madhouse musings!

Season’s Season’s Greetings y’all!

Last year, on World Diabetes Day I wrote a post on LifeMojo and their test site. You can read that post here.

One year down the lane, i have more than one reason to be compelled to write about LifeMojo!

I started to track my diet and activities on the LifeMojo platform and soon i realized that i had started to watch what i eat unconsciously!

I have also got onto the habit of checking for calorie content of the food i consume on LifeMojo and these guys have made it really easy to access that information – all that i need to do is ping the “Calories” buddy on my gtalk, input the food i am consuming and voila it gives me the calorie content of the same and more!

I set goals, mainly weight reduction goals and i have lost 8 kgs in all till date. All this, with no crash diets or rigorous exercises, but a well planned diet and some simple activity goals on LifeMojo.

I also tried their Diet Consultation and was on one of their diet plans for a while, but my travel schedule often made it difficult for me to follow the diet plan. But, what i do like about their diet plans are, they do not make you change your food habits, they work around things you like to consume and plan a diet for you!

I subscribe to their daily tip, it comes to me via SMS exactly @ 8 am each day! I kinda look forward to it right now, coz its a new insight each day. Tips that helps me in my daily life.

Something else i like about LifeMojo is their articles section on the website. It’s a melting pot of knowledge related to health and fitness – and not the run of the mill sorts, but features that add real value with tips that are very possible

The LifeMojo guys have constantly kept their product alive by introducing interesting features and kept the interest of users like me alive! Most recently they’ve added a bunch of diet consultation packages to their offering. The diet consultation is not online only, its a great mix of over the phone and online which makes the whole consultation and getting results out of it all the more real. There is someone following up with you!

Just a couple of days back they have launched their Forums – a new feature that brings in more interactivity and exchange of knowledge among the users of LifeMojo and people interested in health and fitness.

What’s more, a little bird also tells me that these guys are almost on the verge of hitting that break-even point and perhaps even go cash flow positive. Looking forward to that LifeMojo guys!

Meanwhile, now that i have a 8 month old at home, i am looking forward for LifeMojo to introduce something to track diet of infants and kids, say JuniorMojo or ChildMojo? What say guys?!

When i wrote to Himanshu of LifeMojo asking him for a few recent updates @ their end for this post, he offered this to all reader of my blog:

One time FREE Diet consultation for Diabetes Diet Plan on LifeMojo. Exclusive for the readers of madhouse musings!

Here is what you need to do:

Call +91 9008 999 189 and mention the coupon code NH14
and you can avail a one time free consultation for this

So, here’s to good health & a diabetes controlled world!

It’s that time of the month again, time to beckon upon another entrepreneur! Here’s a bonus, this time we have two entrepreneurs, who are a couple in real life too! So let’s gather around, learn, discuss, compare notes and get to know each other, this Second Saturday of November! Your participation is important and it matters, so here’s personally inviting you.

This month we have:

Vinay & Shalini Mehta, Founder of Pole Vault Technologies. Here is more about the company and the founders:

When: 14, Nov 2009 (Saturday); 3pm – 6pm

Where: RSVP me for details

Contact: Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkaraDOTeduDOTin

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Format

* Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs

* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner

* Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem

* Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event

* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Please confirm your participation by replying to this mail. If you want to bring a guest or a fellow entrepreneur along, do let us know in reply to this mail.

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes on best practices of building businesses!

See you on Saturday!

This month we have:

Vishal Chalana, Winshuttle (www.winshuttle.com), a leading provider of data entry and data download tools for SAP, Winshuttle is Headquartered in the US with its R&D outfit in Chandigarh, India.

When: 10, Oct 2009 (Saturday); 3pm – 6pm

Contact: Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkaraDOTeduDOTin

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Format

* Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs

* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner

* Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem

* Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event

* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Please confirm your participation by replying to this mail. If you want to bring a guest or a fellow entrepreneur along, do let us know in reply to this mail.

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes on best practices of building businesses!

See you on Saturday!

It’s that time of the month again, time to beckon upon another entrepreneur, gather around, learn, discuss, compare notes and get to know each other! Your participation is important and it matters, so here’s personally inviting you.

This month we have:

Pulkit Jain, Founder & Director, Lakshya Institute (www.lakshyainstitute.com), a Patialia based start-up a with founding team of 4 young IIT grads who are on the path of realizing their dream – that of revolutionizing the way learning is perceived and teaching is delivered. Lakshya Institute was the winner of the Tata NEN hottest startups 2008.

When: 12, Sept 2009 (Saturday); 3pm – 6pm

Where: Get in touch with Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkaraDOTeduDOTin to know the details

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Format

* Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs

* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner

* Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem

* Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event

* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Please confirm your participation by replying to this mail. If you want to bring a guest or a fellow entrepreneur along, do let us know in reply to this mail.

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes on best practices of building businesses!

A little over a year ago, when Sameer & I quit our jobs (again!) & set out on our journey called Morpheus Venture Partners, I could hear whispers in the sidelines…. Some shouted out loud on our face (I love the sorts who are upfront!) Many of them supported us of this decision and thought early stage eco-system in India badly needed something like this.  A few thought we were fraud & just trying to take advantage of innocent entrepreneurs; some thought that there was not much value in what we were doing, a lot of them thought entrepreneurs need money not advice… and so on…

I’ve always done what i have strongly believed in & so was the case with MVP. Not that we had the entire thing  planned out in our heads. We started with a loose model; something that could be of value to start-up entrepreneurs, we were open to learning, tweaking as we learned and executed. But our focus was and will continue to be to give the best and excel in what we do!

And now, one year later, we’ve just announced 10 start-ups as part of our Third Batch and expanded our team. Read Release Here What does it mean to me, as a Partner and one of the founding members of MVP? A whole freakin’ lot!

Indus is a super cool dude, who has entrepreneurship in his blood. The match in attitude, wave length between the team is superb! [Picture this - Indus lives in Bangalore, travels in the local bus, walks some distances to get to a meeting and yet he has all the energy to deliver!]

Thanks to Ankit of Instablogs via whom met Indus & engaged him as a pro-bono Subject Matter Expert for MVP companies. At MVP we had no plans or thoughts of expanding the team in any which way, partly because we ourselves operate like a frugal start-up & partly also because we were unsure about the role of a new team member. But, the guy he is Indus – we just could not, not have him on board! Superb human being, great attitude, exceptional humility! With him on board MVP has grown stronger by bounds and leaps! Indus, Thank you!

We were 10 companies strong till June 2009 and the learning with them was immense. Each one of them – Ankit, Nandini, Sumit, Lalit, Sahil, Siva, Rajnish, Varun, Namit, Himanshu, Rakesh, Waqar, Riz, Jay, Sarab, Vaneet & Ishu – are rockstars in their own right. Thinking big, executing fast, fearing not to fail, fighting and fighting through! Thanks guys for giving me an opportunity to associate with you. (okay this does not mean you’ll not see anymore of me!)

Collage Courtesy: S P Hari

The Current Batch now has 10 companies and I personally believe each one of the founders is exceptional. They have a passion, they’ve dared to dream, they are focused.

Adscoot’s Suyash, stands for hours in the major junctions at mumbai to learn traffic patterns and measure footfalls!

EasySquareFeet’s Ashu & Snehesh are the most positive people i’ve seen! I can see their smiles through the phone when i talk to them (serious!)

Viv & Hari of InterviewStreet are two rockstar techies who are consciously & fast learning other skills to take their product to market. They have the passion & drive to make things work!

Shashank & Abhinav started on Naabo right out of college – the freshness in approach & the passion they bring with them is infectious.

Arjun of Picsean is an engineer, but his passion towards photography is amazing! He’s a good friend & i’ve seen his focus and smart work in his past ventures. His attitude to learn is commendable!

Robin of ReachTax is a star CA, but i love his humility and the motivational skill he has to make his entire team perform month after month!

Pankaj & Gaurav quit their fancy paying jobs to work on Retail Vector. Focus, quick work and frugality of life is what they are committed towards as they scale this venture!

The first thing that stood out when i met Abheek first was such an young guy and such maturity & humility. (Often age and humility dont go too well). This guy was 7 years old when he started putting Lego pieces into perfect ensemble & several years later, he’s using them at RobotsAlive!

I loved their designs and the quality of tees – Rahul & Mohit of Scopial have their focus completely on “Quality” “Design” “Niche”! They sell tees one could die for! Check a sample out here

I read about these guys in a print article & the next time we were in Mumbai, we met Jayesh & Karthik of VeriCAR. Two guys crazily passionate about automobiles & trying to solve a problem i was once a victim of! I love their attitude and their approach to things. They love getting down to basics and doing things themselves.

I am already having a lot of fun interacting with the current batch and looking forward to more fun, chaos, fights, fails, wins & whole lot of late nights!

Now, with all this happening – a whole lot of learning, association with the best of the lot, new challenges, lots of sense of humor & innovation. I don’t really have the time to think if MVP is a success or failure. But what i do know and will continue to focus on is “work harder”, “create more value”, “excel and achieve mastery”. And for evaluations of where we stand – let that be for the skeptics to comment on, while i play on….  & spread the madness!

Taglines traditionally are defined as a part of the brand building exercise that sums up the mission, intent and image of the business. When I studied brand, logo elements and the importance of the “tagline” in theory, as a student, I was fascinated about the fact that if the tagline copy was written intelligently – it can work wonders. I admired “Just do It” and still do! I did use some of the do’s and don’ts while designing logos and creating brand identity documents in my career.

When I was creating the logo element for  Madhouse, my first startup, I religiously spent sometime figuring out what the tagline should be. I dint even think of my logo without a tagline. The belief was that, we should be able to use the tagline without the company /brand name eventually to create the same recall and recognition in users minds. Inspired by the Nike Swoosh!

As time went by, I noticed that most new generation internet companies were emerging without the tagline! What mattered the most was the brand name or the name of the business and not so much the tagline. I remember the likes of ebay, amazon, yahoo, google, apple, rediff, indiatimes, etc. not having a tagline. And as we move on, many more established companies are dropping their taglines.

I guess, the way things have changed in branding, building companies, communicating the value of the business – brand recall is a great challenge and consuming, now imagine adding a tagline to it and trying to push the whole branding. Its too much to ask!

The reality for today is that Taglines are redundant! They are nothing but noise in the business scheme of things. Having said that, I think for statrups / new companies having a tagline is a personal choice. Thought, its important to get that darn tagline right – if not it’s a disaster of sorts before your company has started!

To quote relevant examples from my real-life experience: While working with LifeMojo as part of the MVP business acceleration program in 2008, we discussed at length to have a tag-line and when we launched the site we did have a tag-line too. But soon we realized that the tagline was not adding too much value, if anything, the logo was looking clunky and bad trying to accommodate the tag-line. And so, we just knocked it out! On the contrary,  the tagline Deskaway is Simplify Teamwork and this for me is the perfect summation of what Deskaway stands for as a business.

And so… Contemplate real hard if you’d like to have a tagline for your company or not. And if you’d still like to have a tagline for your business / startup here’s some insight that I’ve garnered through some years of experience:

• Taglines can be of two major kinds:
  • Ones that have a direct reference to the business – company, service or the product, Deskaway’s tagline for example or Kingfisher Airlines’ Fly the Good Times or United’s Fly the friendly skies
  • Ones that reflect the philosophy of the company – Nike, Just Do it! Or Nokia, Connecting People.
• So when you are contemplating having a tagline for your business. There are few things you may want to think about:
  • What’s the purpose the tagline is going to actually serve? “I’m lovin’ it” has become synonyms with the golden arch and McD’s burgers now. But to achieve this they’ve been at it for years now.
  • The tagline should actually add value to your brand, the business offering and enhance the perceived value of your business.
  • What do you want to say as part of the tagline? Do you want it to reflect your mission? Connecting People; Your business philosophy Always low prices, always or talk about the product offering directly? Utterly Butterly Delicious!
  • A tagline must reflect the feeling / emotions of the customer and not what the people behind the business want customers to perceive.
  • Ensure that the tagline is short enough to fit with your logo unit and to be reprinted anywhere – from a visiting card to a huge sky-drop size hoarding
  • The tagline must be well written to gel with your business ideology and should convey something.
  • The tagline should be simple in language, no buzz or jargon usage
  • A tagline should serve its purpose at least for a few years for the business.
  • A tagline has to be direct to appeal to the larger customer base, so that they can identify it and recall it when required.
  • Intellectual taglines are recipe for disaster
  • A tagline that has no recall is a tagline worth removing
  • A bad tagline is as good as a ruined brand. Better not to have a tagline, than have a bad one

In all, I frankly don’t remember many taglines of companies that are doing well. I remember an one off “Just Do it!” or “I’m lovin’ it!” coz these are the rare gems that have risen out of a lot of crappy taglines by established companies.

So, as a last tip – if you’re not sure what you want the tagline to be, if it hasn’t come naturally to you – then don’t waste your time on thinking up one – its not worth the time spent. Not at all for a startup!

Xtremestartups team is excited to invite you to another edition of Startup Evening in Chandigarh on 11th July, 2009

Please Note: Xtremestartups event happens on the Second Saturday of every month between 3pm and 6pm, block your calendars to meet fellow entrepreneurs and exchange notes of best practices of building businesses!

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship.The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Date / Time
11 July, 2009 (Saturday)
15:00 – 18:00 hrs

Speakers Start-up founders will share their experiences of starting a venture, sustaining it and taking it to the next level.   * S P  Rangi, Founder, Clarity Medicals
* To be confirmed  

To get an invite Contact Nandini: +91 9779140169 / nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom, Shahnaz: +91 9779450735 / shahnaz.jerathATchitkara.edu.in

Format * Event will be attended by 20+ start-up founders / entrepreneurs
* The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner. * Guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem. * Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem. There is no fee for attending the event.
* Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?
* Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
* Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
* Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
* Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Nominations:

If you’d like to NOMINATE a speaker or topic for the event, please do so by sending us a mail: nandiniATmorpheusventure.com OR shahnaz.jerathATchitkara.edu.in

See you on Saturday!

After the success of its first Startup event in Bangalore, Xtreme Startups team is excited to invite you to the 2nd edition of Startup Morning on 27th June, 2009 at IIMB Campus. The videos of the previous edition can be viewed at Part I, Part II.

“Start-up Morning/Evening” is organized under the Xtreme Startups banner. It is a non-profit initiative to support & promote entrepreneurship. The events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held at Mumbai, Bangalore, Chandigarh and Pune. Read coverage here & here.

This edition of Xtreme Startups is supported by NSRCEL – IIMB, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) and Startupnews.in

Date & Time
27 June, 2009 (Saturday)
10:00 am – 01:00 pm

Speakers
Three start-up founders will share their experiences of starting a venture, sustaining it and taking it to the next level. This edition’s speakers are:

1.  Jaya Jha, Founder, Pothi.com
Jaya Jha along with Abhaya Agarwal started Pothi.com, a print-on-demand publishing solution for India for self-publishers catering to companies, individuals, NGOs, etc.

2. Sitashwa Srivastava, Co-Founder, Creadivity.
Creadivity is an online marketplace for advertising & marketing solutions in India. They have been part of the TIE-EAP program and were nominated for TATA-NEN’s hottest startup awards.

3. To be confirmed

Audience: Start-up founders / entrepreneurs

Format

• Event will be attended by 30-40 start-up founders / entrepreneurs
• The event brings together Startup Founders to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
• The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
• Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
• There is no fee for attending the event
• Refreshments will be provided at the event

What will you gain from the event?

• Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
• Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
• Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
• Opportunity to build a strong startup community

Invite Only: It’s an invite only event. In case you would like to attend write to indus AT morpheusventure DOT com OR info AT startupnews DOT in, with your full name and a brief introduction of your startup / venture.

Speaker Nomination: In case you would like to nominate yourself or another startup as a speaker for the forthcoming events, do drop us a mail. We are also open to your ideas and suggestions.

See you on Saturday!

Xtreme Startups – a Non-Profit initiative to support / promote entrepreneurship is back again in Chandigarh with this months edition of Startup Evening.

Xtreme Startups is supported by Chitkara University, Morpheus Venture Partners (MVP) & Startupnews.in

This month Xtreme Startups will be on: June 20, 2009 Saturday

Between: 15:00 – 18:00hrs

Audience: Startup founders and select students

Discussion topic: Crossing the Chasm – how to scale the business once you have a few paid customers and initial traction. Everything from expanding the team, building products to raising funds and the challenges post that.

“Start-up Morning/Evening” events are organized with the support and help from a lot of friends in the startup community. Previous editions of the event have been held Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.

If you want to bring XtremeStartups to your city / campus, do get in touch with us!

Format

• Event will be attended by 20-25 founders of start-ups from Chandigarh-tricity area and around 20-30 students
• The event brings together Startup Founders from the region to share experiences and interact with other start-ups in an informal manner
• The other guests, like you, will typically be experienced entrepreneur / investor / a person from the start-up ecosystem
• Participation is “invite only”, concentrated group of Startup Founders and others in the startup ecosystem
• There is no fee for attending the event

What will you gain from the event?

• Opportunity to interact with others in the startup ecosystem
• Share and learn from each others experiences in running businesses
• Potential to meet a business partner, investor, employee, etc.
• Opportunity to build a strong startup community in the Chandigarh Tri-City region

Want to be a part of this event?

Send a mail to nandiniATmorpheusventureDOTcom with a brief introduction about you and your venture.

Feel free to invite / bring along other entrepreneurs / startup founders you know.  Spread the word!