It is different this time

Long long time ago (i.e in 2000) there were many websites that spent a lot of money for getting users. They planned to monetize the users through advertisement. However that plan did not work out and most of them had to close shop.In the process they lost a lot of money. I am sure you have heard this famous story about the dotcom bubble and bust.

Why am I writing about a 8 year old story? Because it seems like the story is being replayed again. There are many starry eyed (including me) kids trying to create websites that will make money from advertisement. And many pundits do not take us or our business seriously because they think if it did not work in 2000 and hence it will not work this time. They are WRONG. This time it is different. It is different because

We are not creating websites to earn from advertisements. We are creating the websites to solve real life requirements of our users. Advertisement is just a side story and not the story.

In 2000, the only guys who were advertiseing on the internet were other websites. This time it is the brick and mortar companies that are selling their stuff on the internet. We have realized that internet is just an enabler and not an end in itself.

The advertisement revenue for 9 months of 2007 has reached more than $15 billion.

People are buying real stuff on the internet on amazon and ebay

I believe that monetization through advertisement is a perfectly good business plan to have. So stop listening to the experts who think they know everything. and start working on your idea and on getting users to your website.

P.S: If you have an India centric website, that you monetize through advertisement then please leave a comment below. I will like to write about you.
If are new to entrepreneurship then you may want to read about how to select an idea and how you can start your business without leaving your job.

Topics: Entrepreneurship, Internet, Make Money

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Miahoo ? Where does the MS-Yahoo deal lead us?

First of all I was thinking of a name for the MS Yahoo deal. Micro-ahoo doesn’t sound too good. Please suggest some creative names…Will be fun.

Anyways the Question is where does the deal lead us? How’s it gonna effect the today’s win-win situation of the Internet? Some say that MS has in a way accepted that it can’t beat Google on its own that’s why it needs Yahoo’s support. Now the question arises …even if MS accepts it’s defeat from Google, will it be able to defeat Google after the merger?

Experts say that the deal will be harmful for MS itself. Most of the employees at Yahoo and MS also are not happy with the deal. Another thing is that Yahoo’s servers mostly run on Linux…(need I say more?)

We have all seen that in recent times MS has been a failure in most of the things. Vista is a failure. Zune is a failure. MS Office 2007 is a failure. MSN live is a failure. Surface was a hype when launched and is just lost now somewhere in News archives. Also Bill Gates is no more the CEO. All this suggests that
MS is going to do something wrong again.

But I have great faith in Steve Ballmer’s abilities. Is he playing some unthinkable game?

Read the post above by Sita Sir. You will also believe in Ballmer’s abilities.

Fingers crossed…that’s all I can say.

Topics: Entrepreneurship, Internet, News, Uncategorized

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Linus says OS X is worse than Windows in some aspects !!!

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux Operating System, thinks that OS X Leopard is worse than Windows Vista in some aspects.

Geek enough to be interested?

Read on here.

Topics: Blogs, Entrepreneurship, News

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Venture Capital (VC) Funds in India

If you are a startup, looking for funding for your company, then it may be a little difficult to find the contact details of venture capital funds. Here is a list of venture capital fund in India.

India is a great place to start a business. The country is very tech-savvy, the businessmen are friendly and, instead of playing a golf match like they might in the US, they may take their new clients to a traditional India cricket game! Citizens of India also pay attention to popular sports in the UK. The Cheltenham races always draw a big crowd, as horse racing is very popular in the area.

Topics: Entrepreneurship

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Got a brilliant idea? Get it funded

If you think that you have a really great idea but you do not know how to proceed then you may be in luck. Techstars is now accepting applications for funding 10 new ideas.

It offers seed funding upto $5000 per founder, upto 3 founders. So you can get a $15,000 or Rs 6 Lakhs of funding. The amount is not the best part about the programme though. It is the other facilities like legal advice, networking and mentoring that they provide, that makes them special. Last year also they had funded 10 companies. 8 of them have now recieved angel investment.

The best part is they do not want you to send them a business plan. So you need not worry about preparing one. See the details of the programme here

Topics: Entrepreneurship

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Money making ideas for Geeks

If you are a proud geek with some free time then you are going to love this post. Here is a list of websites that pay you for what you love doing i.e coding.

The best one among the lot is topcoder. It has weekly contests for designing, testing and coding. Go here to see the active contests. The prize money ranges from 500$ to 1400$ for one component. You read that right, you can indeed make 20,000 Rs upto 60,000 rupees writing one complete programme. The only problem is that most of the projects are in .net or java. Topcoder provides a rating to each member depending upon how many times you win in competitions among other criteria. If you can get some really good rank then who knows even google may come searching for you

The other type of sites are freelancing sites. These sites allow companies in need of programmers to post their projects. As a programmer you can select projects that you like and then bid for them. If you are selected then you can get paid for developing the programme. http://www.getacoder.com/  ,  http://www.project4hire.com   and https://www.getafreelancer.com/ are some of the freelancing sites.

disclaimer: I have not used any of the sites except topcoder myelf.

Topics: Entrepreneurship, Make Money

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Selecting an Idea

I had previously writeen about the possibility of starting your own business without leaving yout job. (Here) It was based on my assumption that most people know what to do but are not able to do so as they are not ready to leave their jobs. However the comments to the post clearly showed that many of us do not know what we want to do. As Suku says so very clearly no one can tell you what to do but atleast I shall try to guide you.

Look for the problem

I think the problem lies in our education system that needs us to find answers/solutions. The problem is always defined by someone else. But entrepreneurship needs you to find a problem and then go ahead and solve it. Noone told larry and binn to develop a better search engine, they identified it themselves and then solved it. Same is true for any great startup. Unfortunately the same is true for you as well. You shall have to identify the problem to solve.

Fortunately it is not that difficult to identify. Just recall how many times in a day you wish that things were better. You get irritated everytime windows crashes, go and design a operating system that does not crash ;-).

Well jokes apart that is the exact way atleast we go about selecting an idea. Frustrated with having to go through 10 different newspaper to find a walkin in hyderabad we started mywalkin. Mostly Pari does not have anything  to do at office and we started bakarbakar

So here is a 5 step approach to finding an idea to work on

1. Carry a frustration diary. Everytime you feel frustrated note it down.
2. Mention about the situation to your freinds. You will be surprised by how many of them have already faced such a problem.
3. Once you have 2-3 problems that you think 4-5 of your freinds have faced, start thinking about possible solutions.
4. Finally select the one that you feel is interesting. This is definitely important because you will have to work on it for atleast 3-4 months before any result is visible.
5. There is no fifth step Go and start working on the problem.

Hope it helps.

P.S: These are my views. I am sure many of you have much better idea than that. Please feel free to post them as comments.

Topics: Entrepreneurship, Internet

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Every Dream Comes at a Price

And you have no right to expect your dream to come true, unless you are ready to pay the price. In my previous post , I had written that it is possible to keep your job and start your own business. Now if we accept that there are many young Indians like us who want to start their own company, why are we not seeing many more startups?

Well the reason lies in the fact that we are not ready to pay the price of our dream. What do I mean by that? Right now I could have gone for the latest release with my freinds. Instead I am writing this post on my laptop all alone in my room. This is the price that I have to pay if I have to make my dream of my own company come true.

Make no mistake. It is a choice that everyone wanting to own a startup has to make. Your dream or a nice time. And you can not have both. Anyone who thinks otherwise is only making a fool of himself.

The question that you need to ask yourself before starting your business is “Am I ready to pay the price?”. If your answer is NO, then stop fooling yourelf and go back to your 10 to 10 job, enjoy your weekends with your freinds and girlfreind. It is perfectly fine and perhaps the most logical choice. Afterall why to leave what you have for a mere dream?

But if you are the illogical type, who believes in listening to the heart, then welcome to the tough world of entrepreneurship. But before you enter this, make sure that you understand what you are getting into. There is no guarantee that we shall be successful. But even if we fail, we have failed while daring greatly, so that our place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Topics: Entrepreneurship

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The first Kiss and The first Dollar

There is a lot of similarity between the first kiss of a lover and the first dollar of an entrepreneur. These are the most memorable and difficult parts of a long and wonderful journey ahead. (Hopefully ;-))

Topics: Entrepreneurship

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The Best Speech Ever

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Even though I have long forgotten where I read this, I just love this speech. Do what I have done. Take a print of this and paste it on the wall of your room. May be in 6 months time it will be able to convince you to take on that risk. I definitely hope so. Because then my place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat

Topics: Entrepreneurship

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Start your own company without leaving your Job

Many of us have the desire to start a business of our own. However the dream is typically cut short by the question “Job OR Business“. Because of various reasons we are not in a position to give up our job. However I think that we have been making a mistake in asking the question. Because the real question is “How do I get the time to run my business?” The easiest answer to the question is leaving the job. But that is NOT The ONLY answer. If you can find enough time to run your business without leaving your job then I do not see a problem in having a job and a business, atleast to start with.

Do What You Love

That is the only way you can make yourself go to that damn computer and work on your business after that gruelling day. If your work is not your favorite thing to do, you’ll have terrible problems with procrastination. You’ll have to force yourself to work, and when you resort to that the results are distinctly inferior.

Possible but Difficult

Does that mean it is too easy to get success on the internet? Nothing can be farther from the truth. Let me reiterate what I am trying to say “It is definitely possible to keep your job but it is damn difficult“. Make no mistake in reading that statement. Possible but difficult. If you are not ready for that then please do yourself a favor and stop reading this blog. There are too many gurus out there who will tell you how to get success in seven days. But I am not a guru. I can tell you the hard way to get success because that is the only way I know.

Remember we have only 24 hours in a day and when you decide to do something along with your job, you will have to compromise somewhere else. You will not get the time to read the latest hit release, you will have less time to sleep, you will be too busy thinking about your website to stare at the beauty next to you In short life will be hell. But believe me if you really are the entrepreneur type, you will be happy like never before because you will not be thinking only if I could leave this job ………………………….

So happy slogging

Topics: Entrepreneurship, Internet

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