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: The startup crash course in 7 posts or less

For the last four weeks I had been thinking about putting together a basic reading guide for mentees that would help them move forward and remove me as a bottleneck. A collection of short to the point posts that introduce them to a basic framework that many of us take for granted and most of [...]

April 17, 2010  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

Mentoring assignment number three: Show up in strength at the startup insider session at T2F

If you are keen on meeting even more kick ass mentors, hear another round of uninspiring drivel from Jawwad Farid and Nauman Sheikh and corrupt even more young minds, bring at-least three friends to the SI session at T2F. Bonus points if all six of you manage to show up with 3 sidekicks each on [...]

April 13, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

Startup Insiders: Back in Karachi: Business models that don’t work

Jehan is up-to no good again. As part of her desire to increase the number of non-conformist, flower bearing, independent, ultra cool apple product users, she wants as many young ones to work for themselves as possible (assuming that there is a connection, she thinks so). But rather than putting up unassailable success stories, this [...]

April 13, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  7 Comments

Mentoring fellow dreamers – a start up game plan for final year students

It is always flattering when people come to you for mentoring advice knowing that you are a total and complete failure. CIO Pakistan did that this Saturday afternoon when they brought 7 impressionable young men with them. Just to make it interesting and worthwhile I had Nauman Shaikh from Credit Chex also over for a [...]

April 10, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  4 Comments

Linking Pain, Features, Pricing, Segments and Reach

Teaching entrepreneurship is difficult. Teaching it to 50 smart kids can at times get rough. Teaching it to 150 students distributed across 50 groups with very interesting ideas across 25 odd domains will make you get up at 4 am in the morning after catching a few winks past midnight just so that you can [...]

April 1, 2010  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No Comments

The product feature grid – describing your product

We tried to put a process around describing our customer in my last post. Can we do something similar for products? The tool that I like and use regularly is the product feature grid. No rocket science just basic common sense. Here is what it looks like At the top of the grid we put [...]

March 31, 2010  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff  No 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

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

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

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

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