Off to Manali

Its been 3 good months in Bangalore. Its been fascinating working on Must See India and there has been great progress to keep the enthu going. For one, the traffic on Must See India has doubled in these 3 months! But the real motivation is the encouraging comments for travel enthusiasts that keep on flowing.

Other happenings in these 3 months have been Tennis, trip to Coonoor, two trips to Chennai and a rediscovered interest in photography. Traveling with some great photographers to Coonoor gave me motivation to get better pictures from my camera and I have been working towards learning the manual modes of my Canon Powershot S3 IS. The best of the pictures that I have taken all go in this Must See Photo Album.

After a real busy past 2 weeks, its time to take a break and do what I like the most - travel! Leaving for Delhi today, and then to Manali. The primary agenda is gonna be Paragliding at Solang Valley. And its gonna be a 5 day course where we should (hopefully) be able to paraglide all by ourselves.

So here I go, wishing everyone Happy Dusshera and a prosperous Diwali in this festive month.

Ideas are dime a dozen

Most people in startups or planning to startup have now dispelled the notion that one needs to come up with a great unique idea to succeed. What I believe is more important is whether you are solving a real pain point of a real customer and can you execute your idea to perfection.

For those who are still living in the idea world, here are 30 ideas that ycombinator would like to fund.

6 years of software engineering

This is probably going to be the shortest review so far. I have already talked about my new venture a while back. Life has not been the same ever since. I always thought of life as a series of challenges. You solve one, you get another. The level keeps on increasing. Its almost like playing a game. I am pretty satisfied with the way I completed the previous level, and what gives me extra satisfaction is the 2 statements my previous company's GM made when I was about to leave:

• You have very high professional ethics, and such people succeed in the long run.
• You have followed one of the most complete career paths in this company.

That level is over, and its time to play up the highest professional challenge.

On the personal side, life continues to be a roller coaster. I remember that long long time ago (before I even started this blog), I took an EQ (Emotional Quotient) test. In the results, they said that I fell into the same category as Albert Einstein did. Before I could feel proud, I read the next line which said - Albert Einstein had 3 broken marriages.

Back to Bangalore

There is one thing I really like when I go on a drive. Switch off the AC, pull down the windows and feel the cool breeze on my face. Can I get that in Delhi? Only in my dreams. Can I get that in Bangalore? Probably 4 years earlier, but not today.
The weather is still magnificent, but all that one gets today is polluted air and noise. The amount of pollution and noise on the city roads has gone up significantly.

I shifted to Bangalore a week back. It has been 4 years since I left this place. Since then, I see more things worsening rather than improving. Good that my home is my office, and I don't have to drive everyday.

On the brighter side, there are quite a few places around Bangalore to make a 1 day/weekend trip and I really should be planning one soon.

A New Beginning

6 years in software industry. 3 years in a software product company working on a web-based product.
That is the time it took me to realize what I really want.

Last year, I talked about how I have always been fascinated by software products which can solve pains. I also talked about the potential of Indian software market, and that we software professionals in India need to serve our own people.
There is one more thing to talk about. That I am a travel buff. And after traveling to quite a few places over the past few years, I find out that the pains to traveling remain the same. Its always about:

• When to go
• Where to go
• who else is available to go with me
• where would I stay
• what would be the prices like
• what to do while I am there
• My friends are too lazy to send me the pictures.

To solve all traveler's pains, here comes ... let the drums roll ... www.MustSeeIndia.com. It's gonna solve all my pains. It's gonna plan my holiday. It's gonna make my lazy friends upload their photos. It's gonna fetch me the best deals.
Well .... not quite all pains as yet. We are a young startup who aim at connecting travel enthusiasts. We know that its people who solve each other's pain by sharing their experiences.

Communication with our readers is really important for us and hence the first thing I did was to setup a MustSeeIndia Blog. See you there.

Three weeks in US

I am going back to India after 3 weeks of stay here. It has been a lot different than what it was last year when I first visited US..

I have too many mixed feelings this time around. I don't know whether coming here was a good idea or bad. Going back today, I don't know whether am happy or sad. And overall I still am not sure whether I would call it a good trip.

I have this firm belief that whatever happens, happens for good, and am gonna stick to that.

So bye bye US, you are pretty cool, but India is where I belong, India is what I love, and am looking forward to meet all my friends and start a new phase of life.

iPhone coming to India

Vodafone has tied up with Apple to offer iPhone in India later this year. Check out Vodafone to Offer Apple’s iPhone in Ten Markets

Great news. My biggest issue with the iPhone so far as been that GPRS settings using Vodafone live doesn't work on it. And Vodafone Mobile Connect is pretty expensive.
Also, there are no good data plans available in India as people do not really do much web surfing from the phone. I hope all this would change when iPhone comes to India and it would be much more useful with its Internet based features.