February 2005 Archives

We have been actively looking for our first set of hires. Having heard facts like India produces 100,000 engineers every year, I had thought how hard could hiring be. I mean, just post your requirements, get the resumes, pick the best ones and you are done, right? Wrong! Posting job requirements costs a lot of money. Filtering 100s of resumes takes a lot of time. Conducting interviews requires finding a venue, coordinating with all the candidates, getting test papers printed etc. The actual interviewing process is very taxing. We conducted roughly 20 interviews yesterday and my brain was completely fried at the end of it. The average cost of interviewing a single candidate was over Rs 1000. We definitely need to bring that down.

This was our first real experience with the "HR" process. So it is not surprising it wasn't as fruitful as we would have liked it to be. But we learned a lot about hiring. Most of all, we realized that the success of the company is going to depend almost entirely on getting the right people on board.

If you or somebody you know can write great code and are passionate about working in a startup and growing it then please talk to me (gauravbhatnagar at msn dot com). We want to work with you! :)

I wrote the following piecealmost exactly 1 year before returning to India.

I saw a dream last night. I saw that i was going to watch a movie with my friends. There were friends from school, a few from college too. Even Lokesh was there, so some office buddies were there as well. You cant remember all the details in a dream na. Everybody was pestering me to pay for the tickets. Amazingly I agreed to pay too. Most unlikely things happen in a dream!
Then the movie began. And as you know, anything is possible in a dream. It turned out that I was the central character in the movie. A young 17 year old ambitious boy. Everybody was teasing me saying I looked so skinny and geeky. I was wearing my old Gandhiji specs. I still have them somewhere. In the movie, I was a dreamer. I wanted to reach for the skies. They showed me studying hard, preparing for my entrance exams. I remarked to Sameer that the movie was quite accurate in depicting my story. Then this young kid in the movie went to college. He was still dreaming, ever ambitious. There were some funny incidents from my college life in the movie. Raman and I had a good laugh remembering those incidents. There was a song too. All my college buddies and me singing and teasing girls on the roads. Obviously the director had added that to please the crowds. Nothing like that happened in real life. The kid was a idealist. He had lofty ideals and loftier goals. A pinch of patriotism too. Yes, thats me alright, i thought to myself.

We had popcorn in the interval. The movie resumed with the convocation at IIT. My parents snapping my photographs in that red graduation gown. Mom looked really happy. Dad mentioned that he had stood exactly where i stood today 28 years ago. In the movie, I went on to take a job in India. I frowned, wondering if the director had got it wrong there. When did i work in India? The young man in the movie was working hard, earning a fraction of what i really earn. The director had got it really wrong here, i said to my friends. This isnt me guys. You know i work in US. And dude, i earn way more than that. I was agitated even though it was only a movie. A few people sitting in the seats behind us asked me to lower my voice. I sank into my seat red with rage. The young man in the movie (who clearly only looked like me) went on with his idealistic drivel. He was talking about staying back in India. Working for the motherland. So cliche, i thought. I felt sorry for that face on the screen. Poor guy couldnt make it to US and now was having a case of sour grapes. Rohit, my old buddy from school whispered to me he remembered me saying the same things. What rubbish! I chided him. I never said that. Who was this guy in the movie anyway. Thats not my life they are showing! Rohit just looked at me and remained quiet.

Two hours were almost up. It was the climax. The protagonist was setting up his own company in India. He had worked hard. Struggled against odds. And now he was seeing the fruits of his labor. His college mates who had gone to America looked up to him in admiration. That is so like Hindi movies, I hissed. They will show the most impossible things! That doesnt happen in real life. The hero of the movie (who was definitely not me!) was sitting in front of a computer when his phone rang.

That is when i woke up. It was 2 AM in the night. I was lying in the bed, sweating bullets. The room was very dark, very quiet. I could hear my self breathing. It seemed like the moment had frozen in time. My eyes were wide open. It took me several hours to fall asleep again. But as i drifted into sleep, I had only one question in my mind: Was I living the wrong dream?

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Am I now living the right dream? Only time will tell.

I saw this pic of Sania Mirza giving polio drops to a kid. Give me a break! Why can't they leave her alone? She should be practicing, practicing, practicing! Anybody can give polio drops to a kid. But only Sania can play tennis like she does. The other day, Sania spent the day meeting the president, prime minister and Sonia Gandhi in Delhi. Did Ms. Gandhi have any useful tips on how to improve her serve?

Sania - focus on the game. You know you have a long way to go. There are other people to take care of little kids who need polio drops.

Hotmail pissed me off immensely today. For whatever reasons, my hotmail account was inaccessible for several hours today. I have been using hotmail for my official communications of late (a big mistake as I now realize). We have been working across three continents on a project - so being able to communicate effectively is critical.

So while I was twiddling thumbs and hitting the refresh button waiting for hotmail to come back, I thought about what all is wrong with hotmail. A LOT, in my opinion. For example:

1. No pop access.

2. Awfully slow and painful access via Outlook

3. 250MB space for only people who sign up in North America. What's up with that?

4. Really slow and inefficient search. There is no advanced search feature. You just get one search box. MSN is supposed to be building a kick-ass search engine. How about using it in hotmail?

5. No auto-complete in TO: field while composing email. Both Yahoo and Gmail have it and it makes life much easier when you have 100s of contacts in your address book.

6. A very very annoying caching issue. This has been introduced recently. Clicking "Inbox" just brings up the locally cached copy of the inbox. So you end up having to hit refresh 5 times before the real inbox shows up. Guys, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

7. Overuse of Javascript. Many links are actually call javascrip functions on clicking. This means, you can't do a right-click -> open in new window on these links. That means, I cant compose a mail in a seperate window while reading my mail in the other window.

8. Poor usability and navigation. Popup blockers block the "upload attachment" window. The contacts list on the compose window is organised in some mysterious way. Some of my contacts never show up there for whatever reason. When the compose mail page loads, it suddenly takes focus away from the address field to insert the signature in the body field.

I could go on and on. If somebody from MSFT is reading, then please forward this to the hotmail team. I dont want to stop using hotmail and I know Microsoft is capable of doing a much better job of it.

1/3rd of an year has passed since I R2Ied! And what a 1/3rd of an year this has been. Gadhadhari Bheem rightly comments that I am not marketing R2I enough. Well, its true I have been awfully busy of late. But I would not attribute that to being in India. I have been working on starting a new business - so I have been tied up with finding office space, hiring people, understanding finance and keeping my clients happy (not in that order...). But more on that in a seperate post.

In the past 4 months, I have not regretted R2I-ing even once. Of course, its been only 4 months but I feel more confident about being in India than I did back in November. To prospective R2Iers, I will like to give 2 pieces of completely un-asked for advice :-

1. Know why you want to R2I - Have a reason to R2I. If you have some vague ideas about why you want to come back, then its probably not the right time to return. Having a very specific reason is important because it keeps you focussed once you are back here. My reason was that I wanted to try out different things professionally - something that was not possible in US because of a slowing economy, lack of resources and visa issues. So when I came back, each time I wondered "What the hell am I doing in the 3rd most polluted city of the world sitting in a traffic jam in sweltering heat and earning 1/10th of what I made before?", I had an answer. You can have a different reason - personal or professional - but it should be compelling enough to keep you motivated and excited about being in India.

2. Be a cool dude: This is important. Know that the India you are coming back to is way more developed than the India you left. BUT it is still not the US you are leaving now. There are differences and if you grew up in India then you are well aware of them. Nothing should surprise you. Remember you used to make fun of power cuts, corrupt politicians, our beaureaucracy, our cricket team etc. Unfortunately after spending a few years abroad, you will find it difficult to find all this funny anymore. You will instead be tempted to complain and whine. Well, dont! Be a cool dude! Have a "bindaas" attitude! Learn to love the system, learn to play the system. Take these things in your stride! This is the key to adjusting to life in India.

So that's my 2 paisa worth of thoughts about R2I-ing. If you are thinking about returning (and which NRI isn't?) then feel free to drop me a line (gauravbhatnagar at msn dot com). I will be glad to help in any way I can!

The past month and a half has been the busiest I have ever been. I think I have been working 16 hours a day, 6.5 days a week. Cant remember when I have been this busy before! Hopefully, the work load should ease off a bit next month and I should get more time to blog about what I have been working on :) But for now its the sleep-work-eat-sleep cycle for me!

What is the busiest you have ever been?

I am in Chennai this weekend. What a nice city -- I had a totally wrong impression of this place till yesterday. The city is very clean, weather is nice (ok, bearable), people are friendly. I met really great people at IIT Chennai who are doing absolutely amazing and pioneering work in telecom, software, rural sector etc. Its most impressive and world class. Meeting them and interatcting with them is truly inspirational!

More when I get back to Delhi...

My cell phone service provider Hutch has a strong focus on providing entertainment. They have introduced tv on phone service, send periodic "download ringtone" messages and even offer jokes via sms. So it shouldn't have come as a big surprise to me today when their customer service department made an attempt at being funny. Only, their comedy of errors did not amuse me.

All I had wanted to do was to enable national roaming on my phone since I will be travelling over the weekend. I dialled 600, chose all the right options, and was impressed by the friendly sounding recorded voice which told me that national roaming had been activated. End of story, you would think, huh? Well, after about an hour, I got an sms from Hutch saying national roaming was already activated on my phone. My friend had warned me that the same thing had happened to him when in fact roaming had never been enabled. So, just to be sure, I called Hutch care at 200. The fine gentleman at the other end cheerfully told me it wasn't a problem and he will go ahead and double check. I was told everything was in order. Thanks for calling Hutch care! End of story, right? Nope. Now begins the "funny" part. Shortly afterwards, I got an sms on my phone saying "STD service has been DEACTIVATED on your phone" (emphasis added by me). Before I could exclaim "What the f***!", I got another sms on my phone: "ISD service has been DEACTIVATED on your phone".

Now is that supposed to be funny? I dont think so. Anyway, I called Hutch Care again. Another fine young man told me that there *might* have been a technical error and he *might* be able to get the service restored. Of course no apologies, or explanation of what they screwed up.

Its been a few hours since then, and my long distance is still disabled, I still dont have roaming enabled and I am pissed off.

From an old issue of Reader's Digest, via Mom :

1 He keeps his mind open on every question until the evidence is all in .
2 He always listens to the man who knows
3 He never laughs at new ideas
4 He cross examines his day dreams .
5 He knows his strong point and plays it .
6 He knows the value of good habits and how to form them .
7 He knows when not to think and when to call in the experts to think for him .
8 You can not sell him magic.
9 He lives the forward looking,out ward looking life.
10 He cultivates a love for the beautiful .

Dear Page 3 person,

It is a great honor for me that you should spare the time to read my tiny little blog. I mean, from what I read in the newspapers, clearly you guys/gals are a busy bunch. With all the partying and social
butterflying (pardon my grammar!), it must be a real challenge to find time for trivial pursuits like reading blogs.

So, now that I have your undivided attention, let me get to the point. Truth be told, I am a Page 3 wannabe. Yes yes, I deride you, ridicule you, make fun of you -- but that is just a facade. Deep down, I am a Page 3 wannabe (and who isn't?). I envy you guys. I also want to rub shoulders with the who's who of Delhi (BTW is "rubbing shoulders" only a metaphor or do you actually do that? In our lowly social gatherings, we merely shake hands). I SO want to see my photo on Page 3! I want those free drinks! I want to have the Rohit Bals and Ritu Beris on my buddy list. This is where you fit into the picutre, my dear page 3 party animal. You see, I am a geek. My social circle is limited to the geekdom. And I certainly don't know any page 3 people (at least none who would be willing to admit knowing me :-P )

My dear Page 3 reader, please make me the first geek to enter the echelons of Page 3. I feel I am well qualified for it. I can party 7 nights a week and also have a healthy tolerance for spirits of all
varieties. I floss my teeth every night. I can even do a fake American accent. Surely that counts for something! My only shortcoming is that I am not famous. But that I will be, once I am on the page 3!

Awaiting a positive response.

Sincerely,
Page 3 wannabe Gaurav

Gmail now allows POP access! Finally, I can use Outlook to read my gmail. Cool!

Oh, btw, I got 50 new gmail invites. So if you still don't have a gmail account and want one, leave a comment.

movieman suggested a while back that I do an entry on bollywood all time top 10 movies. Here goes my list (from 1-10):

Dil chahta hai
sholay
jo jeeta wohi sikandar
dil waale dulhaniya le jaayege
shakti
mughal-e-azam
hum aapke hai kaun
QSQT
akele hum akele tum
lagaan

Which movies are on your list?

Super Bowl ads are a fascinating phenomena. EVERYBODY watches the Super Bowl in America - even if they never see a football game the entire year. Thats because of the ads. Super Bowl is the time when many companies release new TV ads -- entertaining ads that make watching Super Bowl fun even for people like me who dont know the rules.

Now I obviously didn't watch the super bowl this year. But I read that godaddy.com had the best super bowl ad by a large margin. Everybody blogged about it. All the news sites talked about it. So much so, that when I was shopping for domain names, godaddy.com was my first choice.

Such is the power of advertising. An ad was aired on televisions in America, several thousand miles away. And it made an impact on me here in India! I guess godaddy.com's money was well spent.

My uncle has started a very unique blog - he will be writing about his experiences in the retailing industry in the gulf and India. He is certainly qualified to write about it - he has more than 10 years of experience running lareg retails chains in the middle east.

Retailing is a hot topic in India what with all the new malls coming up everywhere! Do check out his blog here.

Its 4 AM, its raining outside, Tata Young is going "doom doom" on Zee Music, and I am working late - again.

Note to self: Get a life dude! :-|

CNET claims:
"So concerned is management, owning an iPod at Microsoft is beginning to become impolitic, the manager said. Employees are hiding their iPods by swapping the telltale white headphones for a less conspicuous pair."

and

"So popular is the iPod, executives are increasingly sending out memos frowning on its use."

I find that very hard to believe. In my time at Microsoft, I never saw a memo going out discouraging use of competing technology. Except, of course in the case of open source, where legal issues prevent MSFT employees from freely looking at the source code. Sure, there are many in the company who wont touch a QT or Real media file. But that is more out of company pride and not because the upper management wont like it. In fact internal mailing lists usually have very open discussion on whats wrong with Microsoft products. There would often be comments like "And I wont quit using "insert competing product here" until MS "enter product name here" gives me so and so features!"

That is one of the best things I liked about Microsoft. The core value "open and respectful" really means something there.

It does give a funny picture imagining my former co-workers rushing to hide their ipods as they see Bill passing by .... :)

A friend forwarded this to me. Very thought provoking. Sachin, thanks for sharing this!

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Success is conceived in the womb of the mind the moment you look
around and say, "I don't belong here. These are not my people." And it
is born when you cogently express - to yourself and to the world - who
you really are.

So who are you, really, and how will you express it? Will you rise
above your circumstances? Please understand I'm not talking about
money.

For the person born with privileges, success may be to rise above the
shallowness that so often accompanies aristocracy and do something
meaningful with his or her life. William K. Vanderbilt Jr. was this
sort of success.

For the person born into a family of redneck bastards, success may be
to develop an open and curious mind and become familiar with the arts.
Such a success was William Jefferson Blythe IV.

For the person who feels unloved, success may be to love others with
such fierceness that their love is multiplied exponentially in return.
Clara Barton succeeded using this technique.

As ad writer H. Jackson Brown once said, "People take different roads
seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your
road doesn't mean they've gotten lost."

Your rocky sidewalk to Success will be found by:
(1.) knowing who you are.
(2.) identifying the itch you need to scratch.
(3.) overcoming the factors that block your progress.

Accomplish these things and you will have discovered your destiny and
answered the question: "Why am I here and what should I be doing with
my life?"

That's why lottery winners so often become despondent; who they are
hasn't changed, but they can no longer pretend their unhappiness is
caused by a lack of cash. These sad souls exemplify the pithy
observation of Frank McKinney Hubbard, "It's pretty hard to tell what
does bring happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed."

Any goal that begins with the words, "My goal is to have…" is certain
to bring unhappiness. Goals that scratch your life-itch are the ones
that begin,

"I will serve people by….gathering what they want and having it in stock when they need it. – Sam Walton

making them feel good about who they are. – Oprah Winfrey

designing an automobile they can afford to own. – Henry Ford

creating worlds of fantasy into which they can escape. – Steven Spielberg

having hot food available for them at a moment's notice. – Ray Kroc

writing songs that help them celebrate life. – Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein

People who live only for the consumption of pleasure are the walking
dead. But you care about others. So who are your people and how do you
plan to serve them?

What is holding you back and how will you overcome it?

Where do you belong and when will you go there?

Why not 2005?

Amit Varma's India Uncut was the clear winner in the "New blogs" category. He definitely deserved it. India Uncut is a great blog. New Delhi Times came 3rd and managed to corner 18% of the votes. Thanks to everybody who voted for me!