How to develop social networks when you’re a start-up

When developing social networks, the biggest challenge for start-ups may not be safeguarding against failure so much as preparing for massive success.

The first commandment for building a social network is: Thou Shalt Scale. A social network needs to be able to cope with huge spikes in users – perhaps multiple millions – and if it can’t, users will abandon the site in droves. It is also critical to make a site ‘sticky’ by providing compelling reasons for users to stay once they’re on the site; innovative design and unique, robust applications are therefore an absolute prerequisite.

Users tend to flock to new networks – well, the good ones – but numbers drop off sharply when critical mass is reached. The issues then become scaling back down and, of course, retention. Networks employ various methods to keep users interested, such as notification of applications, alerts for new messages and new activity, and reminders to visit. These all require users to submit contact details and, and for an audience now wary of putting details online, very strong security policies must be enforced across the social network.

If there aren’t enough users on the site at launch, it appears ‘empty’ and potential users bounce off, probably never to return. Start-ups therefore must feed users onto the site prior to launch, either by inviting beta testers to the site or by actively recruiting users from their own networks of contacts – including employees.

Some organisations partner with specialist web site developers to turn their vision of a social networking site into a reality. In this case, start-ups should only seek developers with a strong track record in developing social networks. This is because developing this type of site requires specialist skills to both address the challenges – including the rapid development of unique and robust applications, coping with rapid change, creating fresh design and handling exponential load spikes – and embrace the opportunities.

New Bamboo Top Tips
1. Get feedback early and often. Get people using your social networking site during its development and act on their feedback. Therefore you ensure that you consistently navigate your network towards success.

2. Go cross-channel if you can. Maximise your user numbers by making the site accessible via mobile devices.

3. Plug into existing networks. Including links to established networks – Facebook and iPhone applications for example – will help put you one step ahead of the game.

4. Create a Unique Selling Point (USP). No one cares if you provide the same features as other established sites. Do something different and focus on that completely.

5. Or….target a niche audience. A social networking site is only useful if everyone you know is on it. Facebook initially targetted individual colleges for example.

Acquititions as a viable and great exit opportunity ..

When a startup company is ringing doorbells for capital, investors will often ask what its exit strategy looks like. An exit strategy is your plan to turn your startup company into some sort of payday for investors. Two common means of cashing your investors out are getting acquired or going public.

While we'd all love to believe our company will list on the Nasdaq and become an S&P 500 industry-shouldering stalwart, that rarely happens. The road to becoming a public company is long and has only gotten more difficult in recent times. The more likely road to riches is an acquisition by another company.

With this in mind, startups are putting more emphasis on figuring out who would be in the best position to buy a company with their particular offer. They then begin to craft an offering with these attributes in mind.

Effectively, these companies are wiring a direct path from the initiation of the company to the ultimate exit strategy of financial liquidation. By creating a company that is easy to digest by larger companies, a startup significantly increases it chances of being acquired, which gets investors (and shareholders, like you) excited.

Where is the love?

Wiring the exit starts with pinpointing your potential suitors. A great starting strategy is looking for companies with similar business models operating on a larger scale.

For example, if we were starting an online job recruiting site, we may logically assume that companies like Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com would have a natural interest in acquiring our company in order to expand their businesses.

The list of acquirers can be more than just companies that share an identical business model. Often companies are acquired because they offer a complementary service that enhances another company's business model.

Take the $1.5 billion purchase of payment processor PayPal by online auction giant eBay. PayPal was a perfect fit because it had a great payment system that eBay customers loved to use.

To understand where you would offer the most value to your potential acquirers, try putting yourself in their shoes. What would an acquiring company stand to gain by purchasing your company that would make the deal worthwhile?

Perhaps you have a novel technology that would enhance the experience for the rest of their customers significantly like PayPal did for eBay.

Maybe you have captured a large customer base for an attractive niche, such as a doctors-only recruiting service positioned for Monster.com. There's no one strategy that applies to all companies, but if your strategy creates enhanced value for its acquirer, you're probably on the right path.

Get some details

You should also do some homework to learn about what types of companies they have acquired in the past and for what reasons. Public companies that have made acquisitions are usually required to disclose a fair amount of information about their transactions. These Security and Exchange Commission filings are good places to start.

There are a few key details to look for in the filings. First, take a look at how the purchased business fits into their overall business line. Was the company a complementary service or a competitor? Then, take a look at the financial informaiton for the acquisition, specifically how was the acquisition valued relative to the acquired company's revenue.

If you find that companies like yours generally get purchased for five times top-line earnings that will give you valuable insight as to how much your company might be worth when you go to sell. You'll also need these metrics when you return to investors if you are going to raise capital for your business. They'll want to know what kind of return to expect on their investment based upon how similar companies have been valued.

Once you understand who has an appetite for buying companies like yours and what they are willing to pay, your next step is positioning the company to be acquired.

The best way to do this is to build relationships with your potential acquisition targets. Some of them may be competitors who haven't yet exploited opportunities you're already taking advantage of. This is perfect because any asset you build that your potential acquirers don't have is one more reason to purchase your company.

If your company's offering is complementary, start advertising that too. If an acquirer wants to offer a similar service, it's often less risky to buy it off-the-shelf from you. Sometimes, it's even cheaper than developing it themselves.

There's no guarantee that your exit strategy will deliver a big sale for your company. Some amount of luck and timing play into every acquisition. But if you plan on creating a company that is going to be worth a fortune when it's growing like wildfire, the only way to get out quickly is to know exactly where the exit is.

JavaScript Clear Textfield Default Value onClick

So basically if you have a text field with default text like “Enter Email Address Here” and you want it so that when the user clicks in it, the text disappears, this is the code to use. It goes one step further so that if you do not enter anything it puts the default text back and if there is something entered it doesn’t get tripped up and clear it out. Plus it is super simple and clean and tested in all browsers.

Here is the code:

function clearText(field){

if (field.defaultValue == field.value) field.value = '';
else if (field.value == '') field.value = field.defaultValue;

}

Here is how to use it:

< name="emailaddress" type="text" value="Enter Your Email Address" onFocus="clearText(this)" onBlur="clearText(this)">

A thttpd server start up script that kills the existing instance and restart the thttpd server (not requiring reboot)

#!/bin/sh
if [ -n "`pidof mythttpd`" ]; then
killall mythttpd 2>/dev/null
fi
/opt/sbin/mythttpd -C /opt/etc/mythttpd.conf

Its just a tip which you can use to automate your instincts to kill processes!!

How to check if a parameter is an integer in bash?

#!/ash/sh
val=$1
if [ ! $(echo "$val" | grep -E "^[0-9]+$") ]; then
echo $val is not a valid integer
else
echo $val is an integer
exit 1
fi


Syntax: ./check.sh 45

Wanna know how fast India is growing???

India is still labelled an emerging market, but the Forbes magazine has argued that the country's economy has already emerged. And as the economy spreads its wings, its companies are turning to new international markets, perhaps beginning a reverse imperialism.

For proof, the US business magazine lists not only the recent high profile acquisitions by Indian firms, but also facts such as four of the top 10 billionaires in the world are Indian, and that with an annualised five-year total return of 42.2 percent, India comes second after Brazil in terms of the growth of the world's largest public companies.

In comparison, the growth percentage in Britain and the US are 17.1 percent and 11.1 percent respectively, indicating that the balance of economic power in the world is starting to shift, the magazine said in a commentary piece in its latest issue Friday.

The reason for this reversal of fortunes is that for established companies in the US and Britain it is difficult to grow as quickly as those expanding from nothing, as is the case for start-ups in India.

During the 18th century, when the British colonised India and started exploiting the subcontinent's vast natural resources and to expand trade, tea became an important commodity and came to symbolise British colonial rule.

In a case of reverse imperialism, Tata Tea, part of the diversified Tata Group, bought Tetley, Britain's largest tea company, in 2000. Tata Tea has since become the second largest tea manufacturer in the world by volume, surpassed only by Unilever, based in London and Rotterdam.

This March, in another example of British brands being picked up by an old colony, Tata Motors acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for $2.3 billion. Tata Motors hopes the acquisitions will boost its ability to be a "meaningful player" in the global market.

India's monetary muscle is strengthened by a cheap domestic labour market and its companies' high price-to-earnings ratios, the magazine quoted Tarun Khanna, a professor at Harvard Business School, as saying.

The author of "Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours" added: "Unlike China where companies are state- and government-led, in India, it is people's own money."

Now even smaller Indian companies are able to collaborate with bigger counterparts in other markets - even those in other former colonies.

Last week India's biggest telecom firm, Bharti Airtel, called off merger talks with South Africa's largest provider of cellphone service, MTN Group, because of disagreements over the deal's terms.

Promptly, Reliance Communications, India's second largest telecom firm, entered talks with MTN. The potential MTN-Reliance merger will result in over 100 million customers, a network larger than that of AT&T, the largest in the US.
The shared colonial past, actually, is an advantage for Indian companies, Khanna told Forbes. "Imperialism is laying the seeds of global chess with Indian companies naturally capitalising on their shared history," he said.

My thoughts on being a better speaker and orator..

Preface : Lets do it before we die

People usually ask how do the orators and the speech makers stand in front of thousands of people and give a speech without any nervousness or jerks. I am usually intrigued by these questions. Because before my debut as a speaker and an event host few years back, I also had the very same thoughts.
Dear friends, nervousness is inevitable. It is a part of any success story. Nervousness always informs you that you have scopes for improvement. Without the pinch of nervousness, our rate of improvement shall definitely stop because we shall become overconfident and start taking life for granted. So, what I mean to say is that don't bother about nervousness because it is a natural mechanism just like fever. When we have any infection, our body temperature rises, this is a natural mechanism that is devised to kill the infection budding in our body. So, when we undertake any adventurous work, our mind sences the deficiencies and alerts us that we must improve ourselves the next time if we want to survive the competition.

Chapter One: Dealing with the fear factor

The first problem that is faced by any person before his debut on the stage is the fear factor. I had specially been the observer of this phenomenon since a very long time. And the good news is that I have the solution. Apart from that we all shall agree that it is the most difficult to think on the feet and specially on the stage it is almost 'IMpossible!!'. But I would say, thinking on the feet and while on the stage is more interesting and beneficial because you are in a dynamic environment. You are getting real-time feedback which you can use on your next statement. But, mind you friends, this is a pure art and needs dedication and a scientific approach. Everything is possible but it requires time, practice and a little guidance (for which I am writing this for you). Third, you might think "how can I engage the audience for the time allotted to me". "If I am not allowed to take any material with me, how can I recall my notes". "If I forget a point , I will get embarassed. So, Its better to live the humble man's life and forget to become a hero" or "This is perhaps not my game."

Let me tell you that all can be overcome but you should make the first move to get rid of your fear. Don't let the fear to control you. There's a great saying "A lot of talents get wasted in the country only because of a little courage". You never know what you have in you. You have to explore yourself to find that out. Lots of people have succeed in life because they found out what they are good at, at the right time. And lots of people have miserably failed in life because they failed to find out what they are good at. This is the bottom line!! Since it occurred to you that you have to get onto the stage; it shows that maybe something in you is giving a call. But it is upto you to help it come out.

Let me tell you one thing very clearly. If you do something, do it the best. Some people might say that it doesn't matter what will be the outcome of the first trial...at least you have made the try. But I say No!!!. If you have decided to take the plunge. Take it but make it the BEST of the BEST. In the upcoming chapters, I shall show you how to do it. But remember, I am training you to be the best and what can be more pleasing and satisfying to hear tons of applauses after giving your first and maiden speech. Infact, after I ended my maiden speech, our college technical director told me that I am better than him. I want this same magic to happen with you.

A file photo of myself delivering the ACM Chairman Speech during the innauguration ceremony of ICAC2008 Conference, India. (Feb 20-21, 2008)

Chapter Two: How to harness our stage-fear to our advantage?

Dear friends, as I already told you that we have to make friendship with our fear because everything which comes out of us belongs to us. Fear is a part of our imagination. We should not destroy the imagination but rather harness it to our advantage. There are certain ways of doing so. Let us tackle one by one.

Usually when we agree to appear in front of the stage, there isn't much of a fuss about it. But as the D-Day comes nearer, the tension grows inside us. This is natural. It means our natural tendencies are alerting us that we should stop taking things into granted and start practicing. Some people get the thought from somewhere that its a better idea not to practice before the speech but should go to deliver right on stage. This is what I call a perfect non-sense suicidal attempt. They see eloquoint orators coming onto the stage and speak confidently and they think that if the orators can do it, why can't they? But what they didn't saw was the practice and hardwork that the orators had done before facing the audience. The sleepless nights that they had forgone to give that tantalizing performance.

Thus we can say that when our tension starts mounting while the D-Day starts getting closer, get to practice immediately. The more the practice, the more confident you shall become and the more confident you become the more you have successfully harnessed your fear.

The trade secret of the perfect method of practicing shall come in latter chapters but you continue reading.

Upcoming
1. The moral responsibility of the speakers.
2. How to speak to become a motivational speaker?
3. Speaking leads to self-respect and honour.
4. No fooling around with the audience
5. Are you feeling mediocre even after being a speaker for several years?

(to be continued.....)