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Category: brand

Bill Gross (Idealab) shares 25 lessons learned from 25 years of creating companies

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Bill Gross started Idealab in 1996. Since then, Idealab has come up with more than 5,000 ideas, started more than 150 companies, and had more than 50 successful IPO’s and acquisitions including created more than 10,000 jobs and thousands of new entrepreneurs.

Bill shares 25 lessons learned from 25 years of starting companies.

Lesson 1:  Challenge the Status Quo

Lesson 2:  Find Great Timing

Lesson 3:  Learn to Say No

Lesson 4:  Be Success Sensitive

Lesson 5:  Find Product-Market Fit

Lesson 6:  Become a Great Story Teller

Lesson 7:  Be Lean

Lesson 8:  Be Remarkable

Lesson 9:  Try Again

Lesson 10:  Build A Complementary Team

Lesson 11:  Be Persistent

Lesson 12:  Protect Your IP

Lesson 13:  Ignore Downturns

Lesson 14:  Use Moore’s Law

Lesson 15:  Iterate Like Crazy

Lesson 16:  Be Frugal

Lesson 17:  Find your Purpose

Lesson 18:  Culture Eats Strategy

Lesson 19:  Have Laser Focus

Lesson 20:  Make Investors Money

Lesson 21:  Be a Learning Machine

Lesson 22:  Always Be Fundraising

Lesson 23:  Be Transparent

Lesson 24:  Ignore Sunk Costs

Lesson 25:  Embrace Diversity

Trillions of Questions, No Easy Answers | A Google Documentary

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

I watched a Google documentary titled Trillions of Questions, No Easy Answers. A very captivating and insightful look into how Google Search works, key people who are behind it, changes it has made overtime, and how it continues to evolve as it tackles spam, misinformation, and more.

Recommended watch if you are interested to learn more about Google search, how Search actually happens, and the processes the team takes to make it continuously better!

Which muscles are getting exercised?

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Creativity gets better when creative muscles are getting exercised.

Writing gets better when writing muscles are getting exercised.

Presentation gets better when presentation muscles are getting exercised.

Painting gets better when painting muscles are getting exercised.

Dribbling gets better when dribbling muscles are getting exercised.

You get the idea!

 

Excellent Work Quality

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

For our work quality to be excellent, we have to focus on more than the work itself.

To get the most out of your focused time at work or craft, we need to get plentiful rest, energy, and “intentional” time away from work. If you feel the most productive in the mornings, you should do your important and high priority work in the morning times. You can take care of the not as important or other priority tasks in the second half of the day. Likewise, if you feel the most productive in the evenings, you should do the important and high priority work in the evening times and do the not as important or other priority tasks in the first half of the day. You organize your day based on how you work best!

In addition, finding and doing recreational activities beyond our work enables us to be more energized and creative when we get back to the work again. Great creative ideas can sometimes come when you’re moved away from work or not thinking about work all the time. Natural sunlight, walks, music, arts, healthy food, meaningful relationships, and many more contribute to producing excellent work quality.

How do you bring about the best version of yourself everyday?

Characteristics for Excellent Customer Success

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

No matter what industry, product/service your company sells, your company stage and more, there are certain characteristics that are foundational to providing excellent customer success.

Empathy.

Care.

Positive Attitude.

Proactive.

Creative.

Open minded.

Organized.

Team work.

Flexible.

What more would you like to add?

 

 

Travel Tips from Road Trips

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Road trips are fun and adventurous with a good group, couple or on our own.

If we’re driving to a destination, we can choose some places to stop along the way that interests us : local eats, city attractions, must-see locations/landmarks and other interest(s) we have.

A good mix of planned activities/stops along the way and unplanned stops to see if certain locations/ landmarks seem exciting can make the journey memorable.

Few good music playlists, podcasts, and audio books can make the travel fun and entertaining.

Packing healthy snacks and drinks provides needed fuel and energy to our body!

Useful college workshops

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Workshops that could provide tremendous value to current college students especially after they graduate are:

Financial Management

Priority Management

Skills Development

Health and Fitness

Leadership

Networking

Are workshops the way to go?

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Workshops are focused, interactive, and the results can be immediate.

With the current pace of technological advancements, workshops are more effective than year long programs to get faster and effective results.

The format of workshops enables participants to learn a new skill, become more knowledgeable about a topic/subject, interact with other team members etc. in a short time frame.

Online workshops can be as effective as in person workshops and can have participants from various parts of the world.

Which workshop(s) have you attended recently or planning to participate in?

Beauty of Simplicity

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – Leonardo da Vinci

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. – Albert Einstein

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The commonplace about Italian cooking is that it’s very simple; in practice, the simplicity needs to be learned, and the best way to learn it is to go to Italy and see it firsthand. – Bill Buford

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is. – Bruce Lee

Productive from home

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

How will the current and future of work look like? Is the hybrid work model here to stay?

Mark Ma, an associate professor of business administration for Pitt Business, and Yuye Ding, a Ph.D. student in Katz Graduate School of Business, looked at Standard and Poor’s 500 firms — the largest companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges — that had implemented return to work mandates, forcing employees to be in the office five days a week.

The results from the research study showed that while many of the companies said they were bringing employees back to the office to improve the bottom line, there were no significant changes in financial performance or firm values after the mandates were implemented. However, there was a sharp decrease in employees’ job satisfaction.

To keep employees’ happy and still maintain strong financial performance, companies should be more flexible and allow employees to work from home depending on their work nature, product/service, customers, industry etc. If productivity, work quality, and financial performance are not being negatively impacted by employees working from home, companies should allow employees work from home flexibility and provide support to them.

Simple, easy, and best choice!

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

I love chicken wings!

Buffalo, NY has many restaurant and bar options to have the best chicken wings. There are favorite local chains as well as renowned food establishments. We recently visited The Nine-Eleven Tavern located in 9-11 Bloomfield Ave, Buffalo, NY. Established in 1981, the The Nine-Eleven Tavern is a Cash only establishment and opens on Tuesday through Saturday from 4:30pm-8:30pm.

In The Nine-Eleven Tavern’s menu, they offer Chicken wings – Wings are prepared mild, medium, or hot and include celery and bleu cheese or ranch dressing. For the sizes, you can choose 10, 20, 30 or 50 wings. They also offer Finn fries, Pizza Stix, Chicken Fingers, Corned Beef Sandwich and variety of extras. You can also buy a jar of their Wing sauce. I loved the chicken wings served on their special sauce. There’s only one sauce flavor you can pick and their wings are simply the best I’ve had so far!

From The Nine-Eleven Tavern, we can also takeaway some key business pointers.

Why offer too many sauce choices for the wings to customers when you can offer your best sauce and have customers come to enjoy what you serve best?

Why take credit cards if you can only take cash and avoid credit card transaction fees, credit card machines, and other credit cards related hassles that can come up?

Why open the tavern for long hours everyday if you can offer a window for customers to come and enjoy the wings?

Attracting top talent to your company

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

How about sharing your biggest and limitless vision for your idea/company with your team and prospective employees?

One of the single most important reasons for top talented individuals to join a startup, growing company or even a multinational is the vision of the company’s founders or the company’s management/leadership team.

People switch jobs and careers all the time. Besides financial compensation package, benefits, perks etc., the most talented individuals are also looking to work on the biggest challenges, make tangible impact, and leave their own mark along the way. Next time you want to attract the best talent from the job market, share your idea and vision with them. See how that turns out!

Leadership’s role in Culture

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Culture has to be created.

Leaders are responsible for creating the company culture, growing it, and evolving it overtime.

Although each team member contributes to the company culture, a dedicated team is needed to focus on bringing people together through various initiatives and activities.

The leadership team has to also participate in company culture activities so the rest of the team knows that it’s important and active participation is encouraged.

Is the leadership team visible in the company activities that the team has put together? How engaged is your team in company initiatives and activities? Do the same team members show up for all the company activities?

Marketing or Product development – Which first?

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Should you develop your product first or start marketing the idea first?

If the idea has some legs to become a business, building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) first could help. Once you’ve build an MVP, you can test it out with potential customers. Collect feedback from early users of your product/service and continue developing it to create the best value to your product/service users. Marketing the product/service once you’ve built a user base would be prudent.

Product development and marketing will go hand in hand overtime. In the initial stages, product development should be prioritized over marketing. An excellent product/service will always be easier to market!

Running a Tech company

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

In running a tech company, a lot of times the challenge is the company part not the tech.

Tech problems might have easier solutions than people problems.

The tech stack should not be the only focus if you want to build a successfully growing company.

Take care of both the tech and people (more importantly) and you have a chance to make the impact you seek to make!

The Great Nepali Diaspora (TGND) Networking Event on May 2

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Join us at The Great Nepali Diaspora networking event in Buffalo, NY on Thursday, May 2.

The Great Nepali Diaspora (TGND) is a community of exceptional global Nepali talent that aims to nurture connection, collaboration, and camaraderie to create impact at scale. TGND is a non-profit organization registered under Article 501 (c) 3 in the state of New Jersey in the United States.

To register for the May 2 event, please visit this link: https://partiful.com/e/0f2Ywi2TtXP4yXM3j2Vt

Coaching Teams for Global Customer Success

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Multinational companies need to coach their team to handle clients based in different time zones, cultures, languages, and more. Easier said than done. Countless number of hours, sessions, content, and materials are shared internally to help the company’s team to properly and successfully interact with global clients.

A few tips on coaching teams for Customer Success with global clients (North America based):

1. Conduct sessions between team members based in Customer regions and other office locations. If your company’s customers are based in the US and you have a team based in Nepal, then have your Nepal team members interact as much as possible with their US counterparts. Similarly, if your company’s customers are based in Nepal and you have a team based in US, then have your US team members interact as much as possible with their Nepal counterparts. These sessions should focus on cultural greetings, acceptable language and behaviors, ways of doing business in each culture etc.

    2. Inter-office company visits. Organize company visits between your US team and Nepal team members. Nepal based team members will visit the US and learn about US culture and business and vice versa. These cross cultural experiences will add tremendous value to the respective team members and organizing knowledge sharing sessions post the team members’ visit can be fruitful and productive to the rest of the team.

    3. Look outside company’s network for cultural learnings. Besides facilitating ways to internally assist the team members based globally, do look outside your company to find creative ways to provide team members with wider cultural knowledge and experiences. If a team member’s friend or family member is visiting the US or Nepal for a short period or someone is moving to study or work in the US or Nepal, meet them and hear their experiences and share your experiences as well. You’ll get a broader perspective on the culture and it can enrich your cultural knowledge and cultural nuances.

    Everyone agrees with your idea(s)

    Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

    If a team lead/manager or someone in a position of “authority” shares an idea for a new tool/process/policy (or something) and everyone on the team agrees to it without any discussions, questions or feedback, does that mean that idea was flawless?

    If there were no discussions, questions or feedback to the idea shared by the team lead or manager, is the team completely on board or do they feel their feedback does not matter or they did not want to be the “sole” individual who disagreed with the idea or did not have the “authority” to raise their voice in that particular space? No matter how well thought out the idea was by the team lead or manager, there are always areas that can be further polished, improved, or worked on. If you want your idea(s) to be well thought out, it’s important and helpful to have discussions, questions and feedback session with your team.

    If your team always agrees with the idea(s) you share with them without any discussions, questions, or feedback, it would probably be a good time to assess what type of culture you’ve actually created with your team.

    Skills over Location

    Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

    A skilled professional should be respected, valued, and paid as much as someone that can be found in a particular region.

    With remote work and freelancing work becoming more common than ever before, companies have a global talent pool to fill their vacancies. A skilled professional based in the US would generally get paid more than a skilled professional with similar qualifications in South Asia because the argument went that the cost of living in the US was higher so the professional needs to get paid more. Over the span of few decades, companies have been looking for talent in offshore regions for cost savings (primarily), time zones turnaround, work flexibility, proximity to customers etc.

    The talent pool and the job/career marketplace is now global. Companies can have skilled professionals working on their products/services from anywhere in the world and the skilled professionals have a global job/career opportunity pool. Skilled professionals based in South Asia should get paid equally to a professional based in the US if the individual has similar qualifications, work ethic, quality of work produced and such. It’s a win-win for both companies and skilled professionals everywhere!

    Caitlin Clark is worth the money.

    Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

    Pay Caitlin Clark what’s she worth. Nothing less.

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