My pet projects are usually something I have started myself or have led a major change in and am a key player. I am a leader by nature and am usually found closer to the top of the pecking order of most organizations I am affiliated with. What can I say, I like being at the top.

Going for the punch line, I consider myself successful with my pet projects when I get them to a point where they do not require me anymore. Despite the simplicity of that statement, it is unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you see it) not as simple. It involves me building the organization to a somewhat stable point, getting other people to work with me and getting these people to the point where these “other” people have as much passion as me (if not more) for the project. As many startup people can probably vouch, not many people are as excited about your product as you are.

Despite these I have had a couple successes under my umbrella, the most notable of which would be the Firewall. Though the firewall was not initially my idea, what it evolved to before we launched was more of my brain child. I took one the role heading the organizational aspect of it and now the organization is thriving with both founder completely unaffiliated with the paper. Their last issue was much better than any issue that I put forth, and I proud of that fact.

I am writing this post tonight cause, I believe that I have reached this level of success with another organization. The Undergraduate Council was resurrected by me over the last year and is now a very strong group comprised of some of the best people I have had the chance to work with. Today, I announced the elections for 2 weeks from now and have spent the last couple hours thinking whether I want to run or not for my position again. No decision in sight for the near future. I’ll let you guys know how it goes in 2 weeks time.

I have 3 possible options, and  none of them seem to be right. Should I put in India, the country I am a citizen off? Or should it be the United Arab Emirates, where I lived most of my life? Or is the United States the right one? All and none at the same time. Hence my crisis.

A little background about myself. Born in India to Indian parents, I lived in Dubai, United Arab Emirate pretty much all my cognitive life. For the last three years, I have been doing my undergrad in Atlanta.

Can it be the United Arab Emirate?

Unfortunately no! Despite my having lived there all my life and considering it my home, I am no longer a legal permanent resident, if ever I was one. I was a dependent of my parents on their work visas till I was 18 and can’t enter the country without a visit visa.

Can it be India?

It is the country of my citizenship. Why not? Well, JFK once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” In my eyes, India and me have not done anything for each other. I have not lived there. I feel like an outsider every time I go there. And finally, I do not thing I have the right to claim being even Indian due to the fact that I have done nothing for my so called country. And shall I say, neither has it done anything for me. On the contrary, it has disadvantaged me cause the first impression people get of me when they see me is Indian and not for who I am. I consider myself a Third Culture Kid, but that is something for a different post. This is no offense to Indians, its just annoying being classified in a category that is 1 in every 6 person belongs to when I do not belong in said category. Keep in mind that I really do enjoy considering myself unique.

Finally, the United States?

So, many would say that I do not have a claim to the United States. But it keeps popping into my head every time I see one of these forms. It arises from the fact that for the past 3 years, I have spent 49 out of 52 weeks in this country. I was only on a student visa but in practice, my permanent residence is in this country. That is the address on my business card, my bank account, my resume… you get the jist. But no. Can’t do that! I’m only a permanent resident if I have a green card. Unfortunately, I haven’t got one of those.

So, 3 down and none to go! You see the dilemma I’m under.

Fact 2: I am crazy enough to follow through with a bunch of them. Proof!

Fact 3: I do not have the time for more (seriously, my new years resolution is to not do anything new till May)

Hence, my decision to open source my next idea to my readers. If you think you can make it, go ahead an do so. Let me know cause I will probably end up using it. Keep in mind that this is a non-profit idea.

I volunteer at the atlanta humane society. I love doing what I do, ie. playing with the cats/getting them adopted. Being in this environment, I soon realized that very often, non-profits have needs that require skilled labor which many of their volunteers are able to fill but are not being advertised about.

So here is the idea. A website that lets non-profits post certain volunteering needs they have that require skill (building shelves to coding a database for the animals). It would also let people search for projects based on the skills they possess. And TaDA! We have a match.

Funny how I just explained the entire idea with 2 lines. Well, some of the best ideas in the world are very simple in nature, aren’t they?

Let me say first that I love what I am doing. I have gained a lot from the college of computing and feel like this one of the best ways I can give back to the college and also make an impact on the experiences of future students within the college.

Earlier today we had a debate over whether or not the UC members should put their personal reputations on the line with regards to one of our projects. Over the course of the discussion, I had a moment of clairvoyance, in which I realized the following:

• The members of the UC exist in order to serve the student body of the college
• The officers of the UC exist to serve the members

It is our responsibility to serve the people we need to and while representing them, our personal opinions do not matter at all. If we are not willing to do what the people who we represent want us to do, then why are we in the positions we are? Unlike what many would think that the officers have additional power over the members, I have often emphasized that the title only add responsibility and not power.

1. It looks gorgeous. The Unibody is amazing. I love it on my macbook. I’m going to love it on the iPad (I seriously did prefer iSlate personally.)
2. People are going to buy it. Apple is going to sell the iPad because it is cheap! And because they have and awesome PR department. Its functionality might not be that great (for those who wanted a Mac OS on it) but it does what it needs to do.
3. I saw Steve type on it with 2 hands. Not something I have seen before and not something I will believe until I check it out for myself.
4. The apps on the iPad are great. I look down at my dock right now and see the apps I use the most often. MailPlane for email (I can haz an app for that pretty please). The rest is the iWork suite, Pandora, Meebo running on Fluid and my alarm clock. All of which can easily be ported onto the iPad or have already been in certain cases.
5. Did you see iWork on the iPad? It looks gorgeous. I almost cried in joy when I saw iCal.
6. Will the iPad kill the Kindle? Hell No. The iPad and the Kindle are not the same. I own a kindle and I like it cause I can read on it for about a week between recharges. It also is less of a strain on the eyes too. The iPad is not the Kindle!
7. 10 hour battery life. Great Job apple. Anyone who knows me well will know that my biggest frustration is more battery like on all products. When I read the TechCrunch prank article which said ARC Reactor (design: Tony Stark) I was salivating though I knew it was not going to be true. Next one, I was 24 hours
8. I am not happy by the fact that there are ZERO USB ports on this device. If for nothing else but to plug in a flash drive to copy files quickly.
9. I find the lack of flash support to be disgraceful.

So, there is my report on the iPad. Am I a Fan Boy? No! Do I want an iPad? Yes! Will I get an iPad? No! Why? I can’t afford one right now and I would rather wait for the iPad Version 2 which has improved on this wonderful product (and hopefully I have on interned for a couple months and made some money by then to buy myself an early birthday gift.)

The concept behind Coders Anonymous is to learn programming languages somewhat individually but in a group setting. The way I currently plan to implement this at Georgia Tech is a weekly two hour meeting where we get all interested students into a room (a big one based on current feedback). We decide on a language or two to focus on (I see rails, php and django being the hot topics initially) and start going through some online tutorials. When one person gets stuck, there is probably someone else in the room who understands the concept and is able to clear the doubt. We also hope to have a couple people in the room who are proficient with the language to help out.

The advantages:

• It becomes a group activity.
• You have someone to push you when you start slacking. Kind of the same as getting a workout buddy.
• When you get stuck, there is someone who can help you out.
• With a large enough group and a couple months, you will be able to pick up not 1 or 2 but quite a few languages.

On top of the basic concept, I also see some potential for other tertiary activities such as instructed classes by members of the community (for instance someone from the Atlanta Ruby Users Group doing a seminar on Rails) and hackathons. Another problem this will fix for those of the entrepreneurial mindset will be a larger pool of good developers looking for a job/project to work on.

This is just my initial concept but I do plan to launch this by the end of this month, so any feedback or suggestions are welcome.

Update

The ACM is planning on launching a program of options classes this Spring. In order to not confuse students, I’m putting this project on hold for the near future.

While, Sanjay Parekh replied “Everything“, Merrick Furst countered with “Nothing“.

The explanation is simple. The CEO is responsible for doing everything and must be willing to do it all (this includes taking out the trash). In reality, a CEO does not have the time to do anything at all. A CEO’s job is to hire people to do different tasks, tell them what to do and make sure they get it done. Once that is done, the CEO has run out of hours in the day.

This is not only true with startups but also with organizations and pretty much any leadership structure.

What keeps the CEO from going crazy and doing everything themselves? One word: Trust! A CEO must be able to trust their subordinates to get their part done. The moment an employee loses the trust of his superior, it’s going to be hard for everyone. The CEO has to micromanage the person (which he doesn’t have the time for) and the person gets annoyed by having someone micromanage them.

Rules of thumb:

• If you say you are going to do something, do it!
• If you need help, ask as far in advance as possible!
• Make sure not to lose someones trust, it isn’t easy to get back!

Those are my rules, what are yours?

For those wonder what freemium is, it is a business model that works by offering basic services for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features. Common examples of businesses that use the freemium model include wikipedia/wikia and Pandora.

Having a free product means people will use it more. You will have a larger community around your product and can reach out to hundreds of millions of users. On the other hand, a paid product will attract less people but create a more tight nit community around the product as well as your bank balance will soar (IF you have a good product).

My question here is, is it too much to have both? When Pandora announced that they will be restricting users to 40 hours a month of free usage, it too me less than 3 seconds to click the link to subscribe for Pandora ONE. The value I get out of Pandora was well worth the $36 I pay a year. 95% of Pandora’s users will never actually reach the hour limit and are happy with the free version while the few power users such as myself are more than happy to pay for it.

Being the entrepreneur that I am [and also the cut-throat mercenary that I am ], I believe that if there is money be made, make it!

So, here is my proposition for Craigslist: Keep what you have and launch another craigslist Premium. Craigslist Premium will charge $1 per posting. People who use craigslist can continue using the free version that is filled with spam listings and scams. There will be a small percentage of power users though who will recognize the value of the premium service and will migrate over to the premium version and start crunching out $$$ for Craig Newmark. And the best part still? It’s going to cost them practically nothing. Craigslist already has all the things they need for this to be implemented. The premium version will have the same features as the free version and craigslist already charges people for posting in certain sections.

Will the freemium model work for you? It all depends on a factor of how good your product is and how much you are giving away for free. If you give away too much, people won’t pay for the premium version; give away too little and they will not be attracted to try it for free. But one thing is for certain, it has to be good.

Please do take this with a grain of salt and do contribute your thoughts on this. If you like the idea and want to turn it into reality, do come talk to me and I’ll help anyway I can. It is after all 1% idea 99% execution.

The Ideal Co-working Space

by Ajai Karthikeyan

Coffee Shop

The Atlanta community knows that the Tech Square Starbucks and Octane are major hubs for startups and students. There is always a crowd there and over the last couple weeks, I have clocked more hours in there than their employees(I am not joking). Most entrepreneurs and students are not adverse to working out of coffee shops and many, including me actually love to work in such a setting. It is a fun environment. The Coffee is flowing and it is also a great spot to meet with other people, both scheduled meetings and randomly bumping into people whom you know.

For most of us, all we need is a comfy. the design should also be so that no seat is over 5 feet from a power socket and ample number of power sockets should be made available to the customers.

Meeting/Breakout/Private Rooms

Despite everything, there are days when Starbucks is not my perfect working spot. Either, I am getting a little too distracted, or I need to make a conference call, or I need to have a closed room conversation with other people. I personally, walk across the street to the Entrepreneur Resource Center when I have this problem, but having this problem solved would be great. This is where Meeting/Breakout/Private rooms come in. I foresee two types of room here, a private room with a single desk and a phone serving as a temporary office and conference rooms of varying sizes (from 2 to 12 ideally). Some of these rooms could have additional features such as projectors and screens and some with conference call functionality while other will be plain old meeting rooms without any additional features.

I won’t go into the logistics of how many such rooms will be needed as that will be proportional to the scale of this project.

Lockers

I’m not actually going for lockers like most of you had in high school. My idea for this is a place where you can store your files and other stuff so that you don’t need to carry things home and back everyday. Portability is also of the essence as you will need to move these around to your Private rooms when you do use them. My concept here is more along the lines of a small file cabinet or chest of drawers on caster wheels. I would ideally have different sizes too cause not everyone will need the same amount of space space. These units should be stored in a side room when not needed.

Capsule Hotel

Probably the single reason why this idea is not like all the others. I propose we use the Japanese capsule hotel idea and set up rooms with sleeping capsules. So, the basic concept of sleeping capsules is a box about 1m x 1m x 2m stacked with one above the other. What do they provide? A place to take a nap or get a good nights rest cause a rested body works better any day.

I have had to sleep on couches and in chairs many times when I worked late into the night. What does the capsule hotel do to this startup environment? We have better rested startupers. You need a short nap? You managed to work till 3am and don’t want to drive 1hr to go home at this ungodly hour? Well, here is the solution to your problems. A comfortable bed in a somewhat private area.

The low footprint and the fact that the only feature of each of these “rooms” is a bed, the maintenance costs should be minimal.

Showers

Two words: Atlanta Summers! Got all sweaty in the Hotlanta heat? Go take a shower! Took a nap in an uber awesome capsule? Go take a shower! Need to clear your head? Go take a shower!

The whole idea behind the showers is to help the people using this space to be refreshed (and to also reduce the odors in the area). My idea is for basic shower stalls with maybe a changing area for each stall. Also included will be some lockers (on the line of gym lockers) for your towel, soap, toothbrush, a fresh set of clothes, etc.

Restaurant (optional)

Despite my desire for it to be, not all meetings (or meals) can consist of coffee and muffins . Sometimes, a meeting calls for a decent meal (and for some, a glass of wine to go with it). As many of the Tech Square croud frequents WaterHaven, we are all aware of the need for another watering hole for the community other than a coffee shop. This is, as I have mentioned, optional, but it will be a great addition to the community.

Laundry Service (optional)

What can I say? We are going to need something to handle all the linens that the capsule hotel will be generating. Might as well add a laundry service to wash, iron and dry clean our guests clothes, for a nominal fee of course (we do have to keep this thing running and maybe make some profit out of it too). It doesn’t even need to be on site laundry; we could send it somewhere else but having a collection point on site would be beneficial. Once again, this too is optional.

The Logistics – brief and concise version

• Uber fast free Wifi – #1 Priority
• Printer and copier.
• So, most of these will work on a membership system. The coffee shop is open to all, but everything else is accessible to only members.
• Memberships available at different levels based on amount of usage of additional features (rooms, sleeping and lockers).
• A reservation system for rooms and sleep capsules?
• Private/meeting rooms and sleep capsules available to walk-in non members if they are available (for a fee of course)
• Located close to a stationary shop?
• Located in an urban area. Don’t know why, just a personal preference.

Thats about it folks. Did I miss anything?

Let me know what you think about it. Also, if you spot any errors/typos, do let me know (I am not the best at spelling when I was doing this at a rather ungodly hour)

I also have it available in pdf

I plan to print this on a 11 x 17 bi-fold sheet and have my “normal” resume on the back side with a simple cover on the front in time for the career fairs. Lets see if whether this gets me a job (or gets me kicked out of the room).