BinaryDay

Google adsense is a boon for many webmasters and bloggers like me. It allows us to monetize small, niche websites like this. I have previously talked about people who have earned million dollars through adsense. However I was really worried after seeing this post as it seems to suggest that making money through adsense is easy. Let me make myself very clear, making money with adsense is NOT at all easy.

I am not saying that you can not make money with adsense. However for that you need some idea, some skill or something else that will set you apart from the othen zillion blogs that are trying the same. Most importantly you will need time. That is what I am trying to do with binarday. That is what tarun, abhishek and madhur are trying to do. So please try to build a good website with some really good content before yo go ahead and leave that job.

There are many more risks associated with adsense. Many webmasters have been thrown out of the programme in the past. Google says that they were thrown out because of wrongdoings. However the webmasters plead guilty. No one knows the truth.

Adsense earnings are known to be highly volatile. I have personally seen my earnings go upto 2000$ in a month and then come down all the way to 1200$.

If you depend on google for your traffic, then the traffic may go away anytime. Google for “google dance” to see what I mean.

Finally I am not saying that you should not take risk. Take risk by all means. However be aware of what you are getting into. The aim of this post is to make you aware of the risk you are taking up.

Have you ever thought that you need to be in a particular sector to get venture funding? If yes then take a look at the list below.

Instablogs is a network of blogs. It has been funded from Vishal Gondal, the Founder and CEO of Indiagames. Instablogs is the first blog network to get funding. It was founded by Ankit Maheshwari,based in simla. His team is distributed all over the country.

Ozone Media is an online advertisement platform. It aggregates small and medium sized publishers who do not have their own sales force and sell the inventory to advertisers. It has got a funding from IDG Ventures India.

SMSGupShup is a free group messaging service. They got a 40 crore funding in the first week of july.

mKhoj.com initially started as a mobile search engine. Later it relaunched as a mobile ad publishing network platform and they have recieved their A series funding from Sherpalo and KPCB .

FutureBazaar.com, Future Group’s e-commerce venture raised funding from Sherpalo Ventures and KPCB.

iXiGO is a travel metasearch engine, got their first round of financing from BAF Spectrum, Singapore.

123Greetings a online greetings site that has been on the scene since the late nineties. Intel Capital has invested in 123greeting.com.

Druvaa is a data backup service provider. The Indian Angel Network has funded druvaa January 23rd, 2008

Komli is one more online advertising network that got funded in 2008.

This newyork times article compares mukesh ambani to mahtma gandhi. The comparison may be a little far fetched. However I recommend this article as it gives a really detailed view into the life of mr ambani and had a highly inspiring effect on me.

Negative questions are too powerful.

What if people upload porn? Youtube dies there
Why will people submit links and vote for them when they don’t get anything in return? death of digg
How will you ever monetize search while microsoft and yahoo have not managed it? google dies there
Do you think there is a market for maybe 10 people for PC? death of microsoft

You see the power of negative questions. It is too easy to think of 10 reasons why a startup will fail. Invariably while starting up, you have not figured out answers to all the questions. That is why you need years to grow up, to solve those questions, to improve your product.

Shoul I avoid discussing an idea with the team at the initial stage?
Not at all. Discussion will help you to look at the ideas from various angles and bring out enhancements. You will need the support of your partners to implement the idea as well.

What is the way out then?
Make the team understand that you have not found answers to all possible questions. There will be questions that will remain unanswered at the end of the discussion. The list above may be helpful as well

Start with few basic questions only. Do people need the product. Keep the detailed questions for later, once they have reached a certain stage.

This essay is derived from a talk at the 2006 startup school at Stanford by Ycombinator.

Nice and inspiring lessons if you are serious for starting a startup.

Came across this wonderful interview (on Guy Kawasaki’s blog) with Darren Rowse who talks about making money with blogging.
I am sure you gonna get something out of it….

My friend Yathindran came across these links which keep a track of latest postings on some of the famous blogs related to startups and venture capital.
For startup news checkout
http://startups.alltop.com/
and for venture capital news checkout
http://venturecapital.alltop.com/

Even if you are not interested in this stuff, do give it a shot. You will sure find something of interest.

I have learned a lot in the last 2 days at Barcamp Bangalore. The most shocking revelation was the fact that twitter is hot in India. I have been aware of the popularity of twitter in US. However somehow I have been 100% confident that people in India do not use twitter that much.

Just in case you have not heard of the service, twitter is a service that allows you to register and create your channel. Then you can send a message from your cell phone or IM or web to that channel. Your friends can subscribe to the channel and will get the updates from you.

I was absolutely surprised by the percentage of people using twitter at Barcamp Bangalore. I have already created a twitter account. Planning to impress my peers with my coolness

I have been researching about twitter for quite sometime now. I have found loads of impressive stuff about it. Here are some of the more interesting stuff about twitter.

Blog on the go Publish an event as soon as you hear about it. No need to wait till you start your laptop and manage to write an insightful lengthy post. You can always follow up your twitter post with a detailed post later on.

Twitter can save lives Just imagine you are stuck somewhere or you are in some trouble. Send a sms to twitter and 100s of people can get your message.

Group Chat It is a great way for a group of people to stay in touch with each other.

I am back from my first Barcamp. I had flown from Mumbai to attend the barcamp at bangalore and obviously I had high expectations. I was not disappointed at all as I met some fantabulous people.

However I was really disappointed to see a lot of sessions on trivial issues like Kamasutra, dating and Palmistry happening at the Barcamp. I totally agree with Mohan that these sessions lead to a degeneration of the idea of Barcamp. Many people were of the view that they allowed people to get a break from the serious sessions. Entrepreneurs are like soldiers. One mistake and you are dead. And barcamps are for entrepreneurs, what military exercises are for soldiers. And the last time I checked there were no entertainment sessions in the middle of military exercise.

The organizers have done a great job. But I request them to take note of the fact that these sessions are trivializing the concept of barcamp and I hope they will something to solve this problem.

Many a times I feel like an alien in the normal world. I am sure it will be the same for most of other entrepreneurs as well. Hardly anyone understands our thought process. However at Barcamp Bangalore I realized that, I am not the only alien around. There is a world of aliens. The last 2 days at Barcamp bangalore was simply awesome. Talking to the people there, some entrepreneurs and many aspiring entrepreneurs, it felt like entrepreneurship is the normal way of life.

I have hardly ever met so many awesome people in 2 days even during my IIM Days. I shall be writing detailed posts about many of these startups in the coming days. But here is a short description of some of the people who simply amazed me by their courage to put everything at stake to follow the idea that they believe in..