Creative Entrepreneurs "Michelle Ward" Share Their Business Struggles

"Michelle Ward"In the beginning stages of my business, my biggest struggle was my full-time job! I knew I couldn’t cut off my income stream and strike out on my own before (a) I was certified as a life coach (b) had some savings in the bank to live on so I wouldn’t have to execute Plan B (something like working retail/waiting tables) for a good 6 months (c) I felt confident that people in the world knew I existed.
The first thing I did was to get out of my full-time job that expected me to be on my BlackBerry 24/7, had me travel way too much for my liking, and came with a verbally abusive boss (fun!). Before even signing up for life coaching classes, I made it my mission to find a non-Blackberry, non-traveling, overtime-free job with a boss who wasn’t psychotic. I met with what must’ve been close to a dozen recruiters to rework my resume, test myself on computer basics, and have ‘em set-up interviews for me. In a month or two’s time I had a job offer to be an Executive Assistant in a financial consulting company. It wasn’t the best fit ever, but it had all the requirements I was looking for, gave me a bigger salary (and a bonus! and overtime pay, if I had to work it!), as well as the guarantee that I could devote my nights and weekends to my coaching classes and clients. It took me 2 years & 7 months to go from my first day there (which was also the first month I started my life coaching classes!) to go from my first day to my last, but who the heck’s counting now?! I’ve been a full-time entrepreneur for over 13 months and am thriving, and my full-time, abusive-free day job helped me get here.

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Entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia "HOT Mail"

Sabeer Bhatia is one of the poster boys of Indian success story at Silicon Valley. He is better known as the man who co-founded Hotmail. He later sold it to Microsoft for $400 million and today Hotmail is the world's largest e-mail provider, with over 50 million registered users.

Sabeer Bhatia was born in 1969 at Chandigarh. He comes from a humble background. His father was an army officer and his mother worked with the Central Bank of India. Sabeer Bhatia had his earlier schooling at Bishop Cotton's School in Pune and later on at St Joseph's College in Bangalore. After passing out from school he joined the Birla Institute of Technology (BITS) at Pilani. At Pilani, he qualified to try for a transfer scholarship at Cal Tech, considered to be the world's most competitive scholarship. Sabeer Bhatia was the only applicant in the entire world in 1988 to get a passing score of 62.

In 1988 Sabeer Bhatia came to America and completed his B.Sc. with honours and earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. In 1992, while working on his Ph.D., Sabeer dropped out and joined Apple Computers as a systems integrator. He worked for Apple Computer for a year. Then he worked for another startup, Firepower Systems Inc. In 1995, Sabir Bhatia co-founded Hotmail Corporation along with Jack Smith, a colleague at Apple Computers. They launched pioneering web-based e-mail service Hotmail. At the end of 1997, he sold Hotmail to Microsoft for $400 million. Sabeer Bhatia t worked for Microsoft for a year until March of 1999, and then in the middle of 1999 he founded Arzoo.com

Arzoo.com was supposed to be a real-time marketplace for technology related solutions and support. It was envisaged as a platform that would enable engineers, developers and scientists from around the world to monetise their expertise on the one hand, and enable corporations to improve the productivity of their employees on the other. Sabeer Bhatia's vision was to make Arzoo.com, the world's largest human network of intellectual capital. But Arzoo.com failed with the burst of dot-com bubble. In 2006 Sabeer Bhatia relaunched Arzoo as a travel portal. Sabeer Bhatia has also started a new venture called BlogEverywhere with co-founders Shiraz Kanga and Viraf Zack.

Sabeer Bhatia has won several honors and awards. These include: "Entrepreneur of the Year," award by the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (1997); and "TR100" award, presented by MIT to 100 young innovators who are expected to have the greatest impact on technology in the next few years. He was named by TIME as one of the "People to Watch" in International Business (2002)

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Entrepreneur Sameer Gehlaut " Successful Entrepreneur "

Young entrepreneur Sameer Gehlaut established Indiabulls in 2000, after acquiring Inorbit Securities, a stock brokerage company in Delhi. The group started its operations from asmall office near Hauz Khas bus terminal in Delhi.The office had a tin roof and two computers.

In less than 10 years the group has become one of the leading financial services and real estate company in India,they have a land bank of 4000 acres.

Sameer Gehlaut is India’s youngest self made billionaire at just 34 years of age. According to Forbes (2008), he has a net worth of $1.2 billion.He is the 962nd richest person in the world and 45th richest in India.

Sameer Gehlaut completed his Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1995 .He worked for Halliburton in the United States. He came back to India to start an earth moving and miningbusiness ,which is presently run by his family.

In 2000 Sameer Gehlaut was only 26 when he startedIndiabulls with the help of Saurabh Mittal and Rajiv Rattan.Mittal and Rattan were his friends at IIT Delhi.

Indiabuls were the pioneers in the online brokerage business segment. The company had a young management team and were able to raise money from time to time. Its investors included LN Mittal and Farallon Capital . In September 2004 the company came out with its IPO.

Indiabulls started as an online brokerage company but over the years they have added new products and services .They also entered into new business segments.The group’s business interests include real estate ,consumer finance ,mortgages, retail and power.They have a market capitalization of more than Rs. 25000 crores.

We can recall that Indiabulls acquired 7.8 acres of land from NTC for Rs 441.75 crore,this was the Elphinstone Mills land in Lower Parel,Mumbai.They also acquired 11 acres of the Land from NTC for Rs 276.6 crore,this was the land of Jupiter Mills in Lower Parel,Mumbai.

Indiabulls acquired more than 115 acres of land in Sonepat,Haryana for developing residential real estate.

Indiabulls entered into a joint venture with Sogecap for its foray into the Life insurance business. Sogecap is the Life insurance subsidiary of the French company Societe Generale.

Saurabh Mittal and Rajiv Rattan have a net worth of around $ 500 million each.

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The Greatest Entrepreneur - Dhirubhai H. Ambani

At the age of 17 went to Aden (now part of Yemen) and worked for A. Besse & Co. Ltd., the sole selling distributor of Shell products.In the year 1958 returned to Mumbai and started his first company, Reliance Commercial Corporation, a commodity trading and export house.In the year 1966, as a first step in Reliance's highly successful strategy of backward integration, he started the textile mill in Naroda, Ahmedabad.In the year 1975, a technical team from the World Bank certified that the Reliance textile plant was "excellent by developed country standards."In the year 1977, the company went public.Credited with a number of financial innovations in the Indian capital markets. Today, the Reliance Group has one of the largest family of shareholders in the world. With an investment of over Rs 36,000 crore (US$ 9 billion) in petroleum refining, petrochemicals, power generation, telecommunication services and a port terminal in a three-year time frame, has steered the Reliance Group to its current status as India's leading textiles-petroleum-petrochemicals-power-telecom player.

Achievements: Voted India's 'Top Businessman' in the 'Best of India' poll conducted by Zee News, August 2003.

Petrotech Society conferred posthumously the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' for his outstanding contribution to Downstream Petroleum Industry in India, January 2003.

Rated as one of 'India's Most Admired CEOs' for the fourth consecutive year in the Business Barons - Taylor Nelson Sofres - Mode Survey, July 2002.

Conferred the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' by India HRD Congress, February 2002.

Conferred 'The Economic Times Award for Corporate Excellence for Lifetime Achievement', August 2001.

Felicitated by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai with a citation at a civic reception, December 2000.

Conferred the 'Man of the Century' award by Chemtech Foundation and Chemical Engineering World in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the growth and development of the chemical industry in India, November 2000.

Conferred the 'Indian Entrepreneur of the 20th Century' award by FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries), for his meticulous scripting of one of the most remarkable stories of business endeavour of the 20th century, March 2000.

Thrice (in the years 2000, 1998 and 1996) nominated as one of the 'Power 50 - the most powerful people in Asia' by Asiaweek magazine.

Voted as the most admired Indian of the millennium in the field of Business & Economics in 'Legends - A Celebration of Excellence' poll audited by Ernst & Young for Zee Network, January 2000.

Voted as 'Creator of Wealth' of the Century in The Times of India poll, January 2000.

Chosen as one of the three 'makers of equity' by India Today in their special millennium issue entitled '100 People Who Shaped India in the 20th Century', January 2000.

Chosen by the Indian Merchants' Chamber as "An Outstanding Visionary of the 20th Century" in recognition of his unique achievements and contribution in the development of industry and capital markets in India, December 1999.

Voted as 'Indian Businessman of the Century' in Business Barons Global Multimedia Poll, December 1999.

Amongst 'The Power 50 - India's 50 most powerful decision-makers in Politics, Business & Finance', Business Barons, August 1999.

Declared 'Most Admired Indian Business Leader' by The Times of India, Indiatimes.com poll, July 1999.

The only Indian industrialist in 'Business Hall of Fame' in Asiaweek, October 1998.

Awarded the Dean's Medal by The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, for setting an outstanding example of leadership, June 1998.

Chosen as 'Star of Asia' by Business Week, USA, June 1998.

Leading business magazine Business Barons placed him in its list of 'India's 25 Most Influential Business and Financial Leaders', June 1998.

Awarded the Companion Membership of the Textile Institute, UK, an award which is limited to 50 living members who have "substantially advanced the general interests of the industries based on fibres", 1994.

Chosen 'Businessman of the Year 1993', Business India, January 1994.

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(Business and Innovation )Fact's of Twitter "Twitteeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

Almost 200 million users worldwide. About 460,000 new Twitter accounts are opened daily. More than 140 million tweets are sent daily. That’s one billion weekly. In 2008, Twitter had eight employees; today it has more than 400. And they’re hiring (twitter.com/jobs)
WHY 140 CHARACTERS?
At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called tweets. Each tweet is 140 characters in length, maximum. Initially, there was no limit to message length. When it went public, the 140 character limit was adopted.
Why? Because 160 characters was the SMS carrier limit and the founders wanted to leave room for a username. Struggling with brevity? You can purchase 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form by @Dom.
HOW TWITTER MAKES MONEY
Twitter lists its revenues at a modest $150-million annually. It is a private company so the sources of revenue are unclear.Twitter also licenses its stream of tweets to Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.
There are constant rumours that Twitter will be purchases by Facebook or Google. It could also go public like LinkedIn.
Twitter is said to be worth more than $4.5-billion. The value comes from its potential to exploit its base of hundreds of millions of users.Twitter could sell traditional ads (not likely) and to start charging for premium accounts that push business to their sites (very likely).
HOW TWITTER HAS CHANGED THE MEDIA
Twitter is not just your friends telling you what they ate for breakfast. Increasingly, news stories that arise – a tsunami, a plane crash, the score of a hockey game, the latest Charlie Sheen gossip – arrive in tweets from people we follow on Twitter. This allows everyone to essentially create their own newspaper or newscast, and to do so instantaneously.
HOW TWITTER HAS CHANGED POLITICS
Social media and microblogging like Twitter has changed political communication profoundly. Political messages used to be controlled by a handful of powerful gatekeepers. Now the messengers, and hence the messages, are more diffuse and diverse.
In Canada, Industry Minister Tony Clement is one of the most prolific and popular Twitterers.
HOW TWITTER HAS CHANGED BUSINESS
Beyond its social function, Twitter is used increasingly by business to communicate with employees and customers.
The one-way transmission of information is morphing quickly into two-way interaction.Business can communicate real-time message to the customers they want to reach.Conversely, when customers are unhappy with a product or service, they can spread the word quickly – and do damage – with a few tweets.

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Brilliant Ideas "DropBox"

Drew (CEO) graduated from MIT and wrote the first lines of code for Dropbox while at a train station in Boston. These days he's usually out and about running Dropbox's business affairs, but he still contributes a lot to Dropbox's client software. In the little free time he has, Drew can be found jamming on his guitar.

Arash (CTO) took a break from MIT to work on Dropbox. He has his hand involved in every aspect of the product, but spends most of his time making sure Dropbox and its servers run as fast as possible. He's a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, DDR, and power ballads.

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Investors "Make your dream success"

The Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund (“Aavishkaar”) is a venture fund founded to promote development in rural and semi-urban India. Aavishkaar believes entrepreneurs can be a powerful force for development. To this end, the firm provides micro-equity funding (Rs. 10 lacs to Rs. 2 Crore), approximately USD $20 thousand to USD $500 thousand) and operational and strategic support to commercially viable companies increasing income in or providing goods and services to rural or semi-urban India. 

Our mission is to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas.

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History's 10 Entrepreneurs

1.  King Croesus. A pick by our veterans committee, Croesus, who ruled the Asia Minor kingdom of Lydia in the sixth century B.C., is owed a huge debt of gratitude for minting the world’s first coinage, thereby creating in a single stroke the lifeblood of every business: liquidity and cash flow. Moreover, his opulent lifestyle has given entrepreneurs throughout history something to shoot for. Is there a greater distinction for the commercially inclined than to be deemed “as rich as Croesus”?

2.  Pope Sixtus IV.  Sixtus gets the nod for realizing that the “wages of sin” meant more than unpleasant repercussions. There was money to be made in damnation, and Sixtus mined it by opening up a new market -- the dead -- for the indulgences the church had been selling for years. Relatives of the deceased quickly filled the Vatican’s coffers with payments intended to lessen the time their loved ones spent in purgatory. In 1478 Sixtus “grew his market” by authorizing the Spanish Inquisition, which swelled purgatory’s ranks by 100,000 souls in 15 years. He also was the first pope to license brothels.

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Business Web Site Marketing Tips

Many small business owners struggle with the seemingly overwhelming task of managing their web site. There always seems to be so much to do, yet no time to do it all (something we know all too well). This brief primer should help to highlight the key aspects of web site management that will help them gain the most from their web site with the time that they have available. 

The following ten tips are key to maintaining a successful web site. Follow these and your site will do better. Nothing will guarantee that a web site will be successful as there are simple too many different factors that impact web success - but as a general rule these ten tips will always lead to better performance. 

#1 Content

Content is key 
All the search engines scan a sites content now - almost ignoring things like meta tags. The more content you have on your site the more the search engines can scan - but there is more to it then that: people like content too. Many people measure a web site's success by the number of visitors it gets - so ask yourself - why would people come to your web site? do you offer them interesting and informative information that relates to your product or service? if not, why would they come? 

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NRI Entrepreneurs

Indian entrepreneurs have not only proved their mettle in India but abroad also. Battling immense odds and alien conditions they have emerged triumphed and done proud to India. Their success has changed the way the world looks at India and has gone a long way in redeeming India's image abroad. Here is a brief profile of famous NRI entrepreneurs. 

Amar Bose Profile
Amar Bose is the founder of Bose Corporation and is known for his pioneering work in the field of acoustics. Bose speakers are world-famous for giving high-end performance despite their modest size. 

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Indian Enterpreneur

Indian entrepreneurs are making waves all across the world. Indian business firms are making acquisitions abroad and spreading their tentacles in various corners of the world. Indian Entrepreneurs have proved all doomsday prophecies wrong and on the contrary have flourished under globalisation. Here is a brief profile of famous Indian entrepreneurs.
Dhirubhai Ambani
JRD Tata
Jamsetji Tata
Adi Godrej
Anil Ambani
Dr. K. Anji Reddy
Azim Premji
Bhai Mohan Singh
B.M. Munjal

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