Invictus

Just watched the movie and loved the poem: Invictus. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend it. It’s a really inspiring story of how Nelson Mandela used rugby to bring South Africa together as a nation. It was particularly moving to watch as World Cup fever is starting to catch on. Meanwhile, here is the splendid poem. >>>

E-Commerce Gold Rush

Twenty thousand e-commerce sites are coming online every week

I have long been a fan of e-commerce. Today, I see the industry in a gold rush.

According to some analyst estimates, nearly 20,000 entrepreneurs now open online storefronts every week, and growth in e-commerce sales continues to outstrip that of sales in physical stores. Early online players such as Dell and Starbucks are now joined by luxury watchmaker Longines and clothing designer Roberto Cavalli. >>>

Creative Bootstrapping To A 350 Million Dollar Exit: Nimsoft CEO Gary Read (Part 2)

SM: That is an interesting parallel to how Zoho is operated. They have a very large operation in Chennai, India. They recruit high school grads and train them in their own operations. It is great because unless these kids get into one of the top colleges in India, they are not going to learn much. Zoho’s thesis is that if they train high school grads in their own six- to nine-month program, then the students are much better prepared to be successful employees than they would be going to a lesser college.

GR: That is very similar to my path. I am impatient at times. I have a sense of urgency about what I do. >>>

Roundtable Recap: June 17 – Online Education Startups

Today’s roundtable was organized in collaboration with TiE Delhi, and had a special emphasis on the online education sector with three out of the five entrepreneurs presenting education businesses.

Ankur Mehra and his associate Aditya started off by introducing Guruvantage. Ankur and Aditya have determined that training managers at various Indian companies need help with vetting the quality, methodology and infrastructures of various training institutes, training vendors and such. In response to that, they are proposing a solution to do just that, both pre-hiring and post-hiring. Prior to hiring, for example, training managers need to assess where candidates have been trained, and what is the quality of training that they provide. In addition, there are additional training needs post-hiring, which training managers address often by hiring training vendors. The key question that Guruvantage needs to answer is whether training managers are willing to pay for the solution, or not. If the answer is yes, then the next question is how much are they willing to pay? What this leads us to is first, value proposition validation, then business model validation, followed by pricing model validation. Each stage of validation helps enhance the valuation of a company. And in 1M/1M, we always emphasize the best practice of building as much value, validation and valuation upfront.
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June 17 Roundtable Recording

In case you missed it, here is the recording:

Roundtable Starting In 30 Minutes

Today’s roundtable is starting in 30 minutes, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/8:30 p.m. IST. Click here to join.

Creative Bootstrapping To A 350 Million Dollar Exit: Nimsoft CEO Gary Read (Part 1)

Gary Read has been the president and CEO of Nimsoft for the past six years. He is a more than twenty-year veteran of the high-tech world, with extensive expertise in monitoring and systems management software. Prior to Nimsoft, Gary was vice president of sales and marketing at RiverSoft, a provider of advanced network management products, where he was a key member of the executive team that led the company to a successful IPO and its eventual acquisition by Micromuse. He has also been the vice president of marketing at BMC Software and has held sales and marketing leadership roles at Boole & Babbage and MAXM Systems.

SM: Let’s start at the beginning of your story, Gary. What is your background?

GR: I am originally from England. I grew up in a suburb of London. >>>

1M/1M: Rural America’s Outsourcing Potential

I was at the University of Oregon (Eugene) graduation ceremony on Monday. The university has over 22,000 students. Oregon is a relatively poor state with low cost of living, unemployment hovering between 10%–12%, and a population of only about 4 million. In May, I was in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, all rural states with low costs of living. Montana’s population is less than a million, Wyoming’s only half a million. Idaho’s is 1.5 million. Yet in terms of area, these are all large states. Montana is the fourth- largest state in the United States, Wyoming the ninth, Oregon the tenth, and Idaho the eleventh. >>>