Rajesh Jain

“Startup to Proficorn” Book Feedback – 2

Here is Part 1 of the feedback my book has been receiving. The book has a 4.8 star rating (on a scale of 5) from 35 global ratings.

REVIEWS ON AMAZON [here]

Anup Das

“Startup to Proficorn: A Private, Bootstrapped, Profitable, and Highly Valuable Venture” by Rajesh Jain is a captivating journey into the world of entrepreneurship, offering a treasure trove of knowledge for both seasoned business owners and budding entrepreneurs. With a storytelling prowess that keeps readers engrossed, author shares the invaluable components of success derived from his own remarkable experiences.

The book stands out for its practical approach, providing a step-by-step roadmap to convert dreams into viable ideas, build a resilient team, attract paying customers, and manage finances effectively, all without the reliance on external funding. Author’s candid accounts of failures and triumphs serve as powerful lessons, helping readers overcome challenges they may face in their own entrepreneurial pursuits.

What makes this book truly exceptional is its holistic perspective. In addition to providing insights into building profitable ventures, Jain emphasizes the significance of sustainable habits and creating a fulfilling life as an entrepreneur.

Author’s writing is accessible, making complex concepts easily understandable. The book’s seamless readability and comprehension make it a must-read for anyone seeking entrepreneurial success.

In conclusion, “Startup to Proficorn” is a transformative guide that not only leads entrepreneurs towards prosperity but also inspires personal growth and excellence. Rajesh Jain’s invaluable wisdom and practical advice are indispensable tools for carving a path to success and fulfillment, making this book a true gem in the realm of entrepreneurship literature.

Amar Naik

Drawing from his own experience as a serial tech entrepreneur, Rajesh Jain book “Startup to Proficorn”is an insightful book that acts as great guide for launching and scaling successful startups without the need for external funding

The author’s personal experiences make this book an interesting read. These learnings provide valuable guidance for overcoming the challenges that entrepreneurs will likely face in their journey. Some of these practical tips are better learnt from this book rather than spending time on self learning or trying on your own thus saving valuable time/resources for any entrepreneurs.

The book’s individual chapters address various aspects of the entrepreneurial journey, enabling easy navigation and providing a useful reference for readers. Author also emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach, offering readers both the tools for business success and insights into personal growth and well-being which is a more sustainable way of surviving the ups and downs in the longer run.

Moumita Deb

The book has insights into the right way in which one’s business can start the journey becoming a Proficorn. It has definitions and explanations about the business growth strategy, how the author has implemented all of these strategies in his business and made huge profits.
This is a quick read to gain knowledge about startup business or how to become a profitable company.

Harsh

This book is a complete toolkit for aspiring entrepreneurs and young and new-age startups. One of the most striking features of this book, which I admire the most, is that it doesn’t only guide and deliver information to aspiring entrepreneurs; instead, it also serves as a review opportunity for well-established businesses and seasoned entrepreneurs.

Although there are many books piled up when it comes to the topic of entrepreneurship and new-age startups being established, However, this book is quite unique in terms of what it delivers to the readers.

The author has successfully managed to deliver all the important concepts of entrepreneurship while sticking to the basics of business and delivering value to society.

He has emphasised a lot over the importance of managing finances as well as the cultural outlook of a startup or business in the modern entrepreneurial world.

Monidapa Dutta

What sets this book apart is the author’s ability to weave personal stories from his own life, which are filled with both failures and successes. Through these anecdotes, Jain provides relatable and practical guidance for overcoming the challenges that entrepreneurs are bound to face along their journey, regardless of their current stage. By sharing his experiences and lessons learned over three decades, Jain equips readers with the tools and knowledge necessary to navigate the path to startup success.

Jain’s expertise shines through as he unveils startup success secrets and highlights potential pitfalls to watch out for when managing one’s own venture. His insights go beyond the typical startup advice, as he also emphasizes the importance of cultivating sustainable habits and creating a better life as a full-fledged entrepreneur. This holistic approach demonstrates Jain’s deep understanding of the entrepreneurial journey and his desire to guide readers toward both professional and personal fulfillment.

One of the most refreshing aspects of “Startup to Proficorn” is its focus on bootstrapping and profitability. Jain challenges the notion that external funding and investor involvement are the only paths to success, providing a refreshing alternative perspective. By sharing his own experiences and strategies, Jain empowers readers to convert their dreams into viable ideas, build effective teams, attract paying customers, and manage cashflows with confidence.

In summary, “Startup to Proficorn” is a must-read for anyone seeking to launch or scale their own startup. Rajesh Jain’s wealth of experience, coupled with his engaging storytelling style, makes this book an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs at any stage of their journey. Through this comprehensive guide, readers will gain practical insights, actionable advice, and inspiration to navigate the challenges and achieve success on their own terms.

Sagar Naskar

The book offers a step-by-step guide for developing aspirations into workable ideas, putting together a solid team, attracting paying clients, and efficiently handling cash flows. Jain frankly recounts the lessons he learnt along the road through personal accounts of his failures and accomplishments, offering essential advice to overcome the difficulties faced while embarking on an entrepreneurial path.

Jain’s ability to condense his three decades of expertise into helpful guidance is one of the book’s highlights. He provides readers with startup success tips and warns them about typical traps to avoid when operating their own businesses. The book is a fun and interesting read because of its practical approach and realistic experiences.

Jain stresses the value of sustainable habits and building a better life as a full-fledged entrepreneur in addition to the business components. “Startup to Proficorn” stands out for its wholistic approach, which provides readers with both the business success tools and insights into personal growth and joy.

Because of the writing’s clarity, conciseness, and accessibility, it is appropriate for both inexperienced and seasoned business owners. Each chapter of the book covers a different component of the entrepreneurial path, which makes it simple to navigate and use as a reference.

LINKEDIN

Radhakrishnan K

Unmesh Patil

1. How to Build a Proficorn?
2. Is It a Binary Choice Between Profit or Growth?
3. What Do You Do with Profits? Once you’ve achieved profitability,
what’s next?
Are a some of the issues that entrepreneurs always had…
The book “Startup to Proficorn,” authored by our very own Netcore Cloud founder Rajesh Jain , replies and shares three decades of business expertise, and I’m pleased to tell you about it!
The book reveals the crucial principles discovered while developing a “proficorn”—a business that successfully balances profitability and expansion.

Grab a copy of “Startup to Proficorn” right away, and start your transformational reading journey. This book is a vital tool that will inspire, educate, and equip you to grow your startup to new heights whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or an experienced business leader.

Amit Bhateja

Startup to Proficorn is #mustread book for anyone who has a dream, courage and passion to start a business.

In this book there are 10 Golden questions for entrepreneurs :-

1. Figure out how much cash you really have?
2. Figure out how much time you really have?
3. Pick a domain and go deep 🌈
4. Surround yourself with experienced and positive people 🫂
5. Find Angel investors only if required 🕵️
6. Figure out who you want to look like in five years 📈💹🌱🪴
7. Get Customers as customers are the oxygen for business 🧬
8. Learn everything you can about what you are about to do!
9. Figure out the fallback plan and be ready for failure 💔
10. Figure out what to do if you fail ( Face your fears before you start) 🏔️🌍

Starting as an entrepreneur is not a easy decision.

it’s

Mountains beyond Mountains 🏔️
Mountain requires courage, determination and stamina and of course some #luck!
Understand today’s challenges and prepare for tomorrow uncertainties.
The more you chase money, the further it runs away from you.

Keep going🏃🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️
Go S-L-O-W-L-Y 🐢🐢
Work Hard 🏋️🏋️
Follow your Passion🚢🛳️
Ego is the closest enemy. Keep it aside. 🍳
Be Positive!
Be strong!
Respect your Time and others Time too!
Keep moving and be ready for daily shots 🎥🎦🎬🎬
There is always a tomorrow 🔦

P.S – Keep meeting new people as we see the world through their eyes! 🌐🌏🌎🌍🗺️
Your promises don’t make you a better person, your commitment does 🌈

OTHER COMMENTS

Excellent for young and aspiring entrepreneurs

Your book, like these other two books, was contextually very relevant for me as I begin my journey as an Entrepreneur. Thank you for sharing your experiences and deep insights in great detail.

I had expected it to be a book on entrepreneurship and it really took me by surprise as for me it came across more as a book on life

Thinks 938

LawLiberty: “Some books become good friends. They not only stimulate our minds, but they also speak to our very souls. The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism, by Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi, is such a book. The two authors do everything humanly possible to uncover and reveal the deepest roots of modern and post-modern libertarianism, tracing its very diverse and tenuous strands back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, noting that, ultimately, it’s a radical form of classical liberalism. At one level, it’s a biography of the very idea of libertarianism, but at another level, it’s an intellectual autobiography of anyone who considers him- or herself libertarian.”

Michael Munger: “After taxes are taken from your income, you spend some of it. And save the rest. Unsurprisingly, people with very high incomes spend a large amount, but save a large percentage, of their after-tax incomes. These savings are not isolated from the economy, buried in old mayonnaise jars in the garden, or stuffed under mattresses. This wealth, the accumulation of income not taxed or spent on consumption, is invested. Liquidity is the human growth hormone of the capitalist economy, directed toward potentially profitable opportunities to convert abstract purchasing power (money) into actual productive resources (factories, software, bricks and mortar stores, and online platforms). Now, from that foundation, how should we think about a wealth tax? An income tax takes a part of the flow of income in a given year, so a wealth tax is targeting the stock of savings left over from income that has already been taxed once. It goes like this: “You have money left after your income is taxed, and you spend part of the money? Give us some of that.” Later: “Wait, you still have money? Give us some.” Forever. That’s a wealth tax.”

Martin Wolf: “The extraordinary power enjoyed by Europeans and the US, their potent progeny, is dwindling. Not surprisingly, what we call Asia, close to half of the human population and home to some of the world’s historic civilisations, is leading the change. Barring catastrophes, this is also likely to continue. The world economy’s centre of gravity is simply shifting east. Asia then will be hugely economically and politically important. But it will also have highly significant internal rivalries and difficulties of its own. There will be no collective Asian “will”, other than for societies to pursue their own paths. Meanwhile, the west needs to get two contrasting thoughts into its collective head. First, it must deal with the world as it is. Second, it must defend the best of its values, notably democracy and individual freedom, regardless of what anybody else in the world thinks.”

Adam Smith quotes in honour of his 300th birthday from Reason. One of them: “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

FT: “AI has the potential to help take us beyond this world of asset price levitation and debt-dependent growth through its capacity to improve productivity. Dario Perkins of TS Lombard suggests that two mechanisms will drive this improvement. First, AI can make current processes more efficient. It is already helping workers make better informed decisions, optimise their processes and remove mundane tasks. The resulting increase in the efficiency of the workforce should boost overall output. And then AI can help workers invent new things, make new discoveries and generate technological progress that can raise future productivity. Meantime a number of studies have shown that Generative AI, which is capable of self-learning and performing several tasks, will boost the efficiency of workers and companies that use it.” More: “Researchers at Morgan Stanley say US productivity is “poised to rebound”, in part because demographic trends, combined with government “friendshoring” policies, will make it harder for multinationals to tap a global pool of cheap labour and force them to automate. An AI-focused “productivity revolution” could be broader than that seen after the introduction of personal computers, they suggested in a recent note, with sectors such as retail and manufacturing “primed to invest”.”

Worldbuilding, Storytelling and Entrepreneurship (Part 8)

Advice to Entrepreneurs

In worldbuilding, you are creating an entire world from scratch. You need to come up with a backstory, a geography, a history, and a culture. You need to think about the different types of people who might live in this world, and the challenges they might face.

In entrepreneurship, you are also creating something new. You are starting a business from scratch, and you need to come up with a product or service that people want. You need to think about the market, the competition, and how you can make your business stand out.

Worldbuilding and entrepreneurship are two seemingly different concepts, but they actually have a lot in common. Both require creativity, problem-solving skills, and the ability to think outside the box.

Here are some suggestions for entrepreneurs to incorporate worldbuilding and storytelling in their ventures.

Identify Your Vision: The first step is to understand the world you want to create. What problem are you solving? What change do you want to see in the world? How will your product or service contribute to that change? Your vision is the foundation of your worldbuilding and storytelling efforts. For example, with IndiaWorld, my vision was of Indians worldwide connected to each other, content, and products. With Email Shops, my vision is where the inbox becomes a mall, a shopping cart, and a payment instrument.
Understand Your Audience: Who are the inhabitants of your new world? They could be your customers, investors, employees, or any other stakeholders. What are their needs, desires, and fears? Understanding your audience allows you to tailor your world and your story to resonate with them. Each target audience may need a version of the story tailored to their problems and needs.
Build Your World: Start building the features of your world. How does it work? How does it solve the problem you identified? What makes it unique? Create demos to show, rather than tell. If possible, make people experience the new world you are creating themselves. With AMP, I have people play a quiz or do a search on their mobile right inside their email inbox – that’s when the blinkers disappear.
Craft Your Story: Use the details of your world to craft a compelling narrative. Connect your world’s features to the problem it solves and the change it brings. Make your audience the protagonist of your story, showing them how your world can transform their lives. Going back to the Email Shops example, I ask people how removing the friction of the clickthrough will change their browsing and purchase behaviour.
Share Your Story: Use every channel available to you – your website, social media, public speaking opportunities, press releases, and more. Engage with your audience, listen to their feedback, and continue to refine your story. It is what I do with the blog – I write to help me think better and create material I can share internally to make others see the world we are trying to build through my lens.

Worldbuilding and storytelling are thus indispensable tools in an entrepreneur’s arsenal. They allow entrepreneurs to not just envision and build new realities, but also bring others along on their journey. In the rapidly changing landscape of business and innovation, these skills can make the difference between success and failure. They help entrepreneurs – and the inhabitants (customers) – climb “mountains beyond mountains.”

Thinks 937

Prithwiraj Choudhury, Ina Ganguli & Patrick Gaul: “We study migration in the right tail of the talent distribution using a novel dataset of Indian high school students taking the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), a college entrance exam used for admission to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). We find a high incidence of migration after students complete college: among the top 1,000 scorers on the exam, 36% have migrated abroad, rising to 62% for the top 100 scorers. We next document that students who attended the original “Top 5” Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) were 5 percentage points more likely to migrate for graduate school compared to equally talented students who studied in other institutions. We explore two mechanisms for these patterns: signaling, for which we study migration after one university suddenly gained the IIT designation; and alumni networks, using information on the location of IIT alumni in U.S. computer science departments.”

Jennifer Ackerman: “To my mind, the real gift of an owl’s stealth is the example it sets for how to be in the world. Owls invite us to move through life more quietly, to still ourselves, to notice sights and sounds that might otherwise go unnoticed. For owls, quiet invisibility is a defense or disguise. For us, it’s a privilege, one that — if we’re lucky — may yield an owl sighting.”

Jony Ive: “For many people, the creative process can be an unfamiliar one. So people often try to institutionalize the process, as if, like many activities, you can just review it on a spreadsheet. They want to say, if we apply more people and you give us this amount of time, this is where we’ll end up. Now, there is a bunch of engineering activity that’s like that. In software, for instance, when you’re trying to fix bugs, there can be some quite predictable parts of the process. In general, however, I think there has to be acceptance and engagement with the fact that the creative process is fabulously unpredictable. A great idea cannot be predicted. You can increase the probability of having a good idea, which is the reason I pay so much attention to the creative process. It’s also partly for my sanity, to deal with that feeling of, “Oh, I’m here again, and I’m staring at a blank piece of paper.” I take enormous encouragement, and massive solace, in reminding myself how many times I’ve been in this position, where I feel that there are no ideas and I feel horribly stuck, and I keenly feel the burden and responsibility of the people that are waiting.”

Steven Sinofsky: “The simplest definition of a platform is a technology that serves as an ingredient for the success of others but is so important that it achieves recognition and a market position on its own. The market position is such that there are many attempting to offer the same complete product or service, but the platform defines the not-so-secret ingredient upon which most, or even all, of the end-products or services rely…Perhaps the most ubiquitous modern productivity tool is the spreadsheet which at first did not seem to be a platform but was “just an app” or even a “killer app [for a platform]” but definitely not a platform itself. Over time spreadsheets added programmable macros and even very complex add-in architectures requiring professional programming, but compared to just using a spreadsheet these tasks did not dominate. Still, the spreadsheet is a platform. It serves as a foundational ingredient for the whole of finance, consulting, science, and more broadly analysis, not to mention tracking everything in most every job category. Today, people engineer work processes around spreadsheets baking them into final goods and services.”

R Jagannathan: “Political and public mindsets must change if growth is to be sustained without compromising on basic social safety nets, public health and education. First, the state must consciously curtail its growth, and non-state actors, community organisations and charities should be encouraged to fill the gaps in welfare. This implies that while personal taxes must be cut, the resources for welfare must be raised through private agencies — something that a corrupt Left-liberal system will try to scuttle. Second, as mentioned above, the focus must shift from public sector job creation to entrepreneurship and self-employment. Technology or no technology, enhancing livelihoods is as important as creating an environment for jobs. This implies that the informal sector, and a formal middle sector — the equivalent of Germany’s Mittelstand — must become the main engines of jobs and livelihoods. Third, as a corollary to the above, we must thus rethink our approach to taxation. In a low-trust society like India’s, high personal taxes are a strict no-no. People will accept high taxation only as long as they see where their money is going, and especially whether it is going to “people like us”.”

Worldbuilding, Storytelling and Entrepreneurship (Part 7)

Getting Started

The first step in entrepreneurial worldbuilding is imagining a future reality that solves a problem or improves a situation in a significant way. This vision is grounded in understanding the market, the customer, and the technology landscape. It’s about seeing possibilities where others see limitations.

Next comes the task of constructing this world. Entrepreneurs do this by developing innovative products, services, or business models. It’s about creating the infrastructure, systems, and rules that define how this new world operates. For instance, when Airbnb was founded, it didn’t merely create a platform for people to rent out their homes. It envisioned and built a world where travel was more personal, affordable, and local – or as Brian Chesky put it recently, a “physical social network.”

However, a world, no matter how well-constructed, remains lifeless without inhabitants. This is where storytelling comes into play. Entrepreneurs need to articulate their vision in a way that resonates with different stakeholders – be it co-founders, employees, investors, or customers. Reading and watching science-fiction, playing games, mindwandering, writing – these are what you will find in an entrepreneur’s toolbox.

A good entrepreneurial story is not just about what the product does, but why it matters. It paints a picture of a better future and positions the product or service as a means to that end. It humanises the company, making it easier for people to connect with its mission.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he didn’t just talk about its features. He painted a picture of a world where communication, entertainment, and information were seamlessly integrated into a single device. He told a story that resonated with people’s desires and aspirations, making the iPhone not just a product, but a key to a better, more convenient life.

Moreover, the most effective stories are often the ones that tap into universal human experiences and emotions. They present the company’s mission as a shared journey, where every stakeholder is a crucial participant. This narrative strategy is powerful because it makes people feel a part of something bigger than themselves.

Entrepreneurs thus need to become storytellers – imagining and even living in the future. They are building for a world a few years ahead because that is what it takes to go from an idea to customers. That world must be alive in their mind all through this time. Entrepreneurs compete for different visions of the future. Battles are first won by the stories because that is what the early adopters buy into.

But storytelling isn’t a one-time act. As the world evolves, so must the narrative. Entrepreneurs need to continually update their stories to reflect new developments, challenges, and opportunities. They need to keep the narrative engaging and relevant, maintaining the connection with their audience.

Thinks 936

FT: “The first management lesson [Hayes] Barnard says he learnt was that “leadership is measured by followship”. But when he set out this plan, an unnerving number of the people he led did not follow. “About half the organisation thought ‘this guy’s out of his mind’ and left,” he recalls. Most people dislike change, he argues, and “it was too bold of an idea”. The fact that hundreds of people who had worked with Barnard for years could not see the opportunity that he did raised a question: how does someone with his entrepreneurial drive make it infectious? “The truth is, you don’t,” he says bluntly, estimating that 80 per cent of people “don’t have an entrepreneurial bone in their body”. “I used to try to shake them up and push them to be like me,” he admits, “and the reality is, no, that’s not what they want to do. They want security.””

What will GPT-2030 look like? byJacob Steinhardt. “How can we be less surprised by developments in machine learning? Our brains often implicitly make a zeroth-order forecast: looking at the current state of the art, and adding on improvements that “feel reasonable”. But what “seems reasonable” is prone to cognitive bias, and will underestimate progress in a fast-moving field like ML. A more effective approach is first-order forecasting: quantifying the historical rate of progress and extrapolating it forward, while also considering reasons for possible slowdowns or speedups.”

Dilip Mandal: “What was happening in Europe and the US when the Mughals were ruling large parts of India, between 1526 and 1757? Our shahenshahs, kings, and nawabs were preoccupied with consolidating their power, fighting battles, and constructing magnificent palaces, forts, and mausoleums. But there was no big scientific leap in the Mughal era. In sharp contrast, Europe experienced seismic shifts during the same period. The Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment reshaped the continent, heralding unprecedented advancements in the natural sciences, technology, political thought, and philosophy. The advent of the printing press in the 15th century democratised knowledge, fostering literacy, and stimulating intellectual and scientific exchanges. The Reformation and the rise of humanism encouraged critical thinking and promoted empirical methods of inquiry. Regrettably, the Mughal Empire, while artistically vibrant, did not witness a similar scientific revolution.”

Jane Shaw Stroup: “The elevation out of poverty did not come about because of “take-off” or “balanced growth” or any such thing. As Connors, Gwartney, and Montesinos make clear, cost-reducing innovations—from the container ship to the internet—created a transportation-communication revolution that boosted the volume and extent of trade around the world. Trade itself increases wealth, but more trade had other effects as well: It led to greater labor specialization, rewarded entrepreneurship and good business management, and pressured governments to adopt better policies. And it even led to a “virtuous cycle of economic development.” As wages increased, families had fewer children (the opportunity cost of bringing them up had risen). This meant that a higher proportion of the population was in the prime working ages and had greater interest in developing human capital through education and skills training. These improvements built upon themselves. So, while prominent economists were spinning their unsatisfying theories and lamenting the vicious cycle of poverty, the world got better—on its own.”

Edward Chancellor: “Why were the credit systems of so many different countries, from Australia to Iceland, so vulnerable at the time [of the 2007-09 recession]? The unifying factor appears to be the low-interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve at the turn of the century, which, owing to the special position of the dollar as the global reserve currency, created conditions for a credit boom that engulfed much of the world’s economy. Prior to the crisis, global interest rates were negative in real terms and far below the growth rate of the world’s economy…. There is no need to appeal to ad hoc explanations: easy money produced the boom and the boom was followed by the inevitable bust.” [via CafeHayek]

Worldbuilding, Storytelling and Entrepreneurship (Part 6)

New Futures

Entrepreneurs are the authors of reality, the architects of the future, much like the creators of Middle Earth or the Star Wars galaxy. They envision a world not yet in existence and take bold steps to bring it to life. The parallel between worldbuilding in literature and entrepreneurship isn’t merely symbolic – it’s strikingly practical and tangible.

Consider Elon Musk, who is steadfastly striving to make humans an interplanetary species through SpaceX. His worldbuilding involves the literal formation of a new society on Mars. Or think of Jeff Bezos, who, with Amazon, has redefined the concept of shopping, creating a world where virtually anything can be delivered to your doorstep. Now, through his venture Blue Origin, he also aims to help humanity explore and inhabit space. These entrepreneurs don’t just imagine new worlds, they set out to construct them.

For entrepreneurs, worldbuilding is a necessary part of their work, but it is storytelling that brings these worlds to life for the rest of us. Stories make the vision comprehensible, relatable, and engaging. They bridge the gap between the reality of today and the possibilities of tomorrow. Entrepreneurs tell stories to illustrate their vision, to inspire their teams, to convince investors, and to persuade customers.

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, was a master storyteller. When he introduced the iPhone in 2007, he didn’t just present a new product; he painted a picture of a world where a single device could be your phone, your music player, and your connection to the internet. He told a compelling story of transformation that made people eager to be a part of that new world. (I was so persuaded that I bought an iPhone from Apple’s New York store within weeks of its launch. A friend helped do the jailbreak to ensure I could use it with an Indian SIM.)

Similarly, when I envisaged how email shops could revolutionize the inbox experience, it wasn’t just about the concept or the technology. I had to imagine and describe a world where consumers could have a seamless shopping experience right from their inbox, where brands could get more from their existing customers, reduce their ad waste, and increase profitability. This narrative is as important as the idea itself, if not more so.

Worldbuilding and storytelling are thus two sides of the same coin, and entrepreneurs must excel in both to succeed. But there’s a third element that’s equally crucial – belief. Entrepreneurs must believe in the world they’re building, in the story they’re telling. Their conviction fuels their journey and inspires others to join them.

Entrepreneurs leading the charge in this era of accelerating change are the worldbuilders of our time. They see beyond the linear, grasp the potential of the exponential, and weave narratives that make the rest of us believe in a future that’s not just possible, but imminent. And as they shape this future, they continue the grand tradition of worldbuilding, crafting not just products or services, but whole new realities. Worldbuilding and entrepreneurship bridged by storytelling is what has always moved our lives forward and futures better.

Thinks 935

Vasant Dhar: “While India goes online, its bureaucratic processes that involve verification and controls are much harder to change. Administrative systems require controls to ensure they run correctly. But controls in India typically involve the heavy hand of its bureaucracy that require multiple verifications of all kinds of things that keep changing. This has created a massive asymmetry of power between the state and society. I’m reminded of James Robinson’s theory in his book The Narrow Corridor, which argues that strong democracies with a high state capacity maintain a healthy balance of power between the state and the people through strong trusted institutions. India doesn’t have it. Robinson argues that the Indian state reinforces an ossified caste-based social structure – “a cage of norms” – that limits its capacity to govern well. But I’ll go one step further and argue that Indian citizens are complicit in accepting and even encouraging corruption as a way of life.”

Mark Skousen: “If Adam Smith were alive today, he would be appalled by the never-ending federal deficits and out-of-control national debt. He would likely disapprove of the size of the welfare state and the military–industrial complex. He would probably be disappointed to see the U.S. tax code at around 7,000 pages, or about 75,000 pages if Treasury regulations are included in the total. The bloated bureaucracy would likely remind him of the mercantilist policies of his age. It’s easy to become pessimistic. But perhaps we can learn something from Adam Smith, who was the ultimate optimist. Nearly 250 years ago, he wrote, “The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition . . . is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration.””

Ross Douthat: “There are two possible futures for the virtual reality headset. In one, it remains an expensive, niche product used in specialized ways by hard-core gamers, remote workers looking for an edge and digital engineers and artists seeking absolute immersion in their work. In the other, the headset gradually displaces the smartphone as a normal means of interacting with virtual reality in public and semipublic settings: Subways are crowded with headset-wearers, spouses sit with his-and-hers headsets on the couch at night, nursing home common rooms are filled with seniors lost in V.R.-mediated memories, teenagers hang out headsetted in basements or (more likely) just “hang out” virtually from the safety of their own bedrooms, showing up as avatars inside one another’s goggles. Obviously, Apple, Meta and Google are all invested in the second future. The big money in Silicon Valley comes from controlling crucial platforms and getting other companies to pay for the privilege of having their programs or apps allowed inside, and if enough people migrate to the metaverse then the winner of the headset wars will be the king of infinite money as well as infinite virtual space.”

The Hill: “Price controls have never actually succeeded in combatting inflation. Instead, they have sown the seeds of dangerously anti-competitive markets and structural impediments to economic growth in the medium and long term. As economist Pierre Lemieux explains, price caps cause shortages, increasing the quantity demanded of a good while reducing its supply. As a result, sellers invest less in the production of the good, leading to an inefficient undersupply of the product in the future, to the detriment of consumers.”

Annie Dillard: “There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading — that is a good life.” [via Shane Parrish]

Worldbuilding, Storytelling and Entrepreneurship (Part 5)

My Worlds

IndiaWorld was my first successful venture. I started work on it in late 1994 (after having failed in many of my previous entrepreneurial ventures), launched it in March 1995, and sold it in November 1999 for $115 million. IndiaWorld was a made-for-Internet business. As I experienced the Web first-hand in September and October 1994 during my visit to the US in search of new opportunities, ideas started forming. Many entrepreneurs were starting to talk about what the Internet could do – essentially imagining new worlds. I started doing the same for Indians outside of India and those interested in India. My dream was to build an electronic information marketplace to connect Indians worldwide. In the early months, I imagined IndiaWorld as a virtual mall and would draw it as such when I spoke to people. The word “portal” was still in its infancy then.

IndiaWorld solved the problem of accessing news and information on India by eliminating the barriers of time and distance. That is what many first-generation Internet companies focused on. Because I sold the business in late 1999, I missed the subsequent generations of the Internet – better search, eCommerce, social networks, and mobile apps for virtually everything. The second and subsequent generations of companies were where the real fortunes were made. Think Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook versus Yahoo, Excite, Netscape, AOL.

During my years running IndiaWorld, I was always imagining new “worlds” that we could create. But my definition of “world” was quite narrow. Having been chastened by multiple past failures, I wanted to make something successful. So, I stuck to what was working and built incrementally around India-centric content. As I look back almost 30 years later, perhaps I should have been bolder and reimagined what our future world would look like.

IndiaWorld was my first and last B2C venture. While I did make some small attempts in the early years of the mobile era, none worked, and I decided to keep Netcore’s focus on B2B products. Worldbuilding is harder when selling to marketers worried about how they will meet their revenue targets for the month!

Over the past year or so, ideas like AMP for Email and Atomic Rewards have brought the possibilities for the future back in focus. In Muniverse: A Brand New World, I imagine how the lives of Arun (a consumer) and Jeni (a marketing manager) can be transformed with micro-incentives in a world I term as “Muniverse.” Even now as I think about ideas like Email 2.0, Email Shops, QuizMails, and ProfitXL, I imagine a day in the life of users.

My worldbuilding is at a very small level. Going forward, I need to think bigger – and that is where books like Silo come in. They force us to start from scratch rather than extrapolate from the past. Because that is what tomorrow’s world is about – an exponential change like the Industrial Revolution. And this will happen in years, rather than decades or centuries.

Thinks 934

Anton Howes: “If an invention appears to be from out of the blue, chances are that you just haven’t seen the full story. Progress does not come in leaps. It is the product of dozens or even hundreds of accumulated, marginal steps.” He describes in detail the invention of the steam engine.

Peggy Noonan: “The biggest political group in America isn’t Democrats or Republicans; it is the unaffiliated. Gallup, which does a monthly poll on political affiliation, reports a record number of Americans say they are politically independent. In March Gallup put the share of independents at 49%—pretty much the same as the two parties put together. A Gallup analyst told Axios that while it’s not unusual for the young to declare themselves independent more than the old, it is unusual that as Gen X and Millenials get older they seem to be staying independent and not joining a party, possibly out of aversion to a perceived stigma of partisanship. An NBC poll in April reported 70% of voters don’t want Mr. Biden to run for re-election, and 60% don’t want Mr. Trump to run again. It said about half of Democrats don’t want Mr. Biden. An AP-NORC poll found 44% of Republicans don’t want Mr. Trump as their nominee. These are huge numbers, and if you believe them—they roughly comport with my observations, so I do—then the predicates for a successful third party are there.”

James Pethokoukis: “While AI and computers can certainly process information and make decisions more quickly than humans, they lack the ability to discover and process knowledge in the same way that markets do. Econ 101: Markets are decentralized systems in which prices act as signals to coordinate the actions of millions of buyers and sellers. Prices reflect the subjective valuations of consumers and producers. Importantly, they allow for the discovery of new information about what goods and services are in demand and how to produce them efficiently. AI and computers cannot discover new information or adapt to changing circumstances in the same way that markets can…AI doesn’t have the same incentives as entrepreneurs. It doesn’t have to worry about making a profit or losing money. As a result, AI isn’t as likely to make the same efficient decisions as entrepreneurs. When an entrepreneur makes a mistake, they lose money. This loss provides them with critical feedback that helps them to make better decisions in the future.”

Telegraph: “India has a much bigger burden of diabetes than hitherto assumed, researchers said in a study released on Thursday that has found that nearly a quarter of the people it sampled in Bengal had prediabetes, and were thus at the risk of developing diabetes. The study, the first to specifically generate a metabolic health report card for India’s population, estimates that India has 101 million people with diabetes — about 44 per cent higher than the figure of 70 million indicated by earlier studies. An additional 136 million people nationwide have prediabetes, a health condition marked by elevated blood sugar levels, among whom a large fraction is expected to advance to diabetes. “Not everyone with prediabetes gets diabetes, but the conversion rate from prediabetes to diabetes among Indians and South Asians is among the fastest in the world,” said Viswanathan Mohan, chief of diabetes research at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF), Chennai, and a principal investigator of the study.”

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks: “As they are becoming adults, a lot of people become more intense in their loyalties toward brands nurtured when they were kids. Forty percent of our annual revenue comes from people aged 18 and older. I could easily see it being 50% five years from now. The heart and soul of our adult fan business is delivering to 30, 40, 50-plusers the toys of their dreams from when they were kids. With Dungeons & Dragons, most people start playing at the age of 11 or 12 and never stop playing even when they are a 49-year-old CEO of a company like me. I still play about once a month…Digital and physical toys and game products will live together. A toy helps you develop, explore your imagination and play with others. I don’t see a world where moms and dads don’t want to get toys for their kids. Certainly not in my lifetime.”