Category: Archives

3 years ago I was at the Unplugged conference in Bangalore to see about 10 startups presenting. There was one that stood out – Gazemetrix. I wrote about them and also thought they were the only ones worth funding that day. That said I also mentioned they were in for a long, tough slog. I… Continue reading The Long Hard Road to Anything Meaningful for #Entrepreneurs

This post is the first in a series that I am planning to do on fund raising. I have successfully raised money 3 times (to a total of $29 Million – series A, B and C) and failed twice (once trying to raise $2 Million series A and second time $3-$5 Million series B). As… Continue reading What Does a Series a Funding Strategy and Plan Look Like?

If we were to revisit paid, owned and earned media and the impact on mobile marketing. Most marketers are now building custom mobile applications (owned) for Android / iOs and will soon start to build them for Win Phone 7. Most are already ignoring the Symbian and Blackberry RIM. During the days of television, print and radio… Continue reading How Does Mobile Marketing Change the Spend on Paid?

Short answer – it does a lot, but not as much as you think it does. There is a never ending debate about how much do ideas matter when you are starting. There are arguments on both sides of this thesis. There are folks that believe ideas are dime a dozen and execution is everything… Continue reading Does Your Idea Matter at All to Anyone but You as an #Entrepreneur?

When you are building a technology startup, one of the first choices you make even before you get started is the size of your ambition. Most entrepreneurs dont think about it, so it tends to be an unstated but large impact choice. If you get inspired by another entrepreneur, such as Sachin Bansal of Flipkart… Continue reading The Size of Your Ambition Determines the Value of Your Outcome

I asked this question on Hacker News last week to understand the shifts in software development over the last 20 years. From 1995 to 2015, there has been a dramatic change in the developer ecosystem. I thought I’d summarize all the changes and try to make sense of the trends. In this post I am only going… Continue reading What Has Changed for Developers in the Last 20 Years

A quick background on AEVA Aeva was founded by former Apple Inc. engineers Soroush Dardashti and Mina Rezk. In 2018, the company raised $45 million in a series A funding round co-led by Lux Capital Management and Canaan Partners. Rezk, who previously designed optical hardware for Nikon and worked alongside Salehian at Apple’s Special Projects… Continue reading AEVA (NASDAQ $IPV, $AEVA) Spac Merger – Lidar Company Recommendation

One of the things I hear consistently from many organizations who run a “dead”, “dull” or “did not work” community is “Yes we did that – We have 3 wikis, 4 blogs, a discussion board, but we see no traction. Unlike other companies our customers are different, communities wont work”. There are 3 primary reasons… Continue reading Build It and They Will Know

Dragons: A dragon is a company that returns an entire fund — a “fund maker.” VCs can have dragons in their portfolios just as LPs can have dragons in their portfolios. Unicorns: Many entrepreneurs, and the venture investors who back them, seek to build billion-dollar companies. Decacorns: Billion-dollar companies join a club of “unicorns,” a… Continue reading Founders Make Good Money When a VC Funded Company Exits Very Rarely