Tuesday, October 26, 2010

What We can Learn From Emerging Markets

Nirmalaya Kumar of London Business School shares his view on the emerging markets.

Taking Off

An apt metaphor for business start up.

Larry Ellison : I don't know of any place or time that does not create possibilities. Stay informed of your field.



Take risks while you can ( Jawed Karim's decision to move to Palo Alto to join Paypalby dropping out of the second semester.)

Stay flexible.

Don't listen to so called 'experts'. There are no experts.

Taking Off

An apt metaphor for business start up.

Jawed Karim

Youtube co-founder shares his story of a start up from concept to hyper growth.



How did they come up with the idea? Why is it so successful?

If you have a good idea and make a video and upload it , you will have millions of viewers. The dancing video by Mike Garding is a prime example.

Killer Applications, for example like Wikipedia and Flickr, anyone can implement them i a matter of weeks although scaling it could be more complicated.

Livejournal(1999) allowed one to broadcast personalised content. It also showed people are willing to share their personal stories.

Hotornot ( 2000 ) allows you to rate photos. Anyone can upload or download. It was profitable even before google adsense.

Wikipedia - are people really willing to put in their own time to produce content. It was a more like a social experiment.

Friendster ( 2002) was not the first social network. Six degrees came out but relied heavily on email.

Flickr (2004) photosharing plus delicious. There was no concept of tagging with others.

Why is it possible now and not before and what problem does this solve.

If you have a good idea why hasn't it been developed until now. For you tube the enabling technology was around. The broadband was not available in 2000.Macromedia Flash 7 is now taken for granted, first time macromedia included video playing. The video camera also came up with capability. Also cheap hosting had become available.

A couple of hundred thousand to sixty million in five years they managed to scale paypal.

Just because 'experts' reject an idea it doesn't mean its a bad idea.

There are no experts, you are the expert.

The Next Big Thing will exploit newly emerging secondary technologies.

Watch these enabling technologies to see what will be possible.

An excerpt from Jawed's talk about marketing a new website, just send emails to your friends.

Well guys, we just launched this website.

Can you help us spread the word?

Since we just launched we don't have any girls on it ...YET.

Can you guys upload your own videos? Let me know what you think.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Justifying Your Price

One day a woman spotted Pablo Picasso in the market and pulled out a piece of paper. “Mr. Picasso,” she said excitedly, “I’m a big fan. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”

Picasso happily complied and quickly drew a sketch for her on the paper. As he handed it back, he smiled and told her to “take care of it. That will be worth millions one day.”

The woman looked flustered and said, “But it only took you thirty seconds to do it.”

Picasso laughed, “But it has taken me thirty years to be able to do it in thirty seconds.”

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Always leave it better than you found it

The Boy Scouts have a rule: "Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it." If you find a mess on the ground, you clean it up regardless of who might have made the mess. You intentionally improve the environment for the next group of campers. Actually the original form of that rule, written by Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, the father of scouting, was "Try and leave this world a little better than you found it."

Similarly , in planting trees, you leave behind something for the next generation.

Business Owners and Marketing

here are business owners right now… tonight…, laying in bed, tossing and turning, because they are about to loose their business. Not because they aren’t good at what they do, it’s because not enough people know what they do.

It’s all about MARKETING.

Jim Rohn

”It’s not the wind that will affect you, it’s how you trim your sails..”

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
-Jim Rohn

"in order for “it” to get better, “YOU” must get better"

“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.”

“When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.”

“IT is not too expensive. The problem is YOU cannot afford it.”

“Money isn’t everything but it is right up there with Oxygen!”

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live”

“It is not about what you get, it’s about what you become.”

We are all Dying

How’s your Mother Johnny?”

“Ahh, Frank, she’s dying….”

“We all are, Johnny. Act accordingly.”

Jack Nicholson - The Departed

Friday, October 15, 2010

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Love is in the Air

London 2012



'If you lack common sense, relax and you can watch it on telly'.

Linchpin

The Lonely Polygamist

'A dysfunctional family is a family with more than one member in it.'

'the best literature does that..extreme comedy and extreme tragedy in the same place'



'not a book about polygamy but a book about family...polygamy is a kind of exaggeration of a regular family and its so exaggerated that it somehow more clearly shows us ourselves.'