Few days back, I just had a short chat with one of the co-founders of an IIM-A‘s Iaccelerator startup and our conversation diverted to an article that was published in Outlook Business. The article tells about how a simple SMS is helping the Indian farmers plan their farming better and in turn helping them generate more profits.

Just came across a very insightful presentation which talks about why rural India is so important & how one can tap the rural market. The most interesting point from the presentation is the statistics about Rediffmail -

Out of 20 million Rediffmail signups, 60% are from small towns. 50% transactions from these towns on Rediff shopping site.

As an Engineer, all of us wanted to work in companies like Infosys, Wipro, Satyam Mahindra Satyam & many other so called Indian MNCs. However, times seem to have changed now due to accessibility to lot of resources available on the internet & some credit also goes to the change in our mindset. Startups have really become a buzz word & guys don’t feel shy that they are now working in a startup !!! In fact, many of them even prefer working in startups than working in MNCs.

As per the recent update in my LinkedIn profile, last 2 years provided me with the best learning(s) in my professional career and it was entirely in startups. In fact, I was thinking of an appropriate title for this article and one which struck me was “Why should you AT LEAST ONCE work in a startup“. Each one of us have a reason to do or not to do a thing, so if you are interested to work in startup than the following reasons may help you to decide “Whether you should or should not” ….

Entrepreneurial litmus test
If you aspire to be an entrepreneur, it is very important to work in an early stage startup or should we say “To pass the litmus test“. There are MORE ups & downs in a startup which not only teach you to deal with difficulties but also help you understand yourself better. As for me, startups have taught me to survive on less money & also to understand “Whether I can myself startup sometime?”. Working in a startup becomes the very first step to look within yourself & say “Can I do it?”…

Relationships Matter
In a startup, it becomes difficult to isolate from the startup community which in turn teaches the Art of Networking. This not only helps to build the startup’s brand through WOM but also to network with fellow startup guys. Not to forget relationships inside the office; it is very important to keep best of the relations with every person inside the startup as well since, you cannot stay isolated neither inside nor outside your startup. It is a small world and you never know when you would again work with your colleague

Learn to save[for present & future]
There is a famous one liner “It’s all about the money honey“. Every person in a startup always hopes for the best but is prepared for the worst.In other words, once you enter the startup arena, the first to do IMHO is to become a bit stingy and keep check on your finances. Hence,a startup would also turn out to be a finance institution !!!

Contribution
If you are a person who is interested in multiple things [being an expert in one], your startup may become “fuel to your interest/passion”. Since the barriers are low in a small company, it becomes easy to contribute in multiple areas & prove your passion eg. Engineer with an inclination to marketing can help market the service/product which might be impossible to do in an established company.

ONLY results matter
Big corporations focus on the process along with the results however, startups look out only for results. Hence, if you are a fresher looking out for some interesting work, startup would give you the push-up and later on MNC would give the necessary branding. Startups are less hierarchical and more result focused.

Bootstrapping
As mentioned before, startups help to bring out your other qualities some of which you might have never exploited !!! This helps you master the Art of Bootstrapping. This would become an important step not only when you startup but also when you are in a crisis situation[like the current tumbling economy].May be sometimes, it becomes necessary to be “Jack of ALL trades than be a master of NONE”

If you have some more reasons to share, please leave them in the comments and it would be added to the article.

For those who are looking out to use the medium of Twitter for Business purposes, the wait might just be over.Twitter has released the OFFICIAL guide-Twitter 101.

Below is the officially released guide for business users using Twitter

Case Studies
You can find some interesting case studies here. In case you are looking out for more case studies you can head on to my LinkedIn question[status - closed] here

Related articles
LinkedIn – The Twitter success story
The Twitter success story – Updated

There is a saying “Nothing in this world is constant except change”, on a similar lines there have been lot of changes in Bangalore; some good, some bad. However, one thing that has drastically changed is the “Public Transportation“. Remember the days when we only had blue colored BMTC buses but now with the introduction of Volvo buses, Public Transportation has gained momentum. Not to forget with the shift of the international airport to a so called remote place, the obvious choice of most of the Bangaloreans is the famous Vajra bus.

BMTC has done a great job by introducing Volvo buses for the right places and also setting the up the right frequency for the right routes e.g ITPL or Electronics City is a place which is filled with software companies and the frequency of Volvo buses is exceptionally great there !!!

Before writing this article, I interacted with a few people[who travel to ITPL] and most of them preferred BMTC over their own cars/bikes. Apart from the normal ways of generating revenue, there are many other areas where BMTC can look for more revenue:

Most of the times, there is FM being played on the radio in the bus but if BMTC manages to tie up with brands, radio can act as a great medium for marketing.It can be used to showcase offers in shopping malls, promote new brands, movies etc. Remember, there is Big Bazaar near ITPL; so this would be much useful in such cases !!!

After the economy tumbled, many were laid off where some of them landed up in jobs out of no better choice. With Indian economy showing early signs of recovery, Volvo bus would make an excellent tool to showcase jobs again through radio or advertisements inside the bus. To make things better, these advertisements can be geo-targetted like buses from ITPL, Electronics City etc. would ONLY carry those ads.

Along with the convenience, the added advantage in Volvo is the additional standing space. The photograph shows the frontal view & there is definitely a big opportunity for Out Of Home advertising. There is space for 2 TVs [one in the frontal entry and other at the back entry]. With OOH growing at 20% annually , this is a big opportunity form BMTC to target the people travelling in the bus.

Photo Credit – Srinidhi Hande

The question which was posted on LinkedIn about Twitter – Success story through Twitter has received excellent response from guys from different geographical locations.

A gist of some interesting answers below -

Story – 1
Just to share an experience on Customer Service and Listening. I have been on twitter for 6-8 months now, I just shouted out about @cleartrip not giving out any offers on twitter. cleartrip listened to my shout out and rolled out the offer in twitter. Now that’s definitely gotta make a customer feel good.
Twitter is more about engaging with your customers, to know what they want and more importantly act on it.
Then there are companies in the b2b business finding leads through twitter. So its happening, but companies are more or less just absorbing the stuff which can be done on twitter.
-Rahul Nambiar,Interactive Solutions Architect

Story – 2
Kogi bbq, a korean taco truck in Los Angeles has attributed much of its rapid and recent growth to twitter. http://twitter.com/kogibbq as has Coffee Groundz, a cafe in Houston http://twitter.com/CoffeeGroundz.
-Gary Sanchez, Consumer Marketing Leader

You can check the remaining answers/contribute your success story here

Have you ever tried conversing with a small bakery owner about his expenses & his approximate savings at the end of the day ? If you haven’t than better try it out The conversation would teach how a single rupee becomes thousand rupees at the end of the day. Though small bakeries sell cold drinks, juice, other eatables; chai[aka tea] is what yields them the maximum returns[Rs . 2 profit on a single cup of Rs. 3] which shows that it is all a QUANTITY GAME !!! The current issue of Dare contains an interesting list [shown below] of things which retail for Re. 1 or less

After going through the list, I easily could co-relate to the conversation that I have with the chaiwala in my locality … Definitely lot’s of things can help us build a bulk business with Re. 1 !!!

Few weeks back, I had posted a question on LinkedIn about “Twitter’s usage in Business“. Today, I just stumbled upon an interesting presentation[shown below] that not only explains Twitter’s usage but also backs it up with a good number of case-studies. BTW, the question is still open here

It has been almost a month since my last article & once again busy schedule has distanced me away from my blog Few weeks back, there was an article on this blog about Twitter and since, than I have been much more active on it

Well, we all know about Twitter & it’s usefulness for business. However, there has not been [at least I have not read about it] similar news like this one where startup/company has generated sales through Twitter.Below is the question that I have posted on LinkedIn and to answer it, you can leave a comment below or head-on directly to LinkedIn

There would be many more startups/companies [apart from Dell, Sun etc.] generating SALES through Twitter

Twitter, a company that is making news without making any revenue is familiar to all of us. Though, most of us on Twitter use it for personal use; I would like to know about the following:

1. Is your company/startup using Twitter ?
2. If the answer to (1) is yes, how have you used the medium e.g in generating sales, getting feedback ?
3. Is there any success story [apart from Dell making $1 Million in sales through Twitter] where a startup/company has been able to generate sales through Twitter.

PS – I posted this question after I could not gather much information from leading blogs/ websites/newspapers.

Came across an excellent presentation by Alexander Osterwalder, a Business Model Innovation advisor.No matter what is your idea or business, this presentation touches every corner of it [from Ideation to Execution].

He has quite an insightful blog on the same topic & I am sure you would also enjoy reading every bit of it .

There is an interesting e-book “Testify-How remarkable companies are creating customer evangelists” which focuses on how companies are winning customers and effectively making each one their evangelist !!!

It is a very interesting compilation, the companies about which I enjoyed reading the most are:

You can download the ebook from here