Entrepreneurship

Some thoughts Today on Entrepreneurship
Criticism and scathing reviews never worry me. I really don't care what anybody thinks, because I feel the only thing you can do in life is to do what you believe is right, what turns you on and what makes you tick. If that doesn't make other people sing with you, their bad luck, because I am singing. So it's their problem, not mine.

I think the starting point of real creativity is not to do it for anybody else. Especially in a field like advertising which has got a disease of learning to understand the consumer. That's the biggest bullshit in advertising. You can't even understand your mother, how will you understand a customer? So you always write for yourself, and if people like it - good!

Advertising has a lot to do with luck. There are fantastic people who have these fantastic ideas, but if their ideas are not liked by others, they become bad advertising people. If they like it, they become good. So I have been lucky in the sense that people often like what I like= Thanks to Balki

Someone recently told me that allowing criticism in brainstorming sessions will encourage people to look at alternative options. I don't agree; I would never do that. Nothing should be criticized in a creative exercise. Brainstorming is an interesting way to explore an idea. It costs nothing to write them down on paper. In fact, the brainstorming should focus on how to make a bad idea into a good idea, because even in a bad idea, you can find a lot of good. For example, I often conduct brainstorming sessions in corporate workshops where I ask the participants to come up with the unlikeliest of customers for their products and get them to think of ways to convert them into perfect customers. These sessions go a long way in making people strategize creatively.Thanks to Tina Seelig Executive Director
Stanford Technology Ventures Program

When I set up my first call center, there were a lot of people saying it will not work. They said that the lag of voice between the US and India was so large that Indian call centers will never succeed. I took up the challenge. I made an international call to an American friend who was also our potential customer. I said, "Hey Joe, I happen to be in town. Can we grab a meal together?" He said, "Ya, I'm free to meet you. What time?" and we went on talking for two minutes. At the end of the conversation, I said, "So, Joe, you believe I am in town?" He was puzzled. I told him I am calling from India. I said, "Joe, you said this will never work. But now you believed that I was making a local call and we could meet for dinner." He paused, and then said, "You've proved your point. Okay, we'll give you fifty people worth of business and let's see where it goes." This is how we got our first customer. Thanks to Raman Roy Chief Executive Officer Quatrro BPO Solutions

Tools for Bootstrappers Courtesy Anjana Vivek
Entrepreneurs are often strapped of cash. Sreekrishna Sankar, who has just completed his Post Graduate Diploma in Management at IIM Bangalore, has come up with a list of tools that entrepreneurs can use in such times; most of this is free and freely available for use. Incidentally, Sreekrishna, and a couple of his batchmates at IIMB, Ajith Pai and Sahil Barua, have floated a firm Catalyst Ventures, which worked with a few start ups. Thanks for sharing this info, Sreekrishna. 1. Business Plan developer for developing professional business plan templates which can be a starting point(free)

2. Open Office - a free alternative to the Microsoft Office suite (free)

3. Google Apps for small business. Google Apps also offers a personal calendar, word processor, and a spreadsheet editor. Because the programs are web-based, all information edited on them can be shared easily and in real time. (free)
4. Zoho Suite - provides online tools for project management, database management, web conferencing and CRM support (free)
5. For the startups needing their own servers and databases, freely available Apache suite of products and the mysql/postgres are free options
6. Free accounting software like Turbocash, Wesabe help in quickly setting up the financial processes in startups.
7.Setting up a website is very easy even for newbies through Weebly. Weebly also provides domain registration and your professional website can be up and running within minutes.⊕

ANJANA VIVEK

• Categories: COMMENTS (5)
  [26-May, 01 PM] Eric V. Gear

  I'm also an entrepreneur and I'd like to share the tool I'm using for business management - Wrike. It's perfect for my team as it integrates with email. My clients love it cause they don't have to log in to see the updates. I like it cause it helps me see what's going on in my business any minute. And I pay something like $4 per month.

  [27-May, 12 AM] Pranav Bhasin

  TeamViewer for web conferencing.

  [27-May, 01 AM] K. Srikrishna

  Good starting list for online applications and free tools. Check out Marshall Kirkpatrick's Five tools everyone working on-line should have and my post on Five utilities that I can't live without

  [27-May, 08 AM] SHABHARISH MITTA

  Tools for Entrepreneurs is a nice idea !!

  Sharing this tool called IBM Uynte. Its just 1 mb file.

  It has two features

  1.
  You can give presentations/demos to your customers sitting right in your office. This does not require client to install anything on his system. its called desktop sharing. FREE

  2.
  Remote Assist - in case you are into somethin related to computer applications, or software, you can do trouble shooting. Just by accepting your invitation, you can access your client's computer entirely & live. This avoids sending personnel to attend the issues of the customer. FREE for TRIAL of 1 Month

  it can be downloaded http://www.unyte.net/download/Unyte_Setup_25435.exe

  Watch out : It needs to be used on High Speed Broad Band Connection Only

  ~ Shabs

  [27-May, 04 PM] Praveen Jain

  Good list. Google Apps and Zoho is a must have.
  Google Apps allows you to have 100 mail ids with your domain name free. You can also build your intranet thru' google sites. In addition, it has a nice mobile application that lets u see u r office mail through mobile easily.

  Zoho, in addition to a neat CRM suite, has a HR management tool and a few more utilities also, which I use for my startup.

The Entrepreneur as a Manager

Apart from being a leader, an entrepreneur also needs to be an able Manager, regardless of whether or not he plays an active role in the organization that has been set up. Managerial strengths tend to manifest far more visibly whereas the qualities of a leader are subliminal and in a sense even private. Managerial competencies in some ways appear to have a greater use for an entrepreneur to make a favorable first impression with all the stakeholders of the enterprise. The leadership strengths that come to fore in sustained transactions tend to build on this very foundation. So what are the qualities of a capable Manager an entrepreneur may inherently possess or develop in order to extend his sphere of influence? It is easy to conclude that to successfully manage resources in any context the one factor that plays a critical role is common sense. However what construes this common sense is not as easily decipherable. Is it Focus and Discipline? Is it Result Orientation and the skills of an "Arranger?" Is it good Team and Relationship Orientation? Or is it a judicious mix of all of them. Vijay Nair tells us that apart from being a leader, an entrepreneur also needs to be an able Manager.