All Posts by Himanshu Sheth

|In: Venture Capital|Last Updated:
With Indian economy booming , VC/Private Equity(PE) investments have gone up to 2.4bn$ in the first quarter of 2007 as reported by Economic Times.This is indeed a good news for the investorsbiggrin

Some excerpts from the article:

The overall VC/PE scenario is doing well, what with investments in the first quarter of this year almost doubling to about $2.4 billion. If this growth continues, we could very well see total investments crossing $10 billion in 2007, especially with several new funds coming in,” says Arun Natarajan of Venture Intelligence India

As far as segments go, IT, manufacturing, financial services, engineering and construction, transport and logistics reign when it comes to attracting investments

You can read the complete article here

A related podcast(related to VC investments in India) by Arun Natarajan ,Founder of VentureIntelligence is available below:

|In: Google|Last Updated: | 6 Comments

I have been thinking of writing this article since a long time and finally,it is on my blog.It is said that Innovators come from companies that promote Innovation.Most of know that Google allows it’s employees to spend 20% of the time to work on their own ideas surprised No wonder,why Google gets so many innovators which help Google grow to newer heights.So let’s see why Google has an innovative ecosystem which is difficult for other organizations to build up?

As per my understanding,below could be some of the reasons why the other companies are not promoting this culture:

a. Too much work pressure and more focus is on deliverables(especially in product based companies where Time to Market is the deciding factor of the product)
b. Services based companies are based on billing/hour (of the employee ie.40 hours per week) hence their business model does not fit in Google’s category
c. Lack of research environment
d. Lack of market knowledge(by the employees)
e. People competency(Google has stringent interview session which enables Google to get the right and competent set of the people from the crowd)
f. Very attractive pay package offered by Google(which would also be a morale booster for its employees,but it is not primary for many people)

There could be multiple reasons which I might have missed out,but the bottom line is we require more companies like Google biggrin. In fact,Microsoft also tried its hands on innovation but is behind Google to promote innovation.SiliconValley Watcher has a nice article on Microsoft V/S Google(in the field of innovation) and definitely,Google has a clear edge over MSFT.

The article mentions :

Google is faster at innovation than any other organization of any size.And the innovation comes from the marriage of business models around useful, simple SEA/services. And just like a startup seeking a market, Google’s emerging business groups rely on market validation (usefulness to users) before continuing to the next stage.

Read the complete article here

Definitely,more the no of Google’s , more the expectation of innovation but where are the organizations that promote innovation? exclaim

|In: Blogging|Last Updated: | 2 Comments
With blogs becoming more and more popular(&powerful) medium of information,blogs have become a must for every organization.Blogs are one of the best tools to reach the customers and to get honest feedback from them.Also,blogs are a great way to build trust because they are not like a corporate marketing brochure but provides you to communicate with your customers,users and community more regularly than the other medium allows.

Thus,in short use Blogs to reach out to the customers.I was trying to search some blogs which focus on the same strategy and came across ApniTally.The description given by the author Shailendra S Yadav was very impressive and gave a straight forward message:“The Blog is meant for helping customers who use TALLY”(check the message below)

Thus,serving customers in this unique way would definitely increase the faith of the customers in the company and would also help company grow their customer base biggrin

|In: BarCampBangalore3|Last Updated:
This was my third BarCamp and I should admit that “It was one of the most memorable unconferences I have ever attended biggrin Great effort by Jace,Arpit,Kesava and his team for organizing such an event.

So,what was different for me in BCB3 as compared to BCB2?
The event (particularly the second day) was excellent and everyone enjoyed the second day a lot.It was discussion and networking for the two days of the event.I met all the old timers in BCB3– Shiv,Ashwin,Kiruba,Syed(K & S of the Knowledge Foundation fame)

Also, after the end of BCB3,I had good conversation with the guys from MobileMonday,Bangalore–Rajan and Rajiv….Along with this,met many Entrepreneurs and to -be Entrepreneurs.Looks like I would get good help for setting up my venture biggrinAnyways,below is one of the photos(At least I look smart in Photos lol), where I am there with my “Love-The laptop”

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|In: BarCampBangalore3|Last Updated: | 2 Comments
Rajiv Poddar is the founder of Sedna Wireless,a Banaglore based startup and he gave a demo of his product called ThinFone.You can know more about Sedna here

There was a demo of the product by Sedna which is slated for release in Summer 2007.The demo is available in a movie file which would be uploaded on Youtube and hence have not recorded much lol

Below is a small insight into what ThinFone is all about :

ThinFone is a WLAN device which acts as a cordless extension to your PC and provides VoIP Call Transfer and Audio Streaming facilities. It is 802.11 b/g compliant and comes with inbuilt speaker, microphone, antenna, battery and USB port. It is Skype, Yahoo Messenger and GTalk compatible provides VoIP call transfer capability for all these clients. It can also be used to stream high quality audio from the computer playing any kind of locally stored, CD or an Internet Radio service.

The ThinFone System consists of a Server software and the handset device. The Server software is installed on a computer running Windows XP. The ThinFone system has been designed for residential users and requires a pre-installed 802.11 b/g wireless router along with the broadband connection.

The video would be available on my blog once it is available biggrin

|In: BarCampBangalore3|Last Updated: | 6 Comments
Kiruba Shankar is one of the early stage blogger’s in India and has been podcasting for Podtech.He had a few tips for people who are new to podcasting and who have the myth that Podcasting is difficult biggrin

Q. Why don’t many people podcast just has people do blogging?
There were mixed reactions which are given below:

  • Consumption is not easy
  • Equipment is very costly and hence many people don’t prefer podcasting
  • More preparation is needed
  • Editing
  • Quite environment
  • Permission
  • No easy application
  • Good Content

Ans. Some of the answers given by Kiruba were a. Podcasting is not a geeky stuff but is also not so simple smile You just need a PC, Headset with a mic to do a podcast and none of the equipments are costly.Audacity is one of the best softwares to edit audio and damn,it is available for free.Some of the best podcast sites are PodBazaar,Odeo

Q. What is one of the most important things you need to focus in a podcast?
More preparation and content is very much important for a good podcast

He touched upon Mobile Podcasting which is very prevalent in western countries but is in a nascent stage in India sad

14 Mantras for a good podcast:

  1. Podcasts should be short( maximum of 10 minutes)
  2. Be passionate about your subject
  3. Have fun
  4. Segmentize
  5. Cram good stuff
  6. Edit and than edit again
  7. Continuously improve
  8. Be regular
  9. Invest in equipments
  10. Get a buddy
  11. Preferably a girl
  12. Use music
  13. Time stamp
  14. Subscribe to every feed

More would follow once the slide is up on SlideShare biggrin

Ashwin of CruiseManiac has also covered the session here

|In: BarCampBangalore3|Last Updated: | 6 Comments
I could not blog many of the events(live),which I attended since my laptop was drained out and later on,I had some problems with my internet connectivity.But again SlideShare came to the rescue and I was able to find few Slides on SlideShare.Two of the sessions are given below:

Web 2.0 Social Blogging Platform


This session was given by Vibhash(8th Semester student) and I had spoken to him during my lunch break.I was impressed with his passion and excitement and I am sure he would go a long way smile.Below is a session on his blogging platform called bForBlogs

Widgets and Open Standards – Opera


This session was given by Vivek and Navjot from Opera Software,Chandigarh.The session was excellent and the debate was all about widgets with the Opera Browser.There was a debate as to whether the opera widgets would work with Firefox lol I guess everyone knows the answer

Fortunately Ashwin had blogged about it and you can an excellent coverage here
More updates on Day 1 would soon follow and I would definitely try to cover everything live tomorrow lol