If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

Fill the Minute With Sixty Seconds’ worth of distance run! - Ranjan Varma

Are they of any use?

Would you imagine “entrepreneurship capabilities in a 40+, parents knowing nothing of doing business and who has spent 18 years working in a PSU environment ?

But, each individual is different.Who knows what this 40+ guy can do!!

Do you have Entrepreneur-Ability in You? - Ranjan Varma

The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s rounding error compared to the founders.

Which means that what matters is who you are, not when you do it. If you’re the right sort of person, you’ll win even in a bad economy. And if you’re not, a good economy won’t save you. Someone who thinks “I better not start a startup now, because the economy is so bad” is making the same mistake as the people who thought during the Bubble “all I have to do is start a startup, and I’ll be rich.”

Paul Graham on starting a Startup NOW - Ranjan Varma

Powerpoint magic steps from Seth Godin

Have People pay Attention When You Speak - Ranjan Varma

Startups & the Financial Crisis - Ranjan Varma

Rajesh believes that there is no better market than India for launching the new paradigm and the next platform.

Innovation in Mobile Data Space - Ranjan Varma

I’ll be rooting for him to win.

Digital Devices can Transform Politicians? - Ranjan Varma

I’m mainly looking for briefings from companies that are ready for prime time. They are established, have a solid product, and are ready for adoption by Fortune 5000 enterprise companies. These companies don’t have time to deal with a startup that may not last the test of time, or have weak infrastructure. As a result, often established companies may have significant funding, or a revenue stream and thereby are able to afford a few thousand dollars a month for PR services. Having PR services is one indicator that a startup is beyond the garage (but not always)

Read the full post

Ability to hire PR services is sometimes an indicator of maturity - Ranjan Varma

And he has the answer too. “ I think its going to take the support of the community as a whole to make that happen.”

Support of the Community can help Startups - Ranjan Varma

In the mid-1990s, though, venture capitalists gave Mr Vembu the cold shoulder when he shopped around a business plan for software that helped to manage telecoms networks.

This rejection, says Mr Vembu, led him to do the right thing: be frugal and stay independent. When they set up the firm in 1996 he and his five co-founders had to use their own money. Having no cash to waste—unlike so many others in those giddy times—they based AdventNet in Pleasanton, an hour’s drive east of Silicon Valley and much cheaper. Even today it has only a dozen employees there; the rest are in Chennai. Such penny-pinching allowed the company to survive when the telecoms bubble burst in 2001.

With no outside investors, AdventNet could switch to a different business. Venture capitalists would probably have killed off a few of the 18 web-based applications that AdventNet has since come up with under the Zoho name. Several are essentially interchangeable with services that are already offered by Google, the online giant, and will be by Microsoft, its main competitor.

Yet Zoho is no mere clone of Google’s applications. It is the most comprehensive suite of web-based programmes for small businesses, including even services to keep track of a firm’s employees and its customers.

Read more about why Vembu is a dangerous player

Zoho is the next Software Giant - Ranjan Varma