The Startup Guy

Perspectives of an Entrepreneur from the Indian Startup Trenches.

Category: Web 2.0

Ideas are Immortal. Let’s Recycle.

There is nothing new under the sun. Nothing Whatsoever. Ideas are just evolved from one form to another to adapt and wear a new dress. 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 [...]

Kickstarting your PR Campaign.

I often wonder to myself what is the hardest part in running a startup. I think back at my own days, and even at the present, analyzing the market, building the product, doing the test, finding a few initial trial clients, getting a mentor, finding one or two folks to help out, and even getting [...]

My Wishlist for Startup Blogging.

I am usually in the middle of discussions that more often than not tend to tread on the topic as to why Indian Entrepreneurs seem to be; a) Wanting to build and flip a company in solid 3 weeks. b) Why everyone keeps referring to things that happen in the valley c) Why are we [...]

So What is Yahoo! Planning? A Theory.

Disclaimer: This is just a theory. Not the fact. The war between the giants, Microsoft and Yahoo continues. But none of the threats, nor the position that Yahoo is in, seems to be putting a brake on the companies they are going around acquiring, nor the services they are releasing. Life is as normal, infact [...]

The Law of Startups.

I think I have figured something. It goes something like this. Markets and Companies are neither created nor destroyed. They just transform from one form to the another. I’ll give you some examples. Amazon.com when it started in 95 was a very ambitious project. A few years later, they were raking in 30million dollars as [...]

Build to Last: Follow the Old Fashioned way.

During a recent flight trip, I was mulling over what it would possibly take to build a company that lasts. I donno, call me weird or plan simple narcissistic, but I’d like to build a company that is around till I am, or even beyond. I meet plenty of folks, especially within the entrepreneurial community [...]

Build to Last: The Goldrush Strategy – Avoid it.

Up until a couple of years ago, the concept of “First movers’ advantage” had some credit to it – atleast in the web world since it was quite nascent. Lately more and more folks are realizing, and rightly so, that whatever happened in the PC Platform, is repeating itself in the web world. If you [...]

The Indian-European Connection… And even the Valley.

Seems like we are not the only set of folks who are wanting to fix the problems we see around us and build a “sustainable” atmosphere around us. There is a post by Ryan who runs FOWA taking a stance against the Web Mission effort that is getting organized by the UK Government and quite [...]

The Only Survival Strategies.

Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs call it Business Models. Economists call it as Game theories. They are such fabulously mind-stimulating equations. The equation which essentially makes someone give up hard, liquid cash in order to avail a service, and enable you to make a profit. It’s really quite as simple as that. How do you get [...]

A New Kind of Incubation Model. Part III

Ever since the journey with Proto.in started, about two years ago, I can safely say that I’ve sifted through atleast 300+ company profiles. I’ll hit you with the bad news first: Most of them are hopeless. They are half-baked solutions. They probably are great hobby projects and shouldn’t even allowed to be classified as a [...]