October 2008 Archives

TiEcon Delhi 2008 scheduled from October 22nd -24th is shaping up to be one of the most exciting events on the TiE Delhi calendar both in terms of scale 'of the event and the rare opportunity to hear, interact and connect with industry leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers and academia.

TiECon is the one conference that I attend every year. I have had a very good time networking at TiE events and conferences. This is one conference which has a fairly equal mix of highly respected industry veterans, established VCs and new and wannabe entrepreneurs. I have made associations at TiECon which have lasted ever since and also generated business. So this is a must-attend conference for anybody in Delhi who is serious about entrepreneurship.

More information available at http://www.tiecondelhi2008.org. Hope to see you there!

Writing a book has been on my "TO-DO" list for several years. Perhaps because I am myself an avid reader, I have immense fascination with books and what goes in to writing them. My guess is that it takes lot of patience, perseverance and planning to write a decent book! I recently read the 700 page long "India after Gandhi" and it left me in complete awe of the author Ram Chandra Guha!

I have probably written a book's worth of content in this blog itself. Yet, I have always considered writing an actual "book" as something different from just writing a bunch of disconnected articles. There has always been an inertia in my mind whenever I have contemplated writing an actual book. This inertia inevitable overpowers the desire to write!

However, just a few days back, I had a sudden realization - writing a book and getting it published are two distinct activities. In fact, simply writing a book has no entry barriers - nobody can stop you from doing that. Of course, getting it published is a different ball game. For that, you need to have credentials, good writing capabilities and at least one publisher who feels he can make money publishing your book. You also need to worry about cover design, promotions etc. But writing a book is just that - writing and nothing more.

So, I have decided that I shall write. Since I have already written a lot about entrepreneurship on this blog, my topic of choice would remain that. I don't know how far I will go in the process, but I will be happy if I can churn out a couple of hundred pages over the next 6-8 months!

If you have written a book before, then I will be grateful if I can get some tips from you. If you would like to help me by reviewing drafts, then please do let me know. I can be contacted at gauravbhatnagar at gmail dot com.

Good news for all the food lovers in Delhi! Palak has recently launched her first internet venture - Cuisine Check.

Cuisine Check is a website dedicated to listing and reviewing food and entertainment options across all major Indian cities. Starting with Delhi/NCR, the website will allow the users to search and find several thousand restaurants, night clubs, bars, chaat stalls and caterers. The site features menus, photos, budgets for most big and small restaurants in the city. You can also look for the upcoming events happening around Delhi and NCR.

The idea came about from our own inability to find good eating out options in Delhi. Even though there are thousands of restaurants and night clubs in Delhi, there is no central place to go and find more information about them. Most of us end up depending on word of mouth recommendations of our friends. The hope is that Cuisine Check will solve this problem and will become an authoritative source of information on anything and everything related to food, eating out and entertainment.

You might notice that the site seems to be a mix of web 1.0 and web 2.0. So while there is use of UGC through user reviews and ratings, some other things like AJAX or web 2.0-ish UIs are missing. The idea was to keep the site functional and simple to use. Focus has been on providing an efficient search - hence the city has been divided in to several regions and localities to ensure granularity in search results.

Do check out www.cuisinecheck.in and send back your comments and feedback.

The current global financial crisis is our generation's first brush with "reality". Growing up in 90s, we read, heard and saw the great Indian dream coming true. We saw the cable TV revolution happen in front of our eyes. We stood in long queues to buy our first Mc-burgers and we ordered our first pizzas on the phone. We saw our elders jubliantly discuss the stock market which could only go in one direction - up! We read in newspapers about the fat pay checks the new "MNCs" were offering to kids fresh out of college. While ourselves in college, we learnt about this place called "Silicon Valley" which was apparently dominated by the Indians and "every third company there was started by an Indian". Yes there was minor blip of a "dot com bubble" but we quickly forgot about it as we ourselves joined the hordes of young educated Indians who were going to shape the future of the country.

Life was good. In contrast to the socialist 60s, 70s and 80s, 90s and the current decade were all about capitalism. Capitalism brought with itself growth, oppurtunities and wealth. In terms of making money, the new generation started where their parents used to retire. So, in the context of all this, the current financial crisis and the breakdown of large captialistic economies can only leave the likes of myself confused and bewildered.

But having said that, I feel almost thankful that this crisis happened when it did. As the first generation that grew up wearing rose colored glasses, we are still young and nimble to adapt ourselves. Had the utopia of past 15 years lasted another 10 years, a lot of us might have found ourselves too entrenched to dig ourselves out. Secondly, the shake up of the financial world is likely to create a recession like environment for at least the next couple of years. This will be a great time to build new companies. This will be an excellent time to identify and recruit top notch talent at reasonable costs. While raising capital for new ventures will certainly be hard, it might actually get easier to raise money for existing businesses that are relatively safe and established.

Personally, now more than ever, I feel thankful that Tekriti is a cash flow positive business. Our choice of starting with a core services business was, in retrospect, very much correct. Our conscious decision to focus more on domestic business should help us in these times. For companies that are cash flow negative and will need to raise money to survive, things are going to be very hard. This turn of events is completely unexpected and almost no business could have foreseen it or be prepared for it. So, as all of us gear up for the things to come, I only hope that this down turn will not dampen the entrepreneurial spirit that has just started to grow in our country!