SatpalParmar's Weblog

CIIE launched iAccelerator

satpal — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:08:37 +0000

CIIE (an initiative of IIM A to foster entrepreneurship and innovation) have launched iAccelerator a program to incubate web start-ups.Yes. They heartly accept it as a clone of Y-combinator.

Main attractions of program:

a)Target audience are young IT professionals, students or web-developers young IT professionals, students or web-developers .

b)its a 3 month program. Two months for prototyping and 1 month of marketing.

c)8k stipend for participants.

d) CIIE will provide computers with connectivity (if you don’t carry a laptop of your own), an office space, mentoring, networking and accommodation at IIMA.

d)In case you are interested apply before 20th April.

Requirements:

A brilliant “out of box web/mobile related idea” and the ability to build a prototype around that idea in 2 months with a team of max 3-4 people.

Excellent recap of Jason Fried’s SXSW session.

satpal — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:26:41 +0000

I am a huge fan of 37 signals .I love their contrarian philosophy and their consistency to stick with what they preach.

Here is a exellent recap that Jason Fried gave at SXSW session where he talk about their bussiness philosophy .

Are you looking forward to start own venture? Angel Jason is going to fund your venture if you can answer follwoing questions.

Dee Hock on Management

satpal — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:14:22 +0000

I stuble upon on this interveiw with Dee HOCK.. I am really impressed with brevity,honesty and simplity of his thoughts. An interesting read.

Web 2.0 startup valuation: Social Networks

satpal — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:01:49 +0000

MySpace.com (sold to NewsCorp) $580 million

Weblogs.com (sold to Verisign) $2.3 million

Skype (sold to eBay) $2.6 billion

Upcoming.org (sold to Yahoo!) $1 million (rumored)

del.icio.us (sold to Yahoo!) around $30 million (rumored)

MeasureMap (sold to Google) under $5 million

Writely (sold to Google) around $10 million (rumored)

Rojo (sold to SixApart) $10 million

YouTube (sold to Google) $1.65 billion

And the list goes on (feedburner,flickr,blogger etc). Valuation of a start-up is a complex process.It become even more complex when you have to deal with unreliable data,unproven bussiness models and mix of noise and hype.Unfortunely in case of web 2.0 companies we have to deal with these issues making valuation of SN very mysterious.

Ok.Then how did we reached to numbers these numbers.? What factor affect valuation? How objective is the process?

I made a attempt to find answers to these questions by looking in to stories,news,blogs and follwoing comments around the most talked about startups of the world.

1.Why It’s So Hard to Value Social Networking Sites.

“You have little data on what kind of revenues they can generate and what their cost structure is.”

“Valuing advertising-driven sites is particularly hard because the same numbers — such as the number of users or page views — can mean different things depending on how the advertisers are billed”

“But is Google a good benchmark? ”

Analysts also like to factor in a company’s future prospects, using any number of calculations to derive a figure for “discounted cash flow.” Essentially, they look at expected revenues over a given number of years and subtract expenses to arrive at a figure for “free cash flow.” Then, using various assumptions about interest rates, they determine what money received in the future is worth in today’s terms. Analysts can never be sure about any company’s future revenues and expenses, but the problem is even worse when dealing with a young company in a fledgling industry. “

2.Startup Valuation - The VC Method

3.: Guess the Value: Basecamp

Virtual valuation game, in which reader are asked to guess the financial worth of a popular web app.

4.Why Myspce is overpriced.

“How much yearly profit would you expect from a $500 million purchase? How about a profit of just $10 million equating to a profit margin just under 2%. That’s right, the world’s largest social networking site, constantly in the top 10 web sites in the world, managed to make only $10 million on $550 million in revenue!”

5.High Tech Startup Valuation Estimator

This seems to be a highly objective process which include a multiplier for everything from size of market,stage of start-up,revenue,indusrty etc.But I doubt we can use this in case of SNs as calculation of multipiler is still a issue whihc is based on past history of industry,market,product and team.And yes ,we do have a fair amount of subjectivity here.

Web 2.0 Start-Up Field Guide - Idris Mootee

satpal — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:36:37 +0000

Source: I find this here

Hugh Macleod thoughts on being an entrepreneur

satpal — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:09:53 +0000

I am a huge fan of Huge Macleod’s cartoons.He is very very creative person.While going through his archives at gapingvoid I find a piece titled “random thoughts on being an entrepreneur”.I am so much impressed with throughness,originality and directness that I decided to repost it here.

Here it is :

1. Everything takes three times longer than it should. Especially the money part.

2. The best way to get approval is not to need it.

3. People want what they can’t have. In fact, that’s pretty much all they do want.

4. Once you become an entrepreneur, you find the company of non-entrepreneurs a lot harder to be around. You’ve seen things they haven’t; the wavelengths alter, it’s that simple.

5. In a world of over-supply and commodification, you are no longer paid to supply. You’re being paid to deliver something else. What that is exactly, is not always obvious.

6. Word of mouth is the best advertising medium of all. The best word of mouth comes from disrupting markets.

7. People buy your product because it helps fill in the narrative gaps in their lives.

8. You can either be cheapest or the best. I know which one I prefer.

9. Some people think that once they secure venture funding, their problems will be over. Wrong. That’s when your problems REALLY begin.

10. It’s better to be underfunded than overfunded.

11. If an average guy in a bar can understand what you do for a living, chances are you’re halfway to becoming a commodity.

12. It’s easier to turn an ally into a customer than vice versa.

13. If you’re happy in your career before the age of thirty, you’re probably doing something wrong. Heck, if you’re happy in your career before the age of seventy, you’re probably doing something wrong.

14. Smart, young, artistic people are always asking me which is a better career path, “Creativity” or “Money”. I always answer that it doesn’t matter. What matters is “Effective” and/or “Ineffective”.

15. Write the following on a piece of paper, have it framed, and stick it on your office wall: “Have you hugged your customer today?”

16. People will always, always be in the market for a story that resonates with them. Your product will either have this quality or it won’t. If your product fails this test, quit your job and go find something else. Just making the product incrementally cheaper or better won’t help you.

17. Products are idea amplifiers. The molecules and/or bytes are secondary.

18. People remember the quality long after they’ve forgotten the price. Unless you try to rip them off.

19. Markets serve entrepreneurs better if the latter can keep the former undersupplied. Oversupply is the kiss of death.

20. I personally know a former CEO who, once he attained control of the company, ran an EXTREMELY profitable business into the ground in less than two years. From a market cap of $100 million to ZERO, just like that. Why? Short answer: He loved being “The” CEO, but he didn’t much care for being “a” CEO.

21. In terms of becoming an entrepreneur, probably the most useful thing I learned in the last twenty years was how to enjoy my own company for long stretches of time.

22. One successful entrepreneur I know well has a wonderful quality, namely that he never, ever compares himself to other people. He just does his own thing, which actually serves him rather well. Just because his competitor has bought himself a bigger motor boat, doesn’t mean he feels the need have a bigger motor boat. This quality helps him to build his business the way he sees fit, not the way the motor boat people see fit.

23. Running a startup is full of extreme ups and downs. Which is why so many successful and happy entrepreneurs I know lead such normal, stable, unglamorous, “boring”, family-centered lives. Somehow they need the latter in order to balance out the former. Extra-curricular drama looks great in the tabloids, but that’s all it’s ultimately good for.

24. MBAs are conditioned to use their brains in much the same way as sex workers are conditioned to use their genitals. Nice work if you can get it.

Interesting isn’t it? And here is my fav thought:

Bill Gates may have a million times more money than me, but he isn’t going to live a million times longer than me, watch a million times more sunsets than me, make love to a million times more women than me, drink a million times more fine wines than me, listen to a million times more Beethoven String Quartets than me, nor sire a million times more children than me. Human beings don’t scale.

BTW most-read page on gapingvoid is “How To Be Creative”.Read it.Better get a print of this and read it whenever you are free.

Entrepreneurs are predators?

satpal — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 06:39:26 +0000

Today I came across this very interesting blog by Tom Evslin.

Entrepreneurs Are Predators

Predators are smarter than prey. Hare-brained is an insult; sharp as a fox is a compliment.

I have an evolutionary theory to explain this (full disclosure: except for reading voraciously on the subject, I am totally unqualified to have evolutionary theories). A leopard chasing an impala can make a mistake, lose the quarry, learn from the mistake, and hunt more wisely on another day. If the impala makes a mistake, it becomes the leopard’s lunch. Predators fail often; prey fail only once.

So it would be a waste of energy for prey to have a large analytical brain or to divert any resources into learning while running away. Better just to have long legs, good ears, and a healthy paranoia. Thinking could be fatal. It also doesn’t take a lot of smarts to eat grass.

Predators learn terrain; they can learn the habits of prey they’ve never seen before. They learn where to wait patiently and when to pounce. The play of kittens and cubs is as important to the development of their brains as it is to their muscles and their reflexes. And the play is full of stumbles and pratfalls – learning experiences, in other words.

I’ll bet tyrannosaurus rex was a genius compared to brontosaurus.

If you’re starting a new company, especially a new company that’s going to do something new, you have no idea what you’re getting into. OK, you’re prepared for the long hours, the lack of a steady salary, the need to raise capital; but are you ready for all the mistakes you’re going to make?

Convinced?

Businessweek’s page3 list

satpal — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 05:35:17 +0000

Before you read further have a look at this LIST.Businessweek claim that this list represent 50 most powerful Indians. Agreed? Well, I am not.If you look at the comments ,most of Indians share my view that this list is a insult to readers.

I appreciate editor took a decision to have a exclusive feature on India celebrating 60th year of independence .But I doubt he selected his best people to do the job.Authors seems to be in real hurry.Forget about the deepth of research, there are serious factual erros.

This is one of the most confusing lists I have ever seen.Just imagine Akshay kumar and Ratan Tata on same plateform.Where is Kalam? Where are all the NGOs?Why aren’t there any doctors, scientists, engineers and authors? What about international CEOs such as Indra Nooyi and Mr. Bose? Also, what about journalists and/or media personalities? Religious leaders??

Only auther can explain what they were thinking while doing such a pathetic, moronic compilation.

One thing I learn from this is that International media can be as irresponsible as local media.And yes, Businessweek need better writers.

New Synovate AsiaBUS study on Asia Pacific Web 2.0 markets

satpal — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 04:40:46 +0000

Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions commissioned Synovate to conduct a survey via its AsiaBUS Service. It aimed to gauge the size of the blogging/social networking market as well as to examine usage habits in Asia Pacific.

The study covered the following 10 markets: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand*. A total of 11,306 people aged 15-64 were interviewed during December 2006, projected to a universe of 187 million.

Results are not very surprising. Korea with his world best broadband network , China & Taiwan with their highet PC penetration (due to low hardware cost) are leading web 2.0 markets.One area where they are legging behind is blogging.This can be explained in term of language barrier.I doubt if totalitarian government and lack of freedom of expression in China have any discouraging effect on bloggers from China.

India is far behind in social networking and IM services but did surprisingly well in bloging front. Low pc penetration coupled with poor broadband infrastructure make India a comparatively smaller web 2.0 market.

Can we say democracy rocks :)

Happy Independence day India !!!!!!!!

Source: advertising.microsoft.com

Interviews with Founders

satpal — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:01:09 +0000

One of the best way to get perspective on a product,service or field is to have a face to face talk with the founders or expert behind the that particlure product and service.Interviews provide great opportunity to have founders prespective on product and his area of endeavour.

Today I find this great collection of interveiws of founders of of most talked about web services providers.I am sure we will found lots of insight in areas product development,team building,marketing and product design from these interveiws.