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"As an entrepreneur, if you think that you don't have any competition, then it means one of two things: What you're working on is not worth working upon or You don't know how to use Google" - Guy Kawasaki had once told this to Peter Panas and me during
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Every year, I set aside some time to "think". Typically, it has been during the month of December, but this year it ended up being the month of October. While throughout the year, mind is always on a relentless pursuit of thought, followed by action,
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(last in series - which company should I start?) We've identified factors/criteria that an entrepreneur could use to select a venture, and have talked about the importance of Bigness of the idea and understanding of people's needs. I believe that the
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From the three identified factors/criteria that an entrepreneur could use to select a venture, we discussed applying Maslow's hierarchy of needs to identify and size up the market. I've always been fascinated by the bigness of an idea and its impact.
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Earlier I had identified three factors/criteria that an entrepreneur could use to select a venture: What are you most passionate about (and where can you add value)? Ask Maslow: Which need in Maslow's hierarchy of needs is your idea addressing? How BIG,
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An entrepreneur (or a wannabe entrepreneur) typically has a list of ideas and when a million other things align, the entrepreneur has to pick one idea and give it all he/she has. Selecting one idea can be a daunting task and a lot of thinking should be
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Continued from tres ... After spending the first 12 minutes of a design interview for a program/product manager role in learning more about the user, requirements, constraints and scenarios, as per the design template , you could spend the next 30 mintues
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continued from dos .. Once the requirements are gathered, constraints are taken into account and the mental model of the user is understood, you would have laid a solid foundation to start talking about key user-types and the scenarios in which the product/object
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Continued from uno .. I'll attempt to describe the notions of "mental model" and "affordances" in this quick post. Our mind constantly picks up pre-conceived notions and expectations about certain things. Mind assumes certain object to have a particular
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I've received a few notes from friends to explain the my template for answering a design question in further detail, so let's use one of the cliche interview questions to walk through my approach of answering design questions in Product/Program manager
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Three years ago, I asked myself and several of my mentors within and outside of Microsoft - "What's the closest thing to entrepreneurship at Microsoft?" The unanimous answer was - "Become a Program Manager on a product that's about to grow/explode!!"
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It is rare that I would share an email publicly. But this one is pretty interesting. Microfinance, poverty elimination and Unitus are gaining popularity in the Microsoft community. Ed Bland, former General Manager of XBOX marketing (he and his team first
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In spirit of the ongoing TechEd conference, I thought this would be an interesting post.. I've been to six conferences in the past year and have organized a few mini-conferences here and there in the past. I've been always fascinated to learn about people's
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As a bootstrapping entrepreneur, if you have $100, you would first give them to your lawyer, then to your accountant, and then lastly to your market researcher. Facebook launched polls recently, which enables the users to quickly and cheaply($5 basic
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If you are going to read only one book on design during your lifetime, my recommendation will be to read - The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman . This book has been instrumental in shaping some of my own approaches to design and I'm sure it
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