This blog has moved

Friends

I have moved my blog to sameer.madhouse.in . Its now hosted with Instablogs (our portfolio company) and it sure feels great to be on Instablogs Network.

I have been thinking for a while of setting up a personal site. The idea is to share not only the ‘blogs’,  but also other random stuff like  photos,  essays,  quotes,  songs and more. Me being a lazy guy the move look longer than required. But yeah now its done.

This is a joint personal site for Sameer and Nandini. As a first step we have moved our blogs, put up a simple homepage and will be doing more in coming days.

We are using the domain of our first company madhouse (www.madhouse.in), which is very close to our heart, our first affair with entrepreneurship.

• Readers: please continue reading @ sameer.madhouse.in
• RSS subscribers: Click here to follow  (and remove the old one, to keep things clean and clear)
• New visitors / new readers: please continue reading @ sameer.madhouse.in

Would love to hear your feedback on this and would like to thankyou for all the support and love so far. I am counting on you to continue both love and support.

Announcing the FIRST ever Start-up Evening:

Guest(s):  Alok Kejriwal, founder & CEO of Games2win (more here) , Deap Ubhi, Founder and CEO of Burrp (more here)

Date:    20 January, 2009 (Tuesday)

Time:   7pm – 9pm

Venue: South Mumbai

Audience: Start-up founders (MVP and non-MVP start-up founders)

Interested in participating?  Want to help in organizing a start-up evening? Have more questions?  Write to nandini AT morpheusventure DOT com

The MVP gang is launching “Start-up Evenings” with the support of a few firms who are involved with start-ups and a lot of friends in the community.

The First edition of Start-up Evenings will take place on 20 Jan-09, Tuesday in Mumbai.

Concept

The idea behind “Start-up Evenings” is to facilitate “close interaction” between founders of young companies and experienced folks, allowing the founders to learn from the champions (the tricks and hiccups of the trade), and to network.

The event will be monthly, with one edition each in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

We did some sessions as part of our founders meet and saw that it was extremely useful for the founders and hence by popular demand decided to conduct regular “Start-up Evenings“.

Format

• Event will be attended by 10-15 founders of start-ups from the MVP portfolio, partners portfolios and other founders
• There will be one guest of the evening who will share his / her experiences and interact with the start-ups in an informal manner
  
• The guest will typically be an experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
• There is no fee for attending but participation will be only by invitation
• No more than 15 participants will be allowed to keep the focus of the event
• Typical timings: 0700 pm – 0900 pm

This is a non-profit initiative and we would love to hear from you if you would like to collaborate on it. There is no requirement of any sponsorship for these events, since we are going to keep them quite bootstrapped. Some of things which can be help would be:

• A conference room / venue at your office for these events once a month (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore)
• Arranging / suggesting speakers
• Spreading the word amongst start-up founders
• Anything else

Feel free to share your thoughts / feedback on the initiative. If you are interested in helping / contributing in any way, write to nandini AT morpheusventure DOT com

If you are a genuine online citizen, a online job seeker, or an individual looking for a partner online. You may have been looking for a way to showcase / highlight the trustworthiness of your profile and claim advantage over the fake / fraud online profiles. Your wish has come true.

After successful introduction in US, an MVP portfolio company, Crederity is launching its consumer services in India.

• You can create a FREE account here.
• Add your credentials (address, education, experience and more) and have Crederity verify them for you.
• You will get a “Crederity Card” which you can proudly display on your site, blog,  online or offline resume, social networks, online matrimonial profile or anywhere else you want.
• It instantly highlights the “trustworthiness” of your profile and markets your profile to help you stand out and improve your prospects.

The team has worked hard to create a seamless service experience for both businesses and individuals. Any feedback from you will help to improve further. Go ahead, give it a spin and share your views.

Rizwan shared a wonder full post on  How to date an Entrepreneur. I just loved it and had to share it even before I finish reading it.

sinbaad the sailor jahaaj me jab chala, mere yaar sun lo sun lo
dhundh raha tha ek nayi duniya ka pata, mere yaar sun lo sun lo
woh anjaani raahon me tha o o
woh leharo ki baahon me tha o o
sab ne kaha tha in samundaro me jaana nahi, mere yaar sun lo sun lo
khwaabo ke pichhe jaake kuchh bhi hai paana nahi, mere yaar sun lo suno
woh apni hi dhun me raha o o
woh sunata tha dil ka kaha o o
(usake the jo sapne, wohi usake the apne
aisa tha sinbaad the sailor, sailor......) - (2)

usaka jahaj khila tufano me, mere yaar sun lo sun lo
phir bhi na aayi kami usake armaano me, mere yaar sun lo sun lo
woh deewana aisa hi tha o o
woh sapano ka hamrahi tha o o
(usake the jo sapne, wohi usake the apne
aisa tha sinbaad the sailor, sailor......) - (2)

woh kuchh paane ki chaah me o o
woh badhata raha raah me o o
gehara samundar tha unchi unchi lehren, mere yaar sun lo sun lo
kashtiya jin dekhi mushkil se thehare, mere yaar sun lo sun lo
woh saahil tak aa hi gaya o o
woh manjil ko paa hi gaya o o
(usake the jo sapne, wohi usake the apne
aisa tha sinbaad the sailor, sailor......) - (2)

Check out the post with comments and photos from the founder’s meet

Making It Natural: First MVP Founder’s Meet

I am looking forward to participating in the First Edition of MVP Founder’s meet. Its a full day event being held at  Fortune Select JP Cosmos, Bengaluru (Off cunnigham road) on 17 December, 2008.

Participants include our portfolio founders from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, a couple of other startup friends of MVP and a few well known folks like:

• Subrata Mitra from Accel . A very active and succesful early and growth stage VC firm working with startups in India, USA, China and London
  
• Sharda balaji from Novojuris - a legal firm with special focus on working with Startups
• Indus Kaitan, Chief Plumbr of Sezwho. Indus has spent 10+ years in building startups in silicon valley . SezWho is a universal profile service for the social web – a popular startup in Silicom valley.
• Harish Gandhi Alok Mittal from Cannan. A leading VC Firm working with startups in India, US and Isarael. (Update: Harish came in place of Alok and we had a great session with him)
• Ananya Majoomdar from Times Private Treaties

Agenda:

• Internal Sessions with MVP companies
  • Duration: 30-40 minutes each
  • Format : Interactive sessions
  • Goal:
    • Give the presenting company founders LIVE access to brains, thoughts and ideas of 10-15 peers.
    • They can gather a lot of fodder for thoughts and get inputs on some key business problems
  • Part 1 : Presenting company talks about their Business (5-8 minutes)
    • Whats the product
    • Whats the market
    • Whats the team
    • Present status
    • Plans going forward
    • Key Challenges / important business problems they are working on
  • Part 2: Other company founders will provide (25-30 minutes)
    
    • feedback
    • ideas
    • views
    • potential solution to the mentioned business problems
    • ask questions
    • point out risks etc

• External Sessions with Investors / Entrepreneurs etc
  • Format: Informal interaction, Q & A, discussions, know each other etc
  • Number: 2-3 Sessions
  • Duration : 60 minutes each

(This article is jointly written by Sameer Guglani and Nandini Hirianniah)

In recent days, while working with the MVP portfolio companies and reflecting back on the days of madhouse, we have identified this phenomenon we are calling ’startup madness’.

It’s visible and present from the time when you start thinking of your million dollar/world changing idea to the steady state point (personal satisfaction, acquisition, IPO or maybe shutdown). Things that you do, don’t make any sense to outsiders and they are like ‘This guy is crazy’ and even when you look back at that period you think “what was I thinking when I did this?”

Looking back at the time when we got the idea to start madhouse, we did not know anything about business, we were just two 27 year old kids (later three of us, with Ankur joining us). We had tried a variety of things in our lives and had managed to do reasonably well in whatever we put our hands into, may be that’s what gave us the stupid confidence. Very importantly we were quite ignorant about ‘real business’ and hence came up with our own take on every business problem we faced.

This streak of startup madness showed at various places:

• We did not hear NO:  not from vendors, not from people we were trying to hire, not from investors, customers, no one. A NO just meant we had to come back with new ideas and try again.
• We would never get tired of talking about madhouse and we could talk to any one about it. Most times the other guy did not give a damn ,  for him/her it was just a blabber
• We just worked non-stop for three years , not even a day off (except when forced by illness)
• Other than work everything else was just plain unimportant : sleeping, eating, meeting friends, attending social functions, family, watching TV, movies, newspaper – all of this had very little place in our lives. We just filled all our day with work with average working day of 16-18 hrs all thru.
• We worked out of anywhere and everywhere.  Our tools were a Fujitsu laptop and a CDMA phone which could be used like a modem.  Restaurants, inside a car / train / auto rickshaw / bus, out on the road, in the park, bedroom, living room and the loo, locations stopped to matter, where place was work place.
• We did not need a lot of money to live and we were happier than ever (no purchases of over 1000 for 3 years, eating at economical places, shamelessly staying with friends / relatives / acquaintances in cities we visited on work )
• ‘The world impossible was missing” - we just did not believe that there was any problem that we could not solve or anything we could not do. Our minds were one track – focus hard, think hard, work hard and just do whatever it takes.
• We had access to this inhuman energy that allowed us to just keep going – “never get tired” or “never run out of steam”.
• Each time we met a new person, we were constantly thinking of how this person can help our venture, . Everywhere we went, we explored if there was something there that could benefit our startup. Frankly we were classical ‘opportunity hounds” and quite shamelessly so
• We were basically “stuck” in our own world in which we could not fail. While we adapted like crazy, we sort of forced business to work the way we thought it should work, without caring a lot about the outside world.

This madness is the essence of start-ups; it signifies the purity of a startup. It makes the startup tick and makes it successful and enjoyable. The same madness makes you innovate, over perform, challenge your skill set, think out of the box or even out of the world, take 28 hrs out of a 24 hrs a day, it gets you to focus but does not let you  blindly focus!

Its also important to figure out how can you keep re-fueling the desire, the madness, so that it lasts forever, not just for days, weeks or months, start ups that click need to be at it for years. For an individual or team to succeed as a startup, having the startup madness is a must.

If you are an entrepreneur look inside you and make an honest assessment. Do you have the streak?

• If yes, great.
• If no. But you think you can build it – nice, go ahead and do it at the highest priority.
• If you don’t have it and you can’t build it – I am not sure you should continue being an entrepreneur.

On that other hand, if you are not yet an entrepreneur you should also look inside you and make the same honest assessment. Do I have the mad streak?

• If yes, you fool, leave your job right now – the world of ’startup madness’ is calling
• If no, it would best for you to avoid the path of entrepreneurship, until the ‘madness streak’ gets to you