Making better products

Understand employee equity allocation in startups

Vinodh Nandakumar — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:58:40 +0000

Two great reads if you want to understand the nuts and bolts of equity allocation to employees in your startups.

Probably the best VC blogger – Fred Wilson

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/employee-equity-how-much.html

Evan Reas has some solid insights on planning equity allocation to employees

http://startuphoodlum.com/2011/01/03/equity-grant-averages-to-startup-employees/

The Startup Leadership Program – Bangalore

Vinodh Nandakumar — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:26:36 +0000

SLP has one of the many things that has been keeping me busy over the past year. The Startup Leadership Program (SLP) is an initiative to groom the next-generation of startup CEOs. SLP fellows are in their mid-20s to 30s and have demonstrated outstanding potential and achievement in the life sciences, tech, cleantech, and social sectors. Graduates form an international alumni network to support each other’s entrepreneurial endeavors.

SLP initially started out in Boston under TiE Boston and has now grown to six cities including Silicon Valley, New York, Beijing, New Delhi, San Diego.

Me along with a BITS Alumni, Sudip Dutta, CEO of Aporv.in help run the Bangalore chapter of SLP. We are looking for leaders who can lead new chapters as well as take up existing ones. More details follow

And I’m back…

Vinodh Nandakumar — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:22:02 +0000

Been almost a year since I have posted to this blog. Oh boy, it’s been a hectic 2010 but 2011 is getting even better. Of course there is no excuse to have not posted. Social media seems to be taking its toll on me.

But it’s been an interesting and hectic year and a half working with one of the leading online travel startups in India helping them build some kickass products and working with an enthusiastic team. More updates on that and what I have learnt coming up soon. Life has changed and for the better it is!

To regular blogging! Cheers.

Monitoring your brand buzz through Social media marketing

Vinodh Nandakumar — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:48:37 +0000

Tracking and measuring Social media marketing has been of utmost interest to me the last couple of months, with more and more enterprises, SMEs and startups taking to social media marketing with vigor, it becomes important to measure and track results and effectively make data driven decisions to increase revenue / brand awareness.

The first step is of course to listen and monitor. The presentation below is a great place to start understanding the importance of monitoring conversations and buzz around your brand on Social Media.

The 4 step process of Listen -> Plan -> Respond -> Evaluate

seems to be the most effective for tackling problems and quickly closing the loop.

Stayed tuned here for a detailed analysis of Monitoring tools, both free and fee-based which you can use to monitor buzz, sentiment and conversations about your brand.

Back from a blog vacation

Vinodh Nandakumar — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:35:38 +0000

It’s been long, real long – a blog vacation for close to an year is not good, but there wasn’t much I could do. I was however pretty active over on Twitter – my handle is @vinodhn and reasonably active on Facebook.

So what was I upto this year ? Well I was on a learning overdrive, I helped a great team bootstrap a product, complete web based product built from scratch, and took it all the way from the PRD to SEO , Marketing and PR.

So yes, the past year has been interesting, did some awesome work and met many a smart people. Learnt insights into the Indian product startup space and learnt and tackled challenges that startups face to get a product market ready.

I hope to share more detailed insights on this journey over the past year with all of you on this blog.

All about Proto.in

Vinodh Nandakumar — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:08:26 +0000

As we get closer to the Bangalore edition of Proto and the excitement builds up for India’s premier startup event, here’s an awesome conceptualization about Proto.in by the folks from Pictualize.

Date : Jan 23-24, 2009

Venue: Nimhans Convention Center

Btw, if you haven’t already registered, now’s a good time to do so, go ahead and register now.

Pitching your startup to VCs

Vinodh Nandakumar — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:50:50 +0000

You might have already read this, but was pretty good that I wanted to post it on my blog.

Canaan Partners, recently released a slide deck on Slideshare called ” Canaan Entrepreneur Pitchbook” .

It’s a workbook style presentation that is intended to help entrepreneurs give the right pitch to VCs and angel investors. If you have been successful in pitching to VCs/ angels before, what do you think ?

Is the entertainment industry recession proof ?

Vinodh Nandakumar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:54:47 +0000

Makes me wonder as I look at Yahoo! Buzz – year in review 2008. These are the top 10 search terms in Yahoo search.

Britney spears (Music /Entertainment)
WWE (Sports Entertainment)
Barack Obama (Politics)
Miley Cyrus ( Entertainment)
RuneScape (Online gaming entertainment)
Jessica Alba (Movie star / entertainment)
Naruto (Entertainment)
Lindsay Lohan (Movie star / entertainment)
Angelina Jolie (Movie star / entertainment)
American Idol (TV / entertainment)

Note that 9 out of the 10 terms are entertainment oriented, a trend which is similar to 2007.

Wonder if this is a reflection of Yahoo users or whether the entertainment industry is recession proof ? What do you think ? (Note: Britney spears is worth $110 million)

There are two beasts in entertainment which I feel when legalized in India, could change the face of entertainment and prove to be a great opportunity for startups.

Gambling on TV / in casinos.
Pornography on TV.

What do you think ? Any ideas for killer startups in this space ? (or should we say hot startups )

World Usability Day 2008, Bangalore

Vinodh Nandakumar — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:23:19 +0000

World Usability Day 2008 Bangalore

World Usability Day (WUD) is a global initiative of the Usability Professionals’ Association to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. Each year, in November, over 300 events are organized in over 40 countries around the world to raise awareness for the general public, and train professionals in the issues central to good usability research, development and practice.

The 2008 World Usability Day focuses on Usability in Transportation focussing on the interaction people and vehicles, the challenges and issues infrastructure and modes for moving around in our environment. World Usability Day 2008 is focused on exploring and creating awareness for several aspects of transportation in Bangalore and in India.

Details

Date : 29th November 2008

Time : 10.30 to 4.30 am

Venue : Yahoo campus (inner ring raod, domlur)

If you are going to be at the event, drop me a line in comments below or send me a message on Twitter.

Featured on the Product Management View

Vinodh Nandakumar — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:54:17 +0000

It gives me great pleasure to announce that I will now be guest blogging for the Product Management View – a blog focussed on product management and strategy , run by world class product managers from various backgrounds and vast experience in this field.I am pleased to be associated with them and look forward to some great discussions over there. Thanks to Stewart Rogers from PM view for making this happen.

My first post for the Product management view is about maximizing product value through effective feature prioritization. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic and having some great conversations.

The PM view also tracks major webinars on product management, you can sign up for a webinar remider service and here’s the handle to the RSS feed.