Way2Top

It’s very easy to read about starting a business from scratch, setting up the operations, organizational structure, Marketing strategies and financial fundas….But when the time comes to implement what one has studied for himself, the world teaches the ground realities..hard facts…and the importance of the practicality in life…

While the progress at Antya has been good so far, the progress isn’t sufficient enough. We are in the phase of executing the crux of the business plan… GENERATING REVENUES. Facing some challenges in that front but overcoming one by one..Talking with various industry experts, investors and validating the ideas and plans is quite insightful…but have to admit that it has been stressful at times too…But hey! what’s the fun if everything goes smooth according to the plan? There should be twists and turns..surprises and failures before one sees the success…Otherwise, it will be very difficult to replicate the success as one wouldn’t have learnt to cope with obstacles and challenges!

OK..It’s been 4 months since I quit my job. What have I learnt?
- I have learnt the art of being very productive whilst working-from-home. Coping with this new lifestyle!
- I have understood the value of money! Seriously, frugality was slowly missing from my life with all the easy money from corporate world!
- I have realized how diluted the quality of workforce has become. Hiring is very difficult! Either people have shallow knowledge or knowledgeable people come with a very expensive price tag. It’s probably easier to hire fresh minds and train them. Can’t afford to spend time and train now…in a fix!
- Getting to know the world of Venture capitalism and angel investors.
- Building decent contacts in the internet industry.
- I have come to realize how many people working in the internet industry are NOT gung-ho about internet. In fact, they are all doubtful about the prospects…All the internet companies have their hopes pinned on the the projected growth except for handful of companies which work on transactions.
- I am learning to think INHERENTLY “How to make money? How to reduce costs? How to execute fast? How to overcome competition? How to take help? How to sustain? How to spot opportunity? How to add value? How to differentiate?”..I mean it.
- I am learning the basic formalities of setting up company, legalities, agreements etc.,
- I have been lucky enough to have very supportive family members. So don’t have the additional burden to cope up with the family pressures.

Well, it feels like a short while ago when I re-capped 2006, but another year has passed in a jiffy…

Highs: (In chronological order)
- Starting a new job (Senior Product Manager @ ibibo Web Pvt Ltd) at new location (Gurgaon). First taste of internet industry.
- Being part of the core team that launched (DWAAR), India-focussed search engine.
- Getting Married. Varalakshmi is an extremely understanding and very caring wife. Lucky to have her as a life-partner…
- Learning Driving and getting my licence!!
- Buying my first car. Hyundai Santro Xing (Space Silver).
- Visiting Maldives (Heavenly place in earth).
- Visiting Taj Mahal with my wife. Being an Indian, too late to visit the Indian wonder that is part of the seven wonders. What a structure! What a symbol!
- Visiting quite a few religious places (Shirdi, Mathura, Gokul, Sripuram, Sholingur, Tirupati, Akshardham).
- Taking the entrepreneurial plunge & forming my own company called Antya Web Private Limited. Sunny Saurabh is my partner in this journey.
- Getting the seed funding for Antya. The seed fund has given us more confidence to continue the journey than anything else.
- Launching our own product, Antya. A site to find or discover websites across various topics.
- Featuring in Statesman Delhi for Antya- A full page article comprising 2400 words!
- Featuring in Indian Express, Technology edition for Antya.
- Interviewed for “Tech 4 U” section in Hindustan Times.
- Rise of the Antya in Alexa. Currently it is ranked 1764 in India. When launched the rank was 16905. It took just 20 days to reach under 2000! Antya is improving well in US too. Promising start for a long journey ahead.
- Getting my hands on Apple iMac Desktop (20″) loaded with Mac OS X Leopard edition. Interacting with Apple Mac is a Larger-than-life experience!
- Getting to know Bruno, a Labrodar, an extremely loveable and intelligent pet of my friend sunny. It’s amazing to see how fast he has grown from a small pup in May to a big boy now. Wonder how big he will be in another year

Lows:
- Death of a close cousin. She died of cancer.

Overall, Year 2007 has been pretty eventful for me. Year 2008 is a critical year for me in many aspects. Entering 2008 with loads of hope, courage, confidence, dreams and determination.

A quote to remember for me this year:
“…It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change…” - Charles Darwin

By now, many of you would have noticed about the funding for Antya.com. Just capturing the news bits here…

Pahwa Knowledge Based Services has also seed-funded a search engine called Antya.com, which is a web discovery engine that helps people search for specific websites on a particular topic, says Pahwa. Antya.com will also offer regular search service like Google and will be launched in beta mode in a few weeks

- Source Agency Faqs

He’s also funding a soon-to-be-launched India-focused search engine, Antya.com

- Source Business Week

What I have done to my blog is absolute injustice. A post a week, fortnight or even a month would have been acceptable. Anyways, this time, the lack of posts is not atrributed to busy-schedule, but to lack of ‘ideas’ to ponder and to an extent lack of interest.

I promised to myself at the beginning of the year that I will publish 150 posts…I have hardly published 15 posts. Just 10% of the target! But fortunately the game is not over yet Unfortunately the equation is tough with 3 months to go, I have 135 posts to publish..

Few updates from my side…Have decided to take a break from my career after a long-thought. Now that DWAAR is launched, there is no better logical exit. I will spend 2-3 months before choosing and accepting my next responsibility. As of now, I will try to do things that I wanted to do but couldn’t do…Try my hands at new things, Travel, Fitness, Family, …and of course blogging…

Looking forward for the break in a month’s time.

I normally don’t forget to take the wallet when I go out. But I did today! On top of it, I had promised to take few colleagues out for a lunch…An embarassment was almost inevitable! Luckily, the lunch session got cancelled due to an urgent work for my colleague.

I received a nice little Valentine gift from my fiancee in the evening…I opened it and found an artistic hand-crafted leather wallet! I was wondering at the string of events…at the happenstance! More than the gift, it looked as if I was sent the wallet because I forgot it today A fulfilling gift indeed!

Over the past few weeks, I have been facing this question: “Why MIH?”, “What is MIH?” etc.,

MIH Web Private Limited is a part of MIH Group. MIH is the digital media arm of Naspers, the South African media conglomerate. [Profile in Yahoo Finance]

MIH created a buzz when they acquired Bixee, the first Indian Job Vertical Search Engine. This was the first acquisition in the Indian web 2.0 space. Bixee is a really useful site, as it searches for jobs across all prominent and non-prominent Job portals in India and provides a consolidated view [Federated search]. Along with Bixee, MIH also acquired Pixrat.com, a social photo bookmarking site. Pixrat was one of the earliest Indian sites to be featured in TechCrunch. I must admit and warn that Pixrat may not be safe to open at workplace sometimes! [The spam and offensive content problems have come down significantly though] But it has a great value for people who want to bookmark photos when they surf randomly.

MIH currently has few internet products in their portfolio, including iBiBo.com, a community platform with strong focus on Blogs and Albums currently. An interesting contest called “Great Indian Blogger Hunt” is currently running…See website for more details.

Our team is currently working on the flagship product of MIH India, which is set to be released in the near future. This will be completely different from all the internet products from MIH india. Watch out this space!…Will be really interesting and USEFUL product for Internet audience.

Coming to the question of Why? Well, it all fits my interests and aspirations. Internet space in India, a start-up, Product management opportunity and a tremendous opportunity to learn about all facets of a business from close quarters. A perfect platform to launch my entrepreneurship journey in a few years time.

Lot of action and progress happening around….Exciting times!

I quit Convergys on January 5th. I moved to MIH Web Private Limited, based in Gurgaon. Last week at Convergys was very memorable mainly due to great bunch of colleagues over there.

Gurgaon is much colder than I expected. Though the place seems to be very advanced with skyscrapers and mega malls, the local transportation sucks. There are hardly any public transporation or auto-rickshaws. Even the shared auto-rickshawas are few in number and carries full-load of passengers. The only option is cycle-rickshaws or cab services (which are very expensive). Should buy my own vehicle soon!

Work is exciting and I am eagerly looking forward for next few months. Lots of action happening at the work place as few product launches are planned in the near future.

More updates later….

2 months back….An e-mail from a recruiter to the applicant

Dear XYZ,

We wish you luck in your future endeavors and thank you once again for your interest in XYZ!

3 week back….An email from the same applicant to the same recruiter!
Hi XYZ,

with regards,
-XYZ.

Though the applicant and the recruiter can be guessed out, it is the “You loose some, you win some” principle of life that I want to highlight here…! In the first case, candidate was rejected for the position he applied for…In the second case, candidate rejected the role that the recruiter was offering…Ultimately, both of them are a case of win-win…As a potential expectation mis-match was avoided..:) It’s absolutely important to manage disappointments in life…as disappointments are mostly time-bound and partly our own ignorance-bound! Too much gyaan…huh? Chalo…My next post will capture some interesting things that have happened in my life…!

I have transformed into one of the laziest bloggers around. This was least expected considering the fact that I bought my own domain name and web-space in the hopes of contributing regularly! Anyway, new year is the ‘logical point’ to turn such bad things around! I hope I can do justice to my investment, to my hobby…So let me use the opportunity to summarize things to break the ice. [BTW, this happens to be the 50th post in my new space :)]

Year 2006:

Highs:
* Successful completion of PGP from Indian School of Business.
* Beginning my Post-MBA career with Convergys.
* Getting my hands on Nokia N-91 phone! Thanks to my brother.
* Buying my own domain name [www.way2top.org]
* Getting an offer for Senior product manager position from a south african internet subsidiary in India @ Gurgaon. The greatest encouragement I received during the job hunt was the brand value of ISB. If one is very career-oriented and focussed, growth is going to be fast…as well as steady!
* Got back in touch with few school-time friends. Thanks to Orkut.
* Visit to Akshardham. Yes, that visit was special to me.

Lows:
* Falling ill for 10-days due to ChikunGunya.
* Rejection from Microsoft for Program management (It’s a good thing in the hindsight). It’s still in my memory because I placed high stakes for the job and prepared a lot.
* Death of few good people that I know very well.

Wish-list 2007:
* Exploring North India.
* Learning and developing Investment skills.
* Contribute 150+ posts in the blog.
* Learning Product management in depth.
* Participate in a Social venture.
* Exercise regularly.
* Wear a Smile in the face for atleast 25% of time in the year, uniformly spread:) Yeah, uniformly spread both on the face and through out the year!
* Support Indian team throughout the ICC world-cup. No matter how bad they perform….:)
* Nurture compassion and politeness in self.

I wish everyone a fantastic year ahead…..I would like to share a quote that I read recently to take forward to year 2007…

“…
We ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for good; so find we profit
By losing our prayers.
…”
- William Shakespeare tells us that we fail to realize that whatever happens is for our benefit.

Last week has been very hectic, but very satisfying week in many aspects. 3 Flight trips in a span of 4 days turned out to be tougher than I expected!

The weekend was well spent. I attended the marriage of Abhinav @ delhi. It was interesting to witness different marriage tradition, staying at groom’s house. The marriage was very well planned out and organized. Food was awesome ;). Met few ISB colleagues and made some new friends. I wish Abhinav a very happy married life…After all he has been waiting for this event for more than 3 years

Something surprising happened that was not in my initial plan. A visit to “Akshardham”. I came to know about this temple when I was at ISB. I wanted to visit this place very badly, as it looked amazingly beautiful in photographs. Since Abhinav’s house was just 2-3 kms from Akshardham, I set aside half-a-day to visit the place. I didn’t have company, but that did not deter me from the trip. The place is just BEAUTIFUL..and DIVINE. Such a wonderful monument constructed just in 5 years is unbelievable. The grand scale and the intricate details is mind-blowing. Each and every structure in this place has the grace of god. A MUST VISIT! Please visit the website for more details.

No Entry fee to this place. But there are certain exhibition halls which are charged @ Rs.125/- for the entry. I would say the charge is justified for the animatronics, professionally-made documentary and a enriching boat-ride. Just make sure that you stay in the place during the day and while the night falls out. The place supposedly looks much more beautiful in the night. I could not stay back till evening. Also, leave all your electronic equipments at home (including mobile phones). They are strictly not allowed. In case you took them with you, the cloak room could be used to safely deposit it.

Akshardham definitely has invoked the lost spirituality in me…and I found peace of mind.

I found it strange that some of my Delhi friends haven’t visited this place yet…Proximity tones down the significance, I guess

Akshardham Photogallery