My weekend essentially involved reading the various profit models that Adrian Slywotzky had put forth in his best selling book. It clearly mentions that not more than one model needs to be digested in a week.

What is Local leadership profit ? This involves firms taking up strategies that clearly leverage the leadership position at the regional level and then scale up in a tactical way. A few examples to kick off the understanding are walmart, starbucks who started in a small location, built up the leadership at each of their respective locations and then used it as a weapon to expand to other locations. At the same time, there are umpteen examples of local leaders who find it difficult to scale. What could be the reason ? Is it purely a matter of luck, or are there are operational issues, strategic issues that entail the success of a small local leader firm to take on the world ? Let’s explore

MetroNaps , a Purple cow :

An Indian has come up with this innovative idea of having nap machines to take short naps at busy locations like airports.

Pricing : $14 for 20 minutes.

Price gouging is the raising of prices 1) far above one’s costs and far above competitors prices, 2) far above what many people think is just, 3) during a human crisis. I disagree with those that state that PG is a non-concept. It is an intentionally vague and deceptive, morally abstruse, and economically harmful concept, but for those very reasons, it must be taken seriously.

“The combination of curiosity and lead time can convert any chore in to a delightful exploratory puzzle. Puzzles solved have far more penetraction and staying power than chores completed” - Adrian Slywotzy

Via Emergic :

Being a successful entrepreneur is tricky. You have to live with having control and not having control at the same time. It’s like this: In big business, when you need to cross a river, you simply design a bridge, build it, and march right across.

But in a small venture, you must climb the rocks. You don’tknow where each step will take you, but you do know the generaldirection you are moving in. If you make a mistake, you get wet. Ifyour calculations are wrong, you have to inch your way back to safetyand find a different route.

Specialist profit deals with those firms who concentrate on specialist products and focus on the implementation of the products . These are characterized by high margins , niche segment specific, high risk associated with the failure to address the right need /want of the customer. The difference between this and Blockbuster model is that in the latter, there is huge amount of cost that is involved in going after the product and it the blockbuster product is not a niche product but a product that is aimed to cater to a large set of customers, which inevitably means a brilliant marketing campaign

Specialist profit deals with those firms who concentrate on specialist products and focus on the implementation of the products . These are characterized by high margins , niche segment specific, high risk associated with the failure to address the right need /want of the customer. The difference between this and Blockbuster model is that in the latter, there is huge amount of cost that is involved in going after the product and it the blockbuster product is not a niche product but a product that is aimed to cater to a large set of customers, which inevitably means a brilliant marketing campaign

Paul Graham  reflects on his summer Y Combinator

on Age:

More precisely, the hypothesis was that success in a startup depends mainly on how smart and energetic you are, and much less on how old you are or how much business experience you have.

A researcher who studied the SFP startups said the one thing they had in common was that they all worked ridiculously hard.

on Competition:

Here’s a handy rule for startups: competitors are rarely as dangerous as they seem. Most will self-destruct before you can destroy them. And it certainly doesn’t matter how many of them there are, any more than it matters to the winner of a marathon how many runners are behind him.

Should RBI hike interest rates on the scheduled Oct 25 monetary policy announcement ?
Rajeev Malik and Abheek Barua present 2 contrasting views

“The biggest risk in life is not taking one "
- from the movie ‘PROOF’

In a sense, the book makes readers aware of a lot of common fallacies that pervade our world view and consequently, our thinking . Innumeracy , in authors words, is the inability to deal comfortable with the fundamental notion of number and chance.
John Allen Paulos urges the readers to develop the skills of estimation by posing few interesting questions like :

• How many trucks would be needed to displace Mount Fiju / Himalayas completely, considering that there is a truck available to remove the rubble every 15 minutes ?

“The biggest risk in life is not taking one "
- from the movie ‘PROOF’

I went on a book buying binge , for the place I visited in Chennai, the Landmark was simply irresistable. So, I would be posting a host of my book reviews in the weeks to come.

Tim Harper, chief executive officer and founder of nano technology company Cientifica, speaks on Potential applications :

The major areas of application right now are medical and pharmaceuticals, information technology, chemicals and advanced materials. However, if we look at this from an Indian perspective, textiles are far more significant.So the major applications would be in chemicals (better catalysts to improve throughput, the use of nano particles in composite materials) and textiles (to make cloth stain and crease resistant).

Signs of Nanotech Industry :

According to a recent study by Lux Research, North American companies spent $1.7 billion on nanotech research in 2004 and budget numbers in 2005 are on track to be higher. Even more impressive, 30% of the companies among the Dow Jones Industrial Average have announced nanotechnology partnerships, including names like DuPont, Volkswagen, Merck, and General Electric. 3M, renowned for product innovation, is on record as considering nanotechnology as having the biggest potential for their next blockbuster products. A major automotive R&D leader recently said that 30% of his R&D budget goes into manipulation of materials at the nanoscale. At some nano-application conferences, automotive products now constitute entire program tracks.

A location based display of your buddylist. This concept might look cool, if only it had contact information of each person on the map along side the location.
Link :Frapper

A Phd education entails a serious dedication to a field and a country when harnesses the power of Phd’s reaps high dividends..But look at the state of Phds at IITs. Isnt it high time, we learn to focus on Phd education and make it an engine for the future growth. This is especially in the case of upcoming revolutions like Nano, RFID…Will India miss the bus on these technologies ?

Link : In three years, only four IIT-Bombay PhD placements

_decorate(_ge(‘photo_gne_button_zoom’), 44349798);

_decorate(_ge(‘photo_notes’), _ge(‘photoImgDiv44349798’), 44349798, ‘http://static.flickr.com/28/44349798 _0e487287bc_t.jpg’, ‘1.5’);

I have always wondered at the dominance of Photoshop . Almost every web designer, graphic designer, usability engineer has worked on it , almost making it an indispensable tool . However, the price tag for the software makes it prohibitive for startups to use it. Recently I have noticed a good open source software Gimp which has almost all the features of Photoshop.

My take on the tool:

• Easy to install- prereq is gtk+, comes in linux and windows flavors
• UI is neat, clean and user friendly ( Unlike the commonly held notion of any open source work)
• Easy to pick and choose the features for a starter.No flooding of options for a beginner.
• Loads of tutorials on the net

Overall, at zero cost, its definitely a tool which can replace adobe in startups

An inspiring story of an entrepreneur Jignesh shah who has made it big in the commodities market exchange. Its a story of the transformation of a technology company in to a successful trading exchange

What is he betting on :

“We are getting into mobile-based digital transactions for micro credit; it is a trillion dollar market. It will capture all low-end transactions, mobilising small money at a quarter of the cost. When media turns completely digital, we will be there too. “

_decorate(_ge(‘photo_gne_button_zoom’), 44349798);

_decorate(_ge(‘photo_notes’), _ge(‘photoImgDiv44349798’), 44349798, ‘http://static.flickr.com/28/44349798 _0e487287bc_t.jpg’, ‘1.5’);

When Morgan Freeman says “Sometimes people get Insititutionalized” in the movie “Shawshank’s Redemption”, this is what he means :

Close your eyes and imagine a coral reef forming slowly around a tiny tropical island. The coral polyps are small and soft at the start — like your comfortable ways of doing things — but they’re steadily solidifying into a massive wall of rock, shutting off the open sea. Inside the reef, the water’s shallow, calm and safe. Outside the reef, there are big waves and the open ocean. And you’re still swimming inside. How does that feel? How much space will you have to grow? Where can you go — except where you’ve already been?

When Morgan Freeman says “Sometimes people get Insititutionalized” in the movie “Shawshank’s Redemption”, this is what he means :

Close your eyes and imagine a coral reef forming slowly around a tiny tropical island. The coral polyps are small and soft at the start — like your comfortable ways of doing things — but they’re steadily solidifying into a massive wall of rock, shutting off the open sea. Inside the reef, the water’s shallow, calm and safe. Outside the reef, there are big waves and the open ocean. And you’re still swimming inside. How does that feel? How much space will you have to grow? Where can you go — except where you’ve already been?

Where do Ideas come from ? I mean for businesses to start offering a new product / service . It is usually from a set of customer troubles / anger / feedack/ routine work which gives rise to business opportunities . Lets start with this post at 52 projects which actually talk of loads of new opportunities to create business.

Let me go through the not-to-do list and come up with an idea for each one of them , which can make life easier to a lot of folks :

We do tend to come across umpteen number of applications which posit the coming of the smart machine revolution(MEMS, RFID,etc) Here is one such product for animals which can be thought of as a pre-cursor. Like excelsheets, shareware, activeX, firefox plugins were precursors to successful Longtail biz , may be Littermaid too falls in such a category.

1. RickCecil
2.The Coyote Within : A brilliant pause blog
3. David V Lorenzo
4. Idea Festival
5. Business Pundit

Today’s Nuggets :

• Do the next most important thing — and do it now, however small it is.

• Repeat the above until you’ve reached your goal.

• If you’re not sure what’s the next most important thing, do something anyway.

Touchology refers to the interaction between the employees and customers. The key is trust in the employees.

            Today is my first Blogiversary
290 posts in the First Year : Guess it’s a good enough beginning !

A few years back, my friend and I came up with a business case for demand forecasting tool for the retailing industry.

Here is what Mariott does , using the same concept. This model as such was present from 1980s where it was first used in the airlines industry. Look at what James Marriot has done to the concept. Applying an old idea to a totally different context.Hats off to him !

Where do Ideas come from ? I mean for businesses to start offering a new product / service . It is usually from a set of customer troubles / anger / feedack/ routine work which gives rise to business opportunities . Lets start with this post at 52 projects which actually talk of loads of new opportunities to create business.

Let me go through the not-to-do list and come up with an idea for each one of them , which can make life easier to a lot of folks :

We do tend to come across umpteen number of applications which posit the coming of the smart machine revolution(MEMS, RFID,etc) Here is one such product for animals which can be thought of as a pre-cursor. Like excelsheets, shareware, activeX, firefox plugins were precursors to successful Longtail biz , may be Littermaid too falls in such a category.

Wow!

“Daniel Boorstin, the former librarian of Congress, used to rise at 5 each morning and write for two hours before going into the office.
**
“I write to discover what I think,”** he explained_. “After all, the bars aren’t open that early.”_

Mr. Boorstin’s morning sessions were even more valuable than he realized. Writing not only clarifies what you already know; it is also an astonishingly effective way to learn something new.”

Recently I ’ve come across Zinio Reader which gives a very unique experience of reading offline magazines. They have incorporated nice features which gives user a much better experience of reading an online mag. There are some freebies on the site like Oracle monthly mag and some web2.0 issues.

Wondir gives a good competition to Google answers. Why pay $2 when you can get your question answered for free and also with a personalized touch.

Profit Multiplier Model is seen in firms which try to leverage their base and build multiple avenues to build profitability. “LionKing” story can be the base and other multipliers can be LionKing Broadway movie, Lunchboxes, TShirts..This model is different from Multi component profit model where the product tends to be the same, but the packaging is different. In this model however, only the base like IP, Skills and assets are same, the resultant products are different

Profit Multiplier Model is seen in firms which try to leverage their base and build multiple avenues to build profitability. “LionKing” story can be the base and other multipliers can be LionKing Broadway movie, Lunchboxes, TShirts..This model is different from Multi component profit model where the product tends to be the same, but the packaging is different. In this model however, only the base like IP, Skills and assets are same, the resultant products are different

This type of profit model is more relevant for R&D firms which aims at a blockbuster and puts all the resouruces behind ONE product and then reap the benefits of the products if it succeeds / close the shop if it fails

Ever wondered how one creates the tag cloud which we see very often on delicious, technorati, amazon?
Parsing the text and storing it in a database and then highlighting the text based on their frequency. Sounds simple..But what if you were to be given YAHOO’s parsing algo…So, here’s the way to go:

• Grab newsfeeds that you define. Use caching to make sure that they are not fetched too frequently.
• Stuff them into a MySQL database. We have to be a little tricky here so we are not storing duplicate articles, even if the same article appears in several feeds. MySQL came to the rescue here.
• Next, we call on the Content Analysis web service from Yahoo! to extract the keywords from the article titles and descriptions. The keywords that we get back are inserted into the database and associated with the appropriate articles.
• Everything else is gravy. We pull out the popular keyword tags and use a silly scaling function to assign css according to how often the tag shows up.
• Clicking a tag’s link will display all the article abstracts for that particular tag as well as display the other tags associated with each article.
• If you have the time to implement, go ahead and do it for all your emails, files, etc..What I meant was one can easily go ahead and build a desktop tagging tool which when clicked shows a tag cloud for all the files in one’s system. I think this should
  be the immediate plugin needed from google desktop search service.

Spark Armada: Future of media - Pick an element for each of the categories and check out whether one can built a robust and profitable service

Here’s a interesting Doc Searl’s article on how to make powerpoints an effective tool for communication.
Main points are:

1. Begin with an end
2. Come from who you are
3. Tell your Story : It should comprise character, problem and movement
4.Write from an outline
5. Talk from headlines and not from headings
6. Use graphics
7. Use numbers to make lists memorable
8. Research thoroughly and give examples
9.Make comparisons
10. Stand and Deliver

GoogleBlog:

At Google, we’re constantly trying to find new ways to organize the world’s information, including information relevant to our business.We set up a predictive market system inside the company.The markets were designed to forecast product launch dates, new office openings, and many other things of strategic importance to Google. So far, more than a thousand Googlers have bid on 146 events in 43 different subject areas (no payment is required to play).

Spark Armada: Future of media - Pick an element for each of the categories and check out whether one can built a robust and profitable service

Here’s a new search engine exclusively for podcasts

Here’s a new search engine exclusively for podcasts

Here’s a interesting Doc Searl’s article on how to make powerpoints an effective tool for communication.
Main points are:

1. Begin with an end
2. Come from who you are
3. Tell your Story : It should comprise character, problem and movement
4.Write from an outline
5. Talk from headlines and not from headings
6. Use graphics
7. Use numbers to make lists memorable
8. Research thoroughly and give examples
9.Make comparisons
10. Stand and Deliver

One area where China lacks behind and where US can capitalize is on Sales , Marketing and Branding skills.

Slate:

Now, one shouldn’t expect that Chinese sales and marketing practices would be as advanced as their manufacturing techniques. Manufacturing is a matter of applying labor and processes to raw materials, over and over again. A culture of successful manufacturing can be engineered from the top down. That’s one reason many countries without a tradition of market economics, like China, have been able to master manufacturing relatively quickly.    

One area where China lacks behind and where US can capitalize is on Sales , Marketing and Branding skills.

Slate:

Now, one shouldn’t expect that Chinese sales and marketing practices would be as advanced as their manufacturing techniques. Manufacturing is a matter of applying labor and processes to raw materials, over and over again. A culture of successful manufacturing can be engineered from the top down. That’s one reason many countries without a tradition of market economics, like China, have been able to master manufacturing relatively quickly.    

GoogleBlog:

At Google, we’re constantly trying to find new ways to organize the world’s information, including information relevant to our business.We set up a predictive market system inside the company.The markets were designed to forecast product launch dates, new office openings, and many other things of strategic importance to Google. So far, more than a thousand Googlers have bid on 146 events in 43 different subject areas (no payment is required to play).

An Excerpt :

Most selling opportunities involve three parties–a seller, a buyer, and the seller’s competition, the crucial third party overlooked in traditional selling strategies.By shifting your focus to the relationship between your prospect and
the competition, you can stop selling and start winning.Just as you protect your own accounts from competitors, current
providers will try to stop you from winning business from their clients.

No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. You must knock the present provider off his or her throne in order to win the business.

Physorg.com :

Current market size = 580 Million - Expected to grow to 750 Million USD IN 2010. Lux research predictions : In general, Lux predicts the nanotechnology-tools market will see a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent to nearly $1.1 billion in 2010. However, growth will not prove even across each of its market segments

Nanotechnologists use three kinds of instruments to experiment with matter on the nanometer scale. Inspection tools such as atomic force microscopes and electron microscopes visualize nanometer-sized objects and represent the most mature and widely used category of tools for emerging nanotechnology. Fabrication tools such as nano-imprint lithography and dip-pen nanolithography create structures at the nanometer scale. Modeling tools are programs that predict nano-structure properties to circumvent the costs and time associated with experiments.