Entrepreneurial Feel to company...

... is a DAMN LIE!!Ever notice how companies put that in their company description: "XYZ company has a very entrepreneurial feel to it" and then goes on to say " we seek employees who have an entrepreneurial spirit"

Yes, its all lies.

Allow me to elaborate. My resume clearly points out my entrepreneurial nature. After working for 2 solid years as a software engineer, i quit to work a start-up. That dream ended after 9months and I moved into a Product Manager position at another start-up. I worked there for 9months before moving to pursue a Masters degree in Marketing.

I agree that it looks like i switched jobs rather quickly but is that really so? Start-ups are always 50-50 and I was young enough to be able to take the risk. Naturally, I went to work another start-up. If you've ever worked for start-ups as a youngster, you might remember how painful the scenario of going to work for a corporate might have sounded like. Yes, i should have stuck around longer as Product Manager, but that was my only mistake.

Yet, every time I get interviewed ( a miracle in itself) I am constantly asked about the job-switching. They don't see it as entrepreneurial venture gone wrong but rather as s0meone who'll be fickle. I've been at IBM for nearly 9months now, almost as long as my PM job, and my manager only has good things to say about me.

So then, why is it so hard to get taken seriously by "Entrepreneurial-feel-to-" companies???

Done and Dusted! :)

Those are the exact words a close friend commented when I graduated. I now have a Masters degree in Marketing and Technological Innovation with a 3.41 GPA. Ideally, I would have liked for the GPA to be higher(honestly, it could have been a lot higher) but it's done now. Time to look forward to the future :)

Time to find a job first :D

Daedalus Finalist!

WooHoo!!

Sunday night, I was informed that I was one of  Six Finalists for the Daedalus Innovation competition here at WPI. I have to make a presentation on the 30th and first-prize is $1000. Over the past few days, i've also been seeking funding for the same idea and received some from 2 unlikely sources! Unlikely because these 2 are people my own age, with their own commitments yet they've committed no small sum. Guess i'm just lucky to have them :)

Afraid of Success??

As an entrepreneur (and one who's been burned quite a bit; sometimes in retrospect ) i always wonder if my initial hesitation on taking on something new is an unconscious fear of success? Strange as it may sound, there have been a couple of projects where I have dragged my feet. Sometimes, because I drag, they didn't work out and I wonder if that only feeds into my fear, thus creating that vicious cycle we know so well. And am I affecting all my other involvements (at this point-- job-hunt only) because of my fear of failure??

On the other hand, new ideas and projects excite me and I can get quite obsessive about them. But if they aren't bearing much fruit, I have to wonder why-- Is it because I executed badly? Or is it because there was no market for it, i just thought there was? The latter makes me a bad business person, not necessarily a bad entrepreneur. The former is worrisome-- If I were on the Apprentice, would I fail as Project Manager?

Questions and Self-Doubts. Not something most successful entrepreneurs would identify with, would they?

Test Prep and a Tablet

Farbood(of Grockit fame) believes the iPad will revolutionize learning. HP says they could've released the Slate 2years ago at a price of $1500. Today, it's about $500. How much will it be tomorrow?? And how much will it change e-learning??

A LOT!! I totally expect tablet prices to fall to the level of cell-phones, even if its with a 1yr contract. The Dell Mini is a great example of the tablet of the future. part-tablet part-phone, it's going to change a lot of things. Sure, it appears cumbersome now, but give it time. Old habits are always a little hard to change.

What about when multi-tasking comes? Imagine sitting in your car/train/bus on your way home or to work, with head-phones and a _G connection.  Chat with your friends as you'll do a "social-prep" or as we called it in India-- "Group Study", attend the same class together, give the same test (play Grockit :D ), white-board with friends,....

The possibilities are endless. And i'm very excited about the future!

Job Hunt in the GMAT-Prep Sector

I'm a little shocked as to how hard it is to find a job in this segment in America. Kaplan, PrincetonReview, Knewton, MGMAT, VeritasPrep, Grockit.. i've applied to them all with nary a response. I have an extremely strong background in e-learning(founded/co-founded 2 different companies), GMAT/GMATPrep (moderated 2 different MBA forums, still moderating 1, built a reasonably decent Fb app, taught math for a while) , am pursuing a Masters degree in Marketing and am seeking a position in marketing and product development. One would think I would make a good fit and yet, my Inbox is strangely bereft of Invitations-to-Interview(mere-formality-we-WANT-YOU-on-board!!)

Sometimes I wonder if i wouldn't be better off returning to India and opening my own prep center. Could probably wipe-out the local competition.

Update: Grockit just responded to an e-mail I sent them, and in all fairness, Knewton did respond even though that didn't end all that well.

Anon writes

Ok, so a couple of things -

1. The MBA is only an end to a goal, not an end in itself. I don't know if this is right, but it seems to me like you're basing (have based?) your whole life around the MBA. That's insane!

2. A 5-year plan to get an MBA seems ludicrous to me. Sure it's a great degree, but there's plenty of other things that you can do with your life.

I do not mean this in a derogatory or offensive manner, and I hope you take it as such. All the best.

Anon, No offence taken :)

I agree it does seem like my entire life is based around it. You are right when you say that the MBA is the means to an end-- in this case the end being Entrepreneurial dreams. I see the MBA as a quicker stepping stone to those dreams.

As for the 5year plan, its working out pretty well so far-- I have another sem before I finish a Masters degree in the US which has been an awesome learning experience and one I highly recommend to everybody. I hope to land a job soon and the financial freedom of a job in the US will afford me chances to do many things that would perhaps not be as possible in India, some purely because opportunities for those do not exist in India.

In short, I am doing the many other things that I could do with my life, yet all the while keeping in mind that at the end of the day, I still want an MBA :)

p.s. I really should stop replying to comments as a separate blog-post no?? :D