Startup Trek: Pitching lessons
If possible always have multiple sales pitches for a meeting. A pitch could be for a product, a service, a referral or even information about the industry that isn’t widely available. For the US trip it was Alchemy Risk Manager, Outsourced research, two investment banking deal and selling Pakistan as an investment destination (product ideas [...]
April 30, 2010
Tags: Pitching, sales calls, Selling, small business, Startup Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Desi Startup, entrepreneurs 
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Startup Guide: Darden Reboot Chat – transcript of the EVC, DSAS event
Thank you very much for showing up for my chat. My name is Jawwad Ahmed Farid and I am a failure. Before I became a member of Failure anonymous, I always wanted to be a winner. I wanted my own world record; see myself where you see Mr. Usain Bolt; ideally with a medal or [...]
April 26, 2010
Tags: Columbia Business School, Darden, Failure, Mentoring, Reboot, small business, Starting up, Startup, UVA Posted in: Alchemy stuff 5 Comments
Startup Mentor: Darden Reboot DSAS, EVC event
It takes a lot to fill up an empty room. Specially with smart people, who are paying good money to get a great education at a top ranked business school and have already had a roster of highly ranked speakers appear before them. But the Darden EVC and DSAS societies managed to do just that [...]
April 25, 2010
Tags: Columbia Business School, Darden, Failure, Mentoring, Reboot, small business, Starting up, Startup, UVA Posted in: Alchemy stuff 6 Comments
Startup Guide: CEO Club session at Columbia Business School
Thanks to Hasan, Carolyn, Ben and the CEO and SABA members for first arranging the session at Columbia Business at such short notice and then showing up in strenght at 8 am on a Monday morning. I was pleasantly surprised by the size and the enthusiasim of the audience. And as Hasan and Carolyn put [...]
April 20, 2010
Tags: Columbia Business School, Darden, Failure, Mentoring, Reboot, small business, Starting up, Startup, UVA Posted in: Alchemy stuff One Comment
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: Education, entrepreneurship, Mentoring, Mentoring startups, small business, Startup Crash Course, The 7 things you need to do to get started in business 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: entrepreneurship, Pakistan, small business, Starting up, Startup 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: entrepreneurship, Pakistan, small business, Starting up, Startup 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: entrepreneurship, Pakistan, small business, Starting up, Startup Posted in: Alchemy stuff 4 Comments
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: lessons learnt from failure, small business, small business failure, Startup, survival guide Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs 3 Comments
The next generation of technology entrepreneurs…
In 1989 I was one of the fortunate few who found the then mostly unknown BCCI FAST ICS (now National University of Emerging and Computing Sciences), tucked away in a shady street between an Allied Bank branch and a commercial office complex. An unassuming collection of two thousand square yard bunglows, the foundation funded school [...]
April 6, 2010
Tags: Entrepreneurship in Pakistan, Next gen, small business, Startups Pakistan, Technology entrepreneurs Posted in: Alchemy stuff 3 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: entrepreneurship, Marketing, Pricing, Product, Segments, small business, Starting up 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: entrepreneurship, Marketing, Pricing, Product, Segments, small business, Starting up Posted in: Alchemy stuff 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: Actuary, Columbia Business School, Cookaracha Guides, FAST ICS, MBA, Memories, New York, small business, Startup 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: Dubai, Education, entrepreneurship, small business, SP Jain, Startup, Teaching, Training, UAE Posted in: Columbia Business School, Education, Failure, Startup, Startup Insiders, Training, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business No Comments
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: BSOD, Failure, Reboot, Review, small business, Startup Posted in: Blue Screen, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs No Comments
