Archive for the 'Startup' category

Founder equity

Jan 19 2010 Published by Niyaz PK under Startup

A question about splitting equity between co-founders:

I envision a 51 – 49 split. Do you believe this to be fair?

A 50-50 split will bring more trust and synergy in the startup. In the long run it will far outweigh any (non-existent) advantage you think you will have in keeping the 1% share to yourself.

If you have to use the 1% share to end an argument, you have already lost. In deadlock situations flipping a coin will be better than using the 1% share to force your choices every time on the other founder. Remember the saying: Win an argument and lose a friend.

If you haven’t done any significant work on the startup before the other founder join, give them equal share.

No responses yet

Why do we Startup?

Nov 08 2009 Published by Niyaz PK under Startup

Did you know that 9 out of 10 startups fail?  We are talking about the serious startups. In the not-so-serious type, almost all of them fail. So still why do I want to start a startup?

In the grand scheme of things, it does not matter whether I succeed or not. What matters is that 1 out of 10 startups do succeed. Here we mean success in the changing-life-of-others-for-good sense, not in the absolute economic sense. When you stand for a vision as ambitious as changing the life of others, you want to maximize the chances of humanity getting better and changing for good.

We cannot improve the ratio of startups succeeding. It will always be 1:10. So how do we increase the number of successful startups? By increasing the number of startups.

After a few years we will not be here in this world, but the changes we bring and the ideas we spread will remain. We have the responsibility to become the enablers of a newer and better world. I believe startups are perfect pathways to a better future.

6 responses so far

This and that

Jul 31 2009 Published by Niyaz PK under Startup

Let us be clear here.

You cannot have this and that.

You can have either this or that. Not both.

Of course you can try to find a balance between the two, but it won’t be as exciting either.

You have to let go a lot of things to get what you really want. The sooner you realize this, the better.

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What do you really want to do with your life?

Jul 25 2009 Published by Niyaz PK under Startup

Many people, especially in their early twenties ask this very interesting question to themselves: Now that I have completed my education, now that I have to get a job, now that I have to decide the way I am going forward, what should I really do with my life? In this article, I try to answer this question. This may not give you the exact answer you needed primary because the answer is that it depends, but I will try to give you some pointers that will help you decide better.

Continue Reading »

13 responses so far

The myth of career growth

Apr 27 2009 Published by Niyaz PK under Startup

Conventional corporate hierarchies make sure that there are only a handful of managers for every hundred employees. So your chances of becoming a manager are very small. This is the same reason why only a small percentage of employees in any organization get promotions.

This means that the odds of you failing to get a promotion in the job and the odds of your startup failing to get traction are almost the same. Besides, a startup is more exciting to work on and in the long run it promises more rewards for the same amount of effort put in.

I wonder why you selected the less exciting path then.

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Take the walk

Apr 18 2009 Published by Niyaz PK under Startup

You’ve heard the stories.

Some years ago, a group of people at NASA sent a man to moon.

They sent a vehicle carrying a man thousands of miles into the space and managed to land exactly on the surface of the moon! Can you comprehend the complexity of the operation?

Then there is this guy called Edison, whose invention of the electric bulb touched virtually every single human being on the face of the earth. As if that were not enough, he invented 1093 other stuff that weren’t thought of before.

And there is Columbus who set out to discover the new world and came back with a whole new continent!

And then there is this group of doctors who eradicated Smallpox, arguably the most deadly disease in human history.

Then there is this person named Tim John Berners-Lee who invented the Internet.

And then there is you.

If people can send men to moon, if a single man’s work can light up the whole world, if so many people have done things that were previously thought impossible, what are you waiting for? What is holding you back? Now that you know people like you and me can set out and change the world, what are you going to do about it?

For all these years, you have been reaping the benefits of the work done by other people. Think about the stuff you are using, the gadgets you own and the tools you work with. Every single thing has a story to tell – an exciting and intriguing story of passion and hard work and search for excellence. We have been using all these stuff invented and produced by others, and the only difference between us and them is that they somehow realized that getting things done is far more effective than finding reasons not to.

Now is the time to actually build something by your own.

What is remarkable in being a consumer for your whole life? For a change, try being a producer. Build something. For once, try giving back to humanity.

9 responses so far

Why you probably should not learn Java

Apr 17 2009 Published by Niyaz PK under Programming, Startup

There are a lot of programming languages out there and people are always confused about the programming language they should use to develop their applications. We see a lot of people asking the question “Which programming language should I use?“.

And there are many fresh graduates and new programmers who want to add another programming language to their resume and they too are confused about which one to learn.

There is something called the TIOBE Programming Community Index which lists programming languages based on their popularity. Here is how the list for April 2009 looks like:

programming-languages1

As you can see, Java leads the rankings. It has been at the top for some years now. Since Java is being used for a large number of applications in the corporate world, you can see that there are more requirements for Java programmers than say, Python programmers.

Many graduates and wannabe programmers see all those hiring ads for Java programmers and they come to the conclusion that Java is the programming language they should go for to get a better job because it is the hot thing now. They see all these statements from elsewhere which say something to the effect of “there will be 190,872,452 requirements for Java professionals in 5 years” and they decide that once you learn Java, your life will be changed forever, for good.

Wrong!

There are a couple of things that can go against you when you select Java as your programming language. First, more requirements means more competition. If there is a requirement for a million Java programmers (I am totally making up all these numbers) there is a chance that there are a million Java programmers. You have tighter competition. Comparatively, there are fewer requirements for Python programmers, and this means that there are less number of people using python, and this means that there are less number of people who know python, and this in turn means that you have less competition. So essentially, your chances of getting a job are the same regardless of the programming language you specialize in. You may even land up on a job in Ada or Pascal (There are many big corporations which refuse to move from legacy systems).

The second thing that can go against you is that since there are a lot of qualified Java programmers, the companies that hire you can afford to pay you less. If you don’t take the job, somebody else will, and he will be equally qualified as you. Compare this to a programmer working in Ruby. If you are a Ruby programmer, there are a not much awesome Ruby programmers and companies know this and they will pay you well.

Another problem with running with the crowd is that you will not get an exciting job in programming languages like Java. Most of the interesting startups and companies that work on interesting stuff have moved away from Java and they are using programming languages like Python or Ruby to build their cool products. You want to work in those companies that build something that people use, rather than work in the under-belly of a giant corporation that churns out software like a coke factory.

Paul Graham observes:

if a company chooses to write its software in a comparatively esoteric language, they’ll be able to hire better programmers, because they’ll attract only those who cared enough to learn it. And for programmers the paradox is even more pronounced: the language to learn, if you want to get a good job, is a language that people don’t learn merely to get a job.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to do stuff that stands out from what the crowd does.

If you want to do something other than spoiling your life doing the same thing a million others are doing, do yourself a favour and learn an exciting new programming language that can change the way you think and write code. Learn Python. Learn Ruby.

I say, Learn Haskell.

25 responses so far

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