Vivek Ravisankar
"Perfection isn’t attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.."
Blog
How to critique?
I wanted to share some of my startup lessons that I have learnt over the last 7 years. I wasn’t sure of the exact format – is it a blog post or a tweet storm or a combination? So, I decided to....
Startup Learnings
I wanted to share some of my startup lessons that I have learnt over the last 7 years. I wasn’t sure of the exact format – is it a blog post or a tweet storm or a combination? So, I decided to....
Building strong teams
We all want to hire great people. Hiring is a skill. It involves two parts – selling the candidate on the opportunity & the ability to assess in a short amount of time.
Raising the bar
We all want to hire great people. Hiring is a skill. It involves two parts – selling the candidate on the opportunity & the ability to assess in a short amount of time.
Beautiful Excuses
There’s always a reason. There’s always an excuse for something to not get done.
Competitive programming & business
Programming contests usually follow a format where you are given a set of interesting problems and a fixed time to solve. I used to participate a lot in programming contests & some of the things have helped me in running HackerRank.
SaaS
One way to make the journey less stressful for an entrepreneur is to worry a lot about why the north star will decline in the future and proactively fix. The irony.
Peace
One way to make the journey less stressful for an entrepreneur is to worry a lot about why the north star will decline in the future and proactively fix. The irony.
Work life balance
The topic of work-life balance comes up a lot in a startup. The myth is, people are made to think that if you get more time with your family, you will achieve the balance and the company is a “balanced” place to work.
Psyche
As the company grows, the complexity of the problem is usually O(n^2), where n is the number of people. The probability of something being broken also increases.
Wrong
as the company scales, the probability of things breaking increases. it can range from a communication breakdown to pure sloppiness depending on the situation. but always remember that it’s never ever the individual’s fault.
Transparent
what to do when you’re in college and you’re looking to start a company eventually?
College
what to do when you’re in college and you’re looking to start a company eventually?
Bounce
If you could find a pattern that will guarantee success, you can write an algorithm to generate that pattern to ensure success.
Pattern
If you could find a pattern that will guarantee success, you can write an algorithm to generate that pattern to ensure success.
Stress
stress in a startup is generally caused because of a “failure” – something you expected to happen but didn’t, a deal not going through, not able to hire your smart friend, etc.
Market Size
How can you possibly determine the market size of a startup when the biggest companies (paypal, apple, google, amazon, etc.) have always CREATED a market?
Defensible
There is a common notion/fear that if a product doesn’t have network effects, it’s hard to defend. the reason being anyone can copy the product and sell. i don’t agree.
3 Metrics
There are only 3 metrics that are essential to make it happen and it’s the same for both customers and the team.
SaaS Pricing
Here are some of the parameters I found to be essential when pricing a SaaS product.
Story
When you narrate your story to your future generations, it’ll be a boring one if you keep winning all the time. That’s why you lose some battles...
New World
There are lots of problems in the world. Lots of “real” problems which haven’t changed much for decades (or probably centuries). I looked around and identified five areas in which I’d put my clones to work in. 1
Great ideas come from inexperience
History says it. The disruption in automobile industry wasn’t from Ford, the disruption in travel & renting industry wasn’t from the CEO of Hilton, the disruption in phone industry wasn’t from Nokia or Motorola and so on..
![Cover Image for Hiring Lessons - Part 3 [annoyance]](https://images.ctfassets.net/94vonmcmvgpv/5jKv7rIYzFUmc1FurUftzZ/4d4ad3f9d8254ff03f5e9d4bf11a41b4/3.png?w=3840&q=75)
Hiring Lessons - Part 3 [annoyance]
I’ve made a ton of mistakes in hiring people and wanted to write down the lessons I’ve learnt till now. I’m not sure how many parts this post would have, here's one of them :)
Hiring Lessons - Part 2
I’ve made a ton of mistakes in hiring people and wanted to write down the lessons I’ve learnt till now. I’m not sure how many parts this post would have, here's one of them :)
Hiring Lessons - Part 1
I’ve made a ton of mistakes in hiring people and wanted to write down the lessons I’ve learnt till now. I’m not sure how many parts this post would have, here's one of them :)
Advisor’s probability
Advisors help a company fasten it’s growth. You ask advice on a burning issue in your startup (there are usually more than one) and if you’ve good advisors, you come back enlightened.
Startup idea’s worth
How do you judge whether it’s worthy enough to pursue a startup idea?
Immigration
Talented hackers are everywhere and since it’s so easy to know about different technologies, the geographical limitations don’t come into play.
Right
We’ve done a bunch of mistakes while building the company but there are certain things that we did right which I’ll blindfoldly recommend every startup to do because it has clearly worked for us 100%.
Dumb
A major criteria or a deciding factor for employee happiness is the people he/she is working with.
Employee Happiness
A major criteria or a deciding factor for employee happiness is the people he/she is working with.
Point
The culture of a startup is greatly determined by the founders. Most likely the DNA of the startup will be THAT striking attribute of the founders.
Founders DNA
The culture of a startup is greatly determined by the founders. Most likely the DNA of the startup will be THAT striking attribute of the founders.
Bootstrapping
Every startup is unique. Derive inspiration, talk to a lot of people but execute/experiment what you think makes sense.
![Cover Image for [Mistake] Everyone Is Right](https://images.ctfassets.net/94vonmcmvgpv/75TjhiNJnPvSF5bRkchCZK/47e98a4449e34f195acfeea06a0fbbad/mistake.png?w=3840&q=75)
[Mistake] Everyone Is Right
Every startup is unique. Derive inspiration, talk to a lot of people but execute/experiment what you think makes sense.
What’s this valley about?
Everyone talks about this magical place called ‘valley’ to start a company, so what does this magical place contain?
Deprivation and Pain
The overall idea is – suffer pain now for a greater pleasure later. The thought process has always been ‘let’s undergo the pain now, there’s something big waiting‘..
What drives founders?
We’ll be happier if we become rich but will be downright upset and somber if the startup doesn’t...