This blog... is only for those guys who were in Hall-IV IITK during 1989.

20-years back during this week I came to IITK ...to meet Jayaraman
for any advice for joining Ph.D in IITK....he prometely took
me to one Mr. Ilangovan in C-210 and vanished.

I was at that moment had no clue of what project i will do for
my Ph.D...Ilango asked me whether I am interested in doing Ph.D
in NMR...I said yes...he asked me to come in the evening to
meet other friends.

Evening I went to C-block HallIV... there was this fat fellow
on his short without shirt...he was singing some thuthakka thuthakka
song in hindi and was hanging in the middle floor. I asked for
ilango to him....he introduced himself as DevAnand doing M.Tech
and took me to lawn and we were waiting for Ilango to come
from his lab.

Then came a group of American college guys....one lean rowdy looking
guy was there who was talking all filth and laughed loud...
I was introduced to him ... hey i am Immi...Immanual Selvaraj.
Impressive I thought....he introduced his juniors who came
to join like me.

Everyone started asking my area of interest...i had nothing to
tell except NMR...what in NMR...who the hell knew...simulation
or experiemental.... i said experimental.... because i had no
clue on what is simulation.... in chemistry there is nothing
called simulation...all glass and chemicals...there was a
big pause. I got scared...i never knew experimental in NMR
means means hardware....Ilango came and ordered for tea etc.,
to everyone I thought wow...this guy is rich.

I thought i impressed everyone only on one thing...my smoking...
I was the highest smoker in the whole group.... i smoked around
4-5 cigrettes on that evening.

Got interviewed and selected...can write a lot about that interview
as well...but will stop.

Got selected so a party was going ON with the american college
guys....that lean rowdy fellow was drinking and shouting....
but he was interesting in many ways....i thought.

Fat fellow (dev) said he will book a room for me in HallIV... so
he did... but before moving to HallIV i was put in shared room with
a mallu actioned tamil fellow called Tamil.... the first thing
that got my eye with that fellow was .... he had 4-nipples...
We shared that room for 2-3 weeks i guess... we became freinds...
though he moved to hallV i moved HallIV because i liked what
i saw in HallIV....Ilango, fat fellow and rowdy fellow.

We three are still freinds and in touch....thanx to email and internet.
It is 20-years now.... It is still good to remember that time.

Fail quick

Failing quick.

This is called testing the water... you test the water and decide quickly whether to carry forward or fail and quit.

What is the point in quitting after you start?? This is a biggest dilemma any entrepreneur goes through... he never wants to quit. sometimes even after knowing that He is
gonna fail... that adamant thinking ... somehow I will make it.... without knowing ... which how and ...what how...


That is the mantra of "be prepared to fail"...

Serial entrepreneurs have quit many... why? Because they fail
quickly and quit.


Failing quick is the mantra within BE PREPARED TO FAIL MANTRA.

If you fail quickly and quit... there is a good chance that you will attempt again and next very quickly and start and achieve success quickly. If you fail every 7-8 years and start again...u r done within 3-4 fails before your life comes to an end!!!


Fail quick...get up back...start again...fail quick...start again...fail quick...start again...succeed. then start and succeed....then start and succeed...Now you know how to succeed...

But alas there is this Oxymoron say from the past...
"Early bird gets the worm" and
"Success comes to one who waits"...

This mantra of fail quickly combines this two... Start EARLY
and wait...if you can sense you will fail...then fail quickly and go and wait where
you get the worms.

Failing quick in business...

Is there a time limit before we say a start up is going to bite the
dust?


I had run a company earlier... during that time one of the
GUJJU (gujarat fellow told that 1000-days). I donno how far
it is true (because when i asked one more gujju he rejected
it).

He said we wait for a fellow to make some profit until 1000-days around
3-years if he still struggling...then that means he is very
positive about what he is doing...but only circumstances does
not support him. So other people in the same business give him
links (not money) for his business so that he can come up.


Is that really a good number? 1000-days for a start-up to make
profit?

I would say yes. It takes about a year to build something good.
and it takes another year (to complete whatever left over) to
make the markte feel that there is something coming from
this company. The company and awareness gets created.

If in the 3-rd year the product is not speaking then there
is something tremendously wrong.

i) product is not good.
ii) product is not accepted by market
iii) Product is way ahead of time
iv) did not value competitor and act
v) the basic business plan needed a revisit 1-year back.
vi) so on and so forth.

So if traditional failing is measured in 1000-days why people tell ... if you want to fail... then fail quick??

There is a famous quote in entreprenuer world is if at all you fail .... fail quick.
We will see why fail quick is important in the next post.

Be prepared to fail

"Be prepared to fail"...

This is one of the quotable quotes for an entrepreneur.

It may sound like an oxymoron. Why should i be prepared
to fail when i building something to lost long. Is that
not absurd? Am i building something to fail? That clearly
says what i am building is wrong...then why should i
build it?


The statistics says that 1% of startup only survive and become
big. Let us say even 5% for an argument shake. Does that
mean 95/100 people start something to fail?

Is that the 95 peoples thinking about starting a business
is wrong?

what does this say?


For a startup to stand and survive and become big there
are multiple stages and multiple environmental challenges.
A startup can fail at any stage because of error or
change in environment. We can never control the environment
and it portraits things at its own will.

So what you have in your hand and control is what you
do and not the environment and the market.
Sometimes,

i) startup fail because they are well ahead of time.
ii) Market demand has changed by the time the startup product comes out.
iii) You may be making X-compenent which fits into A market... but
because of B A-market could have vanished.
iv) Just because your competitor has money and muscle could
crush to non-existence.

and a lot more.

So it is very important for any startup company to envision
failure and learn and change course and fit the market.

MJ mark on earth

Jackson's death came as a big shock to me.

If someone can make a mark on earth with his creation
it is MJ. I believe aliens looking at earth should see an
"MJ" written on it.


I liked Micheal for his music and dance.

During my college days (1980-86) I used to perform Micheal's break-dance
(Indian version of it though) in college cultural program's
(not on stage but within the audience).

I once even danced on a street corner in front of tea stall
for a Tamil number in his style...a big crowd gathered around
that...my friends were clapping. I danced for a whole of
5-minutes.


I once danced on stage with some of the moon-walks of
Micheal during 1991 in cultural program in IITK.

I used to practice his moon-walk for years and got it
to some extent but could never reach.

I liked every song of Micheal and loved some of them.

He is a legend of pop and stage performer... inventor
of moon walk, nice human, creator, ...

For me he is Einstein of Music.

The world is really gonna miss him... and i am one of the billions.

Is memory a gift or curse

I had some thing in my mind yesterday night to blog about. I still
remember i was thinking this is what i will blog about tom'row.

Now when i sit in front of my puter i don't remember what i thought of.


Is memory a gift or a curse?

Lucky we don't remember everything that we see, read,hear.

Kids enjoy their days and every bit of their second of
life because of their in-ability to correlate the memory.
They do remember ... but they have not correlated and
categorized their memory. That is why they could
easily forget the consequence of a deed whether good or
bad and carry on with what they are doing.

Is it not amazing to see your kid call you 'stupid' and
get beaten by you and then the next minute comes back to
you like as if nothing happened...does that mean they
have forgotten the instance...no way. My son still remembers
why i beat him when he called my mom 'evil grandMa'.
But when he looks and plays with me he never remembers that
instant...that instant is just another instant and has
not been still categorized as something special event
and he does not remember that event when he looks at me
... but as a old-dude i remember often that when i look
at my son.

Another great thing about kids is that they don't have a
future...they live on at that moment with little influence
from their past. But as a grown-up we live on our past
and fear of future and miss out the present.

Though i can realize this and write about it...i cannot
be like a kid...living for that moment. So I ask again..

Is memory a gift or a curse?

(hundred and one percent.. i did not think of this topic
yesterday NOR until i started writing...).

lingering on the same thought

I could not think of anything more except for what i did
couple of days back...

Did i make a mistake?

I am still waiting and the client did not reply to my
mail. Is he playing a mental game? OR he is so irritated
that he does not even want to write to me.

What i offered is not that bad a proposal... a software
package which needs 2x3 man years of production when
someone wanted to share the code... i just asked for
9-lacs... less than $20K is that something big that
he gets annoyed or he wants me to get down on my
requirements?

I have few installations as well. We sold the software

ranging from 1800$-3000$ at four different places...of course

through a seller and i got only 500$-1500$.


Will wait for a week and then may be i will ping him.