I have been pondering for a long time - Why is startup experience invaluable? How is it different from working at a big corporation? I have a good vantage point on this as I have been part of many startups, traditional process-driven enterprise corporations, and in-betweens. I knew the benefit of the startup experience. I … Continue reading Why work at a startup?
Tag: startup
All In
As a young fledgling startup, you should not be building layers of abstraction over the technology that you are using; on the contrary, you should be going all in. I have talked to multiple startups doing this. The intention is to future proof the product; this should be the least of your concerns during the … Continue reading All In
Make It Small
"Make it large" is the mantra these days, but when it comes to releasing software, think the opposite, make it small. The secret to a successful release is to break it into numerous small deployments; this serves a dual purpose, minimizes risk as well as gives you enough leeway to fix bugs before it negatively … Continue reading Make It Small
Market Size
When I was working on Kwery, a lot of people used to ask me - Why are you not trying to build a team and raise money? The niche market that Kwery served was not amenable to VC money or building a team. Kwery was an experiment in creating a single person lifestyle business. Market … Continue reading Market Size
Startups and VC La La Land
With daily morning newspapers dedicating pages and front lines to startups and venture capital(VC) investments, they are no longer the niche they used to be. Whenever a startup investment is in the news, I hear questions along the lines of: Is the VC crazy to invest so much money in that startup? Why does that … Continue reading Startups and VC La La Land
Startup Hiring
Hiring is an area which is usually given a lot of lip service but neglected in practice. Especially in a startup, where there is a shortage of workforce, hiring at all levels has a profound impact on the future of the organization. When compared to a big organization, the value proposition of a startup to … Continue reading Startup Hiring
Kwery
When I was at FreeCharge, I did quite a bit of data engineering. One of the recurring patterns that I saw was: A new product or feature gets launched.The PM wants to schedule a report for her feature.The report should be generated at a particular frequency.The PM and others from the C-team should get this … Continue reading Kwery
We Are a Startup
Being part of a startup is not an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later. “We are a startup” is the most common phrase people spout when you ask them about their sloppy processes and development practices. Being a startup cannot justify having zero process or letting developers be trigger happy. Being a startup … Continue reading We Are a Startup
Let us set up an office
FreeCharge recently moved into a bigger office; this brought back fond memories of setting up the first Bangalore office. Setting up an office might not seem a daunting task, but trust me, it is. A previous company that I was part of had opted not to set up its own office and worked out of … Continue reading Let us set up an office
Consumer tech
I was reading this article about a startup that is launching satellites for imaging the earth. A line from the article stuck with me, the startup is leveraging technology developed for consumer devices like laptops and mobile phones in their satellites. This is a reversal from the olden days where technology that was developed for … Continue reading Consumer tech
Startup test
Where does your startup stand on the below? Do you have version control? Do you back up data(server data, db data, etc)? Can you build using a single command or prosaically, do you have build scripts? Can you deploy code to production in a single click/command? Do you have different staging environments like dev, qa, … Continue reading Startup test
Future is in the photos
I was going through the VC interaction posted by Everpix guys. If you go through the letters, you see this repeated a lot, "You guys are in a crowded space which the biggies(Facebook, Dropbox, Google, Apple, etc) are after". Everpix is/was a service to store and organize photos. Why is this such a hot space? … Continue reading Future is in the photos
The Algorithm and Data Structures Conundrum
Hacker news denizens have a penchant for articles on hiring. Every once in a while, a post appears on the home page followed by a passionate and vituperative debate. People conversing on this can be divided into two camps; one argues that math, algorithm and data structures are critical and interview candidates should be quizzed … Continue reading The Algorithm and Data Structures Conundrum
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