The week ends with a bang!

The week started with a bang when I broke my car's side mirror. And now the week is about to end with a bang as I found out today that my sabbatical application was not approved by guys who are supposed to approve it! I don't know what to make of it! The semester has already started, I don't have a course, so maybe I won't even teach this semester. But I'm not sure how this will work out! Do I continue my product development, but from my office, or am I given a course after one month of the semester start or maybe I'm supposed to perform other tasks! This brick wall just keeps on growing on me!

This time I'll have to figure out another way of jumping over this wall or breaking it. It seems like all the forces of the universe are keeping me from becoming a millionaire ;), but the amazing thing is I'm not worried! I don't know why because I should be! I feel like I'm starting to get worried on not getting worried! !@@#@$@ Maybe I am worried, anyway but I'm not! I enjoy challenges and I will definitely figure out a way to get my product out God willing In Sha Allah. Will keep posting though!

LabMagic

So I got some good news today. I'm also the co-founder of LabMagic, an idea coming out of my lab (SMART Lab) that I founded back in 2009. It was the winner at 2012 ITU young innovator's competition. The CEO and co-founder is one of my research assistants from SMART lab. So she applied for Microsoft's developer program for the new KinectOne and got selected. There were thousands of applications from around the world and I feel proud that we were selected as well and our idea was praised!

You can read more about the idea and follow its progress at labmagic.wordpress.com.

This week

So its been five days since I last wrote a blog post! This week began with a bang! A bad bang! I banged my car on Monday! Broke my side mirror! The most funny part is I kept fighting and arguing but the traffic police judged it to be my fault! So I had to apologize to the other guy, even though his car wasn't even scratched and he did it on purpose! ( I know that!). I was overtaking him from the right side and his "Mardangi" suddenly woke up and he banged his side mirror into mine breaking it since he couldn't bear the sight of someone over taking him! Anyway, since the traffic police said I wasn't suppose to overtake on that particular space so I accepted it to be my fault! 

So, we are doing good with one of our products on which we are focusing at the moment. The goal is to get a skeletal prototype ready in two weeks. We're almost finished with week number one. The product has three parts. A web based user interface, a web service and a hardware. So employee number 3 has almost completed the databases for the web server and the front end web user interface. I have been busy in designing the hardware and figuring out the technology that would be required to implement it. Also I have been figuring out the business side of it! Seems like technology for me is a piece of cake but when it comes to business I have to think really hard! Anyway I'm thoroughly enjoying my days as an entrepreneur! Thinking of an idea and just going ahead implementing it is a great thrill! I'm pretty sure once we sell it we would feel out of this world! 

Meanwhile I've also been trying to finish up a product for a company that I have been working on for a few months. One of my students was helping me build it during the summer. It's almost complete and I think I can share a screenshot of it! The company plans to launch it soon! Let's hope it is successful!

Building a product

So we have decided to build two products. One for the local/international market and one with a crowd sourcing model. I've decided to write a few technical posts as well. It would be nice to write about technologies that I'm working on and since I'm a firm believer in sharing of knowledge (which is obvious, coming from a teaching background), it would be nice to share my learning with others.

The first of these posts would be about the Raspberry PI which has now become the famous $35 computer. I've been exploring it for another product that I've been building for someone and will be sharing a few things from that project. I've also realized that many times, when I need to solve a problem, I find the solution which is spread at different sources and links. I'll write a few integrated posts so that one doesn't have to jump to other links and the problem is easily solved. 

Anyway, that being said, this entrepreneurship bug that has bitten me isn't letting me sleep. Most of the times I'm thinking about ideas that I could implement to make money. A few nights over it and I realize either it won't work, or it is already working somewhere! So the newest one is to solve the problem of my caffene dosage! The incubation center where I've located has no coffee, or even a cafe'. You have to walk or take your car to the nearest cafe' which wastes a lot of time. So I've decided to buy an espresso/cappuccino machine and make coffee available for everyone but for a price. I'll also be bringing in home made delicious cake (made by my perfectionist beautiful wife) and some other snacks as I think everyone would love to have some thing to eat without wasting any time. I have yet to figure out the business plan, but it seems simple enough. Keep the operating costs to a minimum, make a one time investment, and earn a little profit, while enjoying my own coffee without which I can't seem to work. I plan to work out the biz plan about this with my space sharing buddy over the weekend and implement it fast as winter is approaching. Let's just see how this one goes!

And so it begins

After playing around with one kind of technology and failing early, we have decided to move on. I have used the word failing, but essentially we haven't failed, we are just investing too much time in this technology, which we think is not worth it, since working with this technology has a number of non-technical challenges which we are taking too much time to solve. 

So after having intense discussions we have decided to pursue another couple of ideas, out of which one will be built right away. Since I don't have enough time on my hands, we have decided to implement one idea right away, and work on refining the other one in parallel. We have learnt a lot during the past 6 months. It took us ages to decide on one idea after discussing many. This time we had already a lot of ideas and it did not take us a long time to narrow down our idea list to a couple. For one of the ideas, we already have the technology figured out as well. So now, the exciting part of building our product starts. 

Our strategy is to have one idea that is quick to prototype, solves a problem and is scalable. Our second idea is more of an innovative product which we will probably crowd source. So the goal is to make sure that by the time my sabbatical ends, I have a product that has started selling. This will allow me and my partner to come into this full time as both of us have our day jobs.

Another million dollar idea!

So it keeps on getting interesting everyday! The display technology that we have been trying to work with is patented and the only couple of companies developing these are not really interested in small companies like ours! So we tried sourcing similar technology from China! Turns out the Chinese are really helpful and claim that their technology is different from the patented one! But when asked for more information to verify this fact, couple of emails and two days later, still no reply on the topic! 

So I spent my yesterday brainstorming some new ideas and came up with one idea that we think could be another million dollar idea! My co-founder and employee number 3 of the company are pretty excited about it as well! I seem to be getting better at coming up with new ideas! If only I had the method figured out to get from idea to prototype in quick time! Just one discussion later the idea has transformed into something that we could build in the wearable computing domain! So I'm going to spend another few days in brainstorming the idea more and figure out the technical challenges. Let's hope no one has done this one before !!!

Designing the space

So while grocery shopping over the weekend I bumped into a guy who designs furniture! Well I actually did not bump into him, just saw his display shop and went inside to talk. His shop had mostly add-on fixtures (something similar to the one in the following figure). 

The only thing I didn't like that these designs haven't changed in ages! I remember we used to have similar study tables in our home when we were kids! They are exactly the same! NO Innovation at all!!!! Anyway so I started chatting with this guy, and turns out he is a business undergrad who has been working with furniture design since the age of 14. Amazing! How do I find such people! Just the kind of guy I was looking for! So we talked about a lot of things and I told him how work spaces like the Googleplex are, and he should also look at the facebook workplace etc I tried to explain him, of what I was looking for! A fun and practical work space that people would love to work in! The best part is, he was open to discussion and willing to learn! So I'm going to ask him to make me some Ikea looking furniture very functional in design! 

I also talked to him about my idea of fusioning furniture with technology. I think I can actually help him add value to his products by integrating functional electronics in his designs. I feel pretty excited about it! I hope he listens to me and we can create some very innovative furniture for the local market! Some ideas and furniture that I want him to design is....

Some interesting ideas for the work space that I googled and liked are...

Interesting Week and the end of it

So last week was the first of my entrepreneurial adventures! The week seemed a pretty normal one until the very last day! Friday turned into a good lesson learning day for us! We found out that one of the ideas that we had been working on for the past few months was actually launched by another company! We were a bit disappointed but on the positive side, we are now more confident about our ideas. It seems like we have excellent ideas of products that we think will work and they do work, as a couple of them have actually been launched by other companies. 

The second thing we have learnt over the past week is that it is very hard to compete with Big Companies and corporations. We are working in a particular display technology, and it seems like this Big company that is the market leader and owns the patent doesn't like small startups to work in its domain! Even talking directly to them doesn't help. Seems like they want to have a say in everything that is built based on this technology! So either you give them 100,000 orders for their display or you probably work for them. So much for innovation! So now it boils down to two things! Either we figure out a way of working with similar technology but sourced from somewhere else (China of course) or we go back to the drawing board! The only thing we need to figure out is that the Chinese technology doesn't infringe any patents! Finger crossed!

Foood!

What I forgot to mention yesterday was that I love food! I'm a self claimed Chatpata Food expert! When we visited College Road we had Biryani for lunch and Lahori Samosas for snacks! Yummy!

Today I worked on the design requirements of my product. Seems like we made a mistake in the initial design and have to re-order a few components! This part of waiting for the parts to get delivered is pretty boring and time wasting! I wish Teleportation was invented soon, so at least our deliveries would be instant! Anyway today I had long interesting discussions with a good friend who is facilitating us with the startup space! He is a great guy and we could not stop chatting! He shares the workspace with us! Actually its his workspace and we are the ones who are using it at the moment. Talking about work-spaces I have been pushing my brain for ideas on how to setup our space! Sometimes I think of Googleplex, sometimes I actually search for ideas and sometimes I just have no idea of how I want the space to look like. One thing is for sure, I want the space to be practical, well utilized, colorful and fun. Some of the ideas that I have been thinking about is to get a bean bag chair with an overhead lamp. We will consider this the thinking chair or the reading chair. I would also like a few vertical slim shelves for putting our books and stuff. Some intelligent storage space needs to be designed as we just have a 300 sq feet space! I'm also thinking of getting a coffee machine that can make espresso as well as cappuccino. We may even start selling this coffee from our office. The building where we are has a number of startups but the facilities are lacking! There is no central coffee shop or snack shop. Most startups keep their coffee thingys within their spaces. I would like to change that! I would want everyone to use our space to have coffee! For one, it will generate a bit of much needed revenue. Secondly it will allow us to interact with everyone and would encourage sharing of ideas! Lets just see how it goes....

The 2nd day at work!

Today was a very very interesting day! I paid a visit to College Road which is "THE" place to be if either you are a student of engineering or if you are interested in electronics and are the "Maker" type. I was with my employee number 3 who interestingly is only 2 months old in the company and is already in his last month, going for his Masters now! But he is a great guy! A brilliant student who just graduated and was willing to join our start-up instead of getting a regular job, which he could have easily got! 

Anyway back to my College Road adventures! We had to buy a few things like PCB making material, etcher and stuff. We also bought a power supply for Rs 5000 with a rating of 30V and 5 amps. It should serve our purpose! I think we bought it quite cheap! Long live the Chinese! We also bought some tools, soldering iron, a multimeter and some other stuff. I've always loved this kind of shopping and now buying it for my start-up made it even more exciting! I just wanted to buy everything! Tools like soldering stand, power supplies, Oscilloscopes etc but unfortunately I could not! We're not millionaires! At least not yet! On our way back we took a trip to Metro which is a wholesale place. Bought a white board, a necessary tool for any start-up, some stationery and a crate of Coke! Coke is for employee number 3 who is a coke addict!  I'll get myself a Coffee machine, thanks to my Angel Investor friend who is a true Angel giving me a good no strings and deadline attached loan for my start-up adventures!

All in all it was a good day, except for one thing! My 5 month sabbatical application for which I had applied almost 2 months ago, was returned NOW, when I'm supposed to start with stupid comments! Its amazing to see, things people do, just because they are galatically stupid or have no common sense! So I can't get my earned leave because the "Research" office (the names of departments have been changed to save me from any stupid action) doesn't have any record of my research of the 4 years that I have been at my institution! Amazing! I have been here for 4 years and they have no clue, what I've been up to all this time! For me this shows what this department has been up to for the last four years! NOTHING!

The late Professor Randy Pausch said in his famous last lecture that Brick Walls are for only those who don't want it enough! I know for sure that I want this very much, so I'm going to find a way of climbing past this brick wall, or maybe breaking it to make way for myself :). I think this is enough rambling for today! Let's see how I get past this Sabbatical brick wall tomorrow!

Ooops

Oops!
I just broke my desk at the new space! Was trying to rotate it and one of the supporting bars fell off!

The Begining of the Banana Story

Today I have officially gone bananas. I have shifted to my new working space after working as a teacher for 4 years! For the next five months, I'll try to develop a product prototype and raise money for it. I'm hoping it stays this way even after 5 months and I don't have to go back as what I have started is something that I always wanted to do.

The first day has been exciting. Had an interesting chat with my co-founder. We discussed having another guy on board from a leading chip maker company! Let's see how that goes! 

I moved to the new space and I've already had an exciting meeting with Entaly which is another exciting startup in this incubation facility where I've moved. I'm already starting to feel more and more excited about this! Suddenly I've been thrown into this world of young exciting entrepreneurs who are merely 25 and running their own companies and making money! I feel old today! But at the same time I feel great at this exciting environment where you don't have to worry about the next call from your boss about a mistake in your result that you submitted for the 5th time! Aaaaaahhhh! Makes me want to scream even now! 

Anyway, I've reset myself for this newest challenge of becoming an entrepreneur! Starting my own company and making it successful! Through this blog I plan to share my daily thoughts of how my time was spent when I left my regular job and tried my hand at being an entrepreneur. Maybe this blog will turn into a best seller book 5 years down the road or maybe this will be just another blog that will remain mostly unread. I don't care! I will just keep on sharing my thoughts and my exciting adventures in the world of entrepreneurship!