UnPluggd -An awesome event for startups in India

 http://www.unpluggd.org

The second edition of UnPluggd was over yesterday (Oct 30 @ Indiranagar Sangeet Sabha -Center of Performing Arts,Bangalore ).It's an event where we can meet  India’s top notch geeks, entrepreneurs, angel investors and VC.

• In the first half of the day, we had talks from successful entrepreneurs. Five talks by successful entrepreneurs – about their startup journey and the challenges they faced.
• Second half of the day we had pitches from startups (India)

Pallav Nadhani (Fusion Charts)
Pallav is the co-founder and CEO of FusionCharts, which he started at the age of 17.

FusionCharts is the industry’s leading Rich-Internet charting component, which has over 17,000 customers (including LinkedIn, Microsoft etc) and 330,000 users across 110 countries, including a majority of Fortune 500 companies.An interesting fact about FusionCharts is that the company hired the first sales person after their 10,000th customers.

Fusion Charts is used in Linkedin/Facebook polls ,Weather.com,Money Control ,US Federal IT Dash board

Pallav shared a funny incident where they tried to put a tag line for their buisness.So they looked around and saw that Nike is using "Just do it" and McDonald's is using "I'm loving it".So they thought and came up with a tag line combining both - Just love doing it :) and we all know why the tag line didn't reach the market :)

Key points

• Build something you are passionate about.U r your best focus group
• Let customers guide U ,but doesn't follow them blindly .Listen to them ,figure out value,usability & feasiblity
• Focus on why more than what and how (Benefit Vs Features)
• Make it easy for customer.They will love you for it.
• Marketing starts before product
• It's hard to get first PR right.So try and make urself PR worthy.Make sensational news  & controversial topics
• Be personal (People believe in people)
• People like behind scenes
• If U r not having fun ,stop doing it.

Saloni Malhotra (Desicrew)


Saloni  has been nominated for BusinessWeek’s Asia’s Youngest Entrepreneurs, MTV Youth Icon 2008, E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 and also facilitated in the presence of the President of India by the CII. Saloni is the founder of DesiCrew and handles Marketing and overall direction of the organization.
Desicrew is a rural BPO company, incubated by RTBI of IIT- Madras. They set up IT enabled service centers in rural areas, employ and train local people to meet the back office demands of clients.Nice idea of helping people around as it surely gives jobs to hundreds of people in rural areas who are otherwise reluctant to come out of their nativeplaces in search of job.

Her's is one initiative i found which is related to helping people and related to social entrepreneurship..Great idea and the sole lady speaker for the event..Saloni really deserves an applause..

Congrats and my hearty wishes to you..


Alok Kejriwal (games2win & rodinhood.com)

Games2win has created over 350 original flash games that are played on games2win.com, on social media sites as well as thousands of long-tail sites. In just about two years of launch, games2win is amongst the top twenty gaming businesses in the US (and world) as ranked by comScore (current data).

His blogs at www.rodinhood.com. is worth a read and i am following his writings from along time now as his blogs are usually related to topics we should know as an entrepreneur. Keep it up Alok..This really helps the people who are aspiring to be entrepreneurs..

Key points

• Entrepreneurs board trains to unknown destinations
• Entrepreneurs walk paths never walked before
• Entrepreneurs live interesting lives ( hahaha :) not cosy though )
• Entrepreneurs get into nuts and bolts (they know their business in and out)
• Entrepreneurs create value using creativity  (Alok has shared an incident where people steal their game and show it on their web page and they tried to protect this using creativity ..Like in case if it's not from games2win website ,they used to enable lots of advertisement which will show on the screen and make it difficult for the people to use the game. So handling issues using creativity :) )
• Entrepreneurs assemble great teams
• Entrepreneurs are relentless in their battle (Every day they are dying ..they have many things to handle)
• Entrepreneurs win big always
• Entrepreneurs create legacy ..yes this can be carry forwarded..

Really got inspired by his talks..Entrepreneurship is not a bed of roses...

Manish Sharma (Printo)
Printo provides businesses with world-class printing solutions.

Key points

• Listen ,listen and listen to ur customers but go ahead and do what U really want
• Team is everything and culture is more than everything
• People jump on to moving trains (VC's are not interested in concepts .They will put their investments on ventures which are already in shape though there are some exceptions for few VC's in India)
• First modules are most likely to be crap
• Large companies are not necessarily be great customers
• It takes nearly 6 to 9 months to raise the funds if you are awaiting external funding
• Ur investors can include angel investers ,friends & family members
• Finally Business is a pickle.So marry well :) 

I was surprised to hear that Manish tried his luck even in fashion industry(textiles) and then finally landed here..He quoted a funny incident which happened before he was planning to start Printo. He told his father about his idea. In his father's days ,if a person is not doing good in studies ,the family will set up a xerox shop for him so that he can survive on running the shop and if he is very very bad ,then family will set up a printing press .So when he asked his father for money to set up Printo ,his father was surprised and was little worried :)

Manish's Printo is one startup which i always admired as i used their services from the time they started their first shop @ Koramangala .The service is good and customer service is what i should appreciate a lot..and every time i visit them ,they would have improved their services or made it more easy for customers. Whenever we had a printing requirement , even if it's a difficult task ,we remember Printo and we are sure that they will sort out an option for us..That's the confidence they created and that's what i believe is the base for buisness.

Great work Manish and the time and money you are spending on the employees to smile and say "Thank U " and "Please" is worth the effort..

Naveen Tewari (InMobi)


Inmobi is into Global Mobile Advertising and is the second largest mobile ad network in the world
 

Naveen is also the Founder and Chairman of a US based non-profit organization, India School Fund (ISF), which has been formed to set up schools in rural India.

Key points

• Get a team who is passionate about your idea
• Keep going whatever happens
• Believe in what we are going to do
• While getting a VC ,make sure that VC buy ur vision as wrong VC's means life in hell
• Talk to other entrepreneurs to get idea about bad VC's and good VC's .Yes there are Good and bad

Nice concept .Dedication and passion played a role here as they had a phase where money ran out and they were surviving by taking money from credit cards..Even the team members were also willing to utilize the credit card for this ..So see the dedication and commitment of everyone involved...Really appreciable.

We had about 10 demos by start ups..Nice concepts and i hope atleast few of them would have got VC funding as VC's were available in the venue.Following are the start ups

• www.eyesandfeet.com
• www.adaptive3d.com
• www.appcanvas.com
• www.kookoo.in
• www.capillary.co.in
• www.nuggetize.com
• www.dialify.com
• www.bizosys.com
• www.wix.com/danielshobhan/daniel-power-systems
• www.dataresolve.com

I should appreciate http://www.pluggd.in/  for setting up a platform where entrepreneurs can share their ideas or experience which will help others..

There were few timing issues ,the event started about 30 mts late and the tea break had to be made longer as tea was not available and yes lunch hour also got lengthened as lunch counter was only one and more than 300 members..But overall it was a success


One more thing i noticed is that all of the speakers were health conscious..Thats what atleast showed off...So though they were struggling to set up a name for them ,they did spend time on themselves too..That is really appreciable as nowadays we can see young IT guys -being fat and having health issues due to negligence..So yes ,these speakers for the event even set the trend that entrepreneurs has to be health consious and it really helps you in long run...Yes majority of the crowd who attended the event were also looking great --not too fat :) So world around us are getting more conscious about their heath..Coolll...It's going to be a world of heath consious people :) I think i would be the only one who noticed this :)

So finally am done...Will surely add if in case i missed nything

Appa ,Open Google

Manikutty saw the writing "cartoonnetworkindia.com" in the TV while watching one of her favourite cartoons..So that evening ,she came near me and told
"Amma ,please open cartoonnetworkindia.com"..
I am surprised ,i ask her "What's that?"
Manikutty : Amma ,that's a place where you can play games
I opened the page ,passed the mouse on and she started playing..As now she can read ,she understands everything though it may be tough..Somehow she makes out the meaning..

After sometime ,Dileep came from office ,then Manikutty came running

Manikutty : Appa ,Can you please open cartoonnetwork site? .Looks like by mistake she closed it.
Dileep really confused ,looked at me and i smiled..He went near computer and asked her " what's the site name"?
Manikutty : Appa ,just open google and type in ,u will get

We both were really surprised..Nowadays kids have more knowledge than elders:)

Chinnu's World - School days

Chinnu was born and bought up in a way where she never differentiated between Hindu ,Christian or Muslim..All were same for her ..

Chinnu studied in a convent school run by a Christian Management and many nuns were teachers too and it's in close proximity to church..The school is located very near to main road with all small shopkeepers surrounding the place..School was pretty old but yes it had its own beauty..It was painted pale yellow color and with tiles on the top and long and clean corridors.. She used to love its broken windows ,dark brown painted wooden doors ,fainted terracotta tiles ,wooden benches and desks arranged nicely ,one side of the wall was painted black and is used as black board ,dusters made and donated by children in class- they used to compete with each other for donating the dusters ..As kids that was like an accomplishment that teacher is using their duster..That's like an honor ..

There was regional medium and English medium batch..Chinnu couldn't make out why her parents put her in English Medium...Teachers were not so good in English as they also studied in regional mediums and it was one of the normal regional school in the locality.So teachers had difficulty in teaching English Medium students as the books and all the Science ,Social science,History,Maths concepts were written in English which was difficult for the teacher's to comprehend..She still remembers her social studies and history teacher reading out the same chapter from regional textbook and asking students to concentrate on their English book..Even all the students were requested to buy regional version apart from their own books..They never felt bad about this as even they didn't know to speak English fluently but just understood the required portions

It was Girls only school and when Chinnu reached 7th standard ,they introduced mixed batch..But one problem -new school was constructed just across the road and near to church and mixed batch or boys only allowed in that compound....Students from old school were allowed to go to new school only if you are taking catechism studies as part of curriculum and ofcourse Chinnu and her friends were interested to cross the border and meet boys :) ..Though being a christian ,Chinnu never went for catechism class as she loved moral science much better than hearing more about Christianity and ofcourse all her friends were Hindu's so didn't want to leave them and go..But Chinnu and her friends were really excited and joined the catechism class ..but made sure that no one noticed them as it would be a big issue to find non Christians sitting in a catechism class..They were all excited and made sure they combed their hair properly and was ready to see the new aliens (boys) ....that was fun..Yeah they did achieve their target of meeting boys but couldn't digest some teachings in the class..So they moved back to moral science..


As catechism classes ended ,there was no option for them to go to the new school..Now what to do ? They all made a plan and decided to go to church everyday afternoon without fail..They achieved the fun of meeting boys on the way and making sure that god is also pleased ..


Chinnu still remembers the cemetery over there which always attracted them to investigate whether there are ghosts or what all they can find from cemetery..It was a huge area with full grass and trees around and it always had some dark effect..something mentioned in ghost novels or movies..There was a board on top mentioning "Ennu nan nale ni" (I am the one today and Tomorrow ,it's U )...

At home ,Chinnu was an independent child though  it was a jail for her..But she always tried to see the beauty of world around her ..be it just peeping into sky when she was asked to study..Night sky,beauty of stars,thunder ,lightening and that smoothing cool temperature at night always excited her..Ghosts were her friends..Dracula was her lover...her dreams were around ghosts and she started liking them....She always dreamt of some magic to happen so that she is set as a free bird and she can fly away leaving this world and be a happy soul..

 (To be continued........................................)

Where am I Now?

Oh god ,i really can't take it any further..Just show me a route where i can follow..Am just waiting for a way just to pick up and move forward..Am stuck..Completely stuck..

You know what's going in me and u were always there to help me out and show me the way and now i am not getting any clue..I just can't understand me..Help me out ..

I can solve others problems easily and why same thing is not happening in my case..I think i should have done my clinical physiology course and atleast should have helped the needy people to solve their problems and be happy..

Why everyone in life is so busy with their own lives and not getting time even to say hi to others..Is it that world has gone so bad that we just care about ourself nowadays?
Remembered one incident on the way when we were back from watching movie at around 1.00 AM...One accident has happened and a man is lying in a pool full of blood..what his family would be thinking..they will be waiting for him to return and he is battling with death here..All the cars took a diversion and went ..i tried convincing everyone to stop but yes in a world like this where you see robbery and cheating ,how can you help someone ?? But just imagine ,if instead of that person,i am in a pool of blood and all these cars does the same thing ,won't everyone in my family be sad? But then y can't we help?

This incident and many more like this ,i can't forget it in my life and i feel bad that i couldn't help out and still i am not helping out..

I just can't understand the world around me..I need some more courage to sort things out..

Just give me some more courage so that i can fight out  the issues and be happy.

Finally i ended up in PravsWorld and i am sure i can fight it out..Thanks PravsWorld for helping me out and showing me a way..

Never Give Up On Anything

Its Madness -
To hate all roses, because you got scratched by one thorn.
To give up all your dreams, because one did not come true.
To lose faith in prayers, because one was not answered.

To give up on your efforts, because one of them failed.
To condemn all your friends, because one of them betrayed.
Not to believe in love, because someone was unfaithful.

Remember that, another chance may come up.
A new friend, A new love, A new life.

Never give up on anything!

Series On Learning the Basis Of Drawing ...Do Check out

A series on learning the basics of drawing, presented by the artist and author James McMullan

Part 1 : Getting Back to the Phantom Skill

Part 2 : The Frisbee of Art 

Part 3 : Hatching the Pot

Part 4 :The Beagle Vanishes

Part 5 : Mother Nature Decoded

Do check out the pages..

Addicted to Facebook

I am addicted to facebook...My day starts with facebook and ends with facebook..I just can't live without seeing status messages from friends or be in chat with all my friends....

Am i addicted? I thought i was not but today i got to know..Yes,I am addicted..as i started disturbing my friends though they didn't have much to chat..started making unnecessary fights..oh lol..howcum i got so addicted? I have to come out of addiction..So bye bye Facebook atleast for few days..i need to see whether i can do that and will be back to blogging:)

After writing this ,i came to know that i am addicted to facebook chat and not facebook as such..chat that too with a new friend lol ..addicted?? Hmm looks like its easy to remove the addiction..let me try..
{Am not addicted but yes i got to know that we can get good friends in facebook too though we haven't seen them in person or though we just know them for few days...So i am happy now that i got a good friend ..Thanks a lot my dear friend ...}

Long time no see my dear page..so thought to feed you with necessary latest information so that even you can be happy ..I am really sorry for leaving you in-between..Life needs some changes every now and then..But i promise you to write atleast one page everyday so that you are happy i am happy..So happy days starting again:)

Bye Bye Facebook and Happy Days in Blogging:)

Do Siblings Have to Fight For Money ??

This is the question in my mind from a long time..I wanted to write about it but something stopped me..

Why do siblings have to fight over Parent's money..Thats the specific case..

Case 1:
3 kids in family..1 boy and 2 girls..All happily married..Boy taking care of mother and the house..Girls married to very rich people in society ..Mother gets pension and all of them wanted to know what she is doing with it..why the hell they want to know about it..It's her money and let her do what she wants..Does this mean that she doesn't have the right to decide by herself? Also they want their share out of her pension...Why why we are behaving weird..What did they do to get the pension..Its the mother who left all her enjoyment to work hard and earn money so that her family can survive or her kids can study..But what's happening now?

Case 2 :


Same Family..Mother gets sick..Kids deciding who should give money in hospital and checking whether mother has money for it..Considering that all are well off ,should they really worry about those? They are there because of parents..Isn't it? and none of the parents asked money for bringing up them..Then y doing so in return?

Can't they just pay up hospital bills without fighting with each other?

Case 3:
2 kids in family..Parents prefer one over another.One day they just call both of them and tell ,we are going to give u some money.Youngest one gets more money and eldest gets less money as youngest needed more money as they have taken more loans..Do the eldest get angry? No..y should they..Instead they should put this money in bank and use it whenever parents require money for them

Forget the youngest whether they give or not atleast forget the money part..It's your parents money and you are anyways earning money so why we need some more money? Is that really required? Instead can't they just buy an apartment /shop in parents name and give it for rent..Atleast parents will feel happy that  they are getting some money even at old age too and that too from the house/place in their name..


But does this happen?..No but what we see around is siblings fighting each other for money..There is no real love or affection..Its just the money which takes priority..Did they Forget all those days when they were together as family...As most of the kids are well off now ,Do we really need money? We can make money when we need it..But once the relationships are broken ,its very difficult to bring it back

PMP Exam : My Lessons Learned

I passed my PMP exam On Oct 14...Am officially a PMP now:)

• Thanks a lot for my friends Digambar & Nagu for having a separate group mail just for us to keep us moving forward..Digambar got his certification early but he still spent his time in order to clarify our queries

          We met online through PMPExamForum group and didn't personally knew each other.But still this group helped me to keep up my motivation..There were some days when i used to mail them and say am tensed..but they used to boost me up..I really appreciate them for giving me support throughout.

• Also thanks to Umar and Kamlu who helped me with many of my queries and for keeping me active in group..Umar and Kamlu got their certification early.

          Here too ,we met online through PMPExamForum group but they kept the group active..Good work guys..

• Thanks a lot to my PMI Bangalore Chapter tutors and my PMPQuest batch mates especially Prashant & Babu for lessening the stress ..They got PMP Certification in Oct 1st Week:)
• And thanks to all those who r still active in group..Keep it moving..
• Thanks to Cornelius Fichtner for all his answers in PMPBest group..I should appreciate him for taking his time out to drafting big mails with clear examples for helping the people out..His service is well appreciated..
• Thanks to all the websites which i quoted below which helped me in my studies

It really helps to get in touch with people who r in same boat as it eases your tension a lot...:)

Nearly 2 months of easy study and 2 weeks of intense study and solving many questions did the trick..
Attended PMI Bangalore Chapter's 35 Hr course for the mandatory requirement...It was cost effective solution as i didn't want to spend much on the training.

Don't worry or feel stressed about PMP exam...Its not so tough as people say or points out..
But as PMI mentions ,its a way to test your knowledge of PMI Standards and nothing else..They are not making the exams tough..if you understand the concepts ,then its going to be a very easy ride for you...It's people like us(me too :) ) who unnecessarily spread the word its tough and we all get a scared feeling even before we apply for the exam:) Forget all those...Start with a fresh mind..

Just reading PMBOK is enough if you like serious reading..But for others ,i would say go for "HeadFirst PMP" or "Andy's - Pass PMP On Your First Try "as they cover everything needed for exams..I personally didn't like Rita's book and Rita's Questions are very tough and leaves you wondering whether you r upto the mark or not..My exam was similar to the HeadFirst 200 Questions (in the book or free on website) or Andy's 200 Questions (back of his book)

Make sure you are part of following groups..This helps you to get answers for your queries or to learn other LL's

• groups like PMPExamForum ,PMPBest
• http://pmzilla.com/
• http://www.deepfriedbrainpmp.com
• http://forums.oreilly.com/

1. Exam is easy and none of the questions were more than three lines..not even a single lengthy one..so didn't spend so much time in understanding the question..
2. Just make sure that your concepts are clear whichever book you use ..For example ,if i tell Brain Storming or Analogous Estimation  ,then you should be able to tell ,what's the use and how its conducted..so take each tool separately and understand it completely..
3. Just memorize Page 43 of PMBOK.It helps you to answer nearly 20 questions in one shot..No memorization required for Input/Output or tools
4. Solve more questions - PMStudy Website (Free 200 Questions) ,HeadFirst (200 Questions & Chapter end questions) ,Andy (200 Questions & Chapter end questions) or PMRoadTrip Questions (Free on web)
5. Though i took Oliver Lehman's questions ,it was very tough compared to exam and after taking exam ,i feel it was not worth spending my time over there..
6. More questions on Risk ..Understand clearly the Strategies used for negative or positive risk..Differentiate between when to use Risk Acceptance ,Mitigation and avoidance.Many questions on that..Headfirst had good questions on this...
7. Clearly understand the differences in Conduct Procurement & Administer Procurement...Understand them completely
8. Quality Assurance and Quality Control
9. Organizational types --Many questions..Follow the pictures in the PMBOK
10. All mathematical Questions were simple and direct..Follow Headfirst
11. Some questions had their answers in the succeeding questions..So watch out for those as its easy to score on those
12. Few questions had similar situations but options were different
13. Dont forget the project selection criteria..many questions here too
14. There were no questions which i thought i didn't hear /learn..So don't worry..

Finally..Just understand each concept clearly..Thats all required to pass ur exam as i guess PMI is really making it easy for us professionals to pass the exam if we know the concepts..Don't learn so much or read many books but whatever you learn understand it clearly..

Finally Best Wishes for all of You and i do expect everyone to come up with a positive feel about PMP exam than having a scared feel (which i had after learning many LL's :))

Please do get back to me for any help...Am happy to help anyone...