ioda

After having failed at my first startup, and having partially succeeded in second, I couldn't agree more on those two points.

The debt accrued on my first startup still haunts me. And I really wish, I slept more and worked out more during the period. It is really a simple advice, to sleep and to work out. But when you are a sinking ship, you could hardly follow it.

To me, Pomodoro sucks. You need a pomodoro only if you do not enjoy doing something. The days I tried, I felt like in jail.

I do not use that system. It was more like a framework that naturally formed based on experiences.

And no. I am no where near to being successful. But I am happy though, since I have partially succeeded in Point 3 & point 4

To be honest, I never succeeded with goals. Those things that happen naturally , happens. Your comment made me self reflect, and I realised that , except point 4, nothing happened at my will. Point 4 happened because I found something that I enjoy doing. And finding something I love doing was a lot of trial and error. All the other points are just wishes.

I was wondering whether actually people set goals, remind themselves everyday etc, and go about to achieve the same. I think there is a lot of randomness in getting into a system and an outcome as a result of it.

Apart from one or two mental notes with a bigger picture, I am not sure whether the so called 'successful' people set those daily, weekly, monthly goals etc. I am genuinely curious to know if it worked for some.

I am Indian. (I used to work for Oracle). If I were to hire, given everything else is equal , I would prefer an Indian to a non-Indian. You can attribute it to cultural bias, or whatever.

But hardly 'everything else' is equal. I hire people who can get 'shi* done' , and who are easy to be managed. Period. And I assume most of the managers would do so. So if Indians are easy to be managed, and are getting hired, it is not racism. Because, they were getting hired for the easiness of managing them, and not for the Nationality.

The issue of white males getting paid more is certainly racist. But the sad part is one cannot verify it, because one cannot isolate the 'merit' part of the salary , from the part attributed to the 'race'

(By the way, I never hired anyone while working at Oracle.)

As someone who runs a startup,here are some personal observations.

I would say, a PM has to understand the user needs, and drive the product. The former has got two parts 1. Understanding the user needs which the user can articulate 2. Understanding the user needs which the users cannot articulate.

I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best coders. Though I greatly admired their intellectual capability, I was not a big fan of their ability to think from customer's shoes. I have figured out that "Common sense is not so common". Now, having an MBA does not guarantee common sense, but if you think that, you can communicate effectively with your users, understand their needs, empathise with them, and can comfortably put yourself in their shoes, your are definitely adding value as a PM on Point No 1

Understanding the user needs which the users cannot articulate - This is where innovation begins. Now, if you are a PM without the ability to code, you may be at a slight disadvantage here. The ability to code, or perhaps the understanding of the fundamentals, would help you to structure your thoughts. It gives you a clear picture on what is possible and what is not possible at the present, from where, you can start to innovate.

To me, Quitting the job appears certainly crazy.

Fully agree. I started working on it!

Yup. Truly understand that. Shall mail you a demo account. We are still work in progress, and many touch points are not the way we really wanted. A demo account is up there in our priority list.

On Education let me quote a popular writer from my place , Kamala Surayya (Madhavikutty) -

"I feel formal education here makes mediocrity's out of everybody. I don't think any genius can survive caught in the machine of formal education. It works like a bulldozer with which everybody is brought to a low level. They won't tolerate brilliance, they won't tolerate independent thinking. I don't believe that one can be a pundit, great scholar, by digesting what other scholars have written. I think we must find our own conclusions from our experiences."

On Economics and Industry - It is interesting to look at the fundamental truths on how value get generated and distributed. But it calls for a different write up all together