Some updates

I have been pretty inactive on this blog. Some updates are in order.

To start with, I recently attended a bar camp pune 6 and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. High point of the camp was attending Anupam Saraph's talk which inspired this post on my other blog. Do read it.

The other news I have is that I have started blogging for trak.in, the India business blog. I will be covering Technology, Web2.0 and Internet amongst other things. My first few posts can be found here. Would love to have your feedback and comments.

Entrepreneurial rollercoaster- am happy, have vision; am sad, will focus on task

Cross-posted from my Psychology blog, The Mouse Trap, as this has relevance to entrepreneurs and web-squared audience may benefit from the tips here.

There is a recent article by foo et al, that shows , using Experience Sampling method, that entrepreneurs, when in a negative mood (not necessarily sad, but including anger, irritability etc...sorry for misleading headline:-) are more likely to be focusing on the task at hand; while those same entrepreneurs , when they were in a happy or positive mood would be more likely to be spending efforts on tasks that are more future directed. They interpret their finding in terms of the affect-as-information theory, whereby a positive affect signals that everything is hunky-dory in the present and one can take chances and focus on the future instead; while a negative affect is an indication that things are not going well and one needs to focus on the tasks at hand.  To quote:

Our findings suggest that affect serves as a source of information for entrepreneurs. As argued in the affect-as-information theory, negative affect signals that things are not going well in the venture and may lead entrepreneurs to expend more effort on venture tasks requiring immediate attention. An unexpected finding was that negative affect also increased venture efforts beyond what is immediately required. Because negative affect signals that something is wrong in the venture situation, it could lead entrepreneurs to engage in precautionary behaviors to prevent future damage to the venture.

Positive affect signals that things are going well in the venture, and, using affect-as-information theory, one might expect the entrepreneur to reduce effort because all is well at the moment. In the present study of entrepreneurs, we argued that positive affect should increase venture efforts. It is precisely because positive affect signals that things are going well at the moment that the entrepreneur’s focus can shift to the future, and such focus motivates the entrepreneur to work harder because it promotes behaviors to achieve desired future outcomes (Karniol & Ross 1996). This argument was supported, because our findings showed that future temporal focus mediated the link between positive affect and venture efforts beyond what is immediately required (next-day lagged outcome). Although not hypothesized, positive affect was also found to increase effort on tasks immediately required, and a future temporal focus also mediated the link between positive affect and venture tasks immediately required (with a next-day lag). Striving toward desired future states involves bridging the present and the future (Karniol & Ross, 1996). When entrepreneurs focus on the future, they may not neglect the present, as knowledge of the present may be required to determine how one can reach the desired outcome. To become successful in their venture pursuits, entrepreneurs should be able to integrate the present and future time horizons (Bird & West, 1997). They must be able to make sense of the here and now and the what will be and establish a coherent link between them.

I , would , of course , not restrict myself to what the authors conclude but , as is my ilk, would like to extend the findings and relate to other stuff. For example, I have written earlier about the Promotion and Prevention focus and how promotion focus is related to happiness/mania; while preventive focus may be more related to sadness/depression. Although, not mutually exclusive, a new hypothesis could be that the affect was due to promotion and preventive focus, which itself was due to either the environment was risky or risk-free. The same risky or risk-free environment which led to the negative or positive mood also lead to focusing on the here-and-now or on the future. I'm also tempted to correlate this with some other articles I came across recently-namely one that found that future orientation leads to creativity, while if there is not enough psychological distance we tend to be not -so creative; Could it also be that that is why entrepreneurs long-term strategies and visions are creative; while their short term tactics and day to day handling of affairs is mundane; while we are on the subject of creativity and vagueness (either in distance or space or time or abstractness) another study found that being primed about or thinking about Love leads to creativity while being primed with Lust leads to better analytical ability; is analytical ability much different from focusing on here-and-now; while creativity more future oriented? All these have important implications on how you can use your affect to either focus on hand in an analytical manner or solve problems in future creatively and with vision. As a last afterthought, is that why Manics, who are extremely happy, have such grand visions of future and are so future directed and entrepreneurial in spirit?

SilliconIndia startup city: mumbai edition

Image by hartboy via Flickr

Yesterday I attended another event, silliconindia startup city  similar to proto.in and this is an effort to summarize my experiences. (you can read about my proto.in experience here) 

The first keynote address (as keynote addresses go), was not really interesting or relevant to the startup space. Presented in a lackluster way about the tautology of universal internet, it set the expectations for what had to come.

The panel discussion that followed was a stark contrast. The discussion topic was building a successful starup, but the speakers all never interacted with each other or the audiences and instead narrated the story of their own journey. Not that I am complaining. While Dheeraj of Altruist had interesting anecdotes to share as to how he failed at launching altruist successfully 2 times earlier and what his learning were, the stage was bursting with pure energy as Bhuvin of DirectI took center stage and narrated the DirectI philosophy of how they viewed business as a  game that needs to be played keeping in mind some of the following principles: there are no managers, just coaches; hire a best man for a particular position, average hires do not aggregate and can replace the star performer; how its important to keep score, keep line of sight of achievements and how to celebrate success. slightly off-topic, but perhaps the best talk of the vent. The other two panelists weer also interesting - one  scratching his head repeatedly and claiming that passion and faith is all you require.

This was followed by a panel on opportunities in internet space. Following the precedent of the earlier panel, this panel too did not discuss or interact with each other or the audiences, but shared their views in a sequential order. First off, was the CEO of Mouthshut.com and his wa a really inetretsing and heartfelt talk- he couldnt help taking jibes at athe gold sponsor Rediif.com whose CEO had refused /question an audience with him, at the early stage of his start up. In retaliation, he had decided that if he ever became successful he would definitely mentor others and reply to those who call for advice. another low moment he said one must be prepared for is reporters throwing away your business card (I am exaggerating a bit here) and shrinking from you as if you have swine flu, when you mention that you are launching a dot com in the dot com burst period...which happened to him and was his lowest point of disappointment and despair. He also mentioned Salar from google as the hero of his company and himself,, as despite being a biology major, and fresh out of college he came up with the concept of adsense and adwords the business that sustains google. I mist say that I was impressed with him and perhaps he has become my hero:-)

The other panelists included the CEO of sulekha who decided to play  the devils advocate and focused instead of the dangers and risks in the Internet space rather than the opportunities.   The other panelists were howvere quite keen on the internet opportunity, especially in India.

This was followed by another keynote by much touted Suresh of Minlogicx relating his journey and though they were filled with interesting anecdotes (either as to his abdul kalam connections or narayan murthy idolism or how every Vice Chancellor this of himself as the evangelist and visionary) the take home was not much except that he was a very successful, and wealthy,  consultant prior to his entrepreneurship.   but ya, he had a very engaging style and I was reminded of the person who had taken over the last blogcamp in Pune and had everyone in fits with his anecdotes. Thankfully the talk was at least somehwt relevant to the topic on hand in this case.

The best of the event was over and from now on the experience was downhill. the ceo conclave session was as boring as it could get. I left early for lunch/ visited the booths in the interim and skipped a major part of the ceo conclave(  not that I missed much as friends told me later) .

Post lunch session was devoted to showcasing the start ups.The first 'startup' to present was a self proclaimed one man show, 100hrs before born start up ideainventory- which was basically patenting 40 of ones ideas and then either selling patents or developing solutions based on the patents. Good idea---who sways idea are worthless by themselves .Lets see how he executes this idea.First off he should have at least presented a ppt deck and not relied on an unreadable word doc to present his idea.
Next on were many different presentations- some repeating the same mistake of using too small fonts/ images...others making the mistake of reading verbatim from their decks..albeit agonizingly slowly.  PlugHR presentation stood out from the crowd and I liked the innovativenss and creativity they displayed at their booth,  brochures etc.  Other presentations were more a leraning as to how not to present. One guy even acted funny and cointinued his presentations despite many reminedrs that his time was over:-)

The startups themselves were good...crederity with verifcation services, yoknowldge and yopedia , virtual rack all interesting concepts, but if it wasn't for the panel discussions, perhaps the experience would have been forgettable.

Overall, the panel discussions in sillicon india startup city were pretty good, especially some of the speakers. I look forward to more events of this kind.
 

Sillicon India startup city- In Mumbai this weekend

I am attending the silliconindia startup city event and here is a blurb from the organizers. See you there!

Just wanted to let you know about an exciting event siliconindia is organizing on September 12 (Saturday in Mumbai). It's by far the largest and most exciting event of its kind in Mumbai.

It is your chance to know the building of companies like Rediff.com, Syntel, Netmagic, Sulekha, Microworld and many more as their founders come and share their journey with us: 

Venki Nishtala, Founder & CEO, Rediff.com 

Keshav R. Murugesh, CEO, Syntel 

Sharad Sanghi, Founder & CEO, Netmagic

Govind Rammurthy, Founder, CEO & MD, MicroWorld Technologies

Satya Prabhakar, Founder & CEO, Sulekha.com

There will be 30 most promising technology startups showcasing their products. You can meet these entrepreneurs and also over 30 investors.

To attend this event, register FREE at http://www.siliconindia.com/startupcity_mumbai/index.php

Watch live product demonstrations 

Get a peek into cutting edge technologies 

Lay hands on the best-of-breed solutions 

Meet young, energetic, passionate geeks 

Experience the culture of innovation in small companies

Visionary Keynotes 

In-depth Panel Discussions

TIME: 8.45 AM to 5 PM 

WHEN: Saturday, September 12, 2009 

WHERE: Hotel RanSgarda, Bandra, Mumbai

Seems to be a promising event!

My claim to Entrepreneurship!

Image by bbcworldservice via Flickr

Today I came across a post on trak.in about "The anatomy of an entrepreneur" , and though I haven't read the original report in full yet, I am hooked to the report and would like to put forward my claims to be an entrepreneur. Firstly somewhat off-topic, I had became deeply interested in Psychology after reading "Anatomy of human destructiveness" and whether I became a good psychologist or not, I have managed to put together a good blog on the same after reading that decisive book that has affected my life to great degree; and though I had become interested in starting my own venture some time back, and this report is in no way a turning point or I would credit as being a seminal influence, it is timely in the sense that I can relate to it and find solace in the fact that I fit the profile of an entrepreneur to a T. And going by my track record, you can be assured that I may fail as an entrepreneur, but I'll hopefully be able to create valuable content for other like-minded folks as I venture on my fools quest , by sharing my experiences and knowledge by means of this Web-Squared blog.

So what are the findings of the report? As summarized by Arun at Trak.in:

Here is your Typical Entrepreneur

* He is from a middle-class or upper lower-class background, and very few come from backgrounds of extreme wealth or extreme poverty.
* He is usually well educated, with only 5 percent or less having a bachelor’s degree.
* He likely to be better educated than their parents were, with half his fathers and a third of their mothers having at least bachelors’ degrees.
* He performed well in high school and in college, with the vast majority ranking average or above in their respective institutions.
* He necessarily does not come from families of entrepreneurs; slightly more than half are the first in their families to launch businesses.
* On average, he tends to be the middle child in a three-child household.
* He is significantly more likely to be married and have children when they launch their first businesses.
* He is far more likely to have worked for an employer for more than six years than to have quickly launched their own businesses.
* His primary motivation for launching a business are to build wealth, to own his own company, and to capitalize on a business idea that he has.

And what is my claim to applying for the entrepreneurial tag?

I am reasonably middle-aged (ya to me 33 is middle-aged), from a middle-class family background, reasonably well-educated (B. Tech from IITD) , better educated then my parents (they both have masters in their subjects; but they are educators; I am an engineer:-) , from a family background where literally no one deep down the line of ancestry had even dreamed of being an entrepreneur; had performed well in high school ,  not so well in college (never had the ganda fighter spirit) , married and having a child; worked for an employer for more than 6 yrs; total industry experience close to 11 yrs; and my motivation to launch my own business is to capitalize on an idea and to be my own boss (making wealth is secondary).

Also, the non-factors are pretty pertinent- the inability to find  employment has never been a factor and never will be- I just wish I was more lucky and had got more encouragement from F&F to start my venture early, but it is never too late! Also, important to note is that even this entrepreneurial group is fragmented in two sub groups and I clearly belong to the late blooming group rather than the group of entrepreneurs that knew they would start their own company soon/eventually, even while in college.

So what domain I am planning to work in? It is the web domain, more specifically social web/ semantic web and perhaps the right time to share another relevant report I discovered today (still not read fully) about the social media landscape in India. Do let me know , by means of comments, whether you would like this to be a purely Tech focused blog, or wont mind an occasional business angle being discussed/ touched upon!

Angel Investment: what you need to know!

Image via Wikipedia

As a wannabe web squared entrepreneur, I have been getting myself familiarized with the business aspect of running a venture and  have been trying to find more about funding fundamentals.

This blog post at Both sides of the Table blog is a nice introduction to the issues involved in angel investment and whether it makes sense to have convertible debt angel funding or priced  or series A round of funding.  The article is excellent and the discussion in the comments section is just great. the take home for me, is that do not dilute too much equity in lieu fo getting angel money as VC's may look negatively to that - no motivation for founders- and also try to get money in the form of convertible debt as far as possible- but most importantly - and what was emphasized at this weekend's Proto.in pune event- go for angel investors who provide much more than money- business contacts, experience and wisdom.

More nuggets of wisdom available at the source.

Proto.in Pune edition : the startup ecosystem

Proto.in, sixth edition happened in Pune this time and was an event full of glamor and geeks. While the on stage Verdanchi motorcycle's custom motorcycles set the stage rocking, and the demo of 3DSense by TouchMagix added magic to the show, the geeky cavitation bubble reactor by HyCa or the innovative English Seekho concept by Enterux solutions kept the audience engaged and awed.

The event started with a discussion on Intellectual Property Rights and it was revealing how entrepreneurs themselves and how IPR experts had different opinions- while the IPR expert Prabhu focussed on mapping the domain in terms of existing IPs and how one can innovate and protect,  the entrepreneurs on stage and in audience were more concerned with the costs involved in litigation and protecting ones IPRs. To me, the take home was map the territory, innovate in the space available, get IPRs and then leave it to good faith that others would respect your IPRs. If someone broaches your IPR, at least on the start-up phase do not go after them aggressively , but focus on executing the idea more.

This was followed by Ganesh Natrajan's keynote address focused on how government can help startups. He encouraged people to think of govt as a 10 billion dollar company that has schemes and funds for startups especially those focussed on sectors like health, education etc. He also revealed how industry bodies like NASSCOM are not there for the big players only, but it is up to the startups as to how to best make use of them.

The segment that followed was the meat of the show- the startup showcase featuring 14 startups - 2 in automobile, 4 in education, 2 in software , 3 in mobile and internet and 3 outliers that defied classification.

Some new concepts that appealed to me included the mobile-based English Seekho srvice, that perhaps was inspired by IDEA mobiles 'what an idea sirji' series of advertisements and involved using freely availbale on net IVR and voice recognition systems. The other concept which I believe may have some future if applied correctly was the Queen Bee concept of Vigyaapan Technologies, the idea being to identify the influencer (by taking the most connected/chatty person as a proxy) in a network and them trying to influence the influencer for viral marketing and tipping point effects. However, the reliance on CDR information regarding who talks to whom and how many times, seemed to me very naive and prone to errors. There is much scope for improving the algorithms here, but the idea itself is pretty good.

Image via CrunchBase

Post-lunch the focus shifted to funding the startups and the Mumbai Angels gracefully stepped in.  In a riveting panel discussion, the differences between different stages of funding- seed, angel, venture etc was clarified. It  was enlightening to know what angels look for while evaluating a business proposal and deciding to invest- passion, skillset, financial viability, but most importantly felxibility and adaptability- opennness to modfiying one's business strategy in response to changing environmental landscape.


Subsequent to this was a very boring and mundane talk by a Microsoft person, followed by a Facebook Developers Garage- which again did not live up to the hype , but was far better than the Microsoft session. I know that sponsors come with strings attached, and it is good that their sessions are scheduled at the end- one could see many person leaving politely while these end sessions were going on.

Overall it was a good experience, but indeed maybe it was me, with my usual reticent nature, but somehow I at least was not able to network a lot during that event. In the next proto I hope to not only befit from the formal events, but also from informal networking and schmoozing.