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Sanjiv Goyal, CEO of Droisys is spearheading an interesting program called ESP. He sent a note this morning explaining what the program is and the registration details. Here it is..

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Entrepreneurship is a journey and not a destination. To all you would-be entrepreneurs hidden in woodwork and the ones who are already on your way, here is a chance to pick up skills as you go.

Entrepreneur Support Forum, part of the Fireside Chat series, will enable budding entrepreneurs seek ongoing help from the proven ones. In this kickoff session, ESP program will be explained and the panelists will share their thoughts on the first step to entrepreneurship - having the right idea and the right team. Subsequent sessions of ESP will give entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their “issue” so that they can get to work with seasoned mentors.

The kickoff of ESP on Nov 15th:

Where: Greylock Partners Conference Room, 2929 Campus Drive, Suite 400, San
Mateo, CA 94403
When : Nov 15th, 5:30pm - 8:00pm
Who :
Aseem Chandna - Partner, Greylock Partners
P.K. Dubey - CEO, TelASIC
A Paulraj - Professor, Stanford University
Rajiv Khemani - VP Marketing and Sales, Cavium Networks

What :
5:30 - 6:30pm - Networking and snacks
6:30 - 6:45pm - ESP Kickoff
6:45 - 7:00pm - First Entrepreneur Pitch
7:00 - 8:00pm - Panel Discussion on “Do I have the Right Idea and the Right Team”
How Much: $15

For more information and to get an invitation, please contact sanjiv.iit@droisys.com

Register now only 15 seats left.

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Have a great week ahead!

You know that what you get out of networking events depends on how much you put into it. In other words, the more you bring to the networking event, the more you can take back home. In this two-part networking clinic (15 minutes each), I want to outline a simple approach to build and super-charge lasting relationships.

The SIPA annual event is on November 3, 2007 at the Marriott Santa Clara. Please take a look at the link below for more details:

SIPA Annual Event: Nov 3, 2007 at Santa Clara

If you are planning to attend, I look forward to seeing you there.

Have a great weekend

I first met with Edith Yeung when we worked together on a project to bring one of my heroes Seth Godin to the bay area (which was a big success). Edith is also the organizer of the SF Entrepreneur Meetup Group (apart from a dozen other things she is involved with).

In the next group meeting on Oct 25, I will be speaking to the group on the topic called “The Next Level”. Here is a quick overview of the talk:

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The Next Level

Entrepreneurship is more of a journey than a destination. One thing is certain - every entrepreneur wants to take his or her entrepreneurial venture to the next level. However, most often, there is always a lack of time, capacity and network of help to do this in an effective fashion. Nobody has unlimited resources and unlimited time to execute on their dreams.

In this talk, Rajesh will focus on things you can do (without breaking the bank) that can help you to take your entrepreneurial venture to the next level. These skills and practices (like building your personal brand and building lasting relationships) are not taught in school (yet) and you are expected to pick them up on your own. That would mean that it is never too late to learn to refine these skills and practices to increase your competitive advantage.

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If you are around SF and want to attend, you have to register before Oct 24. There are only 80 seats available and here is the link:

San Franscisco Entrepreneur Meetup Group - Oct 25 Meeting

Have a great week ahead.

Disclaimer: I am not involved in selling scented candles nor do I know anyone that is involved in that business. I picked this example so that we can brainstorm the concept of “walking the extra-mile”

Scenario: Lisa is an entrepreneur who has just set-up a business of manufacturing and selling scented candles. She approaches you for some help with strategy. Specifically, she wanted to get a website for her business as many of her friends told her that she needed a website.

Your project: Walk the extra mile and provide value WAY greater than what Lisa is expecting

How can you participate:  First, while contributions are welcome on the blog, you don’t HAVE to contribute to participate in this project. You can work on this exercise all by yourself or team up with a few friends or colleagues.

Second, if you are kind enough to contribute, please do so by including your ideas in the comments section. Please include your website or some contact information.

Third, assume that offering to design a REALLY good website is a commodity offering and does not constitute walking the extra mile.

Opening Thoughts or Points to Ponder

Here are some initial ideas for you to consider

1. Extending the Value Chain

One reason why people buy scented candles is to give them as gifts. Knowing this, you can do one or more of the following:

1.1 Sell custom-designed greeting cards that will go along with the candles

1.2 Sell wooden candle stands

1.3 Sell beautifully designed glass candle holders

1.4 How about providing a service where Lisa could gift-wrap and ship candles along with a greeting card as a package?

2. Expand Distribution Outlets

2.1 Could Lisa sell these candles on eBay?

2.2 How about other outlets - Yahoo! Store, Amazon etc.?

2.3 What other retail outlets can Lisa target (May beTarget, Macys, Michaels, Ross)?

3. Co-marketing arrangements

Who else can sell these candles along with their products? Here are some of them:

3.1 Gift shops

3.2 Stores selling aromatherapy products

4. Explore marketing options

4.1 Newsletter?

4.2 Blog?

4.3 Participate in newsgroups or start one?

4.4 Use Ning to create social networking for candle lovers

4.5 Create a candle-lover group in Facebook?

Rest is up to you. Have a great week ahead!

A few days ago my niece Seema sent this in an email. It is a simple story with a message that is applicable to all of us.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

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The Cookie Story

Thank you Seema for sharing the story.

Today we celebrate Columbus Day in the US.

Now what has All About Steak got to do with Columbus?

On a lighter note, both are about discovery.

Columbus set out to find something but really found something else. In fact, he found something WAY bigger than what he originally set out to find. The point he had no idea that there was something like America that existed on this planet - so in his imagination there was no way he could have mapped out a path to find America.

If he knew that America existed and he was looking for a path to find it, it would have been a SEARCH problem.

Since he didn’t know that America existed, he was really on a DISCOVERY path.

One of my portfolio companies Suggestica acquired an Isreali company called RawSugar that had an interesting technology in the search (rather discovery) space. With that acquisition, we started creating “vertical discovery engines” in a number of verticals (follow the Suggestica story in an article published in the latest issue of Business Development Outlook)

You can see an example of a discovery engine at http://www.allaboutsteak.com. This is a discovery engine for steak related content. In this case, as the content in the site increases, the power of the site increases. Please try searching for “recipes” and you will see about 1000 search results. On the left column, you will see choices to help you refine the search. You can pick one - let’s say “flank steak” and the search results are narrowed - now they are all related to “flank steak recipes”. The left column now dynamically changed to suggest more choices. You will see choices like “asparagus” and “pineapple juice” - this is the discovery part - you may not have known that there are recipes that have flank steak and asparagus. Search engines cannot do this (well) - only discovery engines can. We have file for three patents internationally in the “faceted search” space.

We at Suggestica believe that many a times people act like Columbus on the web. They are on an exploration and they love to discover new things. We want to provide them the tools to explore. We started with steaks and we plan to launch a few more verticals before the end of the year.

Have a great week ahead!

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PS: The PDF version of the Suggestica Story is here:
Suggestica Story  in BDO Magazine (PDF download)

iPolipo is one the twelve companies presenting in the SIIA OnDemand event this November. Here is the link:

iPolipo presenting at SIIA OnDemand - Nov 2007

iPolipo helps making scheduling simpler. In simple terms, if you are a subscriber of iPolipo, you can selectively and securely publish your available time slots in the form of a URL. The URL can be sent via email or posted on an extranet or simply it can become part of your email signature. You have your phone number, email address and now (if you want) you can provide access to your available time slots right there.

We have more exciting news to share by the end of this month.

Have a great week ahead.

This issue of Business Development Outlook magazine features a story of Suggestica. This is behind-the-scenes story covering what really happened until now in the life of Suggestica.

You will see  how it all began and watch the journey as we morphed our strategy based on market feedback (actually, we were forced to morph our strategy) and where we are headed now.

Business Development Outlook: Discovering Trusted and Relevant Content on the Web - The Story of Suggestica

BTW, I have also included some lessons learnt (so far)

Have a great week ahead.

I took a snapshot of latest news on CNN at around 10pm (PST) on Oct 7, 2007. 90% of these news items were related to crime, sex, killings, scandals etc. Not even one of them was related to some major achievement or a breakthrough.

Does that mean that there are no big breakthroughs and achievements to report? Of course, there are.

On one side the media has to report on what will sell. I am sure they have done their research and found out what sells and they are just featuring what sells. Remember that they are not a charitable organization.

On the other side, the barrier to entry to get into the media for an achievement or a breakthrough is VERY high now. It may be good but is it dramatic - one of a kind that is worthy of reporting on the front page?

What is the point?

Simple. On your journey to achieve bigger and better things, please remember that if you want to “truly” get noticed you have to be “truly” remarkable. There are so many things happening in the world that will catch people’s attention and the media knows that. The challenge for you is - “Will you create something so remarkable that the media will let go of something sensational and pick up your story to report?“

Last week I attended the Dreamforce expo at Salesforce.com. There were a wide variety of companies (partners or Salesforce.com) that were exhibiting there. I probably talked two about two dozen companies trying to understand their offering.

With about fifteen of those companies I gave them my business card and asked them to follow up on “specific topics of interest”. Most of them made notes in some way or the other.

A week later I have received notifications from twelve of those fifteen companies. All of them were based on pre-defined templates. It was personalized but being in the CRM world in the last decade, I know they were all automated messages.

At least a few of those companies would have got some “hot” leads - just if they had come back to me with answers to my specific questions.

Well, answering specific questions is hard work. Automation is easy. Just feed the email address to a program and the program takes over…