SIPA Blog

Was leaving India and Coming to America A Life Mistake? - July'22nd 6:30PM

2010-07-13T17:50:00.000-07:00

For registration visit : https://www.123signup.com/register?id=mysnf

Announcing SIPA annual event - SIPACON 2009

2009-10-02T14:50:00.001-07:00

SIPACON 2009 - Silicon Valley 2010 and Beyond

November 7, 2009 Saturday
8 am to 4.30pm

SIPACON2009 our annual event for the year is coming up. We have an exciting list of speakers and topics lined up. The annual event will focus on the changing business climate and how Silicon Valley will emerge out of this recession. More importantly, what skills do we as professionals need to acquire to thrive in this business environment.

Key Highlights of SIPACON 2009
• Keynote by Tom Campbell - former Dean of Haas School of Business, the Budget director for Arnold Schwarznegger and a candidate for the next Governor of California.
• Workshop on Communications by Peggy Klaus - BRAG! THE ART OF TOOTING YOUR OWN HORN WITHOUT BLOWING IT
• Showcasing new startups – A 30 minute showcase of new and innovative startups bring new ideas to the marketplace.
• Panel on Enterprise application trends consisting of CIOs and Vendors, who will discuss the evolving enterprise needs in the new economic climate and the vendors response to these needs.
• Panel on opportunities in Green and Clean technologies.

Stay tuned for more information.

Speed Networking

2009-10-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

In September, we had a fantastic event on becoming better networkers. This month SIPA takes networking to the next level. Fasten your seat belts and be ready for a No Agenda, No topic, Energy packed and fun filled speed networking. If you have never attended a speed networking session, join this one. We promise it will be fun and you will get to meet upto 30 professionals in less than an hour, something that might take you a month.

We will break the ice for you. Be prepared to hone your elevator pitch using the ideas from Rajesh Setty’s workshop. Some of those ideas can be read at our blog – blog.sipa.org

You can also read the two eBooks by Rajesh Setty.
Lasting Relationships: http://www.rajeshsetty.com/resources/books/lasting-relationships/
Defiant : http://www.activegarage.com/projects/defiant

Register here:
https://www.123signup.com/register?id=jszzz

When: October 22nd (Thursday) 6pm to 9pm

Location : Club Illusions
260 S California Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94306

Registration :
Members Online $ 10 Walk In $ 15
Non Members Online $ 15 Walk in $ 20

Agenda :
6 - 6.45 Registration and Networking
6.45 – 7 Introduction
7 – 8.30 Speed Networking
8.30 – 9 Networking

There will be a cash bar. Complementary appetizers will be provided.

**SPECIAL ** Discounts on the upcoming annual event and annual membership will be provided at the event.

Key takeways from Rajesh Setty’s Networking Workshop

2009-10-01T00:59:00.000-07:00

How to be a better networker and make lasting relationships

Rajesh Setty does know something about networking and making relationships, and he proved it well last Thursday. A well rounded presentation highlighting topics filled with positive reinforcements that could be easily incorporated in our daily lives was what made Rajesh stand out. Imparting knowledge through a 2 ½ hrs session filled with energy, humor, wit and active participation made the evening incredibly worthwhile.

A few takeaways from the presentation are listed here below:

Introducing yourself, the Boxing Match

o People tend to ‘box’ you before getting to know first. It happens all around us and Rajesh emphasized staying ‘away’ from the ‘box’ing game.
o An easy trap is to say something like “I work at Cisco”. This sort of introduction does not say anything about you and boxes you into something the user has experienced about Cisco (good or bad).
o Your introduction should say something about you that is relevant to the listener. Be relevant, so that if and when the boxing does happen, you are put in the ‘right box’.

6 word memoir

o This was a very interesting exercise as it raised a question for all of us to try: Write your memoir, how you would like to be remembered in exactly 6 words. Try this exercise for yourself. It will be amazingly revealing, I promise!

Likeability

o How likeable are you to others? People respond to likeable people more than others. So put that smile forward and become approachable today! Think for a moment all the people you know, and identify who you think really likes you. Now grow that circle.

What matters to you?

o Whatever matters to you, think through it and internalize it. What is it that you value? Is it fame, money, title? We tend to spend our days keeping up with the day to day activities and not realizing what is that core value that we are striving to achieve? If you have not answered it yet, take some time to pen that downs
o Create a graph with time on the X axis and your core value (or what matters) on the Y axis. Plot where you are today and mark where you want to be,say in 5 years. Obviously, this point is roughly in the North East direction.
o Your network needs to have people who can help you get to that point.
• Now here is key. How can you help in someone's "What matter's graph?"
o You can help in someone else’s “what matters” graph either by shortening their time horizon or providing additional value or both.
o If you can be of value to someone’s “What matter’s” graph, then you have made a lasting relationship.

Making powerful requests

o Asking the right questions is critical. And when you do ask, ask in a powerful way. These powerful request will become opportunities to add value to both parties, not just for the person asking the question.
o Rajesh mandated us to make one powerful request in the group. His notion that there is tremendous help around, the only barrier that we need to overcome is ASK. We need to ask in a way that creates opportunities and thus transforms a simple request into a powerful one. This was a fear -breaking activity filling one with humility!
o Rajesh has a number of examples of reframing questions in his blog.

There is no simple way to summarize the learning from the evening. Rajesh made it clear right in the beginning that the value you get is proportional to your input.

Make sure to check out Rajesh’s blog consistently for continuous knowledge feed and growing professionally and personally! Also read the two free eBooks mentioned in the previous post.

Contributed by Dipti Jain

Networking workshop was a huge success - Sep 24, 2009

2009-09-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

Last night's networking workshop by Rajesh Setty was a huge success. It was one of the longest event and went on till 10pm. Rajesh provided some simple but critical insights into how we can all be better networkers. The exercises helped a lot too. For those who attended, thanks for your participation and I am sure you got a lot mileage out of this workshop.

For those who could not but wanted to, we missed you and hope to see you again. While we cannot replicate the atmosphere and learning from last night electronically, we will attempt to write a few points and update them on our blog. Please wait a couple of days. In the meantime, you can still read the two eBooks mentioned in our original invitation.

We would like feedback and comments from those who attended. Share what you learnt and what action you will take. We also want to learn about your successes so that others can be encouraged.

Save the Date – SIPACON 2009

2009-09-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

November 7, 2009 Saturday
7.30am to 4.30pm
HP Campus, Palo Alto, CA

SIPACON2009 our annual event for the year is coming up. More information will be provided in upcoming blog posts. Meanwhile, save the date! We have an exciting list of speakers and topics lined up. The keynote speaker for this year is Tom Campbell, former Dean of Haas School of Business, the Budget director for Arnold Schwarznegger and a candidate for the next Governor of California.

Our annual event will focus on the changing business climate and how Silicon Valley will emerge out of this recession. More importantly, what skills do we as professionals need to acquire to thrive in the new business environment. Stay tuned for more information.

Coming up Sep24, 2009 - Networking Workshop

2009-09-11T00:05:00.000-07:00

Networking Workshop – Practical ideas to improve your visibility
September 24, 2009, Thursday 6 to 8.30pm
Location: Hewlett Packard, Oakroom Auditorium
19447 Pruneridge Ave, Cupertino, CA 95014

The dreaded N word. No matter where you go, or what stage of career you are in - the most common advice is to Network, Network, Network. And yet, many of us fail to network effectively. The most common reason cited is that we are busy with our jobs or that we don't know how to do it effectively. With the recession still strong and jobs scarce to come, networking is the only effective means of securing a job. You may be lucky to get a job without networking, but is that a job you will like?

As you progress through your career, networking will become even more important. So why not start now. SIPA is conducting this workshop that will be a combination of instruction and practical exercise. We will help you with tools you can take to become a more effective networker. Please join in for this workshop and bring your friends/spouses along. This is ONE skill that you can't ignore.

This workshop is conducted by Rajesh Setty.

Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. You can read more about him at http://www.rajeshsetty.com/about/. Rajesh has written and published nine books so far with his first book published at the age of thirteen. He has also written more than 1300 articles on his blog Life Beyond Code. You can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/UpbeatNow

Notes and Pre-Requisites (PLEASE READ)

Note #1: This is a workshop - meaning you will participate and actually use the skills right away. If you are planning to watch from the sidelines, this workshop is not for you. We want everyone to get the maximum benefit from this workshop and that can happen when everyone fully participates in the workshop.

Note #2: You have to make a promise to share your learning with at least ONE person in your network. Obviously, we can't track whether you will fulfill the promise but we hope that you will do it.

Pre-Requisite #1: Read Lasting Relationships (free download) a primer on building relationships. It is a 20-page eBook and a quick read.
http://www.rajeshsetty.com/resources/books/lasting-relationships/

Pre-Requisite #2: Read defiant: Practical Tips to Thrive in Tough Times - It's a 90 page eBook filled with tips submitted by more than 50 people. You can download it here:
http://www.activegarage.com/projects/defiant

Pre-Requisite #3: Come with your burning Networking Question and actually ask that question. Together we can find answers.

To Register for this event - https://www.123signup.com/register?id=jvczz
Agenda
6pm – 6.45pm Registration and Card Exchange Networking
6.45pm – 7pm Introductory Comments
7pm - 8.30pm Main Event including Q&A
8.30pm – Wrap Up and Networking

Leveraging the Power of Social Media

2009-08-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

Leveraging the Power of Social Media for your product, your business and yourself

by Chris Vora 08/27/09

Social media has truly transformed the internet landscape. It's large and pervasive reach through various channels has given new meaning to the always-on, always-connected world.

But how does one leverage the immense power of Social media?
An event organized by SIPA held on August 20, 2009 explored many aspects of social media. The experts on the panel, who work with social media everyday provided many practical insights on how to harness and benefit from the social media.

The event started in earnest with the panelists introducing themselves and their companies.

Edith Yueng, the moderator talked briefly about her own business of TechBizdaily and the events she hosts for small businesses and entrepreneurs are meant to educate them on the tools and technologies they can use to advance their business. Edith had worked at many software companies before. Edith explained that companies start out with using a coins-and-slot-machine approach i.e. trying out different social web techniques before settling on one channel or technique or methodology that yields the jackpot i.e. gives them the desired results.

Gary Swart CEO of oDesk explained that his company's model is all about hiring and managing remote employees, service providers and contractors and operating as a virtual team. oDesk has an active blog (www.odesk.com/blog), Facebook page (facebook.com/odesk

), and Twitter account (@odesk) - as well as a vibrant and interactive community in the site's own forums. Gary had previously worked at Rational which was sold to IBM.

Megan Casey is a founder and chief editor at Squidoo. Squidoo www.squidoo.com

has an interesting model of creating overview pages (called lenses) on topics of interest. Her prior experience was in publishing at Penguin and Random House.

Himanshu Jhamb founded Active Garage www.activegarage.com

which attempts to provide rich content that is posted by the best business experts. Himanshu will be publishing his first book titled Project Management Tweet later this year. According to Himanshu, he learned to use the social media as a channel and by using the right tools and contributions from the experts he learned how to increase his site's brand value and participation from his audience and content providers. He believes that by using the social media channels and tools as Active Garage has done, anyone can brand themselves on an equal footing with the big folks.

Tony Welch is the lead for Social Media strategy in the PSG division at HP. He constantly evaluates the latest tools for HP. His experience spanned 14 years and he was the person responsible for setting up Sun's blog systems which posts CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blogs.

With so many tools and channels available, how does one choose? asked Edith.

Megan's answer was that one should choose to focus on one channel instead of spreading oneself thin over several social media channels at once. Her advice was to not try to be everywhere but instead to focus on one channel for a few months e.g Twitter and develop a deeper relationship in that channel with the target audience. Emails in your in-basket about these channels or otherwise still get read. So these emails should be engaging. Readers should be delighted by the content and providers have to give delight to the audience.

Gary indicated that social media is like free beer and provides nearly free publicity whereas spending on Google Adwords is expensive. Blogs have been very successful for Himanshu and great content has led to the increase in audience to 30k visitors/mo. Facebook fan page for businesses and/or individuals have been an effective way to gain audiences and get "buzz". One can update readers about new content by tweeting on Twitter, updating the status on Facebook and Linkedin. Comments and discussion can follow from the reader community.

HP uses tools such as Friendfeed to simultaneously spread or distribute content through social media and tools such as Radian6 and Biz360 for listening. They also have special tools for moderating, filtering or creating dashboard for monitoring and analytics. Third parties can also be contracted to do these activities and/or responding. Virgin America and Comcast use the social channels to provide customer service as well.

Edith cited an interesting example of a Kogi BBQ truck tweeting about its menu and about its lunch time itinerary in LA. It has quite a following, some 20K strong, and probably very hungry or salivating, eagerly following every tweet and this story was prominently featured in the LA Times.

Edith asked the panel to talk about a success story of using the social media in their companies.

oDesk talked about theirs. They had posted a blog about "The top tweeters you ought to be following". oDesk's post soon went viral with their tweet being re-tweeted multiple times attracting attention to oDesk. oDesk provided value to its readers and in that process increased its brand awareness.

Himanshu elaborated on his example where he was able to figure out the strategy, tools and channels. In the early days of his company he was puzzled about how to increase his audience. He discovered tools such as Tweetdeck and his strategy about positioning the company was then formulated around tweeting and posting good content. He also discovered that the Discus commenting tool was a great tool to have when one reader expressed that he was happy to be at Active Garage because the site was using the Discus commenting tool.

HP discussed the example of when an irate customer posted a blog about how he would set fire to the HP Mini and drag it behind his motorcycle through town. Tony spotted this blog and simply responded by saying " Can I help you". He was also able to work with the customer to find out where he was and dispatched an HP employee to meet him in person in Thailand ! The customer was happy with the service he got and even posted a 20 min. video on youtube. The example served as a reminder about how important it is to review and respond in a timely manner to customers.

Megan cited her example in which her greet box is able to figure out where the user was coming from. If the user landed into Squidoo from search engines or sites such as MSN, Digg, Linked in then she would know that the user would be in a hurry and the best content should be made available at the first click. If on the other hand if the user came from Facebook or Twitter then they are used to seeing 16 pages on average of content and 18 friends of theirs may have seen the same pages and they would spend 9 minutes on average at the Squidoo site. Knowing where the user came from helps Squidoo provide the right amount and type of content to the user.

Edith also explored how the panelists monitor and measure the impact of social media for their sites and how much time they themselves spent on social media.

Megan pointed to tools such as Google Analytics and stated that she found Mint to be a better tool. Feedburner measures engagement so as to figure out how many users like the site enough to subscribe.

Gary stated that his time goes in editing the publication on his site. He spends 15 to 20 min on Twitter in a day. One may need to monitor Facebook events, contests, affiliates etc. Megan cited the fact that although 'you are what you measure' there is a risk of over-measuring and under-prioritizing. Gary also mentioned that they closely monitor the cost of the 'free' acquisition as compared to paid acquisition and aim for continuous improvement. Tony stated that he spends as much time as possible tracking the social media that HP uses, almost all day. He cited the example of people whose job was not like his and were 'twouted' i.e let go because they tweeted to people and were supposed to be in a meeting on time and arrived late as a result of tweeting. The bottom line according to the panel was to use tools that best served the strategy one had in mind. Megan explained that they do campaign tracking, mood dashboards to see how many people love, hate or are ambivalent about brands. For instance. www.brandsinpublic.com

is a site managed by Squidoo in which they present brands and how they are perceived by the users of social media sites. Squidoo has an 'army' of 800 to 900 volunteers and the company taught them how to tweet in a half-hour session. Gary suggested that using channels to recruit volunteers or customers 'en masse' i.e. leveraged acquisition as opposed to acquiring them individually is an effective way to gain mass. Twitterfeed automatically tweets blogs that are posted on a site. Facebook fan page, 'attending event' status or other status on the wall also build traffic as friends can follow the post.

Edith also asked the panelists about their favorite disaster story.

Tony mentioned that he is often amused by how creative people can be in their insults. One person for example wrote that 'I hate HP so much that it hurts my 'something that rhymes with the last letter'. Some folks just want to blow some steam and are not looking for further engagement. Other times one has to actively manage posts in real time. Gary cited another example where a person tweeted that she got a job in Cisco but is not excited about it. Apparently some folks at Cisco shot back a tweet saying do us all a favor and don't take the job. Sometimes people post negative reviews on yelp and it best to address these instead of ignoring them. Another famous example of a negative review is the song called "United breaks guitar" on youtube. A strange case was brought to light about Best Buy's CMO who tried to 'cut off' a person tweeting negatively about Best Buy in which case the CMO got a lot of hate mail/tweets. Hiring tweeters to write positive reviews can lead to embarrassment if that is 'outed' i.e. made public so it is best to avoid that.

At Squidoo an email bug during the early phase led to a broadcast of a negative email to all the users. Megan and other founders quickly reached out to the subscribers and offered to talk to them in case they wanted to discuss the negative email. The subscriber base at that time was small but their gesture created a positive sentiment for Squidoo at that time. Megan suggested that one must listen and respond, applaud or redirect as need be.

One of the questions from the audience was regarding the distinction in the use of social media for professional and consumer markets. Gary described his approach at oDesk and suggested that it is best to start the test and measure process on a small scale first to study effectiveness of lead generation, sales and payment. In his case he uses feedback to generate test scores of the virtual team members that are employed so as to be a good criterion for their future selection. Linked in is also a great channel for SMBs. A small business can join groups, post comments, participate in Q&A, provide support etc. Authenticity is key to long terrm success. Free tools are available for tracking keywords in postings. Following key influencers and giving information to them gets something back from them when they cite you as a source of information in their posts.

Another question from the audience was about brand awareness and loyalty. Megan reiterated that her strategy was to keep affiliated parties engaged and the way she did it was by teaching her volunteers a way to tweet and blog effectively and thereby help her site and the volunteers in turn would rise up in the ranks and influence as their posts became more read over time. Gary cited the example of eBay's customers who used to be supported very well by other customers and vendors, so much so that some of them were recruited by eBay to be permanent employees. eBay demonstrates to us how to create a great community with transparency, mutual co-operation and support. Gary pointed to a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to take advantage of the 'social graph' i.e a graph/map of how people are connected and related to each other (see http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_graph_concepts_and_issues.php

)

to contextualize the targeting of customers. While Yelp, About You, Radian6 and Biz360 are good tools for businesses in general, some businesses are better off using Google Local or other local sites. In order to target communities online, businesses need to be 'hanging out' in their relevant forums, read appropriate blog posts, follow key people e.g HP CTO McKinney, Cisco's Chambers or Sun's Schwartz and understand who or what is influencing them. The principle to keep in mind is that you need to be where your audience is participating. Edith added that she found the business page of Jansport facinating and many CEOs these days are regular tweeters. She recommended reading Seth Godin's blogs.

Edith's final question to the panelists was to identify the "one thing to do" and one last piece of advice or take away point for the audience.

Gary pointed to what is at the heart of the social media phenomenon. He said that that the social phenomenon has not changed the principle that was applicable before, i.e. it is (still) about the conversation, it is still about being true to yourself, who you are. Technology is an enabler and the reach is on a much grander scale and so is the speed. Social media ought to be used strategically and it is not about selling first but rather engaging with people. Megan reemphasized that one must stop using the social media channels until such time as when one knows why one wants to use it and what one wants to achieve and by when. In other words set your goals and know what is achievable by when. For example one can state that I want to achieve an increase in Twitter audience growth of x% in the next month. Find your focus and figure out what works. Edith cited her own blog titled 7 habits of effective Linkedin users. An example of tactics may be to buy a list, do a mailing, track the source of activity, how much they buy and how many repeat customers are there. An ROI can be tracked easily i.e spend $1 and get back $2. Megan pointed out that the marketing strategy in the age of social media is still about having a vision, being persistent, having great products, compelling stories and telling the story in an interesting, convincing way.

Publications such as Techcrunch, articles such as "How the top 100 Brands use social media", "Twitter as a Marketing tool", books such as "The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web" by Tamar Weinberg are a good source of information on social media.

After the event I had a chance to talk to Richard from HP on the panel. I asked him about who are good bloggers to follow for social media and what websites may be good to follow. Here are some names he suggested.

Jeremiah Owyang, Steve Rubel, Chris Brogin, Brian Solis, Shel Israel, Marshall Kirkpatrick. The websites to follow include Mashable, Readwrite web, Adage. Yahoo Experts in various fields are also a good resource.

I also talked with Edith and asked her about which types of companies may benefit most from the social web. She was unequivocal about the fact that services businesses can certainly benefit a lot from using the social media/web. Why? Because the audience they serve are there. The product companies would very likely benefit from using Yahoo or Google local, Yelp, and traditional channels.

The event and panel was a huge success providing the attendees many strategies and insights. More importantly it inspired everyone to start to use social media and increasingly harness its power to connect and communicate with their relevant communities and ecosystem. Everyone can benefit from the various channels and tools of social media, whether it is for themselves, their products and/or their businesses.

I know I came away excited and inspired by the event and discussion. Excited enough to write my first blog ever ! Thanks for reading it !

Social Media for Professional and Personal Marketing

2009-08-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

By Sunita Nagendra (8/27/2009)

We had an interesting event with a big and enthusiastic crowd that was gathered to learn about strategies for using Social Media for Professional and Personal success.

Edith Yueng moderated the event by sharing her insights and asking interesting questions to the Panel that consisted of Megan Casey - Chief Editor of Squidoo, Gary Swart - CEO of oDesk, Himanshu Jhamb - Founder of Active Garage and Tony Welch - Social Media Strategy Lead for PSG Division at HP.

Edith kicked off the conference by asking the Panelists what kind of Social Media tools they recommend for Personal and Professional branding.
Megan recommends focussing on top 3 tools that your business can leverage from instead of trying to be everywhere and spreading yourself too thin.
Gary suggests that one should prioritize Social Media tools based on Target Audience. He also added that creating good content is quite important to leverage from Social Media.
Himanshu and Tony said they have used twitter successfully in their business.

Edith quoted the success story of the Korean BBQ Truck in LA that uses twitter to connect to it's tech-savvy customers. A constant twitter feed informs it's customers of their current Menu and Truck stops. Tony talked about how he escalated a support issue after seeing a twitter post of a disgruntled customer. After escalating this issue, customer got support and the product problem was fixed in 24 hours. The customer made a video of his positive HP-support experience and published it on YouTube; this was great marketing for HP-Support.

Following the success stories, Edith asked the Panel to share any disaster stories they encountered or are aware of. Tony said that Social Media is a fairly open platform and sometimes people get creative with insults; especially on twitter where some frustrated customers are blowing off some steam. The best way to handle such a situation is to acknowledge the post and try to address the customer's issue.

A Gentleman from the Audience asked the Panel how to successfully use Social Media for Customer Retention and not just acquisition and promotion. To this Gary suggested using twitter and setting up Community forums. Gary quoted Ebay as a good example. Ebay had a strong community forum and they hired the top community performers as their first support representatives.

As the conference approached its end time, Edith asked the Panel "what would be the one last thing they suggest doing on Social Media?".
Tony says it is all about the conversation and being Authentic on Social Media. Himanshu suggests using Social Media for engaging and not just selling. Megan maintains that one should focus on a few Social Media tools and use them effectively instead of trying to be everywhere. Gary recommends that one should know what to accomplish, then use Social Media to leverage, measure the effect, test and streamline.

As the evening winded down, SIPA Volunteer Deepal Deolalikar recommened the following Social Media book:
The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web - Tamar Weingberg

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596156812/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

June 18 - Cleantech Miniconference

2009-07-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

Photos from the event:

Made with Slideshow Embed Tool

We had a very successful event on Clean tech with experts from many areas of the clean tech / green tech Industry.

Andrew Chung, Principal – Lightspeed Venture Partners presented about the Cleantech field, sub industries in this field, and opportunities available for everyone especially Entreprenuers. His entire speech is in the following video stream:

Ash Kalra, Councilman of District 2 in San Jose – SJ Mayor’s Office followed Andrew with an informative speech about the facilities that San Jose provides to foster the growth of the Industry in the city. He emphasized the various developments in the city and how it is gearing up as a capital of the Silicon valley.

After the two great key note speeches, the stage was set for a panel discussion on the cleantech environment. The panel was moderated by Andrew and Jeff Gigoux (VP of Business Development – Mariah Power), Afshin Shaybani (Founder & CEO - MeterVision Inc.), Councilman Ash Kalra, Sujit Banerjee (Partner, BlueRun Ventures) participated in the discussion. The main topic discussed by the panel was the challenges that the entrepreneurs faced in the Cleantech industry. Cash flow came up as the number one challenge followed by resource usage and Government regulations and funding.
On the discussion about prior experience for an entrepreneur in this field, the panel suggested that any field is perfectly OK as long the entrepreneur does the proper homework. Majority of the panel members had an IT background like most of the participants in the event.

Along with the discussions on Cleantech, the event also showcased the philanthropic effort of High school students from Limberg High School of Cupertino, CA. The founders of RISE against poverty presented the ideology of their organization as seen in the following video:

May 21 - Building a Lean Startup

2009-05-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

Event - May 21, The Lean Starup - Build Confidence in your venture

Photos from the Event:

Made with Slideshow Embed Tool

Eric Ries commenced the event by asking the Audience how many were part of a startup, both founders and aspiring Engineers; and the Audience consisted of a significant number of aspiring Entrepreneurs. Following that Eric started the talk about how most startups fail and only a handful succeed. And the rest of the presentation addressed issues with failed startups and what needs to be amended to address the high mortality rate of startups.

The key difference between failed and successful startups as noted by Eric is that the successful startups find the right solution after several iterations of the product before they run out of money. For example, successful companies like PayPal, Microsoft and Flikr all started out with slightly different ideas than the solution they offer today. But, after a few product iterations, these companies managed to incorporate customer feedback and deliver the right product to the market.

With all this talk about startups, everyone perhaps had the following question in mind... what is a startup exactly? Eric quashed the whimsical definition of 2 bright Guys in a Garage cranking away code perpetually for several months resulting in a ground-breaking solution. Yes, true, that has been the story of a few successful startups, but in today's environment, working in a vacuum hardly ever benefits a company. According to Eric, a startup is a a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

Next, Eric used the example of two startups to demonstrate the idea of a lean startup: The first one, his previous failed startup and the second one, his current successful startup(IMVU).

In the first example of a failed startup, they seemed to have what is traditionally considered a recipe for success: they had a good plan, long-term vision, plenty of capital, best and brightest people in the team, experienced management, focus on product quality, world-class technical platform and they built buzz in the press. But, they still failed! Eric thinks that the main reason for failure of this startup was "Shadow Belief".
Eric describes "Shadow Belief" as:

We know what/will customers want
We can accurately predict the future
Advancing the plan is progress

This problem according to Eric is deep in the Industry and several startups suffer from it!

In the story of the second startup, IMVU, Eric and his team decided to defy conventional wisdom and try a new plan. They made several new mistakes as a result, but learned several valuable lessons along the way. As for the plan, they shipped (a horribly buggy beta) in 6 months to get customer traction. This startup adopted the model of continuous deployment and shipped on an average 50 times a day. Eric reflects that being lean made the startup go faster. He recommends using commodity technology stacks (like open-source products) - this drives down cost and speeds up development. Continuous deployment helps incorporate customer feedback in the development cycle quicker.

In the traditional product development methodology, unit of progress is measured by advancement of plan. Whereas in lean startup, unit of progress is measured as validated learning about customers.
At a lean startup, Eric says customer development is key and the question "what do our customers want" needs to be asked frequently!
Eric also recommended the book: The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank.

More information about building lean startup can be found on Eric's blog at :
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/

Slides from the Event can be found here.

You can also follow Eric on twitter.

May 21 The Lean Startup – Build confidence in your venture

2009-04-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

Coming up on April 16'2009 (Thrusday) @ HP Oakroom Auditorium, Cupertino, CA.

We have heard that recessions are the best time to start your own startup. For entrepreneurs who have been on the path, it may be straight forward to get started. What about the rest of us? There are so many engineers with bright ideas, but don't know how to start.

The current macroeconomic climate presents unparalleled opportunities for those that can thrive with constrained resources. Many startups are now following the Lean Startup process. The Lean process was created by Toyota in the 50s. The Lean Startup embodies similar principles as applied to the startup process. The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight.

Eric Ries, a co-founder of IMVU, is a strong proponent of this process and very successfully used it at IMVU. He will share the key principles of making sure you get your startup idea off the ground and stay on course.

If you are an engineer with bright ideas, consider Lean Startup to build confidence while building your startup.

1. Identify a profitable business model faster and cheaper than your competitors.

2. Continuously discover what customers want to buy before building or making follow-on investments in new features.

3. Ship new software at a dizzying pace: multiple times a day while improving quality and lowering costs.

4. Build a company-wide culture of decision-making based on real facts, not opinions.

Agenda

6pm – 6.30pm Registration and Card Exchange Networking

6.30pm – 6.45pm Introductory Comments

6.45pm – 7pm Member Spotlight – Bala Aryan “Push Reset” *

7pm - 8.30pm Main Event including Q&A

8.30pm – Wrap Up and Networking

* Member Spotlight by Bala Aryan - "Push Reset"

We start the event with our monthly member spotlight section. Our feature this month is Bala Aryan, an entrepreneur. Many of us switch careers or jump into entrepreneurship at the first opportunity. There is a silent majority who feel the need to do something different, but something holds them back. How they wish they could simply press the reset button and start over. Bala was one of them. But he overcame his challenges not once....but 5 times. How did he do it? He will share his lessons which many of you will use to push the reset button of your life.

Registration Link - https://www.123signup.com/register?id=zrbqq

Event Location: HP Oakroom Auditorium (Click here for details and directions)

Eric Ries - Speaker Profile

2009-04-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

Eric Ries became a Venture Advisor at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, after co-founding and serving as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). While an undergraduate at Yale University, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting. Although Catalyst folded with the dot-com crash, Ries continued his entrepreneurial career as a Senior Software Engineer at There.com, leading efforts in agile software development and user-generated content. In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups including pbWiki, Bunchball, FooMojo, Causes and KaChing.

April 16: De-mystifying Cloud Computing

2009-04-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

"What is Cloud Computing?" was the question put in front of the Panel for the event that brought the highest number of attendees for a monthly event.

"Cloud is an operational model" was the key takeaway from the electrified discussion of the panel of experts in cloud computing. The discussion was energetic throughout the session, making listeners very interested, and driving the point home.

"What is considered as Cloud computing?

Are we there yet?

Are we utilizing Cloud to its fullest?

What are the characteristics of Cloud?"

Were some of the questions that the session answered.

The moderator Dan Scholnick of Trinity Partners kicked off the session with an initial discussion on defining the cloud. James Urquhart of Cisco systems and an expert blogger on Cloud Computing started with a brief and succinct definition by - "delivery of abstract IT services on network, on demand, priced for usage, at scale, and multi talented environment."

He added that the three main areas that cloud computing is prevalent in are abbreviated as SPI aaS. That is SaaS, PaaS, IaaS.

SaaS - Software as a Service

PaaS - Platform as a Service

IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service

Jason Hoffman, CTO and Founder, Joyent added that "Cloud is a desire to move from physical to logical servers. SaaS moves applications, PaaS moves coded programs, and IaaS moves OS. This is the natural evolution of the computing world from PCs to Internet to now, or near future to Clouds."

The discussion led to the next question "Why Cloud?"

KV RAO, Zuora.com answered "Elasticity of the application, and scaling of the application with example of Webex, the users are provided virtual infinite capacity"

Jen Grant, VP Marketing, BOX.net added "Applications that customers can start using within minutes, that doesnt require installs, patching, maintaining or consulting. The User Interface will be latest all the time"

Jason questioned this "Will an IT department buy such as a solution, and replace its entire staff?" which led to the next discussion - what are the functions that can be moved to a service model - or cloud. The consensus of the panel on this was that core functions will still remain core. For ex. Payroll may not be core to a company involved in semiconductor manufacture, So this will be outsourced, or moved to cloud.

The Moderator, Dan Scholnick of Trinity Partners then followed this discussion with analogy to electricity or utility supplies - 100 years ago, companies build their own power plant to supply power, but now they subscribe to the utilities. Will this be the model for IT services in the future?

As an answer to this question, James brought the reference of "Big switch", a book by Nicholas Carr and pointed "Information quality is more critical than water or electricity. We care more about the bit coming out of the service"

Jason took this discussion to the next level, by adding that though there has been consolidation in the past, no company has ever reduced the use of servers, so cloud will actually increase demand for computing power, and so increase sales.

What is a private cloud? was the next question quoting GE's proposal to create an internal cloud for all its computing need. Jason pointed out that clouds will make the usage of resources efficient, and though the use can be private, it need not necessarily be internal. He pointed out that a service that provides total security, and prevent piracy will be very successful in this cloud environment. Again, the team emphasized its consensus that not all functions can be moved to clouds. For ex., finance functions for many companies, or research modeling applications for biotech companies.

Jason, responding to Dan's reference to McKinsey report, that said its cheaper to keep everything internal, said the key impact of cloud will be to deliver resources on demand for an increase in demand in a short duration, and not for constant demand for a long time. Jen disagreed to this, and pointed out that cloud pushes for faster innovation and better software for use immediately, even if it is used on a regular basis or on demand.

There were also very good questions from the enthusiastic crowd, some of them are discussed here with the answers that the panel provided:

Difference between Virtualization and Clouds- James responded "Cloud is an operational model, where as Virtualization is a technology - a software running somewhere else", He went on to add that Cisco is predicting that Virtualization is the initial phase, which will be followed by automation, reducing IT bureaucracy, private clouds and pay per use.

What will be the cost model of the cloud and user perspective of the cloud. Rao pointed out that it will resemble utility providers and involve packaged values. Jen pointed out that it will be ready to use, always updated and no maintenance.

The schedule brought about an end to the discussion, though no one wanted it, with moderator inviting the panel member to provide a one minute summary on key benefits to the business.

Jason started by saying "Real value is not cost containment - it is in participating in a network, and finding innovative ways of doing applications, and formulate best practices." and added that "SaaS will be fastest way to deliver software."

Rao added the values lie in Pay as you go model providing flexibility, and therefore cause creativity, and will reach many people.

Jen added that Enterprise software sales will die and low cost subscription model will take over.

In addition to the discussion, Dan also mentioned that his company's website has open jobs posted regularly in addition to details about venture capital.

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April-16 De-mystifying Cloud Computing (Monthy Event)

2009-03-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

Coming up on April 16'2009 (Thrusday) @ HP Oakroom Auditorium, Cupertino, CA.

Wikipedia defines Cloud computing as Internet based development and use of computer technology. It is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. The concept incorporates infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service(PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) as well as Web 2.0 and other recent technology trends which have the common theme of reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users
Judging by the recent spate of activity in this space - Cloud is here to stay.
You are invited to join this highly interactive session from CEOs and VPs of leading Cloud / SaaS / PaaS companies in the Bay Area. You will learn, first hand, from the experience of these business & technology leaders on what is the landscape of Cloud computing and how to take advantage of it.
Why cloud makes sense in this environment? How is the business model different than a regular enterprise software / appliance company? How do enterprises and startups take advantage of Cloud computing?
What opportunities still exist for new startups in this space and how do you monetize this opportunity?
Panel will also talk about some of the challenges, like Security and Compliance, which you will need to address when selling the concept of Cloud to customers - internal or external.
We have called leading industry experts to help us demystify cloud. Come join us to explore the Cloud!!!

Moderator
George Zachary, Charles River Ventures

Panel
James Urquhart , Cisco Systems (Profile)

KV RAO, Zuora.com (Profile)

Jen Grant, VP Marketing, BOX.net (Profile)
Jason Hoffman, CTO and Founder, Joyent (Profile)
Dan Scholnick, Principal , Trinity Ventures (Profile)

Agenda
6:00pm to 6:45 pm - Registration and Card Exchange Networking
6:45pm to 7:00 pm - Introductory Comments
7:00pm to 8:15 pm - Main Event including Q&A
8:30pm - Wrap Up and Networking

Regsitration link: https://www.123signup.com/register?id=zpnhx

Event Location: HP Oakroom Auditorium (Click here for details and directions)

Dan Scholnick - Speaker Profile

2009-03-23T14:21:00.002-07:00

Dan joined Trinity Ventures in 2007 with significant experience in mobile and Internet applications as well as enterprise and infrastructure software. Most recently, Dan founded a venture backed mobile application startup. Dan also worked for SVB Capital supporting the software and services practice for the firm’s $56 million equity fund. Dan started his career as an early employee at Wily Technology, an application performance management company acquired by CA. As the company’s first technical hire, he collaborated with the founder to develop the first version of Wily’s flagship product. During his tenure at Wily, Dan also worked in the sales organization on pre‐ and post‐sales engagements with many of Wily’s Fortune 500 clients.

Jen Grant - Speaker Profile

2009-03-23T14:21:00.001-07:00

Jen Grant is the Vice President of Marketing at Box.net where she is responsible for leading brand strategy, sales marketing, public relations, and product marketing.

Prior to Box.net, Jen spent four years at Google where she was head of marketing for the Apps team responsible for marketing Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Blogger, Reader, Picasa, Orkut and OpenSocial. In addition, she built out the Google Apps Education Edition marketing team to tackle both supporting sales to CIOs at Universities and reaching out directly to students. Earlier, Jen developed the marketing, education and outreach strategy for Google Book Search and led the marketing team in successfully swaying public opinion and improving relations with publishers. In 2007, she was received a Google Founders Award - the most prestigious award offered at Google

Dr. K. V. Rao - Speaker Profile

2009-03-23T14:20:00.001-07:00

Dr. K. V. Rao, Founder of Zuora, Inc, has twenty years of experience in the software industry in marketing, product strategy, and product development. Prior to founding Zuora, K. V. was Director, Technology at WebEx Communications, Inc (Nasdaq: WEBX) and played a key role in growing the business for this successful start-up. He also held product marketing and development positions at SGI and General Motors. K. V. started his career as an associate scientist at NASA developing software to predict aircraft aerodynamics.

Jason Hoffman - Speaker Profile

2009-03-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Jason A. Hoffman is a founder and the CTO of Joyent, an on-demand infrastructure and cloud computing company that serves billions of page views and traffics hundreds of millions of emails per month. Jason is a systems scientist with BS and MS degrees from UCLA, and a PhD from UCSD, and is an expert in scalable architectures. He has applied his knowledge and experience from the Web to Games to Computational Chemistry, Proteomics and Cancer biology.

James Urquhart - Speaker Profile

2009-03-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

James Urquhart manages cloud computing and data center virtualization marketing for the Data Center Solutions group at Cisco. One of the most respected subject matter experts on the cloud, and author of the popular C|NET Blog Network blog, The Wisdom of Clouds (http://news.cnet.com/the-wisdom-of-clouds).

Mr. Urquhart has almost 20 years of experience in distributed systems development and deployment, focusing on service-oriented architectures, cloud computing, and virtualization. Prior to joining Cisco, Mr. Urquhart held leadership roles at Forte Software, Sun Microsystems, and Cassatt Corporation.

George Zachary - Moderator Profile

2009-03-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

George Zachary joined Charles River Ventures in 2004. He brings more than 17 years of operating and investing experience in computing and consumer technology. George's focus is on building great services and software technology companies. George led CRV's investments in SocialMedia, Twitter, Geni, Yammer, Millennial Media, One Season, and Metaplace. George also co-led CRV’s investment in Scribd. Previously, he was a general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV). His directorships included: Accrue Software (Nasdaq:ACRU), Andale, Critical Path (Nasdaq:CPTH), Ovation Entertainment, Sandcastle (acquired by Adobe, Nasdaq:ADBE), Securify (acquired by Kroll-O'Gara, Nasdaq: KROG), Shutterfly (Nasdaq:SFLY) Supertracks (acquired by Centerspan) and Telebot (acquired by Z-Tel, Nasdaq: ZTEL). He is a board advisor to Stanford University’s SSE Ventures, which seed fund on-campus student startups. He is also an advisor to X PRIZE. George earned a joint BS from MIT and MIT Sloan School of Business. George also leads the Stanford CRV Research Council.

March 12 Winner Takes All

2009-03-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

The March event was very interactive and rich in dialogue. Tony Seba presented us the 9 secrets of a successful business, especially in the high tech space. Tony Seba is an educator, entrepreneur, author, speaker, business architect, and consultant.

During the last recession in 2001, many companies suffered and flatlined. But there were many other companies that not just survived but thrived coming out of the downturn. What was their secret sauce.

Was there a new set of rules? Were they just lucky? Tony Seba did some research on

these successful companies and came up with 9 rules for high tech strategy. He even wrote a book about it (see link at the end of this post).

Here are the 9 rules in the order he discussed –

Rule 8 : Design Products and Services that are easy to adoptIpod succeeded because it was extremely easy to use and download music. The common person did not have to learn about mp3 or any other jargon. So think from the user’

s perspective on how they would use your tool or product or technology and then make it easy for them. In other words look at the entire process of th

e customers buying and using experience and remove all obstacles.

Rule 3 : Add Value not Features
Its great to have a cool technology with patents to protect. But what customers really really want is value. Starmine came up with an algorithm for analyzing stock analysts estimates. They had a cool algorithm. But what customers really wanted was a number. So Starmine worked on it and came up some logic to get them the “number” and Smartestimate was born.

Rule 2 : Focus, win, grow, repeat
It is important to find the sweet spot for your products or services and then win there. After that you move to the next sweet spot. A spaghetti strategy may work but does not grow the company. (Spaghetti strategy = ask your kid to throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks).
Symantec had tons of product mostly by acquisitions. By 1999, the only common thing about the product was the yellow boxes – think Norton, Win fax and a host of sub $ 50 PC products. Then a new CEO came. John Thompson decided to focus on Internet and Enterprise Security. During the tech recession, security spending was still up and as more and internet services were sprouting up, security become a mainstay issue. Good for Symantec. From 2000 to 2004, SYMC went up from 7 to 32 (split adjusted). And this in a recessionary economy.

Sidebar – Stock performance is not always indicative of company performance and strategy. There is an element of systematic risk embedded in the stock price (aka market risk), which is outside the control of the company (for the most part). Unsystematic risk is specific to the company. Search for CAPM model to learn more.

Rule 4 : Have a story, communicate clearly
It is extremely important to relate your product or service and personalize it into a story. The story needs to be relevant to the majority of your customer segment. Customer segment by definition means they have a common pain and a common need. Netflix story was not “convenience and selection at you’re your door step”. Their story was “no late fee”. Almost every blockbuster customer had paid late fee. The found Reed Hastings once paid $ 40 for Apollo 13 in late fee. That was his story. Can you relate to that?
Stories have power to shape human existence. Pre-historic man used stories to communicate with each other via drawings. In some cultures (notably India), many of the mythological works have been passed on as stories and have survived 2500 years.

Rule 1 : Feel the pain, then develop the product
It is extremely important to feel the pain from the customers perspective. It is not enough to realize that there is a pain out there. Alphasmart wanted to build computers for schools. But the teachers had a different kind of pain. They visited classrooms to see old stodgy computers with wires running around. So they built class room friendly computers.

Rule 5 : Its a risky world, sell confidence
When the world around is falling apart for customers, it is important to make them feel safe especially if you are supplier. Clickability did just that. They understood the risk from the customers, and assured them on how they will mitigate these risks. Confidence is the key here. Assure your customers that they can still be in business, and you are there to help them.

Rule 6 : Look for Champions, not deals
It is important to make deals, after all you are successful if you make money. But it is far more important to bring in Champions first. Champion by definition means a customer who not only places faith in you, but brings in other customers.
Linked In had a paltry member base initially. So they went after a very select set of VCs to become members. Then other VC’s joined in, fearing that they might miss some action. As the roster of VC’s got added, entrepreneurs came in and became members. And then others started to follow these entrepreneurs. Adoption is a social process. The first 5% brought in the next 95% at LinkedIn.

Rule 7 : Choose the right partners and manage them
Many product categories depend on partners and alliances for bringing in deals and closing deals. It is critical to choose the right one – someone who has the clout to get you in to the customer doorstep. F5 networks was languishing with direct sales, until they decided to OEM their product to key partners. 95% of their revenue is now through selected partners. It is OK to be a slice of the pizza. Everytime a pizza sells, your product will sell as well.

Rule 9 : You are doing well. Congrats. Now change or die.
This is a hard one to fathom. You have worked hard to build your business. You have achieved tremendous success. And now you have to change. Fundamentally, success breeds success. Of course. But in the high tech world, success breeds more competition. Someone will make the same mousetrap that is cheaper, faster, better. Commoditization happens. And in order to keep your edge and your price levels, you have to move on to the next journey. The good news is that you have now more options – i.e. acquisition to go on to the next journey.

So how we change. Look at your current model and ask what a competitor would do to kill your business model. And then address that. IBM and Apple did that quite successfully by fundamentally changing the business models.

From the top 10 computer companies in 1984, only Microsoft has survived. (That’s a story for another day)

Key takeaway for startup – Go outside the building and research before you come back inside and build your product

www.tonyseba.com
Free Book Download : http://tonyseba.com/WinnersBookDownload.html

Pictures from the event :

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Tony Seba - Speaker Profile

2009-03-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

Tony Seba is an educator, entrepreneur, author, speaker, business architect, and consultant. He is the author of "Winner Takes All - 9 Fundamental Rules of High Tech Strategy".

Tony brings 20+ years of solid operating experience in fast-growth high technology companies. As PrintNation.com's founder and CEO Tony established the B2B ecommerce company as the undisputed leader in its market segment, winning such top industry awards as the Upside Hot 100 and the Forbes.com B2B 'Best of the Web'.

Prior to PrintNation, Tony worked in business development and strategic planning at Cisco Systems and RSA Data Security. He has been responsible for the architecture, development, and commercialization of more than two dozen products including Java security, electronic payment technology, sales force automation, computer-aided software engineering and ecommerce infrastructure.

Tony holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Interviews from SIPACON 2008

2009-03-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the Video interview conducted during the SIPACON 2008.

SIPACON 2008 in Pictures

2009-03-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the SIPACON 2008.

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