Nirmal Thapa

Overvaluation of experience

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

Experience matters to a certain degree. In business there is a lot of value placed on experience than education.

I believe that an efficient hiring process is still not part of many businesses. What you put on a resume makes a lot of difference and careful selection of words and sentences helps you get into corporate doors. In fact people make hiring decisions based completely on what they see on a resume. “Oh this person has a lot of experience in sales, Oh this person generated XYZ amount of revenue for the company.” I feel that experience is worth 20% and passion, work ethic and a desire to learn worth 80% in a hiring decision.

With young entrepreneurs popping up left and right in Silicon Valley and beyond, I see a lot of pluses of being young in the game. When you’re young, you’re more of a risk taker, can take more chances and recover quickly. Sometimes past work experiences actually hinder current decisions and having learned that it did not work before, so lets not go there might even cost the company.

So if you’re a young entrepreneur, look for experience but if you can’t get any at current, then gain some experience by working on your idea. If you’re a hiring manager, don’t put over emphasis on experience and actually take a chance on young candidates.

Waiting to execute

Posted on May 15, 2012May 11, 2018 by Nirmal Thapa

A lot of great ideas never see the light of day. This can happen for myriad reasons. Sometimes its the management that takes too much time understanding the idea, at other times it stays in the pipeline for a perfect execution. Yet companies succeed and fail depending on the idea’s execution.

So if you are a decision maker, you have to ask yourself: Should I go ahead and launch the idea and improve it over time or Should I wait till I have perfected the strategy and execute it when its ready? I think some of the best companies know that there is never a perfect time to launch an idea. It’s much more important to adapt and tweak the idea overtime rather than wait and get surprised by the competition. Thus slow and steady does not win the race in this context.

Intuition

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

Intuition is a key trait in business and in personal life. Sometimes you just know that something is right or something is wrong. You just have that feeling inside of you.

When you factor in intuition in your decision making, it creates wonders. A lot of times people make decisions hastily or after much thorough analysis but the ones that factor in intuition in their decision making usually come out of it being more adaptive. I have made countless decisions based on my intuition. A lot of times in life you don’t know what the outcome will be, but somehow your mind and your gut gives you inclination towards one decision than the other. So make intuition a key element of your decision making process.

Nepali: A TV Blog

Posted on May 6, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

“Nepali” is a television programme that deals with all things Nepali. It talks about the broader scope of the Nepali identity, and how these different identities connect us as a people. – YouTube promo of Nepali TV blog[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1gbBodqKS8&feature=relmfu]

This past Thursday evening, I sat down with Yubakar Raj Rajkarnikar at Parakhi’s office. I heard about Yubakar’s new project, Nepali: A TV Blog some time ago. The show currently airs on Avenues TV on Saturday nights at 8:30am. I had prepared a few questions to ask him and looked forward to our meeting. When we met, we talked about his new venture, entrepreneurship and passion among other things.

Nirmal: What is the idea behind the concept of Nepali: A TV Blog?

Yubakar: Actually the content came first more than the format. Overtime I had discussions with people I work with around what represents Nepal. Nepali language does not represent everyone. There are so many things that unify and represent us. I had wanted to do something on print, radio and television. At Y magazine (www.yzine.com.np) back then, we had a competition amongst photographers to select pictures that represented Nepal. We later went to a TV station and suggested the idea which they bought. The idea behind this concept was to discover things that are Nepali and to find out what could be those things that are common to all Nepali. We chose the bike because it is youthful, and we wanted to have an informal style to it so we decided to keep a blog format which could be more appealing to the youth.

Nirmal: How many people are working in your team? Do you have historians working with you?

Yubakar: We have 5 core people on the team (Me, Alok Tuladhar, Vikash Pradhan, Tsering Choden, Laxan Kundan) and three other people who helped us in shooting. Actually we did our research by talking to people, through the internet and books.

Nirmal: Who is your target audience? How are you promoting this venture?

Yubakar: Our target audience is the urban youth. To appeal to this group we have used English script throughout the video; the format itself is a blog so it could be relevant to the group. To promote this venture, besides TV we are promoting it on Facebook, YouTube and the website. Newspapers such as myrepublica, The Himalayan Times, and Annapurna Post have also been very supportive of our project.

Nirmal: How do you come up with where to travel and who to interview?

Yubakar: Actually we chose the locations of where to travel and whom to interview. The TV station gave us full flexibility on that. The TV station funded this project and we spent 4 weeks altogether (2 weeks in the east, 2 weeks in the west) to complete this project.

Nirmal: So What is Nepal all about? Is it easy to define who is a Nepali or what is Nepali?

Yubakar: There are a lot of things that make us unique. We have different names, castes, clothes, food, festivals etc. But, the feelings behind those are what connect us. The happiness behind those activities is the same. I also realized that the Nepali smile is wholehearted and I believe it is uniform with Nepali people. I also feel that the entrepreneurial feeling is common amongst us. At various places that I visited, I found people doing innovative and unique things that I did not know existed before. For example, we found a person who has been running a radio program for 10 years which only does program regarding death. In village areas, it’s hard to get or spread the news of death and the radio program helps in distributing that information so people can move about their lives accordingly.

In the midst of Entrepreneurs for Nepal

Posted on April 4, 2012May 11, 2018 by Nirmal Thapa

Rarely does a Nepalese living abroad hear of amazing groups in Nepal like the Entrepreneurs for Nepal. A group that is dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship in Nepal, Entrepreneurs for Nepal organizes a gathering every Last Thursday of the English month and brings well-known speakers to come and speak to the audience.

On Thursday, March 29th I walked into the United World Trade Center at Tripureshwor with nothing short of excitement. I had heard about the Entrepreneurs for Nepal group when I was abroad and looked forward to attending my first Last Thursdays event. I had high hopes for a session filled with knowledge and inspiration and I got just that.

The speaker for this Thursday was Rajendra Khetan from the Khetan Group, Chairman of Laxmi Bank, Everest Insurance, Prime Life Insurance, Gorkha Brewery and holds other respected positions. I was introduced to Rajendra Khetan by my dad who had known him a few years back. After chatting with other attendees, I sat in the front row keen to hear the speaker.

After an introduction of the Entrepreneurs for Nepal group by the hosts, the main speaker of the night took the stage. Rajendra Khetan gave a power-point presentation and touched on how the Khetan Group started, the organizational structure of the Group, the diversification of the Group and markets they are in. His presentation was very informative and inspiring.

I especially liked the Question and Answer session. The audience asked some very thought-provoking questions and the speaker eloquently and frankly answered them. It was intellectually stimulating to be in the room. Some of the questions addressed to the guest speaker were: Looking at the portfolio of your investments, you’re only focused on service businesses, what about manufacturing? Shouldn’t banks offer more financing options for individuals who do not have much collateral to take out a loan for their business? What are the skills that young people could work on to be ready for the marketplace?

After close to a two hours session, there was a networking reception and attendees could mingle with each other and enjoy some food. I was very happy to have attended this event and I urge and encourage other people (especially young people) to attend them. Who knows what one can learn from attending a FREE event that is full of positivity, inspiration and ambition.

So, if you are living abroad, stay updated through the group’s website (www.e4nepal.com) and if you are coming to Nepal soon then you have to attend a Last Thursdays event. If you are already in Nepal and are interested in listening to innovative ideas, inspiring stories and want to be in a positive environment and network, then I can’t suggest a better gathering than the Entrepreneurs for Nepal group.

Focus on details

Posted on March 17, 2012May 11, 2018 by Nirmal Thapa

Details are important in any business, the ones that pay extra attention to details prevail in the long run. It’s easy to overlook minor things but when you care so much about your product and customers, you don’t compromise. You take the time and fix it.

I find people who focus on details rare. It’s a rare talent to have and hard to teach. People tell you to focus on the bigger picture (the bigger prize) but I say focus on the details. Your customers will know the difference between a company who cares and one who just says that they care. Let your products speak for themselves and let them speak in volumes.

I love to work with people who are detail oriented and do not compromise in quality of their work.

Inflection point in Online Education

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

A New York Times report on August 2009 talks about a study that finds online education beats the classroom. “The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,” said Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International.

We live in a new ecosystem. It will be interesting to observe how new markets adjust to this new shift in learning.

Out of touch?

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

In today’s networked world, it is easy to stay connected with others. Technology has completely changed how we stay in touch these days. With email, Facebook, Skype, magicJack etc, your only an internet access away from being in touch with another person. As people spent a great amount of time online trying to stay connected with others, are we losing that personal one on one touch? Technology should be a medium to maintain that human touch but it should not substitute it.

Fueled by passion

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

It’s gratifying to see an individual fueled by passion. Passion is a rare talent that gets completely overlooked in job interviews. Does the hiring person ever ask: Are you passionate about selling our company’s products? Would you still be willing to do this on weekends if need be?

I suggest that companies ask their prospective hires a simple question: Are you passionate about our company or what we do? This simple question will save the company tremendous amount of time and money especially in the long run. At current, companies are stuck asking boring questions like Tell me about yourself or Tell me about your last job.

When asking this question about passion, you can find out how enthusiastic someone is about the company. Read between the lines of the answer and in some way you can tell whether the person really loves the company or is more interested in just having a job.

Ask them the most important question: Are you fueled by passion?

Online Privacy: That Old Thing You Once Had

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

It is hard to define privacy in today’s world. What is really private? What information does a website collect about you when you visit it? Are you taking part in “market research” without really knowing about it?

People share an awful amount of stuff online. All this data on Facebook, Twitter to blogs and forums reveal something unique about you as a person. As we spent an increasingly higher amount of time online surfing, loads of data is being collected. Whether that collected data is being sold to third parties, you don’t really know until you read the fine print (if you can find it).

As a marketer, I felt obligated to share some information so you know what is really happening when you visit a website. This hopefully should not scare you if you are already on Facebook or Twitter or Amazon or all of them. For example, a website can have StatCounter installed on its site. StatCounter as it states on its title is a Free Invisible Web Tracker, Hit Counter and Web Stats.

Having StatCounter installed on a site will reveal these information:

Page loads, Unique Visits, First time Visits, Returning Visits. You can get more detailed information through tabs such as Entry Pages, Exit Pages, Keyword Analysis, Visit Length, Recent Visitor Activity, Browsers etc.

The Jeremy Lin Show

Posted on February 8, 2012January 23, 2022 by Nirmal Thapa

Who is Jeremy Lin? Basketball fans (especially in New York) are excited to have Jeremy playing point guard for the New York Knicks. In his three starts for the Knicks, he is averaging 25.3 points and 8.3 assists. It seems like everyone is capitalizing on his performance on the court. For the Knicks, Jeremy’s success means more excitement for a team which is now 10-15 , for sports writers they have a nice story to cover. For sports enthusiasts like me, it means more excitement to see the game I already love to watch.

As a student of marketing, I find this overnight pop culture hysteria over Jeremy pretty interesting to observe. You can’t plan to be an overnight celebrity; it happens. The internet is flooded with searches for Jeremy’s game highlights to his background story. This is when people follow the old adage: strike when the iron is hot.

NBA

A must attend classroom

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

Over the past few months, I have been religiously reading Seth’s blog. His simple notes speak volumes. Apart from reading his books, I urge all business students and especially budding marketers to subscribe to Seth’s blog.

Here’s a great post from Seth titled Who is your customer?

Rule one: You can build a business on the foundation of great customer service.

Rule two: The only way to do great customer service is to treat different customers differently.

The question: Who is your customer?

It’s not obvious.

Zappos is a classic customer service company, and their customer is the person who buys the shoes.

Nike, on the other hand, doesn’t care very much at all about the people who buy the shoes, or even the retailers. They care about the athletes (often famous) that wear the shoes, sometimes for money. They name buildings after these athletes, court them, erect statues…

Columbia Records has no idea who buys their music and never has. On the other hand, they understand that their customer is the musician, and they have an entire department devoted to keeping that ‘customer’ happy. (Their other customer was the program director at the radio station, but we know where that’s going…)

Many manufacturers have retailers as their customer. If Wal-Mart is happy, they’re happy.

Apple had just one customer. He passed away last year.

And some companies and politicians choose the media as their customer.

If you can only build one statue, who is it going to be a statue of?

Facebook picks Morgan Stanley to lead IPO

Posted on February 1, 2012May 12, 2018 by Nirmal Thapa

Facebook is filing plans with regulators today to raise $5 billion. The social networking site chose Morgan Stanley to lead its IPO.

The company has chosen FB as its stock symbol. For more detailed information visit Bloomberg

Bloomberg

When Facebook Goes Public…

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Nirmal Thapa

Facebook is planning to go public this year. Mashable Social Media covers Facebook’s status and numbers in great detail-

http://mashable.com/2012/01/11/facebook-ipo-infographic-2/

Key predictions/figures from the article:

Facebook’s IPO will be the biggest of any tech company in history.

More than 1 in 10 humans on earth uses Facebook.

Though it’s 4th in daily visitors, Facebook is 1st in ad revenue.

Feature Story: EXPO

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Nirmal Thapa

I first discovered EXPO at the Silicon Alley Talent Fair (SATF) in Chelsea this past November. I was thrilled to learn about it. In its website, EXPO states “Our mission since 2005 has been to create the largest and most authentic base of product focused videos available.” The Videopinions (video product reviews) consist of thousands and thousands of reviews by real product owners.

Have you given a video review?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OHO8bkOlC4]

Online Networking: Maintaining Professional Relationships

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Nirmal Thapa

Online Networking: maintaining contact with people in your professional network in the online sphere. When we hear of the word “networking”, we generally think of meeting people in a group setting, at a conference or at a professional event. However people are getting more busier and the opportunity to meet that contact again soon becomes much harder. Thus the value of online networking proves critical and needs to be given more attention.

Most of your professional contacts will start at a professional event, conference or a meeting. But to maintain that relationship with the contact, one has to stay in touch. These days social media is omnipresent and online communications seems to be the way to go with event reminders, newsletters and such. It has become ever more important to understand how to best maintain the relationship with a person you met at a convention through online communications. Sometimes you can’t meet in person, and most time you are just too busy with your day to day work that does not allow you to devote considerable time to you physically meet contacts. So here’s the solution.

How can you maintain that professional relationship online? At this time of the year (during for the holidays), you can send an online holiday greeting card or just an email wishing your contacts a Happy Holiday. It does not take much time nor expense but a small gesture can mean a lot to the receiver. Also send interesting articles and blogs to the people in your contact who might be interested to read them. If I know someone likes to try Colombian food, I can forward him/her a news piece on a new Colombian restaurant that opened in my neighborhood. Last but not least you can just write an email to a professional contact asking them how they are doing. People are so busy these days that if someone just stops and ask them how they are doing, they will definitely remember you.

Facebook Said to Plan IPO at $100B Valuation

Posted on November 29, 2011May 12, 2018 by Nirmal Thapa

Facebook Inc. is considering raising about $10 billion in an initial public offering that would value the world’s largest social-networking site at more than $100 billion, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

The company may file for the IPO before the end of the year, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. Exact timing for the filing hasn’t been determined, the person said.

Source: Bloomberg

A Twitter Conversation with Marius Arter (Founder of Arniko Skateboards)

Posted on November 27, 2011May 11, 2018 by Nirmal Thapa

On the eve of Thanksgiving, I opened my laptop and logged into Twitter account of Parakhi. I had been excited about this moment for a few days now. I had been promoting this event on Twitter and Facebook pages of Parakhi, personal emails to friends and phone calls to people who would be interested in this. I wanted to cover Arniko because the idea of skateboarding in Nepal is still a new concept and more people should know about the cool work that Arniko is doing.

I emailed Marius a week ago to do this interview. The chance to do an interview over Twitter was appealing because it would be engaging our followers and making this conversation interactive, fun and different. We talked over Twitter and below are most of our conversation. My Twitter handle was @theparakhi and Marius was using the handle @arniko. When I wanted to message Marius, I would write @arniko and then state my point. For example: @arniko Thanks for joining us today. I used #parakhichat so people could follow our conversation by typing that hashtag on Twitter. Actual tweets can only be sent in 140 characters. I have combined tweets so its fluid for this blog. You can read the whole conversation by visiting our Twitter page.

@arniko Welcome to the Twitter chat with Parakhi #parakhichat
@theparakhi Namaste!
@arniko Namaste to you as well. Thanx for joining us here. We are very excited to talk to you (on the eve of Thanksgiving)
@theparakhi Thank you for the invitation!

@arniko How did you take your skateboarding hobby into making a company?
@theparakhi Actually I did not really planned to make a business out of it. I went to Nepal
a few years ago to try if I am able to produce skateboards in Nepal. So after three month
I had two boards which I brought to Switzerland. Everyone liked it very much. So I came
back to produce more. After a while it became a business.

@arniko How big is the company in terms of people working there in Nepal? In Switzerland?
@theparakhi In Nepal there are around ten people who are working for Arniko. In Switzerland we are a team with twelve members.

@arniko The response for Arniko has been great in Switzerland..what about in Nepal? Is there demand in other markets?
@theparakhi In Nepal we have about 70% foreign customers and 30% local people. The skateboard scene in Nepal is rising in Nepal so we think that there is potential in growing and getting more Nepali customers.

@arniko Wishing you all the best in establishing the park. Now lets talk clothes..are they made or designed in Nepal also?
@theparakhi Yes, so far we produce everything in Nepal.

@arniko You have a lot of dealers in Switzerland. In Nepal you sell through your store. Are you looking for dealers in Nepal?
@theparakhi No. We are fine to sell our stuff by our own, but maybe in the future we open another shop in Pokhara/Nepal.

@arniko Saw pictures of your store..it is unique and hip who designed it?
@theparakhi I designed it and made the things for the store by myself. That was easy for me because I am a carpenter.

@arniko Fantastic. Are you looking to expand into the US? Do you currently have customers from the US?
@theparakhi We get orders from the US and of course we ship there as well. If I get time I will go to California and do a shop tour.

@arniko We would like to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to do this interview and fun chat.
@theparakhi Thank you very much for your interest!!!
@arniko We had a great time learning more about Arniko and wish Arniko all the best going forward.

Feature Story: SecondMarket

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Nirmal Thapa

As Barry E. Silbert, CEO of SecondMarket describes in the video, SecondMarket is a secondary marketplace for the trillion of dollars of alternative investments that are out there. In particular, SecondMarket has created a marketplace for private company stocks like Facebook, Twitter etc.

I first heard of SecondMarket when I was reading BusinessInsider’s 2010 The 20 Hot New York City Startups You Need to Watch. SecondMarket was one of them. At that point I did not read too much into it but these days SecondMarket has been getting a lot of press. I recently signed up to receive updates from SecondMarket and enjoy following its success.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrUSE5KktIw&feature=related]

Have you used SecondMarket? What are your thoughts on it?

Author: Nirmal Thapa