May 2012
6 posts
4 tags
How do I keep email from invading my inbox
I often hear people complain about sifting through hundreds of emails every day. That’s almost never happened to me in the last year. Maybe I am not as important as them. Who knows? Nevertheless, I thought I’d share my email work-style with you’ll today since Sparrow 1.2 has launched :) I had to plug this in since I love Sparrow and keep wondering why Apple still has not got their Mail app right....
When is the last time you saw the sun set?
When we were kids we used to play in the evenings.
As we grow older there is less focus on play and more focus on work. Working long means you are productive and working hard. Evenings are suddenly gone. When is the last time you saw the sun set?
Bring back your evening and you bring back so much more meaning to your life. Go for a walk or play a sport. Hang out with friends. There is no...
2 tags
iPad = redundant(MacBook Pro)
Since last Friday I am completely hooked onto the new ipad. It is phenomenal with the high resolution retina display. As I use it more and more I feel that my Macbook Pro is becoming redundant. These are all the things I do and can be easily accomplished on the iPad…
1. Reading - Safari, Reeder, Zite, Newstand Magazines, Pocket etc.
2. Email - sadly using the iOS Mail App.
3. Blogging -...
3 tags
I experienced the best form of marketing
Last week I experience the best form of marketing at work. I had written up a comprehensive blog post on the steps we took to make the DeskAway homepage loads faster. Someone put it on HackerNews and by late evening (IST) it slowly started trending to position 8 with dozens of comments.
Teaching people and having them spread the word is by far the best form of marketing you can get. Screw...
April 2012
7 posts
2 tags
Where is the time to think?
I notice people tweeting all day (no, they are not using Buffer) - I wonder if they actually get any work done or if they are confusing tweeting to working.
What do we do when we are waiting at the railway station, in the bus, at the doctors clinic or in between meetings? We whip out our smartphones and start checking Twitter, Facebook, Hacker News, Pinterest, RSS Feeds, Quora, Techmeme,...
3 tags
Tech Lifestyle: Thoughts on switching to Pocket
While going through my Twitter feed on Wednesday night I came across a thenextweb.com article on Read It Later rebranding itself as Pocket. Sounded interesting so I read through the article and decided to give Pocket a shot. I like the idea of having everything stored in one place. I currently used a combination of Instapaper, Twitter Favorites, Safari’s Reading List, Radbox.me and Gmail to store...
3 tags
My weekly analytics Dashboards
I rarely log on to Google Analytics to check how this blog is doing. It would be good to know popular posts, monthly unique visits, bounce rate and time on site. Better, it would be great to have these emailed to me on a weekly basis so I can just check it off the iPhone. Since I use the new version of Google Analytics I came across custom Dashboards widgets that was released in early 2011.
From...
6 tags
Instagram should thank Apple
At first I was like…WTF…1 billion dollars. That seems outrageous for a 7 member startup that has $0 revenue. I even posted my initial reaction on Twitter.
So with $0 in revenue you can sell for $1 Billion dollars. We live in interesting times.
— Sahil Parikh (@sahilparikh) April 9, 2012
But, then I started to think about this.
My initial question was why didn’t Facebook spend less than $10...
How Not To Sell Software in 2012 →
Super analysis by Alex. Everything he mentions is extremely true when selling software this year onwards. I meet so many entrepreneurs who have a problem with ramping up sales because they DON’T have a friction-less signing up and sales process. If you are one of them then this article is a must read.
3 tags
Software companies & outside capital
Yesterday I read a very interesting and bold article on Sara Blakely: Youngest Self-made Woman To Join the Billionaires Club. One paragraph struck me immediately…
Today Spanx is to slimming undergarments what Kleenex is to tissues: A brand that stands for the category. It nets an estimated 20 percent on revenue just south of $250 million. In recent months four Wall Street investment banks...
5 tags
Protect your sanity. Switch off push notifications...
I was amused by people complaining about not using Sparrow for iPhone because it does not support push notifications. BTW, Sparrow for iPhone is a fantastic app and its been about 10 days since I have fully converted to it. A class apart from the default mail app. Apple should buy Sparrow.
Back to push notifications…
it tells you when to check mail
it is distracting
it interrupts your work
it...
March 2012
4 posts
2 tags
List of tools to run a SaaS company
The web is flooded with a gazillion apps that promise to make your company more agile and efficient. It’s true. Yeah, seriously. Why create something (unless you are in the business of cloning software) when someone else is providing you with the tools to help you run your business smoother. Every company in this world needs to use SaaS tools to get real.
If you are a SaaS company you better...
5 tags
You win some, you lose some. Common reasons for...
You work rigorously at getting your product shipped and aquiring customers. Then, after a month, all of a sudden you start seeing cancellations. This is one of the most frustrating parts of running a SaaS business. To add to the wound you don’t know why people cancel; UNLESS you ask them.
We recently did a compilation of all the reasons why customers cancel their subscription for our app...
5 tags
Posterous Sold! What is means for consumers and...
I moved my personal blog from self-hosted Wordpress to Posterous in December 2009. Being happy with the simplicity of Posterous I moved the DeskAway blog to its platform in early 2011. In 2010 my wife started blogging so I told her to use Posterous (now she doesn’t trust free web services these days). Posterous launched with big promises on how they were going to change the way people blog...
2 tags
Procrastinate reading to save time
At the end of the week, I noticed that I had a lot of reading on my plate. During the week, I would favorite tweets, save articles to Instapaper, have a back log of blogs (less than 10) in my RSS reader, have articles sent by friends/biz contacts via email etc… Stuff piles up and you start to feel annoyed by all the stuff there is still to read. However, I realized that not everything is...
February 2012
5 posts
5 tags
Is simplicity a USP in a SaaS business?
Happy Monday folks!
If you run a SaaS company then I highly recommend you subscribe to Peter Cohen’s monthly newsletter on SaaS Marketing. Good stuff! His latest newsletter talks about SaaS and simplicity - how everyone should focus on simple software, less features, jargon-free marketing speak, simple pricing etc. Basically, simplify everything - this makes sense since if you sell to small...
1 tag
4 tags
Why I started using the minimalistic writing app,...
I had heard of WriteRoom a couple of years ago when I started writing my book. Besides Microsoft Word I was curious to know what authors used to write long manuscripts. I was looking for something simple and clutter free. I can’t remember why, but I didn’t end up using WriteRoom and just wrote the manuscript using Google Docs and Microsoft Word (when I had to share some chapters with my...
3 tags
My daily digital morning routine
By doing the same tasks daily I have unknowingly built a daily morning routine which helps me clear things out before I reach the office. I used to write in the morning but with a growing baby girl in the house I have switched to doing things that won’t be affected much if I am distracted. Writing is now moved to either in the afternoons or at night (once she is asleep).
Checking mail and...
January 2012
8 posts
4 tags
Why the Summify shutdown pissed me off?
Before I left on my trip last week TechCrunch reported that Summify announced that it was being bought by Twitter. I had started using Summify for a few weeks now and it was my goto place in the mornings to catch up on popular news. Earlier, I used to weed through my Twitter feed but having a service that filters and curates content is wonderful. So, while going through the TechCrunch story I...
On traveling and being offline
My wife and I are huge travel buffs (we usually try to take off every 4 months). Traveling is our passion - we catch ourselves planning a trip while we are on our current trip. It is just our way to make sure we lead a well-balanced, exciting life - especially since we live in one of the world’s busiest cities, Mumbai. After every few months, the city and the Internet (since I run a web...
2 tags
3 tags
Why I moved from Posterous to Tumblr...
This blog was with posterous for 2 years now. They are a great publishing platform and the DeskAway blog is still hosted there. Over the weekend I was reading Joel’s blog (BufferApp founder) and started looking at all the stuff that he had on his blog - Social widgets, disqus comments, the slide etc. At first I thought he was on WP. I DM’ed him and he told me that he was on Tumblr.
...
“Software is important stuff; it keeps the world moving. No car, no television...”
– The Economist
What Startup To Build?
What are your problems? That’s what you should be working on. Businesses are solutions to problems. Solutions come from ideas. Ideas are hypotheses. These hypotheses need to come from a defined problem. Humans have problems.
via techcrunch.com
4 tags
Software should be like Zite
Last week, my friend Manish referred me Zite. He told me to go meet her once. I told him that I am currently with someone named Flipboard - she is extremely good looking and I love the way she turns. He still insisted that I go meet Zite atleast once.
By now you already know that I am talking about the two hot social magazines - Flipboard and Zite :)
Today, I am a convert. Zite is truly very...
2 tags
Consuming vs. Producing
2012 is going to be a year where we fight information overload. There are too many things floating around on the Web to consume - articles, blog posts, videos, tweets, pictures, slideshows, etc. I have decided that I am going to make ONE big change this coming year:
Drastically minimize the amount of stuff that I read online.
I have realized:
1. Most of the stuff I read just gives me short...
December 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Putting on my Video Production hat on
I like to try out new apps on Saturday mornings. So, last week I decided to create a Happy Holidays video for DeskAway on Animoto.com. I have a Plus Plan so I could choose some already created holiday themes. Next, I went through all the blog posts for 2011 on blog.deskaway.com (there were tons!) and picked out the ones that I wanted to feature into the video. Animoto is great as it lets you...
6 tags
Before you splurge VC money on marketing watch...
One of the best Inbound Marketing videos I have seen by Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz (see, they posted awesome content and I gave them a link!). If you are a startup then this is a must watch - every minute of it!
My takeway: you don’t need to spend 1000’s of dollars on marketing and even raise VC funding to get your startup/company/business off the ground. Build great content that people...
3 tags
Random thoughts on business, remote working,...
I was having a conversation today with a friend and this person mentioned that “I need to build a big business with lots of people”. Earlier, this might be true. Today, with the Internet, a small team can build a very successful (profitable) business. Look at Wordpress, 37Signals, Craiglist etc.
In the afternoon I came back to DeskAway HQ and started jotting down some points that...
4 tags
Breakfast Brainstorming: Opportunities in SaaS in...
(A few takeaways by Anand Lunia from Seedfund)
The TiE Mumbai group and Seedfund got together to host a breakfast brainstorming session on Software As A Service today at Mocha Mojo, Bandra. BTW, great location for meetups of up to about 45 people. For evening meetups: This place serves booze too :)
Thanks Anand for inviting me and allowing me to share my thoughts and experience on growing and...
6 tags
Are LinkedIn Ads good for B2B Sales #SaaS #SEM...
B2B SaaS businesses work along the conversion funnel. The more topped up they are the better chance of converting more people to paid conversions. If traffic decreases, so do conversions. So, the game is in keeping the traffic coming and being topped up. Always.
Besides Organic Search, Social Media and our Affiliate Program, we also try out paid SEM from time to time to see what CTR and...
November 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Mind-F***ing Pricing Page
3 hour work day
Today, I got a butt-load of work done. In just 3 hours (including having lunch at my desk). Both my emails accounts have reached Inbox Zero, work has been delegated, participated in some social media activities, did some finances and took control of things.
This is because I am leaving the DeskAway HQ at 1:45pm. Enter Parkinsons Law:
Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in...
3 tags
Is your business a feature?
I am amazed by some of the funding news making the rounds. Are Angels/VCs funding apps or businesses? Maybe the team has a glorified future plan that impressed the VC’s. Lucky and good for them. Though, merely having a feature is not going to cut it. Are we in a bubble?
I am secretly hoping that the entrepreneur is not stoping at the feature. A feature will take you to the first 100...
October 2011
4 posts
Simplifying
I have about 50+ apps on my iPhone. Today, I decided to get rid of almost all of them and clear the clutter. My general rules of thumb:
1. Keep an app if I have used it in the last week. This excludes reference apps. 2. Keep only 1 or 2 reading app. Expunge the rest. 3. I realistically don’t read news on the iPhone (mostly done on the iPad) so all news apps go. 4. Games go. Don’t...
1 tag
Family trumps work, any day!
I have been under the weather for the last 3 days and spent most of my time home with my family. I would never ever trade that for anything. It got me thinking…
Work is just a way to exercise, experiment and indulge in your passion. Having a set time for work during the day is good enough. There is nothing wrong about being madely passionate about work. But, too much of it and you are a...
4 tags
Kindle, iPad and Instapaper
My wife just got an Amazon Kindle eBook Reader as a gift so I have been setting it up and poking around it this Saturday afternoon. Love the e-ink - it is so much easier on my eyes. I normally get a ton of reading done on my iPad (with the backlit screen) but it stresses my eyes out. For purchasing and reading books, the Kindle seems so much more soothing and much like actual paper.
I sent an...
6 tags
Making Technology Beautiful. My tribute to Steve...
Clicked on an iPhone. Designed on an iMac. Uploaded via Safari.
September 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Email to my team yesterday
“Required Reading” reminded me of school but I had to let the team know (I know some of them have already heard of Startup Lessons) that this resource has a wealth of information. In India, product people don’t come easy (we have been a service industry for too long) and hence it is my duty to educate and help each one to learn what it takes to compete in the product...
4 tags
How to get your SaaS business its first 100...
I’ll take you back to 2007. We spent almost a year developing our Software As A Service (SaaS) project collaboration product, DeskAway. It was ready to go live but the uphill climb of getting our first 100 customers had just begun. We wanted to be profitable while bootstrapping.
Luckily, I realized early on (after being burnt a few times trying to do offline sales for an online product)...
August 2011
4 posts
4 tags
Should a startup CEO participate in customer...
Intially, absolutely. As the company grows this needs to be delegated out.
Back in 2008 I used to handle all incoming support and customer service mails. Today, our Support Ninja handles all tickets on Zendesk. Sometimes I feel I should jump back into answering support queries. A part of me says that I have more important things to take care of and getting email notifications for support...
5 tags
Churn Rate for SaaS Companies
I like talking to VC’s when I am not raising money :) The conversation is open, tension-free and we both have our guards down. The other day I had an interesting conversation with a team member of a top notch VC firm and learnt that Churn Rate is one of the most important metric they look at to gauge performance of a SaaS company. Even before monthly recurring revenue (mrr) and the...
“It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the...”
– Steve Jobs
Random thoughts on the SaaS business
Back in 2006 I thought running a SaaS business would be easy. You build the software, market it online and drive people to the site and then sit back and earn the juicy recurring income. This sounded so much more interesting than the on-premise model. Don’t get me wrong, it still does today - I don’t see myself doing anything else besides running a SaaS business. Though, it’s...
July 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Small world. Better apps.
I have been learning a lot by trying out and using other apps - their design, user experience, signup form details and the general look and feel when I am deep inside the app. It is a way of seeing what is out there and a chance to learn from others. Going through their blogs is also helpful as I get to learn about technical, scaling issues and their marketing speak. Sometimes I am amazed that...
3 tags
Being resourceful - thoughts on being a developer
There is much more to programmers than just knowing how to develop code. This skill can be acquired over time. Though, what should come naturally to the dude is problem solving and resourcefulness cause time in money. The faster he searches and finds a solution the faster you roll.
Lets say we have a problem using a third-party php script that uploads to amazon s3. Here is how I would expect to...