All posts by Mukund Mohan

My discipline will beat your intellect
Entrepreneurship, Learning

The pretender and the contender wear the same clothes

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In the last year I have talked to over 800 entrepreneurs. About 200+ were discussions over 15 minutes. That roughly equates to about 1/2 my work time. This time was split between listening and learning from them and the rest was spent sharing some “gyaan“. For what it was worth, most of them were very nice to me and politely nodded when I dispensed my 2 minutes of “framework advice”.

What I have learned is that it is very hard to give an answer that’s cogent, well thought out and precise. In an era where there are enough advisors, mentors and other folks giving lots of advice, there’s a cottage industry sprung up around trying to “help” entrepreneurs and “grow” the ecosystem.

Here’s the challenge for us as entrepreneurs. The pretender and the contender both wear the same clothes, speak the same language and likely use the same words. We have to discern who’s who.

So what’s the framework to use to determine who you should listen to and who you should ignore?

There are enough folks suggesting that peer learning is the way to go. After all, what better than someone “like you” who has just been through the same path before. The pros of peer learning are usually – practical advice, “here’s what I did and it worked for me” and knowledge dished out without airs and graces. The cons are lack of context, the inability to give you a framework to think and providing answers to questions that you might never encounter.

There are other folks suggesting that “successful entrepreneurs” should provide you with the right advice. Meaning, folks who have seen relative measure of success and would be likely able to share more refined nuances of their journey. The pros are well thought out arguments, balanced perspective on what works and does not. The cons are that success comes over a long period of time. The things that worked a few years ago are rarely going to work as effectively.

Still others say the best advice is from “failed” entrepreneurs. They can possibly tell you everything you should not do, but not all the things you most likely should do. The pros are that you get to really understand that the rose colored glasses that are worn tend to be tinted anyway. The cons? – What should you do? Opposite of all the things the failed entrepreneur did?

At the end of the day it will become obvious that to have some modicum of success, you will have to blaze your own trail. Else someone who has done the “exact” same thing that you did, will likely “clean up” before him, leaving nothing but crumbs for others to “feast” on.

The only way to know who the pretender is and who the player is to watch them in action.

Which is why I highly recommend that you work with the advisor and mentor for a few weeks or a month before you actually bring them on board. For the first month, if they truly believe in what you are doing, they would offer their time for free, then you can overcompensate them for their work post that effort.

Entrepreneurship

Are Indian entrepreneurs “thin skinned” or misunderstood?

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There are so many great tech entrepreneurs of Indian origin in the valley who have been successful over the last 2 decades. A last count indicated over 40% of all startups in Silicon valley were either started by or had an Indian cofounder.

This has led to several of them (entrepreneurs from the valley) and a few “industry observers” commenting and comparing the startup ecosystem in India to that in the valley. Most are not encouraging. From the outside looking in it is relatively easy to say “There are too many clueless people running incubators” – actual quote from a self-proclaimed Silicon Valley expert, or “Focus on local opportunities, not on global ones” – actual quote from a Tech Crunch article.

In both cases, many entrepreneurs in some closed Facebook groups that I am a part of, were all up in arms about these broad generalizations. The articles themselves were focused on many aspects of entrepreneurship as well in India, and the quote alone, taken out of context would be construed as a “passing mention”. Nonetheless many entrepreneurs took umbrage and the conversations denigrated into an abyss.

Back to my question about Indian entrepreneurs. Are we just thin skinned or misunderstood?

First, our startup ecosystem is fairly nascent. Comparing it to the valley is not doing either location any good. Both investors and entrepreneurs complain about each other constantly in both locations, though. Many investors claim entrepreneurs lack the depth, knowledge of the markets and understanding of what it takes to build a great business. Many entrepreneurs claim investors are risk-averse, predatory and bean counters without the expertise to build a business.

They are both are right, but both are wrong as well.

Market dynamics and conditions in India force both of them to play hands they are dealt with and I think so far we have done well. Comparing a teenager (Indian startup ecosystem) to a mature adult (Silicon Valley) does not make any sense though.

Second, I do believe that we can be more appreciative of each others positions and show a lot more empathy for our investors and founders. I am not suggesting a group therapy session, but knowledge and understanding of the constrained markets India has and the small exits that we generate does not help investors is important. Neither does expectation of Silicon valley type exits or “traction” help entrepreneurs.

Can we all get a little more thick skinned as well? – possibly. For most parts if you read a “self-professed expert”, such as myself or others, claiming to understand the nuances of the ecosystem, which you believe are incorrect, be direct and point it out, with a cogent argument explaining your point of view, instead of vitriolic comment spewing or worse – name calling without context.

Marketing

Guest post: How I Used Setback as a Setup for (PR) Success

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Ever hear that saying…

“when life gives you lemons, make lemonade?”

Now, what happens if the lemons you get are covered in poop and smell like rotten milk, AND you ran out of sugar?

What then? Drink muddy, bitter lemonade that smells like durian?

Exactly. Believe it or not, it might turn up better than you imagined.

2011 was a really crappy year

  • I started a pet website that wasn’t doing so hot. I already pivoted a couple of times, and they all tanked.

  • I was down to my last few dollars in term of my bootstrap fund

  • I broke up with my ex a couple of months ago.

If shit is how you describe how you feel when you’re down, down I was straight doo-doo.

Now to make things worse, i lost my dog. A bunch of people came into my house to fix a broken door without calling me. My dog spooked and he ran for his life.

As a bachelor living by himself in a loft with his own dog and with his family thousands of miles away on the other side of the country, this was like losing a child.

I mean.. a grown man, crying alone in the dark.. drinking two buck chuck, lamenting over his lost dog.

If you never lost a dog before, you’ll never know the feeling.  Especially for me because my dog was the one real “family” that I had (in California), cared for, and loved.

I read somewhere that if you lose a dog and don’t recover it in the next 24 hours, your chances of finding it are pretty slim..as in, never.

The odds were against me.

  1. I didn’t have family who’d help me look during the day (when he’s visible). I had to ask friends for their time after they get out of work.. which by then, was too late.

  2. My dog didn’t have a pet tag on because his collar was being washed, which means no one can ID him even if they found him.

  3. My dog is completely black, which means he’s quite hard to see at night.. especially for car drivers

Of course, as an entrepreneur, i was used to fighting the odds and hoping for miracles.

So in span of first 40 hours of losing my dog, I was superman. I managed to

  1. call every vet, animal shelter, pet businesses in 3 mile radius

  2. (with help from my ex and a friend) posted 250+ flyers, dropped off 150+ posters in people’s mailboxes

  3. place ads on every possible place you can possibly think of, including Facebook ads and Google display ad network ads.

…all this on no sleep.

I even tried hashed up a simple auto dialer software using Twilio and a database I bought off the web, and called everyone in 4-5 zip codes.

Yes, I was on a mission.

I must’ve had 2-3 leads every couple of hours with my ads and with my auto dialer, but they all turned up to be all junk leads.

Until.. I got a phone call from a lady nearby. She told me that she saw my flyer at a nearby park in Willow Glen (San Jose, CA).

At this point, I wasn’t even sure if my dog was still alive. So many false leads, and people were telling me different things as far as where they thought he was heading. On top of that, he probably hasn’t eaten or drank anything. Maybe worse.. he got hit by a car or got attacked by a big dog.. and he died.

Funny how your mind plays all these crazy movies in your head when you’re in dire need.

But I told myself I can feel depressed any time i want. Let’s see if this lead takes me anywhere.

And in fact, IT WAS MY dog that they found…thanks to this awesome couple:

If you don’t know who he is, he’s a NHL San Jose Sharks team player Joe Pavelski.

At the time, I didn’t even know who he was or what he did.

All I noticed was his insanely big house in the middle of Willow Glen (a very posh neighborhood).

So I casually asked him what he did… and he replied “oh i play hockey.”

My initial thought: “What? there’s a hockey team in San Jose? NO WAY. When was this?”

<insert clown music here>

Yes, he was a celebrity. But at the time, I didn’t really think much of it

I just was so grateful that he found my dog that i just wanted to kiss the man.

(But I settled for just a picture with him.)

When my dog and I were reunited back home, I gave him a bath and fed him two HUGE bowls of his favorite dog food. After that, both of us hibernated for 14 hours.

Seize the Moment

When I woke up, I started wondering how I can use this story for my pet website.

Of course, I could’ve just posted this and shared with my Facebook fans and email subscribers at the time.. but I felt I could’ve gotten more of a BANG, so to speak.

So? I decided to email journalists, hoping that it would get covered… and it DID.

If you Google “joe pavelski dog”, the story got covered on NBC sports, CSN Bay area, and BUNCH of other sports sites that have page rank 5+.

Then voila.. i had a HUGE surge of traffic to my site, and because of that surge,

  • my email list increased by factor of 95%

  • i had 50+ backlinks to my funny pet picture website PawshPal

  • i had all these new men Facebook fans for PawshPal (99.9% prior to that were women)

If this were a link bait tactic, it sure as hell worked well.

So did it save the PawshPal business? Nope. It didn’t.

The people that opted in were more interested in Joe and/or sports.. and opted out.. and all those backlinks didn’t help much at all in terms new traffic. Indeed, not all traffic is good traffic.

But I learned a WHOLE lot about PR.

Key Lesson in PR

1) “Rub Off” Popularity

If you are not famous, you can “get” famous just by being next to them.

This is the basis for celebrity endorsement ads.

People seeing your product or service next to a celebrity gives (instant trust.

2) Don’t fight, instead praise

There are SEO and marketing “gurus” that claim that you should pick fights with journalists and bloggers to get some attention.

If not, spam them in the comment section.

Ugh.. here’s a better way.

Instead of fighting popular people, praise them and their fans will praise you.

Negativity can only get so far. On top of that, news is inundated with bad news.

Why join them? Try being positive for once. (Heck, try meditating.)

3) Promote yourself.

Your efforts don’t mean diddly squat if no one knows

Fundamentals of marketing – no matter how great you (or your product) is, if no one knows about it, you might as well have never done it.

Stop staring at the screen.

Start connecting. Start sharing. Start teaching. Start giving.

Then the world will give back.

4) Copywriting matters

If you do any marketing whatsoever, you know about copywriting.

Copywriting is about selling with words, conveying who you are, what you do, and why they should read your stuff.

Copywriting is probably THE most important skill for any marketer these days.

If my copywriting sucked, I doubt anyone would’ve read my story, including the journalists.

Without an interesting email subject line, the email would’ve never gotten read.

Without an interesting email body, the link would’ve never gotten clicked.

Without an interesting story, the journalists would’ve never linked back.

Without the journalists linking back, I would not be here telling you this story.

5) When things are bad, there’s usually a reason.

Like Steve Jobs said, you can connect the dots only looking backward, never forward.

If something bad happens, as long as you don’t stay down and depressed, you can use that story as a way to set yourself back up for something great like all great entrepreneurs do.

You just won’t know unless you fail, dust yourself, get back up, and try something different.

But don’t forget step #1 – dust yourself off and get back up.

Without step #1, there is no step #2.

Most importantly…

If all your marketing fails, “accidentally” lose and find your dog at a celebrity’s house.

Take your dog to your nearest celebrity’s house.

Call him and ask him if he’s seen your dog.

Of course, your dog is magically there.. then you cry.. give him a big hug.. take lots of pictures.. and send them to the press.

And voila! Free PR!

<insert evil laughter here>

Hell, my dog teaches me about business everyday.

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TaeWoo Kim is an entrepreneur, a growth hacker, a speaker, and a blogger. You can follow him on Twitter (@TaeWooKim), Google+, and on his blog FreshSuperCool.com.

NPC

Building great outcomes in #payments only at #NPC2013 – Braintree acquired for $800 Million

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Not every day do you get news of an $800 Million acquisition in technology especially for a 6 year-old company, but Braintree just got acquired by PayPal for that ginormous amount.

What’s that got to do with NASSCOM product conclave you ask?

Well if you want to know how the payments landscape is changing dramatically with the advent of Square, Recurring payments startups, NFC, Bitcoin and the innovation in India, there’s only ONE place to be this winter. (So register for #NPC2013 already)

The payments track at NASSCOM product conclave features some of the smartest minds who can help you make sense of this large, growing and dramatically changing space.

Payments is a very interesting space because there are inherent barriers for external companies thanks to regulation. This is a space that’s closely watched by RBI, the banks and politicians themselves.

There have been multiple versions and attempts at solving the payments problem in India. We are bringing together the top experts in the payments space – the innovators, the investors, the disrupters and the incumbents to give you a birds-eye view followed by a kickass opportunity view as well.

If you are looking to innovate in this space, these key movers and shakers are the people you want to network with and they are going to be in Bangalore on Oct 29th and 30th at the Taj Vivanta.

This session is not all talk either.

We have terrific demos from JusPay, CitrusPay, ZaakPay,Ezetap, Oxigen, Khosla Labs and many more.

The top customers and enablers of payments, many of who turned payments into a differentiation – Ashish of BookMyShow, Mekin Maheshwariof Flipkart/PayZippy, Subba from Cleartrip, Loney Antony from Prizm Payments,Sunil Kulkarni of Oxigen and others – will share their approaches and strategies to tackle this problem as well.

Additionally with Aadhaar becoming a big part of the national payments infrastructure, hear directly from the UIDteam on how the platform is creating disruptive opportunities.

This track is being curated by the two top entrepreneurs in the space – Sanjay Swamy (investor at Angel Prime and ex CEO of mChek) and Puneet Agarwal (ex-Google – mobile NFC and payments).

If there’s anyone you need to know in this space, it is highly likely they will be here.

Come join us – because if you can’t collect the money, your business is just a hobby!

NPC

The Global Startup Quiz at NASSCOM Product Conclave #NPC2013 #fun #unique

Most tech conferences offer you a plethora of speakers and peers to learn from. That’s par for the course. Many also offer practitioners who will guide you on the ways of the world – like the “blind leading the blind” Matthew 15:13-14. Others offer immense networking opportunities – cofounder dating, angel investor connections. Its matchmaking at its fastest. If marriages are made in heaven, cofounder dating assumes that heaven was made in a day.

How many promise you a fun time?

I mean a time that you will remember because you laughed so hard or when your pulse raced.

I mean, really, there’s no rule that says that you cant have fun once you join a startup.

Lets have fun. Big time.

Let me take you back a few years. Remember your days at school or college when you had a knack to remember the most mundane of things and store them in your head? Ahh! Those were the days my friend. Trivia seemed to find all the space in my head, but those damm chemistry equations never did.

Our volunteer team at NPC this year is an eclectic mix of folks who seem to think “fun is their birthright”.

So they are bringing you the Global Startup Quiz at NASSCOM Product Conclave this year.

You can form teams of 2-3 of your peers and participate in your knowledge of startup trivia.

The winner gets automatic funding** from Shekhar Kirani from Accel (who’s coming to NPC this year BTW)

** some restrictions apply, void where prohibited. subject to approval. conditions apply, fine print applies. do not operate after consuming alcohol. Plastic bag (part of the quiz) is not a toy. Keep away from adults – children only. Blah Blah Blah. Are you still reading this? go register for NPC

Yeah right! You wish.

You think you know your startup trivia?

Who said “Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?” – dude that was not Steve Jobs. Wrong!

Make a team and match your skills with the best in NassQuiz, a one hour quiz on technology products worldwide.

  • Questions on world tech biz (not just software)
  • Written prelims before the 1 hour event
  • Audience participation included – winners get spot T-Shirts or goodies
  • Audio, photo/video questions as well

So if you want to win the bragging rights as the startup trivia quiz Czar – you gotta be at NPC this year. Register now.

Entrepreneurship, Management

How to encourage more amazing people to join #startups – for #investors & #entrepreneurs

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In the last 2 weeks I have had to catch up on several shareholder’s agreements that startup founders have sent my way to review.

It is very disappointing to see that most of the Indian founders keep 10% or less towards Employee Stock Option Plans.

There’s no better way to say this. This is silly, very backward in its thinking and has no justification.

I dont buy the argument that employees dont value stock options. They dont understand them and hence they tend to ignore them.

As an investor and startup founder it is your duty to make sure employees understand the value of stock options.

All successful startups will agree that the startups with the best people usually wins. Not always the best product or best technology but the one with the best people.

The best people dont come cheap. They have multiple options – Working at a large company, working for themselves or striking it on their own to build their own startup.

If you want to encourage the best people to consider startups, you not only have to pay well, but also give them enough incentives and “upside” to ensure their success.

I am also very disappointed that investors are not asking this of startup founders. The long term viability of the ecosystem depends on the best folks making good money so they can become entrepreneurs or investors again.

The wealth needs to go around. 2-3 folks in any company making a lot of money while the rest slave away for paltry sums is a recipe for a host of B and C players being early startup employees. None of us want that.

I dont think this is very sustainable.

If you are a startup founder, one of the most important things you need to do is to ensure your employees make a lot of money as well if there is a big upside.

I want to be a big force of this change for the good.

Starting today (as part of Microsoft Ventures and my own personal investments) I pledge I will ensure that every startup (starting in India) has at least 15 if not 20% of the shares kept aside for early employees. I also want to make sure that the shares do get granted to employees. Finally I also will make sure that our portfolio will share the wealth with the employees as well. I understand that means we might have to take a haircut on valuations or even reduce our ownership. So be it.

If any of our co-investors do not agree to our model for equitable employee contribution, we will not do the deal.

Be the change.

Other

How can we change the format and structure of #startup events in #India

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I had a chance to see the agenda for 6 startup events that are taking place over the next 2 months. NASSCOM Product conclave, TIE Con Delhi, TechCrunch India and 3 other media events by local folks.

As part of our work at the accelerator we also track the top 137 key “startup speakers” in India. Just so we know who the most frequent, popular and the most sought after speakers are.

Here’s the headline. The same 35 – 40 folks are speaking at all these events. Its almost as if we have run out of ideas in terms of speakers. There are possibly 2-3 reasons for this I think. One, event organizers feel if they get a top name speaker, then the attendees have a reason to come. Two, they probably do not want to “upset” the important folks so we end up having panels of 5-6 people on a 30 min slot and by the time we finish intros and a 2 min spiel by each panelist, we are done. Third, we really dont have too many articulate, insightful speakers so they same names come up all the time.

The second part of the problem is the format and structure of the event. There is a “same-ness” to every one of these – panels, reverse pitches, fireside chats. Throw in 10 “startup pitches” a-la American Idol and you have a $100K profit event.

Most of these events are fairly formulaic, now it seems. Throw in a few ecosystem partners, you will be guaranteed about 300-500 attendees and most likely this event is churning at the low end $50K to $100K or more if the event is larger.

While many event organizers will tell you this is what folks are asking for and signing up for, they are also looking for fresh ideas on how to change the format.

I think the number of events is going to increase not decrease in India because most folks running these events are making good money. While I used to think that 50% of the folks attending these events are the same that appear in each event, I have been told otherwise. Many of the folks (over 50%) are putting their toe into entrepreneurship and looking at ways to network with prime movers who are those 30+ speakers I mentioned above.

I would love to get some ideas on both topics and formats that you think we should experiment on.

P.S. I am as guilty as the others in helping program manage some of these events or help put the structure together for these, so I am as much a part of the problem. Which is why seeking help possibly redeems me.

Personal

Is the bias against women in technology subliminal as well?

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I know I’ll get into trouble for writing this, but I dont know any other way than to write what I think. Sometimes I have thoughts that I feel bad about. This is one of those. I am hoping that writing this will help me remember and correct my bias. Although I dont think I have a bias, I think I am trying to be politically correct in speech but my own thoughts need better refinement.

I have always considered women and men alike when it comes to technology of all sorts. There may be fewer women in tech, but most all of the women I have worked with (I have had 3 women managers as well) were as good as the men I worked with.

So before I got into my bias (or perceived bias) I have to say I am a big fan of Marissa Mayer.

This morning I read Marissa Mayer’s Tumblr post on their new logo. I read it in its entirety and was pretty thrilled with its content, and she did a great job on the storytelling. After I read it though, I wondered if the CEO of a large company like Yahoo should have spent so much of her time on the logo. My first reaction after that was, imagine if she spent that time in front of customers convincing them to spend more on Yahoo ads. Or with the product team on a new feature.

Then I remembered later in the day reading Vic Gundotra’s blog post on Steve Job’s icon ambulance a few years ago. I remember being very impressed with the line

CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday.

Then I wondered if I was as biased as everyone else.

Is it that she’s a woman, so I trivialized her obsession on the Logo and font? Versus Steve Jobs obsession of almost the same thing?

I dont know. I hate to think the answer is yes.

I felt awful for quite a bit thinking about this. I thought it was better to write this down than fight the daemons in my head.

Its okay for you to judge, but I would say that I have never felt that I have the bias ever.

Personal

How to be affectionate – From a shining example of one

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My mom passed away last Friday. She was 65. She suffered from a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage caused by the rupture of an aneurysm in her brain. She was an amazing woman – and I am not just saying that because she was my mom. From reading the many messages that were sent to me and my sister over the weekend the one word that comes to mind about my mom consistently is, affection. She was the most affectionate person I have ever known – and to everyone she met, interacted with or had a chance to talk to.

She was born in a small town near Srirangam, and was one of 5 siblings. The only daughter to my grandparents, she was a twin. She has a younger brother as well, and the older brothers doted on her. There was nothing my mom wanted that she did not get from her family. Her dad was a functionary executive at a local temple, a very well read, endearing and disciplined man. My granddad would claim that my mom was the most-loved person in all of Trichy.

Most people make fun of me when they mention someone by name and I immediately find a connection with them – they are a friend of a friend, or a distant relative, or a college buddy or another remote connection – that’s my mom in me. She’d always have a connection.

Even if you have not heard of the term “people person”, before – close your eyes for a few minutes and think about what images come to mind, when you hear that word. You may have never met my mom, but most of the qualities & images that you associate with that word when your eyes were closed, would define mom. She was the original “people person”.

My parents were married in Trichy in the early 70’s. Dad was an urban city “Bombay” type and mom was from a traditional village. They moved to Bombay soon after the wedding and it took my mom several years to adjust to the hectic pace of the large city. She craved always to know everyone and took great pains to connect with as many people as she could even in the large city of Bombay.

There are 3 things that defined my mom – her immense belief in god and the power of prayer, her generosity and her love for music.

She would manifest her affection towards all people she met by one or all of these ways.

It would never take her too long to make you feel comfortable – many of my friends know her as a very welcoming, always supportive and easy to humor mom. I know many a time when we’d come home late at night after pretending to be “studying” together, when she’d wake up and make a full 3-5 course meal for all of us – from scratch – in less than the time it took us to wash ourselves!

One day a friend had come over to study with me at home. His parents were going through a rough patch and we had our exams in a few days. He went to to same school and grade as I did though, my mom had never met him or his parents. That did not matter though. The next few days he was told to concentrate on studying, while he was clothed, fed and sheltered from goings-on at his home, by my mom. She did not judge him or his parents, nor did she question. She just helped him get on his feet.

Prayer was one of the other ways that she showed you that she loved you and cared for you. I know a few of my cousins who believed her prayer was more powerful than any of the people they knew. I know of many other folks have mentioned that if she prayed, god would make it happen. After all, she prayed so much and so often and asked so little for herself, that god would keep all his reserve credits towards anything she asked for. I remember she would even pray for people she never knew. Simply because she that felt good things happened when you prayed.

Her generosity was another thing she was known for. Her generosity was selfless, all-encompassing and action-oriented. One of her core tenets was “paying it forward”. This was even before paying it forward was a meme.

I remember in 1987 a relative was suffering from immense pain, and mom traveled 8-9 hours by bus to take us to go and see them. All through the journey or the next few days, mom never mentioned to us that she was in severe pain her self, suffering through a very bad back. The only way we got to know about it was her favorite pain-killer – a heat rub, called Tiger balm, was finished by the time we got to the relative’s home. She’d  always think of you and do good for you. That, she herself, was in pain or need was largely ignored. The next 2 days she spent, in the kitchen, at our relatives home, cooking for her family, cleaning and helping out in many ways to ensure that she was able to rest through her pain, while my mom silently suffered through hers. She claimed that she was not in any pain, since she was serving others and their thanks were helping alleviate her pain.

She had no limits or bounds to her generosity either. From our help at home, to her relatives, to my own friends, my sisters or my dad’s friends, her generosity was all-encompassing. My dad would travel quite a bit during the 80’s and largely to Europe or the US. When he’d return, he would bring back loads of chocolates, clothes and stationary that in the 80’s, was largely not available in India very easily. My mom would first take about 40% – 50% of the stuff away and keep it aside for our help at home, relatives, her friends, friends-of-friends, an old lady, who lived next door to the neighbor of a friend, who she met 2 days ago. Then she would advice us to share the rest with our friends and folks that came home.

I remember distinctly a time when my dad bought her a very nice sari, which he wanted her to have. A relative came home that afternoon and loved that particular sari a lot. My mom gave it to her without any hesitation. When my dad came home that evening and asked her why she did that, she said, “I think she would look nicer in that sari”. Yes, she was that selfless.

Most every time she asked us for any money, it was because she wanted to give it to someone else. Another of her core tenets was “The more you give, the more you will get”. I dont think any of us comprehended it at that time, but looking back, we have been immensely blessed with simply because my mom gave away a lot.

Her generosity was also very action-oriented – not in words alone. She would do things – cook and feed you, pray for you or give you stuff to ameliorate your suffering. When she used her words, you would recognize her sincerity and motherly instinct immediately. Her way to show that she cared was to remove one of the things that was bothering you and do it herself, without either your help or direction.

Besides prayer and cooking, one of her life’s biggest passions was music. I remember my aunts and uncles telling me that she was a very accomplished singer and a person with a very sweet voice.  You did not need to ask her twice to sing – another thing I got from her (minus the sweet voice). She tried her best to get my sister and I into Carnatic classical music, but I guess that gene we picked up from my dad. Were were interested and eager, but were not blessed with the same innate music sense my mom was. She would travel wide and far to hear young artists, encourage them, buy season passes to their concerts, attend a few and then give the rest away.

You may have never met my mom, but in many ways you know her, because I suspect everything I have told you about my mom is like your mother as well. She was the most amazing living embodiment of mom that god ever created. I suspect your mom is the same. So, talk to her. That was the only thing she’d ask me for. “Call me”, she’d say. This text message, facebook stuff is not enough. I have to hear your voice. I can tell if you are in pain or you are happy just by listening to your voice over the phone she’d say.

So, to honor my mom I thought I’d help you – over the next couple of days I am going to write a blog post on a list of 101 things to talk to your mom about. Just stuff that I wished I talked to her more about. If you have a suggestion or two, drop me a note. More than anything, talk to your mom. Your mom would be happy you called (regardless of time or day) and so would my mom.

P.S. I know many of you tried calling me, emailing me or text messaging me. I thank you for it. I dont know how to deal with losing my mom – so I dont want to talk to you over the phone. I dont feel it is cathartic. That’ my way of dealing with it. So, if you want to know what happened, please read my blog post. If there’s a story of my mom you remember, please drop me a note. I may not reply, because I’d probably cry some more when I read it.

Management, Research

The Market cap, revenue & profit correlations of top technology companies

4 Comments

Fortune has a post on the “market cap” problem for Steve Ballmer. During the period from Jan 7th 2000 to Aug 23rd 2013 here is the change in market capitalization of the top technology companies.

1. Apple – 1836.30%

2. Amazon – 222.22%

3. Google – 703.44%

4. IBM – 70.7%

Those are the winners. Now for the ones that lost in market cap.

1. Cisco – (54.13%)

2. Intel – (46%)

3. ORCL (70.21%) and

Microsoft itself is (40.46%).

That only tells you half the story.

Lets look at revenues:

1. Apple – 1861.3% increase

2. Amazon – 12118% increase

3. Google – 55389% increase

4. IBM – 18.2% increase

5. Cisco – 143.3% increase

6. Intel – 58.1% increase

7. Oracle – 266.4% increase

8. Microsoft – 222.9% increase

Here is the table.

 Profit Growth % 2000 – 2013 2000 Revenue 20013 Revenue Revenue Growth % Stock price %
Apple  3046% 7.98 B 156.51 B 1861.3 1836.30%
Google  736000% 19 m 55.39 B 55389.0 703.44%
Amazon  2948% 573.89 m 61.09 B 12118.0 222.22%
IBM  46% 88.4 B 104.5 B 18.2 70.70%
Microsoft  (45%) 22.9 73.73 B 221.9 -40.46%
Intel  284% 33.73 B 53.34 B 58.1 -46%
Cisco  73% 18.93 B 46.06 B 143.3 -54.14%
Oracle  (4%) 10.13 B 37.12 B 266.4 -70.21%

What’s the story? The revenue increase for Apple has been excellently rewarded, Google and Amazon have also been well rewarded but they have done better and been rewarded less. No clue on why IBM stock has done well despite the lower growth in revenues compared to everyone else.