I’ve been a fan of 37signals ever since I first used Basecamp during my stint at Slideshare in 2007 and later while working on Kwippy. What’s also special about 37signals is that not only they build great products that make money, they are also doing a fabulous job at sharing their experiences and learnings with the community using Social Media long before it was a buzz word. If you haven’t done it already, you should checkout their blog where they talk about design, business and other things.

Sometime back I happened to listen to this talk given by DHH on ‘Making money online’. Despite a cheesy sounding title the talk is a great primer for web entrepreneurs  starting up or thinking of starting up. DHH touches upon a great point when he says

The odds of you in here making the next Facebook or YouTube or MySpace are tiny, the odds of you just actually just creating a product that few people will like and pay more for, not that shabby.

It’s kinda like reverse terror alerts, the probability of something like this happening, like the probability of you being crashed in the plane, tiny, but the fear you have of it or the desire you have to be the next Facebook, Huge, because it’s been broadcasted over and over again, you are being brainwashed

DHH further goes down to put forward the maths behind making a million dollars in an year by having  2000 customers and charging them 40$/month. Adding decent  conversion rate(5%) to the equation it would take about 40,000 signed up users to get 2000 paid customers. Taking it down one more level to make 200,000$ a year you would need just 400 customers at 40$/month.

The number of problems/niches one can attack trying to get this many customers are a lot, but not surprisingly we still find most web start-ups aiming at building the next Facebook or YouTube. Its not uncommon to find entrepreneurs by the dozen running after VCs and Angels to raise money for the next big thing on the internet despite the fact that most of them can get their venture started without too much money. One of the primary reason for this is the fact that raising million dollars for building(or the mere thought of) a global product that might be used by millions is SEXY however building a web product that’s being used by a few hundred or thousand users while making you some money isn’t.
This frenzy is fueled by media and consumers alike and the entrepreneurs(esp first timers) get unknowingly drawn into this trap and the next thing you know is everyone trying to make it big without even trying to taste success in building a smaller yet useful product.

While I won’t discourage anyone from taking big shots right from the start, I strongly feel its a lot better(and practical) to solve a small problem first before going for the bigger one.

Most people start their businesses in partnernships/collaboration with some one they know. It could be a family member, friend, relative or just a known too. Trust is the first thing that people look for before getting into a venture with other things being what the other person brings to the table; money, connections, skill set etc. It’s commonplace to find businesses being run in a fashion where one or more partners put the money(or maybe contacts) and other(s) put skills and effort(or maybe contacts).

Due to inherent nature of the factors in place(time, effort etc), things get a bit difficult at times as contributions start to vary from what they were initially agreed upon. For example: If two people start a business with one person putting the funds and infrastructure and the other bringing in clients and contacts needed to get the job done. Now in this case it’s easy to quantify the funds spent on infrastructure and other activities but it’s a bit difficult to quantify other inputs like efforts, time spent etc. What further makes the puzzle difficult is when both partners feel they are doing their share of the job as initally agreed upon.

A situation like this can easy reach a deadlock with both parties proclaiming to be doing their bit of the business. What further makes matter worse is if both the partners have agreed upon equal share in the profits. The matter gets really complex if  say the guy who was supposed to get business and contacts with his effort isn’t doing his part efficiently but believes he is doing it right and thus deserves and equal share in the profit(which they make due to the efforts of the other partner who was just supposed to put funds for infrastruce etc) as mutually agreed upon initially.

Human Ego is another factor in play in situations like these as even though a person might know that he isn’t putting in the required effort in the job but his ego will prevent him from accepting it and agreeing to get an unequal share in the profits. I’ve had a few direct and indirect experiences in this regard which have forced me to think of a way to reduce the possibility of such situations.

A couple possible solutions that I could think of  are

1) To partner with someone who is as equal as you are

If both partners are equal in most respects like finances, contacts etc then I think the scope of running into situations where  one feels the other isn’t doing enough is reduced. By quantifying one’s contribution in terms of money, contacts or other resources, the factors which could cause confusion/dissatisfaction are reduced. Also, I feel with equal partners it’s a bit easy to find out and accept if one isn’t doing his bit properly

So it’s a good idea to find out in the start what the other person is bringing to the table and ensure that it’s not too high or too low for your contribution.

2)  Decide on a profit sharing model based on one’s contribution:

In case of partners with unequal inputs, it’s a good idea to decide on different profit sharing models based on situations with varying contributions. For ex:

a) For every deal where person X does this and this and person Y does this, X gets 66% of the profit and Y gets 33%
b) For every deal where person X does this and person Y does this and this, Y gets 66%  of the profit and X gets 33%.
c) For every deal where person X does this and this and this and Person Y doesn’t do anything, X gets all the profit and vice-e-versa.

I feel predeciding things like revenue/profit sharing in various situations where there’s a possibility of unequal contributions will serve as a base and reduce the number of potential conflicts.

What do you think?

In a recent development(or is it?), LinkedIn and The New York Times have joined hands for a tie up. I stumbled upon this while surfing NYT and a few clicks revealed how it works. Here’s the deal for you.

Linkedin members will have an option to be served customized headline feature on Business and Technology article pages of  NYTimes.com that’ll comprise five latest stories from NYT. For ex: someone working in biotechnology sector will be served latest news from that sector.

Here’s the story in a few pics

via NYtimes.com

via LinkedIn.com

An article on NYT

on clicking “what’s this?” on the right side in

“five stories” based on my LinkedIn profile

1) RadioVeRVe started in June 2006 as a means to aid independent musicians across the country promote themselves.
2) In the Game of Business, Playing Fair can actually lead to greater profits.
3) Kwippy Link: Paid Services vs Free Services:

1) Jason Fried of 37Signals on Business, Focus, and Avoiding Interruption

2) Bhavin Turakhia on The Game of Business

3) Kwippy Link: What rules of thumb do you follow ?

In times when is twitter down & “is twitter fully functional ?” is all we get to
hear not many think of this as an opportunity. Yes “Opportunity”.
This Opportunity is for pretty much who is in some way or other connected to
twitter. Not only its an opportunity for some addicted twitterers to realize that
there is life beyond twitter but also for developers, entrepreneurs and more.

The way things stand at the time of writing this post twitter’s “IM and
pagination are not working” other than some apps like “TwitterSync”.
This has been the case for the last few days and it might last for next days
or worse re-occur. What this means is

1) Incoming channels blocked:
A cursory look at the twitter home page will tell you that most of the
tweets show their source as web which clearly wasn’t the case before twitter’s
db crash. Also, twitter’s IM client is down which I think was the biggest
incoming channel as a result of which people have either stopped tweeting
or tweet very less.

2) Ability to surf/receive Tweets handicapped:
Since they’ve disabled pagination for all pages and the IM is down along
with it went people’s ability to surf tweets(either missed or otherwise)
and receive tweets as they are being sent.

3) Some twitter apps are down:
Send tweets via your facebook status aka TwitterSync is one that’s not
working.

So this makes perfect sense for people to either replicate the
things/functionalities/apps that are not working or come up with an
innovative way to solve the problem in a different or better way.

What do you guys think ?

Delhi’s Radio space has become quite hot these days with more than 10 FM channels vying for a bigger chunk of the pie. Leaving aside a couple most of these channels are alike(at least to me) and unless you are an avid listener chances are you too won’t be able to tell X from Y.

What really comes out as being Remarkable in this chaos is 104.8 FM or better known as “Meow FM“. Talking about being remarkable, Meow(India’s first just for women radio station) that came to life in June 07 is easily the most unique one. I listen to it every once in a while and what follows are a few things that make “Meow” Remarkable.

Niche Target Audience:
Instead of targeting everyone(which actually means targeting “no one”) they have focussed on Women folk, which is their biggest and probably best differentiator. This is a big plus as now they can mostly focus on airing programs that strike a chord with women without worrying much about the other gender. So now they can host a show like “Mama Meow” and even ask audience to tell “five innovative ways to break news about their pregnancy to their families” without thinking twice.

Different Ball Game:
While other FM channels are busy being better DJ’s(playing music) Meow has ventured into a different league all together. Rather than being just another music station they’ve come out as a talk based radio station which instead of RJ’s has what they call “On Air Hosts“. “Empathetic Interactivity” being one of their core value propositions this makes a lot of sense(even more for a women focussed channel) as
1) Talking/Sharing is one of the basic human necessities/traits.
2) It’s informative(knowledge sharing, listening and learning from other’s experiences and so on).
3) It has a HUGE audience(how else can you explain, people calling even before the host has finished telling the topic of conversation or people trying to call for days till they get to talk ?).

Client Relationship:
Another thing that impressed me about Meow was the way almost all their hosts talk to their callers and build relationships with them. Be it addressing some callers by adjectives like “Darling” or “Sweetheart” or asking someone who called after a hiatus “Why are you calling us after a long time ? Don’t you love us ?”.The way they handle and treat their callers is simply amazing, it works great(especially with women) and am sure they must have made some real(off the phone) relationships with some callers.To summarize in one line “try to make each customer feel special”.
I guess that’s what they are doing and doing it quite well.

Some other things that click are:
1) Good content with a variety to target various sections of women folk.
2) Great marketing(by making a noteworthy statement with the usage/symbolism of word “Meow” and other things).
3) Roping in different people with public appeal like Dr Kiran Bedi and regularly having guest hosts.
4) Anil Srivatsa(those who’ve listened to his show know what I mean).

These are some of things that I think make “Meow 104.8 FM” click, not sure about the RAM stats.They might make things a bit more cheesy from here and attract more earlobes by adding more girlie features on say shopping(discuss things like what you shop, where you shop or reviewing some shops etc) or better a gossip section(share the latest gossip in your office,college etc or in bollywood).

“Women carry the reputation of being talkative, hence Meow. Through Meow FM, we are letting women do what they do best – talk ” – Anil Srivatsa, COO, Radio Today                    

I remember reading some time back about it and for the past few days the realization and understanding of this has got stronger.By game here I mean the business you are into or upto.

While there’s nothing abstract or profound about the thought but still I personally feel most people including me(till a while back) don’t tend to think on these lines. The point being simple, what’s the size of the game you are playing ? …Every business can be done/run in various sizes or scales, with or without the involved people realizing the current size and to what size can it extend to in the existing setup.

Consider these sample cases for a bunch of guys working together

Case 1: Game = small
Building products/softwares for small clients. ex: college students working part time to get some extra cash.

Case 2: Game = Medium
Building products/softwares for medium sized organizations

Case 3: Game = BIG
Building products/softwares for the some really big organizations or better for the web in general.

The point that I am trying to make here is that when you start a business you more often than not stay in the same scale and it’s your positioning in that particular scale what changes. So the switch from one scale(or game) to another is some thing that requires a lot of hard work, mind work, motivation, resources, time and more. Another crucial ingredient is what people fancifully call “moving in the right circles”, yes you have to be in the right place with right people at right time to make this transition.
The reason why most businesses that start in a scale tend to stay within their territories is because either they fail to realize this or they fail to achieve it.

Saying all this I feel that if someone consciously and repeatedly, rather religiously tries to make this transition of scales, the game can change unbelievably. Changing with it everything that’s involved including the mindset/thought process of the people involved and suddenly the concerned people find themselves amidst something which otherwise could have taken a lot of time if at all possible in their lives.

What’s even more exciting is the fun and excitement that comes during this whole process of changing the game.It magnifies the whole set up, everything scales up and the situation without you realizing changes you and the way you approach business and maybe life in general. It’s like a wave that comes and takes everyone whose ready, to an all together new and exciting place, giving those orgasmic “aha moments” for free.