It has been 3 years since I left the comforts of a big organization and started working in the startup mode firefighting every day. The learning curve for me in the past three years have been phenomenal both technically and operations wise. Here is my learning on what a startup company should address in terms of operations related issues
1. Lab and network infrastructure - Dont under estimate this. A poor network and lab infrastructure will blow in your face just when you don't want it. In my experience I had come across a unique situation where the servers in the lab were just having a hard disk wipe out just because the AC in the lab was not adequate and temperature in the lab was soaring beyond 35 degrees centigrade and the temperature near the servers was like a hot tandoori oven. Outsource your infrastructure maintenance to people who know it best rather than you fighting it daily.
2. Developers are your primary resources - Value them. Take care that developer's comfort is of utmost importance. Not every startup can provide a cozy office for the developers. But at least see to it its not a cramped space. Giving developers laptops (rather than desktops) and providing them the freedom to sit and work ( a bean bag office environment) in the place they want will save you cost and also make the developers comfortable
3. Power - And a place like Bangalore needs utmost attention in this regard. Make sure you go for a trusted vendor for UPS and also get a consultant to help you in setting up the power connections and proper earthing.
4. Wiring in conference rooms - This is the place I hate to have wires floating around here and there. If 10 people sit in the room and all have their laptops connected to network through wires imagine the mess when someone gets up and walks around. Get a Wifi connection for your conference room. Also get the connection from your projector to power socket go through a sealed cabling. This is another candidate for getting tripped.
5. Have a concierge - Developers need undisturbed time to think and design. Let them not worry about paying their utility bills or getting the weekend movie ticket. Have a concierge setup to help them out. It doesn't cost much for the company to setup a concierge.
6. Keep your hiring standards high - Never compromise on this even if you are hiring for a maintenance / support job. If you have made your first release to market and got into the support mode of it don't think you can afford to lower your recruiting standards to get support staff. After all they are the ones who are going to fix your bugs. Having a bad developer fixing your bugs is asking for disaster. They will ultimately screw up your fundamental design and the entire code will be nothing but a set of patch works.
Showing posts with label Startup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Startup. Show all posts
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Startup City @ Bangalore
Wow!!! was the expression I had when I came out of the startup city event organized by SmartTechie magazine, the first of its kind in Bangalore. The event was meant to create awareness among technology enthusiasts about various successful startups in Bangalore and encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in them. The event was held at NIMHANS convention center, Diary circle, Bangalore on the 24th of May, 2008 . It was a whole day event. There were talks and sessions given by leading entrepreneurs and technology evangelists in the morning. There were also parallel sessions going on in the morning where folks who have an idea to start a company can meet VCs one on one and discuss their plans. This in my opinion was a great opportunity for many budding entrepreneurs.
Among the talks that were given in the morning session, the one that impressed me was Lead India winner R.K.Mishra’s talk on his entrepreneurial journey and his subsequent interest in community service and social work. True to his statements in the Lead India finals, “That is why my motto is ‘work more, talk less”, he really is a man of actions. For the rest visit his blog and his website.
The afternoon session was open for us to go and interact with the startups who had put up stalls there. Due to a huge crowd I was not able to spend time with all of them and discuss the technologies they work on. But a few of the stalls I visited impressed me.
OboPay’s concept of using the mobile as a virtual debit card to handle transactions was good. But I am not sure on their revenue model. As per their explanation, they dont charge the user anything for sending the SMS to Obopay’s SMS short code for transferring money from one’s account to the receiver’s account. Their revenue model at this time seems to be only entering into partnership with banks. I am not sure this is a sustainable revenue model as the banks may not see a value add after sometime unless obopay provides other value added services in the interests of the banks with which they are tied up. Also I am not clear on how secure their mode of trafer is. They have a few questions to answer. A similar service is provided by mCheck also. Check out their service here. This one looks impressive.
Soliton’s demonstration of its camera that identifies defective parts in a manufacturing pipeline was very impressive. They demonstrated it by letting the audience draw a circle by hand and let the camera detect whether it was a perfect circle or not (mathematically speaking, since there is no perfect value for “pi” there is no perfect circle yet.). Being a Coimbatorean I have a great admiration for Soliton as it is started by a Coimbatorean and has a development and support centre in Coimbatore too.
Though most of the startups were in Web 2.0 what I was interested was the startups in telecom domain. I went around and collected few materials on Sloka Telecom and Starent Networks. Sloka is working in the WiMax space and Starent is working in solutions for 3G services, IMS and thier unique ground up solution called “Inline services” which enables operators to define value added services inline with the core network elements. This approach is quite different from some of the out of the “box” (box here means the network element) mechanisms that many companies are still struggling to define for customized services.
And finally for the negatives. The ugly face of Bangalore’s infrastructure showed up here too. There were frequent power cuts during the morning sessions and the audience were left to sit in the dark auditorium way too often.
Among the talks that were given in the morning session, the one that impressed me was Lead India winner R.K.Mishra’s talk on his entrepreneurial journey and his subsequent interest in community service and social work. True to his statements in the Lead India finals, “That is why my motto is ‘work more, talk less”, he really is a man of actions. For the rest visit his blog and his website.
The afternoon session was open for us to go and interact with the startups who had put up stalls there. Due to a huge crowd I was not able to spend time with all of them and discuss the technologies they work on. But a few of the stalls I visited impressed me.
OboPay’s concept of using the mobile as a virtual debit card to handle transactions was good. But I am not sure on their revenue model. As per their explanation, they dont charge the user anything for sending the SMS to Obopay’s SMS short code for transferring money from one’s account to the receiver’s account. Their revenue model at this time seems to be only entering into partnership with banks. I am not sure this is a sustainable revenue model as the banks may not see a value add after sometime unless obopay provides other value added services in the interests of the banks with which they are tied up. Also I am not clear on how secure their mode of trafer is. They have a few questions to answer. A similar service is provided by mCheck also. Check out their service here. This one looks impressive.
Soliton’s demonstration of its camera that identifies defective parts in a manufacturing pipeline was very impressive. They demonstrated it by letting the audience draw a circle by hand and let the camera detect whether it was a perfect circle or not (mathematically speaking, since there is no perfect value for “pi” there is no perfect circle yet.). Being a Coimbatorean I have a great admiration for Soliton as it is started by a Coimbatorean and has a development and support centre in Coimbatore too.
Though most of the startups were in Web 2.0 what I was interested was the startups in telecom domain. I went around and collected few materials on Sloka Telecom and Starent Networks. Sloka is working in the WiMax space and Starent is working in solutions for 3G services, IMS and thier unique ground up solution called “Inline services” which enables operators to define value added services inline with the core network elements. This approach is quite different from some of the out of the “box” (box here means the network element) mechanisms that many companies are still struggling to define for customized services.
And finally for the negatives. The ugly face of Bangalore’s infrastructure showed up here too. There were frequent power cuts during the morning sessions and the audience were left to sit in the dark auditorium way too often.
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