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3 years ago I started on a journey with no idea as to where it would take me. For a long time I have been working with startup and big companies and so had an idea of what not to do. But what would my startup would be like, who will I be working with, I had no idea. There was this tiny fear of failure, rejection losing my 'domain expertise'. But with a little confidence (or a lot of over-confidence) and a big support from my loving wife, I tool the plunge. ...

A couple of days ago a friend showed me pluggdin forums. He suggested I start a discussion and being in the Local space for so long, decided to explore the Hyper-Local space. I started the discussion, but then got too busy to come back to it. Yesterday came back to it and was quite surprised to see the number of discussions. Now Local and Hyper-Local are two different terms and I don't claim to know the difference between them, But I felt it was a good opportunity to see what is happening in the Local space. Rest of the discussion is copied verbatim from there. ...

Reading about the Burrp mafia by my friend Avlesh took me back to the time when I started my own startup journey. One of the awesome thing that a startup does to (most) of us is that it implants the seed (keeda) of entrepreneurship in you. Be it a large company like Google, Yahoo or even Infosys, or small companies like Burrp. They give birth to even more startups. Implulsesoft did not become as famous as Burrp, but it had a decent exit when SiRF acquired it. SiRF also acquired another company in Bangalore called Truespan and within 3 years was forced to close down it’s Bangalore office(That actually is a very interesting story. maybe some other time). As a result of which most of us ventured out to start stuff we had always dreamed of. Here are those crazy guys. ...

Necessity is mother of all innovation they say. I agree, But innovating in a highly constrained manner is what really amazes me. And so after a much delay TRAI finally got around to forcing it’s draconian NCPR guidelines on us. Bulk SMS industry almost got wiped out and all the other innovative companies who were using SMS as a primary channel of communication suffered a major blow. We (ONZE) were also in some sense on the receiving end of this enforcement. We (SMS Pull based services) paid the price for the nuisance created by UCC over SMS. ...

Eer kahein chalo Flipkart ki maare, Bir kahein chalo Flipkart ki maare, Hamao kahein chalo ham’o Flipkart ki maare. Jokes apart. There have been a flurry of blogs predicting the bubble and how insane the whole valuation of flipkart is. Insane or not, someone with a deep pocket and insights into the company which you and me are not privy to has made the bold decision to invest in Flipkart. That is the only bottomline. The rest that you read in public blogs is mere speculations. Some even appearing to me as sour grapes. ...

Roma made this observation the other day. When we got married, both of us were earning more than we could spend. Had no kids. And no responsibilities as such. Fast forward by six years, and here we are with two lovely princess (Raina and Trisha). Roma has left her job and is taking care of the kids and pursuing her interest in cooking and photography. And myself, taken the plunge in entrepreneurship. ...

Exactly a year ago I bounced off this idea with Jai about being able to review any restaurant by sending a SMS, and that review getting published on the users twitter page, facebook page and a dedicated page for that restaurant if it had one. Well that was just the start of the idea. Jai, Ishwar and myself thought we could pull something out of it and we just jumped. ...

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Startup ecosystem in India is almost growing like a hockey stick curve. The number of startup events happening here in Bangalore in a month and the number of incubator (companies) mushrooming is a clear indication of that. Though a lot of companies are starting, a lot of people are becoming entrepreneurs, a lot of people are willing to be angels, one aspect of this ecosystem which is not growing at the same rate is hiring. For a successful startup besides good entrepreneurs, execution and money, you also need a good set of guys who give shape to the product. ...

I am becoming a fan of Zoomin. Every other week they come up with a fab discount on some nice prints. Moreover when you have a 3 year old and a 2 month old kid in the house, you feel like printing photos every other day. I have already got a collage printed, missed the customized mug by a day and now just ordered a flip book for just 99/-. But what stuck me, was soon after completing my order I see this on their sidebar. ...