Tag Archives: People

Purani jeans aur guitar

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Purani jeans aur guitar
Mohalle ki vo chhat
Aur mere yaar
Vo raaton ko jaagna
Subah ghar jaan
Kood ke deewar
Vo cigaretee peena
Gali mein jaake
Wo karna daanton ko
Ghadi ghadi saaf








A group of startup founders sang this college time favorite song during the starry, drunk, passionate and bindaas late night sessions, that went on till 0300 am every night, during Morpheus’ Startup Gurukul. Gurukul was organized with the purpose of bringing together the gang of morpheus founders at one place for 4 days of immersive experience. Away from the normal world, away from their hectic day-to-day schedules – just to hang out, share learnings and to know each other. The sheer energy in the atmosphere was intoxicating.  People were – talking, dancing, asking questions, listening intently, showing demos, discussing stuff , giving/ taking feedbacks, taking pictures, fooling around, jumping into the pool. But with all this as a backdrop they were all starting lifelong friendships – with folks who are also weird like themselves, those who have chosen the uncertain path of entrepreneurship – leaving behind the certainty & security of jobs. Because nature has cursed (or gifted them) them with the “entrepreneurial gene”. Be an Entrepreneur or Die – thats their calling. Just can’t do anything else. Gurukul is a world in which everyone is an entrepreneur – everyone inspires you, everyone believes in your audacious vision and the non-believers are totally absent.


I still remember the day we started the journey in Jan 2008 – 2.5 years back. Coming out of our 3 yrs as the founders of madhouse, we realized that this was badly needed in India and we had a kind of stupid confidence in our ability to figure this out. Most of the folks around said you guys can’t do this / this cant be done in India or some variation of a negative comment. Like all entrepreneurs – every time someone said that it increased our determination to crack this.


 From the Starting point to the Startup Gurukul – the ride has been a lot of fun but at the same time quite rough, things have moved a very rapid pace, there was always so much to do, so much to figure out, so many moving pieces, we just kept working 12-14 hrs everyday.  I never got a chance to step back and look at the overall picture. So at the Gurukul when I saw, at one place, all portfolio companies, all founders, our investors – and I saw people from outside morpheus who came to spend time with us, said nice things about what they saw. I had this realization that we are on to something important, we are starting to have a small impact on Indian Startup Ecosystem, our efforts are paying off. This has given me a lot of energy to keep doing this for many more years to come.


Thanks


On behalf all partners @ Morpheus I would like to give a big Thank You to all the founders in the morpheus gang – for making us part of their teams, their dreams and their families. Thanks guys for believing in us – for taking the chance. Together we can and we will change many things in the world around us.


Also a very big thanks to guys @ Sequoia Capital for supporting and sponsoring Startup Gurukul.







Enjoy the gurukul pics








					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Lack of respect for fellow humans: hits me hard

			
						

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    Meeting people (new and already known to us) is  something most of us do regularly.  In this post I want to talk about one aspect of the people interaction and the way our mind unconsciously categorizes people whom we meet:


    

  1. First category is  the people who leave us with fond memories, we would be glad to see them again or hear from them or even make proactive efforts to stay connected with them.
    2. 

  2. Second category is people who we are neutral about, or not even thinking about. These guys  are pretty much invisible. May be they did not interact much, time of interaction was not enough etc
    3. 

  3. Third category which “hits me hard” are folks who seem to lack basic respect for fellow human beings and leave others with feelings like:
    4. 



“What does this person think of himself / herself? He or she did not seem happy / open to meet me for some reason.  I am not sure I really care about seeing him/her again or hearing from him/her”


What these guys are doing is basically showing the lack of basic human respect, many times it happens that you meet this guy and start talking to him and he just gives you a cold shoulder,  tries to show you that he has more important things to do or people to talk to and you are just plain “unimportant”. Where as what he is doing is making himself “unimportant as a human being”..


On the other hand you meet people, whom you never met before but they are so warm and nice in the interaction, that even after a very small interaction you go away with fond memories and a feeling of bonding with them; a friendship, which stays for ever. These are the real angels.


In business as well as start-up world networking is one of the most critical elements and its clear that basic human behavior is what will drive the strength of your network, so be kind and fair to people..


Whats your experience…


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Delhi Trip: Attending TIECON 2008 and meeting people

			
						

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    I am attending TIECON 2008 in New Delhi 22-24 Ocotber 2008. The event is always full of entrepreneurial folks and the energy always rubs off on me.  After TIECON, I will be in Delhi NCR area till about 31 October.


I am looking forward to meeting interesting people/entreprenuers/companies/bloggers/press etc. Drop me a line if you would like to connect. I am reachable on sameer AT morpheusventure DOT com.


I would like to recommend TIECON to everyone who is interested in the startup or emerging space . Its one of the best events in India, in terms of content as well as networking.


					

		
		
	


				
					
	

				
					
	

		

						
Flight landings & standing fetish?!

			
						

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    I just landed in chennai via a late n ight flight and the question is ringing again in my mind….WHY DO PEOPLE LEAVE THE SEATS AND STAND UP AS SOON AS THE FLIGHTS LAND STOP?


I m talking abt these people who start getting impatient as soon as the flight lands, start opening the seat belts (seat belt sign is on), switch on the mobile phones (you r supposed to wait till the doors open) and these same guys immediately get up; take their respective bags and stand in the aisle for 10 minutes or so, they have the choice to continue sitting and only get up after de-boarding starts, but due some internal insinct more than 50 percent of the people stand and waste their energies.


Whats the cause of this behavior? I can think of few reasons, would love to hear more views:


– Insecurity: they basically dont feel secure sitting down and think that by standing they can get out before others which is sadly not true

– New travellers : some of them are new and hence think doors will open as soon as the plane stops and they can get off.


UPDATE (03 March 08): My X-boss (jai kumar), send me a couple of good thoughts on this:


1. The “real” reason that people stand up immediately after the plane lands is to  s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Sitting crammed in economy class for lengths of time leads to  “deep vein thrombosis” (economy class syndrome) and “bruised inner  thighs”.




2. Do you ever see Business or First class folks stand up immediately after the  plane lands? Never. Guess why?