Our first tryst @ Kitchen..so far..after marriage

Pehli Poori

Poori with Aloo subzi (Teez feast)

Best Pulao, I ever had..(even the cook was not able to emulate it)

Sooji halwa

Bread rolls

Cutlets & Bread rolls

Pao Bhaji with Lassi (on a rainy day)

Shahi Kofte with Butter milk

First Pizza

B-School bhaaji wala - MTV Youth Icon!

Kaushalendra is an IIM-A grad who dared to follow his dreams of an entrepreneurship to uplift the image of his home town Patna, Bihar. His venture "Samriddhi" is a vegetable co-operative firm which mediates between farmers and consumers in an attempt to get a good deal for both.

Is an MBA useful for starting a business?

Article @Courtsey http://farhad667.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/is-an-mba-useful-for-starting-a-business/

Ever since I received my MBA from Wharton, and especially after the sale of BizRate.com (my MBA class project) and Shopzilla, the MBA question is a common one that I get. So I thought I could put down my thoughts in summary once here and then not have to keep repeating them over and over again…






Here are the things I think you need to start an internet business:


1) A great team






» Domain specific knowledge (MBA could help here especially if you to raise money or speak the language of finance)


» Complementary skills that cover all bases (strategy, product development, technology, operations, marketing, business dev / sales, finance)


2) A good idea






» Large market


» Needed / Necessary Product / Service


» Viral Marketing


» Increasing returns to scale (defensible position)


» First-mover (nice to have)


» Intellectual Property (nice to have)


3) The guts / backing to jump and take the risk






» Enough cash to get started / survive for a while


» Connections to sources of capital


» Back-up plan in case of failure


4) The passion / perseverance to commit 10 years of your life (time, energy and money) to the cause






» Flat part of exponential curve could take years… zero-to-one is hard.


» We only notice businesses when they hit exponential growth and therefore underestimate time / effort.


» Examples: Twitter was Odeo, Groupon was ThePoint, BizRate.com was Binary Compass Enterprises.


That said, if you have all of the above then an MBA is not necessary.






If missing some, then here is what I found an MBA can provide:


1) Two years to find your teammates






» Lots of people in business school are open to talking about starting a business (also don’t forget about hitting up the Engineering department for complementary talent!)


» School curriculum leads to working in teams on business cases where you can see who has complementary skills you need


» Business school is not rocket science, so it leaves you time to pursue other interests.


» Top Schools (Ivy League) Advantage: Powerful people send their kids there.. top connections to sources of capital


2) Two years to work on refining ideas and picking a good one






» Can take classes specifically related to your business (marketing plan, business plan, legal aspects, etc.)


» Teammates will work on your project for free, as part of course work in above classes: BizRate.com was my entrepreneurship class project.


3) MBA from a top school can give you courage / open doors






» Good credential that is generally respected by investors / vcs on your resume


» Top schools have great alumni networks and work on the “old boys” networking model of helping their classmates


» In case of failure you have the fall-back of a high income job (albeit at a lame large institution)


4) Learn the lingo of business






» In some cases this will help you when talking to investors or trying to raise money


» You will learn to say things like ” we will achieve increasing returns to scale upon reaching critical mass” instead of “once we get going, things’ll be really fucking great!”


Other points:






» In general I would not consider an MBA from anything but the top school. The connections / credentials are just not there at some rinky dink MBA. (Think of the adage: “In business it’s not what you know, but who you know.” which, like it or not, applies.)


» I really did not find much of the information (other than lingo / some legal aspects of setting up a corp / financial analysis stuff) that was offered in my MBA curriculum that was particularly helpful to actually starting / running a business. Most of the curriculum (at least when I was in school, 1994 – 1996) was geared to getting you ready for a life as a cog in some big business or fortune 100 (bank, consulting firm, fortune 100).

Dhobi Ghat - A sneak peek

One of the best movie review I have read..
http://dolcenamak.blogspot.com/2010/09/namak-went-to-see-dhobi-ghat-at-tiff.html

Little Touches Do Mean So Much

It is the first language we learn..Our richest means of emotional expression..not only served to intensify communicated emotions..last but not the least ;-) ..the couples who touch more are more satisfied in the relationship..

Sweat Home

Booking a flat in Delhi/NCR is a dream turned nightmare experience for someone, having as little knowledge about home as a techie turned manager has about management, and I learned it the hard way literally. As it goes..

After listening about numerous upcoming projects in rapidly expanding boundaries of NCR region, I decided to pick one of the various similar sounding schemes of sweet 'affordable' homes. It was a long thought of decision, not only due to investment opportunity but more out of future needs for the anticipated inorganic growth in the family having two bachelors.

Taking help of peers knowledge as I could no longer rely on mine. Now with every listening to such similar sounding housing schemes, more carefully this time, resulted in gradually growing list of differences and compromises. "Why can't they make a sweet 'affordable' home with all the good things in it?" it kept coming back with every addition in the list. But soon I realized the answer lie in the question itself i.e. it can be sweet OR affordable.

So I re-framed the quest of sweet homes with 'decent' rise of acquaintance, fortune and (not so decent rise of) expectations. While short listing projects, broadly I came up with following points of considerations:
1. Builder - Strong base and status of past projects

2. Time to possession - faster the better

3. Specifications - material used in different parts of home

Above and few unmentioned points (like lack of on-going projects and availability etc.) left me with 3 builders coming up with a project each. As I learned from one of my colleagues, Its next to impossible to take a decision without visiting the site of the project to find the status of pre-construction facts highlighted by the builders like land acquisition,covering, bhumi pujan, construction level etc. So I decided to look around a bit one by one.

Deciding to close it in one blow, an upcoming builder, having delivered last few projects on-time and of good quality, made it obvious choice above the others. As we (I was accompained by the other bachlor of our family) reached the ground zero of our new home, obviously we were very confident about our first choice, it reminded us of big neighbourhood park where we use to play while growing up. But here no one was playing except few stranded agents with a copy of prospective plan of hugh buildings which will be standing across the ground in couple of years. On second look, the whole area was covered with banners and ballons of the builder which was the only indication that we were at the right location. One of the agents shaked us out of blank state, may be of project, and enlightened us with some facts about the project and better position of builder which regained confidence about one blow theory and reaffrimed the price of hard work put in before coming here. In a little while, he started sharing other benefit factors in all 4 directions like nearby market, offices and fully developed sector. Suddenly, it stuck us, "What about the 4th direction?" to which he subtly replied, to our jaw dropping reaction, that there is an old cremation ground.Haunted by my religious part's superstitious thoughts, Our hopes of taking a home had taken a backseat. Still we decied to move to the builder's office, the same gentelman helped by guiding us towards another hiden part, probably to clarify the new fact we had just discovered. As we reached the office, less enthusiasm left in us was also because of parching heat of Delhi, it struck as fresh air if the quality of construction is anything to go by. In middle of well crafted and decorated with prototype model of projects, we met an official sales person of the company who started with the details which looked like redundant information now. Basically, we wanted to straight come to the point about the latest addition in our list of considerations, the surrounding localities. So finally I poked the question to him, who seemed unperturbed rather pretty well prepared for it. He parried my question saying,"Its an illegal use of the place and authorities will get rid of it sooner or later". After gazing through some sample flats, we left for home still thinking about the various aspects around the site rather unconvinced by the argument of authority taking action against any religious activity.

Couple of weekends gone by due to various commitments of both of us, when we again embarked to second site visit without losing much time and now fully aware of its importance. This one had early time to possession as one of its highlighted USP. Once we reached, It was a little familiar scene with an exception of some stalls/tents of different real estate companies and some sparingly visible home aspirants in them. We also reached to the one who was interacting to me before coming here. Quickly we moved to the land site, behind the stall, to have a look at it. Initially I was trying to figure out the exact location among perfect square land pieces of farms with, seemingly, ready for harvesting crop but then the agent, pointing towards the piece we were standing on even worse having craters in different shapes and sizes, confidently claimed that we would see the four 20-storey buildings here in 2years. Though his confidence was showing his sales experience but I doubted his construction mathematics since even me having no civil engineering background could also anticipate that a 20 storey building will take at least 20 months given that each floor takes 1 month after foundation is laid which will require at least 6 months including removing the craters, digging and leveling of the field. It was a different matter that land was still to be acquired and fenced by the builder. We were blunt enough with our observations and calculations to asked him for some real expectations, which was the end of chapter for us.

In an attempt to salvage the reputation of his company (or his job), he called upon some senior members of his team who were looking after other projects in the area. As the dicussion continued about various aspects of construction and project, we tried to cut the story short by keeping their esteem and asking for 'best' project for long term investment (baniya's usually thinks unilaterally in all situations) as per their knowledge and understanding. Unhesitantly came the reply, to our smilling faces, with the name of builder which was third on our list.
Instantly, we decied to have a look at the last resort of our endeavour. On our way to final destination, agent was pushing all sweet candies he had in his promise kitty about servicing standards of his company. As we reached at the location, it was a different experience to see enough curosity among the good number of aspirants and everything well organized and managed in terms of facilities. Looking at the various under-construction projects going on there was instant comfort and confidence booster. Though with so many projects in hand and few more coming up in near future meant that he has his hands full and scehdule tite, any slip in one's deadline or cash reserves of the company will have direct impact on others too. But knowing the builder's reputation and strong base in India, it seemed like a calculated risk. Lots of queries and few apprehensions, we almost decided on this one but before finalizing anything we spared a thought of rest of family, friends and peers (which proved invaluable so far).


When first time thought crossed me that it will be easy once I close in on the final project, little I knew of the inconsequential small things coming my way, one has to consider as one digs deeper from project to home selection.


To be continued..

Delhi Metro's Rollar Coaster

Since DMRC started operations in 2002, the network, ridership and technical snags new trains; have led to increasing instances of overcrowding and delays on the Delhi Metro. Now the scene is that during rush hours, there is no space to even rest your foot in the train. And this is happening even after the frequency of trains has been increased to 1 every 3 minutes! This is not only causing extreme discomfort to all the passengers but also promoting increased cases of theft and eve-teasing.

What would you suggest should be possible solutions to the problems mentioned above?

Thanks to Rahul's initiative,

Rahul, Abhishek, Rakesh and Saurabh and I- All five of us discussed the issue with some possibly pragmatic soultions. Following is the un-edited version of the chat we did via gmail:

I feel lack of civic sense in metro travelers is a major cause of "roller coaster" ride and a possible solution is "education". If people can be educated to stand in queues on Rajiv Chowk underground line, even if it took couple of security men, then few lessons on metro travel etiquette can definitely help.

-Ankit Goel
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ankit,
I agree 100% with you on this.. We can't blame police and government every time.
Consider this: The situation is just next to "stampede" at the peak hours. What will 5 or 10 policemen do in this situation?
Though I think increasing the coaches in a train to almost double may help to certain extent but it will also be saturated after some months or so. However, that will require expansion of all the existing stations as currently they are designed to handle only a certain length of train. This will require some investment from DMRC but I think it will be worth it.

-Rahul Aggarwal
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ankit and Rahul,

Both of you have highlighted the very key concerns regarding the issue. Kudos! Adding to your viewpoints, I would like to suggest to the DMRC, the following inputs:

1. First of all there should be a separate compartment for ladies because women suffer a lot in these kinds of situations and they are literally sandwiched between men while commuting.

2. The crowd can be managed and it's just a matter of strong will and strict governance.
Solution: How the crowd can be managed:
We can have load sensors in the metro compartments beyond which a signal with sound and light is flashed indicating that no more people can be accommodated like we have in lifts. In this way the person entering last has to move out.
Also, to maintain this there should be at least one or two guards at each and every station so that a queue is maintained and if a guy/gal is not able to make it to the last train, he is assured that he will be the first one to enter in the next train.

3. The frequency should be increased but the destination of trains should also be altered.
Like every train should not start from station A, some should start from station B, some from C depending upon the statistics we can manage the crowd.

4. In few of the compartments we can remove the whole seating arrangement. In this manner we can increase the capacity. For a short journey there is no need of making people seated. Metro is a comfortable journey and we should bear the standing arrangement for the betterment of this particular commuting system.

5. Last but not the least, people should be charged for the size of their luggage. In this manner we can minimize the size of the luggage creating more space.

-Rakesh Thakur
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Having read all of your comments it makes little sense for me to enter the discussion at this point, but still I would like to compliment you guys for some noteworthy suggestions. I though have a few of my own to add to this list. They are:

1. Instead of load sensors, the metro should have a maximum capacity of people that can enter as opposed to all that can fit currently. For this guards are needed to be placed at every gate on the metro. This means 2 guards per door for 16 doors. But this need not be for all stations. It should be maintained on only those stations that experience heavy volumes during the day. The metro can have a counter running telling you how many people can enter the train at a particular station, streamlining the process.

2. We can't eliminate seating arrangement as elderly, physically disabled people would need seats.

-Saurabh Gupta

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To me the only solution looks like, educating the people or may be having a public grievance cell which redresses the grievances urgently. Something like, a fasttrack investigation in case of pick pockets. Other culture that might help is "the queue culture", this culture can be seen in abundance in Kolkata ( though not on metro stations!) but this brings about some discipline in people which can be witnessed when u travel in the metro rail in Kolkata.

-Abhishek LNU