Inverted Passion

Be passionate about the territory, not the map

All posts in Entrepreneurship

Sneak Peek into DesiWiki

Posted on Author Paras ChopraPosted in Entrepreneurship

DesiWikiDesiWiki aims to become a comprehensive source of information for Indian Startups. It is started and maintained by Desistartups. Although still in very early stages, it nevertheless contains amazing amount of information on all aspects of starting up a business in India.

It hasn’t been officially launched yet. So, it is a sneak peek exclusively for this blog’s readers. Do check it out, and if possible, contribute to it as well.

Why (Most) Internet Startups Suck?

Posted on Author Paras ChopraPosted in Entrepreneurship, Personal9 Replies

Inspired by WhyDoesEverythingSuck.com and learning from Kroomsa.com, following is why I think most internet startups suck:

  • They Give Away Things for Free
    When the business model depends on free, only a very few lucky companies can survive. Advertising, at best, should be a secondary source of income for a startup. How would startups keep on innovating their services when they are giving away stuff for free. Where is the motivation, dude? On the other hand, when you charge for what you are offering, there is a direct incentive to improve your services in order to attract higher prices or more customers, which directly translates into better earnings. Thus, charging for something you offer kick-starts a positive feedback loop which reinforces itself. And, that is good for a startup.
  • They are VERY easy to start
    This directly translates into absence of vision and low barriers to entry. When you don’t have to invest time thinking about why you are doing something, you end up doing a quick but messy thing. This is especially true for startups. Today, starting an internet startup is so easy that anybody, really anybody, with a basic knowledge of web can start a so-called internet company. People find it cool to have a company these days. And, successful startups are seldom cool. So, in a nutshell, either try to do something not-so-cool and/or try to do something hard, which will force you to think about the reasons for your motivation.
  • There are Gazzilions of Internet Startups
    While for the industry and consumers, it is good to have so much of choice, for entrepreneurs it not so good to have an idea and then discover that there are already tens of internet startups offering *exactly* the same service or product (and, chances are, for free). How is your new internet startup going to make money when some freaks are offering the same thing in a better package, at a better price and with a better marketing budget. So, get a little away from Internet and think if you can do something useful in traditional fields where there is a moderate amount of competition and where barriers to entry are higher.
    •  ...  Read the entire post →

    WTF 2.0

    Posted on Author Paras ChopraPosted in Entrepreneurship, Technology2 Replies

    Russell Beattie is really a very provocative and in-your-face writer. In his WTF 2.0 post, he writes about how deluded all those so-called entrepreneurs are who keep churning out amazing web apps without a slightest idea of how they are actually going to make money. If you are interested in Web 2.0, make sure you don’t miss his post.

    Beautiful Design by Jay

    Posted on Author Paras ChopraPosted in Entrepreneurship, Personal

    If you notice, I have recently (yesterday, to be precise) released my first ebook: How to Start an Online Business: 11,520 Free Resources for the Internet Entrepreneur.

    Now, as I have finished writing and publishing the ebook, it is time to promote it. I am looking at ways to advertise it on various blogs relating to this subject. However, with so many ebooks on the same subject (of making money online), how do I make sure that my ebook stands out from the crowd?

    The answer is design. I want the advertisement banner for the ebook to look killer, professional and cool. While researching on the internet about how to create such an advertisement banner, I stumbled across ScribblesAndWords.com, a design firm by Jay. In an instant, I was mesmerized by the banners he has created. They look so beautiful. In addition to banners, he also does Copywriting, Blog Header Design and Blog Consultation for a very reasonable fee. ...  Read the entire post →

    Finding My Passion

    Posted on Author Paras ChopraPosted in Entrepreneurship, Personal, Philosophy2 Replies

    Here I found an excellent post on how to find your passion. The article presents you a list of questions which you must answer. Let’s see what is my passion:

    1) If money was not a worry, what could you see yourself doing? What would you do for free?

    Well, I guess, I would work on interesting ideas for free. I wish I could generate ideas day in and day out and make a quick prototype of those ideas. That would be awesome.

    New Venture Creation 101 – Man, you are lucky…

    Posted on Author Paras ChopraPosted in Entrepreneurship, Personal3 Replies

    …because you are getting an opportunity to read this amazing piece of document, which is a result of my (some 0.33 or so) years of hard work at numerous (some 2 or 3, depending how you define) startups.

    Jokes apart, the reason I am writing this step-by-step guide to new venture creation is because in the past I have made a major mistake of getting-things-done at impulse. I am sure many suffer from this ailment of getting far too many ideas; more ideas than a sole head can accommodate. If you loose your sleep over an idea, start implementing it the next morning and find yourself loosing passion after a week or so, this document is for you.

    So, below is a step-by-step proper method for new venture creation.