Category: All

Few months back we had Rakhi Sawant & Mikka:

Now we have Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty in top gear:

Rakhi looked upset about the whole thing but Shilpa may be liked it :p. Shilpa in her TV interview tried justifying the act by saying "Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is like GOD)". Isn't that giving a whole new meaning to this adage? What was she thinking?

[to be updated]

[to be updated]

[to be updated]

I had to skip my breakfast early in the morning as I got up a little late. I wouldn't mind skipping some more early breakfasts' for some real discussion like the one yesterday at night.

Day 2 started with Madhu Bahai's session on "Finding Fertile Ground". He covered most of the topics from book with the same name (read more from here). Though, it was his insight and real life experiences were the ones to look forward for throughout the session.

Next up was "Building Cultures and Ethos in New Age Ventures" by Mr. Thyagarajan. We discussed Homestead.com (back in 2001) as a case study. There were considerable number of people who found the hiring, compensation and growth of the company unsatisfactory. Some even commented that the sole reason people would stick to this organisation which strives to provide good culture and thus pays 15% lesser than the industry standard is because the employees attain a comfort level. I wouldn't agree with this as I strongly believe in the "Employee s come first" philosophy. To add to it Mr. Thyaghrajan also summed some fundamental principle new age ventures should likely follow, which include honesty, work philosophy (fairness) and desire to serve people. I couldn't agree more with this thinking. Also. he stressed on WIM (what's in it for me) & WIU (what's in it for us) philosophy where the employees and employer have a clear understanding.

[updated later]

After lunch there was a session by Chirag Patel of Net4Nuts. The journey of Net4Nuts started with a web based product and now they are into mobile based value added services. He had his own list of Ps which he elaborated on. Few of the things I recollect are:
- Everyone is important. Everyone here involves just about everyone from employees, to customers and to even the accountants.
- Don't compromise with people you hire.
- Be always aware about the environment you are in.
- Be fast to change.

I was very curious about session on "Fundamentals of Finance for Entrepreneurs" by Bharat Kanani (Sr. Vice President, GVFL). The session was too quick for me to follow or may be it was lack of sleep. The only thing about accounting I know is "Debit the reciever, credit the giver", thanks to a week of commerce I attended at Narsee Mohanjee College of commerce. I would surely love to do a short course on commerce (do you know of any?). I had years back also tried to read "The Economic Times" regularly while on my bus journey to college in the morning. Most of the time (may be all times) I ended up having a refreshing sleep.

The last session of the day was by Chirag Mehta of IceNet. IceNet is a very well known ISP in Gujarat and very few (may be only one) who survived the competition from biggies like BSNL, Reliance etc. Now IceNet is also into product development with their flagship product Cyberroam client. He had a very interestion story of the tortoise and the hare to share which starts exactly from where the popular story we know ends.

During the day had some long discussions with Prof. Santosh Pullewar, Prof. Surinder Singh (both teach at Indira Institute of Management) and Neelkantappa H. s. I found them pretty receptive and humble.

Need I say looking forward for Day 3 ?

Day 1 of the Techno-Entrepreneurship Program lived upto its expectation.

Here is the schedule for the day: Day 1

The morning session started with Prof. B.H. Jajoo going through the program structure. He stressed on the fact that it was just a getting wet exercise and not swimming. He also stressed on the intensive nature of the program which is very true.

The next session was taken by Dr. Madhu Mehta on the "Challenges of the Techno-Entrepreneurship Journey." He used slides extensively to illustrate what people think and then he would share his personal experiences and his take on things. His insight and practicality was particularly interesting.
Few of the things he put differently were:
- "There is Business and there are Entrepreneurial Ventures"
- "Me last attitude" expected from an Entrepreneur
(Some of this may make sense only in the context they were made)

Next session of the day was again taken by Madhu Bhai and was on "Appreciating, Analysing and Generating Ideas". Here he made us think and look at things differently. One of the points he made was first assuming there exists a solution and then think of the solution. In this way one can leverage the full potential of the human mind by negating human tendency.

Next up was a session by Prof. B. H Jajoo on "Innovation Drivers in IT." I must say this man is in love with his gadgets. He showed us everything from small USB drives, cool LED displays, latest PDAs, flexible keyboards for PDAs, USB HDD with media codecs and a small compass box sized linux box for multimedia (recordings, playing movies and music etc.). Did I miss something ? LoL. Look liked he owned most of it and was showing us things one by on like a magician popping up things from his hat.

Then we had a brief overview of "Elements of Business Plan" by Mr. K. Thyagrajan and Madhu Bhai. One of the things he stated differently from the more well-known belief was that a business plan is first for the entrepreneur and then for others. The premise of this statement was that an entrepreneur should work on his business plan first to think about all aspects throughly and internalize the venture. Later, he can adapt it to VC needs.

Later, we formed groups and discussed a case study of Homestead (www.homestead.com) a company which is out to create website for everyone and affect the lives of many in a positive way. It was really interesting to know about Homestead and its "Employees come first" culture. I believe building such an ecosystem is the trademark of an "Built to Last" company.

The last session was an informal meet with Kaushal Mehta, founder of Motif India a BPO startup. I did have an small interesting discussion with him about how he planned his entreprenurial journey and its much different then what I have/would like to do. (Would share it if I take out some time.)

Overall, I feel the first day is making me feel I have done the right thing by attending this program. I met people from diverse backgrounds, currently sharing my room with an interesting chap named Yatish from IISc (Sree u reading this?), met people who are facing problems with their startups and issues they haven't thought of before, read case studies and met incubates at NirmaLabs.

Now, all I can say is I would be making an effort of trying to sleep but I have no clue when I would really sleep.

[update]

I did end my post here but the day was still not over and so much more happened before I slept. Yatish and me discussed everything from things that interest us to, creativity, imagination, product design, education, programming, quest to learn, entrepreneurship, cultural ethos of an organization, ideas, entrepreneurship and life in general. We must have wished eachother goodnight for atleast 3 times in between but then again continued to share our views. It was only after 4am that we slept.