Mandal II - Why?

I still have very vivid memories of what happened during the VP government rule during the Mandal Commission crisis, though I never understood why that happened. I was still in school in my 6th or 7th standard and was too young to understand the consequences of such an act. First time I had heard young students burning themselves live and first time the word RESERVATION.

It was our mid semester exams and a group of students from local university came inside our school exam room and asked us to shout "Mandal commission murdabad". I don't know how come the school authorities allowed them (school authorities do had troubles managing the mob and we had even later police deployed at the compound) but our teachers also insisted to say one or two times so that the mob can then go back and we can safely pursue our exams.

And then for next 1-2 months it was holiday time, every one or two days we used to go and check if school would reopen. I was not an avid reader and did not quite understand what was it all about and with time I forgot about what all that happened.

Today after having gone through the entrance examination route, having an IIT degree, having spent around 3 years in Austria, and now trying to build a product company in India, I am seeing the same stories in newspapers again. Any my heart and my mind questions my soul - why - why again? Haven't we learn't any lessons from the past ?

I am not against doing quotas or reservation but to what extent ? In school I had friends from all castes and I myself never knew what SC/ST actually meant? Had we had the same quotas for getting admission in school, the fact that something like this exists would have created more hatredness amongst various communities.

IIT's have maintained a good standard in providing education irrespective of the quota system. We do had colleagues from the SC/ST category but at times they excelled and scored more marks and others appreciated it. Teachers to my knowledge had never been impartial in giving marks. And the IIT system that one has to clear degree maximum in 6 years or providing a preparatory 1 year course to weak SC/ST students has never affected the high education standards set up by them.

But moving from 25% to a reservation of 49.5%, is that justified even if IIT's maintain that standard of education? Students burn their midnight oil - studying at times 14-16 hours a day and their parents spend an equivalent amount of time guiding them. Visit any IIT- JEE examination center, the day IIT entrance exam is held, one can see the worries of the parents and their concern about their student's future career.

Are we as humans justified in making policies that puts reservations/quotas above excellence and that too of young minds who have yet to start a career and experience life?

The aim of reservation was to make weaker socities economically stronger, so where is the economic justification to reservation? If politicians want to do a 49.5% reservation, I would ask them to add a clause along - Annual income of all those people who want to file a reservation seat should have an annual income below 1 lakh or 2 lakh. Economically a SC/ST family earning 2 lakhs as annual income should be at par with a general category family earning the same amount. So opportunities for kids for both families should be same. But politicians won't do it, it's another issue , it's another day for them!

Tie Group Mentoring Session

Today I was at Tie Group Mentoring Session. The session was an open discussion forum with queries answered by two panelists: Mohit Goyal (co-founder IIS Infotech) and Pradeep Gupta (founded Cybermedia).

My overview of the session is:
- Money is not a constraint to seed fund the venture. People have been putting their own seed funds to venture out.
- What people seriously lack is advice and guidance.
- Lot of people had already built small successful businesses but they don't know how to scale them up and move to the next level.
- Lack of networking opportunities in India - how do you reach relevant people? - not many online/offline forums.
- Building a team who can pull apart.

Panelists asked entrepreneurs to join ENP Program (Entrepreneurship Nurtuting Program of TiE). So I am going to join now and figure out how much it helps.

And also met some pals, old and new. Gave a demo of LinkNSurf to a few people. And found out Wirkle was mentioned in the Band of Angels article. Quite a surprise, so google provided me the answer.

There's been a huge revival in angel investing over the last six to 12 months, especially in the areas of mobile telephony and convergence," says Vish Akela, a Silicon Valley-returnee, who is now funding a handful of budding entrepreneurs like 26-year-old IIT Delhi-grad Varun Khurana's Wirkle, a mobile entertainment company.

Checkout the complete article here.

Vision, Technology and Consumer

Its been around two months since we launched an alpha version of LinkNSurf. These two months have made me realize what it takes to run a consumer focussed startup and what's the difference between vision, technology and a consumer!

If not all atleast some of the startups start with some vision and then work towards it. Technologists try to put the best use of technology and write up some very complicated piece of software. But in the end, it all boils down to weather a consumer needs that piece of software! What specific need your vision and technology fulfills for your consumer?

An online busines needs lot of iterations and one has to adapt quickly. A startup is always constrained and it has to always keep on doing lot of trials and incorporate user feedback. What is more harder in an online business is to specifically identify a target audience and fulfill the need for your target audience. At times your vision would exactly match and at times it would deviate. One has to rethink the basic assumptions at every stage. And at times one would think how could I make such a mistake in the past! But it's all a part of what a startup is. Providing and improving product, improving technology are all easier stuff but actually identifying a business need of a consumer can be much harder, especially for the technologists.

At LinkNSurf we are now exactly trying to solve this problem. We are now having release cycles every 10 days, each release is not about getting new small features done but its about improving usability, its about a user finding a value in the product.

Startups are not just about identifying problems but its about solving them. Business problems can be real hard, but solving them is the thrill. Lot of people appreciate great vision and great technology, but that doesn't build a business out. At the end it's a consumer that builds a business so start talking to your consumer from day one!