tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:/feedRaman Shalupau2017-09-10T21:31:40-07:00Raman Shalupauhttp://blog.ramanshalupau.comSvbtle.comtag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/moving-this-blog-to-ksaitor-com2017-09-10T21:31:40-07:002017-09-10T21:31:40-07:00Moving this blog to Ksaitor.com<p>Hi there!<br>
Thanks for checking out my blog. I’ve decided to consolidate all my writing in one place and move everything to <a href="https://ksaitor.com">ksaitor.com</a>. Please proceed there!</p>
<p>As much as i love svbtle’s simple UI and fonts, they dont allow comments, which is a bit of a shame :(</p>
<p>See you at <a href="https://ksaitor.com">ksaitor.com</a></p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/13-things-you-must-do-every-week-as-a-startup-ceo2015-03-24T08:10:02-07:002015-03-24T08:10:02-07:0013 Things You Must Do Every Week As A Startup CEO<p>There is a famous post by <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/person/jason-goldberg">Jason Goldberg</a> while at Betashop called “13 Things You Must Do Every Week As A Startup CEO”. <a href="http://betashop.com/post/4367407080/13-things-you-must-do-every-week-as-a-startup-ceo">Original link</a> seems to be down, hence I’d like to help Jason’s advice be more discoverable. Content:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Remember your One Thing.</strong> Your startup can only do one thing well at a time. Know Your One Thing. Write it on the wall. Repeat it every day. Put it at the top of every regular company-wide communication. Don’t let anything distract you and your team from it.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Remember that you’re only as good as The Team around you.</strong> Spend time cultivating your team. Bring in people who are better at their jobs than you could ever be. Motivate them and drive them to do things they never thought they could do. Give them freedom to roam and discover while guiding them towards the One Thing. Treat your co-workers like family. Startups can be a grind. Getting your team to love being part of your company is critical to success. A startup is not just a place to work, it’s a way of life. As CEO, your job is not to do everyone else’s job. Your job is to help everyone else do their jobs better. Also make sure to give regular feedback to your executives on your expectations for them and areas where you need them to improve.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Set the Tone.</strong> Everyone — your co-workers, your customers, your partners, your investors, the press, your Twitter and Facebook followers — takes their cues from you. Does your company value Speed? Analytics? Innovation? Customer Service? Ultimately your company culture will largely reflect how you function as CEO. So, don’t be a rude jerk. Walk the walk and personally act the way you want people to think about when they think about your company. It’s easy to get this wrong. If you run around like a chicken with its head cut off, your company will too. If you forget to smile, your company will too. If you lack patience, your company will too. If you don’t say please and thank you, neither will your company. The company is bigger than any one individual but it reflects the personalities and work habits of its employees, and you’re the leader.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Spend at least 75% of your personal time on your Product.</strong> Your company is only as good as its product. Put your stamp on it. Insist that it be excellent. Dig in and get your hands dirty and manage features and user benefits. Where I come from the CEO must be the Chief Product Officer. As CEO you should feel responsible for every pixel on the screen. I know that may seem like overkill but your product is the user-facing output of all your hard work and its every function should reflect your goals and objectives.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Run the Numbers.</strong> I’m talking less budget and cash flow here and more key metrics. Send a weekly email to your team summarizing all the key data that drives your business. Write this email yourself. Writing the email will force you to dig in and analyze the data. Own the data. Share the data. Make it your job to make sure that everyone in the company is focused on the numbers that really drive your business. Boil it down to at most 3 to 5 metrics that really matter. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Exercise.</strong> I can’t stress enough the importance of this. Make yourself go to the gym at least 4 days per week, preferably 5 or 6. Working out gives you the energy and stamina to solve complex problems. Being CEO is incredibly mentally challenging. Use the gym as a way to stay fresh and to clear your head. If you don’t do this already, I promise you you’ll be shocked at how much easier life gets when you are regularly working out. Step away from the keyboard and enter the gym!</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Ask for Feedback.</strong> Guess what? You’re not as smart as you think you are. And you will make mistakes. Ask your employees, customers, partners, etc. for regular feedback. Make sure you have at least 1 executive on your team who can give you honest feedback about your own performance. Make sure you have at least 1 outside board member or close advisor who can give you regular input on corporate development issues (e.g. fundraising, board management).</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Get Out of the Office.</strong> It’s all too easy to manage from behind the keyboard and just live around your email inbox. Get out of the office and talk to real customers, partners, suppliers, bloggers, press, etc. Listen to what they have to say and take it to heart. Don’t just feed them the vision. Stop and listen to the reality.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Blog, Tweet, Read, & Participate in CEO forums.</strong> Writing stuff like this is therapeutic. Share your lessons learned, pain points, and your tips and tricks. Don’t be afraid to hang it all out there and get feedback from your virtual network. Read hacker news to keep up on what other startup CEOs and tech geeks are sharing. Leverage your investors’ networks to get advice and input from other CEO’s who are in similar situations. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Manage Cash.</strong> Cash is your lifeblood. You must know at all times how much cash you have left, how long it can last you, and what the impact of decisions you make will have on your cash position. And don’t forget to raise more money long before you need it!</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Act Like an Investor.</strong> At the end of each week, ask yourself the following question: Did our actions this past week increase value? What was the ROI on your time spent this past week? If you go 2 weeks in a row or 2 weeks in a month without a positive ROI on your time spent, you’re clearly doing the wrong things.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Have fun.</strong> This stuff is too hard and takes too much energy to not enjoy it. Make sure to have fun every single day. Even the tough days need to have some joy in them. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing the wrong things. One of my favorite sayings is, “mature, but don’t grow up.” </p></li>
<li><p><strong>Love. Love your company.</strong> Love your co-workers. Love your investors. Love your partners. Love your suppliers. And most importantly, love the people you come home to — the people whose support makes it possible for you to get up and do it again each day.</p></li>
</ol>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/web-native-apps-future2014-11-06T18:50:26-08:002014-11-06T18:50:26-08:00Web / Native Apps and their future<p>For the past few years i’ve been increasingly annoyed with state of native apps in OSX (ditto for any other desktop OS), and pleased with the state of web apps. I’m talking launch speed and accessibility. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>4 years ago already, it was faster to open a browser tab with Google Spreadsheets rather MS Excel or Apple Numbers. It is faster to spell check via Google Search rather than with OSX’s dictionary. It’s faster to open any IM or TODO app in a tab, rather than in native app.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>…ditto for pretty much any other daily-usage mid-sophistication app.</p>
<p>Hence a few questions.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with OS environments, SDKs, or whatever that makes a whole range of apps significantly slower to load (and sometimes, execute) on desktop OS?</p>
<p>Let’s assume this question is trivial to many — and I’m sure there are plenty of software engineers with great experience in native & web apps. I dont know the exact answer, but let’s assume there is less investment going into OS development, or there is fundamental roadblocks, or any other reason — why major consumers operating systems and apps are so far away from embracing Internet?</p>
<p>Here i’m talking performance, resources and accessibility.</p>
<ul>
<li>In OSX, why is there a Finder App and Safari? Why not merge them into one app?</li>
<li>There should be <u>no</u> concept of “files on my computer” vs “files on the internet”; there should be no concept of “installed app” vs “not installed app”. There should be only private (and shared) vs public resources. There should be “apps” — some we use frequently, some less so, some we have not used yet. </li>
<li>Why there is still a concept of “HDD space on my computer”? Whatever types of memory you have on your physical devices — should be just cache. Everything in the cloud by default, and you chose what to force-leave on your device + usage-based algorithm to cache frequently used apps & resources on your device. I <a href="http://blog.ramanshalupau.com/internet-is-the-storage">wrote a short article on this before</a>.</li>
<li>Why does not Photoshop become faster on my MacBook Air, when I’m online? Can’t it distribute a computation between my laptop CPU and power of the nearest data center?</li>
</ul>
<p>Infrastructure for most of these things are mostly in place in all urban cities. Certainly there are many challenges to achieve this immersive experience for platforms / resources / apps. The only project doing somewhat similar is Chromebook. Why this direction is still not widely happening? Is this not the future? What is then?</p>
<p>I’d love to hear your thoughts. Reply to: <a href="http://twitter.com/ramanshalupau">@ramanshalupau</a></p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/6-key-principles-of-influence-by-robert-cialdini2014-10-30T09:51:19-07:002014-10-30T09:51:19-07:006 key principles of influence by Robert Cialdini<p>TIL 6 key principles of influence by Robert Cialdini</p>
<ol>
<li>Reciprocity – People tend to return a favor, thus the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. The good cop/bad cop strategy is also based on this principle.</li>
<li>Commitment and Consistency – If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment because of establishing that idea or goal as being congruent with their self-image. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement. Cialdini notes Chinese brainwashing on American prisoners of war to rewrite their self-image and gain automatic unenforced compliance. See cognitive dissonance.</li>
<li>Social Proof – People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments.</li>
<li>Authority – People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre.</li>
<li>Liking – People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favoring more attractive people are discussed. See physical attractiveness stereotype.</li>
<li>Scarcity – Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a “limited time only” encourages sales.</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#6_key_principles_of_influence_by_Robert_Cialdini">ref wikipedia</a></p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/color-12014-09-21T07:20:42-07:002014-09-21T07:20:42-07:00Know thy COLOR<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/yvjpbhyez33hdq.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/yvjpbhyez33hdq_small.png" alt="670px-plutchik-wheel-svg_.png"></a></p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/ads2014-06-24T09:14:48-07:002014-06-24T09:14:48-07:00Ads<p>#Ads. All around web, for the past couple of months, I was targeted and retargeted with all types of different ads, relevant to my various google searches, browsing, clicks, etc… Business as usual.</p>
<p>2 hours ago, over Google Hangouts, I mentioned to a friend of mine, that <br>
<em>“I’m going to gym”</em>.</p>
<p>Went to gym. Came back.</p>
<p>Now, I’m i’m taking rest, opening Facebook and starting watching a music video, that my other friend have posted…</p>
<p>What do I see?</p>
<p>YouTube video starts with a 5 minute advertisement about “weight loss”.<br>
I click on another random link… On a right hand side I see a banner about how to “trim your belly in no time"… i click — "our weight loss program…”</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>I mentioned “gym” via Hangouts, now I’m targeted with “weight loss” ads everywhere.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And there is no way back. We should part with our desires for “privacy” and leave this word to history books.</p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/internet-is-the-storage2014-06-19T22:03:59-07:002014-06-19T22:03:59-07:00Internet is the storage<p>Internet is the storage.<br>
Your device is just cache.</p>
<p>Modern apps should not prompt what to upload to cloud. Upload everything by default. Prompt what to keep on your device.</p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/how-to-be-productive2014-05-31T04:42:34-07:002014-05-31T04:42:34-07:00How to be Productive<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/iiwxhipevvbg.jpg"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/iiwxhipevvbg_small.jpg" alt="1386958356-get-done-35-habits-most-productive-people-infographic.jpg"></a></p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/quality-assurance2014-05-27T08:19:15-07:002014-05-27T08:19:15-07:00Let your users do QA<p>QA [quality assurance] is a <u>step</u> in your web development cycle. As soon as you create a role/job/department for QA whole tech team will delegate QA to that person/department. Eventually, when something goes wrong you’ll start the blame game… </p>
<p>QA should be done by CI automation, devs, PMs and by users.</p>
<p>What?! By users?!<br>
— Yes. And it does not have to be a negative experience. It might and should be a positive one. Maybe only by a certain group of your customers — loyal, brave, privileged users, “innovators” and “hackers”. Give them a discount for every bug they find! Encourage, be vulnerable — they’ll sympathise and be your advocates. </p>
<p>Remember how Facebook engineers translated the site in other languages? They crowdsourced it from their users. Users did not get upset at all — they treated it as a game, challenge.</p>
<h2 id="ideas-on-how-to-actually-crowdsource-qa_2">Ideas on how to actually crowdsource QA: <a class="head_anchor" href="#ideas-on-how-to-actually-crowdsource-qa_2">#</a>
</h2>
<ul>
<li>Have a “beta-production” environment. Send all your brave users there.</li>
<li>Give them tools to report issues effortlessly.</li>
<li>Reward your customers for bug reports (discounts, coupons)</li>
</ul>
<p>Prior to deploying to “beta-production”, run through automated test suite, your CI and CD systems. Automate as much functional UI testing as possible. Cover critical paths.</p>
<h2 id="putting-these-ideas-into-a-broader-context_2">Putting these ideas into a broader context <a class="head_anchor" href="#putting-these-ideas-into-a-broader-context_2">#</a>
</h2>
<p>Generally, you should aim to have as few people in your team as possible. This will significantly improve communication, speed up execution and make performance of each team member measurable. Why would you want to have individual performance well measurable — tldr, to reward people proportionately to their contribution. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp/1449389554">Paul Graham</a> has more insights on the topic.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on this? Let me know <a href="https://twitter.com/ramanshalupau">here</a>. Thanks!</p>
tag:blog.ramanshalupau.com,2014:Post/composition2014-05-26T09:27:12-07:002014-05-26T09:27:12-07:00Composition for most of the things out there<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/csfuzgelhmzx3q.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/csfuzgelhmzx3q_small.png" alt="Screen Shot 2013-11-20 at 11.28.48 pm.png"></a></p>
<p>You can observe same structure in literature, music, films, relationships, success processes.</p>
<p>That’s also how I see and approach many things in life.</p>