Prem Sagar’s blog

Writing a book on Neilgherries

This has been a long long running thought.

To write a book on Neilgherries (called Nilgiris today).

Why?

• To satisfy the (poor?) writer in me
• I grew up there
• I love the place
• I want to tell the story of how wonderful it was 100-200 years back and how it is now
• I want to write something and can’t think of anything else
• I want to publish my own photographs of birds, animals and landscapes somewhere
• I want to dedicate something to my dad, and he will love my idea of a book on Nilgiris

What is stopping me?

• Time
• Laziness
• Confusion
• Work (at office)
• Lack of enough motivation

So, what now?

• I own www.neilgherries.com and want to make it a decent portal for info on Nilgiris, not the one the regular tourist knows, but the one that the British saw in the 1800’s. This website can serve as a pre-cursor to my book.
• Plan to finish the book before 2015… now, now.. that is long long away! But I feel I need the time!
• No compulsions! I may drop out anytime if I find it boring!
• Hey, its just an experiment. I don’t intend to make any money, quite the opposite, I am willing to spend some money actually.
• For now, felt making this wish public will motivate me better. So, wish me luck!
• See ya all in 2015!

Books: Exchange, barter, borrrow

I just decided to open my bookshelf to all!

Please have a list of books that I have have.. 95% of them are original first hand copies. (I usually don’t buy pirated books, but once in a while, I agree, I do). The collection is not great, but most of them are fantastic books covering a range of topics like finance, management, personal development, etc. No fiction, I gave away almost all of my fiction collection a few years ago.

Now, if you are a book lover, you can either

• exchange these for books of yours
• just borrow my books free for a couple of weeks, with the promise that you will return it in same condition without damage (I hate guys who dog-ear books)
• exchange these books for anything that I am interested in, cds (esp documentaries), coins, stamps, whatever!!

Please click next at the bottom to see the other books.

Feedback

Many a time when people ask for feedback, they actually mean, “tell me all the nice things abt this”. The rest, they dont want to hear!!

It is amazing how often people turn protective after you point out a flaw in something (after they asked for feedback).

PS: I’m human, even I do this!

Who is an entrepreneur?

Recently I wrote this post. And since yesterday, I have been reading Capt. Gopinath’s “Simply fly”.

Its a good book, though it could have been written better I felt.

While reading, Ct.G quotes Peter Drucker’s definition of an entrepreneur.

A true entrepreneur is one who creates wealth where it did not exist earlier by creating a new market and a new customer. They create something new, something different; they change and transmute values;

I liked the definition, but dont adhere to it 100%. This is fringing on Blue Ocean kinda strategy.. creating new markets. But not every innovator can manage to be successful and I believe sometimes being early is bad. Early birds get cooked many a time! Many a time, the first player is not the one who makes a business out of it, but the subsequent player who is a better executor of the same idea.

I am a firm believer that the team and its execution capability is far more important than the idea itself. It is nice and great to innovate, but it is far more important to execute it better.

Now, keeping the above opinion aside, I re-read my own post mentioned above. What would I do if I had a million $?

I had written things like “Start an online book store like flipkart.com”. Now, now…when I read it now.. I feel stupid!

Why would I want to be another flipkart.com? Or the next amazon.com?

Thinking within a box!!! How often we think of doing things the same way.. same style..

Capt. Gopi thought out of the box. He started a helicopter company when none existed. He built a low cost airline when the idea was considered unviable.

We need to think out of the box… for heavens sake, atleast while creating a wishlist.

I need to revisit my wishlist again!!

Why do you work?

I read this post today by Simple Dollar’s Trent.

This is an age old thingy! Why should you work? What would you do if you had a million dollars? Or if you had unlimited resources?

I know its old, its cliched.. yet, let me try to answer that one for myself.

• Start an online library chain (I love books!). Start an online book store like flipkart.com
• Travel all around the world and indulge in photography
• Run a mountain side farm with a stream running through it
• Develop a cutting-edge data integration / data quality tool and release it under open source
• Find and fund at least 10 diversified startups in areas within my circle-of-competence
• Manage my investment portfolio myself based on Ben Graham’s / Warren Buffett’s principles
• Develop a personal finance tool that is easy to use, flexible, reconciles with investment and bank accounts, calculates tax on the fly, has online and offline data entry…. and has flexibility to create meaningful / useful reports and dashboards. (I use GNUcash today. I love it. But its reporting features are not that great.. and its a lot of work to keep data updated)
• Write a book on Nilgiris (www.Neilgherries.com is a domain that I own)
• ……………… the list goes on

Father!

A recent snap of mine with my kid!