Archive for November, 2009

From Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) to Reboot – revisited

The original BSOD manuscript took a page out of the Memento playbook. Rather than starting off at the beginning like normal authors do, the book started at the end. Memento style. Kris, our editor, convinced me to switch to the normal world. Her other big suggestion was to bring Alchemy into the story. Failure is [...]

November 30, 2009   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

The Reboot presentation at TIECON, Karachi – Revisited

The TIECON 2009, Karachi, 4th November 2009, Reboot presentation was the first time I was able to shrink the story in under 20 minutes. Spent three days putting the presentation together but it will be a while before I am able to get to an editor that will run the presentation and the video coverage [...]

November 27, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Pakistan, Startup, TIE, computer science, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments

From Blue Screen of Death to Reboot; evolution of a presentation

Ashburn Farms is a quite planned neighborhood. The type of town you are likely to hide in after a heartbreak or earth shattering failure or both. Small, private and not at all commercial; hospitable but not invasive; alive in a suburban sense, but not quite there if you are looking to feed off the high [...]

November 27, 2009   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

Telecompk on Reboot

Babar Bhatti covers Reboot on the Telecompk blog.

November 24, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Failure, PASHA, Pakistan, Startup, Writing, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments

iMac Case Study – Mohtashim defects to the Apple camp

November 18, 2009   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

ZAK is Back

Finally ZAK posted today on the Windmills blog. Welcome back ZAK, I am not sure if you would appreciate the genre or the noise but 3 Doors Down wrote this for you.

November 15, 2009   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

MIT CEF BAP 2009 – Finals (unofficial, unsanctioned, undercover coverage)

I have been spoilt rotten. After blogging about the PASHA SI session as well as the Tech Crunch Awards live, I expect events to be blogged about instantenously. My pictures, my videos, my time. Which is why when I decided to gate crash the MIT CEF BAP party, I brought my own camera. Though by [...]

November 14, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Karachi, Ken Morse, MIT BAP, entrepreneurs  3 Comments

All is silent on the blogging front

ZAK and Sabeen have both been out of action since T2F. Adnan is in self imposed exile in Dubai. Mohtashim ran off to colder pastures. Tech has been on the road. Teeth frequency of post is down by a suspicious percentage. And CIO Pakistan has been undergoing extended renovation. Pakistan at Alltop looks more and [...]

November 14, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  2 Comments

Ken Morse is in town

Ken Morse was in town the last two nights on his signature whirlwind trip to Karachi. Luckily enough we were able to catch up with him at the Pre-BAP dinner at Farrokh Captain’s home and then again yesterday at the MIT CEF Innovation Confernece. During his Keynote at the conference Ken reinforced the points he [...]

November 14, 2009  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

The presentation cheat sheet – Three – The Problem Statement

The presentation that I am most proud of however is the one that we made together as a team for the first MIT BAP competition in Karachi. The judges panel included Ken Morse, Bill Aulet and Imran Saeed, all three from MIT E-Labs. Despite earlier failed attempts to impress Ken, this time we managed to [...]

November 9, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Sales guys, Sales guys in suits  2 Comments

The Presentation cheat sheet – two – impact

Ultimately audiences and judges will vote for you if you Connect with them emotionally Answer all their questions – spoken and otherwise Save and respect their time and intelligence by only making credible claims Backstopping and supporting your claims by solid believable evidence The first presentation on my slideshare deck is about the SMB Fatimah [...]

November 9, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

The Presentation cheat sheet – one

Pitching Perfect

November 9, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Desi Startup, Ken Morse, MIT BAP, entrepreneurs  No Comments

The many faces of Alchemy

I did this slide deck a year and a handful of months ago. We were riding high and the cycle had hit but hadn’t really hit us. When I started working on the deck the objective was to showcase all the interesting things we had done together as a team. It still bring backs great [...]

November 7, 2009  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Karachi, Startup, entrepreneurs  No Comments

The many evul ways of the Apple Clique

So after cornering me into joining Facebook, it was only natural that I would end up dumping my old friend the Internet Explorer for Safari. IE had been freezing on a regular basis with Facebook and Jehan suggested Safari as an alternate. Two hours later, all I can say is, Safari, where have you been [...]

November 6, 2009   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  One Comment

It is now official – Facebook it is!

In less than three weeks from the date that I was forced to upon for business on Facebook by Mohtashim and Jehan, Facebook is now the official leader in referring unsuspecting visitors to my blog. Previously this dubious honor was held by the Alchemy website. After a tightly run race on Google Analytics over the [...]

November 6, 2009   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments