Entrepreneur Geek

We have seen breakthrough innovations in communication media and technologies. From letters to emails and IM. From books to blogs and Twitter posts.

I believe transformation is coming in the way we use our telephone. Convergence of devices, portable numbers, voice mail transcription, SMS integration – it’s all coming.

Keep your ears open for: Google Voice, Ribbit and Gizmo.

Buddying entrepreneurs / techies – there are lot of opportunities in this space. Leap forward and grab some!

I do not believe there are traditional qualifications which make a business owner a winner. Drive, common sense and intuition count for a lot more. Even inventors and technical experts who start businesses tend not to be organisational types. They are often mavericks who want the freedom of self-employment. And although entrepreneurs have a reputation as wild risk-takers, in reality they judge the downsides carefully – because they have their own capital at stake, and they have learned about the dangers of the marketplace first hand.

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Typical entrepreneurs would have never been hired by these corporations – or indeed understood the complex modelling upon which the financiers based their entire business model. But the bankers placed far too much faith in such artificial worlds of computer programs and clever buzz words – and completely lost the plot.

Rajesh Patel, a client who’s starting on his own after an impressing career, suggested a Financial Times article about entrepreneurs and why top companies failed. It was a very interesting reading. My belief in entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship just got thicker!

Entrepreneurs take decisions on gut instincts. They of course study the background and numbers, but more often than not, their decisions are based on their intuitions. It’s managers who decide by spreadsheets!

What’s your take?

I was shopping with family in Bandra Link Road area two weeks ago and spotted this board. It’s labeled “Gogola: Gola’s made of mineral water ice”. What caught my attention was obviously the spin on Google’s logo. I couldn’t resist and had to take a photo!

And by the way, these guys also have a website! Go check it out! (It’s just one page, but so what? Did you ever see a website for any ice gola vendor??) Gogola says it was inspired by Google. They also have a joint at Fun Republic in Andheri.

For anyone who does not know what an ice gola is – it’s our Indian version of slush or snow cone.

Have you seen any other non-tech business inspired by Google? If so, would love to hear about it via your comments!

Bhaskar bana Bharti

If you are in India, you may have seen such hoardings around. Who is Bhaskar Bharti you may ask? And why did Bhaskar ditch so many girl friends? (and more interestingly, how did he make so many girlfriends in the first place

Bhaskar (bana) Bharti is a new comedy show on Sony TV.

The story is about a playboy, Bhaskar who has ditched a number of girls and has taken all their curses. One of his girlfriends casts magic on him and one night he transforms into a girl. To adjust his life as a girl he changes his name to Bharti and acts as Bhaskar’s cousin. Bhaskar’s friend falls in love with Bharti who is actually a boy. Will Bhaskar be able to adjust as a girl or will his truth be revealed?

Checkout Baskar Bharti on Wikipedia, and a promo video on YouTube.

Clearly, media companies are trying to innovate their marketing. Not only are they using social networking and Internet, they are also trying to create buzz this way or the other.

Did they succeed? I believe the marketing has succeeded in creating curiosity. Now let’s see what happens to the show once it goes live on Monday!

Read Jeremy Chone’s post about “Are You a Seesmic or Balsamiq Entrepreneur?” today. I love Balsamiq Mockups and have been using it for more than 6 months now. Peldi – the entrepreneur behind Balsamiq, his blog and ideas were also an inspiration behind us starting AppsMagnet.

The question Jeremy’s asking is whether you are a “scale-first” entrepreneur or “monetize-first”. With scale-first, you would go capture a big market share and then think about monetization. With “monetize-first” you will ensure your venture is cash flow positive from early days. Your plans will focus on getting more money.

I prefer the money-first approach. Guy Kawasaki suggested it in the Art of the Start, and I have experienced that cash flows are one of the most important factors for a business. When you focus on getting cash every month, instead of raising external / venture funding, you are much more relaxed, have faster (instant?) gratification and are on solid ground.

This has been the driving factor for AppsMagnet too. We have sold 32 copies of our Reports module for activeCollab in about a month, and PlannerX has received very good reviews so far. As a matter of fact, we have many people looking forward to the activeCollab version of PlannerX!

What type of entrepreneur are you?