2011: Year of dreams

It looks like yesterday when I was woken up in the middle of the night by a nightmare!

Jobless, directionless and confused. Having given up a good job and nothing working out in life, I cursed myself left, right and center.

I quickly realized that it was just a nightmare. I still had my job. I still had a salary coming in every month. And the appraisals and a possible good hike just around the corner.

I sat at my desk at 2.30am in the night and really wondered if I should resign from my job without any idea about what next to do in life.  Should I hang on for a while? Should I take it easy? Should I wait until I figure things out?

I couldn’t come to a conclusion. I slept.

Come morning, come light.. I thought, “heck, let me just do it”. Also, my wife was very supportive about it. That really helped!

I resigned from my job. The day was January 4th.

And then, began the story! Read the rest of this entry »

Questions!

“Entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on their business plan before they’ve focused on their life plan”.

- Norm Brodsky

I don’t know if I am an entrepreneur yet. But I am glad I read this, because I was on the same path. Focusing too much on the business plan and ignoring the much more important life plan.

Life’s a roller coaster these days!

On days when I have many enquiries, I feel on top of the world. On days when there’s hardly an email or two, things look doubtful. Will I be able to cross last months revenue? What the heck am I doing here? Should I go back to a job? Questions plague me.

My way of overcoming those questions is usually by hitting the gym. Running does wonders to my mood.

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Why buy when you can rent?

Tapprs business cards

How long do you keep someone’s business card with you?

Not too long I guess. Most cards get discarded very quickly.

You need to be very creative to register in the mind of the guy before he decides to throw it away… which is a very short period.

The more creative or interesting the card is, the better the chance of making an impact with the card.

Of late, I have needed a few cards. So, I decided to get one done.

I remember having read from my friends blog about a guy who put Google results on his card. He apparently ranked #1 for the keyword and put that on his card.

Using that as a tongue-in-cheek idea, I did my card this way. Perhaps, not very good looking, but it tends to make people curious.

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Rebranding Tapprs

I have to confess.

Inspite of all the cribbing in my earlier posts about how rentals is not exactly a great market and how the market signals aren’t great, I have been hooked onto the idea of Tapprs (mind you, not to the idea of rentals).

The reason is, I feel Tapprs could be woven into a nice brand if done well. Not necessarily rentals, could be anything else too. I have stuck my neck out on Tapprs. I can’t explain why. Perhaps, its because it’s your baby, even if its ill-conceived. Or perhaps, I feel that it needs to be given more time and patience.

I have put all my tech ideas on hold to give Tapprs some concentrated effort in the coming 1-2 months.

Whatever, I am here now. Looking at re-branding Tapprs. I don’t want Tapprs to be identified as a rental place and would love to create a brand out of it.

I want Tapprs to be attributed with a few characteristics. And that means change from the ground up.

I’ve tried to work things out towards that effect. So here goes.

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