Blog entries

Where has the professionalism gone?

Abhinav Sahai — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:24:34 +0100

Working with a client I often have to travel to their place to discuss things. They also work with a different agency for something that aligns with my work. Last week, for a discrepancy, I was asked me to intervene. A call was scheduled for 12 noon today when all of us would meet at my clients' place. I was to meet them about 30 minutes earlier which meant 11.30 for me.

On the way, almost about to reach the stop I got a call that the agency guys are not coming at all. And thRead More...

Learnings from Startup Saturday Gurgaon

Abhinav Sahai — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:03:32 +0100

Recently I attended Startup Saturday in Gurgaon. It was Gurgaon's first date with the highly popular event among startups. Held at the MDI, a B-School, it primarily had students who were there to learn things rather than share. However a few good speakers had some nice things to say. Thought to share a few takeaways from the event.

1. At a conference/event, prepare questions for each of the sessions before going. When allowed to ask, spend the first 30 seconds to introduce your companyRead More...

Record your life - Ohlife !

Abhinav Sahai — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:48:57 +0100

As an entrepreneur (or sometimes even in the case of job oriented people), life happens to run at a pace faster than light. When the New Year wishes start to arrive, we often realize that how soon the current (or previous) year has gone by! Often we feel we haven't done enough or the year went in a flash and are not able to recall what major happened. Well, for people like us, there's a tool which helps us keep a record of our life and importantly - keeps it only to us.

Ohlife - Works Read More...

Why would you NOT like to measure your success?

Abhinav Sahai — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:12:26 +0100

As part of my consulting activities, I often visit a client and advise them on their Digital Strategy. Yes, sometimes its really difficult to explain how digital works, especially to people who are twice my age but now that I've got used to it and am no more surprised by their behavior or questions. But today something strange happened.

Sitting at a client meeting today, I was helping them frame a new digital marketing campaign around a certain product. While everything was okayRead More...

Lessons in enterpreneurship : Lesson 1 - Give yourself a good salary

Rahul Dewan — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:57:21 +0100

At an Owner Manager program that i recently signed up for, i was asked to fill a questionnaire on "value creation" from the perspective of different stakeholders in a business. "In this business - "what is important to me?", "what is important to an employee?", "what is important to a customer?", and "what is important to an investor?", were some of the questions asked.

Do note the distinction between "me" and an "me as an investor". It is clear that all entrepreneurs are investorsRead More...

ARMing the DIY culture

Prashanth Hebbar — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:36:35 +0100

The ARM development Studio Community Edition (DS-5 CE) gives the Android community an invincible power. This puts the power at the hands of Android hackers who can now develop apps at the native level making use of ARM hardware optimizations.

ARM DS-5 CE allows hackers to program their ARM devices in C, C++ and Assembly languages. Can you imagine the impactRead More...

Google music service gushes with features but US-only

Prashanth Hebbar — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:16:04 +0100

" RIP. iTunes Match!," said one comment to a blogpost of Google music launch. That sort of captured the mixed sentiments in the blogosphere over the new service.

Google's coup appears to be in at least two fronts. First, it provides free storage space for upto 20,000 songs. You can bring your own.

In comparison, Apple ofRead More...

The perils of being an entrepreneur

Abhinav Sahai — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:35:40 +0100

You wake up, rush off to office. Work the entire day. Most of the times the day doesn't end before 10 pm or in some cases lasts up to 12 am. Often there are days when you have to skip lunch and survive on just tea/coffee. So by the time you wrap up things you are zapped off energy and are not even in a state to turn off the lights and just hit the sack! Morning you wake up and the realize that last night you dreamt about the next client meeting. As a result of this you often startRead More...

One97 reveals they are behind Siri clone maker Iris

Prashanth Hebbar — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:07:24 +0100

Iris (the Siri of Andriod) makers, Dexetra has been funded by One97. The company shot into fame by hacking up voice recognition to their AI backend, Friday. The product Iris became an instant hit in the Android world which saw Apple's Siri with envy.

Friday, in fact, is an interesting application which helps you with an elephant's memory with the help of yRead More...

Super Six land Infosys Prize 2011

Prashanth Hebbar — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:05:58 +0100

Accel Partners announces $155-M India fund

Prashanth Hebbar — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:37:12 +0100

Its raining funds. Close on the heels of Intel Capital's $40 million fund for Asia, Accel Partners is announcing a $155 M fund for India.

This fund, third in its half-decade of operations in India, is the largest and focuses on early stage startups, reports Techcrunch.

Accel's marquee investee in India is Flipkart. The fund has a deep interest in technRead More...

New Rs 100-cr India Innovation fund to support low cost solutions

Prashanth Hebbar — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:10:21 +0100

India is getting its own mega fund for innovation. A Rs 100-cr fund for low-cost innovation has been set up by the Indian government. This is part of the "Decade of Innovation" initiative led by Sam Pitroda (in photRead More...

LinkedIn is hiring in India, reports CIOL

Prashanth Hebbar — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 06:39:40 +0100

My friends at CIOL report that LinkedIn is hiring in Bangalore. Yesterday the wires were busy proclaiming the opening of LinkedIn's IDC in India.

LinkedIn's presence in Bangalore signals the prime health of software pro community in the city. According to this CIOL report:

LinkedIn is seeking to hire for infrastructRead More...

Where do you take your inspiration and learnings from ?

Abhinav Sahai — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:41:49 +0100

Recently I was reading an article by Atul Chitnis on his blog about where he gets inspired from. Then last night I was reading Mona Simpson's (Steve Jobs' sister) article on Steve Jobs and found out that she took inspirations and learnings from Steve a lot of times but was quite amazed to find out that she even took learnings from his death!
She wrote: "This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn't happen to Steve, he achieved it."
I must admit, I never rRead More...

Jobsian way to start with zero-capital

Prashanth Hebbar — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 06:03:23 +0100

Here is an often heard refrain from would be entrepreneurs: "I will start something if I get VC backing."

If you are one of them then you better start looking for a job and forget becoming an entrepreneur until, until you change that view.

For instance read this episode from Steve Jobs' early Apple days:

JobsRead More...

John McCarthy video

Prashanth Hebbar — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 05:35:36 +0100

Here is an early video on Artificial Intelligence featuring John McCarthy's work. McCarthy coined the term Artificial Intelligence.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAyjecdFSss 100x100]

Dharamshala - a holiday destination or a beautiful place to work ?

Abhinav Sahai — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:30:00 +0100

Last week I got a chance to visit the land of the Dalai Lama, Dharamshala. Known to the masses as a great tourist spot and a holy/pilgrimage spot for the Buddhists, I was completely amazed to see the other, unknown, side of the city!

Well, I was lucky enough to join my client, Srijan, for an official cum rRead More...

Aishwarya Ratan's digital paper goes global

Prashanth Hebbar — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 03:28:31 +0100

Remember Aishwarya Ratan who developed a digital paper for rural use while at Microsoft Research? Ratan, TR35 India (Technology Review 35) winner, recently showcased her invention at the eleventh annual EmTech in Boston. Here is a report from N Suresh, group editor, Technology Review India and BiRead More...

Mysore startup develops movement sensor switch

Prashanth Hebbar — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:00:14 +0100

Sartups have always embraced the innovation route to business. Technology Review India reports that an Indian startup, Ideas Unlimited, has developed a movement sensor switch. This device detects presence of people and switches lighting on or off. Here's the full story :

The movement sensors developed by Ideas Unlimited have high sensitivity mode for cubicles and working areas with computers, where the duration of sensing increases to prevent Read More...

Jigsee mobile streaming video, we call it revolutionary

Prashanth Hebbar — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:23:00 +0100

Have you downloaded Jigsee yet? If not you are missing some experience. Jigsee is a video streaming service to your mobile phones. Before I say much, stop now, go to http://m.jigsee.com using your mobile phone download the software, watch some videos (there's the Steve Jobs' address to Stanford students) and come back to read further. Ofcourse, you need toRead More...