Five Trends In the Last Five Years

Here’s a list of five trends that have changed our lives in the last five years:

1. Going Mobile:

A few years back, this were the headlines in the newspapers – “People in China and Taiwan use mobile more than computers for accessing internet ”.  Today this has become a reality – mobile has practically changed the way we work and the way businesses work.  A smartphone is now an essential product and not a luxury product.  For a common man, smartphones have replaced his old bar phones as well as his music player and digital camera; he now books his tickets through mobile, does mobile banking and uses mobile for social networking. For businesses, mobile has become a huge segment for advertising – with companies such as Google and Facebook competing for a share of pie, and early adopters such as InMobi fighting back.

2. E-commerce:

Although a bit hyped these days, e-commerce has practically changed the way we shop. An average Indian, who five years ago was hesistant to shop on Amazon or Ebay because of “trust” factor, now does all of his shopping online. After years of struggling to become monopolies, home grown companies such as  Flipkart and Snapdeal have a huge share in the e-commerce industry. But companies like housing.com, bookmyshow, makemytrip.com, yatra – although having small share of the overall market – still are monopolies in their respective segments.  Now there is an e-commerce company for almost every business – Bigbasket for your daily grocery or Washkart for your laundry! One of my personal favourites is kwench.in – an online lending library!

3. Transport:

There was a time when you used to travel by a local bus, which would probably break down every now & then. Now cities have metro rail, Volvo buses. Now buses are not only comfortable, but are faster (no change in overall travel time though – traffic jams & improper roads still exist). But one segment where your local transport has changed – Taxis!  Five years back, the only way you could book a taxi was to contact a local taxi guy (or someone who owns a fleet) and book a taxi days in advance. With large scale taxi-aggregators like Olacabs or Uber, planning your taxi ride takes not more than 15 minutes.

4. Content:

Online courses(MOOCs) such as Coursera and Udacity have revolutionized education. Integration of online & offline channels, usage of social media to provide correct and accurate news is something has changed the media industry. You get to know news by tweets and answers from Quora. Although the reliability of information is a big challenge, this segment has a huge potential that has changed how content management works. Add data analytics on top of this segment and we can make better decisions. Peer to peer sharing of knowledge through Quora, or information through social media is something that revolutionize our lives.

5. Government decisions:

On number 5 is government decisions. Five years ago, applying for a passport used to take six months. Now, the verification processes take a few weeks. Earlier, booking rail tickets required you to stand in a queue at your local train station. Now, IRCTC has changed everything (including the meme industry). People are now aware of scams that have happened in the past. This segment is still the one that has the biggest opportunity. The new government is trying to reform things – step by step, but understanding that government decisions have the single biggest impact in our lives is the key.

A Weekend at IIM, Bangalore

One Sunday morning, I got an email stating – “Your team has been selected for the Bootcamp in Eximius 2013 in IIM-B, the largest entrepreneurship summit in India”.

It all started a few months back, when one of my friends suggested me to participate in the Bootcamp in Eximius, an annual entrepreneurship summit in the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. I had submitted Musicperk, an initiative by me & some of my friends for Bootcamp. Bootcamp is an event that has “booths” or stalls by various ventures within the country(both by students & full-time entrepreneurs). It also has dedicated sessions essential for the bootstrapping a firm as well as sessions by successful entrepreneurs, professors from IIM-B which can help you run a successful organisation.

I looked at the IIM-B event website and realised that it contained multiple events for B-School students as well as some workshops, guest lectures and keynote talks. Our team decided to participate in the Bootcamp, an event for start-ups from India. I and Venkat decided to start-off for the two-day event. We couldn’t have a stall as we had very less time to prepare for it. I realised that Kiran Bedi, one of the eminent personalities of the country, was giving the inaugural speech with Kris Gopalakrishnan(Co-founder, Infosys) as the keynote speaker for the event.

We started off on 10^th August,2013 early morning for IIM-B. It was atleast 20 Km journey but I realised Bannerghata road was far more developed than what I had imagined it to be.

The first thing you notice about IIM-B is the lush green campus –  I unusually found it similar to IISc, Bangalore. We first attended a social-entrepreneurship business plan event(of course I was just a part of the audience) where students from across the B-schools in the country presented business plans on social entrepreneurship focussed mainly on using the experience the 60+ age group to develop businesses.

Dr. Kiran Bedi lighting the lamp, a symbol for a great start

The highlight of Day 1 was definitely the inaugural talk by Dr. Kiran Bedi – a social activist, the first woman IPS officer, Founder of Navjyoti India Foundation(an NGO for welfare and preventative policing) and India Vision Foundation(an NGO for prison reformation, drug abuse prevention and child  welfare) and also the recipient of Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1994 for Government service. The talk was on her life and experiences from it where she highlighted her experience in India – as a student excelling in Tennis as well as academics, as an IPS officer from the early 1970s, her work in as Civilian Police Advisor in the United Nations, her role as an Inspector General of Prisons and prison reformation, the techniques she had jused for controlling Delhi traffic(one can never forget the famous towing of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s car for parking violation), vipassana meditation and her role through reformation and welfare programs in 1990s and 2000s. The most important take-away from this talk was the importance of discipline and how it help you strive your goals in life. It was easily one of the best talks I have listened to.

The afternoon went on with a discussion with the rest of the startups in the Bootcamp. Each of them pitched in their start-ups, discussed some of the problems they face in the day-to-day life. I met many interesting people including  Shashank – a full time entrepreneur who was working on an Cloudsgreen – a startup working on the amazing idea of digital printers.

The evening started off with the keynote speech by Kris Gopalakrishnan – Co-founder, Infosys. This talk wasn’t based on his own story but on 3 stories in which he had played a role – in his own way. The three stories were about Panindra Sama(Founder, Redbus.in – a personality everyone would look up to), Sanjay Vijaykumar(Founder, MobME and Startup Village) and the Infosys story. The highlight of the talk was on Startup Villlage – an incubation cell based of Kerala, which has not only reformed the education in Kerala but has also produced hundreds of entrepreneurs every year.

Day 2 was much unexpected and it totally refined the way I think. I had expected it to be a day full of sessions by guest speakers. Instead, the day had sessions by IIM-B Profs. It started off with an introduction to NSRCEL, an IIM-B incubation cell, some of its ventures including Just Books, one of Bangalore’s finest rental libraries. There were sessions on pricing, pitching, marketing and experience from start-ups. It is always great to learn from your own experiences as well as experiences from others.

The weekend was well spent in IIM-B learning things, meeting new people and getting a better idea of how things work.

Comic Con Express – Bangalore

It was September 8^th, a Saturday night. As I was switching the TV channels, two interesting news grasped my attention. One was – KANE is in Bangalore! Something that I had already missed that day – never knew he was coming to India – that too in Bangalore Landmark! The other news was that Comic Con Express was held in Bangalore on Sept 8 & 9, 2012.

I had heard of Comic Con somewhere – was it some kind of comic fair/festival?  I found a few guys in costumes in the news channel and one of them told – “It took me one & half weeks to make this costume”. I decided to check it out the next day. As I called up one of my friends to ask if he’s coming along, he reminded – “The Big Bang Theory”. There you go!

Bangalore is one of the places best to be roamed around with a bus pass. Getting into random buses, not knowing what its destination is – FUN! As I entered the Koramangala Indoor Stadium, I realised that the place was full of like-minded people – comic lovers! Right from DC comics to Amar Chitra Katha to local Indian comics, the place was vibrant. About fifty stalls, people dressed up into various comic characters, exciting comic merchandise, special events by TV Channels, Comic Con Express in Koramangala was one AWESOME event.

I felt that the event could have had more publicity and probably have been BIGGER.  The next Comic Con events in India will be:-

Mumbai Film and Comics Convention: Oct 20-21, 2012

New Delhi – 3^rd Annual Indian Comics Convention: Feb 8-10, 2013.
Hope it’s held in Chennai soon.

 

 

 

So, Where were we?

It has been a while since I have actually blogged something noteworthy. My last appreciable post was in September 2011 ! (which in itself is a post after all the blog shuffling ). Finally decision making has been great – I have been here on wordpress – it’s just a question of time.

A LOT has changed in my personal & professional life as well in the last 1-1.5 years. Way back in feb 2011, I launched my website (a childhood dream come true) & it has 10000+ visitors/month today.  India has changed a lot – New Delhi metro railway station is now looking like European ones (a dream to every Indian), India has actually won a cricket world cup followed by back to back defeats away, India now has the world’s largest solar power plant – which not only generates electricity but also saves evaporation of water from river canals, India is expected to be world’s strongest economy by 2050. Movers & Shakers is finally back on Television – after 10 years(& is now my favourite TV show) & I have made some BIG decisions in life too .

Lot’s more coming up for you guys!

Steve Jobs 1955-2011 .

RIP Steve Jobs – The inspiration to millions , the revered for the rest.

The Best of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs resigned as the CEO of Apple Inc yesterday. Some people do think this to be a mere resignation of a CEO but he was not a mere CEO, he was the greatest CEO of our times. Here are some of the best moments of the Steve Jobs story :

http://www.straitstimes.com/The-Big-Story/The-Big-Story-2/Story/STIStory_705811.html

The above link has a wonderful article about Steve Jobs’ minimalist approach in life.  The video below is probably the best speech of Steve Jobs.

Some of the best Steve Jobs quotes :-

1. “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new”

2. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

3. “I was worth over $1,000,000 when I was 23, and over $10,000,000 when I was 24, and over $100,000,000 when I was 25, and it wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money.”

4. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”

5. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

6. “If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”