Reproduced from my other blog : Got Time to Blog…

Knowing your destination or end-point is not enough to reach that place. There is one more thing that you need to know, which is also as important as knowing your destination.

Any guesses?

Your starting-point, your source. Without having a clue about where you currently are, there is no way you can figure out yourself how to reach the destination. The only solution to reach your goal, in that case, would be to ask for directions. You could be very very near to your destination or maybe miles away from it. But you don’t know that, because you don’t know where you are currently. Hence, you could just blindly follow directions as given by others and hope to reach the end-point.

So, the next time you are lost, instead of asking for directions, you should ask them where you are. Ask them where you are, how far you are from your destination, how much time and efforts will it take to reach there, and then ask them how do you reach that place? Once you know accurately where you stand, where ever you are, you will be able to make better decisions on road to reach your goal.

In my office, I have all Open Source Software on my machine (Thunderbird, Open Office), except the Operating System which is Windows XP Professional. But I guess in time even that will change, thanks to user-friendly Ubuntu. Till now, no problem with these OSS, until I used Open Office Impress to make a presentation.

Even with the “Wizard” interface of Open Office Impress, it took me literally 2 minutes to figure out where to start. I didn’t get the toolbars and buttons on the screen I wanted to start off my presentation. I went to the ToolBar menu to customize it, but that again took 2 minutes to figure out what is happening. Then I selected one template and inserted some bullet-points in the first slide. Now I wanted to change the colour and transition effects of the text, and again I had to search through the screen to find how to do the same.

This is the place where MS Office Powerpoint 2007 excels. I have tried it earlier for my college presentation. Their patented Ribbon-style interface just helps you do what is there in your mind. It never obstructs the flow of your thought. Be it changing the colour to inserting an audio file and animating the slide, it just works seamlessly. And you feel that its all there in front of you, ready to be used at your command.

That is how User Interface should be for your software product. You should know how your user is going to interact with the product. You should know the types of users and how they work, how they think, what they need first when an app starts. Don’t make the user think. Don’t let him pause for a moment and stare at the screen. Moreover, the User Interface should help the user use functionality of the product which he didn’t even intend to use in the first place, and which will enhance his work even more.

I know that the User Interface of Open Office Impress is very similar to MS Office 2003 version and I have used MS Office 2003 for lot of presentations. But now I am used to the look and feel of Office 2007.  I think only about ‘what’ to do, not ‘how’ to do, while using it.

That is the reason I love MS Office 2007 and wish to buy the same.  Lets see what can be done with my presentation. Will give it to someone who is still very familiar with Open Office or do it on a machine that has Office 2007.

I attended the NASSCOM Product Forum, Pune on 25th September, 2008, where they unveiled  ‘NASSCOM Software Product Study’.The Study was quite informative, but there was a concern that the companies profiled in the study were mostly existing since 3-5 years. For me, it did not exactly reflect the pain points faced by companies in their early months. Anyways, some people from the audience were voicing their opinion about the real issues faced by startups and small companies. It was a good discussion at the end of which Subash Menon, Founder and Chairman of Subex Technologies said (not exact words)  : “No matter what difficulties or problems you face, a real entrepreneur overcomes them and solves those problems. Others might close their shop and find opportunities elsewhere. That is the differentiating factor between an entrepreneur and others.”  Well said, very well said.

On similar lines, the theme for the current issue (October 2008) of I.T Magazine (in India) is Tech Entrepreneurs. And their cover art shows a Man in suit unrolling the road as a carpet in front of him. In true sense, it means the man is paving the way for himself.

Now I think it is really difficult to become a true entrepreneur. The qualities discussed above are the ones that sets them apart. It is easier said than done. Believe me. You need to focus, concentrate, strength of character, support from loved ones to stay on the path. I am not sure whether I am fully qualified to call myself as an entreprenuer. But I hope I will be. Someday.

As an entrepreneur, I need some inspiration from time to time. The source for this comes from non-fictional books (some fictional also) and blogs. Its interesting and comforting to read about people who have been in similar situations like yours during their journey and eventually found success. You could relate to them and their situations/circumstances.

And then, at times you read blogs like these : Uber Heads to the DeadPool. (For the uninformed, Techcrunch maintains a list of blogs as DeadPool which are related to the demise of startups)

Going through the DeadPool list is also interesting. Reading the absurd situations in which Startups had to shud down shop is scary. There are many startups which were successful in obtaining first round (or even second round) of funding and due to unseen circumstances, they had to close and let their employees and customers go. And startups in the DeadPool list were generally ones who were in news since past 1-2 years. Who knows, how many other startups are there in this world in remote corners of the world, who attain some success and eventually die out.

Why I am writing this ? Well, even I dont know. The news of Uber shutting down because of crisis in the economy and investors stopping their support all of a sudden is scary. Who thought that such imbalance in nation’s economy could affect a startup in the lower order of the ecosystem.  Who could forsee this happening ?  Back in May 2008, when Uber was clinching a Series B funding of $7.6 million, did the executives know that American economy is on the verge of collapse which will lead to investors backing out.

Here we are, managing our own business, taking care of daily activities, trying our best to satisfy our customers, trying to generate sources of revenue, searching for funding and during these tasks, there are other forces in action which you or your company are not even concerned about. And then these forces eventually wipe you out before you can even comprehend what you did or what you shouldn’t have done. So either you keep your risks low and maintain a risk mitigation plan or just be prepared for whats going to happen. In the end, whatever happens, happens for good.

I just called Airtel to register my Home Landline for National Do Not Call (NDNC). When I say ‘just called’, I meant I called them at midnight (too busy to do these things during the day!).  I called from my house in Pune, India and am sure the call was received by some Indian working at some call center in India. He asked for my landline number and where I am calling from. Anyways, it took hardly 1 minute to do that, and there were no issues in getting that done, but at the end of the call, the fellow at the other end wishes me ‘Thank you for calling Airtel, Have a Nice Day’. You see where I am getting at ? For God’s sake, its midnight, you know I am from Pune, why can’t you just wish me good night, instead of wishing me a good day. I guess a IVRS might do a better job at it (you just need to program it to wish a customer according to the time he/she is calling).
I know all these BPO operations are a huge source of revenue and employment generation for India. It has changed the whole demography of many small towns and Tier-II cities. We have better spending power now. It has given a rise to all malls mushrooming all over India, which in turn generates more jobs. Good for us! But then we don’t use our common sense any more. Even though the guy from Airtel who recieved my call was trained to say ‘Thank you for calling…’, I think he should have wished me good night. But thats not the way it is.

Try Orkut in Google Chrome

Just noticed this message while logged into my Orkut account using Firefox Browser. I knew this will happen sometime, when Google will try to push Chrome through its Web Products and Services. In due time, I might see this message on my Google Reader, then Blogger (and all blogspot.com), and finally on Google Search Page itself.

Anyways, I am not judging. They are a Company and what they are doing might not be wrong. Even I might do this with my range of products. But since Google believes in Don’t Be Evil, I thought otherwise….

Btw, I did try Orkut on Chrome then. And then got this message…

Awesome, you're using Google Chrome!

Pune was host to lot of  tech-events over the last weekend. Not only that, the participation at these events is also increasing, which is a good sign for the city. I have attended the last two BarCamps in Pune and as yet, the response has been satisfactory, not phenomenal. Until last week, on 20th September, 2008, when PHP Camp was hosted at Persistent Systems.

The numbers were quite staggering for me. There were 1300 registrations for the Camp, with 400 registrations on the day before the event. According to Tarun, 700 campers attended the event. Thats a huge feat in its own. I guess it has been the biggest Camp in India till now. I witnessed long queues at the registration desk for the first time at any  Camp. This event will go a long way in introducing the Camp-style  (un)conferences in India. Thats because majority (almost 90%) of the attendees were Core Developers. It was a mix of freshers and students too, which is quite unseen in BarCamps.

My purpose to go there ( apart from me being free that weekend ) was to check the PHP-community scene in Pune, which I realize now is quite huge, much much larger than .Net or Java. Second, being a tech-enthusiast, I wanted to check out whats new in PHP area vis-a-vis other technologies like RoR, .Net, etc. The sad part was that that the sessions didn’t have much variety to choose from. The first 3 sessions in the morning in Track 1 were all based on OpenSocial (all by Satyam) and the other Track didn’t have space to even stand!

So, I left PHP Camp at lunch, and headed to other event that was about to start at 2 pm at ThoughtWorks Pune. It was for Geek Night and Abhijit Thosar, a Usability Guru from CampGemini Pune was giving a lecture on Usability Engineering. It was one of the best lectures I have attended till now on Usability. The lecture ended with a showcase of his work, which was very interesting.

I observed that Usability still has to pick up in India. Usability is not some small tweaks and changes to be done on your software to gain more traction and liking. It is a whole branch in itself and a PhD can be done on this subject. Involving Usability Engineering in your project means having a parallel project running along with your existing one. Outsourced Product Development and Engineering is increasing in India in all sectors and considering this, Usability is a very interesting space to look out for in India.

The highlight of the day was some 20 odd students from Ahmednagar (around 120 Km from Pune) attending the PHPCamp. Absolutely Brilliant !!

Pune has its own Open Coffee Club which was started a few months back. You can join the club here.  Its ideally for startups from Pune, and wants to help them through informal meetings and discussions with fellow people having the same dream and aspirations.  It has gained traction over past few weeks, and last weekend, the club had an attendance of over 50 people, compared to 12 people attending the meeting 1 month back.

Last weekend, on 13th September  2008, the agenda for the meeting was :

1. Discussion : How to Bootstrap your startup
2. Startup Spotlight: ThinkingSpace Technologies
3. General Networking

There were invited panelists for the Discussion :

• Tarun Malaviya, CEO of Mithi
• Shridhar Shukla, founder and MD of GSLab
• Anand Soman, founder of Infinishare Technologies

The first part of the meeting was insightful. As usual, half an hour was spent on debate – VC vs Bootstrapping. I have seen this happening in other conferences/summits I have attended, where majority of the attendees ( from startups, wanna-be entrepreneurs )  are very much interested in ways to approach VCs, what do they want, etc. The next half an hour was discussed on how to bootstrap, why to bootstrap.

The panelists were from a varied background. One panelist was totally against VC funding, and gave his whole experience and the mistakes he did by taking VC funding.  Second panelist did consulting and services in his company for number of years, and is now coming up with their own product. Thid panelist , had was part of 2 startups – one bootstrapped and one VC funded. In the end, it was conclusive, that entrepreneurs should take VC funding only if their goals and  VC’s  goals are properly aligned.

One thing I observed from the discussion was the importance of Value Addition and Value Proposition. I realized that no matter what you do – services, consulting projects, or products – you should be adding value. If what you are doing is not adding value to the current market, then dont make grand plans for it.

Anyways, after the discussion, there was a startup profile arranged. The first startup to be profile in POCC was ThinkingSpace Technologies. Yes, thats us !! It was great presenting our products and talking about our journey so far in this industry. Saurabh ( my partner from ThinkingSpace ) presented Eventazoo and threw open the marketing challenges to the people sitting there. Many people including the panelists gave their invaluable feedback and suggestions for the future roadmap. We got lot of leads that we could use to tie-up with our existing system.

I believe many more startups ( spec. from Pune ) should come forward and present themselves at POCC. Asking for help for something that you lackor want will eventually benefit you and POCC was started for the same purpose – to build a informal community / eco-system for startups in and around Pune.

Yeah, I know. I am blogging after like 1 year. Its not that I was inactive. I was blogging a bit on my other blogs. Just didn’t focus much on this one.

I have grand plans for this blog. So keep watching this space for more.

After 4 months of hard work, I am happy to announce that Activeciti Beta version has been released.

For those of you who don’t know, ActiveCiti is a web application specializing in planning and organising of events.
It simplifies the life of people by taking care of their mundane and laborious tasks, which are mandatory to successfully organizing the event. So, you can use Activeciti to plan a get-together at a coffee shop / movie, or you can use it to arrange a party at your place. It also allows people to create public events that are happening around the world. It also sports very easy-to-use RSVP. There are tonnes of features to assist you, like Polls – to take suggestions from your invitees, discussion forums etc.

This is my first product from my first start-up ThinkingSpace Technologies . Hence, you can imagine the thrill and excitement as well as the satisfaction of launching a product which in due course will be used by people worldwide. Now the next step is to increase the user base of the site and hope that Activeciti solves the purpose what it was built for.

Well, I hope you like the site. I will keep you updated about my next venture here. Till then, this is me signing off….