Entrepreneur Journeys by Sramana mitra - A Review

I happen to read the book named Entreprenuer Journeys - Vol 1 by Sramana mitra , it was a real voyage into the Entreprenuer life of 12 resourceful people, as how they had operated their business to achieve their goals & objective. They were resourceful, not because, they had capital with them at the start, but due to their passion, intuition and looked upon alternatives through their entreprenuership.

Sramana Mitra is a technology entreprenuer and a strategy consultant in Silicon Valley and also a columnist in Forbes.
On 12 interview presentation with enterprenuers, her indepth understanding of today's technology world & the future foresight make it very interesting. In between the interview chapters, her analysis on the future related web 1.0, 2 & 3, SAas,respective business verticals makes you vistualize and what the future could look like.

The fact is that all these entreprenuer are still building their enterprises in some form or other and most of them are from SME sector and hence one might not have heard about them.

Age does not deter entreprenuer effort, this is clealy brought about in her interview with Philippe Courtot, Qualys aged about 63, Philippe had been a serial entreprenuer and his effort span across industry vertical of Mini Computer, Medical Image, Email Software & Security. On contrast to this, Hande had been an energy entrepreneur for for last 15 year, he fist job after his Phd from the University of Massachusetts had been in Solar energy lighting in rural Karnataka and he feel may be his last job as well. Hande's interview with Sraman had made a distinct mark in his passion for entreprenuership.

For those of us, who thought that India does not have software product company, would find interview with Sridhar Vembu of Adventnet a pleasant surprise.

One can observe all the entreprenuer had some kind of education & base in US and almost all had the venture capital backing, expect Hande. So does that mean venture capital is neccessary for a startup entrepreuer. I think, its an 'Yes' and a 'No'. VC contribute to the equity of the company, which mean during the formative years of your entreprise might be quite useful hence a 'YES, but after all your hard work of years, once you start making profit you need to share your revenue hence a "NO" and these VC are going to be behind your back all the times. According to words of Energy recovery Executive Chairman Hans Peter Michelet "Venture Capitalists are coming from Money Managment side, and, of course, they have obligation to cut their losses". The other options could be debt financing or bootstrapping. Bootstrapping your start up at the time recession this could be a better option. Further more, if you are an Indian based entreprenuer finding a VC might be a difficult proposition.

In Sramana words " Entreprenuer is not a career, its way of life", which is very much true, if you have passion you can always find your best way to reach your objective in life. I look forward for her newer volumes and particularly with future growth being predicted from BRIC economies, I would suggest her to write more about entreprenuers from these economies.

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T20 - Business Acumen

If there is going to best business venture in sport for the decade?

Then, I believe without doubt it would be T20 format of cricket.

The game has undergone changes to suit viewer(customer) needs, it had become a shorter version and results known in matter of about 3 hours. This now similar to watching a Football or a hocket match.

• From a slow cricket after being played for days together, which finally ends in draw it now produce a results in matter of 3 hours.
• Overwhelming sponsorship from corporates across world.
• Unlike football for which world cup is held once is 4 years, here we have world cup every alternative year.
• The Indian venture(IPL) is more interesting, unlike earlier, instead of Indian cricketers going to other countries for seeking opportunity, BCCI - business acumen made other country players to come over to IPL, as there is a hugh money involved. What's even more interesting is that BCCI was able to sell the concept of player bidding to coporates and high profile person in India. Even when Indian Govt did not permit IPL - season 2 to be hosted within country citing security reason, that did not stop BCCI, they looked at an alternative and am sure they came out successfully in revenue collection & conducting it in perfection.

Make hay while the sunshines!! .... its very true with T20 and more particularly IPL since this is now being played every year. It might also become true, since now the game is more towards power play instead of technique and quite soon you would find other countries being attracted towards this format of cricket.

Its might be good learning for Indian Business man in various business verticals to innovate at this time of recession and come out with products, where in not only Indians are benifited but also talented people from across world getting attracted. I hope if we can get into this league, then we may not need to worry about our talented people going else where across the globe looking for opportunities.

The bottom line, India with 100 billion population has a huge market, can prove to be a successful market, if one taps it at rightly.

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Fundamentals of Effective leadership.

I read about Effective leadership in Forbes Magazine by John Ryan. A very nice one to read and I believe for any leader or an entrepreneur should have this skills to succeed.

Click here to read from forbes

As pointed out by Ryan - Vision, Communication, Judgment along with Timing are the sure factors for success.

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