RK's blog

Updates

2011-07-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

Last few months have been very busy. Here is a long pending update.

Saatvik: Yogitha and I are blessed with a baby boy. Saatvik was born on May 26th and he is nearly 7 weeks old now. They say that it is much easier with second kid. It sure is.

Keerthana: Keerthana is 3y 4m now and she started going to school. She must be enjoying it as she happily goes to school without complaints. She is taking a while to get adjusted to the addition to the family though.

Yogitha: Yogitha quit HP and is taking a break now. She will figure out what interests to pursue once Saatvik is a few months old.

Myself: Moved to Flipkart few months ago. I am into Analytics. To put it in a nut shell, Flipkart is aiming to become the Amazon.com of India. We are still very small but we have the potential to change the face of retail in India. I am enjoying my work and like the culture at Flipkart very much.

That is all for now.

Looking for a school for Kittu

2010-12-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

Pallavi had a post about tests and interviews for admitting her niece in a school and I commented about my experience.

Words of Wisdom

2010-12-16T01:00:00.001-08:00

"If you want to be the best tennis player in the world, you may start out trying and soon find out that it's hopeless—that other people blow right by you. However, if you want to become the best plumbing contractor in Bemidji, that is probably doable by two-thirds of you. It takes a will. It takes intelligence. But after a while, you'd gradually know all about the plumbing business in Bemidji and master the art. That is an attainable objective, given enough discipline. And people who could never win a chess tournament or stand in center court in a respectable tennis tournament can rise quite high in life by slowly developing a circle of competence—which results partly from what they were born with and partly from what they slowly develop through work."

Charlie Munger, Speech to USC Business School, 1994

Kittu - Vinayaka Chavithi

2010-09-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

More photos

Two And Half Years Old [Kittu Pics]

2010-09-05T02:43:00.000-07:00

More Photos

An interesting conversation with Kittu

2010-03-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

Even though Kittu's grandparents keep raving about every little thing that she says, Old Lady and I assume that those things are typical of a two year old and thats how kids are. That said I can't help but share this one:

Kittu was sweeping the floor with a broom and the following conversation ensued:

Grandma: "Kittu will you grow up to be a home maker like me, cleaning up the house, cooking food and doing dishes or will you grow up to be like your Mom and go to office"

Kittu: "Hmmm... Hmmm... I don't know yet. I will know later"

More photos

PS: Found an interesting TED talk about kids and creativity.

2010-01-26T08:24:00.000-08:00

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2010-01-10T00:13:00.000-08:00

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FYI: I moved to Bangalore

2009-12-29T00:11:00.001-08:00

Should have posted this earlier but here it goes anyway:

I moved to Bangalore two months ago. I joined SuccessFactors, an OnDemand Enterprise Software company. In Bangalore, we are a team of twenty plus now and we are steadily growing.

Today is Yogitha's last day at Microsoft, Hyderabad and she will be joining me in Bangalore shortly. Once in Bangalore, she will start looking for a job: she is looking to be an engineer in an embedded systems company (ex: ARM, AMD, Juniper, Broadcom etc)

SuccessFactors is in a temporary office on Airport Road and we'll shortly move to Koramangala. Once Yogitha finds a job and we know where her office will be, we'll find a place to live.

Kittu is currently with my in-laws at Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Bangalore. She joined a Montessori there three months ago. The Montessori started off with half-an-hour a day of school and gradually increased the hours three and half hours now. It is good place and Kittu likes it there.

Yogitha and I both like it here in Bangalore and we have now moved here for good.

Kittu December Photos

2009-12-19T21:57:00.000-08:00

More Photos

A financial goal on my bucket list

2009-12-15T08:53:00.000-08:00

DJ told me about the notion of Bucket List and I really liked the idea. While I always wanted to do a few things before I die, I never made a proper list. I am making one now.

And the first goal I want to write is a financial goal. If you look at 43Things.com, there are few often-used financial goals and a popular financial goal is to "become a millionaire".

While it is a popular goal, it doesn't really hold much meaning for any body. Think of it this way: is it a million because its a round figure? Or is it a million because that is what gets talked about?Does it have deeper personal meaning for you? As a goal, it offers way less for you than say "run a marathon" or "ask someone out" or "back pack through europe" do.

And I would like my financial goal to mean something to me. Luckily I have been thinking about being financially independent for a long time now and I have a personal financial goal. It isn't simple like "become a millionaire" but it holds tremendous appeal to me. Before I can explain what my goal is I need to describe something called a claim check:

Claim Check (n)	1. A receipt for property that you have claim to.
	2. A numbered receipt or part of a ticket given to a passenger for claiming his baggage at the destination.

And the following quote gives a good sense of how I want to use the word "claim check":

The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It’s like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption -- Warren Buffett

And my goal is to:

"Collect Claim Checks Worth 50 Years of Consumption": The idea is to have enough claim checks that can be converted to consumption for next fifty years. It isn't catchy like "become a millionaire" but it serves me well. By the time I reach this I probably won't have 50 years to go and I can choose to stop working if I don't feel like it and start doing things that I really want to.

Kittu's Photo By Dharma

2009-12-05T01:40:00.000-08:00

Keerthana is 20 years old and is

2009-11-24T06:19:00.000-08:00

- Healthy and happy.
- Participates in a physical activity, like swimming etc.
- Independent and strong.
- Friendly, thoughtful and personable.
- Confident about the decisions she makes, or is learning to make the right decisions as she grows older.
- Understands the value of education and is pursuing her Bachelor’s.
- Aware that she has to become financially independent.
- Knows that she needn't restrict herself to mainstream vocations.
- Spends her efforts on a few, well-chosen goals.
- Works on things she can control and isn’t bogged down by things she can’t.
- Values hard work over being smart.
- Optimistic, looks at the bright side of life.
- Very articulate, communicates extremely well.
- Intellectually curious.
- Prudent with money and financially savvy.
- Does not have the habit of watching television.

My sister Sony's wedding photos

2009-11-18T06:59:00.000-08:00

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Note from Prerana Montessori

2009-10-13T04:23:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Prerana

We strong believe that a vision is a starting point for any great task. Now that your child will spend a good part of his/her life in Prerana, we would be glad to have a parent with a vision for their child.

In view of this we request you to write about this vision for your child. In order to make your vision effective please follow this simple thought.

Assume that your child is twenty years old and has grown up under perfect conditions in all respects. Describe how your child is now?

This exercise is very important and we expect you to respond within next week.

Kittu Photos October

2009-10-13T04:19:00.000-07:00

More photos

Removed Disqus, Reverted to Bloggers Comment Template

2009-09-27T23:38:00.000-07:00

Kittu goes to Montessori

2009-09-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

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17 months+

2009-08-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

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Bought Sony Alpha 200. First set of photos

2009-07-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

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Dil Gira Dafatan

2009-05-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

Let me know if this happens to you.

You find some song you like and listen to it day-in and day-out for a week or so. And then you are sick of it and never want to listen to the song again.

It does to me.

Currently I doing that with Dil Gira Dafatan from Delhi 6

Senility

2009-04-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

A while back Vishal had couple of posts regarding zany behavior of someone he knows. I showed those posts to Old Lady and she felt that Vishal is being mean and a "bad person". I, on the other hand, felt that he was just telling it like it is.

Two plus years have gone by since then. Boy what a difference do they make! All our folks are older by couple of years. And with the arrival of Kittu, we are seeing more of them. Now Old Lady expresses the same feelings as Vishal.

Some folks were sound (e.g. My dad and old lady's mom) and they have become wiser and more understanding than ever. But the ones that were a bit zany have become a lot more so.

It is a source of amusement as well bit of an irritant. I guess that is how life is.

Kittu with Grandparents

2009-04-26T09:48:00.001-07:00

More photos...

14 Months Plus

2009-04-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

More Photos ...

Kittu's First Birthday

2009-02-18T08:54:00.000-08:00

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Kittu Pictures

2009-02-01T00:31:00.000-08:00

We stay very close to Botanical Gardens in Hyderabad. We have been staying here for nearly two years now but we went there for the first time only recently. Here are a few pictures of Kittu we shot there.

From Botanical Gardens

Interesting SMS

2008-10-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

I got an interesting SMS recently: "Your a/c has been credited Rs. 7425.51 RELIANCE MF BROK...". I am not sure any body would get what that means but it is one of the last remnants of the financial services start up thing that I did a few years ago.

It (& I) was a miserable failure and it is taking me a while to get past it. I will blog/write about it some time.

Kittu @ Pachapur

2008-09-29T08:26:00.001-07:00

Last month I was off for two weeks on paternity leave. We went to various places and Pachapur was our last stop. My father-in-law works for Bank of India and he is currently posted there. Here are a few photos of Kittu we took while we were in Pachapur.

Edit: "Father" changed to "Father-in-law". It was a typo.

Unusual Photography Tip

2008-09-09T04:02:00.000-07:00

You might have come across usual photography tips like "avoid blurry picture by using sturdy tripod", "use off axis flash to prevent red eye". They are nice and all but one can't put them to use unless one is photography buff.

I have an unusual photography tip if you could call it that.

In order to have a good photo album you can

a) take a large number of photos
b) include a few great ones in the album
c) and archive the rest.

More photos of Kittu

2008-08-14T05:16:00.000-07:00

(Photography by Arul, a professional photographer)

Picture ~ Thousand words

2008-08-07T21:17:00.001-07:00

Matthew Harding Dancing

2008-07-15T23:32:00.000-07:00

This is a must see: http://www.vimeo.com/1211060

Launching Microsoft Easy Assist

2008-07-11T03:11:00.001-07:00

I work on a product called Easy Assist and we released it on July 1st. This is my first release here and below is a pic of me standing infront of release poster in our campus:

Kittu's Various Names

2008-06-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

Kittu's Pictures

2008-06-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

Discussing on Disqus

2008-05-12T03:21:00.000-07:00

I am regular reader of news.ycombinator.com and I try out web apps that get built out of Y Combinator startups.

Disqus is one such and it improves on the blog comment experience by making it more of a discussion.

I have added it on my blog and am somewhat underwhelmed. With Disqus, commenting UI is a little different and I am afraid it might prevent some one from commenting.

I am going to keep Discus for a while because I have gotten these things wrong very often. Twitter is the most recent example:- I was thinking why would any one use this thing?. But then I saw it in use on Dharma's blog and only then I got it.

Checking out Discuss: Second Try

2008-05-12T03:02:00.001-07:00

Checking out Disqus

2008-05-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

I have added Disqus to my blog and I am making this post to see how disqus shows up in a post.

Keerthana Photo

2008-04-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

I went to Hospet for the long weekend.

Here is a pic of Keerthana (for more pics, follow the link):

From Hospet Bellar...

My Friendfeed ID: radhakrishna

2008-04-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

Twitter Widget In This Blog

2008-04-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

With people using tools like Google Reader to read blogs, I am not sure if anyone noticed the twitter widget added to my blog.

Well it's there and I update it more frequently because I can just write one liners.

Now with Friendfeed, I am not really sure whether I needed to add the twitter widget even. It gathers stuff for you and it is truly web 3.0. I'll create a profile/account on Friendfeed soon.

Bangalore Visit

2008-03-30T22:18:00.000-07:00

I went to Bangalore last weekend to find a new tenant. That didn't happen while I was there. It might have if I was willing to sit around the vacant flat but I didn't. I went to meet Sarveshwar and Jude instead.

I went to Sarveshwar's house on Saturday night. He recently took posession of his flat in L & T Southcity, good all the woodwork/furnishings done and moved in. It is spacious and is very a nice place and locality to stay. Here's a pic of Sarveshwar and Aparna in their new flat:

On Sunday I went to Jude's house for lunch. I also went with Jude to see the new Google office. It is really nice.

We lost track of time checking out the Google office and we left for the station a little late. Thanks to Jude's rally driver skills we reached the station with less than a minute to spare.

On the whole it was nice trip. I really miss Bangalore. All my social network is in Bangalore and I miss it very much.

Young Lady christened Keerthana (కీర్తన)

2008-03-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

Old Lady And Young Lady

2008-02-17T21:10:00.000-08:00

2008 Calender with Family Photos

2007-12-31T00:28:00.000-08:00

My sister Sony and I made 2008 Calender with photos of near and dear ones. Along with holidays, birthdays are highlighted. And where ever possible, ones photo is displayed in the month of ones birth.

Check it out:

You can view a higher-resolution version of the same here.

Laurel and Hardy

2007-12-28T00:45:00.000-08:00

Dharma is leaving for Vancouver on Jan 1st to join Microsoft. Another good friend Sai, ex-colleague at Trilogy is slowly recovering after having serious health problems.

So I went to Chennai last weekend to meet them and I am very glad that I did.

We met at Dharma's house and caught up on stuff. Then we went to Acsendas IT Park, hoping to meet Palani, Prasanna and other ex-Trilogians who are now working in Amazon located in that IT Park. We chatted some more while waiting for Prasanna & co to join us but it seems they were working on some high severity issues and couldn't make it.

Later Dharma's wife joined us and the four of us went to the Besant Nagar beach. We walked around for a while and went to Murugan Idli Shop for dinner. I dropped them home and called it a day.

The next two days I was mostly at my relatives place near Anna Nagar. I read Harmful Intent by Robin Cook and saw Taare Zameen Par with my cousin Serene.

Sunday afternoon, I left for Hyderabad.

All said and done, I had a peaceful, relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable three day weekend at Chennai.

PS: Jude was supposed to come too but he couldn't make it :-(

Spy vs Spiderman

2007-12-19T22:32:00.000-08:00

Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you understand it better, but the frog dies in the process.

- Mark Twain

Looking at Vamsi's comment to my previous post, I couldn't help but think that the point of Old Lady's comment was completely lost. Let me try to explain the joke without killing it in the process.

When you are kid, especially a boy, being a spiderman or being a superman are not fantasies, they are options.

Old lady's nephew, Pranay, is a perfect example. He is 5 years old and has grown up on Spiderman movies. Show him any ten random 10 scenes from Spiderman I, II and III and he can tell you which scene is from which movie in 3 seconds flat. When he was a little younger, he used to be think that he could grow up to be a Spiderman. His Grandma would sometimes call him Spiderman and he would feel all shy.

I think old lady was tyring to say that our kid would be probably want to be a spiderman instead of limiting himself to my somewhat practical fantasy of being a Jason Bourne like spy.

"Our kid will be a spy!"

2007-10-07T01:48:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Old Lady and I were watching The Bourne Ultimatum. The movie ended on thrilling note, I was very excited and said this to the Old Lady: "Our kid will be a spy!".

To which the old lady replied: "He would want to be a Spiderman first"

:-)

Movie Review: Thrilling Threquels

2007-10-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

I saw Rush Hour 3 during the last weekend and The Bourne Ultimatum during this one. I enjoyed both movies. They give you what you expect of them.

Rush Hour 3 is entertaining with simple story, crazy stunts by Jackie Chan, stupid goofs by Chris Tucker and in general clean fun. Every one has come to expect the clippings of failed takes at the end of a Jackie Chan movie and you get them too.

Here is one such:
Jackie Chan (in a senti scene): "You are not my brother"
Chris Tucker : "Man! You say this after Rush Hour 1 and Rush Hour 2?!"

:-)

Bourne Ultimatum is a really good action thriller. Good acting, amazing action sequences and a gripping story line; very thrilling and it doesn't let up until the end. The back ground score is awesome and it adds a lot to the tempo of the movie. It is not just the thrill-a-minute action that was great about the movie, the questions of the first two movies are answered and the story reaches a meaningful conclusion.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and it is a must watch, if you ask me. If you liked Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy, there is no way you would want to miss this.

The Sivaji I Know :-)

2007-09-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

Googlewhacking by Dave Gorman

2007-09-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

I recently saw a recording of Dave Gorman's Googlewhacking; a solo performance, something he calls Documentary Comedy.

It has very little to do with Google and a lot to do with Gorman's tendency to procrastinate, his penchant in converting trivial things to weird
quests in general and the time and money he spent pursuing one such
quest based on Googlewhacking.

Gorman is a quirky individual and the whole saga is very surreal. Surreality notwithstanding, Gorman is quite the raconteur and his narration makes the quirky experience a performance that is a non-stop riot for two hours.

It is a must see. Find a copy and watch it. I can loan you mine, if you are in Hyd.

A poem

2007-08-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Gunjan, a good friend of ours at Microsoft, forwarded this to us in response to the 80% of Babies are Accident post. Old lady and I found it very apt :-)

Surprise

As I write this I am aware
of Feelings Deep of How Much I care

You grow inside me little heart beating strong
though I had my doubts I now know it's not wrong

You weren't planned but now I know
how much you are wanted as each day you grow

I pray for your health I ask God each day
to let you be healthy in every way

You aren't an accident you're not a mistake
you're the best of surprises two people could make!

New phone numbers

2007-08-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

RK's Number += 0051000000
Old Lady's Number += 0004000000

PS: The original idea for this post is from Dharma

80% of babies are accidents*

2007-07-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

* - Quote from Discovery channel as heard by the old lady.

Well, I am not sure how accurate that statistic is but it is 100% accurate in our case. There is no baby yet but there is going to be one in, say, seven months time.

Old lady and I very unsure of what to make of it when weren't sure of the pregnancy. Both of us dream of accomplishing something through our efforts and have never felt that we have done enough to realize our potential except in small bursts (say IIT Preparation or working really really hard after a horrible semester). Given that aspiration, a baby was always couple of years away.

Once we started suspecting pregnancy but weren't sure of it; we were confused and worried about out what it would mean to our dreams. After we got an ultra sound scan done, saw the tiny heart beats we started to accept it and now are looking forward to the baby.

Both of us will have to figure out how this would affect our imagined lives but I am sure a pleasant picture will evolve.

Vincerò!

2007-06-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this video of a contestant singing in the first round of Britain's Got Talent, British version of American Idol.

I have watched the clip over and over and for some strange reason, Paul Potts' (the contestant) rendition of the opera is very inspiring.

Even more inspiring is the story of his struggle to become an operatic singer: working over time for years on end to pursue his dream, almost giving up on it because of repeated failures and ill health and finally achieving his dream as he completely blew away the skeptical judges and went on to win the contest.

Do watch the clip

My rating for Canon service : Outstanding

2007-06-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

I bought Canon A75 Digicam in Dec 2004 and it recently stopped working: the LCD screen is always black and the pictures are also black. The pictures I took before this happened show up fine. I found the address of Canon Service Center in Hyderabad from Canon website and went there last Saturday.

I gave the camera to the Service Technician and he looked at for a half a minute and this is what followed:

Service Technician: "A part named CCD which captures images has failed"

Me: "Ok. How can we fix that?"

Service Tech: "You need to replace it"

Me: "Ok. How much would that cost?"

Service Tech: "It's free"

Me (slightly incredulous) : "But I don't have bill" (I bought it in US 2.5 years ago and the bill is long gone)

Service Tech: "Doesn't matter. We replace it free of cost. But it will take 4 weeks. Fill this form and include your phone number, we'll call you when it is done."

I was pleasantly surprised about the whole thing. I used to recommend Canon to anyone who asked my opinion because their cameras fillout more than 60-70% of top 5/top 10 camera list at www.dpreview.com. Now I would doubly recommend a Canon because of the great service.

Found 2BHK

2007-05-27T23:43:00.000-07:00

After a week of running around the Hitech City area, we finally found a good 2 BHK flat at a reasonable rent. We did Pooja on Friday morning and moved in with minimal stuff.

Last four months have been very disorganized as I was living at my parents house. Although I don't feel like a guest, I don't really feel at home either. I am looking forward to some breathing space at the new house.

Having run around looking for a house and exploring unknown localities, I have noticed something. Tell me if this happens to you. When looking for an address in a locality you are unfamiliar with, the amount of unnecessary distance travelled increases in orders of magnitude as you change your mode of transport from walking to bike to car.

a) If you are walking, after every 20 metres you stop and ask for instructions. You are acutely aware of every little side street, small road signs and if you feel lost, you just stop and look around and figure out where to go.

b) If you are on two-wheeler, you still experience the things around you but tend to not the apply the brakes and continue to coast while you get your bearings.

c) If you are in a car, you are cruising along, everything is moving in frames like on TV and that one particular building which was supposed to be there, isn't. You think it may be there further along the road and before you know you are a kilometre away from the building and it could take another kilometre before you accept that you missed it ;-)

The Namesake

2007-05-17T03:20:00.000-07:00

I couldn't post for a while because

a)Work is caching up (finally!)
b)Busy with house search given that the old lady has accepted the offer and joined Qualcomm this Monday.

The Namesake

I went to The Namesake with family couple of weeks ago and it was a washout.

I think the vague hints of "NRIs" and "Indian diaspora" bring vi$ion$ of dollar$ for the NDTV types and they gleefully start hyping it up. So was the case with The Namesake. I would like to think I am impervious to their spin but I guess I am not. Sometimes I buy into it and have remorse later.

I didn't like the movie. I didn't like the story, whatever there was of it. Well, it goes here and there but doesn't end up anywhere. I didn't like the gratitous lip-locks, love-scenes and general display of skin. The thing I disliked the most were the shrill audio tracks. Some random sound track or the other is playing in the background and they are played so loudly that one wouldn't consider them to be in the 'background'.

Not only the movie was only so-so, the old lady and I have come around to the view that Mira Nair is overrated. It is not just this one movie that we couldn't connect with. Bend it like Beckham was OK, again not worth the hype. So is the case with Monsoon Wedding and Fire.

You could say, 'What are you cribbing about? It is not the normal masala movie". I agree it isn't the normal masala movie. But a movie can't be great on that alone right? Have you seen Dor? It is also a jara-hatke movie but it has simple story and that is told really well, the acting is superb, music is soulful, the denouement is a pleasant surprise. Dor is, as they say, a must-watch.

Riya shuts down India operations

2007-05-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

Riya decided to shutdown India operations last week. Munjal wrote about it in his blog post here.

I left Riya only a couple of months before and when I learnt about this change I had mixed feelings about it. Would I have been made an US offer? Would I have been let go? What ever the case might have been I can't feel good/bad now because I didn't know it was going to happen.

If I were with Riya, I would have been happy if the offer was reasonable and my newly married life could accomodate the change. If I was let go, it would suck but these things happen and I would not have been to sad about the whole thing for more than a day or so.

My advice for people who were let go is: "these things happen, don't take it to heart, I know you are an awesome engineer/researcher, ping me if you think I can help"

I got in touch Rahul, MS Recruiter and he setup interviews for Nikhil and Sandeep. I couldn't do more because currently there are only senior level openings at MS. The only other place I know is Trilogy but so many techies are leaving Trilogy, I am not sure it is the right place to go.

Unrelated note:
I have added links to Pallavi's and Madhur's blog.

a) Pallavi is a software engineer in Riya and an ex-collegue of mine. She is a gult, conservative and very hardworking. We worked together on a project for couple of months at Riya.

b) Madhur Dixit is colleague of mine in MS. We work in the same team (Live Meeting) but we don't really work together because it is a huge project. He is an IITM Alum and hence he was the first person I talked to regarding the work in Live Meeting before I made the decision to join MS.

Old Lady's Job Search

2007-04-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

I am very happy to say that Old Lady got a job offer from Qualcomm, Hyderabad. If she accepts the offer, we will soon be looking for a 1 or 2 BHK in Madhapur, Kondapur, Miyapur areas. The closer to high tech city the better. Rents in Hyderabad have shot up too and we may have to pay up to 12k for a decent 2 BHK.

Responses to comments for my previous post

There was an anonymous comment asking for reasons for failure of my venture. I do have some thoughts and I wanted to write about them for quite a while. I can't it put it off any longer because:

a) Explicit request from anonymous commentor.
b) Move from Riya to Microsoft is huge change in work environment: Several things I came to witness and experience in Riya make perfect sense in a startup environment and I would like to put them down in writing for my own sake before I start getting used to Microsoft and forget all about the startup spirit.

That said, I need a few weekends to put it together because it isn't as simple as saying the equivalent of "vini, vidi, vici".

From Jude's comment to my previous post, it looks like I am not the only one feeling left out of the startup phenomena. If you read the articles by Paul Graham, you'd feel even more inclined to start something of your own. He has written several articles about starting up (funding a startup, ideas for startup, etc.). Believe it or not, he has even written one about why it is a bad idea to not start a startup!

Startup excitement in Bangalore

2007-04-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

I was in Bangalore the last two weekends and learnt that lots of ex-Trilogians are starting up:

  Sarveshwar, Deepak and co.: Travel related
  Vinay Gupta, Amit Agarwal, Harsh Azad and co.: Travel related
  Pranav and Anand: Services (Starting with Trilogy outsourcing)
  TN Satish: Services (Starting with Trilogy outsourcing)
  Karan Nahata and others: Services.
  Amit Arora and Soumen Basu: Services.

For a short while I felt that I am missing this excitement because I am in Hyderabad and can't be involved in general startup conversations and the initial brain storming sessions. But it is not a now or never situation and I am confident of going the start up way again some time in the next five years.

The old lady is also interested in doing something on her own but she feels she isn't ready yet and may need a couple of years time. I'd be glad to support her and will be happy to take care of household chores so that she can concentrate on her venture.

A while ago I invested a little in CarWale, Ion Capital Services and India Equity Fund managed by Roshan. CarWale and Roshan's Fund are doing well.

  CarWale is getting popular and is becoming the defacto car information site for the Indian Car Buyer. Do check out Carwale

  Roshan is smart guy, he is doing a decent job managing the fund and one could consider investing with him. I do.

   Ion Capital: I think their fundamental premise is flawed and it wouldn't work.

Sign Language

2007-04-09T01:14:00.000-07:00

Yogitha is "pained" with my mentioning of her name in my blog. So until further notice, Yogitha will be referred to as "the Old Lady" :-)

Sign Language
I am not sure if this happens to other couples: It is 9 AM in the morning and both of you are still in bed and don't want to open your mouth and talk because of bad breath. So you develop sign language to convey whatever you need to convey. Here are some common gestures the Old Lady and I use:

"I have work to do" ---> Typing on Imaginary Keyboard
"I have to go now" --> Walking action with index finger and middle finger.
"What time is it?" --> Pointing to imaginary wrist watch and making a question mark gesture,
"Just 10 minutes" ---> Showing all 10 fingers and pleading face :-)

Yogitha's Pic

2007-04-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

A anonymous commenter (a friend or an acquitance I think) has requested for a picture of Yogitha. And I am going to take this as an opportunity to embarras her by posting a "This-is-the-bride" photo they take at the weddings.

There are also the "This-is-the-groom", "Bride-And-Groom-Together" photos that wedding photographers take and make you sit in all kind of awkward poses (turn in this direction; tilt your head; hand below chin etc etc)

The "Bride-And-Groom-Together" photo is also known as the "Grandma-and-Grandpa" photo because these will be the photos they show your grand children to show them that once upon a time you had hair on your head :-)

300:Duped by Hype

2007-03-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

Yogitha was in Hyderabad last week. Yogitha, Sony (my younger sister) and I went to movie 300. It was good that we could go out to Hyderabad Central, dine at a nice restaurant after the movie and could talk about this and that whole evening but the movie itself was a bad idea. I have to confess it was my stupid idea, I bought too much into the hype and took them to the movie and I didn't enjoy it much.

It is true that 300 is a visual feast but there is something missing. All the macho speak fell flat for me and the movie didn't work for me. I wouldn't recommend going to a movie theatre to watch it.

Moving on to other things: Yogitha interviewed with Microsoft and she didn't make it. It is not a big deal because
a) Some times success/failure at interview doesn't correlate with your ability to do the job (it works both ways: you could successful interview but you don't do well or you suck at the interview but you could have done the job well)
b) Not everybody could do everything and it isn't bad if you can't clear an MS interview. Yogitha's manager is happy with her work at Sasken and I am sure she'll find a suitable job as a software developer in some good company in Hyderabad and she'll be a productive employee.

One more thing: I am not sure about how ethical it is to modify a post but I feel the previous post is tool long for a blog and I will modify it to a small post with a link to the entire content hosted somewhere else.

That is all I have for now.

Are you watching Cricket?

2007-03-19T03:51:00.000-07:00

I am not. While I can't escape the constant buzz of cricket programming and news, I am not following it with any interest other than
  a) coming across cricket programming while channel surfing
  b) glancing the headlines while getting my daily tennis news fix on the sports page.

There are too many things about Cricket that I don't like and I can't enjoy it much.

A game, not a sport: I always felt that Cricket is a stupid game. Not sure you could call it a sport. You can definitely call Tennis a sport; Soccer: Yes, it's a sport. Cricket: Is it a sport? Not sure. It is only a game. A capricious one at that.

Can't root for the team: There is no point getting emotionally invested in the Indian team and fancying its chances of winning the World Cup when you are more worried about an embarassing loss than you are excited about a decent win.

Whacky Fans: After a recent loss, people picketted Sehwag's house and burnt his effigy. Well, that is an extreme case and not every one is so radical but even normal sane people do stuff like this: "I shouldn't go to the loo in between overs. If I do, India might lose. I'd better watch these ads and hold it until half-time." What is it about Cricket that makes people do stuff like this?

And then there are these stupid numberological theories to prove why India will win this time. I am not sure who creates these but they popup just before the world cup every single time. An example would be:
"   1975 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)
   1979 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)
   1983 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)
   1987 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)
   1991 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)
   1995 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)
   1999 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)
   2003 = Captain's (Initials + DOB + City of Birth)

   DOB : Date of Birth.
   Captain : The winning team's captain.

   In 2007, this fits for Indian teams captain. So we are definitely going to win it this time!!!"

Marketing/Advertising circus: Cricket is a tailor made for advertising. It takes a day to play the game and there are tons of breaks during the game. Several long breaks (tea/drinks, lunch) and there is a break after every over. So they get to show an ad roughly every couple of minutes.

And even within an over, there is no play happening when the ball is dead. During this time advertisers popup epiliptic-fit inducing sliding graphic/banner/ticker ads.

Consider this quote from Kunal Dasgupta, Sony TV (official broadcaster): "The entire format of the 2007 World Cup is flawed. In a 48-day tournament, if a team like Pakistan is already out for playing bad cricket in two matches, there is something really wrong. We were against this format and even told the ICC to reconsider it. But they refused.

Now that Pakistan is out, the fun of an India-Pakistan Super 8 match is gone. And if India lose another group match, the Cup will be the biggest flop in India and advertisers will lose value of their investments and we may also lose money even after selling all slots"

WTF?? Two teams have beaten Pakistan fair and square and this idiot is complainingg about the format because there will be lesser number of viewers to lap up all the ads he wants to show. In this moron's view, there is no notion of "may the better team win". He paid bazillion crores for the telecast rights and he has to make gazillion bazillion crores from it.

To generate more buzz these guys include Video footage/photos of 1983 world cup in cricket related programming. They even interview some cricketers from the 1983 team to make it more grand.

I won't surprised if in 2027 we are still shown the 1983 video footage. The only difference would be that there would be fewer members of the 1983 around and in the interview they'd be shown sitting in an easy chair on their patio with the walking stick beside them. You can clearly see that they are amused by the fact that it's nearly 50 years now and we still haven't won the cup after their sole win.

Cricket Punditry: The one thing that I hate the most regarding cricket is the cricket punditry. I can't stand Krishnamachary Srikanth. Same goes for Sidhu. And a bunch other pundits and their commentary. I can't understand quotes like :

"It is a good toss to win"

What does it really mean? Are there a bad tosses to win? or Are there good tosses to lose? If there is no reason to win a toss, there is not reason to toss is there?

I am reminded of a terrific Seinfeld quip: "Look he is pointing his toes, he must be great athlete" Thats how most of the cricket commentary appears to me.

Sourav Ganguly vs. Rest Of The World arguments:
This one has high entertainment value. There are these Sourav Ganguly vs. Rest of the World-type passionate hallway arguments that could devolve into fist-fights if saner heads don't prevail.

I'm sure there are million other wierd things about cricket and I can go on and on about them. I'd rather congrulate Bangladesh on comprehensively defeating India and leave it at that.

I'd prefer to think about why Federer lost to Guillermo Canas in
Pacific Life Open and what that means to his Grand slam chances.

Seinfeld type observation

2007-02-22T00:12:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed that auto drivers use horn when they need to use the brake?

I am travelling quite bit on my bike these days going to office and coming back, it is 25km one way and it takes nearly an hour to reach my destination. Today morning I was driving to office and I had to slow down as there was red-light ahead and a bunch of vehicles were also waiting at the signal. An auto guy was driving behind me and he is also approaching the same signal. But then he sees me slowing down and also the other vehicles that are waiting, and what does he do? He honks!

I am not sure what thought process behind the honking is. Actually I am not sure there is any thought involved, it is sort of like a reflex action:

"Hmm... the distance between me and the vehicle(s) in front me is decreasing...i gotta honk. well, that didn't help... let me continue honking and may be apply the brakes as well"

Past few months

2007-02-12T03:35:00.000-08:00

Life was very hectic and I couldn't blog for the past few months. So this blog post will only be updates [otherwise it will bore you to death. Well, even with updates it might bore you ;-) ]

1. August: Yogitha and I got married. Marriage was in Bangalore and we had reception in Hyderabad as well. We didn't go for a honeymoon or anything.

We had known each other for six years and we didn't really feel that we need to time off to get to know each other.
More importantly we wanted wanted to save the vacation and use it in three or four smaller breaks (4 or 5 days) as opposed to one long stretch of 10-15 days.

We setup our home after that. I'm congenitally kanjoos and I didn't let anyone (parents & in-laws) buy much stuff except for a few things that we absolutely need to have(Rice cooker, Gas stove, Grinder, New Bedsheets etc) . Marriage, Reception and setting up home took a week and I went back to work in last week of August.

2. September, October, November: Life at Riya got even more hectic. Riya was releasing a new product and it needed to be done well before the holiday season. For 3 months or so, Pallavi (Software Engineer in Riya) and I worked on setting up the engineering infrastructure for processing and building similarity search indexes for millions of products. It was mad scramble to get the release done in time. Finally on Nov 8th we launched a cool new product called Like.com. Like.com is visual shopping comparision site. You can browse for things you like and then search based on "likeness". It is really cool. Do check it out.

3. December and Janaury: I moved to the UI team headed by an extremely nice and hard working chinese guy named Dan Chiao. I worked on the various UI features.

Backend tools that control the site content (Celebrities, Trends, HotPicks)
The color picker functionality. (I enjoyed doing this. Can you figure out how it works? Checkout the color picker and let me know if you can tell.)
The site map.
The likelist functionality. [Div with miniature icons, user login/registration popup, likelist page]
Various other miscellanious UI stuff and bug fixes.

Not much learning here as did the same thing day-in and day-out at Trilogy for couple of years but it was really fun because I get to brag about it (like I am doing right now ;-) I have to add that Dan and Sajan (Web designer) provided a lot of help while I was developing those features.

I enjoyed this UI gig quite a bit but on the negative side life became unbearably hectic. The reason being weekly releases and the fact that UI is the last thing that gets done before the release.

4. Mini-break in between christmas and New year's eve. We visited parents Hyderabad and relatives in Gangavathi, Karnataka. We also went to Hampi from Gangavathi on a bike. That was really nice.

5. Leaving Riya: I left Riya on Feb 2 and I joined Microsoft on Feb 5 and I am just getting used to the new environment. While it is too early to write much about Microsoft, Hyderabad my first impressions are very positive. Campus is nice, food is great (take that with pinch of salt coz i'm kinda easy to please w.r.t food) and the facilities (pool tables, foos ball tables, tt tables, tennis court, gym) are totally awesome. Do ping me if you are in Hyderabad and I'd be happy to take around the campus.

6. Yogitha: Yogitha is still in Bangalore and is currently serving here notice period at Sasken. She is staying with her parents. One nice thing to note: Yogitha got promoted to Senior Software Engineer last month.

Those are all the updates I have for now. I hope to post again soon.

Another post: Important info :-)

2006-08-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to make this post for a while now but couldn't get around to doing it. This was lying as a draft all this while.

Anyway here it goes. I got married to Yogitha on August 12th. Some of you might already know Yogitha. She is a software engineer working with Sasken. We have known each other for nearly six years now and have been together on & off all this while.

Marriage was on 12th August late night in Bangalore and a reception/lunch the next afterrnoon. Yogitha and I were kind of ambivalent about inviting friends because we won't be able to spend any time with them but I guess it is not the done thing. So went around and invited friends we've know over the past several years. I have done that in the last couple of days before marriage. I should have done it earlier but I guess I screwed up.

My parents stay in Hyderabad so we had another reception in Hyderabad on 15th August.

Well after the I got really busy with work. Only now I am have some spare time to settle down now that the release is done and the site is launched. More about that in next post.

New look

2006-06-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Following photos were taken at a Riya Farewell party. It was couple weeks after I joined. I was still depressed and was unshaven/unkempt. New look for me.

You can click the photos to go Riya site and see the photos in higher resolution. Check out Riya site too. It is kinda cool.

Hello Everyone, I'm back (kinda)

2006-06-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

I guess this is long overdue. Hmmm, I can't explain the whole story in one shot so I'll just say whatever comes to my mind right now. I'll keep adding to it in future posts.

Well, since mid-Jan I was pretty depressed about the whole thing for a long while and felt really useless and didn't feel like doing anything. I couldn't make sense of it and didn't want to think about it all for a quite a while.

Luckily for me, I got a call from Dharma asking me whether I would like to join Riya. While I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, the interviewing process took a life of its own and I got a job at Riya. I wasn't sure I wanted to join or not, how I'll perform if I did join. Anyway I did join because there was nothing else to do and kinda surprised myself with the amount of enthusiasm with which I got back to work. It was back to work with a vengeance so to speak. In the same frenzy, I got promoted as well. Slowly I am getting to be myself but I am not there yet. And there are lot of loose ends that need to tied. It will take a while I guess.

Well, that is all for now. Will post more soon.

Dharma, Jude, Danny, Deepa, Sai, Daddy aka A.A : thanks for your support.

Happy New Year :-)

2006-01-14T22:48:00.000-08:00

I guess this a little late but here it goes anyway:

Wish you a happy and prosperous new year.

I Screwed Up:

Regardless of what the blog counter says I wasn't sure if any one is reading my blog and was glad when an Anonymous asked how is it going. It is going great and for a long while I was depressed and frustrated. I still am but I am doing something about it now. I wasn't a while ago.

A brief outline on what happened, the current state and future plans.

December was the month when we started full-fledged sales activity and once the sales started we are way off the mark. Nandan left Cressida in December due to personal reasons and I realised I can't turn it around on my own. We needed to downsize and I didn't face upto it for quite some time. I was in a deep funk and wasn't doing anything. I am slowly acting on this now and we'll be 2/3 people working once it is fixed. End of next week is ETA.

Future Plans:

1. Can I do it? This screw up has corroded my self-belief and I need to answer this question. Well, let me figure this out. I already don't like some of points it brings up.

2. CAT Coaching: I have signed up with IMS to be a Quant/DI Teacher. This would help me earn my living instead of living on the money inherited from my previous job. It will also help me understand the business. If you remember my list of ideas, the second one was CAT Coaching.

3. Going back to job: I have not ruled this out but I guess if I do go back to a job that would be when I tell myself : "Ok, I don't think I can do it. I give up"

4. Looking for (a) partner(s): Did you read Joel's article : "Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality - Joel on Software"? If you haven't, do. It's a good one. He lists a few donts for starting up. Here are a couple: "Number 2: Don't start by yourself" and "Number 3: Don't expect much at first". I guess I have flouted both and now I could fix Number 3 and I would like to fix Number 2. Probably I should say who I am looking for and who could look for me but that probably could go in another post.

5. I need to write a letter to my prospective investors explaining the same in more detail.

Thats all for now.

Delayed Posting ...

2005-12-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

Lots of things going on at work and I couldn't figure out what to do and I was depressed. I've gotten better and will write a detailed post by Dec 31st. A heartfelt thanks to Pratibha, Jude, Danny, Sarveshwar, Sai and Yogitha for being there to listen to me.

Other Updates:

1) Elise is leaving for Belgium.
2) Kalyan aka SKC got married :-)
3) Deepa's blog has gone AWOL. Hmmm, gone for an interesting experience... eh?

Carwale.com
Arun Kumar Sahlam(Jabal), IITM Classmate and his school mates have a start up called Carwale.com. They are creating a network of used car dealers (software for dealers, website for customers to browse for cars). There are currently 580 used cars available on the site. You can click here for the site. Unfortunately, there is no coverage for Bangalore right now. I guess they will be doing so soon. {Disclosure: I am providing some bridge financing to them before they go to a VC. We shook hands on the terms, paper work is remaining. I am doing this in a personal capacity}

Thats all for now.

Well...

2005-12-12T20:20:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.. I've gotten busy again. I guess you could tell that.

I wasn't feeling well during last week. I am doing OK now.

No big updates other than that work is going on at a decent pace. Thanks to Nandan it didn't come to a stand still when I was not ok.

IIPM Controversy: I was generally browsing during the weekend and came across the IIPM Controversy. If you came across the nonsensical full page ads on Hindu/TOI, you would have suspected something like this all along anyway. It's good that somebody did something about it.

1k blog views: The counter indicates that there were more than 1k blog views. I don't know how much over counting/undercounting is there. Over counting because of search engine crawlers and under counting because of feed readers. But we can assume it is some indicator of total blog views. 1k is not bad huh? That reminds me I need to get in touch with Anuj Lakhotia to add some more cool stuff to my blog.

Thats all for now.

Busy with Work

2005-12-05T03:16:00.000-08:00

This will be short post as I am busy with work.

Trip to Hyd: I have been to hyderabad to visit my mom and to take a look at some alliance proposal. I have always suspected that this wasn't the way I want to go. Now I am sure. I don't think I'll do this again. If it has to happen, it will happen. I don't think I will want to actively do anything about it.

Mom: My mom has recovered from the operation and she is feeling a little bit better.

Meeting Daku (Daya Kiran) and Tugo (Ravi Srinivas): These guys are IIT Hostel juniors. I invited them for lunch on Sunday. We talked and talked and talked for 3 hours and it was great. Lot of our views matched and I am happy to see other people who think like me. In general, I always felt my thought process is wierd but after talking to them I felt a little less wierd. One reason could be that we come from more or less same background and we share the same values.

Work: Work is going along fine. Need to pick up a pace a little bit and thats what we all are focusing on.

Life is going on with work.

2005-11-28T22:45:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delayed post. I wasn't feeling well over the weekend and couldn't write much, couldn't work much. I could read a lot though. "The New New Thing" by Michael Lewis (author of Liar's Poker) and "Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist" by Roger Lowenstein. Both are extremely well written and good to read. The Buffett book is the one to read among the plethora of Buffett books.

Updated profile: In case you haven't noticed, I have updated my profile on blogger. It sports a photo too, not the most flattering one. I wish I had a photo of thinner me.

Sales: Sales have started and things are looking good and we have a long way to go.

Additional Advisor For Cressida Financial: Roshan accepted our invitation to be an advisor to Cressida Financial, we'd meet once a week for 3 hours or so.

Trip to Hyderabad: I am going to Hyderabad to meet my Mom, VLN Chowdhary and other friends. There is some birthday party that I need to attend as well because I have to meet some girl. Well, I guess I also need to talk to my parents regarding my current thoughts with respect to having someone in my life. I am not sure what kind of time I can offer anyone given the busy life. I don't think it will be fair to be with someone when Cressida is my first love and demands so much of my time.

****** Time For An Ad ******

If you or anyone you know is interested in investing in/or knowing more about mutual funds, please do get in touch with me. We won't do any pushy sales. Invest only if it makes sense to you.

****** End of Ad ******

Website: www.cresfin.com will be the official website for Cressida Financial. It is under construction.

Thats all for now.

The past week.

2005-11-20T17:49:00.000-08:00

I would like to thank Anand, Asif, Elise, Jahnavi and Manasa for reading my post, for understanding what I wanted to say and for their support. Here's a heartfelt thanks to them.

What - How:

In an earlier post, I talked about change of roles and change of title for Nandan and me. While the change of title was a clear cut affair, the change of roles was not. Lot of times our roles had overlapping content and I was afraid I might be stepping on his toes. We found a better way of thinking about our contribution. My contribution is largely by answering the question of "what". As in what should Cressida Financial be doing? Nandan's contribution is largely through figuring out how we go about doing it and putting a plan in place to make it happen. I'll obviously be helping Nandan in execution of the plan.

Cressida Financia Services Private Limited:

We are a legal entity as of last Thursday. We are yet to receive the relevant documents and that will happen on Monday. Although incorporation of a company is an irrelevant milestone (because formation of a company is not a discrete set of events but more of a continuum), it feels good nonetheless that Cressida Financial is an organization recognized by the law of the land.

Request for Feedback:

Please let me know how I have been doing for the past several months. Criticism is always welcome, I would appreciate it more if it is constructive. I could list out a set of attributes for you to grade me on, but that way I would be limiting you to a subset of attributes that I care about. So I would rather give you a free hand. You can comment here or you can mail me at rk at thecressidagroup dot com.

Trilogy Presentation

We are doing a presentation in Trilogy this Wednesday and I am super excited about it. If you are a Trilogian in Bangalore office, please do try to attend and give me your feedback.

Cressida Financial moving out of my house?

Because of various logistical reasons we are considering moving out of my house. If we do move out, we would incur an additional 10k of monthly expense and that is holding us back. The last word is not yet said on this matter. We have decided to revisit this issue on 15th and 30th of every month.

Peter Drucker, A Troubled Relationship and Progress at Work

2005-11-13T21:26:00.000-08:00

Peter Drucker No More:

Peter Drucker is called the guru of management gurus and has written more than thirty books on Management and his writings have affected how organizations are run through out the world. Peter Drucker passed away day before yesterday at the ripe old age of ninety-five.

I read a few chapters in couple of his books (The Age of Discontinuity and The Effective Executive). While I intend to read all of his books and articles, the reason I am not yet done with the two I have started with is that his books take a lot of time to read and this is because there is so much wisdom in each and every sentence of his. It takes lots and lots of time, effort and thought to understand and synthesize the content of his books.

He said, his best book, which he said was yet to come, would be about "Managing Ignorance". Too bad he didn't get to finish it because there is so much that could be written on this topic. Every day I have to deal with ignorance. Not of others but firstly and most importantly of my own.

A Troubled Friendship/Relationship:

Last week I learnt of a rejection from someone I liked a lot. I still do like her a lot but now it is in a different sort of way.

It was my fault because she told me that she was only looking for friendship but I expected something more. Expectations do reduce joy but what is life without hope?

I was talking to my friend Pratibha and my cousin about this. They feel protective towards me and were asking me to not get involved and not to get affected. Pratibha was suggesting that I should know where it is heading and only then get involved. I don't think it works that way. You can't do something like this: See if it is feasible to be with some one, then make the decision to be with that person and if the other person reciprocates, start liking each other.

I think this is how it happens: You spend time with someone and realize that you like her and you let her know that. And then it is her call to see if she likes you too from whatever she knows of you. And she has the freedom to make whatever call she wants to make. You don't have much say over what call she will make and it isn't right to influence her call in any way. You just need to be the best person you could be and let go of the rest. And if the call is a no, the call is a no. Also if the call is not a 'yes', the call is a no. There is nothing you can do about it.

And if it goes the way I described above, I will get involved and there is definitely a chance of getting hurt. It sucks but that’s how it is and I don’t know any other way.

Here is a nice thought and I subscribe to it.

Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching.

--Mark Twain.

Progress at work:

Lots of things going on at work and you can read more about it here.

One thing I would like to do is thank Roshan (Dharma's friend, Anna University, IIMA, Deputy Industry Head, Progeon) for helping us out with the interviewing of Finance Managers. At the end of four interviews, we clearly knew what each person strengths and weakness were and how each one would fit into our company. And making the final call was very easy.

I would be a fool to think it is always a piece of cake to select a candidate from a diverse group of well-qualified applicants. The primary architect of the whole process of making the decision so easy was Roshan and I would like to publicly thank him for his help.

Our Cities

2005-11-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

There is a post by Vishal here. He is cribbing about how the Bangalore has taken a turn for the worse. I have been visiting Hyderabad and Chennai quite frequently and hence am able to see Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad and observe them closely. So I think I can offer a little bit of perspective of my own. Our cities really are taking a turn for the worse.

Standard of Life:

Things have not become worse interms of standard of life. There is uninterrupted power (well, almost), every house has a TV, Refrigerator, almost every one has a cell phones, nearly a third have two wheelers and a tenth have nice cars with ACs etc. But what about quality of life? What about the longer commute times, higher noise levels, more pollution. It is not just that.

Friends and Family:

Friends and Family used to have all the time in the world. Now you have to call and decide on a time to meet and it usually is the third proposed time that is suitable for both of you to meet. And you have to call before you go. Well, you say it is understandable. May be it is, but it is not just that.

Attitude Changes:

There is a change in people's attitude. While you are outside, say on the road or on a bus or in a restaurant, nobody is willing to give an inch. For example:

a) You are riding a bike and you turn on the indicator to take a left turn and some punk who is riding on your left couple of metres behind you increases his speed so as to overtake before you take the turn. What the hell is going on?

b) You are in a railway reservation counter and all you want to do is fill the form, stand in the queue, get the ticket and get out. What do you do when there is one counter and there are ten people bunched at the counter and there is no semblance of a queue? The choice is to become a medieval man yourself or wait for an hour?

Nobel prize for Game Theory:

I find it very apt that this year's Nobel for Economics goes to Professor Thomas Schelling and Professor Robert Aumann who did pioneering working in Game Theory.

Their insights help explain economic conflicts such as price wars and trade wars, as well as why some communities are more successful than others in managing common resources.

Underdeveloped Country?

Some times, when I go around some parts of our cities, I feel like I am seeing some underdeveloped country shown in Discovery channel. Let me describe you a scene:

On a small and dirty street, you see a group of people standing excitedly in a circle. As you go closer, you see a couple of chicken lying tired in the centre of circle. An elder looking man (tribal head?) goes to the centre and beheads them. Then a young lad, aged about 13-14 years, picks up the dead birds and skins them.

He takes the birds to big cooking pan. This pan is on a small kerosene stove but it produces surprisingly large amount of flames given its small size. There are a bunch of hungry kids standing around waiting for the chicken to be cooked. All this is happening right on the street.

You feel disheartened because you know the street you are in was a road. A bigger and cleaner road. Because of encroachment on both sides it has become smaller. And over time, it has become dirtier. You hope that it will get back to its glory days. But deep down you are scared that it won't.

Deteriorating Social Fabric:

This is a pet peeve of mine and there will be more posts in future when I have something to share.

Thats all for now. Things are going fine on the company front. Please do read the corporate blog as well. Until next week, take care.

Trip to Hyd and other thoughts

2005-11-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

Trip to Hyd and other thoughts

I went to Hyderabad again to visit my mom and also to do some recruiting work. Because of Diwali rush I couldn't get train tickets and I had to go by bus. It was a long journey of 20 hrs. While it wasn't the best bus journey I had, I am glad my body didn't complain too much.

Mom back at home:

I didn't realize earlier that my Mom's operation was a major one. But thankfully she is back at home now and she is not supposed to do much work. The only thing I am not happy about is that to rule out any future recurrences, doctors are considering preventive treatment. I thought the operation intended to take care of that as well.

Letting some one go:

I had to take the hard decision of letting some one go. It was hard not because I wasn't sure whether this was the right thing to do or not. It was hard because there is a huge negative perception in everyone's mind about being asked to leave. I have seen several rounds of layoffs in Trilogy and realized that there will be situations when it is the right course of action and thought that one day when I have my own company I should have the guts to make the tough calls.

I did make the tough decision but I was not at all happy to doing it. Asking someone to leave is really hard thing to do and I felt really bad in my gut and but it had to be done. We will be more careful while hiring and prevent future occurences of this kind. But nobody can promise a no-firing/no-layoffs policy, if they do they are just kidding themselves.

Inez Finserve --> Cressida Finserve??

We are contemplating name change from Inez Finserve to Cressida Finserve. There is some nitty-gritty you need to know for this to make sense. Not that I am an expert or anything I have learnt these intricacies recently. If one wants register a company, one must get the name approved. You fill something called Form 1A where you specify, among other things, the name you want. You also need to provide four alternative choices. And the fee for this is Rs. 500.

We requested for Inez Finserve and as alternates and for the alternatives, we provide three names starting with Inez and the fourth one was Cressida Financial Services. We gave the Auditor the fee of Rs. 500 and Rs.1500 for miscellaneous expenses.

We learnt recently that the name that was last one on our alternatives list. There is no communication as to why our first four choices weren't approved. The system is messed up but we can't go about fixing it.

The most practical course of action is to work with what we have got. Which is to change the name from Inez Finserve to Cressida Finserve. Nandan and I will talk tomorrow and decide on a suitable course of action and my option would be to go for Cressida Finserve. This kind of sucks but everything with respect to Inez is only in our minds and it will take a little effort to think of this company is Cressida Finserve as opposed to Inez Finserve. Please let me know what you think.

That’s all I have for now. I hope you had a happy Diwali.

Until next Monday, take care.

Another Trip To Hyderabad

2005-10-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

Recruiting:

Nandan and I went to Hyderabad for conducting personal interviews. Now that we have an office in Banjara Hills in Hyderabad work is getting done a lot more smoothly. Everything is new to us and we are learning fast and I could definitely say that we are getting better at everything we are doing. There is a long, long way to go though.

My Mom's Operation:

My mom had an operation and she was in post-operative care. I could meet her only twice because visitors aren't allowed so freely. Anyway I was relieved, as I am not too keen to be in a hospital even if it is only as a visitor. She'd be back home soon and I will go to Hyderabad again to be with her. Work may or may not get done.

My dad seems to be having a good time taking care of her though. He was at the hospitals for pass couple of weeks, unshaven, sleeping in the dorm and in general being valiant. In him, I can see teenage boy rooting for his girl :-)

Microsoft (again!):

We went to Microsoft again to meet Kalyan, Vamsi, Mohit and Srinivas (all ex-Trilogians. We couldn’t meet Anuj, another ex-Trilogian).

Microsoft has a really great office and Inez will definitely have an office like that. I was telling Nandan and Pavan that we will have such an office within the next ten years. Let's see how this goes.

Change in my role:

I'm too lost in thought to be managing a 15 to 20 people organization effectively. And Nandan has been doing an excellent job ever since he joined in all the tasks that were assigned to him. So keeping this in mind, I have made some changes to the job responsibilities of Nandan and me. I will write about the same in Inez Finserve blog before EOD today.

You didn't tell me...

2005-10-16T01:14:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, I'm 26.11, single and looking. While Cressida is my first love, I do feel the need to be with some one who can appreciate who I am and what I intend to be.

So I keep meeting people in the hope that I'll find that special someone someday this way.

Recently, while doing so, I got into a situation that reminded me of an interesting incident. It happened a couple of years ago in Trilogy. My situation wasn't as bad as it is in the story but it very well could have been.

The main characters of this story are
a) Girl : Priya Sharma, a Campus Recruitment Specialist in Trilogy
b) Boy : Rahul Malhotra, CSE from some IIT.
(Using cute filmi names to protect identities)

As a Campus Recruitment Specialist, Priya's job is to learn about various campuses assigned to her. This would help her create and execute a strategy for recruiting from those campuses.

Rahul's IIT was a campus on her list and she wanted to get to know about it. She sought help of people from that campus and Rahul eagerly offered to help. They started working closely on recruiting from that campus. This went on for a week or so and they got to know each other well.

One day Priya went outside on some offical work and Rahul went to the HR area looking for her. Not finding Priya, he started making small talk with Pooja, another Campus Recruitment Specialist and a friend of Priya. He started enquiring about Priya and Pooja gave interesting answers to his queries.

Later in the day when Priya came back, there was a brief converstaion between Rahul and Priya which went as follows:

Rahul : "Hey Priya!? You didn't tell me you were married!!!"
Priya : "Well, You didn't ask me"

:-(

Well, what do I write?

2005-10-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

Argh! It was bad idea to split out the blog into a personal blog and official because now I don't have much to write. There is hardly any difference between work and life for me and if I can't write about my work I don't know what I will write about. Anyway, the good thing is the work blog has process in place and it would be definitely update by Monday every week. Here's the Inez Finserve Blog

One thing I could do is to intro the people whose blogs I read. Here I go:

Kalyan:

Ex-Trilogian. Now a Microsoftie :-(
Very Techie. Slightly Geekish.
Don't take my word for it. Read his blog and draw your own conclusions :-)

We go a long way back: The first time we met was in the summer of '96. Apex Institute sponsored a trip to Bombay. Well, he was a JEE top ranker and there was some counting error in my case :-)

We joined CS@IITM. Kalyan quickly started pouring over CS tomes and established himself firmly near the top in terms of Branch Position. I was accomplishing something similar. Only thing is, it was at the other end.

Anyway, all the Trilogians who moved to Microsoft either slowed down quite a bit after going there or got bored and came back to Trilogy. Not Kalyan, he just picked up more speed. You can read his blog and see that for yourself.

Vishal: Ex-Trilogian. Now@IIMA :-) Great Guy. Really Sweet and Really Smart. 99.99%ile in CAT 2003!!! Whenever I was getting complacent in my CAT prep, I could look at him see that I had a long way to go!

Right now, he is topper in IIMA!!!! He will join Merrill Lynch (At a salary that will most probably be approaching a Crore. Leaving a 10+ salary at Trilogy was worth it you think?).

Anyway, if you read his blog, you wouldn't realize all this. You will most probably be like "Is he Holden Caulfield's elder brother?"

Dharma: Was a Trilogian. Became a Microsoftie for 3 weeks :-( Now again a Trilogian. Dharma and me were flat mates for long time. Most of that time we used to have one discussion or the other. It is not so easy to carry on a conversation with Dharma because he will go off in tangents to whatever you are talking about. And after a while, he starts making up theories. For ex: "Theory of Thoughtons". Don't ask me what it is about. I just know the name of the theory. He is always excited something or the other. I don't understand any of the things he writes in his blog. If you do, please let me know.

Cool! That introduces the first three blog links. I'll intro the rest in some other post.

Thoughts on Blog Counter:

I am not really whether the counter below is running properly. It is showing 100+ page hits which seems unrealistic, I can't think more than 10 people who read my blog. If it continues to runaway like this we probably have to count unique visitors as well.

Also a shout box would be a good idea for the visitors to make their presence felt instead of posting a comment.

Trip to Chennai and Changes to Blog

2005-10-03T05:42:00.000-07:00

Trip to Chennai

I went to Chennai to conduct a written test, finalise registration of the company and to meet colleagues who are joining in the near future.

I was working like crazy for the past 7 or 8 weeks and I needed to take a break. Of the two days I was in Chennai, I worked only half of the first day and one fourth of the second day and for the rest of the time I went out and had fun. I went to Chennai with Elise (Chat Friend, Belgian, Indophile, exchange student to IIMB from Solvay Business School, Elise's Blog, a longer and more meaningful intro later) and we went to Marina Beach, Mahabalipuram (a nice long drive on East Coast Road), Besant Nagar beach, Spencer Plaza, 2 km walk on Mount Road from Spencers towards Central, Half an hour ride on a crowded City Bus). I had a great time. I needed to.

Changes to blog

With the help of Anuj Lakhotia(NSIT, TU2K5, aspiring to be an entrepreneur, Anuj's Blog, a longer and more meaningful later), I made the following changes to the blog.

i) Changed the address of the blog to RK's blog to make it easier to remember the location. (I apologize to people who already linked to me at the old address. As a temporary work around I have provided a redirection to the new address at the old blog location)

ii) Added a counter to the blog. This counts the number times the main page is visited. As of now nearly one in every ten hits might be mine but as the readership increases this should my hits to the page will not cause much difference to the counter.

iii) Registerd with BlogRoll, provider of a nifty set of tools for easier blogging. Check out the "BlogRoll Me" link on the side.

Anuj is going to write a post on his blog about various helpful blog tools. You can use them in your blog too.

There are more changes in store:
i) Splitting of the blog into business blog and personal blog.
ii) Having a shoutbox on the blog.
iii) Any other cool features that Anuj might find on the net :-)

Other random thoughts

Lots of questions in my life are getting answered and one of the answer is "Starting a Charitable Foundation" (Name undecided. High probables : "Aislinn Foundation" or "Cressida Foundation"). The idea of the foundation is in it's infancy. I am going to write about it in more detail some time soon.

Trip to Hyderabad

2005-09-27T03:35:00.000-07:00

I had a great trip to Hyderabad last weekend. Pavan and I were there on Sunday and Monday. I returned to Bangalore on Tuesday morning. Pavan stayed back in order to find office space.

Written Test and Interview:

We did some recruiting work on Saturday morning. Pavan conducted the written test. Ten plus candidates wrote the test. I interviewed four candidates, three of them for the position of financial advisor and the remaining one was for administrative work.

Meet with Shravani:

I met with a Shravani, a chat friend of mine since 2000. She did MBA with specialization in Marketing from FMS, Delhi.

She was working with Maruti in Delhi and she wanted to come back south. So she quit Maruti and is back in Hyderabad. She is looking for a job right now. While I cannot afford her (6.5 + lakh p.a), I thought I could offer her a part time job in Bangalore pay some thing meaningful (to me) and she can keep looking for a job. But it seems her parents don't want her to come to Bangalore. That was a set back. I was really counting on her joining me. The good thing though is that she offered to help me with whatever she can in Hyderabad.

Meet with VLN Chowdary:

I met with Mr. VLN Chowdary who is into Equity Research. He offered to help me raise finances through his network. So I am thinking of raising more capital. I am confident of my ability to deploy about 50 lakhs or so of capital on my own. Any more money, I would need to hire other professionals/MBAs. I hope Prasanna and others are reading this :-)

Roaming around the city:

I roamed around the city in the following areas to find a city suitable place for setting up the office. I went around Gachibowli, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills and Hitech City. I think we will take up office space in Jubilee Hills or Banjara Hills. Pavan is working on this in Hyderabad.

Meet with Vamsi, Micrsoft:

Pavan and I met ex-Trilogian Vamsikrishna in Mircosoft's new campus. It was nice to meet him. He showed us the Microsoft new building. It is an amazing campus. Huge green lawn, great view, Full body gym, great cafeteria. Really really nice office. If you are working there, you wouldn't want to go to any other company. Someday Cressida will have an office like that :-)

I couldn't meet other ex-Trilogians : Kaylan Chakravarty (Out of Office or Oooff), Srinivas N(Oooff), Anuj Bindal (Oooff), Mohit Chakroborty (Not yet in office :-) and Asit Verma (left for IIMA). I will meet them next time.

Special Mention: Chandrababu Naidu, ex Chief-Minister of Andhra Prahesh.

The various IT parks at Hitech City and Gachibowli are because of Chandrababu Naidu's dreams a decade or so ago. Now they have turned into a reality. Many more things would have happened if he was elected again. One thing that caught my attention was the Financial Disctrict where UBS and Franklin Templeton have huge tracts of land given to them. My dream is that someday Cressida and Inez FinServe will have their campuses at the Financial District.

The name of the financial services subsidiary is...

2005-09-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

Another late post :-( There is lots of stuff going on at Cressida.

I am working with 3XUS (read as 3 of us), a creative/branding firm for coming up with a name, tag line, logo etc.

The services of these kinds of firms don't come cheap. The most commonly referred to example is the six odd Crores that Wipro paid to O & M for the colourful sunflower logo.

Avinash Mudaliar, the founder of 3XUS, has a soft corner for start ups and prices their services differently. Even then we are a spending a good deal of money but I think it is worth it.

The first part of the work was to get a name, tag line, logo, design a visiting card and a brochure.

3XUS has come up with a really cool sounding name and a meaningful tag line.

The name is Inez Finserve (Pronunciation : Eye-Nez Fin-Serve).

The tag line is "Where Trust is Capital".

In future we will work with them to create pulldown/flex ads and posters.

Life Insurance

We are tying up with HDFC Standard Life for insurance as they have the lowest mortality costs as well as the lowest Fund Management charges and in the long run this is the thing affects the returns one gets. So HDFC it is.

People @ Inez FinServe

I'd like to introduce my colleagues to the readers of this blog.

CRE0001 : Myself
CRE0002 Mallesh CN, House keeping in charge.
Joined us from Trilogy E-Business Software India Private Limited.

CRE0003 : Pavan Kumar P, Financial Advisor Trainee.
Pavan has done MBA with specialization in Marketing and HR from Osmania University.

CRE0004 : Manjunatha KT, Facilities Manager.
Joined us from Kyocera Technologies.

I have a question for you. Is it detrimental to have "510, Ganga, NGV, Koramangala" as the address on visiting cards? If so, can you please quantify it? For example, you could do X% more business if you had a professional address.

One more thing, now you don't have to say tell about my start up to your friends as "RK's startup". "Oh, tax planning, Inez Finserve can help you with that" :-)

Please do tell your friends about Inez Finserve.

Sorry for delayed post

2005-09-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have poor net connectivity these days and have to go out of the way to post. I have applied for BSNL Broadband (4000 Rs for 1 year, 256 kbps, 0.4 G transfer per month) and that should be actived soon.

Some RAID failure at my start up website. It will be up within a day.

Things are going along fine and I might have an international investor. Will post more soon. Sorry for the short & delayed post.

Whats in a name?

2005-08-25T06:55:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days I have been actively thinking about naming the startup. I just wanted to write down all that went on in my blog.

My dad suggested that there are lots of "RK Enterprises" and probably KRK Enterprises or KRK Holdings would be a good name. As appealing as it is to have a company named after me (or alteast my initials), I didn't want to have my ego tied up to the success of the company. There is no doubt in my mind that this company will be anything but a visionary global enterprise but I don't want the success of the company to bloat my ego. So anything with my name is ruled out.

My basis for name selection is similar to what Akio Morita used for naming SONY SONY. If you are interested in knowing more, you can read more about it in his book "Made in Japan". Anyway I went through some names and finally decided on Cressida. The complete list of names I considered is given below:

KRK Enterprises
Karumanchi Commercial Holdings
Karumanchi Investment Corporation Limited
Crescent Investment Corporation Limited - one who creates
Cressida Investment Corporation Limited – golden
Cliantha Investment Corporation Limited – Flower of glory
Chenoa Investment Corporation Limited – White Dove
Cecania Ivestment Corportation Limited – Free
Candida Ivestment Corportation Limited – white, pure
Ananya Ivestment Corportation Limited – Matchless
Amdis Ivestment Corportation Limited – Immortal
Alyssa Ivestment Corportation Limited – Logical
Althea Ivestment Corportation Limited – Healer, Wholesome
Akanke Ivestment Corportation Limited – to know her is to love her
Aislinn Ivestment Corportation Limited – a dream, a vision, inspiration.
Achyuta Ivestment Corportation Limited – Indestrcutible
Ameya Ivestment Corportation Limited – boundless, magnanimous
Amulya Ivestment Corportation Limited – priceless
Medha Ivestment Corportation Limited – Intelligence, Saraswathi
Mugdha Ivestment Corportation Limited – Innocent
Poorvi Ivestment Corportation Limited – A classical melody

Cressida sounded impressive to me and I chose that as the name. A while after that I was reading "Losing my virginity" by Richard Branson and his company is named "The Virgin Group". The "The Cressida Group" seemed very apt. Unfortunately, the Registrar of Companies is not happy about the use of the word "Group", so we moved on to "Cressida Capital". Even that was not approved. Finally we got the name Cressida Holdings approved by Registrar of Companies. So the parent company is called Cressida Holdings.

Right now I am looking for a meaningful name for the mutual fund retailing subsidiary. Here's a list of names I'm playing around with :

Minerva - power;thinker
Melinda - gentle one
Magna - large
Magnolia - flower
Magnus - large;the great
Naida - Water Nymph
Nediva - Noble and generous
Nemo - No name, nobody
Neola - youth full
Neoma - New moon
Paloma - Dove
Panthea - Of all the gods
Placida - Tranquility
Pragati - Progress
Pragya - Wisdom
Galina - light
Casper – Treasurer

How does Chenoa FinServices sound? How about Casper FinServices?

GeneSplice BioSoft

2005-08-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late post. There are so many things to do and there is so little time. I have been talking to lots of people about my startup ideas and after listening to their reponses, I feel I should have started GeneSplice BioSoft even though I don’t have a clue as to what it is going to do. That way no one can tell me why it wouldn’t work!

For the past two weeks I was raising capital for The Cressida Group and I was talking to prospective investors and discussing various start up ideas with them. And the more they know about something, the easier it is for them to think of reasons as to why it wouldn’t work.

For example: if I propose CAT Coaching Center as one of the ideas, the conversation will go as follows:

Prospective Investor, PI from now on: Hmmm, you need to get good teachers.
Me: I think I can teach. I got 99.86 percentile {:-)}
PI: Have you ever taught before?
Me: {Huh!} I have not but it is not exactly rocket science.
PI: If you teach, then it is self-limiting.
Me: {Huh!} Hmmm, meaning?
PI: Well you can teach only so many students. After some time, you can’t grow any more.
Me: Hmmm. Well, I could probably hire the students who couldn’t make it by whisker. They can prepare again and while doing so they can teach in the coaching center.
PI: What will you do next year?
Me: {Huh!} I’ll think of something then.

Instead, if I say that I am starting GeneSplice BioSoft. This excites everyone and they will start listening attentively and I could make up something on the fly. {We endeavor to improve the human life by developing software that digitally splices genes and DNA. We will gather the resulting information and use it to bio-engineer prophylactics for life-threatening illnesses like cancer and HIV. I pulled that out of my hat in the last 110 seconds ;-) }

CAT Coaching Center is such a simple idea. I can see, feel and touch a CAT Coaching center and I can imagine running one. And I can’t think of one reason why we can’t make it the best CAT Coaching Center in the next 10 years if that is where we focus our energies. But in general, being able to understand something makes one to start thinking of all the possible reasons why it would fail.

I want to propose a theory why this happens:

When you are a kid, you don’t know what is possible and what is not. You think you can do anything. Parents have to tell you: “you can’t do this”, “you can’t do that”.

For example, some kids have seriously hurt themselves by trying to jump from a roof two-story building like Shaktiman. You have to specifically tell them that it is only make-believe and it is not true and so on and so forth. This fear of unknown serves a very valuable purpose of letting you do only the things you know. This helps one avoid any risks and promotes self-preservation.

But after while it reaches a stage where you are paralyzed and you can’t do anything.

I can see clearly see this in the responses of my family members to my decision of starting up.

My cousins Jahnavi and Serene are 16 years old and they aren’t out of school yet. They think that I can do anything and I am going to become somebody great.

My sister Sony and cousin Manasa are 20 years old and are in final year of college. They think I will be successful.

Another cousin Yogitha is 23 years old and she is working in SASKEN. She thinks I will do well but it seems I have to take care of myself.

And my mom is like: “Are you taking your medicines?” and “Don’t think so much!”

Well what do I think?

I don’t know whether I’ll do well, or become successful or become really great. One thing I am very sure of is that The Cressida Group will be a really great company :)

Lots more going on!!!

2005-08-08T03:40:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the delay in posting. I was extremely busy with some start up work.

The recruiting advertisement got published in The Hindu in Chennai. The last I checked there were seven responses. I'll be interviewing the candidates next week.

We already have four employees working for The Cressida Group. I'll write a detailed description of each employee sometime later but here is a brief description of each employee:

The first hire is me and I guess you already know me!
The second hire is Mallesh, office boy from Trilogy. As of now, he works only on Sunday (his day off at Trilogy).
Third is my uncle, Mr. Satish Chandrababu K. He will be in charge of Chennai operations.
Fourth is my dad, Mr. Bhaskar Rao K. He will be in charge of Hyderabad operations.

One very interesting thing happened during the last week: I came to know about of couple of people who are starting up. Although the overall vision was to fund startups, I didn't think we'd get two opportunities to invest in other start ups so soon.

One is a tech start up in Hyderabad and the other is a KPO startup in Chennai. I plan to get in touch with them during the next week. I'll try to work out some relationship if it makes sense to both the parties.

I apologize for the delay in posting once again. From now on, I will trying to finish up the post by Sunday evening itself and make sure it is up on the blog by Monday 9 am. Do keep reading my blog. If you have something to say, please do comment.

Lots going on this week

2005-08-04T04:37:00.000-07:00

Lot of stuff going on this week.

1. I've finally had the call with Patrick (head of Auto Delivery) and my Trilogy exit is finalized. The date is still in discussion but it is definitely before end of August. I am hoping it'd be sooner though. I can't wait to be doing this full time :-)

2. Initiated the process of raising finances. I've crossed 3 lakhs, 17 lakhs to go to hit the minimum I set for myself and 47 lakhs to go to reach a level where I can take it easy with respect to finances.

3. Set up the website : The Cressida Group. It is pretty basic right now, but that should do for now. It costs Rs 9k for three years.

4. Decided to advertise in Hindu for hiring marketing/sales executives. Costs a lot. 10k for 4 square inches :( But for Chennai I can't think of a better way of reaching out to prospective employees.

Lots more stuff remaining to do though. For every one item I am crossing out from my to do list and I am adding five to it.

The most important thing I am working on, right now, is making sure all the prospective investors are aware of the lunch and learn sessions on Saturday and Sunday at my home #510, A3, Ganga, National Games Village, Koramangala.

Whats the menu you say? Pizza and Coke :-)

One more thing, we might have a first hire (part time) tomorrow!!

My Future Plans

2005-07-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

- Henry David Thoreau

I have had this urge to startup when I first read the book Built To Last given to me by Trilogy during TU2K and I have been dreaming about it ever since. Over the next five years, the urge to start up grew stronger and the dreams became more vivid. My intention is to turn those dreams into reality.

While there is no specific reason to do it now, now is as good a time as any other. I am twenty-six and something, single and have reasonable financial security given my frugal ways and a retirement nest egg approaching one followed by seven zeroes. There are only a few things I want in life and running my own business is one of them. And its time I started doing something about it.

Financing for Startup:

I am planning to raise a corpus in the range of twenty lakhs to hundred lakhs and I have written a document that talks about the specifics of financing for my start up. If you are interested in investing in my startup, please let me know and I can email this document to you.

Ideas for Startup:

After going through the financing doc, if you are happy with the terms of investing and the expected returns, you could take a look at the start up ideas I have and evaluate the ideas before you actually invest.

Exit Plan:

While I have no intension of exiting the business, I have to be realistic about it and think of a meaningful exit plan if things don’t work out. I have given Trilogy five years of my life so it is only fair that I give myself five years of time to make something of this startup. At the end of five years if I am not satisfied with the state of the business, I will sell the business, return the money to investors and go to Stanford Graduate School of Business.

But what I would really like to do is: In the next five years, make this is start up a viable, dynamic enterprise, pass on the leadership to great entrepreneurial managers whom I trust and admire and then go to Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Request to Investors:

If you do plan to invest in my startup, and if the startup could reasonably service a need of yours, I request you to give your business to the startup. A specific example would be: if the start up is mutual fund retailing agency and you do plan to invest in mutual funds, I request you to go through the start up for your mutual fund needs. If you are not happy with the service, please let me know and we’ll fix it ASAP and if you are satisfied with the service please let others know.

Wish me luck :-) I need it!

Thanks!
RK

Starting my blog

2005-07-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

Cool! I've finally been able to find some time to start my blog. From the time Dharma started his blog, I wanted to start one too. And in the last two months it has been on my TO-DO list as well but I was busy with v0.3 of RecOrder(the project I was working on). So it moved from one TO-DO list to another a dozen or so times. Now it will go off the list!

I intend to post once a week and unless something is wrong I should have a post up on the blog by Monday 9 a.m. I intend to write the thoughts and actions of the previous week and hope to write three or four paragraphs in each post. Lots of stuff going in my life right now so I have lots of stuff to write too.

I'll put up links to the articles I have written. I'll also have links to blogs of close friends.