Archive for the ‘Failure’ Category

Startup Guide: The Darden Reboot Chat – Videos are here

And they are here. Seven episodes due to the youtube 10 minute rule. Many thanks to Uzma for burning the midnight oil, encoding the video and solving the volume problem once and for all. Thank you Adnan for ensuring that the session gets recorded for the family (as well as agents and friends) and shipping [...]

May 9, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  Comments Closed

Startup Guide: Lessons from a failed startup

Looking through the wreckage of an old folder, found this post for the really early days of Reboot – the original list of lessons from a failed startup that became the book. Here is the list, with one new addition, five years later. 1) Technology is not a competitive advantage. Focus on the business problem [...]

April 7, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs  3 Comments

Reboot goes on sale online, gets featured at CIO, the Standard, Network World or the Ides of March

What a week it has been. Last night was the first night in 7 days that I slept for 7 hours. My average naptime for the week was an astonishing 4 hours, excluding the time I spent power napping waiting for the red traffic light to change to green, on hold waiting for customers to [...]

March 13, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Columbia Business School, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Pressing words, Startup, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments

I feel like a rock star – part ii

I don’t like narcissist posts on principal. After all what is the use of having a fan club/site/page if you have to blow your own horn all the time. But this morning when the SP Jain student feedback quietly sneaked into my mailbox and I saw the most generous comments I have ever received as [...]

February 16, 2010  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Failure, Startup Insiders, Training, new ventures, small business  No Comments

Memories, Cookaracha Guides or Venture number two…

Much before Reboot and the Blue Screen of Death, before the Alchemy discussion on our family dinner table and the wild dreamy bet that turned out to be Avicena, before blogging and before DesiBackToDesh, in a land far far away (then marked as Geocities in Jedi lore) there was once a venture named Cookaracha Guides. [...]

February 5, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Failure, Personal shit, Writing, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  2 Comments

The second best job in the world, part two…

To the three batches (Division A, Division B, and EMBA Batch 13), who made me feel like a rock star two Thursdays in a row. Thank you. Keep them pictures coming J

December 20, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Education, Failure, Startup, Startup Insiders, Training, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments

Dreamers in Dubai

Kumar, the soft spoken driver from Kerala, has been picking me up from home and dropping me back for the last seven days. On Wednesday night he finally asked if I was working the hours I was working by choice. Starting the day at 8 am and landing on Villa 16, Cluster 35 at 11pm [...]

December 12, 2009  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Startup, entrepreneurs, small business  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

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

Adil Moosajee on Failure

There is something that Adil said during our Q&A session about failure that is still resonating with me. The question dealt with retaining a positive outlook after failing and Adil jumped in with a great analogy. “Have you ever cooked a new dish?”, he asked the audience. “Yes”, they said. “There must have been instances [...]

November 6, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Failure, Pakistan, TIE, entrepreneurs  8 Comments

Reboot presentation @ TIECON

Here is the slide share version of the Reboot presentation I made yesterday at the TIECON 2009 event in Karachi. Had a lot of fun putting this together. Alchemy Reboot @ TIE CON Karachi View more presentations from jafcbs.

November 5, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Failure, Karachi, Pakistan, Startup, TIE, entrepreneurs  3 Comments

Heal Thyself or TIECON 2009, Karachi

The best of friends are the conspring kind. When Sabeen and Jehan conspired together to get me to speak at TIECON 2009 in Karachi, the original plan was to do my presentation, stay for the post presentation Q&A and then head out. I even parked in Sheraton’s outdoor parking to ensure that I wouldn’t have [...]

November 5, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Failure, Karachi, PASHA, Pakistan, Startup, TIE, entrepreneurs  7 Comments

Springfield/Vimble/Umair Khan Jadoon

How to break into social media when you are underpaid, under appreciated over worked blogger. The return of Lassi as a key presentation theme

October 14, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Failure, PASHA, PASHA ICT Awards, Pakistan, entrepreneurs  No Comments

A review, a review, my kingdom for a review

Finally, courtesy of Salman Latif at the Book Review blog, a review of Reboot, Second edition. ‘Reboot – in search for the land of opportunity’ is not the sort of book you usually find on stores. Take a quick walk down the shelve-lanes of bookstores and you’d find hundreds of self-help books with success stories [...]

September 27, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Columbia Business School, Failure, Writing, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  One Comment

The Society of Actuaries interview

Sam Philips interview for the Actuary was the first published review received by BSOD/Reboot. Though a little dated, it is still relevant. Sam also talks about the book in a sidebar

September 19, 2009  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs  No Comments