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Showing posts from February, 2011

Indians on TechCrunch- what's wrong?

I have noted that there are decent voice for Indians in TechCrunch , the popular technical blog: Rahul Nihalani , Leena Rao ,... But, still there's no importance given for Indian entrepreneurship and Indian tech news. As far as I see, Indian companies that get the mention are just from NRIs, for example Micromobs . Unfortunately, these companies are not at all comparable with the Indian entrepreneurship spirit. This clearly proves that there's huge untapped potential on the startup and media in India.

Quora, missing promotional buttons

I've finally got an account in Quora . Google Groups once captured Usenet and now Quora is capturing the market. Right now, my profile and activities are in stealth mode. The information is quite addictive. But, I couldn't still find a button to link to Quora profile--something like Twitter's follow button or LinkedIn's button. I think, Quora is yet to focus here on promotion.

Entrepreneur magazine of Infomedia 18 finally responds...

I liked the content of Entrepreneur magazine from Infomedia 18 . When I thought of subscribing for 3-years, I sent the amount by DD to them by December 2010. Despite sending number of emails and contacting them over the phone, my subscription wasn't successful. Being desperate, I have sent mails to all available emails and they finally responded this week.

Learnt from exit and enter interviews...

Things learnt from interviews lately... Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish - book on entrepreneurship When people don't feel the growth of company in terms of headcount, they move. When people decided to move they're confused about the reasons and priority. Money is the only motivation. People who leave company can easily access the confidential information like billing, etc. When the people realize that their efforts can better be promoted by themselves than a sales guy, they move. Being "employee" alone is not sufficient for some; some expects partnership.

Marketplace payment gateway - what's wrong?

our team has developed popular FPPlatform (aka, fiverr clone) and SFPlatform (seed/crowd funding platform). I see, here we're facing huge crunch in terms of payment gateway solutions. The least closest here is the solution from PayPal called adaptive payments. But, due to their API design and approval process, there's gap creating (Not to mention that PayPal is working with us to improve that). Over the top of my head, thinking of creating a payment gateway provider on the top of PayPal or Authorize.net with improved API design (something like Braintree )

Wikipedia - people page - what's wrong?

Recently I got to be highly skeptical about the future and quality of the Wikipedia , especially on the article about people. Problem People from West create pages for the "winners" of a TV show and think it's perfectly ok--as those "winners" do deserve the Wikipedia page People from India create pages on "bloggers" and "cinema people". They think that it's perfectly ok to have them featured. People like Vilayanur S. Ramachandran have decent page and where as notable people like Dr.C.N.Deivanayagam are absolutely ignored. If the trend is continuing, some college topper may get a page in Wikipedia and... heck everyone may get a article just like a profile page

Search similar and duplicate fixed price jobs through jobreapr

I previously mentioned that our team has developed jobreapr the fixed price job search engine that searches through Fiverr alternatives and gives better results. In the phase-2 release, team has worked hard to add few more sites and more importantly introduced similar and duplicate listing through new algorithm. With this version, user can quickly check for similar jobs across all sites and also find if the job is duplicated across other fixed price job sites--and then order the job in best place/site.

MySpace & the missing person to scale up startups

There's huge cry that MySpace--the site that was popular few years ago is kind of dead--kind of killed by Facebook. So, what's the problem?... Often startups start with the some "killer idea". The startups are usually started by a guy who is technical savvy or a sales guy who thinks he can sell it better or a marketing guy who thinks he can market it better... but, often these startups missing a person who is willing to scale it up (I think, such person's designation can be set as Scaler[sic] or so)--instead of just getting satisfied with his technical/sales/marketing ability. So far, I have noted in interviews that people move from company to company when it doesn't grow and scales up. Word of mouth and crowd power is essential to get the startups running. But, companies like MySpace's death are already predicted.

Bra & Condom eCommerce website for Indian market

For a long time, I have noted that there's huge potential for an online shopping site that targets bras and condoms. Why a bra site in India? There's no good site available in India. Currently, only enamor has a website; but that doesn't seem to be active and friendly. Majority of the Indian women don't know how to find the right size . Majority wrongly refers the size as a single number--just referring the circumference around breast; but good brands have two-letter representations. Why a condom site in India? There's no good website available except that some manufacturers have static websites. As of now, CondomKing alone exist in this market. There is only one size condom available in India. But, BBC reports that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men . There's more possibility for data mining.

Indian groupon sites Vs. GroupDeal

I previously noted that Groupon is chasing GroupDeal , the group buying software platform that our team has developed and also powers many Groupon competitor sites. Remember the self-service platform and QR-code based online validations are first introduced by GroupDeal. There are lot of Groupon like sites introduced in India. Here, I list few of them. But, I'm pretty sure that any site that use our GroupDeal product can do much better. SoSasta - Bought by Groupon even before getting active. Not sure, why did Groupon buy this. SnapDeal - by Delhi based Jasper company MyDala taggle - Bangalore based Koovs - Like Gilt, but public FashionAndYou - Exactly like Gilt. From DealsAndYou DealsAndYou SnatchDeals - Like Yipit BindaasBargain - Like Woot Groffr - on real estate Issues with Indian Groupons When quickly checked, there doesn't seem to be clarity on the focus for these players and some are looking aggressive but doesn't seem to have good software platform

Who is behind Puthiya Thalaimurai magazine?

I have noticed some incoming hits about Puthiya Thalaimurai magazine. When I first read the magazine, I've immediately taken 2-life subscription (one for me and another for my parents) because of its content. Though the magazine quality is still good, some people rumored the following (google and related sites confirm that too): SRM group is behind "Puthiya Thalaimurai" magazine They've launched India Jananayaka Katchi political party They're about to launch SRM TV channel

Don't remove the wisdom tooth

The inspiration for this post is a post by Peter Claridge You're nearing 25 years, you've got painful wisdom tooth growth, you're even getting high fever due the pain, your dentist is asking Rs.15,000/- plus for removal/extraction and showing scientific papers claiming that wisdom tooth is unnecessary growth... First of all don't pluck it--unless you hit very very very serious problem. I was also about fell prey for one dentist whom tried to convince me a lot for the extraction surgery. With some sort of hesitation, I had to inform it to my Mom that time. She immediately suggested me to rinse with salt water and take mild foods for about 1-week. She strongly insisted that the pain will definitely go in 1-week time. To my surprise, that did really work for me. So, far I have suggested that to many people and all of them were about to have the surgery scheduled. Are you still going to pluck the wisdom tooth or just treating it with salt water rinsing?