Here are the links to all my posts in this series. Latest on top.
[ For posts 1-100 go to https://bit.ly/2T5sI2Z, posts 101-200 go to https://bit.ly/2KmLAc9, posts 201-300 go to https://bit.ly/2XV79s9 , 301-400 go to https://bit.ly/36lrUgB and 401... https://bit.ly/382uHwv]
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What I Learnt Today #300 I Our World Sundays
Nuclear Fusion by 2050?
Today is my 300th post on the trot in this series.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-nuclearfission-activity-6594427401499922432-ioG8
What I Learnt Today #299 I Art & Culture Saturday
Memories of Edel Rodriguez
I keep going back to WePresent to be surprised and discover new artists. A recent piece by journalist Rebecca Sanchez while she followed Ediel Rodriguez trip to his home country and family after more than decade makes for insightful reading. About art and its intrinsic connection to human relations, memories and bonds.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6594084565407584256-6Gd4
What I Learnt Today #298 I Biz / Tech Friday
Predicting Future
Predicting the future is a tricky business. With technology near term is still viable. Long term - science, fiction and magic all mesh up to create a haze. Still experts like Ray Kurzweil do exceedingly well ( see my post #16) getting upwards of prediction right over the span of multiple decades. So I look out for these and enjoy doing mental checks based on what I know (which is not much).
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_a-brain-implant-is-helping-a-paralyzed-monkey-activity-6593707506894204928-_qsR
What I Learnt Today #297 I Sales Thursday
Cold emails - what works?
Cold outreach response rates continue to plummet as buyers push back on unsolicited contacts. However practitioners are finding wide ranging success and Sales Hacker conducted a study about a year back and I found that hugely educative.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-coldemails-activity-6593280161813233664-Ja3f
What I Learnt Today #296 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Are you listening?
Arguably one key attributes of a successful leader - political or otherwise is the ability of listening. Not just hearing but listening with a open mind with limited bias filters applied to our auditory function.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6592834997995044864-t2DA
What I Learnt Today #295 I SAAS Tuesdays
Negative Churn is the best indicator of Series A valuation
Tom Tunguz wrote this very brief post on the counter intuitive situation to find that negative churn or account expansion best co-relates to the valuation of a SAAS company. There are many reason that he attributes to this:
All in all it demonstrates product market fit. lower CAC through word of mouth and referrals. When even a small group of customers continue to spend more with a product it is believable that many more customers can be acquired with the same product and service (customer success) combination.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-customersuccess-activity-6592548763640922112-iOVm
What I Learnt Today #294 I Startup Mondays
Are you following Naval Ravikant?
I dug out this profile of Naval Ravikant, written in October 2015, by Sarah Lacy, founder of Pando. That month Anglelist was announcing multiple initiatives including a $400m fund with CSC group from China, besides a vehicle for VC’s to engage early and a Tinder like app for individual jobbers.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6592126944618303488-_cpG
What I Learnt Today #293 I Our World Sundays
What will we eat in 20 years?
Continuing on my search for information about food I came across this futuristic picture drawn about food in 2038. Marius Robles, the Ceo and cofounder of Reimagine Foods wrote this piece for Fast Company in August 2018. It reads like science fiction but the fact is that most of the technologies he mentions are in existence today. So it may as well be the future.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6591890789704523776-97XM
What I Learnt Today #292 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Early Rubens
The Art Gallery of Ontario has an ongoing Exhibition on the early paintings by Peter Paul Rubens ( 1577-1640). These paintings were done between 1609 and 1621 - “ his most daring and innovative period”. He is “widely recognized for his riveting, dynamic and even cinematic style, known as the Baroque.Early Rubens includes such masterpieces as The Head of Medusa (from The Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic) and The Boar Hunt (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille), complementing treasures from the AGO Collection: The Massacre of the Innocents and his most finished oil sketch, The Raising of the Cross.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6591374523377999872-UsGZ
What I Learnt Today #291 I Biz / Tech Friday
How Technology impacted the world - 150 years in one chart
Barclays as a part of their Equity Guilt Study 2018 mapped how technology helped 30X World productivity between 1890 and 2013 keeping 1760 as base. Starting with the 1440 invention of the Printing press by Gutenberg, to X-Ray in 1895, Penicillin 1928, Nuclear Fission 1938 to Bitcoin ATM in 2013 its all there. And fascinating. Check out the legend of the chart in the first comment.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6590950574349447169-lmrr
What I Learnt Today #290 I Sales Thursdays
PitchLink Selling Pains Survey 2019
Getting a face to face with a prospect is a major problem. Our Selling Pains Survey 2019 pointed out a bunch of problems folks on the ground are facing every day. Over 80% sales professionals surveyed admitted having a problem getting a face to face meeting with a identified prospect between 20% and 60% of the times in varying degrees.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-challenge-activity-6590422457654571008-Lre-
What I Learnt Today #289 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Do you do what you love?
This is a complex question. When did you figure what you wanted to do when you grew up? Are you doing what you are doing for the love of it or for money? or Prestige?
This begins as school kids. When we would rather play than solve math problems. When the idea that tedious study work will prepare us for our future work as grown ups is injected into our mind. How often did you meet elders who said they loved their jobs?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6590218419029794816-9Wyc
What I Learnt Today #288 I SAAS Tuesdays
Mostly it will be your fault!
There is so much information available about building and growing your saas and I always wonder what it takes to clear our head and focus on what needs to be done. Building a SAAS business is very complex and difficult. When you get over the initial hump, what determines if you will go from $2M ARR to $20M? And then to $100M ?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_top-10-mistakes-getting-to-100m-arr-activity-6589894175091712000-rCSZ
What I Learnt Today #287 I Startup Mondays
Relearning what not to do
Most of the advice on Startups have a timelessness about them. People have been starting businesses with an idea that they found compelling for hundreds of years. Still you would wonder why we do not learn from the abundant availability of information? Possibly because we are making conscious choices like - ‘build to be acquired - not to serve customer needs’. A few clever people do get away with that. But I digress.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-lessons-activity-6589516295526539264-JyWV
What I Learnt Today #286 I Our World Sundays
Time to Ctrl+Alt+Del Sugar
There has been a compelling case being presented against sugar. The sweet behind everything we love, seems to be behind the obesity epidemic, essentially a hormonal disorder, which is switched on by sugar. The 2016 book by Gary Taubes - ‘The Case Against Sugar’ follows in the footsteps of the 2009 lecture by Robert Lustig on the 1972 book by John Yudkin - ‘Pure, White and Deadly’.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_sugar-the-bitter-truth-activity-6589183459141480448-uzny
What I Learnt Today #285 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Certainty and us
What happens when we are certain of something and it turns out not to be? Maria Popova, writes on culture, books, and philosophy in her blog BrainPickings. In a recent piece I found via Pocket, she writes about Hermann Hesse and his letter to a despairing young German who wrote to him while he himself was battling with the pessimism as an aftermath of the first world war and his inherent optimism for humanity. Hesse writes :
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-i-learnt-today-285-i-art-culture-activity-6588782483410649088-rOV5
What I Learnt Today #284 I Biz / Tech Friday
Business Insider UK Tech 100
Business Insider just released their UK Tech 100 list. It is an interesting mix of techies, VC’s, politicians, journalists and activists. Women feature in equal measure contrary to the normal discourse that tech is male dominated. Not so any more, at least on this list.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6588561181340995584-m2pl
What I Learnt Today #283 I Sales Thursdays
Lasting-Mover Advantage
I have been exploring GrowthX since I met Andrew and Sean at the Startup Grind earlier this week. Want to sell at scale and build an enduring business? This is Sean's hypothesis.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-startup-activity-6588458039924350977-5QDW
What I Learnt Today #282 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Being an entrepreneur and a parent
Running a business while raising kids can be challenging. There are a lot of decisions, example setting etc that one needs to focus on. In this context I always remember a lecture by Desh Deshpande at a TiE Conference in California nearly two decades back. He said “In life we all have many balls in the air that we are juggling between - ambition, career, hobbies, dreams, family…all of these balls are made of rubber except one. All the ones made of rubber will bounce back up even if you drop them once in a while. But there is one that is made of glass and you better not drop it. It is the ball of Family”. I never forgot that.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-managing-self-activity-6587775501610344448-fVFX
What I Learnt Today #281 I SAAS Tuesdays
The other SAAS: Service as a software
Yesterday I attended the Startup Grind Durham region spearheaded by Sherry Colbourne CEO of Spark Centre, Oshawa with two electrifying guests Sean Sheppard and Andrew Goldner founders of GrowthX. It was a rocking time full of bonhomie and nuggets of wisdom. Here's one: the 'Service as a software' idea shared by Sean.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-startupgrind-activity-6587353309454053376-3a9F
What I Learnt Today #280 I Startup Mondays
You are not good enough
Last week Jason M. Lemkin pointed to Marc Benioff’s TechCrunch Disrupt interview where he told his starting up story - how he went up and down Sandhill Road and no one was interested in his vision of cloud and how no one without exception offered him any money. Its his friends in US and Japan who stood by him and help him build Sales Force which is now 100Bn in market cap.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_tech-crunch-disrupt-2019-marc-benioff-talks-activity-6586973878617243648-ZqlU
What I Learnt Today #279 I Our World Sundays
Gene Drives and predators - Newzealands quest to eradicate rats
In The Atlantic, Ed Yong writes about the havoc rats, dogs, possums etc wreck on native birds driving quarter of them extinct and Newzealands quest to fix that.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_the-rat-apocalypse-in-new-zealand-activity-6586603618558939136-kyMM
What I Learnt Today #278 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Arnulf Erich Stegmann and his wonderful world of Mouth and Foot Painting
I happened to be introduced to the MFPA while in Toronto and was mesmerized by the quality of art that is being produced by these immensely talented artists. Landscapes portraits, birds and ballerinas - the subjects and artistry were second to none. I had to find out more.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6586108883104821248-7JQZ
What I Learnt Today #277 I Biz/Tech Friday
My Manager is AI
Have you ever wondered who instructs a Uber driver or a Postmate or Deliveroo worker what to do next, which route to take and how he is being rated. Right. It is algorithm. Self training AI.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6585926881697198080-UuNL
What I Learnt Today #276 I Sales Thursdays
The Buyer is changing
What is buyer enablement? A discussion hosted by Product Marketing Community featuring Michele Buckley (Research Director, Gartner) Tim Riesterer (Chief Strategy Officer, Corporate Visions) and Fred Studer (then CMO, FinancialForce, now CMO TIBCO) dived deep into the subject and here are the highlights :
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-activity-6585693931873370112-8v3d
What I Learnt Today #275 I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Managing Distractions
We all are distracted at work. To push complex work at hand to a later time span - a digital age procrastination.
Nir Eyal wrote a whole book to help manage distractions on and in this article he underlines 4 steps that could potentially reduce distractions and points to “Bricker’s work using acceptance and commitment therapy in smoking cessation programs “
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-managing-activity-6585250569210949632-Fq_2
What I Learnt Today #274 I SAAS Tuesdays
Learning from Competitors
There has been a lot of advice to the contrary. While I understand that as a philosophy - to focus on your customer and not your competitor - on the ground it makes a lot of tactical sense to know what the competitors are up to and how the ecosystem is reacting to their moves.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-fyi-activity-6584860648499449856-gDkO
What I Learnt Today #273 I Startup Mondays
The Contrarian
I sat through a session organised by TiE,Bangalore of Francisco Santolo the founder of Scalabl - Argentina based Academy of Entrepreneurship and innovation, during his recent trip to the city. He had some radical views and an endearing personality making him instantly likable. His core message was - the current VC funded startup ecosystem is broken. And in this article in Medium he explains why. It is useful to look at alternate thought processes from time to time to ensure you are doing what is right for your dream and not what is expected in the current discourse of building a startup. If you follow my posts you will know I do agree with a lot of this line of thinking and have followed and written about Rand Fishkin and others who have contrarian views to the current discourse.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_build-or-grow-your-startup-reformulate-activity-6584408068698791936-gL6b
What I Learnt Today #272 I Our World Sundays
What they know about you
There had to be a price for the free services we all take for granted on the internet - like Google and Facebook. And as we know now, that price is data, information about us. While building Pitch.Link one clear mandate we imposed on ourselves was this - no data is to be shared without explicit permission of the recipient.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6584096021863858176-qkLj
What I Learnt Today #271 I Art & Culture Saturday
Cracking a walnut of creativity
Shen Jianhua is not a well known name in the Chinese art circle. Yet what he is doing at Shuanglang is now subject of a documentary ‘Up the Mountain’ by director Zhang Yang. Shuanglang is a picturesque village that has been in existence for more than 1000 years and is part of a UNESCO Heritage area of Dali in Yunnan Province, sitting in the southwestern edge of China, near Myanmar and Tibet.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6583727493751107584-01tZ
What I Learnt Today #270 I Biz / Tech Friday
Learning from Failure
In technology, failures were the stepping stones for all success.The thousands of prototypes Edison built for the electric bulb to NASA building its lunar module where the engineering philosophy was “There are no random anomalies”. In this Fast Company article Charles Fishman writes about two such amongst 1400 documented failures during development - one related to the the iconic triangle windows shattering and the high pressure helium tank bursting. The second was one of the solved puzzles while the first with the window glass, remains part of 22 that were never solved.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6583403116622905344-NBYE
What I Learnt Today #269 I Sales Thursdays
Planning sales growth with data
Logan Strain collated 4 Sales Research Studies and their findings for the Inside Sales Blog. All of us who are trying to enhance sales effectivity will do well to take a look at the studies and deep dive into the data. It will help move away from gut to data driven sales planning.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-data-activity-6582935276824432640-sOhU
What I Learnt Today #268 I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Using willpower Vs designing your environment for success
Benjamin Hardy, PhD who I have referred to a few times through this year has written a whole book ‘Willpower Doesn’t work’ - about why over reliance on will power is bound to fail. To make his point he quotes the findings of historian Will Durant - the author of The Story of Civilization - a labour of love that took him over 4 decades to complete. This is what he concluded - ‘“history was not shaped by great men, but rather by demanding situations.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-i-learnt-today-268-i-managing-self-activity-6582584616580931584-vQdh
What I Learnt Today #267 I SAAS Tuesdays
Leslie’s Law: When Small Meets Large, Small (Almost) Always Wins
Mark Leslie was the founding Chairman and CEO of Veritas Software. During his tenure as CEO, the company went from 12 to 5,500 employees and from annual revenue of $95,000 to $1,500,000,000. Currently he is a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he teaches courses in Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Sales Organization.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-i-learnt-today-267-i-saas-tuesdays-activity-6582219035000258560-flXr
What I Learnt Today #266 I Startup Mondays
Get paying users. Let someone else change the world.
I found this interesting article by David Mercer of smepals(dot)com in AllBusiness. He shares 5 lessons he learnt in his entrepreneurial journey and they made a comprehensive list of learnings.
According to David:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-users-activity-6581865265741553664-oM9N
What I Learnt Today #265 I Our World Sundays
Food wastes and emissions
Mark Wilson in his insightful article in Fast Company refers UNFAO estimate of carbon emitted by 1.3 billion tonnes of wasted food - all $218 B worth - could be ‘classified as its own country - the the third worst carbon emitter in the world, behind the U.S. and China’ representing 3.3 billion tonnes in annual carbon dioxide emissions.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6581536048252313600-k7ZX
What I Learnt Today #264 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Who would you thank for your success?
Albert Camus lost his father to WWI when he was 1 year old. His teacher Louis Germaine who “saw in young Albert something special" took him under his wings.
In 1957 Camus became the 2nd youngest author to receive the Nobel Prize for literature with "clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times..” He soon wrote to his mentor -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-i-learnt-today-264-i-art-culture-activity-6581247540174393344-MQY6
What I Learnt Today #263 I Biz / Tech Friday
Understanding AI
The deep learning technologies that serve targeted ads or recommend songs and shows are the same ones that will ‘be able to diagnose deadly diseases, make million-dollar trading decisions, and do countless other things to transform whole industries.’
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_yamaha-artificial-intelligence-ai-transforms-activity-6580856328380604416-G1d_
What I Learnt Today #262 I Sales Thursdays
In B2B, buyers buy when they need an outcome. Not because we hustle.
David Brock is a veteran in the B2B selling space and he recently wrote a simple post that I loved. He wrote this with reference to a thread started by James Ski. It's a few minutes read and will be in the interest of all who are part of the ‘buying - selling’ cycle, to seriously think about this simple truth - buying is about the customer achieving desired outcomes. So it is imperative that selling is primarily focused on that too.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_buying-is-about-the-customer-achieving-better-activity-6580458968961900544-2esN
What I Learnt Today #261 I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Pareto for life
There is this really quick but effective read that I found where Mark Manson the author of Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope wrote about how applying Pareto to your life may throw up some surprising results.
Consider these questions he asks :
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6579889887972028416-rK--
What I Learnt Today #260 I SAAS Tuesdays
The 2019 Expansion SAAS Benchmarks study by OpenView
Over 500 companies participated in the 2019 edition of the SAAS Benchmark studies by OpenView Partners, now in its 3rd year.
70% of the companies were under $10mn ARR and ranged from Very small to Midmarket by size. According to the findings top two concerns of founders were
- product execution and go-to-market (GTM) execution.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-openview-activity-6579548327610814464-EPvl
What I Learnt Today #259 I Startup Mondays
Startup Podcasts I listen to
As a startup founder myself I spend a lot of time reading and (writing). One thing I look forward to is listening to Podcasts. Here are 5 I frequent. They push my thoughts
Masters of Scale - Hosted by Reid Hoffman it is wonderfully produced and brings in a lot of insights as founders open up like never before.
How I built this - Hosted by Guy Raz, this is an NPR original ( NPR leads the pack in podcast production by far according to Statista with 47 shows and 17mn+ listeners)
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-podcasts-activity-6579441002661142528-JDBS
What I Learnt Today #258 I Our World Sundays
The twitter gynaecologist
In a column where I normally write about issues that matter for the world why am I devoting this piece to Jennifer Gunter who has been called ‘Twitter’s resident gynecologist, the Internet’s OB/GYN, and one of the fiercest advocate’s for women’s health’? Because we need those who really know a subject, say medicine, to help us separate the grain from the chaff and saves us from self proclaimed experts.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6579005477307420672--ch4
What I Learnt Today #257 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Art of Compassion
Another wonderful profile by Alex Kahl for WePresent. This one on Helen Zughaib and her colorful yet dark depiction of a refugee life. She was was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and was forced to leave at a tender age of 16, “living mostly in the Middle East and Europe before coming to the United States to study art at Syracuse University..”. In her profile in her website she writes “I feel that my background in the Middle East allows me to approach the experiences I have in America, in a unique way, remaining an observer of both the Arab and American cultures.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6578592284546306048-HLMn
What I Learnt Today #256 (September 13 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
'Likes' is not Engagement
A lot of what we do online, posting videos, writing blogs or articles has been driven by the desire to garner likes. Now every company is a media company, inbound is your go to market tool driven by original content, in turn driven by likes, click-baits and similar basic appeals - it is time to stop and think.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6578239663671214080-pkjW
What I Learnt Today #255 (September 12, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
Intent data : Shift to a Buyer-Centric World.
About a year back Nicolas de Kouchkovsky wrote about the rise of intent data. He described how intent is being captured : “Intent data…encompass signals and data about prospective buyers or businesses actively researching products or services. ..., the ability to detect that an unusual number of visitors that can be traced to the same company are educating themselves about network anomaly detection will give you a likely security pain point to start engaging.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearing-sales-intent-activity-6577925408497467392-sG3z
What I Learnt Today #254 (September 11, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Is your phone taking over your life?
The day after Apple reveals their juicy new iPhones I thought it would be appropriate to point at the elephant in the room. The issue is real. We are all spending enormous time staring at our phone. Lot has been written on the ills of this. I spend 2-3 hours on my phone a day and get a lot of work done using my phone as an extended screen of my laptop. I have no games. But I do get a lot of notifications from apps. These distract me often. This article by Ryan Holiday on Forge addresses this issue head-on.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6577513752265101312-rp0q
What I Learnt Today #253 (September 10, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
The Saastock 20 finest Saas Co’s to look out for
Today Saastock, the definitive SAAS conference from Dublin (now 6 conferences globally and counting) founded by Alexander Theuma , published a list of the most promising saas companies of 2018. It includes companies from eCommerce marketing, community knowledge management, customer engagement, HRMC - well a wide gamut. Oscar Hackett provided the overview in this succinct piece which included the following companies:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_sasstock-20-finest-saas-companies-funded-activity-6577157882469539841-hsbf
What I Learnt Today #252 (September 9, 2019) I Startup Mondays
The next 30 Silicon Valley’s
The Startup Genome Report for 2019 was out a few months back and it lists the top 30 destinations where the startup ecosystem is thriving.
Silicon valley still takes the top spot by far. Followed by New York city, London, Beijing and Boston making up the top 5. Tel Avis is tied with LA in spots 6 - 7, Paris at 9, Toronto at 13, Bangalore at 18 and Vancouver at 24.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-benchmark-activity-6576702635666169856-TzbV
What I Learnt Today #251 (September 8, 2019) I Our World Sundays
Windmills and Mussels
Can offshore wind farms change oceans? Apparently they are already supporting “vast colonies of marine species in areas where they were previously rare” states a report form MIT Technology Review.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworl-activity-6576460640335036416-33WJ
What I Learnt Today #250 (September 7, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
Getting Banksy-ed
While in Bristol recently I was introduced to the legacy of Banksy and the world of Street Art. I wrote about it briefly last week. I have been sucked into the Banksy mystery and as I was looking around I found this great story. Immediately after a bunch of Banksy art was auctioned by Sotheby’s the iconic 'Girl with Balloon' self destructed.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_banksy-on-instagram-the-urge-to-destroy-activity-6576132405734797312-2pkw
What I Learnt Today #249 (September 6, 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
What is behind the rise of Ransomware?
There is a definite rise of ransomware hits specially on public utilities and government services in the US. What is fueling this? An insightful article by Renee Dudley in Pro Publica sheds a lot of light on what is actually going on.
So what gives? It is substantially easier to pay the ransom, sometimes running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, rather than footing the bills of recovery and technical experts to get the services up and running.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-ransomeware-activity-6575701066803961856-VfAH
What I Learnt Today #248 (September 5, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
State of Digital Selling with LinkedIn, 2019
Vengreso, a digital sales training and LinkedIn profile makeover company has published a report on the State of the Digital Selling with Linkedin, 2019. The Key findings are :
"1. High SSI scores are linked to common behaviors, habits and successful sales results.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-socialselling-activity-6575231374956036096-i9bG
What I Learnt Today #247 (September 4, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Productivity Hacks
From time to time shortcuts to success ideas become alluring enough. A recent study by HBR found that CEO’s work on an average 62 hours a week and attends 37 meetings. How do they manage to get work done?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6574762155114094593-7yB-
What I Learnt Today #246 (September 3, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
Did you just loose your top customer?
Jason M. Lemkin answers questions in Quora. In thousands. His answers have been viewed over 50 million times. Sometimes he writes about questions that will be asked. This post on loosing customers was one such. He writes about a customer who switched to a competitor without any red flag - they were using his product, provided testimonials, even renewed contract with additional seats. So what gave?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-customer-activity-6574531270305513472-hALM
What I Learnt Today #245 (September 2, 2019) I Startup Mondays
What’s your Origin story?
David Cummings writes mostly short pointed posts which I find thought provoking. A post last month was on how a simple question “How did you come up with the idea for your company?” mostly get meandering uninteresting unmemorable responses.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-tech-activity-6574408344839262208-Dvia
What I Learnt Today #244 (September 1, 2019) I Our World Sundays
Finite living
Unlike most ideas and topics I deal with on a Sunday here is one that has set me thinking deeply about our approach to long life - made possible by partly medicine and partly our ability to access information that helps one to stay healthy and thus live longer.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6574060044168589312-gnMr
What I Learnt Today #243 (August 31, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
Streetart in Bristol
As street art evolved in the streets of Bristol and Banksy was at the center of it. Way back in 1989 Operation Anderson saw “…72 suspected Graffiti writers (were) raided including that of the Barton Hill youth worker John Nation. ... it was the biggest anti-graffiti operation in the history of British policing. Many of the Graffiti Writers & Artist’s were arrested, most of whom had their Blackbooks, photo’s, paint etc. taken by the Police. Most were lucky enough to get a slap on the wrist’s, whereas others received harsher punishments. All of this for their love of self expression… “
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-streetart-art-activity-6573455966380097536-k9f6
What I Learnt Today #242 (August 30, 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
Carbon Valley?
It is known that the exponential growth we enjoyed thanks to Moore’s law is now leveling off and our ability to drive down the size of transistors using silicon is coming to the end of its road.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6573105381197873152-LT1e
What I Learnt Today #241 (August 29, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
"The more you think about selling, the less you will sell"
I was speaking with Diane Helbig on her new book 'Succeed Without Selling' for our new Podcast Series “Bits About Books” which debuts 1st September 2019. And it was quite a ride. I asked if there was one takeaway from the book that she would expect her readers to carry. This is what she articulates as the core of the book:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-activity-6572759145232064512-JGr5
What I Learnt Today #240 (August 28, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
We are neither smart nor rational
You believe you are smart, rational and always taking the best decisions the situation permits. Well, think again. Richard Thaler, the Nobel Laureate economist thinks otherwise and Eshe Nelson says, you would do better to pay attention.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6572436064307372032-XAll
What I Learnt Today #239 (August 27, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
Predicting Revenue with LVR
Anyone who leads a sales organisation knows how frustrating predicting revenue is and how that can lead to scrambles end of each quarter rolling out unreasonable price discount based offers to make the ends meet.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-sales-activity-6572164766616383488-Ga_Z
What I Learnt Today #238 (August 26, 2019) I Startup Mondays
Using Fermi's Problem
I love to dig through Jason Cohen’s (CTO WP Engine) posts and look what I found - The Fermi estimation for Startup business models. This is an interesting and quick method to figure if your estimates have any legs at all. So what is Fermi’s Problem? Wikipedia says “ The estimation technique is named after physicist Enrico Fermi as he was known for his ability to make good approximate calculations with little or no actual data. Fermi problems typically involve making justified guesses about quantities and their variance or lower and upper bounds.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-i-learnt-today-238-i-startup-mondays-activity-6571700553775181824-FPG1
What I Learnt Today #237 (August 25, 2019) I Our World Sundays
Could Giant Zeppelins be the answer?
The 1937 Hindenburg, the largest craft of its type, met with an accident that killed several people. Since then Hydrogen blimps have been banned and has very little commercial usage. The smaller ones, mainly for advertisements, use harmless but more expensive helium.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_filehindenburg-at-lakehurstjpg-activity-6571520398586929152-1zx1
What I Learnt Today #236 (August 24, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
Man on Fire
Royal West of England Academy, Bristol is currently hosting a one of a kind exhibition 'Fire: Flashes to Ashes'. The exhibition traces the representation of fire in British art across the last 4 centuries through paintings, sculptures, sound and video installations.
What was arguably the most stunning piece was the sculpture by Tim Shaw -'Man on Fire'.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-sculpture-activity-6571160238521716736--Nx9
What I Learnt Today #235 (August 23, 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
The other side of disruption
We have all heard it before. Why we strive to be the one to be disrupting - build the next Door dash, AirBnB, why Amazon even. Noam Cohen in his piece 'Seeing Through Silicon Valley’s Shameless ‘Disruption’' in Wired provokes some critical thoughts.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6570776430521745408-_KcE
What I Learnt Today #234 (August 22, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
Psychographics. Pay attention.
CB Insights wrote a report on the use of Psychographics, the stuff that brought infamy to Cambridge Analytica and its ultimate demise. It seems this approach is far more prevalent in commercial advertisement than otherwise understood.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-psychographics-activity-6570252865795874816-cWEa
What I Learnt Today #233 (August 21, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Why you never have enough time for everything?
Too many things to do, too little time. Most entrepreneurs feel this pressure on a daily basis. Managing time (as a person or as an organisation) is a challenge. Continuing my readings on Time, I found this post by Josh Spector making 3 great points:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-managing-self-activity-6569840747594510336-GU5-
What I Learnt Today #232 (August 20, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
SAAS opportunities in Africa
Perhaps the last place saas folks are thinking of as the next big opportunity is - Africa. But according to Anish Shivdasani, CEO of Giraffe, for the next 30 years the opportunity will be there. Based on his experience scaling his job app to a million users he shared his takeaways at the 2019 SaaStr conference -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_saas-in-africa-10-things-we-learned-from-activity-6569508262671147008-iHRD
What I Learnt Today #231 (August 19, 2019)I Startup Mondays
Funding your startup
David Cummings recently wrote about re-evaluating the current methods of startup funding and proposed a structural change more conducive for funds to keep flowing for Startup investments. His solution is revenue financing - which is like a high (but adjustable) interest loan both in terms of interest and period that provides the much necessary cash to fund the initial stages without the Angles or investors loosing it all.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_rand-fishkins-tips-for-startups-and-early-stage-activity-6568961356756815872-SJMx
What I Learnt Today #230 (August 18, 2019) I Our World Sundays
What3words: The New Address of the World
Chris Sheldrick, Jack Waley-Cohen and Mohan Ganeshalingam built a new way to identify every 3 sq meters in the world. 57 Trillion of those. The inability to locate friends, wrong deliveries and people needing rescue support - the problem was universal.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6568782799740993536-kVk9
What I Learnt Today #229 (August 17, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
Nourie Flayhan's Eyes
Nourie Flayhan was born in the US but lived in Kuwait, Lebanon, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Her art thus represents not one but a multicultural hue. Her mother, an interior designer, instilled the artistic eye in her, and according to Nourie “dedicated our upbringing to giving us the freedom to celebrate art and express ourselves,”. She went to the University of the Arts, London. Like many she was exposed to the work of Quentin Blake in the books of Roald Dahl but it took her to be in London to really dive into the wondrous possibilities of illustrations.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-craft-activity-6568250206444453888-l1Dn
What I Learnt Today #228 (August 16, 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
Open Source : Challenges as it heads to be a 33B industry
It is already 17B and growing. CB Insights projects it will be a 33B industry by 2022. The halo days of proprietary software is limited and Open Source captured the imagination of developers all over. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Redhat make large contributions to open source softwares. The criticality is evident from the Microsofts acquisition of Github for 7.5B in 2018, the largest in enterprise software in history.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-business-opensource-activity-6567862262646865920-5Tk1
What I Learnt Today #227 (August 15, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
60 dream prospects
Anthony Iannarino needs no introduction. Author of some of the most popular books on Sales, speaker and coach - he recently elaborated in his blog why he thinks nurturing and pursuing a list of at least 60 dream clients is necessary.
When you are selling products or services which has alternatives, one of the most critical ways to grow is to take away clients from your competitors. This is a great strategy since you can leave all the prospecting out of the equation. Evidently, identifying prospects take a lot of time. And accuracy and relevance of MQLs and SQLs are suspect. However if you look around and make a list of all your competitors and the clients they are servicing - identifying becomes easy. Need is established.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-prospecting-activity-6567535974211952640-RPSz
What I Learnt Today #226 (August 14, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Managing Time Wasters
Kristin Wong wrote this interesting article for Lifehacker on the big time wasters most of us indulge in and come to regret. As we grow older we seem to recognize some of these and make amends perhaps. But recognizing these and adapting to these early can make a lot of difference to ones productivity.
Sample these from top of her charts:
1. Not asking for help: Not running to mommy for every thing but one sentence with a single focused question that people can answer. Kristin asked Noah Kagan (Appsumo) “What was the single, most valuable user acquisition strategy for Mint after you hit 100K users?”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-managing-activity-6567289073927536640-c8YV
What I Learnt Today #225 (August 13, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
Your LTV calculations may be off by 50%+
Typical LTV of customers are calculated based on a 3 year revenue estimate with annual increment of 15-30%. So a $10000 deal in Year 1 will ultimately provide around $38K in revenue.
But there is a secondary revenue source that most calculations miss. This is by the virtue of your champion in the first company leaving for another doing the exact same job. She is likely to buy your product again and according to this article by Jason Lemkin, this happens at least 10% of the time. Add to this the 30% probability of her influencing at least one new buyer. This totals up to a revenue range of $60K. This is much different than the typical $38K calculation.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-ltv-activity-6567097385267355648-fR4g
What I Learnt Today #224 (August 12, 2019) I Startup Mondays
Hot Vs not: Seed investment trends
You would wonder if all seed stage startups are created equal. Well they are not. Investors always found a flavor of the year in most positive investment scenarios and backed ideas that seemed right for some disruptive value with the potential of a hockey stick growth. Fintech, Blockchain, AI/ML - you get the drift.
Tomasz Tunguz is great at analyzing the meta data around investing, saas and most things startup and his latest post on seed stage investment in startups between the period 2010-18, is no exception :
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-seed-activity-6566551793617207296-qU_X
What I Learnt Today #223 (August 11, 2019) I Our World Sundays
Oil’s tobacco moment
And it is likely to be on October 23rd in a federal court in New York where opening arguments will heard in a case that alleges that ExxonMobil consistently misled its investors about what it knew about the climate crisis. Rings a bell about the Tobacco litigations of the 1990’s? First response from the company included sending letters “to a group of investment advisers and shareholder activists who prosecutors want to put on the stand, informing them they will be subject to subpoenas from the company seeking documents relevant to the case if they choose to testify… which according to the Public Prosecutor aims to ”impose disproportionate burdens on these witnesses in a transparent attempt to discourage them from testifying voluntarily, and threatening to upend the trial schedule."
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-climatereality-activity-6566165403066830848-NAIr
What I Learnt Today #222 (August 10, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
GIF of Life
Thoka Maer, the New York based German GIF maker is on a singular mission to establish GIF’s as an art form. Her art degree was from the University of the Arts in Berlin in 2014. Unless you pay attention to her work it is difficult to imagine GIF’s as art. But as she redescribed these artifacts as “animated illustrations” you see the elegance of her thoughts. Apple enables a 6 second video of any still you took a while back, what they called 'live photo' and I find an interesting parallel between the two experiences. In her interview to Wepresent, Thoka Maer has an even better description -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-gif-activity-6565836961079230464-DkIr
What I Learnt Today #221 (August 9, 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
Winning with Automation
We have been making lists of things that machines could never do - like recognize faces, drive cars, play chess and son on. Well, seems that we were wrong.
The jobs however, will move to higher levels of complexity according to this HBR article by Greg Satell - which use everyday examples of banks and travel agencies to elaborate its point of view. Sample this:
What I Learnt Today #220 (August 8, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
Marketing lessons from a CFO
Michael Tannenbaum is not only the CFO of Brex the new credit card in the block, but also heads its marketing. A rare if not odd combination. How did that come about? Well as he joined Brex, “I started running it right away because we needed someone to, and I had seen success in marketing at SoFi.” he told host Tara Larson in this immensely educative episode of Inside Intercom Podcast. The episode is a great listen at 32 mins.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-marketing-activity-6565307519349153792-7bae
What I Learnt Today #219 (August 7, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
The age and success conundrum
Apparently Albert Einstein famously said “the person who has not made his great contributions to science by the age of 30 will never do so.”
Albert-László Barabási is a Physicist, the author of the book ‘The Formula’ and a pioneer in network science. In this very interesting TED talk he disagrees and unravels the inner workings that drive success irrespective or your sphere of work and unveils the connection between age and success.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_albert-l%C3%A1szl%C3%B3-barab%C3%A1si-the-real-relationship-activity-6564814337465249792-JZeM
What I Learnt Today #218 (August 6, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
Debt as Growth Capital
The most discussed topic in any saas gathering is Funding. While you would like to think that it should be the product, it is not. “Have you raised?” “Are you raising?” “Pre seen? Series A? Angel? Syndicate?” - you get the drift.
As you get your growth momentum, there are many reasons why you should consider debt. if you are growing 20% every month and raise debt financing to extend your runway you are likely to create a lot of enterprise value which can then be en-cashed with lower equity parting in the following rounds of Venture Capital raise.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-startups-activity-6564417648115965952-Sagz
What I Learnt Today #217 (August 5, 2019) I Startup Mondays
The coming flood of Chinese Unicorns
According to CB Insights there are 361 Unicorns in the world. A recent report in Strategy + Business reveals China has about 200 startups less than 10 years old and have valuations of 1B or more. 70% of them are preparing to go global.
Barring a top few we have not heard of most these Chinese companies. According to the Greater China Unicorn Index from research firm Hurun, there are 200 Unicorns in China and 21 entered the club in Q1 2019. A 2018 PwC study backs up the extent and speed at which this phenomena is unveiling. Sample this:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-china-activity-6564026200119971840-38nw
What I Learnt Today #216 (August 4, 2019) I Our World Sundays
Meat. Beginning of the End. Really.
The processes meat industry is one of the most inefficient. Sample this : “ Cows are not optimized to make meat; they’re optimized to be cows. It takes 36,000 calories of feed to produce 1,000 calories of beef. In the process, it uses more than 430 gallons of water and 1,500 square feet of land, and it generates nearly ten kilograms of greenhouse-gas emissions. In comparison, an Impossible Burger uses 87 percent less water, 96 percent less land, and produces 89 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_785bn-alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6563662362396725248-gW0s
What I Learnt Today #215 (August 3, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
Max Leiva and his wonderful people
My go to place to discover artists is We Present and this time they introduced Max Leiva from Guatemala. Max had limited interest in school and by 20 was in Switzerland working as a mason. Here a colleague forced him to reevaluate his choices - “One of his colleagues had a bad fall and when Max went to help him up he swatted him away, shouting angrily at him that he was still young, that he should study something and not let himself get old doing hard work like this. “Nothing that my father had told me had ever had as much of an effect as this,” he recalls.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-activity-6563284943596814336-e8yR
What I Learnt Today #214 (August 2, 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
Finally, the mathematics behind Innovation.
Vittorio Loreto at Sapienza University Rome in Italy and his friends have created the first mathematical model that can accurately reproduce the patterns that innovations follow.
The article by Emerging Technology from the arXiv in the MIT Technology Review is an eyeopener. It is not that I understood the mathematics behind their discovery but the underlying idea of “adjacent possible” proposed by complexity theorist Stuart Kauffmann in 2002, an idea that was put forth to explain Biological evolution, coupled with laws like Zipf’s law, Heaps law and Polya’s Urn - seem to explain varied phenomenas - from rich-get-richer, novelties and innovations.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6563048262331392001-V8v6
What I Learnt Today #213 (August 1, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
The Mom Test
When I was attending the BMC course at Mars Discovery District one in my cohort referred to The Mom Test. This book on customer discovery by Rob Fitzpatrick asks entrepreneurs to doggedly pursue the truth. Even if it says your idea sucks. If you are concerned about feelings and a fragile ego, talk to your Mom.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-customer-activity-6562756302672576512-RSg1
What I Learnt Today #212 (July31, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Difficult Conversations - Have them now
We all need to have these. Most of us avoid it till the point it cannot be avoided anymore. And we all know the delay hurts the organisation and relationships. Joel Garfinkle, an executive leadership coach wrote in this piece in Harvard Business Review and it provides simple framework that will help with those otherwise dreaded moments.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-managing-self-activity-6562341134675304448-Vimr
What I Learnt Today #211 (July30, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
Avoid friction in price
What is the right price? Are you charging too high leading to fiction in conversion, long sales cycles thereby reducing the revenue velocity? You need to closely examine if the extra per deal is worth it in terms of the friction it adds to the sales process.
What I Learnt Today #210 (July29, 2019) I Startup Mondays
Lessons from James Dyson
I have been a fan of Guy Raz and How I Built this from NPR. I look forward to its episodes and have heard some truly fascinating stories of grit, determinations and growth. This is where I heard the Whole Foods Story from John Mackey ( remember the multibillion dollar Amazon acquisition?), of Jerry Murrell of Five Guys and a Burger, Melanie Perkins of Canva and today James Dyson and his vacuum cleaner story.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_dyson-james-dyson-activity-6561680022741049344-EfMA
What I Learnt Today #209 (July28, 2019) I Our World Sundays
I want you to panic….
How does a 16 year old shake up the world? Meet Greta Thunberg. Many of you would have seen her delivering a scathing attack on the grown ups at Davos on social media “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular know exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue to make unimaginable amounts of money, and I think many of you here today,” she said to the World Economic Forum conference, “belong to that group of people.”
What I Learnt Today #208 (July27, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
5 most creative Cities in the World.
I totally failed as I eagerly read through the piece in BBC Culture by Libby Banks and it was one more time I realised how our bias and unfounded perceptions drive our lives. I didn’t guess even one. But first the premise - assumption is that creativity is a solo act of some genius. But according to Libby Banks, “Historically, cities are an essential ingredient for creating great art, from Classical Athens and Renaissance Florence to post-war New York and swinging London”.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6560842585416523776-_Dgl
What I Learnt Today #207 (July26, 2019) I Biz / Tech Friday
Minus Google+
I came across this 2015 article in Mashable by Seth Fiegerman on why and how Google jumped into the Social bandwagon, created a non starter and sort of Me-too product, copying Facebook and lost the plot. It is a back story of how Vic Gundotra, then close to Larry page, built up a threat frenzy within where apparently none existed (at this point FB was valued at 14B and Google 200Bn - not any more). Although the security lapses gave the immediate reason for Google to decide on shutting down G+ the broader issues, primarily of non adoption, and blowback for coercion ( remember when you had to have a G+ account to sign into other Google services?) hastened the end.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6560472461996064768-sYar
What I Learnt Today #206 (July25, 2019) I Sales Thursdays
5 ideas to sell better
Scott Dorsey in his 2013 address at the Chicago Ideas Week spoke about 5 ideas to sell better.
1. Look Big - You need to project that you are not a scrappy startup. Same reason you wear a suit to your VC meetings. You want to look professional, in control. Everything needs to be sharp and needs to look established. Website, Social Media presence ( do not promote your Twitter handle if you have 23 followers). Invest in professional collaterals. Keep great company. figure a way to partner with marque logos.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-activity-6560175819455586304-Kqge
What I Learnt Today #205 (July24, 2019) I Managing / Self Wednesdays
Sorry, I have other plans.
As an entrepreneur you need time to just sit and do nothing. Sleep. Read a book. And not go out and party. Or group watch a movie. Or even take care of the kids. Managing ones scarce unscheduled time is crucial. It is one of the most valuable resource that you have.
But how do you tackle the last minute request? There are a bunch of strategies apparently.
What I Learnt Today #204 (July23, 2019) I SAAS Tuesdays
What makes Great SAAS leaders Great?
Looking around for attributes while building great Skas teams I came across this post by Brad Feld (Oct 2017). He writes about a Keynote by Scot Dorsey the founder of ExactTarget (sold to SalesForce for $2.5Bn in 2013) and currently the Managing Partner of High Alpha, a venture studio for next generation Enterprise Cloud companies.
Brad Feld thinks highly of Scot Dorsey and recommends you follow him for learning. Interestingly of the 5 attributes (#5 looks like a Scot Dorsey favorite, I found another keynote on YouTube where he talks about #5 ideas in Sales). The interesting thing was point 2. Recognize that you are Always learning. Rings a bell?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-leadership-activity-6559301992034983936-9gFa
What I Learnt Today #203 (July22, 2019) I Startup Mondays
AI Startups. Keep a close watch.
There is normally a lot of hype around any new tech that comes in to the horizon. Specially those VC’s think will deliver the next bunch of Unicorns. Last year it was Block chain (and the mad rush of ICO’s when unthinkable amounts of money was raised on the back of white papers). This year it is AI/ML. There is hardly a product that does not have a customer slide on AI. And how their cutting edge disruption will be driven by AI. A lot are deep fakes. Some onto something.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-ai-activity-6559131193554624512-SyFp
What I Learnt Today #202 (July21, 2019) I Our World Sundays
Taking a break from my usual Sunday posts let me share a list of the 29 new World Heritage sites that UNESO added to its list of Landmarks. The list has “places like Vatnaj?kull National Park in Iceland and Jaipur City in Rajasthan, India, are part of a group of 1,121 cultural and natural sites that includes such famous destinations as the Palace of Versailles in France and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.”
What I Learnt Today #201 (July20, 2019) I Art & Culture Saturdays
Places for Van Gogh!
Who hasn’t seen the wonderful world of Lilies which Monet painted for most of his life looking out of his studio into his own Lily pond with its Weeping Willows. When I walked around in his garden at Giverny some years back, it gave me a completely different sense of what possibly Monet was thinking as he gazed out lazily day after day, painting the same pond yet producing completely versions.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-monet-activity-6558283247753748480-t0y0
Attended Adamawa state politechnic
2 年Wow that's great