts, locked himself inside his bedroom and coded away. Perhaps there is wisdom in outsourcing.

Let’s put Mr. Friedman’s words to test if the world is really flat, shall we? I mean, if we could get talent from anywhere, then all of a sudden the perk of being in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, or being in Gorakpur does not make a difference. And I think that itself is an incentive to try.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Think about it. Employee productivity is at around 4% right now. I could put some ruppee figures on it and say, if you invest 100 Rs on an employee, you get a product which is enhanced with a value of Rs 4. That’s ridiculously inefficient. And this output is for mammoth corporates. Can a startup really afford such inefficiencies and spend most of its time acting like training agents, than companies that are building dazzling products?

Lets look at the benefits of getting more involved with communities like elance, Limexchange or Odesk for that matter. In order to make it work, you are going to have to;

1. Break your product into modules and have vivid clarity on what you want. That will force the startups to get some clarity on what they are building, rather than playing by ear.

2. You need to be able to do some project planning, which you should have been forced to do anyways.

3. You only pay for what you build, which means much greater productivity

4. You do not have to move to any specific location. You could be sitting in your own hometown, or wherever you can save costs on, and still get your work done. If Instablogs could be based out of Shimla and build such fabulous UI, traction and a community around their offering, it certainly is an example. Not that I have anything against Shimla, but its not your everyday IT Hub as commonly perceived to be more efficient to startup.

5. And the best part of all. If you are having a cash crunch month, you can delay your next task allocation. You control time lines as to when the next task should begin, which means you don’t have to worry about having to shell out monthly salaries with or without productive work happening.

Most teams that I am aware of, still would want to hire people fulltime. Well, you probably can, if you can justify it and if you can afford them. But in most cases, I am wondering if its a case where the founder just isn’t willing to accept the fact that the role that he chose to play is a lonely path. At the end of the day, he/she is the only visionary and the sole knight protecting and nurturing the idea child (perhaps along with his co-founder), but surrounding yourself with people who are at your call and beckon is just a temporary comfort and solace. I know it can get lonely, and having to see three people, the same three people, in your officespace everyday can be pretty tiring, and boring and even might feel as if you are stuck in a rut. (One of the reasons why Incubation centres make for some comfort factor, being around with other teams)

But instead of focusing on surrounding yourself with frail souls, why not keep yourself surrounded by those key guys who share your vision (might be just you and your co-founder), and build the prototype, product and your initial traction with a product that is built by a team which is miles away, yet close by you – just a skype call away, and take it from there?

You are most probably going to tell me that since your product is constantly evolving, you wont be able to get a specifications document beforehand. Odesk, and most of the freelancing sites do offer the capability to hire a person on hourly rates. And with the progress of agile project management methodologies, all you need is a good tool [like what Silverstripe software has], and you are good to go. Ofcourse, there is still the issue with your mentors and investors having to agree to it,but if anyone can make it happen, I know an entrepreneur can. Why not show them it works? Heck, When NASA and the defense contracts across the world are outsourced, why not that mashup you are building?

I was initially a bit skeptical that outsourcing my development work will also mean that someone has access to my code. But I think the NASA model is going to rescue us there too. That’s why I mentioned that you need a core team. Ideate. Figure out the requirements, the initial one. Break it into pieces and send them all to four corners of the world. When it comes back, be ready to put it together. Oh yeah, you need to know how to work with code inorder to be able to do this, but if you or your co-founder cant, you were dead in the water even before you started.

I am hoping to give this a whirl for my own startups. Has anyone tried this option? If so, what has your experience been?

Disclaimer: I am not sure if this is a longterm solution. But most of the hard work and crux is essentially built in the beginning of a startups product lifecycle and thats when all the constraints are there. If the prototype is built, you have a few elite customers, and investors are standing on all sides wooing you, perhaps you can think about getting some folks onboard fulltime, and building a team to build from there.

Some Discussions from Before:

I often used to quote the phrase that “Ideas are worth nothing. Implementation is all that matters”. Its true, but it also frustrates a lot of people who think they have fabulous ideas in their hands. I don’t spell it out as much anymore, but I have figured out much easier ways to get that same point across.

A couple of months ago, I was introduced to a guy named Sian, the brains behind an event named Alpha Summit that used to happen in Europe. It was almost like Proto.in, except that their focus was slightly different. They focused on Tombstone companies. Companies which would have died, if not for that boost that an event brings together. They succeeded a bit in what they did, but turning around a company is no one day matter, it takes months and years to turn some companies around, and hence the Alpha Summit is no more. But the thought has stayed in my mind, that some companies simply are hatching ideas that are way ahead of its time. If the timing is right, and if it is repositioned, there is a chance for a miracle. Heck, if we have already categorized them as a tombstone, why not give it that shot? That’s been a thought in my head, as we are also looking at ways to evolve where Proto.in stands right now. But this thought goes beyond that.

When I first heard from Arun Katiyar, the concept of an Event Web, I was quite amused. It’s true, our life is a sequence of events, and an “event-web” as he put it, makes a lot of sense. SERaja was a company for which the visions came from Rajesh Jain and Ramesh Jain. Ramesh has published a paper on the same concept. They were one of the companies that presented at the first edition of Proto.in. Unfortunately, it seems that they didnt manage to build traction as they hoped to, but then just recently I heard a very similar pitch. It came from Dandelife and Lifeblob. Timelines, events, blogs, friends and how everything is interconnected.

While SEraja had complicated the implementation a bit my mixing multimedia content and such, and also adding the complexity of mobile phones and such, Lifeblog is taking the incremental step of taking blogs, appealing from a point where everyone is comfortable and taking it from there. To be quite honest, I signed up, found a fair bit of friends there and am still trying to figure out how well it works. I haven’t made too many posts there, given that I can barely keep my facebook, blog and twitter updated – let alone a lifeblob. But if you haven’t already succumbed to so many social networks, it does make sense to stick to that.

One of the oldest ideas that makes me remember of the phrase that Ideas are immortal is how Location-based services are coming up. LBS had the imaginations of people lighted up and quite a bit of rave imaginations I must say, were running behind what it could possibly do. Five years ago when I was bootstrapping a venture, we explored around that, lobbied with the canadian govt to give us location data and were shooed away. Fun times. But today companies such as bangalore-based Yulop are digging that old grave up and bringing that dream to life – atleast the hope of such dreams back to life.

Most often timing, and the wrong timing is what kills an idea. VoIP still hasn’t taken off, because people really don’t know what to do with it beyond making phone calls, and the infrastructure cost that goes into it is so darn expensive that it doesn’t justify the phone calls as a function or feature. VoIP will die its death in this timeline, but will come back again. Perhaps when 3G becomes prevalent and demand pushes need and applications and services are born, a revival might come in place.

Quite a lot of folks ask me whats a good idea worth exploring. It is quite interesting to note that the “ideas to toss” section of this blog is one of the most popular ones, apart from the controversial ones that come up from time to time. People are looking for ideas, and thats a statement. Sometimes, in order to look into the future, you just have to look at the past and see what has died before its time, and perhaps give those tombstones a new leash on life.

If you want a hint and a springboard, go right ahead to the deadpool section of Techcrunch and see, what you can dig up, and where you can play the part of a necromancer (Oh the Diablo playing days!)

More Links to Click:
Startup North
Startups that came back from the Dead
Michael Arrington Seeds Dead Startups.
Y Combinator List, with Lots of Dead Startups