All Posts by Himanshu Sheth

|In: Guest Blogging|Last Updated: | 1 Comment
Few days back,I had mentioned about Guest Blogging and my first guest blogger is Ranjan.Now let us have a look at Ranjan’s profile or should I say,this is how Ranjan describes himself biggrin

About Ranjan:
Ranjan is one of the older bloggers (He’s 39) and brings more than 16 years of work experience in Insurance, Housing Finance and Investment industry with himself. He likes to post his thoughts on topics like Personal Finance and Business Management through his blog

Let us now look as to what does he have for us in store.But before that,let me answer the question “Why Ranjan?” wink

Why I approached Ranjan to write on Finance?
IMHO many of us are techie guys and we don’t think much beyond technology.But when it comes to companies or ideas , finance also turns out to be a very important aspect,which is a black box to me and may be it would be the same to many of us.Hence,Ranjan was the right person to write on the same.

Ranjan has tried to showcase some of the points which should be considered by Entrepreneurs(at least first generation) while starting off…Interesting information…so let’s jump to the crux of the article

(Note : “I” in the article refers to Ranjan)

Financial Management for a Startup Firm:

Is it important for a startup to understand corporate financial information, evaluate corporate financial performance and understand the language of accounting and finance?

I feel that the idea of a startup is a romantic and sexy one till you start the start up. Once you are confident of your idea and think it’s time to make it happen, it’s time to do some reality checks.

Let us ask the “bringing back to Earth” questions with a financial angle. In fact the business plan, Sales forecast, ROI, Break even analysis etc.

  1. How much money is needed to launch the project? What are the short term working capital needs? Here you try to understand your capital requirements.
  2. What return on investment can the business bring? This is the first question a VC would ask. You have to work on the ROI that your business can bring.
  3. What could be the possible source of funds? Friends, relatives, VC or a Bank?
  4. What are the projected Sales forecast and the likely expenses? You may do well to build a projected cash flow statement for the next 1-3 years.
  5. When do you look to cover your initial costs? In other words, when do you break even?
  6. Can you build a projected balance sheet for your business?

Difficult questions? Maybe yes, but if you are not prepared to answer them or face them, the startup may remain just a pipe dream.

If success was easy it would no longer be success. Admittedly, though finding the answers is not like rocket science, it looks entirely geeky to many of us.

There are no ready made answers. It follows after you are able to define your business, review your competitive environment and do a SWOT analysis for yourself.

And tools? Start with a pen and a paper, quickly graduate to Excel sheet or any other spreadsheet and you are on your way!! Getting started is all you need to worry about!! haven’t we heard Goethe’s couplet: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Finally, thanks Ranjan for taking time off your busy schedule and contributing to this blog.I (Himanshu) hope you found this small piece of information informative , just as I did.

|In: Business|Last Updated:
There have been lot’s of talks about Software Entrepreneurs,Retail Entrepreneurs …. but Economic Times has come with an interesting story on Entrepreneurship–>Farmers turned Entrepreneurs.

The story is about farmers in Punjab who have gone into diversified businesses like retail, restaurants etc. After reading the complete story, one thing is clear that “Right business opportunity should be seen at the right time“.

This is the good example of “Strike while the iron is hot” biggrin

Read the interesting story of “Farmers turned Entrepreneurs” here

|In: Business|Last Updated: | 3 Comments

Software giant Microsoft has expressed it’s interest to take over Yahoo.However,this is the second time,MSFT has expressed it’s interest in YHOO.

As per the BusinessWeek reports:

According to newspaper reports May 4, Microsoft has asked Yahoo to enter formal negotiations for an acquisition that could be worth $50 billion. Yahoo’s market capitalization was about $38 billion at the close of trading May 3.
Reports of the deal sent Yahoo shares jumping 17% in premarket trading, while Microsoft slipped 1.5%.

As TechCrunch reports, if this deal goes through, the takeover would be one of the largest corporate takeovers in American corporate history, and likely the largest ever in the Tech sector.

But as I am about to complete this post,Wall Street Journal has reported “The deal is no longer active but the two companies are finding other ways of cooperating“

Read the Business Week coverage about the MSFT-YHOO takeover here.
Additional information covered by TechCrunch here

Read the latest on the merger by Wall Street Journal here

|In: Blogging|Last Updated: | 2 Comments
Though I have completed nearly 2.5 years of blogging,at one stage,I was a newbie in the field of blogging.If you check my posts during my early days,you would understand the level of immaturity,which is quite expected.The first thing you would observe is none of the posts are linked to each other but with frequent blogging,things have changed and there are continual improvements.

During the initial days of blogging,I wasn’t aware about Technorati[guess I was dumb cry] and other sites that give an insight as to where your blog stands in the crowd.It is quite obvious that the initial rank would have been in millions but as of today,Thoughtsprevail stands at 56,513 on Technorati.So,there are 103 incoming links from 76 blogs. Needless to mention that Technorati keeps a track of the no of blogs linking to your blog(i.e. Rank gets calculated based on the number of incoming links to your blog).So, 56,513 on Technorati is definitely a good rank and with time, it would go even further.

But does this rank mean that this blog(or for that matter,any other blog) is getting good readership or it is a blog with good content.This question is sure difficult to answer.IMHO,your Technorati rank is not a justification that your blog has more readership.So,suppose you want to improve your rank,you can follow two easy ways:

  1. Comment on other’s blog: “Hey nice blog you have,check out mine..I have blogrolled you..do mine as well”
  2. Link exchange(i.e Exchange links and also add each other as Favorites in Technorati)

This means A blogrolls B and B blogrolls A(and sometimes both A and B are unaware about each other’s content).In fact,India’s prominent pro-blogger John TP got his Technorati rank increased by a massive number just by favorite exchange(A and B favorite each other).Check out his post here.But now,this trend and Link Exchange trend has come on many blogs where bloggers openly invite other bloggers to do a link exchange and trust me,the blog rank has gone up by leaps and bounds,in all the cases.

Since,I am a blogger, rank matters for me as well and I would love to see my blog rank better on Technorati.As a blogger,you also need to read lot of blogs as well and when I found the Link Exchange post on many of the blogs(hence,I have not mentioned a link here since,many bloggers would feel offended),it tempted me to have a similar post on my blog.But after giving a thought,I reached the conclusion,this aspect of blogging is very unethical.If you are a blogger producing good content,readers would follow you,you need not persuade them to read your blog For Example:”If your are a company having a good product,customers sure will catch hold of you.In a nutshell, Higher rank on Technorati is not directly proportional to your readership.

Now coming back to BlogRolling(or Link Exchange), are we supposed to blogroll only if the person blogrolls you.The answer is a No.You can blogroll blog A,if you feel Blog A has good content and your readers would be interested in reading Blog A as well.At least you have the Blog in your records and should not be worried about loosing your Favorited Blogs(which lie in the Firefox bookmarks).Definitely if you are a blogger striking good content,blog A would (automatically) blog roll you, for sure biggrin

Conclusion:
Remember, no matter what your blog talks about,it will always have its dedicated share of readers but to gain readership(or higher ranking),a (blind) link exchange would be highly unethical.This unethical way would cost you the loss of existing readership(which is far more important than your Technorati rank).Definitely,Technorati by no way,can authenticate the incoming link on these basis.

Apparently,while listening to the Guy Kawasaki’s video podcast(on Blogging and Blog Evangelism),the topic of blogrolling was covered by him and guess, this was the right way to do ethical blogging.

May be this rule could also be added to the Blogger’s Code of Conduct.Remember,Blogging is not a competition, but a simple and easy way to communicate your thoughts to a wide range of audience.

Related Posts:
Blogger’s Code of Conduct
Two years of successful blogging

|In: General Stuff|Last Updated: | 1 Comment
I was tempted to put this post on my blog.Was just reading Digital Inspiration, where I came across an intersting website GuessTheLogo where you need to identify the real logo of the companies.

I got around 7(out of 10) answers correct at the first shot,which according to me was not so bad biggrin So, go ahead and try your luck.

Important Announcement:
I invite bloggers to come and blog on ThoughtsPrevail on their favourite topic(keeping in mind the theme of this blog).Since Finance is a very important aspect for Startups(and in each and every aspect of the organization),my first guest blogger had to be from the field of finance.He is Ranjan(not to confuse him with Amit Ranjan of Uzanto) who blogs here

I would introduce Ranjan in more brief in the upcoming posts on this blog.

(Note:Guest blogging is not an attempt to get more traffic or to earn money through this blog.It is just an attempt to touch upon diversified areas)

|In: Blogging|Last Updated: | 4 Comments
Even though I deal with the Embedded background,somehow the Web 2.0(and next Web 3.0) bug has struck me.But,the question which comes to mind is “After the dotcom bust, this is best boom of the internet and definitely there is more to come after Web 2.0 ie Web 3.0 ,but reports suggest a different view to the entire Web2.0 scene.

We see lot of blogs like TechCrunch, Digital Inspiration, Tech Buzz (and many more) tracking the entire Web 2.0 space whereas few blogs like Engadget also try to give an insight into the non Web 2.0 space as well.This clearly gives an indication that Web 2.0 is in demand but analysts have different opinion..Keep on reading

Silicon India quotes “Most of the visitors to the (so called) Web 2.0 sites are Couch Potatoes and they are the guys who like to watch rather than create meaningful content.Definitely,Wikipedia lies in the (true) Web 2.0 space where 4.6% of all visits to Wikipedia pages are to edit entries on the site“

There are few more interesting reads on the entire Web 2.0 scenario and they are definitely worth having a look:

  1. Web 2.0 not as hot as perceived: study
  2. Avnish Bajaj on why Web 2.0 is not for India
  3. Web 2.0 Threats and Risks for Financial Services
Thanks Upasna(Link 2) and Purnank(Link 3) for bringing these links to my notice cool

|In: Bangalore|Last Updated: | 6 Comments
I guess this is one of the most widely covered topics on my blog and regular readers of my blog would feel that this post is repetitive(but at the end of the post your feeling would be different).As we know for each and every phase(be it your job or your venture),networking is needed,right from the time the idea comes to your mind till the time you launch your idea.Initially,you need people with whom you can share your idea ,than you need people to work with you on your idea and once your idea kick starts,you need people to take your idea(company) to a greater height smile

Keeping these factors in mind,I came up with the following posts
Wanted (Un)like minded soulmates
LinkedIn group for budding Entrepreneurs
From Ideas to Execution

The response was not as per the expectations and I started to Google around such groups that exist in Bangalore.I came across Bangalore Entrepreneur Meetup chapter which has around 143 members but there is very less activity which happens in the group cry As I have mentioned before,we need a platform for people to express their views and ideas and after giving it some thought,I have created a google group BangaloreBuddingEntrepreneurs , which is open to all people who aspire to be Entrepreneurs or who are Entrepreneurs.

I also have my own selfish motive to create this group:”Due to my shy nature,sometimes it becomes very difficult to express my views(since I don’t know where I should express).The other reason is when you express it in front of wrong person,you would be criticized or ridiculed and this often happens with me”

So,I invite people to join the Bangalore Budding Entrepreneurs group and I would request you to link this post on your blog to spread the word about the group and help more people experience their FREEDOM OF SPEECH and FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION(of IDEAS) biggrin

Suggestions and criticism is most welcome(and is highly recommended).

|In: Brand Building|Last Updated: | 8 Comments
Ever thought how advertising could be used for brand building..Check this hoarding in Chennai which indicates the open fight between Kingfisher and Jet Airways.

Now,after few days,one more flier,the low cost airline Go Air also joins the bandwagon.Guess,if Air Deccan also joins this fight,than it’s hoarding would say “We don’t think we need to change“(though I can only afford and love Air Deccan) wink

Definitely you would have a smile on your face,when you see this one biggrin