Moments of embarrassment


Yesterday I met an acquaintance who happens to be common friend of couple of my friends… He has learned about lot of my bad side of mine thru my friends and he was talking to me telling that his friends had a Crazy bad guy as a friend and when I told him I’m that crazy bad guy, I got embarrassed and I was enjoying his facial reactions :)… Then I thought I can think of embarrassment I’d over come till date…

 

  1. Got caught with a COP while I was coming in one way… Didn’t want to waste time and I immediately offered him a bribe and only then came to know he was a honest cop and ended up getting advice for 30 min…
  2. Got caught with my MOM when I was stealing money from her wallet…
  3. When I was mimicking a faculty while he was standing behind me… The way he handled the situation embarrassed me further…
  4. Myself and Aravind went to a expensive restaurant and had milkshake and we got a bill of $2 or something, but we had only $1… Aravind faced the situation but still that was an embarrassing moment…
  5. When I lied a client telling I was not feeling well and didn’t come online… He said he was following me on twitter and he knew what all I updated… I’m happy that people are following me and also embarrassed…
  6. As a child I use to quarrel with my sister for window seat and she will give it up for me…

 

There are more moments and these are the ones I remember immediately… If you have any moment of embarrassment please post it as comment… So, the we can know how we got embarrassed and see how we can overcome these situation in future…

The Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions


One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan’s biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem.

Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems.

Interview with Mr.K.Balasubramaniyam, Founder Contus Support BPO Pvt. Ltd.


It is nice to be with Mr. Balasubramaniyam.K, Founder Contus Support BPO Pvt. Ltd. Bala is a good old friend of mine and he has been tried his hands on lots of ventures from his college days… His has his own share of failures and success and he has loads of experience to share at this young age… Come let us get back to him and know more about him & Contus…

 

Q. Hello Bala. Can you tell us about yourself?

 

Friends, it’s too early to talk about me or Contus Support.  We have a very long way to go, for now we just identified the path to walk and we have miles to complete.

 

I am a Mathematics graduate and had dreams about starting a company since my college days, along with my friend Sriram.  Even Anand invited us (myself & Sriram) to join his team in 2000, but we couldn’t join him for some reason. 

 

I am environmentally friendly person having great respect and love for nature. I spend most of my free time with likeminded people.

 

Q. When & how did your entrepreneur desire started & blossomed?

 

It started when I were in school, when I really didn’t know the meaning of entrepreneurship J…  After college I  had been to various ventures which includes Internet, Finance / Banking, etc., where I experienced a mix of Success & Failures. I always believed  the magical word “Dream” by A.P.J.Abdul Kalam.

 

It took us one long year to gather information, raising funds, building team. Finally Contus Support was born on Feb 2008…

 

Q. Tell us about your past ventures and let us know your experience?

 

My first entrepreneur dream came true in the year 2001 when I and Sriram took lease of Sify Iway  in Saidapet, Chennai.  Though it is not a big venture we learnt a lot there and it really helped us to keep the thirst of entrepreneur and that was the reason for the birth of Contus Support.

                                                                                    

Q. Tell us how Contus took shape?

 

As the name (Contus Support BPO Pvt. Ltd) says Contus was started as a BPO company last year and slowly transformed as Software / Applications provider after Mr.Amalraj and Mr.Balamurugan joined the team Contus.  Now Contus is in to Web Applications & Product development.

 

 

Q. Tell the challenges you faced (Pre formation & post formation)?

 

As I mentioned before we started Contus as a BPO and it required huge capital investment. We tried to raise capital for Contus before one year of its inception through friends, relatives and acquaintance.  We were also in discussion with Pentamedia for joint ventures through one of our Director Mr.Dinesh.S. 

 

All these attempts failed and that is when we decided to raise capital ourselves. We were able to raise capital money ourselves because of Mr.Thiaghu.R and Mr.Prakash (Directors) who gave the idea and motivated us on raising money.

 

After formation of the Company, things were not smooth like we expected.  We quickly realized weakness and we changed our business model from BPO to IT / S-A-S provider.

 

Q. Tell us about “Service” offerings of Contus ?

 

Contus Support offers three main services

 

è    Web Applications & Product development    (www.platoon.in)

è    Internet Marketing S.E.O.                              (www.webstreetsmart.com)

è    Technical Support Services                             (www.support1000.com)

 

Q. Have you accomplished everything you dreamt about Contus?

 

No.

 

Q. How did u raise capital for starting Contus?

 

Contus was founded by a team of five (Directors) and we all invested the money equally.    We raised money by applying personal loans from Bank.

 

Q. Will this recession have any impact in your plans? If yes how do you plan to overcome this recession?

 

We won’t have any impact for us because of this recession. Infact recession is a blessing in disguise. We are getting talented resource for an affordable package.

 

Q. What are your future plans?

 

It’s too early for now to say that.  But I can say we have fixed a very big milestone.  Our next step would be developing niche products which you can get the updates from our website (http://www.platoon.in) in the coming days.

 

Q. What is your advice for new startups and wannabe entrepreneurs?

 

è    Believe yourselves

è    Proper planning

è    New thoughts

è    Execute without delay

 

===========>End of Interview<=========== 


Thank you very much or sparing your valuable time with us Mr.Bala… you have a inspiring story and it was really inspiring to be with you. We wish you and Contus all the very best…

10 years back!!!


Couldn’t believe that was me and 10 years ran like a min… Almost 10 years back we went for a college tour to Ooty and I just checked those photos to live those moments :)… Me with Sun Glasses, to my right the half faced guy is Saravanan, then itz Vicky, on my left is Balaji and Sathish…

Still there are more pictures which I must scan and post it online… Ok let me go back and live those days…

anand2

A day out to Kodai!!!


Last week we had been to Kodaikanal for a day’s trip… Thanks to Major Karthik, Bala Subramaniyam, Boopathi & Sathick for sponsoring the trip… Ok itz wrong to tell it as sponsor as it is their Birthday treat… Since their birthdays fell within a month they thought they can join hands and give a memorable treat… Then boopathi took over and really rocked with his Admistration skills and finished the trip with less than 30% of the projected expense…

Asusual it got delayed because of me… I got up late and it took time to get ready, we were beyond schedule by 30 min… So all folks assembled in my house and this is the team excluding Senthil who joined us from Vadipatti…

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left to Right: Bala Subramaniyam, Major Karthik, Yours Truly, Boopathi, Sathick

Then we picked up Senthil from Vadipatti and then we stopped at Vathalagundu to have our breakfast…

21

415

 

 

 

 

Folks got down near the hotel, Hotel’s Entrance & Folks fighting… I just dank a cup of milk as I know eating too much will result in vomiting… But Sathick freaked with Vada, Dosa, Idly & Coffee and as expected he started vomiting… I was surprised to know that this was sathick’s first trip to a hill station…

 

Then we straight away went for site seeing… First was pine forest

12

19

 

 

 

 

We at carrot & Ice-Cream here…

 

Then we went to Guna caves, suicide points and many other places enroute before returning for lunch to Hotel Hilltop… I over ate here and had a nice nap… We cancelled our plan to goto Liril falls and Dolphin nose because there was not much water in the falls…

These are some of the snaps we took on that day…

Twitter & me


700-followers

Last week i crossed 4000 tweets and got 700 followers in twitter.com… It is indeed a milestone as I’m a late entrant to twitter and just started being an active participant for less than 6 months, thanks to Sanj… From then on twitter has become an integral part of my lifestyle and I’ve immensely benefited because of twitter… These are the list of things I gained because of twitter;

 

 

 

  • Gained many project from twitter
  • Got many leads and references from twitter
  • My brand penetration, Eg: I got an Direct Message yesterday
    shrirambrDo you work in Cogzidel? Read your CFOs article in last months businessgyan. Pretty good.
  • Networking and lots of friends. I cant imagine if I could have gained this many friends physically… Out of 700 followers I’m in close touch with atleast 50+ folks…
  • I need not update about what I’m doing to 100’s people… One tweet reaches 700 of my friends telling what i’m doing…
  • I did couch surfing with some of twitter friends
  • If I need any help I just posted it in Twitter and I got the solutions most of the time
  • I get to know what is happening at a fast interval… Many times before it comes in TV or news paper… Eg: 26/11 Mumbai shootout came in Twitter first than it reached NDTV or other media…

I hope I experiment twitter more and I can let you know itz benefits in coming days… Please keep reading my blog regularly…

Special Invite for Brand YOU Workshop Intro – Create


YOU are a Brand. A Brand that needs to be marketed to the outside world with as much professionalism, as much Strategic Planning as other successful Brands that you see and use daily.

YOU are a Brand. Whether YOU are a Student, a Corporate Professional, an Entrepreneur or a Small Businessman. YOU mean something to the outside world. Whether YOU intend to or not, YOU are sending messages to the world about who YOU are, what YOU stand for, what your personality is, in what way YOU are different from others etc.

If YOU do not consciously make an effort to shape your image, the world will prepare an image about YOU, an image that may or may not work in your best interests.

Welcome to the world of Brand YOU. Want to learn more?

Attend the Brand YOU Workshop at Chennai, India and see how it can help YOU:

  • understand what your personal traits are
  • decide who YOU really want to be
  • work out a road map to get there

You can apply your learnings to:

  • stand up for what is important to you and stand out in a crowd
  • focus your energy on meeting your top priorities
  • make your career grow within your organization or your industry
  • improve your chances of getting a job
  • improve your business
  • improve the perception of YOU by your peer group or your business associates

In the Brand YOU Workshop you will learn proven Marketing and Branding Strategies used by successful brands all over the world and understand how to apply them to yourself so that you create your own successful brand Brand YOU. In this workshop you will not only get an exhaustive introduction to the world of Personal Branding, it will also help you work out (through interactive exercises) your own personal Brand YOU Action Plan

If you would like to know more about the Structure and Format of the Workshop, do drop in for a FREE Introduction to the Workshop.

The Intro will happen on

Date : 11th April 2009 (Saturday)

Time : 4.30p.m. to 6.00p.m

Venue:

Andhra Chamber of Commerce

First floor Hall,

“Velagapudi Ramakrishna Bldg”,

23, 3rd cross street,

West C.I.T. Nagar,

Nandanam, Chennai 600035.

Directions: If you’re coming from Saidapet on Mount Road, take left turn just before DSC Hyundai Showroom. It is the 3rd bldg off Mount Rd. If you’re coming from Nandanam signal on Mount Road, take U turn just before Saidapet Bus Terminus and then take the left indicated.

The Main Brand YOU Workshop is scheduled for 25th and 26th April, 2009 at Chennai, India. Pricing details of the workshop will be announced during the Introduction session of the workshop.

For more information, call Milind Jadhav on +91 98840 56988 or email him at writetomilind@gmail.com .

About the Organiser:
The Workshop is being conducted by Milind Jadhav, a seasoned Advertising and Marketing professional who is now into training as well.

You can see Milind Jadhav’s profile at the following link:
http://www.brandyouprofessionals.com/about/

Fallacies of Agile Development


About the event

Venkat Subramaniam is in Chennai on the 20th of April and will speak on Fallacies of Agile Development.

Date: Monday, 20th April, 2009

Time: 6 PM

Where: Gandhinagar Club, Adyar (Map)

Duration: 2 hrs

Cost: FREE

About the speaker

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects, and speaks frequently at international conferences and user groups. He is author of “.NET Gotchas” (O’Reilly), coauthor of 2007 Jolt Productivity Award winning “Practices of an Agile Developer” (Pragmatic Bookshelf), and author of “Programming Groovy: Dynamic Productivity for the Java Developer” (Pragmatic Bookshelf).

 

Venkat is an agile developer who teaches and mentors. He has significant experience in architecture, design and development of distributed object systems. He has worked in positions, from Programmer Analyst to Systems Architect, at organizations like Halliburton, Raytheon, and Simulation Sciences. Venkat has trained more than 2500 software professionals around the world. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston and teaches the Professional Software Developer Series at the Technology Education Center – Rice University. He is also a regular speaker at various conferences and user groups.

Venkat is the coauthor of the book “Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World”

For Registration visit http://chennaiagile.pbwiki.com/20-April-2009-Venkat-Subramaniam

Interview with Mr.Kaviraj, Founder areapal.com


It is indeed nice to be with Mr.Kaviraj, Founder areapal.com… Kavi is a prudent entrepreneur and always takes leaps to reach his goal… I’ve known kavi when his idea was a dream and he was selling his idea… Today I’m happy to see him making his dreams into a reality and in fact flourishing well… Let us shoot out question to kavi and get to know more about his experience…

 

Q. Hello Kavi. Can you tell us about yourself?

 

My native is Thanjavur . My father is a government servant . My brother is a farmer . I finished my B.E( I.T ) in Annamalai University . M.E ( Computers ) in Sathyabama University .

 

Q. When & how did your entrepreneur desire started & blossomed?

 

A.  Am basically a WEB 2.0 enthusiast and was an addicted user of Various sites like Orkut , Facebook etc. Always thought these networks were not for India.  India is very different and our people always want a face to face interaction.

 

So wondered how it would be to build a network that helped people to find the same frequency persons in their neighborhood itself. That is when we started building this network.

 

Q. What are you hobbies other than your business?

 

A. Watching movies, reading books and roaming around with my friends.

 

Q. Tell us how areapal.com took shape?

 

A. As mentioned, when I got this idea of root level INSTA NETWORKING, I went to Anna University and started telling my friends about this idea. They were excited and so instantly we formed a team of interested students and started building this project. So we got contributions from lots of students from various colleges. That is how we have built the product which you are seeing now.

 

Q. Tell the challenges you faced (Pre formation & post formation)?

 

A. Our initial problem was lack of funds. We somehow managed to get some small loans and also put our own money for renting servers etc. Distributed different modules to various people / freelancers and got it done. We all took different roles in developing the project from designing, strategy to coding, DB designing etc.

 

Q. Tell us about areapal.com’s business model?

 

A.   “ The most interesting person you have been searching for all over the ( web )world may be just a street away – areapal.com helps you find him “  – as per our slogan , areapal is a platform that helps people to connect in a very drilled down manner based on their locality ( area ) . We are trying to remove the 6 degrees of separation and connect people in the first degree itself.

 

Q. Have you accomplished everything you dreamt about areapal.com?

 

A. Nope, still there is a lot to accomplish J

 

Q. What is your experience in approaching VC & angels?

 

A. In India we feel that approaching VC’s is a bit difficult at the idea or seed stage. But approaching angels is a bit easier.

 

Q. Will this recession have any impact in your plans? If yes how do you plan to overcome this recession?

 

A. ‘ areapal ‘ is a community driven project with contributions in various verticals from a wide pool of enthusiastic youngsters / students .  In fact we are also in plans to convert this project as a FOUNDATION and help all the youngsters own a particular city in areapal and earn via. it. So we are fully equipped to face the recession J

 

Q. What are your future plans?

 

A. Connect full India “area by area wise” and help user contributed local data flow in a more consumable manner to all the people .

 

Q. What is your advice for new startups and wannabe entrepreneurs?

 

A.  I always liked the line “… You should first START to become GREAT “   . Guess it was told by Abraham Lincoln.

 

Thank you very much Kavi for sparing your valuable time with us and it was really inspiring to be with you. We wish you all the very best…

Mark Zuckerberg Turns Investigator


One by one, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has driven away his cofounders and close confidants. The latest to go: chief financial officer Gideon Yu.

Now Zuckerberg is tracking who has leaked the email memo sent to CFO and you can see his instigative tactics in the email… Please read the email carefully…

Catch the differences? One says “will report,” the other says “will be reporting.” One uses treasurer Cipora Herman’s last name, the other omits it. One says “we are fortunate,” while the other uses the contracted form “we’re.” And one says Peter Currie will be “an advisor,” while the other says only “advisor.”

 
That’s not the only oddity about the email. “Several versions I got of this memo had different punctuation in various places,” Swisher notes in an update.

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL–DO NOT FORWARD

Hey Everyone–

Today ends the first quarter of 2009, so I wanted to send out an update on our growth and financial progress, as well as a couple of changes we are making.

Our user growth has been extraordinary over the past year and has continued to be strong throughout Q1. We are getting very close to reaching our 200 millionth active user. This is pretty remarkable considering we just reached 100 million actives a little more than seven months ago. We have become the top site for sharing information on the web, and this gives us a good strategic position to help people share even more.

I am also pleased that our financial progress has been very strong as well. While we came into this year wondering how the recession might affect us, our financial performance in the first quarter surpassed our expectations. As other businesses around us are slowing down and cutting back, we continue to grow around the world. Our advertising products are becoming more attractive for advertisers and we have seen strong growth in both our domestic and international direct sales and online sales channels.

Even in the current economic environment, we are confident that this success will continue. Based on our first quarter results, we now believe we are on track to see our revenue grow by at least 70% this year. We just completed our fifth straight quarter of EBITDA profitability. And most importantly, we expect to achieve free cash flow profitability next year. That’s an important measure of financial success and sustainability because it means we’d be able to fund all of our operations and server purchases from the cash we generate while increasing our cash reserves in the bank. Hitting these numbers will require continued hard work, discipline and execution by everyone here at Facebook, but we are on the path to achieve these goals.

As we ramp up to take on these challenges, I want to let you know that Gideon Yu will be leaving the company. Gideon has played an important role in helping us achieve our financial success, building a strong finance team and establishing the core financial operations of our company. I will always be grateful to Gideon for his contributions to Facebook and what we are trying to accomplish. As those of you who know him know, Gideon’s family is his highest priority and it’s certainly not the usual cliché to say that he plans to take some time off to be with his wife and son. Gideon and I have often discussed that the next stage of his career will likely be as an investor, and I fully support him in this regard.

We have retained Spencer Stuart to search for a new CFO and we will be looking for someone with public company experience who can help take us to the next stage in our growth.

In the interim, the finance team will report to Cipora Herman in her capacity as Treasurer and Ted Ullyot as mteam lead. In addition, [Facebook is] fortunate that Peter Currie, the former CFO for Netscape, has agreed to serve as the advisor to Facebook until a new CFO comes on board.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me or to others on mteam if you have any questions about our finance plans or organization. I’ll discuss this more at the Q&A on Friday and I will be happy to take questions then too.

Congratulations to everyone on a great start to the year and on all the momentum you have all helped build for the rest of 2009.

Mark