entrepreneurship Search - Powered by PodTech.net

Classic Scoble : The killer business: paper models?

Robert Scoble — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:26:00 +0000

What was Scoble up to one year ago today? Check out today’s video for a trip down memory lane.
And for more context, check out his blog, from one year ago today!

This is a departure from my usual tech-focused videos. In Phoenix, Ariz., at an entrepreneurs’ conference, I met Lon Safko who told me about his business, PaperModels, Inc.. You’ll find this business to be really incredible. He makes money without having any inventory, nor any employees.

Tags: Lon Safko, PaperModels

Broadcasting Education and Culture in Brazil

editor — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:29:45 +0000

Brazillian educational broadcasting organization Canal Futura was one of the Microsoft Education Awards Laureates at this year’s Tech Museum Awards, presented by Applied Materials, Inc. Canal Futura uses technology to augment Brazil’s education system, which faces challenges like poverty as well as many different cultures and languages spread across the large geographic diverse nation.

By recognizing that Brazil has nearly universal access to television, Canal Futura provides free, vital educational programming to 33 million people. The company broadcasts on topics ranging from the environment, culture and human rights to drug prevention and entrepreneurship. Programming is often produced in partnership with local educational and social organizations, with the goal of ensuring relevance for local communities.

Lucia Araujo, general manager at Canal Futura, spoke with PodTech at The Tech Museum.

The Tech Awards: full coverage

Tags: Canal Futura, Microsoft Education Awards, Tech Museum Awards, Applied Materials, Lucia Araujo

CalacanisCast32 beta

Jason Calacanis — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:34:06 +0000

In this episode, Jason sits down with author and business psychologist Dr. Mark Goulston to discuss some fascinating psychological aspects of entrepreneurship.

This post is sponsored by GoDaddy.com: $6.95 .COM domain names at GoDaddy.com!

Tags: Mark Goulston, entrepreneurship, GoDaddy.com

Umang Gupta on Entrepreneurship, Part 3

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:00:49 +0000

In the final part of our conversation, Umang Gupta, CEO of Keynote Systems, talks about his experience as an entrepreneur the second time around. After leaving his first company, Gupta Technologies, Umang took some time off to rethink and reinvent himself before coming back to head Keynote Systems and taking it through to a successful IPO.

What were the changes in his style the second time around? How did he handle the downturn in the economy during the dotcom bubble? Tune in to find out.

Tags: Keynote Systems, Gupta Technologies

Umang Gupta on Entrepreneurship Part 2

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:18:05 +0000

In this second part of our conversation with Umang Gupta, CEO of Keynote Systems talks about entrepreneurship and running a public company.

Umang, a co-founder of Gupta Technologies, shares his thoughts about running a public company and the lessons he learned from that experience. From being a master of his own destiny, Umang found that he had become a steward for other people’s money. Tune in to find out what else he has to say about running a company and what it takes to run a public company.

Tags: Umang Gupta

Umang Gupta On Entrepreneurship, Part I

Kamla Bhatt — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:02:57 +0000

Umang Gupta is CEO of Keynote Systems. I caught up with Umang at the Pan IIT Global Conference in July and talked to him about entrepreneurship and what it takes to do startups and run your business.

Umang wrote Oracle’s first business plan and went on to co-found Gupta Technologies and take it through a successful IPO. Gupta Technologies was the first client-server SQL relational database for PCs. But, after Gupta Technologies went IPO the company took a different route, and Umang stepped down from the board in 1997.

Umang is an active investor and advisor to a number of Silicon Valley start-up companies. He served on the Board of Trustees of Mosaix, a publicly held call-center systems company from 1997 to 1999 until its sale to Lucent Technologies.

Tags: Umang Gupta, Keynote Systems, Oracle, Silicon Valley, Mosaix

The Game of Work

Brad Baldwin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 17:00:17 +0000

Charles Coonradt is the author of the book The Game of Work. Coonradt had an epiphany one day when he watched how engaged and excited people were when playing basketball on a work break. His thought was why couldn’t this same model be applied to work? Coonradt created a methodology for increasing productivity through making work a game. He incorporated important lessons from sports and games, complete with feedback, scorekeeping, goal setting, coaching, choice, and accountability.

Coonradt talks with Brad Baldwin about the creation of his business — also called The Game of Work, entrepreneurship, and a new book released in July 2007, The Better People Leader.

Tags: Charles Coonradt, The Game of Work, entrepreneurship

Ex-Satyam Director Talks About His Startup Funding Experience

Kiruba Shankar — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:10:10 +0000

GB Prabhat talks about what made him leave his top position as a Director at Satyam, one of India’s biggest software companies, and take the hard route to entrepreneurship.

This particular edition will be of special interest to both entrepreneurs and to those who aspire to be one.

When he quit Satyam recently, he had helped grow its Enterprise department’s revenues to 200 million US dollars a year.

His new venture, Anantara Solutions, has gotten seed funding of $6.5 million US dollars from Helion Venture Partners, Walden International and Silicon Valley Bank. He talks about his experience in getting funding and also shares his advice to those wanting to jump into the entrepreneurship bandwagon.

Anantara focuses on Second Generation Outsourcing (SGO), a business paradigm that radically improves first generation outsourcing which is predicated primarily on cost arbitrage.

Tags: GB Prabhat, Satyam, India, Anantara Solutions, Helion Venture Partners, Walden International, Silicon Valley Bank, Second Generation Outsourcing, SGO

Harish Bahl, Founder CEO of Smile Interactive, on Internal Incubation

Kiruba Shankar — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:02:58 +0000

Harish founded Smile Interactive, the company that incubated Quasar, one of India’s top digital advertising agencies. It’s also behind Tyroo, an advertising network that Yahoo recently bought a substantial part of. It also built the technology behind MakeMyTrip, India’s biggest travel portal.

In this podcast, Harish talks about what it takes to incubate small companies internally.

Harish, an engineering graduate in Computer Sciences, is a serial entrepreneur. prior to getting into Internet business, he built bullet proof cars.

Harish is considered a thought leader on the subjects of digital technology, interactive advertising, online travel, and entrepreneurship and is a regular speaker at various forums for the same.

He is an active member of NASSCOM and IAMAI and proactively represents the Indian internet community for addressing issues related to the growth and smooth functioning of the industry with various regulatory bodies.

Tags: Quasar, India, Tyroo, Yahoo, MakeMyTrip, NASSCOM, IAMAI

CEO of JamCracker Talks About Entrepreneurship Via Research

Kiruba Shankar — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:33:49 +0000

KB Chandrasekhar helped set up a research centre in 1999 at the Madras Institute of Technology Campus of the Anna University. He infuses $1 million every year into the research centre. It underlined his strong belief in research as a passage to entrepreneurship.

The vision of the centre is to become a research institution of international repute. In pursuit of this mission, the AU-KBC Research Centre initiates research in new and emerging thrust areas such as nano-sciences, and expands research in established areas such as communications and biology.

Tags: KB Chandrasekhar, entrepreneurship, nano

Gopal Srinivasan of TVS Group on Entrepreneurship

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:59:38 +0000

Gopal Srinivasan belongs to Chennai-based TVS family, which runs the TVS groups of companies. TVS has led to the growth of Chennai as the automotive capital of India, and today Chennai is known as Detroit of India.

I caught up with Gopal in Manhattan, to find out about the unbroken culture of entrepreneurship that has continued for almost 100 years within his extended family.

How did they get there? How did the company and the TVS family handle the changes that India underwent during this 100-year span? India went from being a British colony to an independent nation. Later, from 1950-1980s, India went through a long phase of socialist colored economic policies and doing business was often a challenge for many family-owned companies. During the early 1990s the Indian government introduced liberalization reforms and the upshot is the current economic growth of the country.

During this 100-year span how did TVS change the focus of their family-owned business to emerge as a multi-billion dollar company today? How do the family-owned companies continue to adapt to the changing economic and political landscape of India?

In this interview, Gopal talks about his grandfather’s vision, which led to the foundation of TVS in the early 20th century. How did his grandfather, a lawyer by training, become an entrepreneur? How did he create strong values of trust and reliability that continue to persist, 100 years after the company was founded?

TVS is headquartered in Chennai and Gopal is director of TVS Electronics Limited. He is also the joint mnaging director of Sundaram-Clayton Limited and is on the board of other TVS group companies.

TVS Electronics is the only group from Asia, outside of Japan that has won the Deming Award for Quality more than once. TVS Electronics, founded in 1986, started as an IT peripherals manufacturer and has today transformed itself into an IT Transaction Solution provider and Business Process Outsourcing partner. TVS-E offers a wide range of computer peripherals to suit all peripheral related needs.

Gopal also sits on the board of ICICI Ventures, India’s largest private equity firm.

Gopal is currently the Chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Council of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). He was previously the president of Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT).

In 2004 was named the “Electronics Man of the Year - 2004″ by “Electronics for You.”

Gopal has an undergraduate degree from Loyola College in Chennai and an MBA degree from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

When not traveling around the world, Gopal lives in Chennai with his family.

Tags: Gopal Srinivasan, TVS

Mayfield Fund’s Yogen Dalal on IIT, India and Entrepreneurship

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:28:17 +0000

Yogen Dalal is the managing director at Mayfield Fund, in Silicon Valley. I caught up with Yogen at the Pan IIT Global meet, where we talked about IIT, Mayfield’s India strategy and entrepreneurship.

In the interview, Yogen answers some tough questions, like what to do if your venture fails, and how to handle failure, generally.

Yogen was part of Vint Cerf’s team at Stanford, working on TCP/IP protocol. There, he co-authored the TCP specification. TCP/IP is what makes it possible for all of us to use the Internet today. Tune in to find out what Yogen has to say about his TCP/IP-related work as a graduate student at Stanford.

Yogen currently sits on the boards of Affinity Labs, Consorte, Packet Design, PacketHop, Podbridge and Revenue Science. Yogen’s investments include Arbor Software, BeVocal, BroadVision, Concur, Nuance, OuterBay, Packet Engines, Snapfish, TIBCO, Vantive and Whistle.

Yogen has an undergraduate degree from IIT, Mumbai and a PhD from Stanford University.

Tags: Yogen Dalal, Mayfield Fund, Silicon Valley, Pan IIT Global, entrepreneurship, Vint Cerf, TCP specification

NEA’s Kittu Kolluri on Entrepreneurship Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 19:49:01 +0000

NEA’s Managing Partner, Kittu Kolluri is an engineer-turned-entrepreneur-turned-investor. I met with Kittu at NEA’s Sand Hill Road office in Menlo Park, Calif., to find out how he made this transition from being an engineer to an investor.

Tune in to listen to Part 2 of our conversation on entrepreneurship.

Tags: NEA, Kittu Kolluri, entrepreneur

NEA’s Kittu Kolluri on Entrepreneurship Part I

Kamla Bhatt — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:34:32 +0000

NEA’s Managing Partner Kittu Kolluri is an engineer turned entrepreneur turned investor. I met with Kittu at NEA’s Sand Hill Road Office in Menlo Park to find out how he made this transistion from being an engineer to an investor.

Kittu started his engineering career at SGI, and while there got to know Jim Clarke, who went on to co-found Netscape and Healtheon. Kittu was one of the co-founders of Healtheon.

Kittu is also featured in Michael Lewis’ bestseller book published in 1999 The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story.

After Healtheon, Kittu went to lead a networking startup called Neoteris that was acquired by Netscreen, which in turn was acquired by Juniper Networks.

Kittu joined NEA in January 2006 and sits on the boards of Nevis Networks, PortAuthority, RingThree Technologies, and SnapTell. He co-leads the NEA IndoUS Fund along with Vinod Dham and Vani Kola.

Kittu is a graduate of IIT, Madras and State University of New York, Buffalo.

Tags: Kittu Kolluri, Jim Clarke

Kaval Kaur on Entrepreneurship, Part 2

Kamla Bhatt — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 23:20:21 +0000

In the second part of our conversation, Kaval Kaur talks about how Virsa got funded and how they built the company. What tips and advice does Kaval offer for entrepreneurs?
(more…)

Tags: Kaval Kaur, Virsa

Kaval Kaur on Entrepreneurship

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:24:27 +0000

Kaval Kaur is a co-founder of SUFI, an incubator and angel investment company with offices in the USA and India. Kaval and her husband Jasveer co-founded Virsa, which was later acquired by SAP for a few hundred million dollars. Virsa is part of SAP’s Governance, Risk and Compliance business unit. I caught up with Kaval at the TiECon 2007 in Silicon Valley, where she was one of the master of ceremonies for the two-day event. I wanted to find out Kaval’s journey as an entrepreneur and how it all started. In Part I of our conversation, Kaval outlines how her journey and chief financial officer began. Founded in 1999 as a services company, Kaval and Jasveer had to change the course of their business midstream after the dotcom collapse and 9/11. Pushed to refocus and reinvent Virsa became a product company focusing on a nice market: security and compliance in the ERP space. How did they do that? What were the challenges they had to face?

Tags: Kaval Kaur, SUFI, Virsa, TiECon 2007, Silicon Valley, entrepreneur

Raj Jaswa of TiE on Entrepreneurship

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:55:45 +0000

Raj Jaswa, president of The Indus Entrepreneurs, Silicon Valley chapter talks entrepreneurship in this interview. I was curious to find out about the early days in Silicon Valley (the late 1980s and early 1990s) when being an entrepreneur was not an easy task, especially if you were an immigrant. If you flashback to the early 1990s, getting VC money or going IPO was not an easy task.

Raj was one of a handful of entrepreneurs of Indian origin in the early 1990s involved with the successful founding and IPO of a start-up called OPTi. What creative means did he and his founders use to make their start-up OPTi a success? How and where did they market their chips when the U.S. market was dominated by Intel and AMD?

After Opti, Raj then became involved in another company called Selectica, which had one of the best IPO debuts during the dot-com boom. In 2000, Raj was named to Forbes’ list of “Top CEOs: Corporate America’s Most Powerful People.”

After two successful companies, Raj is now involved with TiE and in mentoring a new generation of entrepreneurs. I asked him if he would be interested in starting a new company. Tune in to find out what he has to say.

Tags: Raj Jaswa, Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship, Selectica, TiE

Anu Shukla on Entrepreneurship

Kamla Bhatt — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:53:46 +0000

Anu Shukla is a serial entrepreneur who is currently busy with MyOfferPal, her third start-up, now in stealth mode (it recently received VC funding).

At the recent TiECon, Anu introduced and moderated the session with Meg Whitman, head of eBay. I caught up with Anu afterward to talk about entrepreneurship, a subject that she’s passionate about.

Her first company, Rubric Soft was acquired for $366 million in 2002, after which she went on to start RubiconSoft, an On-Demand marketing services company.

Anu sits on the Board of Directors of FWE&E (Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives) and the Advisory Board for the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.

Tags: Anu Shukla, entrepreneur, MyOfferPal, TiECon, Meg Whitman, Rubric Soft, RubiconSoft, Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, Leavey School of Business

Manish Arora of Kincafe

Kamla Bhatt — Tue, 29 May 2007 23:59:25 +0000

Manish Arora is the founder of Kincafe, a Silicon Valley-based social networking and Web 2.0 company. Kincafe is focused on connecting and cherishing your family connections by sharing photos, videos and other files in a secure environment. I caught up with Manish at TiECon 2007, where we spoke about Kincafe and the new face of entrepreneurship. Manish has self-funded the company and in fact planned his transition to becoming an entrepreneur in a systematic manner. What helped Manish become an entrepreneur was his father’s advice that he start a business with his own money. Manish is a third-generation entrepreneur.

Tags: Manish Arora, Kincafe, TiECon, entrepreneurship

Kiruba on Podcasting in India

Kiruba Shankar — Tue, 22 May 2007 22:41:48 +0000

Priya Shah of WATBlog called me up to do an interview on the current state of podcasting in India. I figured it may be a good idea to record the interview and also release it as a podcast.

Traditionally, this is the show where I interview CEOs of Indian IT companies with a focus on entrepreneurship, Internet and Mobile. However, this episode is going to be a bit different. Instead of the interviewer, I become the interviewee.

In this episode, we discuss the huge gap between the adoption of blogging and podcasting, the reasons why podcasting hasn’t taken off in India and about PodWorks, India’s biggest podcasting event that is taking place on June 9 & 10.

Tags: Priya Shah, WATBlog, entrepreneurship

Seshan Rammohan on TiECon 2007: The New Face of Entrepreneurship

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 19:18:32 +0000

If there is one networking event where people of the Indus or South Asian region congregate to network and connect, it is the The Indus Entrepreneur’s annual event: TiECon. Over the years, TiECon has evolved to become an important networking event for technologists, investors and entrepreneurs from around the world. About 4,000 people are expected to attend this year’s TiECon event in Santa Clara, Calif., next month.

Seshan Rammohan is executive director of TiE’s Silicon Valley chapter. Here, he talks about the focus of the conference, the speakers and the advantages of attending. This year’s theme is “The New Face of Entrepreneurship.” Some of the speakers include Meg Whitman of eBay; Mark Benioff of Salesforce.com; Tim O’Riley of o’Riley Media; Robert Ingram of GlaxoKline and Matt Cohler of Facebook, among others.

Tags: TiECon, Santa Clara, Seshan Rammohan, Silicon Valley, Meg Whitman, Mark Benioff, Tim O’Riley, Robert Ingram, Matt Cohler

The killer business: paper models?

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:26:53 +0000

Tags: Lon Safko, PaperModels

Ravi Kumar on Campus Incubation at IIM Bangalore

Kiruba Shankar — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:33:44 +0000

Ravi Kumar is a veteran entrepreneur and currently a consultant with The Nadathur S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning. NSRCEL was set up in March 2002 at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) to synergise with the institute’s focus on entrepreneurial studies. The Centre defines the opportunities perceived by aspiring entrepreneurs, evaluates their strengths/weaknesses and helps them with resources to translate their concepts into profitable business ventures. (more…)

Tags: Ravi Kumar, entrepreneur, Indian Institute of Management, IIMB, entrepreneurial studies

Arun Natarajan on the Indian Investment Ecosystem

Kiruba Shankar — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:22:15 +0000

Arun Natarajan is the founder and CEO of Venture Intelligence, a provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India.

Arun writes the Venture Intelligence India blog, covering entrepreneurship, business and venture capital industry trends.

In this conversation, he discusses the business model behind Venture Intelligence, the investment climate in India and the need for analysis of VC and private equity investments there.

Tags: Arun Natarajan, Venture Intelligence, entrepreneurship

Silicon Valley to Host Historic Meeting

Jason Lopez — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:04:58 +0000

The United Nations is embarking on something new: a partnership with the private sector to address some of the developing world’s most vexing issues in areas such as education, health care, economic development and government. Craig Barret, the chairman of Intel, has been appointed to chair the UN initiative called the Global Alliance for ICT and Development. GAID meets with Silicon Valley leaders for the first time at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., for a series of panels and discussions about the ways IT solutions can help the U.N.’s efforts. PodTech’s Jason Lopez spoke with Sarbuland Khan, executive coordinator for GAID.

The podcast was made possible by Intel.