Programmers are getting younger and younger

I came across this TED talk today by Thomas Suarez, a 12-year-old app developer that develops apps for the ipod, ipad and iphone.

In Startup Weekend Delhi I met with Evan Luthra who describes himself as a Student, President, CEO, Founder, Director, Keynote Speaker, Blogger & More. Evan is just 17 years old and he has his own company that designs and sells apps.

We are seeing more and more students starting to challenge the status quo. They are challenging the tried and tested way of the 10+2+4 or the 10+2+3+3 education system. There is a lot of encouragement that they get to pursue their passions. There is so much information out there to help them learn quickly.

I was born and brought up in a small town in the coastal area of Andhra Pradesh and had my first taste of computers when I was 14 years old, courtesy my school. The school, bought 2 computers to teach Computer Science as part of the ICSE syllabus that had just introduced the subject as an optional subject for the very first time. We got 30 min of time each on the computer to program small BASIC programs once a week. We did not have a teacher to teach us programming but luckily for us our Chemistry teacher took an interest in programming went to Chennai learned programming to come back and teach us. We did not have the internet to learn.

What we had was the hardware but we did not have the software, the knowledge and the ability to connect with the rest of the world so easily and effortlessly as it is now. The age we live in now makes this all so possible that it is such an exciting era to be in as a student where the world is your oyster.

But the problem is how much of India is like this during this exciting era - I just read this article on the WSJ that says 81% of U.S. engineering grads are immediately "employable," vs. 25% of India's, 10% of China's. We need to encourage more Evan Luthra's in India to buck this trend.

Small victories > Big encouragement

As an entrepreneur one always goes through ups and downs and there are times you second guess yourself and wonder if you are really doing the right thing. There are little things that happen that boost your confidence and give you big time encouragement to forge ahead.

These are small triumphs that give you this new energy to forge ahead. What I find important is to be able to break down things so that one can achieve these small victories that provide validation for what one is doing that gives you the motivation to keep going.

A task not broken down keeps going on for a long time and looks so intimidating that it becomes very hard to keep one motivated right through the entire task.

Product Definition

Many of us are mostly developers for most of our careers and then move into project delivery roles. But very rarely do we have the opportunity to come up with a product idea, build it, market it, sell it and make money. But as an entrepreneur that is what one needs to do and if you can't define products and services and make money consistently it becomes impossible to sustain.  How do we come up with a product or service that a customer is willing to use and pay for it?

The key I feel is to have a very clearly defined product or service in "bite sized" portions that are easily consumable by the end customer and provide a satisfaction to the customer that he does not think twice to pay for it and is willing to talk to his friends and family about it. This product or service should be given to the customer in bite sized portions so that he can easily understand and value.

It is kind of like a restaurant - I have found that restaurants that have a very simple menu, the few things that they have on their menu they make it amazingly well and I do not mind paying them for it as they satisfy my yearning for that kind of food. Also I would recommend the place to my family and friends and also keep going back for more.

Thoughts from Startup Weekend Delhi

I went back to Delhi after almost 6 years for Startup Weekend Mobile Delhi and it was really a wonderful experience.

Delhi as a city has changed quite a bit for the better - for starters I am super impressed with the metro, it is very convenient, nominally priced and well connected. It was very easy to go around the city on the metro. The broad roads and the flyovers around the city was a very welcome change from Bangalore and Hyderabad where there are so many traffic bottle necks.

The event by itself was very exciting in Delhi. There is a stark contrast between the same event in Hyderabad and Bangalore and some of those differences are

1. We had only one round of pitches for ideas in Delhi and got close to 70 ideas. In Hyderabad and Bangalore we got through at least 3 rounds of pitches to get the same number of ideas. The participants in all the 3 cities was just about the same.
2. The number of actual demoable products presented on the 3rd day was a lot more with almost every team having a product to demo. In Hyderabad and Bangalore you get a lot of  presentations without actual product demos.
3. There was a lot of use of white boards and charts in SW Delhi as against a lot of coding in Bangalore and Hyderabad.

My experience has been that the participants in Delhi were more business minded on how to actually take a product to market where as in Hyderabad and Bangalore the focus was more on hacking together something with the business coming secondary. 

Ramoji Film City

An aerial view of the property

After more than 12 years I went back to Ramoji Film City. It has not changed too much over the last decade or so but it has surely maintained what was there on my last visit. One is not allowed to take their cars into the premises unless you are staying there. There are two hotels inside - Tara and Sitara. I stayed in Tara 12 years ago and it is a pricey basic hotel.

Tickets

The tickets are one fixed price for entry and for all the shows inside - Rs. 500 for children and Rs. 600 for the adults. The ticket is valid for the full day. The ticket includes entry,  a tour of Ramoji Film City, 3 shows - a variety show at the dome theater, spirit of Ramoji show and the cow boy stunt show, a few rides are complimentary and then the children's park which has things like a play area and rain dance.

The shows

Set where the action cowboy scene happens

The shows are at fixed timings and each show is about 15 minutes long. So plan your day accordingly so that you space it accordingly so that you can get to watch the shows. The Spirit of Ramoji is a variety entertainment show which includes some dance sequences and a couple of acrobatic sequences. The wild wild west stunt show is a fight scene with gunshots (crackers) and hand grenades (bombs), zip lining and a lot of kicking and somersaults. Its an entertaining show but if one does not like crackers get a seat at the back of the auditorium. The show at the dome theater is like a mini circus show which is entertaining.

Food

You are not allowed to carry any food inside. There are a lot of push carts that are available selling biscuits, ice cream, chocolates and water around and at almost each of the attractions there is one. At the main place called Eureka there are 3 restaurants - hyderabadi, multi cuisine and canteen style but during lunch time they just become crazy places with all the crowd descending there at the same time. Since one is not allowed to carry food in and also the madness at the restaurants forced us to live off chocolates and biscuits for the rest of the day. For such a large entertainment center it is surprising not to find any fast food kind of places. Also the restaurants did not look like they were equipped to handle the large number of people that came on the weekend.

The tour

Bus that takes you around

The tour is a 1 hour ride around by bus where they show you all the locations available within the film city identifying the various movies that were shot there. There are a few points where they allow you to get off the bus and take a walk around - these places include the indoor set, the fake airport, cave location, butterfly park and the gardens. The tour gives you information about the make believe world that movies are made in and its amazing how movie makers make all that fake stuff look so real in the movies. There is nothing fascinating about the tour so do not expect to be wowed.

Overall

The indoor permanent set

On the whole its a nice days outing if one has not seen Ramoji Film City. Its not a trip I would take again and again given that nothing much has changed over the last 12 years. Its a decent place to hang around do a few activities and just have fun. You really dont get into the world of movie making or how movies are shot. You get a peek of it during the tour but that is all. The other let down is the food and when one is hungry on a full day trip it just becomes a irritating experience. The shows are are really not top of the line stuff. Lets just say that they are entertaining but will not really wow you out of your seat.

SWHYD - 2 : 54 hours of blended productivity

From winner at the last Startup Weekend at Hyderabad, to volunteer at Startup Weekend at Mumbai to Organizer at Startup Weekend at Hyderabad in the second edition - I have in the sense been through the process of moving from the front to the back of Startup Weekend over the last 1 year and what an amazing journey it has been. The experience as a participant is of complete focus on achieving the goal of building something over the weekend, molded into shape by talking to the mentors and having it validated through market surveys and interviews. As a volunteer there is so much to learn in organizing an event and understanding all the nuts and bolts that go into putting together this weekend of learning an fun.

Being an organizer makes it all so worthwhile to have so many different individuals come together over a weekend and build bonds that last a lifetime and probably even create products that may go on to become the next big company. The quality of the learning through action over a weekend is unsurpassed so far for me.

Startup Weekend is such a melting pot of talent enriched with a lot of mentorship and guidance which never fails to bring out the best in people to create an amazing amount of productivity over 54 hours. The energy is focused, the goals are set and everyone is at their imaginative best all through the weekend.

This video very beautifully illustrates the awesomeness of the weekend at Hyderabad

Thank you judges, mentors, speakers, volunteers, participants and finally my fellow organizers for the awesome event and can't wait for the next Startup Weekend Hyderabad event. Stay tuned we will be coming out with the dates soon and I hope to see you all there building a startup over a weekend.

Why attend Startup Weekend Hyderabad?

Startup Weekend Hyderabad is back - bigger and better this time at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad from the 13-15 of July. For those that are not familiar with Startup Weekend - read my post when I attended the last event as a participant.

Watch this video preview of what happened in the last event

Why attend Startup Weekend? 

Startup Weekend is an event where ideas that have been nagging you for a long long time can be tried out and evaluated. Come to the event pitch your idea, if you get enough votes for it - the idea is immediately validated. For people who have a clear idea on what they want to do but dont have the team to execute it - Startup Weekend is the perfect place to seed this team. You get to work with your team for a full 54 hours in a very exciting and focused manner - giving you a great insight into your future team. The event is the perfect place to help fine tune the idea with many experts who have started and exited many startups successfully. And finally if your team is able to impress the judging panel you might be considered for incubation or event funding - which will truly set you on your way to Starting Up.

Whats different this year ? 

There are more number of participants from very diverse fields which means there will be more excitement and more number of people to network with. Secondly we have a great speaker list, mentor list and judging panel that have agreed to spend time at the event to coach, mentor and evaluate all the ideas that will be showcased at the event.

The icing on the cake is that we have the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (WCED) and Hydcubator agreeing to consider evaluating ideas presented at the event to incubate. Now this is a golden opportunity for anyone wanting to startup.

Book your tickets to Startup Weekend Hyderabad by visiting http://hyderabad.startupweekend.org. You can get more information by calling our IVR system at 040-30512888.