start-up | wealthymatters

What Does It Feel Like To Head A Start-UP?

May 4, 2014 Leave a comment

Ever wondered about this question?Then here’s your answer in the words of Paul DeJoe Ecquire.com

Very tough to sleep most nights of the week. Weekends don’t mean anything to you anymore. Closing a round of financing is not a relief. It means more people are depending on you to turn their investment into 20 times what they gave you.

It’s very difficult to “turn it off”. But at the same time, television, movies and vacations become so boring to you when your company’s future might be sitting in your inbox or in the results of a new A/B test you decide to run.

You feel guilty when you’re doing something you like doing outside of the company. Only through years of wrestling with this internal fight do you recognize how the word “balance” is an art that is just as important as any other skill set you could ever hope to have. You begin to see how valuable creativity is and that you must think differently not only to win, but to see the biggest opportunity. You recognize you get your best ideas when you’re not staring at a screen.You see immediate returns on healthy distractions.

You start to respect the Duck. Paddle like hell under the water and be smooth and calm on top where everyone can see you. You learn the hard way that if you lose your cool you lose.

You always ask yourself if I am changing the World in a good way? Are people’s lives better for having known me?

You are creative and when you have an idea it has no filter before it becomes a reality. This feeling is why you can’t do anything else. Read more of this post

Filed under Entrepreneurship Tagged with being an entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, life of an entrepreneur, postaday, start-up

No Regrets

October 2, 2013 8 Comments

In the very early days of Facebook, when it had fewer than 15 employees, a guy named Steve Chen decided after working there for only a few weeks that it just wasn’t for him.

He wanted to leave to found his own company, and his plan was to do a video startup.

Matt Cohler, the guy who had hired him in the first place, tried to convince him otherwise. “You’re making a terrible mistake. Facebook is going to be huge! And there’s already a ton of video sites. If you do this you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life!”

Chen wasn’t convinced, so he decided to do it anyway and left to start a company called YouTube.

Filed under Entrepreneurship Tagged with Facebook, Matt Cohler, postaday, start-up, Steve Chen, YouTube

Honey Traps

September 21, 2013 3 Comments

wealthymatters Today’s find has been the pheromone-based pest control traps made by Bangalore-based Barrix Agro Sciences.

Barrix Agro Sciences is a start-up founded by Lokesh Makam-an MBA in pharmaceuticals management who had worked for companies such as Ranbaxy, Dabur and Himalaya and Mayil Vaganan who had worked at pharma majors like Cadila Pharmaceuticals and Ranbaxy, before changing their focus to agriculture.The company was set up in 2011 with their personal savings of 23 lakh.

Fruit and vegetable farming are simple ways of making more from smaller land holdings.And the greatest challenge you will face in bringing up a good crop are the fruit and vegetable flies. They create holes in the fruits and vegetables and make them unfit for sale, You end up spending about 50,000 per hectare on pesticides.

The problem with pesticides is that besides being expensive, they are washed away by the rains. The pheromones developed by Barrix are artificially synthesized smelling agents that attract pests. Instead of eating the crops, the pests are attracted to the pheromones in the traps and so can be trapped and destroyed. Read more of this post

Filed under Alternative Assets, Entrepreneurship, Tool Kit Tagged with Barrix Agro Sciences, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Dabur, Farming, fruit farming, fruit flies, Himalaya Drug Company, Lokesh Makam, mango crops, Mayil Vaganan, MBA in pharmaceuticals management, pheromone-based pest control traps, postaday, Ranbaxy, start-up, vegetable farming, vegetable flies

Something To Remember

August 17, 2013 Leave a comment

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

This is the quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that Paul Allen used to persuade Bill Gates to quit Harvard and set up their own software company.

Right from their school days Paul Allen and Bill Gates believed in the possibility of a PC in every house.The arrival of the Altair 8080 convinced Paul that the time was right to take a plunge.

The rest is history.So there’s something to allowing yourself to be swept along by historic currents.

Filed under Entrepreneurship, Tool Kit Tagged with Bill Gates, Paul Allen, postaday, right time to start, right time to take the plunge, start-up

Lakshmi Vishnu And The Start-Up

December 29, 2012 10 Comments

wealthymatters,com In Hindu mythology, Lakshmi (wealth) chases Vishnu. Vishnu has two sides: Kama and Yama. Kama is the irresponsible dreamer of love and life. Yama is the cautious accountant who watches over debt and death.

Kama is the CEO who dreams big and attracts followers. Yama is the CFO who has to keep an eye on the balance sheet.

Kama has garuda-drishti: the bird’s eye view and focuses on the woods not the trees. Yama has sarpa-drishti: the serpent’s eye view and counts the trees and ignores the forest.

The two are eternally churning the ocean of milk, each one knowing when to pull and when to let go.

In your start up, when you focus on your vision ,incur sunk costs,concentrate on acquiring customers and growing the top line you behave as Kama.On the other hand when you focus on limiting risks,cutting costs,managing or reducing debt,maintaining margins and profitability you are behaving like Yama. As long as you manage to strike a balance between both types of activities you are likely to be Lakshmi-pati (wealthy).If Yama stifles Kama,the business will not get off the ground and if Kama gets out of hand,the business is likely to be run into the ground.