self.machine

There were a lot of important events in 2008, which can be defined as good or bad. Here is a list from what i remember of the year gone by.

1. Mumbai attacks – India hardens as a state, we have a new look in our diplomacy. We want action and not reactions from our under-performing politicians.
2. J&K elections – Another great event for our democracy. Finally, a new young CM who can make a difference if he chooses to. All the luck to Omar Abdullah so that he can fulfill his potential.
3. Delhi blasts – Was close to where it all happened, was terrible. Not much happened after that and people got on with their lives after that.
4. Kwippy – At a personal level, I started kwippy with Mayank and Kaa. It has been an awesome experience to work with them @ kwippy.
5. Multiplex movies – Movies like Dasvidinya are lowering the barrier for movie makers. The releases of the small budget movies mark the end of the multi crore movies binge bollywood was on.
6. Recession – A well covered event which as usual affected all the working classes. The rich held their money back, growth goes for a toss.
7. Barak Obama – Wanted him to win, feels right. Hopefully he will deliver for the world and not necessarily US.
8. Google Chrome – Yet another MS type move from google. Paying 100mil$ to mozilla foundation and then releasing its own browser. NOT COOL.
9. Windows 7 Beta – This might just save microsoft. Fast , usable and hopefully safer. Looking forward to the actual release.
10. Nuclear deal – cheaper and more power to the Indian masses. This may fuel more growth at some cost to our environment. Hopefully we get our thorium based reactors working, would remove uranium dependence going forward.

Phew, finally got the complete list going. Fear seems to be integrated in the list through the various bomb blasts. There is hope in new leaders and better software . Lets see how 2009 works out for everyone. Happy new year to everyone.

I think that a lot of people think that its easy to start a web startup and get funding, well part of that is true. Yes, the barrier to start something on the web is extremely low, but lately with the recession getting money for the same is way more difficult than before. So if you are hooked into the web business, here are some simple tips to get through these difficult times.

• Conserve cash – Guess it applies to everyone right now. Optimize for survivability and not being investor friendly. You will need the money later.
• Plan growth – If you are a consumer internet site without any business model (read revenue), control your growth. Optimize for server costs.
• Cut on features – Focus on current platform , make sure you implement absolutely necessary things. Spend time analyzing on why you need it
• Remove dead features – Gain some more resources, remove features which are not being used or not exposed. Most platforms tend to load up a lot in memory, free it for better things / traffic.
• Know when to quit – Sounds stupid, but you should know when to call it quits. There is always a point of diminishing returns. Sit down figure it out and make sure you know your limits.

These are things that I am learning at kwippy, this list more or less encapsulates what is need to run a lean and mean operation. I believe that lower entry barriers does not teach most of us young businessmen the “baniya” ways. Its time to learn that oceans are made of smaller drops of water , If you have anything more to add to this list, feel free to throw in a comment. Do forgive me for the naive techincal look at it.