Desinerd

Hmmm, unlike what most people have to say I have started to feel that Indians working in “outsourced” development teams are getting a real bad deal. In my recent experience, i have felt that in spite of all the big talk on how India has become costlier blah blah …. its my firm belief that there is very good quality of work being done here ….

So quality development work on cutting edge platforms is still termed as outsourcing, that was a rude shock to a guy like me :). I have seen some great stuff coming out, the only point is that few people realize that the work is being done by Indians ….. maybe when that changes we will be a better appreciated lot …. I was talking to some person who made me understand that nobody had any idea about what the team had contributed to slideshare.net, and how my bosses have done a great job …. I was really perplexed, but then the realization dawned upon me that conceptualization / abstract talk is way higher up the value chain (i think thats all bull crap … but then again i am an engineer he he) …..

To be honest, some of the implementation details were awesomely creative …. and a lot of thought went behind them. Slideshare has been built in India, not implemented …. even if we all don’t know of the *names* behind them that is something the world should know about.

So this post is devoted to my conception of a startup and the differences (or at least perceived ones) it has from a big firm. (Warning: These are very subjective differences)

1. Startups are built *for* people who are ambitious and driven , thus this gives them the momentum going forward even if resources are scarce.
2. From the above point it can be agreed easily that people who work at such places are to some extent *different*. Some will be motivated by money , some by thirst for knowledge etc etc.
3. The critical aspect of all this is that like artists at work, most developers have their zen moments (or aha moment as vikas would say), i believe they need care and nurturing from their patrons (aka managers).
4. Startups start with the vision of changing the world, and that feeling is necessary for exponential(to some extent non-human … non-linear ) growth pattern.

These differences are what make a startup a temple to learn and grow in as compared to big corporations where you cannot have the same effect as an individual. I think that now-a-days the term start-up is thrown around rather randomly … maybe there is a need for some certification on that end.

Wierd title for a blog post , but its truly the start of the second phase in my rather short career. This week I have decided to move on from slideshare.net , to some other stuff. Lately I have started realizing how badly i needed to give time to my own ideas (and there are lots of them), with such short product life spans on the internet and the boom taking place interms of web valuations how can I possibly miss out on trying……

The internet is an awesome place to learn and create new things, to this end i must give a lot of credit to the last 8 months at slideshare.net where the team has done some pretty interesting stuff.  The systems team rocks, even if its pushed beyond its capacity ….. A big thanks is in order to my team mates (in random order)

• Lalit …. JS guru
• Saurabh …. Systems guru
• Kapil …. best tech lead for sure
• Mayank …. c00l dev. and stock player
• Kaa …. creative creative n more
• Yats …. the zen master
• Golak …. “bhalo” dev.
• Abhishek(*) …. one of the most motivated guys ever
• Praveen(*) …. guilt free dev. guru
• Gaurav …. n00b domain sitter
• Mohit …. thinking and analytical dev.
• bhups …. abhi mile hai, aur kya likhoon

(*) these guys left slideshare coupla months back

Had a lot of fun, should not have missed out on the trips …. I am missing in nearly all the group photographs ….. time to photoshop some of the kodak moments he he. A big thanks to Amit Ranjan and the management team for giving me an opportunity to work with one of the best teams ever …. May the slideshare alexa rank keep on rising

Note:

Frequency of blogging will resume , as i just figured the problem of my upload speed was because of the MTU size (it needed to be 1492 on the WiFi router not 1500) …..  3 cheers to that  (AIRTEL BROADBAND)