My Best Blogs Posts for Entrepreneurs and Startups

• How to pick a co-founder?
• Are you a ‘scale-first’ or ‘money-first’ entrepreneur?
• Entrepreneur’s Lesson: Be Frugal, Avoid Temptations
• 5 Things That Changed My Life, and Could Change Yours
• Avoid these customers – five warning signs to say no to customers, plus three signs to die for
• 8 Traits To Be Great
• What’s the formula for Genius?
• Apple’s Marketing Secrets
• Life is about personal leadership
• Startup School 2008: Key Takeaways, from OnStartups
• The Art of Speed
• 10 Resolutions to boost your business
• Seven ways to avoid the growth traps
• Personal Brand – steps in creating a powerful personal brand
• Deliver Authentic Leadership – Robin Sharma
• HP’s Rules of Garage

Remember, there is equal risk in jobs and business

You will be concerned about four things when you consider starting on your own:

• Entrepreneurship is too risky
• It takes too much time
• Business requires significant skills and confidence
• (and best of all) Starting your own business needs lot of money

Consider that first three concerns apply to doing a job as well. As for money, it’s really about cashflows – both for individuals and businesses. If you have an urge, don’t wait, start something of your own. You can do it over weekends, you can do it on a small scale, but just do it!

And yes, you don’t need to be the poster boy of entrepreneurs, you don’t need huge successes

Most people talk about dreaming big and huge successes and the glamor around entrepreneurship. The truth is, you don’t need to be hugely successful. What matters is whether you are happier being on your own and making more than what you would have made in a job. You don’t need to grow to be the biggest company. You just need to follow your passion.

Go out, start something!

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1. Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements – code for life and personal development
2. Entrepreneur’s Lesson: Be Frugal, Avoid Temptations
3. Entrepreneur’s Urge with Paypal, Putler brings the solution

Today, I have two books already in print and have learned a lot on the way. One of the lessons is to get the right publisher. I am fortunate to have Packt as the publisher of both my books – Mobile Web Development and Open Source Content Management Systems: Beginners Guide. 

A wannabe author will have a lot of questions. They may include:

• How is the overall experience of writing a book?
• During the writing process, what issues/ difficulties I may expect? And how to deal with them?
• Does writing a book overshadow personal life?
• I have a full time job, how do I manage my time?
• What benefits can writing a book bring to my specialist area?

Want to hear my story? Go ahead, and read my answers to these questions! At the end, I have valuable tips from my own experiences too!

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Choosing an Open Source CMS

My latest book – Choosing an Open Source CMS: Beginner’s Guide – is now available from PactPub, Amazon and others.

I have also created a special website for the book – www.cmsbook.info. The website is dedicated to readers of the book. I will be writing about choosing a CMS, tips, book excerpts and useful resources there.

• Subscribe to CMS Book’s RSS feed to get notified when it updates.
• Follow me on Twitter!
• Purchase it from PacktPub

Did you read the book? If so, post a comment! I would love to hear your feedback!

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Puzzled!

Solved it!

This took much longer to figure out, but it was a very interesting catch! Here are some notes.

• We were checking the site from same network, same internet connection, same DNS servers. Firefox and Safari on my machine showed different versions of the blog.
• Cleared browser cache – did not work.
• Checked DNS – no problem. Everything was pointing to the new server correctly. This ruled out the possibility of DNS cache causing the problem.
• Removed all site content from the old server and put up a blank index page. Interestingly, that did not show up. We continued to see the site. This confirmed that it is not really a DNS cache problem.
• Checked Apache access logs – all requests were going through the new server. But still showing different designs.
• We started thinking where else could the cache be? Now that the problem is on the server.
• And Eureka! WordPress Super Cache was the culprit. I did clear the cache after setting up new design – as I suspected it first – but somehow the cache was not cleared. I should have manually deleted all cache files, rather than relying on the plugin to do it.
• Deleted all WP Super Cache files and folders and everything started working!

Thanks to everyone who helped. Sujeet reported the problem first, Akshay suggested a solution, Aamod commented on the design, Kunal reported a problem with comment posting and Alan from my systems team found the real cause. I am touched by your support.

And what more? R. Bhavesh even offered to redesign the template! Thank you!

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2. Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-10-11
3. Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-10-11

• Finished writing Open Source CMS book. Submitted revisions to first drafts. Pre finals will be ready soon and book will be out in April.
• PlannerX is getting some good reviews. Especially ActiveCollab community (where it’s not yet launched) “loved it” – and I heard it from many people!
• Financial year end is coming near (31st March for India). And we are all pushing to close deals and get cash in at Magnet!

Exciting times!

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• Leadership = People around you producing expanding results.
• First step is taking responsibility. Responsibility = Ability to Respond. You have ability to respond to any situation, any person. Responsibility is not a burden. It’s a grace you give yourself.
• How do we listen to our people? People show up as we listen to them. If I listen to someone as a loser, he will always do things like a loser. Are we listening to our people as if they are leaders?
• Be a lifelong student. This does not come easily, you have to practice and allocate time to learn. Not just to learn technical skills, but also leadership.
• Keep your battery charged! Disempowering conversations drain your energy. Replace them with thoughts that give you energy.

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• Mind Blowing – Rajesh Gaikwad (professor in charge)
• Awesome – Brijesh Joshi (professor)
• I have attended other seminars, but this was the best ever!
• Where were you two months ago? (internship project planning started two months ago for the college, and many people repented the session did not happen two months ago)
• Superb – as usual – from you!
• I created some great project ideas by the end of the session.
• Excellent. Thank you!
• Truly motivating. This will help us a long way in our projects.

I am thrilled by the results! And am looking forward to see what projects the students do!

Here are the slides from the presentation.

World’s Best Presentation Contest

Would you like me to speak at your organization? Contact me at nirav at mehtanirav dot com.

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I am looking at both user side and the admin side.

I think WordPress excels in usability. The design is good, and it’s easy to figure out how things are laid. It follows task-centered approach to design. Which is great.

Joomla is confusing. The action buttons are above the form where you fill in the information. That’s very sad. The content adding interface is overly complicated and difficult for an intermediate user too.

Drupal makes me feel I have landed in wonderland! The taxonomy and nodes tangle me! And where is the WYSIWYG interface? That should be on by default!

What’s been your experience? Which CMS is best in terms of usability?

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We work on outsourced software development projects. One of the biggest challenges in that is to communicate effectively. We started having weekly telephone calls with customers to improve project execution. Here are some tips on drastically improving your effectiveness of handling conference calls with customers.

1. Connection: Have the number to call handy. And an alternate number to call in case the first does not work. Understand the timezone difference. Where will the client be when you call? Get connected 2 minutes earlier than scheduled.
2. Accent: Just as our clients have accent, for them, we have an accent. Indians have a variety of accents (per their cultural background) and that makes it even difficult for the client to understand what we say. Speak slowly, make sure each word is clear.
3. Disturbances: If there are disturbances on the line, don’t keep saying “are you there”, “can you hear me”, “i can hear you” etc. Keep going slowly. If you did not understand something because of the disturbance, tell the client “I didn’t get what you said (about …)” and let them answer.
4. Echo: Mute your microphone when you are not speaking. You may be on a speakerphone in a conference and the client may get echo of what he is speaking if you are not on mute. The same may happen to you if the client is on speakerphone. You can request them to mute their line while you are speaking. This will even save you some bandwidth if you are using VoIP.
5. Homework: Be prepared for the conference call. A conference call is a meeting. So be prepared with the agenda, be ready with your status updates or questions.
6. Culture Difference: Be aware of the culture difference. Your client’s expectations and understanding will not be the same as yours. The slang will be different. Some clients will be very demanding, some will be easy. Watch for this and act accordingly.
7. Cutting Long Conversations short: You or the client may keep on talking. Cut this short – unless it’s contributing. If the client is repeating himself, check whether you understood what they said, and if you reiterated that to them. Go ahead, explain the client what you understood. This will most probably reassure them that you got what they wanted to say. When needed, remind the client about the agenda and time limit for the meeting. And get back on track. Tell them you “would love to get to work on what’s been discussed. And will give an update at the end of the day”.
8. Correct Grammar: Speak good English. Incorrect grammar can upset the customer. It will not only make it difficult for your client to understand you, but will also give a bad impression of you. Practice speaking.
9. Greeting and Closing: Greet with a “good evening” (or similar, depending on the client’s time). And close with a “Thank you”. At the end of the meeting, summarize the actions to be taken now, and provide an update on when can the client expect to hear from you.
10. Listening: The most important thing on any call, is to listen to the other person! Listen actively. Repeat what the client says in your head. This will help you understand it. If you don’t understand, say what you did, and request the client to explain the rest. Practice listening! This is one thing that can elevate your performance anywhere!

What do you say about this? Are there any other tips you’ve got? Any experiences you want to share? Feel free to comment!

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1. Avoid these customers – five warning signs to say no to customers, plus three signs to die for

What do we normally do when we hear from an irate customer? The first reaction is to justify our position. No matter how much we say that “we understand your concern”, what we really do, is save ourselves. Look back at the last time you dealt with an unhappy client. What you did, and what was the reaction.

Now think how could you act differently next time? What could make it better for both you and the client?

Here are the 4 Sure Steps to Calm Down an Irate Customer:

1. Listen: Actively listen to the customer. Don’t get stuck in preparing your response that you don’t even listen to the client. Listen to their concern. Why are they saying this? What’s the actual problem they are facing? Repeat what the client says in your head. Paraphrase the main points back to him. Such that he knows that you understood the problem.
2. Take Responsibility: Take responsibility for the problem. Customer is always right, whether he is right or wrong! Take responsibility of the problem on behalf of your organization. Don’t blame it on any colleague or third party. You are the person who has the power to do something about the situation – whether you feel like it or not. So take full responsibility for the problem. Apologize.
3. Get Into Action: Ask questions to the client that force him to think. Figure out what will the solution to the problem and what’s the next action. Don’t just sit after listening to the client, take action to solve the problem.
4. Communicate: Keep the client in the loop. Communicate back your solution, the status updates on that. Keep talking till the solution is reached. Don’t leave it lose.

Image courtesy GetEntrepreneurial.

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