August 7, 2011 – I rejoin Facebook.

Here are the reasons I quit and why I am back:

1. Felt Facebook was having a negative impact on the world  - Read the ‘Facebook Effect’. Understood the brilliant vision behind it and now I support it.

2. Didnt like the most of the posts / people on Facebook. Could not relate to them and their actions – Going to use groups and keep the content relevant.

3. Wasted a lot of time and energy on Facebook. Was a major distraction. – Need to use the positives and enforce self control.

4. Most of my chatter and sharing happens on twitter and felt my social group would soon follow me there. But that didnt happen and once I quit Facebook, I could no longer reach out to them.

Not sure how long my second stint on Facebook will last but what’s important is to be true to today’s thoughts, reasons and circumstance.

“With due respect to the Morpheus guys but I have never seen a single post from any of the ex-morpheus companies detailing how it helped (or not helped them). Because of this I just dont know what value they bring to table” – sushrutbidwai

“I was just thinking that we should get some Morpheus guys to post a short testimony here. You know, as we are the Indian Entrepreneur Community, they must be interested” – rick_2047

These are 2 comments on a recent post – “Morpheus’s Batch 6 – Startup Acceleration Program Application is now open!”, on Hackerstreet.

Yes, that’s a fair enough argument. So this is me, Shashank ND from Practo.com, Morpheus Batch 3 (July 2009) sharing my thoughts on how we are benefiting from being part of the Morpheus Portfolio Companies :1. Got us focused on the most important things from Day 1, didn’t allow us to divert our attention, focus. This alone saved the company.

2. In the initial stages it was great to be pushed as hard as we were by Morpheus, it was great to be held accountable / answerable

3. They added few very good practices, which we continue using in the company even after 1.5 years

4. The initial momentum they added was awesome and critical

5. They added credibility to the company which was especially important for a B2B product and a very young team such as ours

6. Great set of portfolio companies (gang), comprises of companies/entrepreneurs we look up to. Learnt a lot from the gang.

7. Was introduced/met with 4-5 VC’s thanks to Morpheus efforts

8. Since Morpheus took care of meeting VC’s and updating them about their portfolio companies, we got to continue uninterrupted on building our business

9. Been invited to number of forums, events as speaker thanks to our association with Morpheus

10. One of the most honest, transparent, energetic people I have come across so far

My advice to the young entrepreneurs :

1. Stop worrying about equity. You dont build a big company by having the most equity, you build it by getting the right team, advisors, investors and building value/money. So stop worrying and holding on to equity, start worrying on how you will get to become a big company. Do whatever it takes to become big.

2. Your responsibility as entrepreneurs is to build a successful company. This is a long (7-10 years), hard (1% success rate) & lonely battle, it is absolutely critical to find able & willing shoulders to share this burden with.

According to me, Morpheus is playing an important role in building the young Indian Startup Ecosystem – teaching, mentoring, connecting young startups and saving a few from dying / or going into oblivion. They passionately put in lots of effort, little money & time into their portfolio companies and the entire Indian Startup Ecosystem. We need more of such people and organisations, as I believe they are a critical part of any Startup Ecosystem. Just ask Phani from RedBus.in about the importance of mentorship and you will know where I am coming from.

If anyone needs any more details about Morpheus or their Startup Acceleration Program, you can get in touch with me at shashank[at]naabo[dot]com

Here’s how -

1. No Automatic Online Payments, thanks to ’3D Secure’- RBI says, “We will not allow businesses to charge credit cards automatically, even if the credit card holder authorizes such a permission. Each time a transaction is done, a manual intervention by the card holder is necessary.” This is DUMB. This prevents companies from billing a customer on regular intervals automatically. This is inconvenient for the users and kills SaaS companies.

2. Lets kill Mobile payments as well - If the first one was not bad enough. The government felt that the best way to promote ‘Mobile e-commerce’ was to implementation of ‘OTP or One Time Password’ for mobile payments. Cleartrip recently talked about this yet another suicidal decision of the government to promote commerce on mobile here.

3. RBI’s (Pay) pal – Repercussion of the first point killed Pay Pal in India. If you are unaware of this major development, read more about the problem here. Here is also a petition started to appeal against this move :  http://ieoi.in/

4. TRAI’s NCPR black magic - The new regulations were intended to stop unsolicited calls & smses are a nightmare for Indian startups which offer mobile value added services. The government provides you 3 options – either allow spam, register with NDNC (National Do Not Call Registry) to avoid all spam or register for spam from a particular category only. Here are few opinions on the same – NCPR – Boon or Bust for SMS Pull Services

As illustrated above, over the past few months the governments policies are getting more and more restrictive and are affecting startups. I got really pissed when I came across few entrepreneurs who are giving serious thought to moving their successful startups / businesses out of India to take up one of the better options provided below.

While most the countries today are attracting entrepreneurs, the Indian government is least bothered. Here are a few countries being considered :

1. Chile - “In 2010, the program brought 23 teams from all corners of the world, providing them a $40,000 subsidy (no equity) to take part for six months, and a temporary 1-year visa to develop their projects along with access to the most potent social and capital networks in the country.” - http://www.startupchile.org/

2. US – “Under the proposed legislation, instead of the visa going to an investor, a startup company founder or entrepreneur who receives a minimum equity investment of $250,000 could qualify as an EB-5 visa recipient. At least $100,000 would have to come from a sponsoring US investing entity. Overall we hope to make it easier for more entrepreneurs to start businesses in the US and create jobs.” - http://www.startupvisa.com/

3. Singapore - Heard it takes just one credit card and 30 minutes on the internet to start a company in Singapore.

We were lucky to have the IT revolution in India, which has got us to this point. We might not be as lucky with the ‘Startup’ revolution which we see rising in India today.

Disclaimer : I am founder of a tech company (Practo) and my views are inclined to the hardships faced by the tech startups in India.

2. Quit Facebook
Reason : Irrelevant information, time & focus sink

3. Decreasing use of Google Reader. Dependent on Twitter as a replacement
Reason : Better content at faster pace

4. Started a blog in 2010. Focused on startups, web, technology
Reason : Brings clarity to thoughts

5. Stopped using Read it Later. All articles read on Instapaper. Period
Reason : Simple wins. Always

6.  Started reading fiction. ‘Atlas shrugged’ was the first one.
Reason : Common Sense

7. Zero dependency on the local system. Information is online. OS, drivers, setup files on ext hdd and online
Reason : Local is lost. Need Web OS

8. 99% of all bills / expenses paid online  (Damn Maharashtra Electricity Board)
Reason : Netbanking makes running a company 80% easier

9. iPhone, my best investment ever
Reason : Trust only technology companies – Apple, Amazon, Google

10. All my offline applications are internet based
Reason : Refer reason 7 (More of a filler point)

I was unable to share all my views on this subject, so here we are. Lets start by defining ‘Student Entrepreneurship’ (SE). SE is a business started by a student while pursuing his/her education.A bit of background on how I qualify as a ‘SE’. I and my partner Abhinav founded Practo in 2008 when we were studying our final year engineering at NITK, Surathkal. We graduated in June 2009 and have continued to build the company full-time since. We are today a strong team of 10 spread across Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and recently Delhi with over 500+ paying customers.

So lets get right to what are the most important things which helped me start and run the business while in college :

1. Join your E-Cell. Became Aware.

My seniors in college, started an Entrepreneurship cell in 2006. My partner (Abhinav) and I were one of the first few (four) to be selected for the E Cell. This was the first time I came across the concept of ‘Entrepreneurship’. This association with the E Cell was very helpful. E cell gave me access to alumni who had stared their ventures, got me to events across the country where I was inspired by some awesome entrepreneurs. It also gave me a group of passionate people who were all inspired to become an entrepreneur someday.

2. Get Started. Nothing to lose.

As a student, you have no responsibilities (apart from passing your examinations). Not much is expected from a student. This is the best time to get started. People say that the most difficult part of starting a business is getting started. And as a student, your inputs (cost of living) are taken care of and its the best time to maximize your outputs. Even in the worst case you – failure,  you can always find a job.

3. Family. Family. Family.

Parental pressure is one of the main reasons why students interested in startups, entrepreneurship cannot stick with it. Most parents feel ‘This is what life has taught me and I wont allow my children to go down that road’. Yes that is correct but life changes, world changes. Starting a business or joining a smaller company in todays world works. Students need to get their family on their side of the equation from  Day 1. After working hard on my startup for 1 year, my parents told me, ‘if your business can occupy your restless mind 24 hours a day for months together, then you truly are passionate about it, we are with you’. I am lucky.

4.  Startup Mentors.

I made the mistake of not having ‘Startup Mentors’ early on and it cost me big time. When you are young and inexperienced, its an advantage – ‘Nothing seems impossible to you’, ‘You feel can rule the world’ and this is needed for SE. But a disadvantage is that it makes you commit really basic mistakes which can easily be avoided. This is why you need ‘Startup Mentors’. When you need medical opinion you trust a doctor, legal issues go to a lawyer, similarly you want to startup go get few startup mentors. Startup mentors are those who have done what you are about to do, they have walked the path you have choosen, –  learn from their mistakes. When choosing your Startup Mentors, dont go by flashy character, designations or companies, spend time with them and be choosy. We got our mentors in 2009 – The Morpheus. It enabled us to take our business to the next level.

5. Money should be the last thing on your mind.

If you want to make money take a job, want to make a lot of money become an investment banker. There is a big misconception that entrepreneurs get rich.
Want to learn how the world works, become an entrepreneur.
Want to create, build something new become an entrepreneur.
Want to change the way world works, become an entrepreneur.
Never chase money, if you are doing something worthwhile it will chase you. Trust me, be patient. Common startup excuse – ‘My idea needs money’. If you really need money to startup, invest your own. If you can’t, get your friends and family to invest.  If you cant do that as well, you aren’t even worthy to be entrepreneur. Monetary constraint helps build valuable companies. Innovation happens best with monetary constraints.

6. What should I do. My idea sucks.

This is the other most common reason why people do not startup. Entrepreneurship is something you learn by doing,  not by reading or imagining. Smart people figure out the way as they walk. Your measure of entrepreneurship by learning, talking, imagining will be 1% of what you see in the real world. So start. Start now. Your time is already running out. Your idea is good enough to start. Go to market, learn, change. Go start now.

I would like to make a mention of NEN here, who have really helped students in colleges understand and experience entrepreneurship. Thanks to TIE for having me over, it was good fun.

Also, thanks to Nandini for reviewing this post.

I called Dell XPS support and they had an engineer at my doorstep in 20 hours. That was too cool. The plan was to replace the heat sink and hard disk. They had a backup motherboard, if there was further damage.

This was the old heat sink and the motherboard. Lot of dust in the fan. The motherboard was replaced one year back with a Nvidia graphics card problem. Didnt get that changed this time. The Dell support dude says the OS and the harddisk was the problem.

This was my heat sink. Check out the thermal padding on the new heat sink on the left.

My Western Digital (160 Gb) hard disk had a corrupt firmware issue. The issue was diagnosed as a 146 error while running the self diagnostic (function key + F11). They replaced that as well, with a new one on the right which had a new design.

This was the thermal pad they used over the processor. It helps in keeping the processor cool and  dissipating the heat to the heat sink. Two of such pad were added. The same was there on the heat sink.

You can see the cooling pad/gel on the processor, the heat sink comes on top of this. Well those where the three things that they changed. After completing this, they found my CD-ROM was not working and the vista CD in extremely bad shape and language (Hindi).

So I am now stuck with a Dell XPS m1330 which does not over heat but has no OS. Thank god for USB bootable Ubuntu, I can at least access the internet without much fuss.

Finally, a computer which does not need any installation, setup, hardware or software configuration, virus protection, training to use. This magical computing device is called the Apple iPad. Is this device a necessity or a luxury? Can this device help improve your practice?

The reason the iPad has had an amazing response (3 million sold in 80 days) is because its the only device which a five year old can pick up and start using, even sixty year olds can understand and operate an iPad without training. This is why iPad is magical – One doesn’t need to be ‘computer literate’ to use one.

I would recommend every doctor to get one for their practice. You will not regret it.

- Check your mails, surf the web, read online
- Use your practice management software (TurboDoc.in is iPad compatible)
- Show Educational videos / youtube videos to patients

2. ultra-portable – Use it sitting next to the patient (Truly Chair Side)
- Easy to handle and move around
- Use it at the reception desk, doctor desk or at chair side

- Amazing 8 hours without charging
- Very low support cost
- Provides a good ROI

- Absolutely no requirement to train someone to use the iPad

- Patients of every age group love iPad
- Use it to take feedback from patients
- Show your work done photos and other healthcare information

This question could be further broken down to 3 basic questions -

1) How safe is the web today?
2) What are the right questions to ask your web application provider (Gmail, Facebook etc) ?
3) Is TurboDoc.in safe?

1) How safe is the web today?

In the past 10 years, web-based solutions & technologies have come a long way. They have evolved wonderfully to give a better solution for storage, backup and access of data vis-à-vis client/server systems. This can be attributed to, to name a few, the below.

- Advanced web browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox have made browsing the web safer and faster
- Better encryption techniques like SSL, 256 bits encryption that make sure higher levels of security
- Higher bandwidth allows better security measures to be employed
- Mainstream commerce like booking movie / railway tickets has to a phenomenal extent, moved to the web. This has underlined the need for more online payments which in turn has brought in more investment and research into security

2) Questions to ask your web service provider?

Here’s what you should be concerned about, when you sign up for a web service.
- Data Security: Where is my data being stored? Who is the provider? What are the security measures provided by them?
- Encryption: Are my username, password being encrypted? Are 256 bit SSL certificates being used for login?
- Backup: Are backups taken every day, hour, minute? Data warranty?
- Uptime: What is the guarantee on the availability of the website? What is the track record of the website?
- Privacy Laws: To whom does the data belong? Can any party other than myself access the data I upload on to your servers?

3) Is TurboDoc.in Safe ?

- Data Security : Data is maintained on the world-class secure servers of RackSpace, more about RackSpace
- Encryption : Not only is all access to the application is through an encrypted username and password, but also role based. Meaning the primary user can decide how much of data he wants to share with the other users(eg: office staff) of his own TurboDoc.in account.
- Backups are taken every day and we offer 100% data warranty. Your data is never lost.
- Uptime : We have a 99.99% uptime guarantee. Here’s the proof
- Privacy laws : You are the owner of your data and no one else can access the data

Today, your data is safe online if the providers adopt the right measures and technologies. Your data is safe and secure with TurboDoc.in, you have not a single thing to worry about.

http://www.cloudave.com/link/javelin-shooting-an-arrow-into-crm

http://webandyou.avelient.com/2009/05/14/customer-relationship-management-crm-javelin-for-your-small-business/

http://zebugroup.com/2009/03/3-reasons-why-we-picked-batchbook-as-our-crm-tool/

http://www.budeco.nl/en/budeco-the-making-of/about-the-selection-of-an-online-crm-system/

Finally went ahead with capsulecrm.com

It was a close call between Ccavenue and EBS but went ahead with Ccavenue since they provide the maximum coverage with better uptime and security measures. Hope this saves time and energy for others who are contemplating the same. Do send in your comments which could be added to the table.