Herd mentality and Indian startups

I’ve noticed the herd mentality is becoming popular when it comes to Indian startups. Let me explain what I mean.

One startup enters a particular domain with all fan fare and great buzz. Within no time you’ll come across news about 2-3 more startups launching in the same domain. Plenty of examples to illustrate my point:

1) Seventymm was the first entrant into the online DVD rental market. Suddenly you have Madhouse, CatchFlix, ClixFlix and several others who follow suit (For crying out loud, you dont have these many players in the US too)

2) Video Sharing for India - I dont know which one launched first. But within no time, you have AapKaVideo, MeraVideo, ApnaTube, VideoDubba

3) Shaadi.com came first. Then there was BharatMatrimony, JeevanSaathi, Badhai, MeraSathi, timesmatri

4) There’s indimoto, Carwale, automartIndia, AutoIndia, IndiaAutoMall (again - unsure which came first)

5) MakeMyTrip came first. Then came a D-E-L-U-G-E : Yatra, TravelGuru, ClearTrip, FlightRaja, Arzoo and numerous others

6) Picsquare was first. MeraSnap, PhotoJagat, PhotoMasti, iTasveer, SnapGalaxy quickly followed suit

7) Fropper and Orkut struck first. The next morning you read about Yaari, iBibo, MingleBox, Jhoom, SaffronConnect

There’s HumDigg, IndianBytes, NewsCola, PutVote, IndianPad, IndiaMarks (unsure which was first)

Is this healthy for the Indian startup scene ? Is this a good phenomena? Is the Indian startup scene lacking originality and innovation (Not to take away anything from the numerous innovative ones out there) ? One can argue that some of these markets have room for more than one player. Also, considering that majority of the sites listed above are in their infancy, the market will evolve and only the fittest will survive.

I’d like to hear what everyone has to say about this ‘herd mentality’. I’m planning to do a follow up post to this sometime later.

Note: If you find any of the links above are broken, please feel free to point it out. Also, I havent intentionally left out the other players in their respective segments.

Why 99% of Entrepreneurs Fail: Because they don’t do anything

I came across this interesting blog post by Jessica Mah on Jessica Mah Meets World and I just had to share it with you. So, here's Jessica for you :

I definitely have highs and lows. Often, I’m at the high of a new idea–one that I think can be REALLY promising. This feels good. Really, really good. Mmmm. It’s so happy and life is worth living. But then, swinging to the lows, which are filled with disheartening moments of despair where I think to myself: it’s not worth it, everyone’s doing something, there’s no way to compete, even babies have their own pet projects, *kills self in self-hating moment*
- Anonymous Blogger

I read that quote a few nights ago, and I practically laughed myself to sleep. I love that quote, because it’s true (and false) in oh so many ways. Many of you have had the pride and joy of thinking that you know the next billion dollar idea. For scholars, a similar feeling is found when you come to a philosophical epiphany. The high is so great, that it’s difficult to get your mind onto anything else.

But also, as many of you know, that feeling sometimes hits its rock bottom when you think that your business idea won’t work and your peers find the concept stupid at best. This is where I come into disagreement with the writer of the above quote — I don’t understand why people won’t even attempt to make their business idea work. If they’re convinced that their idea is the “next Google”, how could it hurt to at least disprove that it is?

There are three types of amateur entrepreneurs out there, and in my young life, I’ve been every single one of them. By coming to terms with my failures, I’m more prepared to classify which type of amateur entrepreneur I am, and thus preventing myself from failing in the same way again.

Type 1 Amateur Entrepreneur: All ideas, no implementation.

Let’s admit it. All of us have at some point thought of the brilliant, billion dollar idea. We brainstormed it out, thought about how rich and successful we’d be from having thought of the idea, then dreamt about living lavishly in a penthouse overlooking Central Park with enough money to feed every starving child in Africa. I’ve done it, and I know you have too. The problem lays in the fact that most self-proclaimed entrepreneurs are great at dreaming and envisioning their business idea, yet they lack the capability (and even willpower) needed to see it through. In my honest opinion, these people cannot be considered legitimate entrepreneurs if all they know is dreaming and allocating the task of implementation to others.

As a 5th grader, I started my first “company” and convinced my entire class to join me in my quest to build the internet’s latest and greatest entertainment portal. Of course, I didn’t know how to build anything more complex than a basic HTML website. My classmates lost faith in me, and I went down as a failed, type 1 amateur entrepreneur.

Type 2 Amateur Entrepreneur: Lots of ideas and half assed implementations.

These entrepreneurs think of good ideas and have the willpower needed to start working. However, they take the “fail fast” mentality way too far — they’ll launch a prototype of their project, put in almost no effort in getting it noticed, then call it a failure. Or even worse, I know of some entrepreneurs who dedicate months of their time working on a startup idea, but never end up launching. If you’re going to fail, at least make people think that you spent your time semi-wisely. Alternatively, type 2 amateur entrepreneurs have multiple ideas that they’re simultaneously working on, and figure that they’ll get rich from at least one of them. To you and me, this is obviously flawed logic. But at one point, I was a type 2 amateur entrepreneur.

A few years ago, Alex Notov and I co-founded Shockapps.com, a pathetic startup that made numerous, half-assed attempts to launch a successful facebook app. We got a lot of users and made some money, but with a concrete and focussed development strategy, we could have gone much further. We’d launch three apps in a single month, but all of them sucked, and only one of them got traction. When your mind is distracted by the thought of getting rich from multiple business ideas, it can be difficult to follow the rationality behind having focus.

Type 3 Amateur Entrepreneur: Lots of ideas, lots of implementations, and absolutely no focus.

Type 3 entrepreneurs are marginally better than type 1 and 2 combined, but they have absolutely no time for anything other than their work. They make a solid attempt to see their business idea through, but get distracted by the idea of another growth opportunity. I feel bad for these people more than anything — they try harder than both type 1 and 2 entrepreneurs, yet they often see just as devastating results. (and mostly on their psychological well-being)

Let’s say Johnny has an idea for a million-dollar idea. He starts working on it, gets traction, and a loyal client base that’s paying for his service. He then finds another growth opportunity — perhaps a multi BILLION dollar idea that he thinks he should be pursuing. He’s locked into business #1, so he can’t just drop it. So Johnny starts building up business #2, it gets traction and a loyal user base, and now he’s stuck handling two completely different companies. Now how lame would that be?

Unfortunate for my mom and I, but of us have been sucked into the trap of being a type 3 entrepreneur. In fact, my ninth grade business partly failed because of this trap. I started a simple, easy, cheap web hosting company as a way to cover the costs of having a personal website. I then realized that leasing expensive, managed, server solutions to small companies would bring me much more profit. Both businesses were doing pretty well, but they were sucking up all of my free time. What ninth grader should have to deal with the pains of school, running two companies, and the onset of puberty? Gag me with a spoon.

Going back to the quote — yes, everyone is “working” on a project, but 99% of self-proclaimed entrepreneurs fit into one of the three profiles above. If you’ve thought of the next billion dollar idea, please refrain yourself from being an amateur entrepreneur. If you find yourself as being an amateur entrepreneur, it’s not too late to change. Pick one idea that you’re passionate about, and whole-heartedley follow through with your implementation. Forget about the babies who have their own pet projects! If you don’t put in the effort to build your company, you’ll see nothing but a self-hating outcome. To the blogger who wrote the quote above: when you make the time and find the resources needed to make your idea a reality, you’ll experience the bliss of knowing that you’ve contributed to something amazing.

The Eleven Rules of an Entrepreneur

You live and die by the standards you create for yourself in life

"The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us."

Who is a successful entrepreneur?

1. Determined: I will succeed no matter what because I always stick to my goals until they are achieved.

(Tip: Determination means never taking 'no' for an answer and never ever saying you'll give up.)

2. Resilient: I can bounce back and start again no matter what obstacle, pain, disappointment and emotional misfortune I might encounter.

(Tip: To overcome defeat, remember where you started and how far it took you to reach where you are now. Remember the mistakes you made in the past and how much wiser you are today.)

3. Focused: I will let nothing and no-one stand in my way and will summon all my energy and channel it into achieving my goals. I will never lose track of what it is I am aiming for in life.

(Tip: Always keep a monthly diary and evaluate what you have achieved and how far you have come on a monthly basis.)

4. Driven: I will consistently push myself to my limits to achieve my dreams.

(Tip: Nothing in life is free and nothing comes easy. It is through pain that we realize our limits and by knowing this, we can only get stronger.)

5. Courageous: I know how to take risks because I fear no one.

(Tip: Evaluate each risk by assessing the possible gains and losses. Develop a strategy and determine the stake you will win and how high you have to climb before you reap the rewards. Remember with every risk you take, you must ask yourself this: Is it worth it and what are the consequences I may have to face?)

6. Persistent: I will always keep going even when the going gets tough.

(Tip: If the tough keeps getting tougher and it seems as if you are not going very far very fast, redefine your strategy and plan and look at alternative routes towards your end goal.)

7. Charismatic: I have the ability to charm anything and anyone.

(Tip: You must create a strong reputation for yourself. Reputation is everything. Guard it with everything you have in you and more.)

8. Strong: I WILL ALWAYS find the survival instinct within MYSELF to keep going even when my will feels feeble and my body has failed me.

(Tip: Remember your strength is locked within your mindset and by believing you are a champion you will become a champion. Never assume the role of a victim; always maintain control, by appearing strong and powerful. People treat you according to how you act. If you act like a victim you will be treated like one.)

9. Achievement-driven: I will make sure that every step I make leads to reward, recognition and achievement of all my goals.

(Tip: This can often be something as simple as congratulating yourself for a job well done.)

10. Full of self-belief: I believe in the impossible because I will never give up until the impossible is achieved.

(Tip: Remember that there is always a way to achieve what you want if you are absolutely committed to achieving it. Try thinking laterally!)

11. Proud: I will stand tall no matter what the circumstances because I am proud, strong, intelligent, confident and powerful.

(Tip: You must put a value on yourself. Like everything in life, you must state your price and stick to it. Create you own unique selling point that will justify your price. Make yourself irreplaceable.)

"Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together."

Defining Purpose: Finding It and Staying On It

For centuries, we have been asking the question, “What is my purpose in life?” There are many books, articles and much discussion today about living and working “on purpose.” What’s the purpose of being on purpose anyway? More importantly, what is it, how do we find it and how do we know if we’re on purpose?

Purpose is a unique source of energy and power that exists when we are doing what we love (and loving what we do), maximizing use of our talents and abilities, living authentically according to our values and using all of these to serve a cause outside of our immediate self-interest. I will be the first to admit that finding a higher purpose is not always easy and takes quite a bit of self-refection and courage.

Let’s take a look at these four attributes of purpose:

1. Doing what we love and loving what we do. When we love our work our passion flows through us and we affect everyone around us positively. When we are connected to our passion, our work feels like a calling, or a natural choice. When we disconnect from our passion, our work feels like a chore or something we must endure to pay the bills.
   
   
2. Maximizing use of our talents and abilities. We all have unique talents and abilities, or gifts, which I believe are clues to finding our true purpose. If these gifts are utilized as much as possible, our purpose becomes clear and we move toward it. If we don’t harness our unique gifts, we can become stagnant, doubtful and unsure of our purpose. We then find work for the sake of work and get caught up in earning a living and surviving. We become disconnected with our true purpose in life.
   
   
3. Living authentically according to our values. Values have intrinsic worth in that they provide a source of inspiration and meaning that cannot be taken away from us. Without even realizing it, we make dozens of decisions every day based upon our values. When we live by our values, it just feels right, even when we have to stand firm in the face of adversity or opposition. Sometimes we go against our values for many different reasons and we just don’t feel right. The better you know your core values, your code of conduct becomes clear.
   
   
4. Serving a cause outside of our immediate self-interest. I have found few things more gratifying in my career than to be so completely focused on serving others. I often depleted my energy reserves (I didn’t know about energy management then!), but the power of being on purpose is a far greater energy. If our focus is always directed inward (what’s in it for me?), our purpose eludes us and we get lost in the shuffle. We eventually come to a point, where we say, “Is this all there is?” This is a good thing because it forces us to take a look at our lives and ask ourselves what we really want.

The good news about finding our purpose is that we can find it in now our current work and personal life. All that is required is that we know our values and then ask ourselves how we are currently applying them in our work and life. If you value helping others succeed, what is your attitude toward this value?

Are you “always solving other people’s problems” or are you helping them grow and improving the quality of their lives? The former is an energy drainer while the latter is an energy booster. See the difference? Sometimes a little perspective is all it takes!

Why is all this purpose stuff important? When you are on purpose, you can help your entire team be on purpose. You should only hire candidates that know what their purpose is and then do an alignment check against the company’s purpose. When your team is on purpose, they are more fully engaged with each other and your guests, customers and clients. Full engagement translates into increased productivity, goal attainment, better relationships and PROFITS!

Great Minds of Business - Visionary Entrepreneurs

From Entrepreneur.com:

The 20th century jumped from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age due to these visionary entrepreneurs.

Lessons From Barack Obama

President Barack Obama the 44th United States President. From a relative unknown law professor, community organizer, Illinois State Senator and U.S. Senator, Barack has captured the hearts and minds of the nation's electorate. With no money or grass roots organization, he has went from State Senator to U.S. Senator to President-Elect in four years! That is quite impressive.

Here are some of Barack's presidential accomplishments:

• Raised $700 million dollars in donations (the most money raised ever in history)
• earned 64 million votes nation-wide
• achieved 364 electoral votes and 54% of electoral vote
• earned 14 million more votes than President Bush in 2004
• won 66% of Hispanic and youth vote
• captured 50% of suburban vote
• won 17% of the republican vote
• won nine states that previously voted republican
• recruited 4.1 million campaign volunteers

Barack overcame the challenge of popular U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination and beat U.S. Senator John McCain to win the U.S. presidency. So, how did President Obama do it? What can business owners and entrepreneurs learn from his victory?

What made Obama successful? It was a combination of his vision, message, uniqueness, personal story, communication skills, organization, endorsements and testimonials, strategic alliances and partnerships and embracing the power of the Internet. With politics aside, let's review the Obama campaign and discover what sales lessons we can learn and apply in our businesses.


1) Barack's Vision and Message

President Barack's vision was simple:

• Build a grass roots organization young, old, rich, poor, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, democratic, republican and independent across the United States.
• Offer a democratic candidate against the war in Iraq.
• Project a moderate image promising a tax cut for the middle class, national health care and access to educational opportunities.

"Change", that was Barack Obama's message. The vast majority of people wanted a change and a new direction. His goal was to offer that and differentiate himself from President George Bush and his policies of the past eight years. Barack offered change for a better America. His message of hope and promise was inspiring and produced crowds in the hundreds and thousands across the nation. Obama's message of change generated new enthusiasm not seen in recent political campaigns. He wrote two best sellers: Audacity of Hope and Dreams of My Father. His message connected with many people. Time was critical. He had to win the the majority of the Democratic state primaries, capture the Democratic nomination and the U.S. Presidential election in less than a year! Barack was quite successful. Consequently, his candidacy produced millions of enthusiastic volunteers and new voters. His mission was clear:

• win the majority of the votes in the democratic primary
• win 270 electoral votes on November 4, 2008.
• Set up a grass roots organization in every state.
• Utilize the Internet to promote Barack Obama,
• generate campaign donations and enlist volunteers and
• win 270 electoral votes on November 4, 2008 to win the U.S. presidency

U.S. Senator Barack Obama won the race and became president of the United States January 20th 2009.

Action:

What is your vision for your company? What is the target message for your best prospects? How can you improve to increase sales? Your vision and message must stand out, be unique, authentic, interesting and inspiring. Ensure that your vision and message really address the needs and concerns of your top client prospects . Use it to connect with them. It should grab their attention and encourage them to want to talk to you and learn more. If it doesn't light your prospects' eyes and generate curiosity, your vision statement needs improvement. Also, make sure that it is quantifiable. It should have a defined time-line. For example, your vision can be to generate 100 clients and produce annual sales revenue of $1 million dollars by 2010. Additionally, ensure that your opening selling statement connects with your potential clients and gets their attention and has punch!

An Innovation Strategy During the Recession

From Entrepreneur.com:

The economy tanks. You have two options: hole up in a bunker and hope it ends before you run out of tinned peas, or innovate and emerge stronger than when the economy took the hit.

The article offers five steps to successful innovation during the current slump.

Just make sure you have the resources to pull it off!

Unsung innovators: David Bradley, inventor of the "three-finger salute"

David Bradley says he has accomplished many difficult feats in technology over the years, but becoming best known for inventing the so-called "three-finger salute" -- Ctrl-Alt-Delete -- to soft boot a computer wasn't part of his original career plan.

"In the grand context of the development of the PC, it was a tiny little thing. It happened to have been valuable ... but it has been blown all out of proportion," says Bradley, one of the 12 engineers on IBM's original development team for the IBM PC. His cult-icon status never fails to surprise him. In November 2002, "it was even a final Jeopardy question," Bradley says.

"I don't mind it, but wow. In a 30-year career, people remember those five minutes?" he says, pointing out that in the scheme of things, the three-finger salute seems pretty unimportant.

It wasn't even designed with end users in mind.

"When we were doing the original IBM PC -- and consider this was a brand new hardware and software design -- it was hanging all the time," Bradley says. The only option engineers had to continue the work was to turn off the computer and start it again. That required at least a minute to boot back up because of the Power On Self Test (POST) feature that was built in. To this day, all Windows computers do a POST when they reboot; it's built into every ROM sequence.

But back in those early days, the need to reboot "would happen a lot," Bradley says. "Depending on what you were working on, that could be daily, hourly, even every five minutes if you were working on a particular shortcut."

Dave Bradley, father of the 'three-fingered salute.'

So Bradley came up with the Ctrl-Alt-Del keystroke combination -- three keys distant enough on the keyboard to make it virtually impossible for someone to hit all three accidentally and simultaneously. "So, if you hit those keys, instead of taking a minute to start up the PC again, it would be much quicker -- the equivalent of turning the machine off and on without running POST."

The combination escaped from IBM labs and hit popular culture when application developers, in the days when programs ran on diskette, decided to publish the combination to help users start their applications faster.

After that, end users got used to it, and the rest is, well, history.

At the 20th anniversary of the unveiling of the IBM PC -- that was in August 2001 -- Bradley appeared on a panel featuring Bill Gates and other industry luminaries. "I thought we were there to have fun," Bradley says, remembering the moment that he joked with Gates about helping make his combo so well known.

Bradley laughs when recalling the joke. "I said, 'I may have invented it, but Bill [Gates] is the one who made it famous.' " In return, he received a glare from Gates.

Nowadays, Microsoft Windows intercepts the Control-Alt-Delete key combination and displays a pop-up window that allows users to shut down the PC or shows what programs are running.

Bradley muses that it's funny "that I got famous for this, when I did so many other nifty and difficult things." Among the Purdue Ph.D.'s accomplishments: He developed the ROM BIOS for the first IBM PC, led the development of the ROM BIOS and system diagnostics on the PC/XT, and was project manager for several PS/2 models. In 1992, he began working on higher-performing IBM systems built around the PowerPC RISC CPU.

Retired from IBM since 2004, Bradley has received engineering awards and will likely be immortalized as being part of the original IBM PC team. But like it or not, his place in computer history as the father of the three-finger salute is here to stay.

Developing the right battle plan vital to success in 2009

Capitalism has been described as "creative destruction." We saw lots of destruction last year. It's time to focus on the creative part.

How do you do that in this environment?

First, change how you think. For 2009, you'll need a battle plan, not just a business plan. There's not one battle plan that works for everyone, but here are some universal principles for formulating your personal battle plan:

1. DON'T FIGHT THE LAST WAR

We don't know the future, but we know this year will be different than last year, even if some 2008 problems persist during 2009. Don't expect that dusting off your 2008 plan will bring success in 2009. Sun Tzu, in "The Art of War" advises: "What enables the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge."

Resources are scarce these days but spend some time and a little money getting information about changes in your market and analyze how they affect your company.

2. MIGRATION - THE HEAD IS MOVING

If you've ever been to the Serengeti, you know that dry weather causes millions of animals to move vast distances. Business is like that, too. When everyone is fat, dumb and happy in their established market niches, they tend to stay there. Big changes occur more out of desperation than hope.

In times like this, the business herd starts moving. You're in trouble if it's heading in your direction.

Maybe your market niche has fared better than average in the general economic downturn. That's great, but don't congratulate yourself yet. If you have a good niche, you'll be facing new competitors soon.

Why? Maybe your niche was too small when other companies had lots of business. Maybe they were focused on products or customers with higher margins. If their other opportunities dried up, your little niche is probably looking pretty good to them now. Assuming there are safe havens is foolish.

3. MISFORTUNE BRINGS NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Good times bring more opportunities than tough times, but all economic conditions create new opportunities. Winners spot new opportunities and seize them quicker than others.

Downturns create opportunities in many ways. Maybe one or more competitors have gone out of business. Maybe it's more subtle, a competitor's financial condition is making customers worry it is no longer a reliable supplier. Maybe customers are ready to abandon a known brand name to save a few dollars. Maybe customers trying to reduce inventory costs are willing to pay more for quick delivery. Maybe customers who have cut payroll are outsourcing more services.

Recognizing these shifts in competitive forces that affect your market and pouncing before someone else does is the key to exploiting new opportunities. Be alert. If something small seems odd, follow up with questions.

4. WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU CAN MAKE YOU STRONGER

Economic downturns can start some businesses on a long-term gradual slide into the pit. On the other hand, such a fall isn't inevitable.

Decisions you make now can position you to be more competitive when good times arrive. The differences between companies on the move up and those on the way down may not show up in statistics during a downturn.

For example, two companies may each cut payroll 20 percent. However, if one company identifies its best performers and worst performers and takes active steps to retain its best people, that company will have improved the average quality of its work force. That's a major plus.

Another, less-proactive company may lose its best performers to competitors and be stuck with the people no one else wants. You be the judge of the futures of both companies.

2009, like 2008, looks to be another killer year.

Will your business kill or be killed?

Now's the time to decide whether you'll be predator or prey.

27 Resources to Achieve Success

Darren Hardy lists resources to get you more organized and more structured in your life, and therefore more successful.

1. List of Goals. The first step toward achieving your dreams and ambitions is to identify them. Hopes and dreams remain fantasies until you write them down and create a plan for achieving them.

2. Nutrition and Well-Being Plan. YOU are the most important person in your life, and your good health is your most important priority. People often list other priorities such as spouses, children, employees, customers, etc., above themselves and their health. If you are sick, or worse, dead, how good are you going to be to your spouse, children or customers? Take care of yourself first, so you can properly take care of everyone and everything that is most important to you.

3. Friends. We don’t get to pick our family, but we do get to pick our friends, and if you pick the right ones they can be instrumental in helping you achieve more in life.

4. Computer. In the early ’90s I remember saying, “The computer is the biggest disruption to productivity ever invented.” Wow, what a futurist, eh? I recommend getting the latest, fastest, baddest machine there is, fully equipped with the latest software. Now what if everything you did on it was just 5 percent faster than your old clunker? Think where you would be if you achieved just 5 percent more every day? The compounded result over a year would result in tens of thousands of dollars in increased output, thus income— so it is defi nitely worth the investment. Top laptop models: Dell™ XPS M1730, Alienware Area-51® m15x or MacBook® Pro.

5. Personal Reading/ Listening Library. I left college after one semester (not that I am endorsing it) to launch my entrepreneurial endeavors. Yet being a consummate student is the single greatest factor contributing to my success. My personal library of books, CDs and DVDs fills several rooms.

Every extraordinary achiever I meet or interview shares one discipline: being a continual learner. Go go to SUCCESS.com/Store for the very best in personal development materials.

6. MP3 Player. After reading point No. 5, you might be asking yourself who has time to read, listen, watch and study? If you were listening to books on tape or other personal development/ skills improvement material, you could amass the equivalent of two semesters of college each year!

Top models: Apple® iPod, Creative Zen, Sansa® Fuze™ or iRiver Clix.

7. Ergonomic Office Chair. There are a few places where you spend more than 80 percent of all your time in life—in your bed, car and office chair.

SimplyErgonomic.com has a good selection.

8 Great Pillow & Bed. Another place you spend a tremendous amount of your life is in bed. Sleep is essential for vitality, health and high-energy productivity throughout the day. I love my Tempur-Pedic™ ComfortPillow (you can find it at HealthyBack.com). Yes, this is a $125 pillow, but it’s supporting a head full of big ideas, dreams and aspirations, so it’s worth it!

9. Networking Tools. Your networth rarely exceeds your network. You cannot become successful as a hermit; you need people. A few contact management options are ACT!™, GoldMine® and, of course, Outlook® and Entourage® (Mac). There are a few great Web-based contact management systems like Salesforce.com, Zoho. com and Maximizer.com. I also recommend a few other networking resources such as LinkedIn.com, CardScan.com and Plaxo.com.

10. Journal. Straight from the man who taught me this incredibly valuable success principle, renowned business philosopher Jim Rohn: “If you’re serious about becoming a wealthy, powerful, sophisticated, healthy, infl uential, cultured and unique individual—keep a journal. When you listen to something valuable, write it down.”

A collection of the greatest ideas, insights and education are chronicled in the journals I have kept over the last 15-plus years—one of my frequently referenced and most important resources.

11. Electronic Bill Payment. Getting set up to have all your bills paid automatically is a huge time-and laborsaver. I cannot stress the importance of paying yourself first as fundamental to your wealth-building plan.

12. Mentor/Coach. Those who seek excellence have a coach. Even Tiger Woods, arguably the best golfer ever, has a coach.

My suggestion: Find someone whose life exemplifies what you want yours to be and ask for some coaching or mentorship.

13. Mobile Device. A complete access to your communication tools is key for high-volume productivity when you are in work mode.

There are many fantastic options. I use an iPhone. I like being able to have my cell phone and my audio and video listening library all in one device. Other options include the Palm® handheld TX, HP iPAQ or RIM® BlackBerry Curve™.

14. Reliable Watch. Being on time is an important success discipline. All of us are busy. Leaving someone to wait is one of the most disrespectful things you can do—it will cost you valuable relationships. It’s just as easy to be on time as it is to be consistently late. Get a good watch and use it.

15. Google Search/Google Desktop. When you think about the resources you use consistently throughout the day, an Internet search engine has to be one of the most frequent.

Google Desktop does the same for everything on your computer—folders, files and e-mail. Find anything anywhere on your computer fast. Download it at desktop.google.com.

16. Workout Gear. Exercise is essential to your plan. It doesn’t matter what you do, just do something that makes you sweat and gets your heart rate up for a sustained period of time. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Anywhere anytime, just strap on running shoes and head out the door. Don’t come back for 20-30 minutes a few times a week.

17. Back-up Drive—External or Online. Nothing can wreck your world and bring your entire operation to a halt like having your computer hard drive crash, losing all your contacts, calendar, work history and important files.

For external drives, PC Magazine recommends Western Digital, SimpleTech and Maxtor. There are also great automatic online back-up solutions like iDrive.com, Mozy.com, Carbonite.com, IBackup.com, Xdrive.com, SugarSync.com, or HPupline.com.

18. Good Dress Shoes. What item of clothing says more about you than anything else? Your shoes. It’s true! You can tell a lot about a person by his or her shoes. The quality, style and how you care for them sheds light on your choices and care about other areas of your life. Look down at your shoes right now. What kind of statement are they making to the world about you? Time to go shopping?

19. High-Speed Wireless Router. Who are these people still on a dial-up? That’s a little like using Morse code after the telephone was invented. Get high-speed broadband access—cable, satellite, DSL (or at least No. 21 below)—and then connect to a highspeed wireless router so you aren’t confined.

Those with the best reviews seem to be: D-Link, NETGEAR, Linksys and Apple AirPort Extreme®.

20. Pocket-size Camera. Document and share your entire life journey captured on photos and videos. I recommend buying a pocket-size camera (with video function) that you carry around with you, consistently journaling your experiences.

You can share them with friends and family on services like Flickr.com, Kodak.com, DropShots.com and Shutterfly. com. Top pocket-size camera models: Canon PowerShot™ SD790 IS, Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 and Sony’s Cybershot ® DSC-W300.

21. Wireless Laptop Mobile Card. Connect to the world anytime, anywhere. I love my Verizon mobile card. It allows me to be virtual anywhere.

Top mobile cards are Verizon, Sprint and AT&T. You can also make all phone calls (Skype.com, GrandCentral.com, GotVoice.com), faxes (eFax.com) and even mail (EarthClassMail.com) completely virtual.

22. News Aggregator/Reader (RSS). It’s important to stay current on happenings in the world. Keeping up can overwhelm you or command too much of your attention. One of the best Web inventions enables us to personalize news, straining out all the noise and feeding you exactly what you are interested in and what you need to stay on top of your game. It’s like your own personal newspaper. You can set up an interest page at iGoogle.com, Netvibes.com, Pagefl akes.com or a desktop reader like Google Reader, Bloglines, NetNewswire and AideRSS.com.

23. Breath Mints. Hey, someone had to say it! Nothing will repel people from you faster than a piercing vapor expelled every time your mouth moves.

24. Assistant—On-Site or Virtual. Here is why you want to hire an assistant: How much money do you want to earn in a year? Let’s say $200,000. Accounting for a two week vacation, 50 workweeks a year, even at 50 hours a week, your time has to earn $80 an hour. You cannot afford to do tasks that are not worth $80 an hour in value. Paying bills, cleaning, picking up dry cleaning and filing are not $80-an-hour tasks. If you do them, that’s what it will cost you.

You can hire a part-time bookkeeper/personal assistant for $15-20 an hour to perform these lesser-skilled functions so you can stay focused on high-value activities or have time to relax and regenerate. You can find a virtual assistant through the International Virtual Assistants Association: IVAA.org; or through AssistU.com, YourVirtualResource.com or GetFriday.com.

25. Online Florist. A happy spouse is a happy life. Flowers and gifts seem to warm the heart. Good also for moms, mothers-in-law, grandmas, friends, customers, prospects, employees, basically anyone with a heart. Get cozy with your online florist as flowers, dish gardens and gift baskets can be influential communicators.

26. Netflix/Blockbuster Online. Giving your brain and body some reprieve is important for productivity. I even want my entertainment to be as efficient as possible. The online DVD rental services are fantastic. I can easily search and sort through what I want, preselect it and it’s delivered to my doorstep without my thinking about it. I’ve always got a new movie to watch with zero hassle. Love it! Try Netflix.com or Blockbuster.com.

27. Subscription to SUCCESS. Of course! Would you want the publisher of SUCCESS to not believe this publication was absolutely one of the most important resources you could possibly access to give you the competitive advantage in life? In fact, that’s SUCCESS Media’s mission statement: To be the most trusted source for success resources. Also, don’t forget SUCCESS.com for an endless supply of new ideas, resources and support for your success.

Zoho: The Little Engine That Could (Take on Both Microsoft and Google)

Written by Bernard Lunn

We all love the David and Goliath story. What about David vs two Goliaths? That is the improbable story of Zoho, the Web Office startup competing head on with both Microsoft and Google. On top of that, Zoho is from India and who ever heard of a product company from India? Indeed Zoho has only 10 people in America, yet it is winning really big enterprise accounts in head to head evaluations with both Goliaths. What's more, they have not taken a dime of external money - having bootstrapped it from the start.

At Web 2.0 Expo in New York this week I met up with Raju Vegesna, one of Zoho's founders, to find out how they're succeeding despite the odds.

Defying Conventional Wisdom

Everything about this story is improbable. And gloriously old fashioned. When I met Raju Vegesna, I kept on thinking this was some kind of time warp. Zoho has simply ignored much of the conventional wisdom. Consider:

1. Product breadth. Look at the range of products they sell. This defies the conventional wisdom that you should focus on one thing only. When I put that to Raju, he replied that the 'one thing' model "works if you are building to sell the company". That's right. The classic model is to build one product that slots right into the acquirer's portfolio. In Web 2.0, when speed is everything, even products take too long and so you just built features. The hierarchy is: features go into products and products go into companies. But Zoho is clearly building a company.

2. Building to last. Every startup says they are build to last, publicly. Nobody advertises that they are building to flip. But Zoho looks like they really are building to last. They don't have VCs on board with an exit compulsion. Nor do they need VCs. They can finance internally and make money personally the old-fashioned way, from dividends, knowing their equity value is also building every day.

3. They run their own data centers and buy all their servers. No, they don't use Amazon Web Services or even conventional hosting vendors. They run 1,000 servers in two data centers, one in California and the other in New Jersey. In a SaaS world where performance/reliability are differentiators, running data centers is a core competency. They have the cash flow to buy their own servers!

4. They charge real money for their software, with no advertising. But the price is really low. This is like WalMart. This is like Basecamp, reasonable prices for great software. That is so boring! In branded consumer goods, buying expensive conveys status. In software, buying expensive when there is an equivalent at lower cost, simply conveys a willingness to burn money.

A Serious Contender

Do you still think that Zoho cannot possibly be a serious contender? GE, after a vigorous evaluation including Google and Microsoft, selected Zoho. That is 400,000 desktops up for grabs worldwide. GE is a master at taking costs out of established processes, they do it relentlessly and continuously and they know how to evaluate and manage the risk of working with start-ups. Where GE break a trail, others are likely to follow.

Jason Fried's Advice - Follow the Chefs

At the Web 2.0 Expo in New York last week, Jason Fried of 37 Signals, another company that has done well by defying conventional wisdom, advised entrepreneurs to "follow the chefs". He meant that great Chefs give away their recipes. That just makes you want to come to their restaurants even more. Particularly if the recipe looks complex. And Zoho's looks complex.

So I hope they won't mind me giving out the recipe they revealed when I met with Raju Vegesna, one of their founders, last week. I noted 3 major ingredients:

1. New ways of competing for talent

2. A related cash cow business

3. Pragmatic, non dogmatic approach to winning business

New Ways of Competing for Talent

If I had to select one "secret sauce" in Zoho's recipe, it would be how they recruit. Zoho (with parent company, Adventnet) has 700 developers. All the developers are in India, specifically Chennai.

India is a ridiculously competitive market for developer talent currently. I see parallels with Silicon Valley in 1999, when average developers got inflated expectations and inflated paychecks. Attrition is problem # 1.

Developers see their career path as managing other developers. Your mojo is based on how many people you manage. Managing 1,000 makes you ten times better than managing 100 and so on. This is the reverse of America where a developer will drop custom service work as soon as it is possible to work on a product.

This is a terrible environment for a product company to compete for talent. How does Zoho compete for talent in this market?

1. Hire from school. Yes, school, not college. So they don't compete to hire from final year of College or in the even more hot market of developers with a few years experience. Great code is typically written by young people - which explains a lot of the "college drop out makes $ billions" stories in America.

2. Pay one year of college fees. This is a salary, not a loan, with no strings attached. According to Raju, 90% join Zoho at the end of that year, but there is no obligation. This gives Zoho an edge with the brightest at school as they have an unusual offer.

Zoho's philosophy is that 4 years college when you are young is not right for many people. Better to have life-long learning but get real world experience early and get some cash while you are at it. This gets a big "yes" from parents paying college fees!

Zoho have their own Zoho University. This is not uncommon for big employers in India. It is a necessary complement to hiring early.

Related cash cow

Zoho has a related cash cow business that enable them to fund Zoho. This is not unlike Google. Microsoft's problem is that their cash cow - Office - is the one that both Google and Zoho are going after. That gives them one nasty Innovator's Dilemma.

Zoho's initial cash cow business is selling network management tools. This has been profitable for 12 years. Zoho itself is due to be profitable next year.

The network management tools business is doing the same as Zoho - products at least as good as the competition for a fraction of the price. This business also gives Zoho a capability for running large data centers, which is a core competency for a SaaS business.

Pragmatic, Non Dogmatic Approach to Winning Business

By all accounts, Zoho won GE's business in head to head competition with Google. GE wanted to cut cost and enable collaboration, which meant Microsoft was less of a contender. Google was the obvious "you never got fired for choosing" winner. Why did GE choose Zoho? There are two likely reasons:

1. Zoho allowed GE to run the software in their own data centers. GE has the economies of scale to run their own data centers and clearly prize the control that this enables. Zoho specified the hardware, but GE bought it and deployed it. Is a "Zoho Appliance" far behind?

2. Visual Basic Scripts in Spreadsheets. Current tech orthodoxy frowns on VB, but if you have thousands of existing Excel spreadsheets running VB that would be a show-stopper.

StartupCamp Sydney: Review of six excellent Startups created in 24 hours

This is actually extraordinary. Today it is possible to create an operating service that can have real market value within 24 hours. This is a fairly new phenomenon, enabled very significantly by the platforms such as widespread APIs, programming libraries, application stores, aggregated advertising, and other elements that can be combined and recombined in ways limited only by the imagination.

Last night I attended the presentations from the teams that worked at Startup Camp Sydney II to create viable start-ups in a touch over 24 hours.

A bit of background: StartupCamp started in Australia last September with StartupCamp Sydney, followed by Startup Camp Melbourne in October. This weekend StartupCamp Sydney II was held.

Startup Camp was established in Australia by Bart Jellema and Kim Chen of Tjoos.com. They had been talking about the idea of getting together a group to create start-ups over a weekend, and then at one of the Silicon Beach drinks in Sydney said OK let's do it next weekend, and did. Neither of the founders were initially aware of the Startup Camp in San Francisco, which is an Unconference on Startups, and designed the idea from scratch, so the Australian Startup Camps are different from ones in other locations such as Montreal. The key concept is to help people to get experience creating a tech startup in a brief period, including not only coding the service, but also addressing marketing and pr issues, and pitching to both journalists and venture capitalists.

The process, as I understand it, is that when people arrive at 6pm on Friday they are given colored dots to put on their name badge to indicate their skills in terms of specific coding skills or marketing and design capabilities. People formed teams based on having similar programming capabilities, plus relevant complementary skills. Team then worked out what they wanted from the experience, and on the basis of that generated several possible ideas for start-ups. They pitched these within the team, and selected one idea to run with. They then have until 9pm on Saturday night to create a working service.

One entire team did not sleep at all on Friday night, while other teams had some who went home briefly with others sleeping on the couches at the Startup Camp venue. Some I spoke to who went home for a few hours for a quick sleep felt they were letting the team down.

On the Saturday night a few journalists and bloggers were invited along to the presentations – I attended, and a number of journalists including Kristen LeMesurier of Sydney Morning Herald were there. On Sunday morning slightly refined pitches were made to very prominent Australian VCs, including Allan Aaron of Technology Venture Partners and Bill Bartee of Southern Cross Venture Partners.

The final stage is that in three weeks the services created over the weekend will be auctioned, with the team participants sharing the proceeds. Apparently some of the viable start-ups generated during previous Startup Camps did not get built further, despite the enthusiasm of some team members, because of unrealistic expectations of valuations by some team members. The auction process short-cuts that, enabling some team members to buy the idea off others if there are no higher bids. I’ll be very interested to hear how that process goes.

In the previous Startup Camps there have been some prominent successes, notably uTag, which adds an advertising frame to outgoing links from blogs or other websites. This has apparently served over 1 million ads.

Here are quick notes on the start-ups taken yesterday evening.

GiveDo
Let's communities turn collective search traffic into cash for their preferred causes. People can create search pages for their favarite charity, which serves Google search results, with the Google Adsense ads served on the site. One set of ads provides revenue to the charity and another set of ads pays for costs for running the site.

It will be promoted to large Australian charities, and through social media.

ActivityHorizon.com
Crawls for events and activities across a wide range of sources to find things that are relevant to you. Plan is to monetize later after having built users and relataionships, and not put in ads. Will charge people to actively promote their events and access premium features. Users can search by date, how much time you have available, how far you're willing to travel, and interests.

iTrafficApp.com
To drive safely, ,,drive smart, and avoid speed cameras. There are 160 speed cameras in NSW and 110 people losing their licenses every day. Know about traffic delays ahead of time, be warned about speed cameras, help others to do the same. The speed camera application gives audible warnings before you hit traffic hazards. If you see a traffic camera or traffic delay, you can add warnnigs that others can see.
It will be sold for $4.99 in the app store, however will be free for the first 24 hours. People can register to be notified when the first 24 hours of availability happens. Relies on user feedback. Can exclude users from being able to add events if they are abusing the system.

ThreeFeeds.com
ThreeFeeds lets you easily aggregate and share news, web search, social search, and RSS feeds. It's all about relevancy. Empowers mavens to share relevant information that they see. It is based on a search field, aggregating results from the web, blogs and Twitter for particular search terms. It's like a customizable Alltop that allows users to choose the terms you want information about. When you have created your site, you can subscribe by RSS or email. Can share on Facebook, Twitter, and via a URL, and you can embed a customizable widget. Monetization could be through distinguishing between freemium and premium services in the number or size of feeds created and shared, and by providing versions for corporates to use internally.

MyPetNeedsLove.com
This online pet dating services allow pet owners to get their pets to meet friends. You can browse other pets registered on the site, use Google Maps to see where other pets are located. The pet profile is very detailed, including body type, hair color, best features, diet, whether they want children, treats they like and so on. The site will be free to use, and generate revenue by selling goods and services for pet owners. Owners can post personal messages.

The system is built on an open source dating platform called OSdate.

EpicTweet.com
'EpicTweet captures the smartest, the funniest and the most interesting tweets as decide by you!' It publishes the best of Twitter, with columns sshowing the most recent and all time epic tweets. Tweets are identified either by people adding #epictweet to their post, and also people voting for whether Tweets are epic or not. The system is built on a .NET platform, using keywords, hashtags and other attributes to identify potential epic tweets, and then a set of algorithms to weight the votes. Revenue model could include contextual advertising.

I think the fantastic thing is that all of these are solid ideas. Even My Pet Needs Love, which inspired laughs during the presentation, and probably is a long shot, has a chance of getting some traction. The quality of the concepts, design, and in some cases even the coding is quite amazing for all six offerings.

iTraffic App is the most likely to do well, I think, given that the iPhone app store offers a ready monetization mechanism, and that there is potential to roll this out across different countries once the service is functioning smoothly. GiveDo could easily get some significant traction, and apparently already had a not-for-profit sign up for it while it was in development. EpicTweet might get attention, though the monetization mechanism is tough. ActivityHorizon definitely has legs, in that there is substantial value creation to users, and there is no-one doing this well now, however there would be significant development and marketing costs to launch this properly. ThreeFeeds could certainly be the starting point for a site that could build significant traffic as it evolves its offering.

For other reviews of the event and start-ups generated see:

Technation
TechWiredAu

Photos from Startup Camp Sydney II
Videos from Startup Camp II

Moser Baer

While coming back from Dalhousie last year, thanks to a cancelled flight, Deepak Puri, the chairman of Moser Baer, was forced to take a train. At Pathankot, two push carts were selling his CDs. Business was brisk, and they managed to sell quite a few. A few months later, at an upmarket store in Delhi’s Khan Market, Puri discovered that the shopkeeper stacked only two of his titles. The reason: he would make a fatter margin—Rs 150 on a Rs 300 CD compared to Rs 8 on Moser Baer’s Rs 28 CD.“To make the same margin, I’d have to sell 18 of these CDs”, he told Puri.

Back in office, Puri immediately called his marketing executives and decided to restrategise. This involved selling his CDs in push carts in high-cost low-space areas, a model that has become a success. This ability to adapt and innovate in real time makes Moser Baer agile.

After proving its success in the optical storage business ($500 million), the company is now aiming for the sun—it anticipates its three-year-old solar photovoltaic cells business to be as big, by year-end. It has revolutionised the entertainment space through its low-cost CD and DVD-based movies, priced between Rs 28 and Rs 35, while also foraying into IT peripherals and film production.

Deepak Puri, 66 and Ratul, 37 Puri are optical storage manufacturers with a current turnover of Rs 495 crore

Puri has come a long way. A mechanical engineer from Imperial College, London, he started with a time recorder unit, moved to manufacturing floppy disks and is now the world’s second largest optical storage media manufacturer. His initial investment—a loan of Rs 50,000 was taken on a collateral which was nothing more than “the shirt on my back and a passion to do business”. The journey has not been without its challenges.

Whether it was fighting anti-dumping cases imposed by the European Commission in 2003 or dealing with plummeting prices and market capitalisation, thanks to a global glut of DVDs in 2004, Moser Baer has managed to emerge victorious. Even now, the company has reported a net loss of Rs 104 crore in the first quarter of 2008-09, thanks to the adverse movement of foreign exchange.

Success mantra: Never think small. The effort or the pain is the same, whatever the scale of business. Biggest victory: Contributed to the decline of piracy because of its low-priced movie CDs and DVDs Personal take: The company’s logo was modified and its addresses always add up to 6 or 9,due to Vaastu reasons

But Puri believes for every problem that seems insurmountable, there is an alternative course of action. The company is betting on Blu-ray, which is emerging as a dominant optical format, as well as the photovoltaic and entertainment businesses which are expected to deliver significant growth.

“I have never dreamt small,” he says. “The effort that goes in is the same, whatever the capacity.” His son Ratul Puri, an executive director, and a computer engineer from the Carnegie Mellon University in the US, echoes his words: “Scale excites me. I don’t believe in niches.” But where the duo is similar, they are also distinctly different. If the senior Puri follows instinct, the junior Puri is more analytical. Yet they complement each other. “Like kathak dancers,” says Deepak, “we can anticipate each other’s moves.” The Puris believe in Vaastu. Not only was the company’s logo modified—the ‘o’ in Moser became red as did the Baer—but also the company’s addresses have always added up to 6 or 9. Even the address of their upcoming thin film PV plant in Chennai, was changed for Vaastu reasons.

Going forward, Ratul too wants to assume an overarching role in the business. Each of the company’s verticals is run by a CEO, who reports to him. “Every time you double your turnover, how you manage your business changes,” he says. “Initially you’re an entrepreneur, then systems and processes take over and finally you create entrepreneurs within an organisation,” says Ratul. Wise words from a quick learner

Swanson’s Rules of Management

It started decades ago as flashes of insight scribbled on loose scraps of paper. Then it morphed into a PowerPoint presentation that distilled years of business wisdom into a handful of easy-to-remember aphorisms. Last year it became a 76-page spiral-bound booklet clad in a plain gray cover. Eventually, Warren Buffett received a copy—and liked it so much that he asked for dozens more to give to his CEOs, friends, and family.

The tiny handbook has become an underground hit among senior executives and management thinkers. Written by Bill Swanson, CEO of aerospace contractor Raytheon, Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management is part Ben Franklin and part Yogi Berra, with a dash of Confucius thrown in. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch says there's something about both the man and his management style that makes the gray book a worthwhile read for any CEO. "It's a neat little manual, and each of these rules makes sense," Welch says. "It covers almost everything, and I like Swanson's feet-on-the-ground approach." Bruce Whitman, president of FlightSafety International, a Berkshire Hathaway company that's one of the world's largest aviation training firms, goes even further: "The book is something you can carry around with you like a Bible and live by every day."

Swanson has a knack for making complex ideas easy to grasp. His folksy rules may seem simplistic, but they point to proven management data. For example, psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of the landmark book Emotional Intelligence, notes that Swanson's imperative to have fun at what you do is a useful way to highlight the fact that the brain's mirror neurons condition us to respond to smiles and laughs. "Research shows that when people are in a good mood at work, it builds emotional capital and enhances productivity," Goleman says. "The art of leadership is getting work done well through other people, and laughing together is one of the best ways to do that."

Swanson never intended to publish a management book, which explains why you won't find this text in any store. The only reason it's in print at all is that a number of people who saw his PowerPoint talk later asked for copies of the presentation. The sayings of Chairman Swanson began with a modest first printing of 500 copies last year. After several reprintings, more than 10,000 copies have now been distributed to executives who liked what they read and requested more to give away.

So where can you get your copy? Until now, you had to know an insider to learn the unwritten rules. We got our hands on the book, though, and asked Swanson to elaborate on a dozen of the best parts. It took the better part of a lifetime to get these thoughts on paper, but at last his secret rules are accessible to the rest of us.

LEARN TO SAY "I DON'T KNOW." IF USED WHEN APPROPRIATE, IT WILL BE USED OFTEN.

How many times have you been in a meeting with someone who felt compelled to contribute, even though he obviously had no idea what he was talking about? In those circumstances, silence is golden. As a CEO, you know that everyone wants to impress you, so I sometimes ask a question to which I already know the answer as a way to test someone's character. Confident people know their strengths and weaknesses, and they don't try to b.s. you. You are not expected to know the answer to everything. Smart people simply say "I don't know"—and go get an answer.

YOU REMEMBER 1/3 OF WHAT YOU READ, 1/2 OF WHAT PEOPLE TELL YOU, BUT 100 PERCENT OF WHAT YOU FEEL.

If a parent tells a young child not to touch a lightbulb, the child generally won't remember. But after the first time he touches a lightbulb, he'll never forget that it's hot. A leader needs to communicate in a way that makes people feel what they need to do. I was reminded of this a couple of years ago during a visit to Nellis Air Force Base. I introduced myself to a pilot, and he looked me in the eye and said, "If it wasn't for what you all do, I wouldn't be here today." A missile had been launched at his F-15, but we make a decoy, which he deployed. The decoy didn't come home—but he did, to his family. I use that feeling to remind everyone that people's lives depend on the reliability of our products.

NEVER DIRECT A COMPLAINT TO THE TOP; A SERIOUS OFFENSE IS TO "CC" A PERSON'S BOSS ON A COPY OF A COMPLAINT BEFORE THE PERSON HAS A CHANCE TO RESPOND.

I learned this in the 1970s—long before e-mail. I'd graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and was working on antennas and microwave assemblies at Raytheon's Santa Barbara facility. We had a manager and seven young engineers on the team, so we were called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I was one of the dwarfs. One of the others wrote a complaint to a supervisor outside the team, and cc'd the world on his letter. That made a lot of people angry—it was a big mess. With e-mail, of course, this problem has only gotten worse. If you have a complaint, take it directly to the relevant individual, privately and professionally, to give him or her a chance to work it out. You'll lose respect if you write one of these cc'd zingers, and, even worse, that kind of behavior sucks the energy out of an organization. Conflict adds no value.

TREAT THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY AS IF IT WERE YOUR OWN.

My father always said, "You were given a good name when you came into this world; return it the way you got it." A company's reputation is built on the actions of each employee. I spend a lot of time emphasizing ethics and integrity, but I humanize those issues by asking people to treat the Raytheon name the same way they do their family name. Anyone who would bring embarrassment to our name should find work somewhere else.

HAVE FUN AT WHAT YOU DO. IT WILL BE REFLECTED IN YOUR WORK. NO ONE LIKES A GRUMP EXCEPT ANOTHER GRUMP!

We all spend plenty of hours at work. It's much more pleasant to spend those hours with people who have a bounce in their step and a smile on their face than with those who mistakenly associate professionalism with a dour disposition. I don't like being around depressing people because they make me depressed. The best managers give of themselves by having fun at what they do—and I look for that in those around me.

IF YOU ARE NOT CRITICIZED, YOU MAY NOT BE DOING MUCH.

When someone assumes a position of responsibility for the first time, it's common to avoid decisions—and the risk of criticism. But that only creates different risks. Problems are not like wine and cheese; they don't get better with age. In 1998 we undertook the largest rationalization in the history of our industry. We closed a third of the company's square footage and let go more than 25 percent of our 90,000 workers. We had five missile plants. We now have one. I know that many people were hurt by the consolidation. But if we hadn't done it, Raytheon might be out of the missile business today. Instead, we've become a $20 billion powerhouse.

WHEN SOMETHING APPEARS ON A SLIDE PRESENTATION, ASSUME THAT THE WORLD KNOWS ABOUT IT AND DEAL WITH IT ACCORDINGLY.

When people assure you that proprietary or confidential information you are looking at on the screen will never leave the room, assume that it already has. In fact, you should assume that it will be published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the Washington Post. My first experience with this was a funny one involving a small local paper. The roof of our Andover, Mass., plant was resurfaced with a white membrane. It must've reminded seagulls of a beach, because they liked to leave garbage up there. My guys showed me a slide presentation that included a picture of a dead seagull in the report. Twenty-four hours later, it showed up in the local newspaper. They claimed that we were poisoning seagulls, which wasn't true. It taught me a valuable lesson: Always assume that the four or five people briefing you have already talked to four or five people—and that the circle of people in the know already includes at least 40 others.

WHEN FACING ISSUES OR PROBLEMS THAT ARE BECOMING DRAWN OUT, "SHORT THEM TO GROUND."

This metaphor comes out of my engineering training. "Shorting issues to ground" means finding the quickest path from problem to solution. If you sense that your organization is spending more time on the bureaucracy of problem-solving than on actually solving problems, it's time to simplify the process. This came up when my division was developing the Patriot air defense system in the 1980s. We were having problems with the radar, and there were lots of meetings and reports but no solutions. I shorted the issue to ground by going down to the shop floor and talking to the people who had soldering irons and circuit boards in their hands. In the end we were able to eliminate weeks from the product's test cycle.

Virgin but not so innocent

Sir Richard Branson has been a mainstay of Britain's public relations industry since he made his first million as a teenage business prodigy, and many of us have grown up with the sight of his grinning noggin appearing on our television screens with monotonous regularity, mixing chutzpah and crassness in equal measure.

Whether you like him or loathe him, my feelings about the flamboyant English entrepreneur owe much to his relentless campaign of self-promotion.

Knighted for his services to entrepreneurship in 1999, Branson has had more than 360 companies. His portfolio has included everything from condoms to cola to wine to mobile phones to financial services, with virtually nothing off-limits, even space travel – his latest venture, Virgin Galactic, is a commercial space flight service that might be based at Kinloss in Moray. All his investments have three common themes: low-profile partners who pay through the nose to go into business with him, gaudy Virgin branding and, most importantly, the profile that Branson's involvement undeniably bestows.

Branson has worked hard at building his image as a cheeky chappie willing to take on 'vested interests' or 'monopolies' such as British Airways, BSkyB, Coca-Cola, Camelot, the Government and, just this week, the NHS. In his newest role as vice-president of the Patients Association, he attacked trusts that failed to control MRSA. As he said himself in the neatly titled encapsulation of his philosophy Screw It, Let's Do It: "As far as I am concerned, anything, however outlandish, that generates media coverage reinforces my image as a risk-taker who challenges the establishment."

Although Branson's record label signed the Sex Pistols and the then avant-garde Culture Club, more often the image bears little connection to the reality. Branson attended the exclusive public school Stowe College and his grandfather, the High Court judge and privy councillor Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a pillar of the British establishment.

Branson is every cynic's dream. For every action he takes, there's invariably an exit strategy that enriches him, as per all good entrepreneurs. For instance, Zavvi, which went into administration before Christmas, was born when he sold his Virgin music stores to their management. He's like a Las Vegas card trick where the secret is not to concentrate on all the sound and fury onstage, but to follow the trail to see where the money goes.

Take his wealth. Forbes' most recent list of billionaires tells us that Branson is the 236th-richest man in the world with a fortune of $4.4bn. Yet according to his biographer Tom Bower, last year Branson's holding company lost £3.9m even as its most profitable venture, Virgin Atlantic, made £123m.

To square that circle, it's important to factor in that he makes his money not from operating profits but by using his profile to start up companies on the back of his name and then sell them on, invariably for a handsome profit and often charging a hefty fee for the right to use the Virgin brand.

His Englishness is equally malleable when it comes to profit. He trades on his status as the quintessential English eccentric adventurer, complete with transatlantic yacht and round-the-world hot air balloon, yet these days he is a tax exile living on his very own Caribbean island, Necker. That aversion to paying tax won't surprise those in the know: as Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable pointed out when questioning whether Branson was fit to lead a consortium of hedge fund managers hoping to take over Northern Rock, in 1971 the entrepreneur was charged with tax avoidance to the tune of £40,000, and fined £20,000.

For all his happy-go-lucky exterior, Branson is a man used to getting his own way. As a teenager he boasted about stealing from a telephone company, and as a dyslexic wasn't beyond cheating in exams. "I filled little cards with prompt notes and hid them all over my clothing, in pockets and up my sleeves, and even tucked under my watchstrap," he said, reasoning that "if I want to do something… I won't let silly rules stop me".

Applying the 'what's in this for him?' rationale to each of his schemes is instructive. Take his recent proclamation that "my new goal in life is to work at reducing carbon emissions". This was followed by high-powered summits on global warming with world leaders at Necker Island. Yet Branson owns several airlines and flies all over the world in a Falcon 900 executive jet. And while he hailed as "a historic day" a Virgin jumbo travelling between London and Amsterdam with one engine running on a mix containing 20% biofuel, environmentalists dismissed it as a stunt designed to highlight Branson's move into biofuel.

Many see everything he does through that prism. This week, in his new role as vice-president of the Patients Association, he hit out at NHS trusts that failed to control MRSA, arguing that if hospitals were run like private companies many administrators would be fired. To the public it sounded like common sense; to seasoned Branson-watchers it sounded like a pitch. After all, Branson hasn't displayed much civic-mindedness in the past. He was briefly Margaret Thatcher's litter tsar, but has passed on the opportunity to become mayor of London despite poll ratings which would make him a real contender. It's entrepreneurs and their money that rule the world and can effect change, Branson once said, not politicians.

As a money-making machine Branson has some huge weapons in his armoury, not least a winning manner which attracts others – particularly bankers, high-ranking politicians and joint venture partners – plus his ability to inspire in others tremendous loyalty.

If he has one defining business credo, it is a belief in service, although his time running the West Coast Main Line dented that somewhat. He also has an ability to see the big picture, hence his recent bid for Gatwick Airport, the hub through which so many of Virgin Atlantic's flights operate.

That wider view perhaps goes some way to explaining his latest venture, Virgin Galactic. It will give customers a seat aboard a spaceship that climbs to 50,000ft at speeds of more than 2,000mph, and allows them to experience weightlessness for four to six minutes. It's the perfect high-profile vehicle for appealing to rich individuals as Branson tries to break into the US, while also making him look like an altruistic entrepreneur. After all, he's "making private space travel available to everyone" – at $200,000 a seat.