Ritoban Chakrabarti's Blog, page 2

The Law of Idea Resonance

I’ve been experimenting with various focus strategies over the last few months. The core issue faced by developers and designers is the sheer number of ideas that they have and the excitement that follows whenever a new idea pops in. In fact, this concept is applicable to almost everyone who wants to work on their own ideas.

The most difficult part is to contain the excitement. Because that excitement can make you wander to la la land for several hours/days and that can be quite distracting to the current projects that you’re working on.

I have about 1 new great idea every day. Sometimes I just lose track of all the ideas I have because they come and go. When an idea keeps coming to me for a while, and when it causes sleepless nights, that’s when I start to work on it. But there’s a catch… I only work on a new idea if I’m not busy with an existing project.

I’ve already established an irrefutable fact a few months ago: Ideas don’t matter. Execution does.

I let my ideas speak to me. If I have a fleeting glimpse of an idea, then I ignore it until it comes again and again in various forms. Over the years, the way I visualize my ideas has also changed. Nowadays, whenever a new “world changing” idea comes to me, I start visualizing HOW to execute it.

What will be the challenges to properly execute an idea?
Will that execution process hinder my other projects?
What’s the worst case scenario if an idea I execute… completely bombs?
What’s the BEST case scenario that can be attained with the execution of the idea?
Most of all, what are the first few steps I need to take to start executing an idea?

For example, I have been thinking on several NGO activities that can be done to benefit the under privileged Indian public at large. One idea that kept coming over and over to me, was to bring electricity to every Indian household.

I was staring out of the balcony from my 11th floor apartment in Bangalore where I’ve recently shifted. As with almost every high-rise in India, you get a glorious view of a slum nearby. The view from my balcony during the night is quite mystifying – there are about 200 small houses in that slum area. During the night, there are only about two dozen bulbs that glow in the darkness. What about the rest of the houses?

Almost 80-90 percent of the houses in the slum area don’t even have something basic as a light bulb. This can be partly attributed to the lack of electricity supply in slum areas and villages. It can also be attributed to the fact that people living in the slums have lost all hope of light after sunset.

How are the children in the slums studying after dark? How much impact could I do on the economy and education sector if every house in India at least had a bulb/LED that could provide light during the night?

So it got me thinking – how can I solve this problem? Here’s how my mind went:

We cannot work with government or private agencies to request electricity deployment because doing so needs a lot of contacts and dealing with a lot of bureaucraZy. Moreover, the people in those slums probably don’t have the money to afford an electricity meter, electricity connection, and electrical equipment.

The best, long lasting and cheapest solution would be to engage in something that can be dealt out for free. Instantly, one word resonated with me: SOLAR!

India is a country with an abundance of heat and sun. If there’s one thing that we are completely under-utilizing is our appetite to generate solar energy.

There were two general options.

One, start a HUGE solar grid. But just the sheer amount of effort needed to launch something of that scale with all the politics involved, was enough to shut out that thought.

Here’s option number TWO:

What if we could have a nifty little device that could be handed over to each household in the slums that could light up their house during the night.

What if that device could be manufactured at a cheap cost and middle class families could BUY it, and all the profit generated could be used to build and distribute similar devices to slums across India.

But solar cells are not cheap. There’s the problem of DESIGN as well. You need a cool design that can be built for cheap and should be easy to install as well.

So an ‘umbrella design’ came to my mind. Mind you, all these thoughts were not letting me sleep at 2 in the morning while lying in my bed. Here’s the prototype that was designed in my head which I’ve re-drawn while writing this post:

Solar LED Umbrella

While this is a very basic design, it gives you an idea how it will work. We basically hand over an umbrella shaped device to the slum household. They need to just open it up towards the roof, and the solar panels will be setup on the roof. This device would also have a battery to store the charge that would be used to power the light source during the night.

While this is all easy to write and draw, I believe the construction of such a device especially at a cheap cost will be a challenge.

But the whole point is that when that idea came to mind, I didn’t just have an idea – I had a complete outline of how to proceed with the project. How to generate revenue to sustain the project. Even how to hold distribution and training camps at slums. I even had some ideas on how to generate donations and what kind of team to hire for such a mammoth task. (I only need 4 genius people)

So I guess what I’m trying to say is:

Let your idea resonate with you. When you have enough resonance, then start executing it

 

I Bought An Expensive Car… I’m Finally Successful!

Everyone preaches jargon on ‘how to be successful’ and blah blah (myself included).

Before that let’s talk about a much deeper topic today.

What is success?

Photo courtesy: Mats Lindh

Let’s define what constitutes ‘success’ in today’s generation:

1) Owning several high-tech gadgets including a SmartPhone, SmartTablet, SmartTV, SmartFridge, SmartOven, and basically any techy item that’s ‘Smart’.

2) Owning an expensive car. Or a Harley. No, owning a Maruti does not even come close.

3) Owning/Renting a magnificent house. Either a top notch apartment with top notch furnishing in a top notch locality of a top notch city. Or a huge mansion (if you’re into all that)

4) Millions in the bank.

5) A wardrobe consisting of all sorts of fabrics of the top fashion designers.

6) Lots of gold lying about the house. Earrings, necklaces, rings, nose-rings, toe-rings, crowns, or just plain gold bricks.

7) A high paying job in an MNC. Or your own wildly successful business with dozens/hundreds of employees.

You see where I’m going with this?

When fathers want their daughters to marry a stranger, they look for most of these checkpoints.

When you tell people about yourself, they consider these checkpoints for labelling you a success or not.

When YOU look at other people, you look at these checkpoints for labelling them a success or not.

Yes, I qualify on almost all these checkpoints and yes I just boasted about it, but that’s not why I wrote this post.

You see how everything is about money and material objects nowadays. I tend to think a bit differently though.

Let me ask you a question:

Would you consider an honest and hard-working primary school teacher who has been teaching little kids for three decades, a successful person? What if they have little to no savings, and don’t check on any of the checkpoints above?

Don’t know about you, but for me that’s a glorious success. Just imagine how many lives that person has helped shape over the years. For thousands of kids, that single teacher was an inspiration and a motivation to keep moving forward.

Do you know who was the primary school teacher of Mark Zuckerberg? If you follow the guy closely, you probably know his college professors and his key company people, but you don’t know anything about that one person who taught Mark how to read, write, spell, and probably left a deep impact on his entire life.

Let me ask you another question:

Would you consider Ranbir Kapoor a bigger success or E Sreedharan?

If you did a pan-India poll, guess who would come out on top? Most of you probably never even heard about E Sreedharan because he never sang or danced at the movies, or came up in TV or fashion magazines, and he definitely didn’t play cricket for India. So why would you care?

Well you should. Read this article when you have the time. And thank me later.

You came empty handed on the planet, and you’re going empty handed as well.

It don’t matter boy how much monies you be makin’. Only thing that matters is how many lives you change for the better and how internally happy you are doing so.

A successful life is about the experiences. The little moments. The ‘priceless’ moments with friends, family, significant other, and strangers.

The morning coffee. The one hour phone call with your girlfriend. The discussion with your parents on how naughty you were as a child, the visit to a new city/village/country, the dhaba da khana, the drops of rain on a hot summer afternoon, the warm heat of the sun on a menacingly cold day, listening to that song on the radio as it comes up unexpectedly, closing your eyes and not thinking anything for 5 minutes, and of course: butter chicken.

These, and a million little things make me happy. I let these define me and my success.

Success is internal. If you’re happy doing what you’re doing, you’re successful.

Don’t bother how other people define success. They don’t matter. Its your life. Live it your way. And stop letting material objects define who you are.

Let your ACTIONS define you. Not the car you drive.

 

Dedicated To The Frustrated Delhi “Partying” Janta

Life is tough.

I’ve been staying in Delhi for the last 3 years and its been an… eh… ‘experience’.

While this post is dedicated to the frustrated individuals of Delhi, I believe the same concepts apply to any person living in any urban city.

This thought process began during a visit to a karaoke club a few weeks ago. There were so many Delhi-ites singing, drinking, talking, staring, dancing, laughing, fighting, and sinking.

I saw potential there. Potential of 50 odd people who could do so much with their lives. Some of them already are. But the vast majority is sinking.

They all have ideas. They all have ambitions. They all have passions. What they don’t have is the PURPOSE to fulfil them.

Why is that? Let’s analyze…

Incessant Partying

Partying has become a daily affair. Getting drunk to drown your frustrations, only to have them rise again the next morning (along with a hangover).

Partying used to be a mode to ‘celebrate’ or to take a load off after a whole week’s of hard work.

But it has become a drug. More often than not, people head off to their favourite clubs after office.

It has become part of their lifestyle and culture. All the cool kids party, right?

I keep hearing Delhi-ites say this all the time:

“I’m frustrated with my life”

Whenever I hear this, I flinch. I ask them:

“Do you know what frustrates you?”

They all know the answer. But they won’t do anything about it. They’ll dive deeper and deeper INTO the things that frustrate them. And keep living with that.

Frustrations

Everyone is frustrated with their lives. Everyone goes through:

Terrible traffic
Bad relationships
Dead-End Jobs
No Passion, Plan, or Purpose
Obsession about Looking Good.
Boredom

Don’t get me started on the ‘amount’ of obsession people have with their looks.

Its all about impressing the opposite gender. Its not just the girls. The guys are on the same boat.

Nobody just LAUGHS anymore. They control their smiles and laughter to get that perfect ‘pose’ where they know they look good (after hours of practicing in front of the mirror)

When your time is up in this world, nobody will care about how many drinks you had in that club, or how good you look in suede shoes, or that girl who dumped you.

Nobody remembers all that in the grand scheme of things. Even you won’t.

People only care about those that ACHIEVE.

The time you have is NOW. Use it. Follow your dreams, passions, ambitions. Work towards them.

Great achievements require great work.

Instead of partying every night, and mingling around with useless people who could care the least about your future – Mingle around with your passions. Work tirelessly and endlessly.

Yes I know you’ve had a hard life. Blah blah. We all have. EVERYONE has.

The ones that are ‘remembered’ are the ones who persevere through the hard life. They stand straight at the face of adversity and don’t lose focus.

And yes, they don’t party all night, every night.

The definition of Insanity by the great Albert Einstein:

Insanity is when you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results

People want their life to turn around without having to do anything. Its not like Harry Potter will come to your room one night, swing his wand, and the next morning you will have achieved greatness.

Some people don’t have the courage to persevere. I completely understand. But I sure hope you are not one of them. I sure hope you have the will-power to strive through, work hard, and join the achievers club.

The best way to get back your sense of purpose is by making a dreamboard/visionboard.

All your thoughts, actions, and decisions from now on need to be derived from this dreamboard.

And trust me, no one puts up ‘drinking/partying every night’ on their dreamboard. (unless they’re an alcoholic)

How To Rapidly Develop A Web Application

When we started working on Dekh a few months back, we were all over the place.

We had ideas on creating a bombastic community, a kick-ass software – and hence the journey began.

Three months had passed, and we were stuck with a blog containing a handful blog posts (great content, but limited), no traction, a few hundred members, and a depleting bank account.

Then I picked up Getting Real (thank you 37signals) for the hundredth time, gave it a quick read and decided on a utterly ridiculous goal:

Launch Dekh Track in one month!

I still remember. It was May 1st. I had just come home from office. Put down my stuff.

Thinking about Dekh and what had happened with it in the past few months.

Thinking about finances and how to keep up with the increasing need for revenues.

Thinking that I may just have failed again.

But when the one month goal came in mind – I did some calculations, called up my programmer, and he agreed that we could do it.

We would need to work off our asses and then some. Work harder and smarter than we had ever done before.

We were short on resources, short on programmers, short on designers, short on ideas.

But we had something that no one can ever take from you: PASSION

When passion drives you, you can even surprise yourself with what you accomplish.

Hence we set off on the daunting task of creating a full blown web application in a month.

And we did it!

Dekh Track goes live 2 days from now – on June 1st.

I want to recount the last month and what measures we took to attain that goal:

Create a list of features, then take 90% OUT

I just found a paper on which I had made a list of emails to send out to customers:

I wish I could post a picture of the list of features I wrote down on a piece of paper when I was outlining the vision for Dekh Track (a few months ago)

If I recall, I had gone past the elusive 100 mark, and still kept going.

When we started working on Dekh Track on May 1st, I tore down that piece of paper.

Made a new list – it had 12 features. Just the ESSSENTIAL ones. The ones without which we could not possibly launch the application.

We’ll launch Dekh Track with just those essential 12 features. We know its not fancy-shmancy. But it works. Its what you need to start and manage an affiliate program.

We’ll take customer feedback. We’ll ask our customers which features they wouldn’t be able to live without. Then take the most requested ones and build those in the application.

Its not about making everyone happy – because you can’t.

Its about giving people something they can work with. Something that works and does what its supposed to. Everything evolves. So will our application.

The internet did not start with the Facebooks and Mashables and Youtubes.

Nobody thought in early 1990’s that a search engine would give you the answer to every possible question you could have. (yes, I’m talking about G)

Heck, they probably didn’t know what a search engine meant in the early 90’s.

I’ll say it again. Everything evolves. So will your software.

In the beginning you just need to roll something out. And let it evolve.

Because if its not out there, it won’t evolve. If its just in your head, it won’t evolve.

It needs to EXIST. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. Bringing Dekh Track to existence.

Start with the UI

I’ve read many people say otherwise, but I firmly believe this is the right way to start development.

Always start with the UI.

It just helps your programmer understand the concept much better.

Heck, its helps YOU understand the concept better.

The UI let’s you see the actual application live in just a few days. That’s an incredible feeling.

Something just transformed from fermenting in your head to actual HTML pages.

Fortunately, I LOVE designing UI. I’m not much of a CSS junkie, but I manage. I have Bootstrap, Themeforest, and a dozen other design resources to refer from.

And by the way, when I say UI, I don’t mean wireframes. I mean actual HTML pages in which your programmer will plug in the code.

This is how I go about designing UI:

1) Draw all the pages on a piece of paper. Every design element will be drawn on pieces of paper. You don’t need to frame that paper in the Louvre, so chill. My drawing is pretty bad. Case in point:

2) Choose a HTML boilerplate or Twitter Bootstrap theme – or a theme from Themeforest that matches your drawings the most and appeals to your inner nature. The intuition and ability to ‘imagine’ all your pages in a theme is an art. If you’re one of those 99designs people, then outsource your design task

3) Create HTML versions of the actual UI that will be your final application look and feel. Don’t forget to include blank slates and error states in the UI.

4) Hand that over to your programmer. Chances are, things are going to get haywire – so keep an open mind and hope the final look and feel is similar to the UI you got designed.

I went an extra step and coded in several jquery effects and validations in the UI itself. That helped the programmer a lot.

Ok, I’ll stop saying ‘programmer’ again and again. His name is Prashant.

The Power of TWO

In our case it just took two people to create the entire application and if anyone says otherwise, I’ll kick them.

I’ve seen bigger companies keep 8-20 coders working on a single project. I mean, why?

All you need is ONE QUALITY programmer who knows his shit. And one person who understands the complete idea and can design UI (in our case, this was me).

Working with restricted resources actually helped me discover the “hard-working” side that had been hidden for a few years and I think I can say the same for Prashant as well.

Because it was just us two working on the application, there were no communication lapses, no misunderstandings, no “but he said this, and you said that“.

The quality of work was excellent. We worked at full efficiency. And it was fun too.

Yes, there will be de-motivating times. Times when code hangs up on you. Times when you would want to leave the project all together.

But when one person is de-motivated – the other has to tell you “it going to be all right”. Both people on a project cannot be de-motivated at the same time – that’s a disaster in the making.

I also realized its much better having your core competency ‘in-house’ rather than outsourced.

We had plans on outsourcing the coding of Dekh Track, but I’m glad we decided to go the in-house route. Its been an exciting experience.

Let “To-Do” show you the way

Aaaah Basecamp. Aren’t you a doll! You squiggly wiggly efficient machine you.

We created some to-do lists to handle the development. The smallest of things went in the to-do list.

Need to change the text of a button? Make a to-do.

Error in the reporting graph? Make a to-do

You get the point.

The to-do list helped majorly during the testing phase. Make to-do’s. Bam Bam! Solve those to-do’s. Move on to the next phase of testing.

We discussed to-do’s whenever required and it helped us keep the dev process flow smoothly and didn’t stray us away from the essential points of failure too.

Moving forward I’m going to use to-do lists from the FIRST phase of development. And so should you.

Perfection is for the corporates

I believe in keeping things simple. Yea yea, the K.I.S.S thingy.

We were never out to create the PERFECT affiliate tracking software in the first go. Nobody can. Because the industry is evolving and so will our software.

When the one-month target came up, these were my exact words:

“Let’s create a skeleton. We’ll put in the muscles, flesh, tissue, nervous system later. Right now all I need is a skeleton and the vital organs”

This philosophy helped us weed out the feature list, and let us rapidly develop an application that’s a miser on features but does what its supposed to do – track clicks and conversions.

Never look out to create something that’s perfect from the get go. As I said before, it will evolve and probably become perfect sometime later.

You can’t please everyone. People will complain. They always do. Just listen to those complaints and look to improve once your application is out in the open.

I believe the key part is to just launch ‘something’. Something that people can play with.

Work for long stretches (preferably at night)

Guess how long it took to develop the entire UI?

A 12 hour stretch.

Started at 9 in the evening and worked till 9 in the morning.

Seems like a long time and a lot of effort, but think of it this way:

All through the year, uptil May 1st, I just had an IDEA.

On May 2nd, at 9 AM – I had an entire application design in front of me. Beautiful, simple, and just the way I want.

Some of the best work I’ve done was accomplished in these long stretches. Mostly during the night.

But that’s what happens when passion drives you. You can’t sleep because you have that twitching in your brain: “Why the F are you lying in bed? Go make something!”

I’ve tried the “power hour” work schedule. I’ve tried the “office hours” work schedule. But nothing beats these long stretches of pure, unadulterated work.

Work with a DEADLINE

Delaying stuff is easy. It lets you be lazy. Lets you do other “fun” things while the things that matter are being put on hold.

Some people spend DECADES working in a dead-end job, hating their life, hating their work hours, hating their office – but they still keep doing it.

I have many friends working in such jobs, and tell me some amazing ideas that could possibly become big businesses. But they’ve delayed it. INDEFINITELY.

Its important to have deadlines in place.

Remember your school days when an assignment just HAD to be submitted on Monday?

Remember your college days when the “exam weeks” defined your entire month because you were toiling hard all night for the next exam.

What made you work so hard those times? Your respect for teachers? Your love for a subject? Naaah! You worked hard because you had a deadline.

When you have a deadline in place, and you RESPECT that deadline – you will go to all lengths and heights to make sure you achieve that deadline.

The best way for entrepreneurs to keep deadlines is to tell your partners and staff about a deadline and build it up.

I told my staff that June 1st was the day we were going live with Dekh Track. I told some of my business partners the same.

Now I had a bunch of people waiting for June 1st. Now I HAD to work hard.

What’s Next

This isn’t the end. Its the beginning of something beautiful. We’ll be working harder, smarter, and let our passions drive us.

I’d like to quote something that Will Smith told his son in The Pursuit of Happyness:

“Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period.”

A Lame Attempt at Copying Aesop’s Greatness

I’m a big fan of Aesop’s fables. Aesop has influenced the minds of countless individuals for decades now. Just recently, I gifted a neat book of a collection of Aesop’s fables to a friend.

I’ve decided to have a go at copying Aesop’s trend of communicating morals through animal stories. Here goes nothing…

Hungry, Thirsty, Tired Fox
Image courtesy this is for the birds

A fox was roaming around in the jungle and had absolutely no clue what to do with all his free time.

He was getting exhausted with the sun shining on his back and was thirsty because he didn’t have a sip of water since morning.

He realized that he had not eaten anything since that juicy rabbit last night, so he decided he was hungry too.

Suddenly he came across a family of monkeys and stood there staring at the mother monkey for an hour.

The mother monkey fed her children, scratched the father monkey’s back, drove away a couple of mischievous neighbor monkeys who were irritating her children, and had a big smile on her face the whole time.

The fox was amazed at the mother monkey’s ability to manage so much in just an hour, so he decided to have a talk with her.

He approached the mother monkey and said: “I’ve been tired, thirsty, and hungry since morning. But here you are taking care of so many tasks. How do you do that?”

Mother monkey, with that big smile on her face, said: “I was watching you stand there for the last hour looking at me. Even though you knew you needed to eat, drink, and take rest. While you’re thinking about life, its already happening. Just pick one task and do it.”

Moral of the story: Focus on one task at a time, or no task will ever get done.

Where are the cuff links Mom?

Its amazing how sometimes the simplest, most inconsequential questions can lead to thought provoking ideas.

I needed to get ready for Rohan’s brother’s wedding reception in Chandigarh and I asked my Mom:

“Where are the cuff links Mom?”

Photo courtesy, asgw

I stay in Noida so I was just visiting my parent’s home in Chandigarh and I had forgotten my cuff links in the Noida house. Anyways…

She instantly said, “They’re in the right corner of the top-left drawer of the master bedroom dressing table”. Within 20 seconds of asking the question, I had my Dad’s cuff links in my hand.

Seems like a simple story. But here’s where it gets interesting:

Upon further questioning, she told me that my Dad had never wore cuff links for over 20 years. We had shifted 3 houses in the last 2 decades and he had NEVER worn those cuff links.

I was baffled.

How does Mom know the exact location of those cuff links along with a thousand other items lying around the house?

I have difficulty finding my favourite tee most of the times, but she knew the exact location of an item that had never been used for YEARS.

What she said next is something that I have been pondering on for the last week:

“Whenever I keep something, I make sure if its used, its kept back in the same place. If its not used, then I know its in the same place where I had kept it. If its frequently used, even then the item goes back to the same place. Every item in this house has a specific location.”

Bravo Mom! Bravo!

You just gave me the greatest lesson in organizing. Who says you need an MBA when you have a mom, right?

There are several lessons that we can infer from this seemingly simple statement:

1) Organize your computer

My Mac was a mess. Literally thousands of files cluttered all over the place. Now I’ve organized my important files in specific folders. The lesser used files in another sub-folder. The files I haven’t used in a long time and won’t probably use, went in the Trash.

Due to the re-structuring of my Mac (which took a couple of hours), I now save about 5-10 minutes daily whenever I need to find/open/upload files.

I’ve also decided that all future files will also follow the same structure.

2) Organize your house

We may be geeks, but we still live, eat, take a bath, dress up, sleep etc. in a house.

That house needs to be organized.

Jeans in hangers. Tees in shelves. Shoes on the rack. You get my point.

If every item in your house is organized, and KEPT SO, then your house looks clean (which feels good) and its easier to locate the little things when you need them.

3) Organize your schedule

Some of my best work was achieved when I followed a specific schedule for a long time. I worked the optimum amount, slept properly, ate properly, and was able to accomplish goals.

The day-to-day critical tasks should be done when you wake up (replying to emails, reading your RSS feeds)

When you reach office, then don’t let anyone disturb you before lunch unless its absolutely urgent. Those 3-4 hours will let you finish your key tasks for the day because you will be able to FOCUS.

Meetings, random browsing, discussions etc. should be done a couple of hours before leaving office because you get burnt out by then.

Take a break for a few hours – exercise, play, watch tv, do your thing.

When its night, and everyone is sleeping, then you can focus on your passion. Like mine varies from marketing my products, to designing UI’s, to coding new things.

Organize your world. You’ll save time. You’ll increase productivity. You will be happy.

Ideas Don’t Matter

I breathe ideas.

My brain is a constant flux of idea inputs and ways to implement those ideas.

But as I was sitting in my flight to Bangalore, I realized these ideas have no meaning unless someone implements them.

Everyone on the planet has ideas. The poor farmer in a Ropar village barely making enough for his family has ideas. A multi billion dollar entrepreneur has ideas. A tree has ideas. So does a fox, pelican, and even a mosquito.

The type, impact, and reach of the ideas vary. But if everyone on the planet has ideas everyday, then why do we still feel that there is not enough progress. Why can’t we eradicate poverty, bring happiness to everyone’s lives every minute of the day.

We have come a long way since the dawn of mankind, and they say it all begins with an idea.

I disagree.

It begins with the execution.

An idea on its own is just like the wind. You don’t know where it comes from. What its purpose is. What it can achieve. But you feel happy that its there. You feel the chills, and let it blow your hair.

But when you build a windmill and place it perpendicular to the wind, then you create magic. Then you can make it benefit countless other people. Then you executed your idea.

Without execution, we wouldn’t have the industrial revolution. We wouldn’t have planes, trains, cars, machines, electricity, cameras, the works.

Ideas drive passion. That’s all they do.

Execution drives purpose. Don’t stop having ideas. Start executing them.

Google Cache 404 Error – Effect on Rankings

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I have been working a couple of websites based around affiliate marketing and some neat observations have come to light.

Google cache for one of our website URLs showing a 404 error even though the same page shows up in SERPS

Before I describe those observations, I feel the need to describe some background history.

Hostgator World is basically a resource site which I started in 2008 containing Hostgator reviews, coupons, and tips. We’ve been big fans of Hostgator and naturally it made sense for us to create such a website.

For about 3 years since its inception, it used to have very minimal content focusing on just the bare essentials. But just recently we decided to revamp the current theme, structure, and content.

I’ve been working on this with Rohan for about 2 months now and I’m pretty pleased with the result apart from one small issue:

The rankings for all our main keywords have dropped and Google cache for some URLs is showing a 404 error.

Case In Point

Here’s a google search in exact quote for the title of one of our pages. The search results show the page indexed giving a false goodie-good feeling.

Search result for one of our pages on Hostgatorworld.com. Gives the impression that the page has been cached by Google.

But, on clicking the “Cached” link along with the search result, we were redirected to a Google 404 page with the following text:

404. That’s an error.

The requested URL /search?q=cache:mBuxk0fMmwcJ:hostgatorworld.com/support/hostgator-... was not found on this server. That’s all we know.

Why Does It Happen

Intrigued by the turn of events, I decided to do some research and here are my findings. Some of these concepts are well known and some not-so-well-known. If you’re going through the same phase, then I hope these tips will help.

1) Frequent Structural Changes: Its absolutely normal for rankings to drop if you’re making huge structural changes on your website. This is especially true if your website is an aged domain which had previous indexed content. More so if you have completely altered the links on every page, changed the layout or design, and/or played with content (added or deleted or modified).

Note: By changes, I do not mean adding new content on your pages. That is completely fine (after all, blogs are based around the same concept).

2) Expect Drop In Rankings: We have been making changes almost every day for the last two months so its completely natural for Google to get confused. Hence, sometimes you may even find your website off the index or severe ranking drops till the time you’re completely set and not making any major alterations.

3) Google Cache 404 Error: The major revamp also explains the 404 error on the cache pages because of the constant changes being made to almost every page on the site. Give it a few days and you shall notice a refreshed Google cache with all your latest pages with no gnarly 404 cache pages.

4) Sitemap Re-Submission: The cache 404 errors can also appear if you have recently re-submitted your sitemap in Google webmaster tools because then the Google bot does a complete scan of all the pages in your sitemap and it may take a few days for the Cache to reflect current pages.

The Solution

If you plan on making frequent structural changes, for say, a month. Then re-submit a sitemap to Google with a “1 month” change frequency mentioned for all your pages.

After a month, once you are done, submit the sitemap again with the normal ‘change frequency’.

To conclude, if your website’s Google cache pages lead to a 404 page like the one above, then make sure you finish all the changes you have been making on your website and let it rest for a bit.

 

Amazon.com in 2012: Some Fascinating Stats

There are some amazing stats regarding Amazon.com that I just dug up this morning. I’ve always been intrigued by Amazon’s business strategies and innovations. Today I decided to dive in and research on the revenues, visitors, and profit stats for the Amazon network.

The numbers game behind Amazon.com in 2012

There are several things that internet marketers can learn from Amazon’s way of doing business, which I shall cover in detail over the coming months, but take a look at these stats

Overall Revenue Stats

We won’t talk much about the share price fluctuation, but let’s take a sneak peek at the real numbers behind Amazon.com and its entire network.

Amazon’s 2011 revenue was $48.07 billion with an operating income of $862 million and a net income of $631 million.

Yes, the numbers are impressive but you also need to keep in mind that Amazon has an asset value over $28 billion and over 69,000 employees worldwide as of 2012.

Comparing the 2011 numbers with 2012 estimates

We have data from Amazon’s first 3 quarters of 2012, and estimates for the fourth quarter. Here’s a brief breakdown of the current situation and what’s in future for Amazon.

Q1 Revenue: $13.19 billion
Q1 Operating Income/Loss: $192 million (Income)
Q1 Net Income/Loss: $130 million (Income)
Q2 Revenue: $12.83 billion
Q2 Operating Income/Loss: $107 million (Income)
Q2 Net Income/Loss: $7 million (Income)
Q3 Revenue: $13.18 billion
Q3 Operating Income/Loss: $28 million (Loss)
Q3 Net Income/Loss: $274 million (Loss)

The operating and net losses that Amazon has incurred in the the last two quarters has been accounted for by their investments in Living Social, Kiva Systems, and other infra maintenance work.

Q4 promises to be the highlight of the year with Amazon estimating revenues exceeding $21 billion at an operating loss of about $350 million.

Estimation: Which basically means that Amazon will end up with a overall revenue of about $61 billion at an operating loss of about 140 million and a net loss of over $420 million.

What looks promising for Amazon is their net assets have grown substantially in 2012 which will pay dividends in the future. Although they will end up at a net loss for FY ending 2012, their revenues will be up by about 27 percent.

Kindle Fire

Not only does Kindle Fire (Standard and HD) remain the #1 bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for product among Amazon’s entire database of millions of products since its launch, but other digital products associated with Kindle, like Kindle books and accessories are among the top 10 bestselling products on Amazon.com.

According to Comscore, Kindle Fire has taken upto 54.4 percent market share of the Android tablet market. Although Amazon has not yet disclosed revenues generated from Kindle Fire sales yet, I dug up some data that might bring shed some light on the matter.

According to some figures given by Gartner, we can estimate a total of about 60 million Android tablets sold by end of 2012. Estimating a 50% market share (because Kindle Fire was released after Q2, 2011), that makes around 30 million Kindle Fire sold by the end of 2012.

Estimating a $200 per Kindle Fire (among Fire, Fire HD, and 8.9″ Fire HD) sold, we can assume Amazon has generated over $6 billion just from Kindle Fire sales. 

This does not include revenue generated from app sales, book sales, and accessory sales. All in all, we can safely assume the Kindle brand might capture 10% revenue share of Amazon by 2013.

AWS

Started in 2006, Amazon Web Services is an end-to-end proposition of companies and webmasters to host their websites, databases, and files on the Amazon network. AWS started getting popular from 2008, and it has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 4 years.

The core reason for its popularity lies in the fact that everyone (not only big corporations) have the opportunity to use the same network infrastructure that handles over 3 billion visitors annually. (more on that later)

Although, not a ‘profitable’ venture for Amazon since they have already done about 20 price cuts since 2006 due to intense competition from other IaaS players in this industry, their revenues have been up and promising since its launch.

AWS accounts for over $1 billion in revenue for Amazon, and analyzing current data we can conclude that AWS will add approximately $1.8 billion to Amazon’s kitty in 2012.

Visitors

This must come as no surprise that Amazon network sites (retail) get over 300 million unique visitors a month. Therefore Amazon sites generate over 3.6 billion unique visitors a year. 

Co-relate this data with the revenue generated by Amazon which is on average $5 billion/month for 2012 (estimate mentioned above) and we can figure out an average spend of $16.7 per unique visitor. 

NOTE: Because unique visitors are counted on a monthly basis, so the number of actual unique visitors counted over the entire year is very less than the number mentioned above. This is because a lot of repeat customers come to Amazon every month, and they are counted as a single unique visitor every month.

Which brings to attention an even bigger revelation: According to a 2011 article, the average customer spends about $245 on all Amazon sites every year, which has probably increased by 25% since Amazon’s revenue has also increased since 2011.

Estimate: The average customer spends about $306 every year on the Amazon network.

Although Amazon is one of the most trusted retail stores online, and has built a great reputation over the years, but still the numbers are staggering.

I would love to hear your opinions in the comments below, and I’ll soon be sharing some interesting marketing strategies deployed by Amazon that I’ve observed over the years.

How To Balance Between An Entrepreneur and CEO

Having started with just a computer in my 150 sq ft room at my Chandigarh home, and scaled to a 5600 square foot office with 30+ employees both in and out house, in under 3 years, and generated millions of dollars in the process, I guess I’ve faced some weird challenges along the way.

One of them is the dire question: How do I manage my role as an entrepreneur and a CEO?

Being an entrepreneur has some advantages and disadvantages, so does being a CEO. But when you combine both these roles and give them to one person, either all hell can break loose or an intricate balance can be found.

Role of an Entrepreneur

The word entrepreneur is an accumulation of several verticals. He is responsible for founding a company, hiring the proper staff to start operations, manage finances initially, keep innovating and discovering new ideas to start the next big product or improve the current product, manage current staff and love them till the world ends.

He is emotional, practical, worldly, and logical but when it comes to protecting his ideas and staff, he forgets everything and does that. He doesn’t believe in long meetings discussing every aspect (and some more) of his ideas.

He is the one guy who doesn’t calculate much before taking a huge risk, even though his entire business may be at stake. He believes in innovation and employment.

He knows he can change the world, and his team is the most important part of his world. Its his family. Its his conviction. Its his driving force.

He doesn’t believe in getting VC’s and angel investors. He believes that everything will fall into place on its own. Its a magical feeling, and if he believes in this enough, most of the time it does come true.

My experience as an entrepreneur has been fulfilling at every level. At least for the first year or so. And then came my role as a CEO.

Role of a CEO

Most internet startups do amazing things with very little resources in the beginning. When a company scales up, with both resources and staff, then the need for a CEO comes into play because of several issues:

The ever increasing need to sustain and GROW the current business.
Manage finances wisely and ensure the funds that go into development are properly accounted for.
Legal issues that can bite you in the a**, keep propping up more frequently.
Ensure the company culture maintains its spirit. (this is important because it gets difficult to manage as you scale up)
Make sure every new project that starts has gone through several phases of discussions. (business cases, worst case scenarios, budget constraints, growth predictions etc etc)
Keeping everyone tied up as a team and maintain a staff hierarchy.

The CEO doesn’t believe in risks. He believes that everything needs to be calculated. He isn’t itsy bitsy emotional about the team. If he feels a staff member needs to be fired, he follows through with it that same day. He believes in accounting for every penny that comes and goes from the company. He believes in keeping everyone in line.

He believes in concepts like regularity, productivity, strictness, Microsoft Excel, closed door meetings… all the things an entrepreneur doesn’t believe in. (or at least he doesn’t want to believe)

What Happens When You Combine The Two Roles

This is exactly what happened with me, which resulted in this revelation. It got ugly at times, when my mind started debating on things I would never ever have done a few years ago.

There are two different mindsets for each role, and it gets confusing if one person has to deal with decisions keeping both mindsets in consideration.

I started as an entrepreneur in 2009. I had to become a CEO in 2011. And I’ve fought this conflict of interest ever since. The good news is I think I’ve finally arrived at a balance.

I guess the logical thing to do is explain how.

How To Balance Being Both Entrepreneur And CEO

Although applying these concepts might get tricky at times, just keep believing in yourself and everything falls into place. I cannot guarantee the success of these concepts, but they have worked for me pretty well.

Whenever you hear the two voices in your head, refer to this list and you’ll know which voice to listen to:

1) Deal financial decisions with the CEO mindset: Take it from me, the CEO knows his finances. His mentality is forged upon by years of numbers and excel calculations running through his brain cells. The entrepreneur won’t blink an eye to spend the $20,000 and buy the new server rack of 12 servers. But the CEO will analyze current traffic growth, estimate a future requirement, spend $5000 for 3 servers, and utilize the remaining $15,000 in retargeting campaigns.

2) Deal company culture decisions with the Entrepreneur mindset: The CEO doesn’t realize how far company culture goes in a successful venture, well not nearly as much as the entrepreneur at least. The entrepreneur loves his team and makes sure they’re well knit as a family. Hence all decisions regarding company culture has to be taken by the entrepreneur.

3) Leave the “ideas” to the entrepreneur, and the “implementation” to the CEO: Let’s be frank. The CEO thinks everything so logically, his mind doesn’t work towards innovation. While he may do an excellent job making sure an idea comes to life with the proper resource utilization, the entrepreneur does a much better job thinking about the idea itself, website layout, features to built in, and user experience. Leave the pricing, copywriting and marketing at the hands of the CEO.

4) Let the CEO handle team building and firing decisions: The CEO knows how many people are currently required for the company and which people are not required. The entrepreneur loves the team so much, he won’t fire anyone. But the CEO is more practical in this matter. He doesn’t have any emotional attachment to an employee. He believes in the growth of the business, not about the family of the staff members.

5) Let the entrepreneur handle team hierarchy/promotion decisions: Since the entrepreneur is much closer to the staff, he knows who can do a better job managing a team, and who can do a better job working solo. Leaving the entrepreneurial mindset to handle the promotions, demotions, and setting up the team hierarchy.

6) Don’t let the entrepreneur die and don’t let the entrepreneur dominate: This might be one of the most critical points to always keep in mind. It can get confusing at times juggling between the two mindsets and you might reach a time when you’ll be lying in bed thinking: “Where has the entrepreneur inside me gone??” Never let that happen. That being said never let the entrepreneur mindset dominate the CEO mindset. There’s a delicate balance to be maintained, and as long as you believe in YOURSELF, 80% of the battle is already won.

Conclusion

While its advisable that the role of the entrepreneur be handled by one of the founders and the role of CEO be handled by a hire who has excellent credibility and understands company values. Its not always possible for a company to have two people for these roles.

If you’re stuck as an entrepreneur as well as a CEO, then thank your lucky stars that you will get to handle one of the most challenging (and fun) roles that any human can encounter.

Remember, every company and every entrepreneur goes through several stages. Several years down the line you will be laughing at everything you’ve done in the past.

Never be afraid to make the right or wrong decisions. The biggest mistake you can do is not make a decision at all.