The face and structure of new generation organisations are fast changing. The
average age of CEOs is dropping and the same is true of employees of new
age companies. In such a scenario, the traditional rules of business need to be
revisited and refined so as to deal effectively with employees, most of whom
are below 25 years of age.
Following points need to be worked upon/observed:
Cultivate an open and dynamic atmosphere
Promote Collaborative work environment
Fun@work
Growth-path
Innovation and creative work
Read the complete article published in "i.t" magazine at : Leading A Young Team
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Startup Meetings : Observations
All startups need to hold several meetings to discuss issues like hiring, business development, processes, finance etc. There are some points, which need to be considered to make such meetings more meaningful:
1. Agenda : Always go with clear-cut agenda in mind. Try to list down key points which need to be discussed. This would help all to save time and keep discussion focussed.
2. Notes : Somebody should take notes of meeting. Recording the meeting can also help for future references.
3. Try to involve silent members : Try to hear out viewpoint of people who generally remain silent. The idea of any meeting should be constructive discussion and consensus rather than forced decision-making.
4. Be Rational : Try to evaluate your viewpoint and others viewpoint rationally. If somebody is making a good point on your views, then absorb it and rethink before defending your point.
5. Keep aside egos : Don't let personal ego come during meeting. The objective of meeting should be to discuss and solve problems. Adding additional variables would only complicate things.
6. Make action-items : Once meeting is concluded, tell action-items and circulate a mail along with time lines and desired output.
1. Agenda : Always go with clear-cut agenda in mind. Try to list down key points which need to be discussed. This would help all to save time and keep discussion focussed.
2. Notes : Somebody should take notes of meeting. Recording the meeting can also help for future references.
3. Try to involve silent members : Try to hear out viewpoint of people who generally remain silent. The idea of any meeting should be constructive discussion and consensus rather than forced decision-making.
4. Be Rational : Try to evaluate your viewpoint and others viewpoint rationally. If somebody is making a good point on your views, then absorb it and rethink before defending your point.
5. Keep aside egos : Don't let personal ego come during meeting. The objective of meeting should be to discuss and solve problems. Adding additional variables would only complicate things.
6. Make action-items : Once meeting is concluded, tell action-items and circulate a mail along with time lines and desired output.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Fun at Startups
The Startups are good place to meet creative set of people. The option of joining/running a Startup is by choice and not as a substitute of regular job. People do spend countless hours to make every system/project/product a huge success. So, it becomes imperative to create a fun-filled environment which gives a lot of comfort to each employee. People should feel very lively environment within Startups.
Here are some pointers which can make your Startup a fun-filled place:
1. Nominate somebody as CFO ( Don't Confuse..it's Chief Fun Officer). There are few folks who have lot of energy and good sense of humor. They are good at driving discussions and make people feel happy. Try to get these people engaged in more discussions where set-up is quite informal. Let all your employees laugh at small things too. Be it movies, sports, politics, love, news or anything. Don't make informal discussions look very formal. As a Startup founder engage with your employees as much as you can and make them feel at home.
2. Encourage tea/snacks break where people can walk for 15-20 minutes and then come back to work. Let them chat on various issues and refresh their minds. They can talk about boss, work, news , girls/boys and many other things. This would help them to refresh their mind. Just keep in mind the point that " Sitting at desk won't result in productive work". Employee should feel encouraged to work. So Startup owners should make small steps to make environment fun-filled.
3. Try and encourage people to get involved in showing their extra-curricular skills. Make a point to have such events every 6 month. During this time people work together and feel charged to look at professional & personal fronts together. This helps in developing skills for better time-management too. Also you get to know people with varied skills ( music, singing, dancing etc.). Startup owners should also take part actively in some of these events to encourage others to come forward and participate.
4. Startups should organize some outstation trips. These trips helps people to understand their colleagues in better way. These trips should be fun-filled and release all work pressure and people should look forward for such outings and come back with fresh energy.
Startups doesn't boast big offices, big numbers, and big things....They pride key people; their biggest asset. So, make them happy and let them enjoy the workplace.
Here are some pointers which can make your Startup a fun-filled place:
1. Nominate somebody as CFO ( Don't Confuse..it's Chief Fun Officer). There are few folks who have lot of energy and good sense of humor. They are good at driving discussions and make people feel happy. Try to get these people engaged in more discussions where set-up is quite informal. Let all your employees laugh at small things too. Be it movies, sports, politics, love, news or anything. Don't make informal discussions look very formal. As a Startup founder engage with your employees as much as you can and make them feel at home.
2. Encourage tea/snacks break where people can walk for 15-20 minutes and then come back to work. Let them chat on various issues and refresh their minds. They can talk about boss, work, news , girls/boys and many other things. This would help them to refresh their mind. Just keep in mind the point that " Sitting at desk won't result in productive work". Employee should feel encouraged to work. So Startup owners should make small steps to make environment fun-filled.
3. Try and encourage people to get involved in showing their extra-curricular skills. Make a point to have such events every 6 month. During this time people work together and feel charged to look at professional & personal fronts together. This helps in developing skills for better time-management too. Also you get to know people with varied skills ( music, singing, dancing etc.). Startup owners should also take part actively in some of these events to encourage others to come forward and participate.
4. Startups should organize some outstation trips. These trips helps people to understand their colleagues in better way. These trips should be fun-filled and release all work pressure and people should look forward for such outings and come back with fresh energy.
Startups doesn't boast big offices, big numbers, and big things....They pride key people; their biggest asset. So, make them happy and let them enjoy the workplace.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Interview : CATINDIAONLINE Co-Founder
Recently I chatted with Manish Singh, co-founder of Catindiaonline. He is from IITK (2004 Batch) and started his venture along with Kumar Gaurav,Mayank Goel and Santosh Kumar building CAT testing platform with Analytics engine and patent pending Recommendation engine.Some of the CAT 100 percentile scorers helped them in building this platform.Its a free portal for CAT aspirant www.catindiaonline.com .
The site offers online mock CAT tests + Previous CAT papers + Topic wise Test. This site is very different and has many more features than what one may think of. Its test framework is quite cool and analysis part is something that I bet that you can't find anywhere else. Its best part is in-depth analysis that gives gory details of one's performance - topic wise, difficulty wise, time requirements wise, comparative analysis of performance etc… The analysis will precisely point you out the issues with your preparation.In the end, You will find something called recommendations which will recommend CAT aspirant how he/she should have taken the test to maximize his/her score
1. When did you start and from where?
We have a team of 5 individuals based out in Bangalore, who are totally committed to the project. Two of them are working full time for the portal, whereas rest 3 of us are currently volunteering for it. Going forward at least one more of us is planning to work for www.catindiaonline.com full time. Apart from this, a number of other people have volunteered and made great contributions to the analysis and recommendation framework.
2. A bit more about your background and experience.
The core group of consists of IIT & IIM graduates and students. The two dedicated members of the team as well as three Bangalore based volunteers are all graduates of IIT Kanpur, batch of 2004. Among other volunteers we have 3 graduates from IIMs (A & B). One of these got 100 percentile in CAT 2006. These days a lot of other people have shown interest in working with us. We will keep you updated as and when our team expands.
3. What you want to achieve out of this venture?
We have a two fold aim behind CATIndiaOnline. On one hand, we aim to address some of the problems that CAT aspirants, particularly, working professionals, face today in preparing for CAT. Some of these problems include the following:
4. How are you going to take this further and compete with biggies like CL, TIME etc.
At this point of time, we are focusing on an aggressive marketing and branding campaign. A number of country's biggest CAT/MBA forums/portals have shown interest in having tie ups with us. This will give us direct access to a large number of CAT aspirants. Therefore, we are strongly considering these tie-ups. As and when we formally tie up with them, we will let you know about it.
The site offers online mock CAT tests + Previous CAT papers + Topic wise Test. This site is very different and has many more features than what one may think of. Its test framework is quite cool and analysis part is something that I bet that you can't find anywhere else. Its best part is in-depth analysis that gives gory details of one's performance - topic wise, difficulty wise, time requirements wise, comparative analysis of performance etc… The analysis will precisely point you out the issues with your preparation.In the end, You will find something called recommendations which will recommend CAT aspirant how he/she should have taken the test to maximize his/her score
1. When did you start and from where?
2. A bit more about your background and experience.
3. What you want to achieve out of this venture?
- Lack of time to take center based tests: Our tests can be taken from anywhere, anytime
- Inflexibility of paper based tests to adapt to personal preparatory needs: Our tests are customizable by topics/sub-topics, difficulty levels etc.
- Lack of proper analysis and feedback on performance: Topic-wise, difficulty-wise, time-management wise performance analysis and feedback is given by us instantaneously.
4. How are you going to take this further and compete with biggies like CL, TIME etc.
Startup Opportunities
Content Developers
We are looking for someone with good experience of developing content for CAT. Experience can consist in any field related to CAT such as study material development, test paper development or even teaching experience. Although our first preference for those who have experience in test paper development. We are fine with long term as well as short term commitment. In case of long term commitment of a worthwhile candidate we are open to giving him stocks in the company. Pass on this message to anyone who might be interested in this.
E-mail : info@catindiaonline.com
Website : www.catindiaonline.com
Location : Bangalore
Technical Manager
Binary Mantra Systems, Pune based startup looking for entrepreneurial person to join as Technical Manager. The venture is started by people with more than 60 man-years of industry experience and strong academic background.
Position: Technology Partner (.net) to be designated initially as Technical Manager
Experience: Minimum 5+ Years on Microsoft.NET platform
Key Skills: C#, ASP.NET, SQL Server
Role: The Technical Manager will assume the responsibility of leading the product development team. The person must have excellent grasp of .NET technology and its deployment aspects in different scenarios. Evaluation if new technologies will be one of key areas in the initial design phase.
The technical manager will also be working closely with the sales team in Asia-Pacific and the USA. We look at this role as one of the key roles in the organization. The growth prospects are bright and this role can grow upto Director (Engineering).
Responsibilities:
—Architecting the product and deciding the technology road map
—Guiding the team on all technology aspects.
—Interfacing with the customer on technology presentations and consulting.
We are in process of starting the development of a product which will initially be targeted towards customers in Asia Pacific and the USA. This product is being developed to cater to corporate, educational institutions and schools and is into e-learning 2.0 space.
We will be offering a package comprising of sustenance salary, profit sharing in product and services sales and equity.
Location: Pune
Contact : Abhishek at +91 98212 15890 or srivasaa2000@yahoo.com
Development Engineer
Pune based product based startup, looking to build a great team. Looking for following skills -
- Flash / Flex / Action Script AND / OR
- Java / Javascript expert and eager to learn new technologies like Flex
- Audio / Video Technologies (Formats / Streaming / VOD, IPTV) is plus
- Technical expertise in area of audio / video players and / or Adobe technologies will be preferred
Location : Pune
Contac t: prashant.sachdev@gmail.com
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
OCC Noida : September Edition
The entrepreneurial folks met once again on Sunday, 14th September to discuss various topics related to entrepreneurship, startups and technology. ( OCC Noida folks meet-up every month on 2nd Sunday (12.00 Noon-2.00 PM) at Kaaffia, sec-18, Noida). Here is summary of major points discussed during the meeting :
1. Estimation of Development Time : For any startup estimating right time to develop a product/solution is very critical. Startups developing internal products need to estimate this for defining product road-map in better manner while startups offering services need to decide project cost and delivery time based on these inputs. Bad development-time estimation affects product road-map, customer satisfaction, profitability and company morale. A lot of folks emphasized that development-time estimation betters with experience. You need to burn your fingers to arrive at accurate numbers if you are relatively young. People with good industry experience are better at doing such estimations due to their past experience.
2. Time spent towards Pre-sales : A lot of startups want to get projects pretty fast and hence don't define scope of project clearly and later on run into losses. Startups offering services should invest time to come-out with detailed scope and effort estimates. These would help them to complete project on time giving significant profits. A lot of entrepreneurs felt that it is good strategy to invest some time before closing the deal since anyways one need to spend time to do such estimations later on. Don't rush for a project since with wrong estimates this may turn-out to be bad deal. Spend some time to come-out with numbers close to actual effort.
3. User Generated Information : Why will Indian people generate content on the net giving reviews, tagging locations etc.? People felt that frequency of using a particular service prompts you to give feedback/review. Similarly people using Google Maps actively may tag some non-existing locations for the benefit of others. If you are benefited by any product/service then there are more chances of generating some good information. If you are dis-satisfied with some product/service then there are more chances of write reviews.
Some other areas like Google Voice Search, VAS platforms were also discussed. As usual the coffee and ambiance was pretty good for such meetings. Hope to see more people next time.
There was discussion to club OCC Noida & OCC Delhi to bring more like-minded people under one umbrella. The discussion has been initiated and let's wait for response of group folks.
1. Estimation of Development Time : For any startup estimating right time to develop a product/solution is very critical. Startups developing internal products need to estimate this for defining product road-map in better manner while startups offering services need to decide project cost and delivery time based on these inputs. Bad development-time estimation affects product road-map, customer satisfaction, profitability and company morale. A lot of folks emphasized that development-time estimation betters with experience. You need to burn your fingers to arrive at accurate numbers if you are relatively young. People with good industry experience are better at doing such estimations due to their past experience.
2. Time spent towards Pre-sales : A lot of startups want to get projects pretty fast and hence don't define scope of project clearly and later on run into losses. Startups offering services should invest time to come-out with detailed scope and effort estimates. These would help them to complete project on time giving significant profits. A lot of entrepreneurs felt that it is good strategy to invest some time before closing the deal since anyways one need to spend time to do such estimations later on. Don't rush for a project since with wrong estimates this may turn-out to be bad deal. Spend some time to come-out with numbers close to actual effort.
3. User Generated Information : Why will Indian people generate content on the net giving reviews, tagging locations etc.? People felt that frequency of using a particular service prompts you to give feedback/review. Similarly people using Google Maps actively may tag some non-existing locations for the benefit of others. If you are benefited by any product/service then there are more chances of generating some good information. If you are dis-satisfied with some product/service then there are more chances of write reviews.
Some other areas like Google Voice Search, VAS platforms were also discussed. As usual the coffee and ambiance was pretty good for such meetings. Hope to see more people next time.
There was discussion to club OCC Noida & OCC Delhi to bring more like-minded people under one umbrella. The discussion has been initiated and let's wait for response of group folks.
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