Ideas for the world, FREE!
innovation
The Al Dente Moment – What Pasta can teach Entrepreneurs!
May 7th
I am obsessed with Pasta. Ever since I traveled to Italy to get trained in the factories there (I used to work in my father’s socks factory), I cannot get Pasta, its permutations, shapes and sizes and of course how it is cooked – out of my mind.
In the context of Pasta, Al Dente in Italian literally means ‘To the tooth’. This refers to that ‘perfect’ moment when the Pasta is firm, strong, crisp and cooked – but not soft and supple. It’s just the way it should be. The best way to get your Pasta to be Al Dente is to keep nibbling on a piece of Penne or the Fettuccini while it is boiling. The very moment you can bite into the pasta and yet feel its firmness, it’s ‘Al Dente’. Immediately drain, add whatever you have to into your Pasta and enjoy (I like it with very little garlic and mushrooms sautéed in olive oil with mixed Italian herbs and top it with grated parmesan cheese). Buona Appetito!
Now, observing the ‘Al Dente’ method has inspired me to think of ‘perfect moments’ as they appear in an Entrepreneur’s life. As they say, you can never time anything to perfection, but just like Pasta, if you know when your best time is near, you can leverage it well.
Some of the instances when an Entrepreneur can enjoy her ‘Al Dente’ or perfect moment:
I can barely cook, but my cooking is better than yours.
Sometimes, knowing little of something absolutely new is better than knowing everything of something very old. To explain – in 2003, when we began working with Sony television in India on Mobile VAS, we were the only Company in India to understand ringtones, sms gateways etc. Just the fact that we could manage ‘mobile stuff’ won us the Indian Idol business in India and 50% revenue sharing across the board. Circa 2009, everybody knew how to do everything and the party was over. But in those 6 years, we managed to fund and exit the business!
Grow the Walnut – Don’t try to eat it if you can’t open it.
In 2006, Mobile2win China was in business since the last 5 years and the operational difficulties in China were increasingly hammering us. We had a great platform, operator connectivity across the length and breath of the PRC and very scalable technology. With all this, we were still struggling to make money. We had grown and ripened a beautiful walnut but couldn’t understand how to open it and enjoy it. If we waited too long, the fruit inside would rot. As we were wondering, the Walt Disney Company came along. They were keen to have a ready-made mobile platform with operator connectivity in China! They weren’t looking for revenues in a Company but an operation with employees and licenses and the knowhow. They bought out mobile2win from us in an all cash transaction that made us 6x on our original investment. Disney was the squirrel who was destined to eat the nut. We were fortunate to find them at just the perfect time!
Being the first item on the buffet table.
By 2007, lots of VCs who had made money in the MMOG (massive multiplayer online games) business in China and Korea were punting that India would be the next geographical bet for massive valuation businesses using these games. Their thinking was that China and India were similar in many ways, and if Shanda and The9 could become billion dollar plays in China, the same story could repeat itself in India. As part of this punt, VCs began looking at entrepreneurs in India who had gaming experience, and my name along with that of my co-founder – Mahesh Khambadkone popped up. A few meetings later, we had co-founded Games2win and were given a cheque of 5 million dollars by Clearstone Venture Partners to start up that business. It’s full credit to Clearstone that they quickly accepted our point that MMOG was not working and allowed us to change our business model to casual snacky browser games. But Games2win was started up because we were the first set of entrepreneurs that the VCs met when they came to the buffet table. I guess we were the right people, in the right place and at the right time.
‘When’ is a matter of personal taste..
If you look at the cases of Yahoo passing Microsoft, Groupon saying no to Google, it’s the chef saying, ‘I don’t want perfect Al Dente. I’m happy to serve the pasta maybe soft, maybe supple but at the time I want to serve it’. Nothing wrong with that! Yahoo and Groupon continue to march on. On the other hand, Sabeer Bhatia sold Hotmail much earlier than the Al Dente moment. Given the way valuations have soared, Hotmail could have fetched 4 Billion, not 400 million? Who knows?
If there was ever a perfect ‘Al Dente’ moment, it was when Steve Case sold AOL to Time Warner. A small fledgling company positioned itself so cleverly to an old media behemoth and the values that it extracted are now historical and soul shattering. Unfortunately, in the case of Time Warner, what they thought was ‘Al Dente’ Internet Pasta turned out to be Al Dente Rotting Garbage. Billions of dollars of value were destroyed cleaning up that horrible stinking kitchen (AOL+Time Warner).
Chef’s tip: Be your own Chef. Taste your Pasta at all times. When you think the time is right, just serve it – ‘Al Dente’ or not.
[via Rodinood]
A device that proves if you’re really sick
May 3rd
Calling in sick and “having a doctor’s note” won’t get you a free day off work anymore, at least not in Malaysia. A USB device, called SickVerify, will eventually substitute the role of doctors as providers of medical certificates. By August 2012, doctors across Malaysia will lose the legal authority to issue medical certificates. From then on, all workers will have to submit to a test using SickVerify to substantiate their claims for sick leave.
Using a complex series of algorithms, SickVerify measures the concentration of antibodies and cortisol (shows up specifically from stomach cramps) in the saliva sample to determine whether the subject was ill during the time period claimed for sick leave. The device is reportedly 98.9% accurate.
The test itself is blindingly simple and quick. The subject wets a fingernail-sized piece of cotton with his/her saliva. The cotton is inserted into the compartment of SickVerify, which is then plugged into any laptop or desktop via a USB socket. A program provided with SickVerify can then be run to begin the test (which takes approximately 3 minutes) and display the results.
This might not be a bad idea in the United States, as employers loss $1.8 billion from March Madness alone. But would verifying everyone’s sick leave excuses really fly in this country?
Chorus: Are you hearing your customers?
Apr 1st
“It’s about understanding who the customer is and how they feel,” said Chorus co-founder Dave Trindall. Chorus analyzes written comments about brands, whether they come from a Facebook post, a tweet or an email, and isolates what customers are saying and feeling. The “software as a service” startup is based in Australia, and is simply about knowing your customers better.
“At a glance, you get a 30,000 foot view of what’s happening,” Trindall said. “It’s extra insight into the way these relations change over time.”
After the analysis is complete, Chorus provides a graph of the results. Users can set the graph to show results from the past few hours, the past month, or even the past year. Last time we spoke with Trindall and Chorus, the startup currently has one customer, and is presently working to develop the product with more customers and to determine the cases where Chorus would deliver the most business value. Take a look at some screenshots to get a better picture of how Chorus works.
“Some companies aren’t interested in providing the best customer service,” Trindall said. “While some some are obsessed about it.”
For those who are obsessed, Chorus has a variety of features that improve a company’s customer service. One of these features is Prioritize emails from your customers according to sentiment. By handling issues from the angriest customers first, you address the worst issues first and improve customer satisfaction. It’s also really easy to get started and to try the system out today.
Angry Monkeys: Herding website bugs into one place
Mar 28th
“Originally designed for web developers, we’ve come across different ideas of how to implement BugHerd,” said co-founder Matt Milosavljevic. “Users need a way to log issues and to track issues sooner rather than later.”
BugHerd is a visual bug tracking tool from Angry Monkeys and operates within websites, keeping track of bugs in one place and eliminating the need to switch between programs. Users make note of each bug and can assign responsibility of the bug to a specific person. The services allows the entire team to communicate and manage bugs in a space everyone can understand: your own website. Technical and non-technical teams alike can share ideas and communicate more efficiently without resorting to emails and phone calls.
“There’s no limits on the program,” Milosavljevic said. “It’s all dependent on the project.”
Last time we spoke in January, Angry Monkeys said they had seven beta customers for BugHerd, and were working on a pricing model that would work for all of their customers. Their main goal is to grow the beta customer base in order to increase the amount of feedback they get on BugHerd.
“We’re focusing on getting a core set of features and on refining the product,” Milosavlejvic said. “And to see about investment opportunities.”
While Bugherd is building a bigger and better product, users have until May 30 to get Bugherd for free! Quickly assess the health of a project by seeing how many bugs have been logged, how many have been fixed and how many are still left to do. If still unsure about the whole thing, watch a video demo of the service!
Startup Talk: ebook lending picks up steam, ebookfling launched.
Mar 28th
We know how popular ebook readers have become off late, growing at a higher rate than ever. Sure there are tablets spoiling their niche party but ebook vendors have found their way around by introducing ebook stores on all mobile OS and PC platforms. The industry saw an eye popping $1b spent on ebooks by consumers in 2010 which will triple by 2015 according to a report by Forrester Research. Although the market is growing via first time users the industry had to find a way to make money out of ebooks already sold to consumers.
Amazon and B&N did what was natural to physical books – allow users to rent books from friends (only). This limited scope of book sharing has spurred the emergence of new startups in the book lending space like Lendle, Booklending and Ebookfling that are aiming to transform an already evolving industry. Lendle and Booklending allows lending and borrowing ebooks on the Kindle platform (on any mobile OS or PC) while Ebookfling allows you to rent and borrow ebooks on both the Kindle and Nook platforms. But how does Ebookfling stand out from the rest? Well, they let you borrow and lend books using what they call a credit system within the Ebookfling ecosystem where you get 1 credit point for every book you lend which can be used to borrow another ebook through the system.
First time user? No problem – you can purchase credits at $1.99 a credit point. So how does it change the ebook ecosystem? This model potentially limits the amount of money flowing into the Amazon and B&N’s coffers by cutting off a substantial number of first time ebook buyers. For example, if Ebookfling has 1000 books available for renting and the system takes off, no new ebook adopter has a reason to purchase books directly from Amazon of B&N. Instead of spending an average of $10 per book, a lent book only costs 20% of the price although it stays with you only for 14 days before it goes back to the original user. Plus the used ebook is always in mint condition no matter how many people you lend it to.
So will it permanently damage the revenue source for Amazon and B&N? That aspect is yet to be explored. The recent API block episode where Amazon blocked its lending API to Lendle should serve as a notice to future entrepreneurs treading this path. Although Amazon reinstated the API’s access to Lendle, it was not before heavy media exposure to the issue. just like Apple’s App store policies frustrated developers (even today it does!) the ebook lending policies will require a lot of fine tuning and tweaking before it becomes a sustainable, profitable model and eventually create an ecosystem like the Apple App store. Ebookfling CEO George Burke notes that “the initial reaction may be a negative. Publishers and authors will claim the lending feature is being abused and causing cannibalization of sales. Authors are already bending over backwards by giving away many of their backlist (older) books free in the Kindle never needing to purchase.”
From an analyst’s perspective the market is ripe for more than 5 lending services to co-exist and be profitable in the long term. Let’s just hope Amazon and B&N do the right things over the next year.
Entrepreneur Outfitters out Startup Checklist mobile App for those daunting government contracts
Mar 21st
Government contracts are like unicorns, at least for startups. The super stringent norms and red tape could discourage any entrepreneur from making a bid in the all too closed world of government contracts. However, there’s help at hand. Entrepreneur Outfitters – an early stage VC firm has outed a mobile app that could make lives of entrepreneurs a little more streamlined when trying to bid for a government contract. Aptly named Start up checklist the app lets entrepreneurs prepare for Uncle Sam’s contracts through a 36 step checklist.
The checklist allows an entrepreneur to make sure she gets everything right before and after landing a contract. This app is quite cool since a lot of fine points are covered by the app that only an expert could tell you. This was earlier available as a handbook from EO for $150. But now you can get the app for about 8 bucks. It’s a great deal given that you don;t have to maintain the papers anymore. Go give it a try, it’s available for Android and iOS.
Startup Talk: Time3 tries to solve the cloud security problem in its entirety
Mar 21st
Now that the “cloud” has taken over our lives it’s natural that startups will sprout like weeds in an ill maintained garden. But every now and then flowers blossom from among the weeds. Time3 is one such startup based out of Nevada, USA.
The most pressing issue about the cloud is about data security and privacy. What makes security implementation so difficult on the cloud is it’s complex architecture and multiple points of access, especially in public clouds. Time3 has engineered a brilliant solution that counters this problem by wrapping the entire cloud in a shield of sorts. By doing this, Time3 is trying to solve privacy and security problems as a whole instead of working on an incremental approach to cloud protection. Since the internet was designed to let you access prettily rendered HTML, the current scenario of web applications creates a scenario that was never imagined when the www was engineered in the first place. Time3 solves these issues while restructuring the way people access information from the cloud. We wouldn’t be surprised if Time3 is acquired by large cloud and security corporations such as EMC or Symantec in the near term. PR follows.
*********Start Press Release***********
US start-up company TIME3 Inc. has reached agreement to commercialize the Total Information Management Environment (cubed) “TIME3″ – a revolutionary framework that radically alters the paradigms underlying the World Wide Web. Online security, privacy, control, and efficiency are all at your fingertips with the TIME3 internet software solution.
TIME3 addresses the fundamental design flaws of the Web, including identity theft, e-Commerce fraud, privacy concerns, piracy issues, misuse of social networking, spam emailing and malicious viruses; that currently consumers have no option but to tolerate.
TIME3 achieves this by wrapping a protective layer (“Wrapper”) around the Cloud (content, information,applications and services) and providing a simple, secure, fast, relevant and integrated user interface that only talks to this Wrapper. TIME3 does not replace the Cloud, but provides this Wrapper to ensure the consumer is totally protected by providing them with a single, controlled entry point to the web. In effect TIME3 transforms the way people access and use the web by creating this controlled connection for each validated individual, through which they set their parameters for privacy and access to the Cloud.
The World Wide Web was never designed for the commercial applications and uses now being attempted. Companies like Microsoft, Google and Facebook are attempting to apply fixes and enhancements to address issues such as privacy, but they are just “band-aids” on a essentially flawed system.
TIME3 is a fundamental shift in the way you engage with the Cloud and as such is a dramatically different approach. TIME3 has been designed from scratch, with a commercial development approach that changes the underlying paradigms. Its unique 3-party Relationship Security model permeates the core technologies and begins with s SSL connection between the user interface and the Wrapper.
Key features of TIME3 come from each individual, business or other organization being uniquely validated ensuring they are identified throughout the framework. This validation of an entity enables core functions within TIME3 such as: secure access to the Cloud, eliminating the need for multiple login’s and passwords to each service; trusted communications eliminating spam, viruses and unrequested advertising; integrated functionality like Location Based Services providing a simple way for services to be enriched; data modifications needing to be approved by all relevant parties reducing the capability of fraud; and the removal of piracy through inherent Digital Rights Management. These are just some of the features of the TIME3 framework making the difference between this approach and the band-aids of the current technologies glaringly apparent.
TIME3 is not just a secure framework for the current Cloud technologies. It is also able to integrate legacy applications and non-web enabled applications, making this system just as relevant for businesses wanting to migrate in-house software into a Cloud.
TIME 3 Inc. is currently in discussion with a number of parties to secure country licensees to bring this product to the global market. For more information please visit http://www.Time3.org.
Contact: RJ Joksch, 602-324-9530, email info(at)intl-group(dot)com
Contact: Russ O’Kane, 918-407-2892, email russ(at)pacbri(dot)com
*********End Press Release***********
The Ideabing Ideabook Vol 2 now available for download. FREE!
Mar 17th
Here it comes, the second edition of the Ideabing Ideabook. This time round we have filled it with a lot more original content than ever before thanks to a lot of factors. A lot of startups have been featured in this issue of the Ideabook (about 300 of them!!). This edition contains all blog posts from July 2010 to Feb 2011. There are guest posts by entrepreneurs and VC’s in this issue so let yourself loose on this one. The pdf file is fully linked which means you can click and go to articles. As usual, the book is available for download free of cost. The file is about 16 megs big so hold your horses while the book gets downloaded fully. Please feel free to print it and distribute it as you like, we won’t bother you with copyright bullcrap. Enjoy! Download the book here.
Startup Talk: Publishedin brings non-commercial referral revenue to bloggers and publishers alike
Mar 15th
For too long now, bloggers and publishers have written honest words about companies and businesses without any expectation of reward. Publishedin wants to change all that. Publishedin is an Israel based startup that wants to put referral rewards into the hands of every blogger and online publisher just for writing about a business or a company that they naturally write about (Ideabing writes about startups).
This is how it works – the publisher installs a small snippet of tracking code from publishedin on the website. Publishedin then tracks clicks going out of the website and reports it on the publishedin control panel. The publisher then invites those businesses to sign up on publishedin so that the referring content starts getting rewarded by the beneficiary for the amount of traffic that has been sent out. Think of it as a “reward per click” program. Simple enough?
So how does it change things for publishers and bloggers? Publishedin has setup an active paid referral system for scribes who would otherwise have not bothered to ask the referee to pay for referrals since it’s natural online content. Publishedin allows publishers and bloggers command more respect by telling the business “look, we have written nice things about you, why don’t you reward us”. Another trouble that the writer does not have to go through is contacting these businesses asking them if they would be interested in signing up for a referral program. The answer would almost always be a no. This way publishedin is creating a brand new monetizing mechanism without the hard work of cold calling and cold emailing by the publisher. What we are skeptical about is wether the end businesses care enough about online media to sign up for such a service since blogs are essentially free to use media for PR agencies. Let’s see how this startup goes on into the future.
