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Welcome to Rodinhood
Inspired by Rodin who sculpted the Thinker and Robin Hood who delivered. Hence Rodin+Hood.
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Tag Archives: VC
How to avoid your Start Up from getting a Hangover!
If you get drunk with someone you know, she will surely drop you home and make sure you are safe. Similarly, whilst starting up, try and cultivate one or two major clients who can completely uplift your venture. It’s nice to say that you are working across lots of clients or customers but getting many to sign up becomes very difficult at an early stage……Get out there, and measure every metric that you have modeled you business on. For example, if you think 5% of all companies will sign up after you present your holiness, try meeting 20 and check if 1 (5%) converts.
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‘Entreception’ = Entrepreneurs + Inception can be the new Bible of Success!
Tell me any entrepreneur worth his sleep who hasn’t sold to himself and then to a VC a dream…..They dream of the future that lies ahead and then dive back into reality to reach there! … Our Eureka solution was to create ‘digital prizes’ ….. One of the biggest dangers of entrepreneurship is that you fall in love with what you are doing and even when events turn ugly, you refuse to ‘wake up’…Watch out for Mal. Either never let her become who she is and if you cannot avoid that, then know when to ignore her and stay focused.
Else your dream will become your death.
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Posted in Experiences, Hall of Fame, Internet, Media, Mobile and Tech, Start-Up, VC & Corporate Stuff
Tagged China, Disney, Dream, Inception movie, Kick, Mal, MMOG, Mobile2win, shanghai, SMSes, VC, Wall's
3 Comments
What Entrepreneurs must learn from Fashion Models!
One day, when I was on my regular ‘contest begging’ trips, I was stunned when the brand manager of Liril Soaps (a Unilever Company product) said, ‘Alok, don’t harass me. We make soaps here – not contests. If you like contests so much, why don’t you make them and pitch them to me, rather than the other way around’……. On introspection, it was so clear why the games succeeded in China – with no mass entertainment options available (TV and films are state controlled) and very cold weather, Chinese teens were happy to lock themselves into gaming dens and play away for hours non stop. On the other hand, in India, with 3 bollywood movies releasing a week; 500 channels on TV and very warm and ambient weather, teems cared a damn to sit in suffocating game parlors and play online games with silly dragons and elves Continue reading
Confessions of a Digital Entrepreneur…
I was born and brought up in a Marwari family where breakfast, lunch and dinner conversations (granny included) were about deals struck and money made. I guess that’s where I inherited my ‘entrepreneurial dna’. It’s only after working in my … Continue reading
Value lies in the eyes of the beholder..
Neeraj immediately called Ranga in my presence and began an interesting conversation – Do you deal with c2w? How is their work? Do you like the team? He then asked – why don’t you pay them? Ranga replied something that made him get up and walk out of the room. A few minutes later he came back. Continue reading
Children need to fall to grow up..
Situation: 2001 dot com bust. At contests2win.com, we had 2 months of cash left to survive. I was desperate. I knew I had a great idea and had to ride out this storm. So I assembled my core team and … Continue reading
Our Clients are our VC’s..
Situation: 2003 – Post dot com bust. My co-founder GK (Gopala Krishnan) and I had launched a mobile business called mobile2win in China and India and were gaining solid traction. We had been awarded the Indian Idol business by Sony … Continue reading
Posted in Experiences, Start-Up, VC & Corporate Stuff
Tagged China, Clients, GK, India, Indian Idol, Mobile2win, VC
6 Comments
Guess who fooled the Ad Agencies?
Whenever I see the success of Vodafone’s Zoozoos being celebrated or the iconic advertising that almost created brands from scratch (like Onida), I am bewildered about the context of the celebration. It’s almost feverishly praising the ‘idea’ and its execution … Continue reading
Posted in Start-Up, VC & Corporate Stuff
Tagged Advertising, agencies, service industry, VC, WPP
8 Comments
5 Questions for Mr. Shubhiksha
I am really pi**** at the way Mr. Subramanian is conducting himself. I seriously believe that his actions and representations to the media jeopardize the fragile VC-Start Up’s ecosystem that is being built in India. Unless some serious corporate governance action is … Continue reading
Posted in Start-Up, VC & Corporate Stuff
Tagged Entreprenuership, ICICI Ventures, PE Investments, Retail, Subhiksha, Subramanian, VC
7 Comments