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A startup has many challenges - market, cash flow, competition, support, hack attacks, attrition, power cut, hunt for the perfect coffee - add one more to the long list - Business Card Title. Today, Sangeeta and I had a chat on IM ( yes we are in the same office - long story :) ) regarding what will be the title. We cannot have traditional roles like CxO, X Manager etc. - as in a startup you have to specifically generalize. When we started ApartmentAdda, I had a short title on my Business card - Chief. - with a period at the end. I was ragged for 15 minutes by one committee when I had gone for a demo. Also later Sachin who was our Product Innovation Lead - used to tease me - Chief What? So when we went for a reprint had it printed as Chief, Technology. That explains one aspect of my job - the primary role. But there are lot other things I handle daily - support, IS, patching, backups, opening office, UPS rationing, analytics, accounting, server, domain renewals, organize team outings.....

Yep - thats the one. Took almost 2 months to finish this monster. Recommended reading for geeks, nerds and all the in betweens. I first read about Neal Stephenson in a Wired article in 2006. Since then have been on the look out for his books. Every year will go to Strands book facility and will ask them about any of his books - they will draw a blank. Anyway - found this book in JustBooks in February- the wonderful library chain that has been feeding me books for the last 2 years. This is one big masala book - has some mathematics ( yep - equations, graphs and all that ), computer stuff of late 90s when the book was written ( Finux is the OS one of the main character uses - I do not know why he did not use the word Linux ), has an elaborate VC/lawyer, entrepreneur battle, nerd culture of late 90s - and of course the whole underlying theme - cryptography. The book starts during World War II and the interesting stories are only here. Alan Turing and his college buddies fight it o...

Imagine someone holding the above whistle and constantly whistling into one of your ears - day in and day out, month after month. That is Tinnitus for you. Have been enjoying this since my child hood days - will get loud whenever I have cold or some fluid gets into my inner ear. Couple of days before new year some fluid entered the inner sanctum sanctorum in the middle of the night and all hell broke loose - accompanied by severe pain. I made my first visit to the doctor in 2010 - on Dec 30th - bummer. You might be wondering - so how does this story end? Well - there is no end. Medical technology is only now figuring out slowly why this whistling happens - it seems there are 20,000 miniscule hair inside our inner ear. They respond to the tiniest of sounds and transmit it to the brain. For some ( around 30 million Americans - no such statistics for India yet ) - some rogue hair "imagine" that they heard something and keep transmitting to the brain the sound - this is...

1 & 2. Dune and Children of Dune by Frank Hebert The first part - like all movies - is the best. Truly unputdownable - best science fiction I have ever read. Second part is little tiresome. 3.  Flow - Psychology of Optimal Experience. How to find joy in everything you do. This book helped me in my running and car washing! Amazing book - will give a new perspective to how you view little chores to big tasks. 4.  Outliers - By Malcolm Gladwell. Reasearch is boring - but reading the interpretation of such research is fun. The figure - 10,000 hours got drilled into my head. 5 & 6.  Goal 1 & Goal 2 - By Dr.Eliyahu M.Goldratt. This book is a must read for everyone in any profession. It has got nothing to do with Agile or Lean - it will shake you up and make you think. I have heard multiple times about out-of-the-box thinking - this book has enough examples to trigger the out of box thinking process. Also it gives a whole different view point to dealing w...

This post is to brag on a mini milestone achievement - I can now complete the upcoming Whitefield Mid Night Marathon ( only the baby 4.2 Kms )! Of the last 3 runs I have been consistently covering 4.2 kms plus. Here are a few steps (woohoo managed to squeeze in a pun ) I took : 1. Shunned the iPod . The ear hurts after a while, the buds keep falling off, the wire keeps coming in the way - and the podcast / songs might get boring and I lose interest in running. So ditched the iPod and I can now run just with my thoughts. 2. Psyche myself on Diabetes. Genetically South Indians are programmed with this disease and shipped into the world. I sit and work 12 plus hours - almost 7 days a week. Office is just on the 1st floor. ( ahemm home is on 3rd floor but I am lazy ). Only way to beat diabetes is to exercise - no other way out. 3. Psyche myself on Personal Victory. This one is from Stephen Covey's 7 habit book. You should first win personal victories before you can win publ...

  Last month I was in Justbooks around the time they were closing so just picked 2 books as directed by my subconscious. Once I started reading I realised that I heard about this book  first in the 2007 Ooty Thoughtworks Awayday. Apparently the subconscious mind remembered about this book when I was going to randomly pick 2 books - amazing how neurons work Goal was written by Dr.Eliyahu M.Goldratt as a marketing ploy to sell their software which did some scheduling. No one knows about the software - but the book became a roaring success - after rejects by 20 publishers.  The book brings out some interesting concepts - even though it revolves around a manufacturing plant - it soon becomes apparent that the concepts can be applied against any industry or business. What is the Goal?   Alex is the head of a production plant. Orders are always delayed and is a loss making plant. His boss gives him 3 months to turn it around or close the plant. Alex meets his high school p...

  Last week I attended the Nasscom Product Conclave.  Lots of take aways. Bootstrapping I am reading Goal now ( a dedicated post is needed for the book ) and it taught me a new life lesson. Constraints are not a bad thing - they are the best thing that can ever happen to you. A few sessions reflected this thought process and brought some clarity. For a Bootstrapped Startup - Cashflow / Money is the constraint. It shapes the way we think and act. Every Rupee that is spent is well thought out. Wastage is out of question. No unwanted feature creeps into the product - keeping the product spiffy and on its toes. The code / server is optimized to extract every ounce of performance as infrastructure is expensive and eats into the bottomline.  I can keep adding lot other things - I appreciate the constraint bootstrapping provides - it is actually creating the character of the future company that has started shaping up. VCs This brings me to the other side of the coin. I felt bad ...

It has been a while since I finished reading Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg - which traces the story of Internet companies right from Netscape to Facebook and Twitter. The book is sinking in slowly. Being in the .com business it was exciting and scary to read the history of various startups. The book covers the journey of the following startups. Netscape Hotmail Ebay Paypal Amazon Hot or not MySpace Flickr Bebo Ning Twitter Facebook And there is a recurring pattern in all of them 1. The founder is invariably a developer All these are essentially Web applications - and having the founder-developer part of the nucleus is ideal . Things change at the speed of light - and the founder being at the helm can immediately sense the course corrections that are needed - and correct them himself - instead of having outsourced the core work, or giving instructions to a team of techies and waiting for them to create magic. 3 Cheers to Developers - we are the makers of the world! Free Tip Warning :) : ...

I did it ! I broke the Reality distortion field cobweb of Steveji and joined the Android Brigade! It has been more than a week since I bought my first smart phone - a Samsung Galaxy S ( on the left - yes it does look very iPhoneish ) and it is Enthiranistic ( hehe :) ) It was a tectonic mind shift for me. I love Apple products - my first laptop was an iBook. Then I bought iMac, iPods. When the 1st gen iPhone came I wanted it badly - but as a rule I never buy 1st Gen Apple products ( can't afford the Apple Tax ). Recently I decided ( the power above approved rather :) ) to go for a smartphone and my obvious choice was an iPhone. Despite the attenagate I wanted to buy the iPhone 4. However I started reading more and more on the iPhone vs Android wars and found how closed Apple had become. In the iconic 1984 Super Bowl Ad when Apple introduced PCs to the IBM masses - a lady with a hammer hurls it on the Big (Blue) Brother who preaches : " Our Unification of Thoughts is ...

In August we had 4 Major Releases and 8 Minor releases. I was  thinking how the Releases were in my previous life ( few in a year ) and how it is now ( few in a month ). Things are much more demanding in a startup - the developer's job is not done by just pushing things to Prod and making sure things are fine. He has to do lot of follow up work. Looks like lot of fun isn't it! :)

I installed Microsoft fonts by mistake ( msttcorefonts ) and forgot all about it. However it messed up the entire system. These fonts are not anti-aliased or smoothened and they are razor sharp. If you have installed - just remove them sudo apt-get remove msttcorefonts and sanity will be restored.

I started reading a Sci Fi novel - Dune by Frank Herbert. I have not even crossed 30 pages and already the characters in the book are analyzing if the hero ( a kid as of now ) is the one? It kind of put me off a bit..but I will persist with the book. Curious to know if he is the one ;) Coming from an eastern civilization where there is really no "one hero" it does sound a bit funny initially. There are 1+ million Gods, in Mahabharata there are 5 heros, and there is a hero who is part of the dark side too ( Karna ), in Ramayana actually the bad guy is projected to be on the good side ( Rama - who else.. haha ;) he plots the downfall of one of the monkey kings, suspects poor Deepika...better known as Sita and burns her etc. ). Switch to the Western world - there is Matrix. After snazzy graphics, exploding cars and trucks, and 3 parts - it is determined that Neo is the One. In Lord of the rings the ring chooses a sad looking Elijah Woods as the One. In the latest movie too...

"If you take medicine the cold will go away in 7 days, if you do not it will go away in 1 week" - My 12th Std Biology teacher. That was the only time I smiled in his class, rest of the time I would be sleeping or keeping myself awake dreaming of college just a few months away and how liberating it would be. Anyway this post is about my cold. It always hits me when I least want ( as if anyone will want to get cold ). A big release, an important interview, a vacation, a family get together - it is always there to give me company.  I have tinnitus ( like everyone's hero Guy Kawasaki ) and it gets worse during cold - meaning - 1.5 of my hearing will be out of service for this period. I have tried all things. Pranayama, Running, Walking, Japanese shower, Orange juice, Nuts, Fruits, quit smoking ( even though I don't smoke ;) ) - and also doing none of these - still the cold gives me a visit without fail. I have been fighting this battle since my earliest memory - still...

After reading Malcolm Gladwell's book - Outliers - I have started looking at things with a different perspective. Here is my hypothesis on the elements that can make one successful in life.  IQ Whenever we see someone who has "arrived in life" we presume they have a high IQ - but this is not the only criteria. Having cart loads of IQ is good to have, but it does not guarantee success if the below 3 are not present in good measure EQ   Emotional Quotient :  The person who laughs at the face of danger; the one who lost badly but has the courage to try once again, or take a different path; the go-to guy at work when the experts give up and report sick on crisis situations; this is the guy every project manager wants in his team. EQ is a must have - not just a good to have.  CQ Creative Quotient :  The guys with a high CQ spruce up dull meetings; their emails are all a joy to read; their stand-up updates are fun - and the team tries hard to match him -...

They : Is this Apple? Me : No. This is Ubuntu ! They : Huh?  Me : Yep!  The above conversation happened yesterday when I had gone to give a demo to an Association Committee.  Half an hour we were discussing on Ubuntu and then I realized I have come here to sell my product and not Ubuntu - and went on with the demo!  That's the screenshot of my desktop - on Ubuntu 10.04. Very minimal, OS Xish, smooth, fast, snappy, extremely responsive - and a conversation piece at every demo. In May 2009 - a year back I installed Ubuntu 9.04 with dual boot with Vista (  http://venkat2.blogspot.com/2009/05/finally-switched-from-vista-to-ubuntu-9.html ). Now after a year - in may 2010 - I clean formatted the laptop and have gifted the entire hard drive, boot sector et all to Ubuntu 10.04. I am confident / convinced that Windows is not needed any more. In fact I am very grateful to Microsoft for having produced a crappy OS. If Vista was a little better I would h...

I finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell a couple of days back and lots of thoughts have been churning in my head. Putting them down as a letter to myself - a letter I would write to the 20 year old Venkat whose career is just beginning ( also applicable to anyone who is in college right now ). Hi Venkat, How are you doing? How is your new college? Here are some tips for you. 1. Eat Breakfast.  This is not from Outliers - but my personal advice. I never ate breakfast in college - slept late, woke up late and would miss breakfast. Just by eating your breakfast daily you will get a better grade. Trust me. 2. Work hard. You see your class topper ace in all the subjects. You think he has got an extra chunk of grey matter. Take a peek into his life - he works hard and works effectively. Takes notes in class, brushes through the chapter before coming to class, and he practices the problems. His parents taught him the right methodology to study, perhaps he had a cousin who taught h...

This is a very interesting book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Have you ever wondered the difference between pleasure and enjoyment? Pleasure :  When you are involved in a pleasurable activity - it takes your mind out of the worries you are having ( watching TV to escape from stress ) and satisfies the needs of the moment ( drinking coke to quench thirst ). Enjoyment :  An "enjoyable" activity, not only gives you pleasure - but gives you the feeling of fulfilment, the feeling of joy and living life. You need to put some effort to "enjoy". Playing a guitar, compiling linux, playing badminton - all these are very enjoyable activities. It takes effort, requires skill, practise and is extremely rewarding in the end. There needs to be clear goals and feedback in such activities. 0 errors, 0 warnings is the reward in the end - till then you should keep tweaking,do more research, try different approaches. You lose your self-consciousness and sense of time. Your entire concent...

Here are a few tips if you get pushed to managing a team of code monkeys..err..developers. 1. Deadline is 8 hours away and they are whiling away time by reading Joel Sposky or watching a South Indian actor dancing in a superman costume. Ignore this - they are just warming up. 2. After the above intellectual stimulation they go for coffee. Again, be patient. They are refueling. 3. Call them for a meeting to explain how grave the situation is. Only 6 hours is left. Stop stop. Don't call them for a meeting now, it will just drain the warm up and caffeine effect they are having now. They are about to enter their "zone" where things will start "flowing". 4. How to know what the status is? Hmm..it is a difficult thing. If you send an IM or an email it will interrupt their flow which will make them very angry, or they might mistake you for micro managing things. Wait for one of the developers to go for a bathroom break and follow them there. Of course you should be o...

So you participated in the Earth Hour? Good for you - this will encourage Bescom ( or TNEB or whatever entity ) to give more power cuts - Oh so our customers don't want power - lets cut some more.  There are so many power cuts in a day for varying durations. Our office UPS beeps almost the entire day - and I have started getting "flow" when I hear the beeps. At times when the beep stops ( because power is back ) I start browsing and cannot concentrate on my work. We have placed an order for one more home and lighting UPS - Jan Feb we were able to manage without a fan, but now it is unbearably hot. The term "sweat equity" takes a different meaning for us!  Anyway, I applaud the western world to interrupt the power for an hour in a year. Great. I wish they do it every week. And also they switch off the AC and lighting on weekends when they leave office.  And we Indians - let us see how to increase power production. I initially thought I will go with the flow a...

Today I attended the Bangalore Open Coffee Club's meeting in an interesting venue called Jaaga. Before I  jump into Mr.Sharad Sharma's speech / adrenaline shot - will talk a little about Jaaga. It is spear headed by Freeman Murray and Archana Prasad. They have identified an unused piece of land - and has built this structure with minimal and eco-friendly materials. This space can be used by NGOs or communities who want a place to get together, startups can come and plug in etc.  They call it the Urban Community Art Architecutre Experiment - http://jaaga.wikidot.com/start . Brilliant concept and I am sure you will be visiting this place sometime in future - it is going to take off well.  Now to the Orbit Change Catalyst's lecture ( thats his twitter bio   http://twitter.com/sharads  )  Mr.Sharad Sharma took us through his entrepreneurial journey and kept giving his insights and his learning peppered with lot of interesting anecdotes. 1. Innovation ...