I was never among the physically stronger kids during my childhood. And since fist-fights among kids are not uncommon, I had to devise other ways to tackle my opponents rather than relying on only my physical strengths. At times you get beaten up, but since you know you can’t overpower someone you start hitting the areas where they might be most vulnerable. Sometime you just wait and pass time while your opponent gets tired before you take your shot.

Starting and running a start-up is also the same, in many ways. Being matched up against competitors many times your size and weight, and that too in a market which is not always ‘fair‘, to put it gently. But as in my childhood, being placed against a bigger opponent can have its benefits too. You learn persistence and resourcefulness irrespective of your current situation. These challenges are what makes a startup interesting, and those who drive the thrill out of overcoming these challenges are the right people for a startup.

Why would anyone do that?
You can ask that why would anyone want to fight against a tougher and stronger opponent? Why would anyone want to do something where the chances of success are only… Read the rest

From whatever little experience I have with my own startup and working with a few others, I can say that the most important, and difficult task in any startup is to maintain focus and avoiding distractions. Nothing kills startups like distractions. Distractions may be a side project you start doing for some extra cash, or a new idea which suddenly pops in your mind and you want to have a shot at it.

Do One Thing

If a startup can do one thing, and do it as good as nobody else can do it, your job is half done. Doing more than one thing is fine in big companies because firstly, they have the resources to spend, and secondly, they can afford a little distraction. But a startup can’t. So do one thing at a time, and do it fantabulously well.

Innovate

Startups are often credited with innovation, but it is very critical to innovate in the main focus area of your business. If you are working on creating a product, and somebody comes up with a great innovative idea to market it, you have to say NO to it (for now) and continue focussing and innovating in your most important… Read the rest

I have read many books in the last two years, ranging from business to auto-biographies to self-help to fiction books. I just put down a book titled “Trading Up” (find it on Flipkart or Amazon ) after reading it for two weeks. And what a captivating read it was! It was difficult to put it down once I started it. One reason could be that the book was about retail and shopping, and I am already interested in that because of my experience with SaleRaja and exposure to the retail world. But apart from that too, the book was very well researched and a lot of data has been presented in the book to justify the points made. The book has tried to illustrate how middle class consumers are ‘trading up‘ to buy high quality products that deliver benefits on many different levels, even at a price premium and how that is breaking the traditional price-volume demand curve. The product could be as simple as a soap and as complex as cars. The basic premise is that traditionally, the markets have had two kind of products, the conventional goods that sell at low margins and high volumes and the luxury goods which sell… Read the rest

18 Oct 2008, that was the day I landed in this beautiful garden city  Bangalore as a 25 year old full with enthusiasm and energy to make it big. Now, three years hence, I can say it is exactly the same state I found myself in. Buzzing with energy, pumping in 14-16 hour days and excited about a lot of ideas sprouting in my head. Now I won’t say that it has been all rosy in these last three years, as there was a brief period of being lost, where I hardly was able to put in 6 hours a day, and I was either angry, frustrated, irritated or just tired all day along. But I am glad that this phase happened, and gladder that it is over now

SaleRaja – The Joy and Pains of Entrepreneurship

The first year in Bangalore was full of experiencing what entrepreneurship is all about. There were good days, and there were not so good days. Technical discussions, night long marathon coding sessions, sales calls, and a lot of manual and boring repetitive tasks used to fill up my day. The Bangalore weather was the perfect catalyst for all this. Going to events, meeting… Read the rest

Recently I wrote about some of the important lessons I learned after working with SaleRaja and other startups . I was pondering over this article and I realized I can think of many more points which I can write about. So below are 8 more lessons which I came up after reflecting on those days spend building some amazing products with SaleRaja, InfoEdge and Jivox.

8. Spend wisely

As a startup your balance sheet will be in the red in the first few years as you build the infrastructure, teams and systems for the future. Hence it is very important to monitor and control what you spend and for what purpose. Even if you have secured funding, you never know which way the economy turns in the future. The point is to always have cash in the bank to act as a cushion in tough times.

9. Networking

Big corporations are people independent, i.e. , they never depend heavily on any one or a few people for their business to survive. It is because of this that they can hire in big numbers, and even fire people easily in hard times. In startups though, the commitment to the company by employees is very important. Similarly, each employee is very critical to the company… Read the rest

When I joined my first job, work was on full swing to launch 99acres.com . I was part of the team which did all the technical work and the site was launched one month after I joined. Thereafter, I launched Sukip.com in Jan 2007 and Saleraja.com in Aug 2007. After moving to Bangalore, I worked with Jivox.com for 18 months. Recently I started PickaFight.in, this time as a non-profit initiative. In all these endeavors over the last six years , I got a good exposure to starting up and scaling up websites, both from a technical, product and business point of view.

There have been many lessons along the way, most of them learned the hard way. Here are seven important points I would like to share with one and all who might be interested in starting a web based business. Update – Here are eight more lessons which I wrote as a follow up article

1. Passion in what you are doing

Always do what you are passionate about. If you are starting a new website based business, it will keep you awake at nights and make you work on weekends. So it is very important that it is something you are really excited about.

2…. Read the rest

Right from August 2007, when we started SaleRaja, it has been like a baby for me. It was something on which we had great hope. SaleRaja was supposed to be our way out of normal day-to-day jobs. I never thought I would have to work for any other company again at that time, and we even got a promising response in the beginning. But soon, the growth in terms of traffic and registrations began to steady out and it was clear that we would need a lot more funding and resources to scale it up to the next level.

With the recession in 2008-09 and considering our background (having only technical skills and no financial, marketing and sales skills), we struggled to get any funding. There was one remote chance of funding or a tie-up but unfortunately we blew that up. Also, my partners decided to part ways because of impending personal issues like marriage and finances, and there I was, running SaleRaja alone in Dec 2008. I got together with one more guy in the beginning of 2009, then with another girl for sales for 3-4 months, at the same time myself managing my day job at Jivox and coding for SaleRaja in the… Read the rest

18 July 2011. Yes, that’s today. It marks six years of my professional career. In a nutshell, ever since joining InfoEdge at their Noida office six years back, I have been programming to create websites. But it has been a lot more than that. I have made some amazing friends during these six years with whom I have shared some unforgettable moments, learned a lot about coding, business and life from the people I have interacted with and situations I faced. A lot have changed since that hot and sweaty day of 18 Jul 2005 (which I still remember very vividly).

If I look back and try to recap the last six years, I can break them down into six very specific sections / phases / periods which can be associated with some really significant events in my career. Read below to know about these six phases -

First Steps – July 2005 to July 2006

The first year of my professional life was as good as it gets. I did a lot of hard work in office, and made some really good friends. Everyday during these times was so much fun and unforgettable. The leg-pulling, late night parties,… Read the rest