Last week we talked about what every entrepreneur ask himself before getting into a business.

The Keywords

1. Value:

You need to deliver products and services which provide value to the audience/customer. Value of a product make or break a product.

2. Learn:

Constant learning is something that comes with being an entrepreneur. You have to know the latest in your industry and possibly incorporate your values into the business. But do keep in mind that you have to start doing things than just learn them!

3. Simple:

Simplicity is key. User friendly solutions which encapsulate the complex parts from the customer is very important. Creating a web service? A “Not Found” error is much better than a “There was a error in 4th mem location due to a buffer overflow in the 9 quad, 3rd sector….” and even more! Customer has little interest in the technical jargon. He only needs a simple solution.

4. Target:

A target audience is something every entrepreneur should try to focus. This not only helps you in the long run since you are not a jack of all trades, but a master of one. You might be able to scale up your solutions to a wider net in the long term, but start targeted, stay focussed. 

5. Monetize:

A monetization plan is something you should have researched a bit about while getting into a business. What are your income goals, when do you expect profits. For me as a webpreneur, I expect profit or even partial results from sites after 6 months minimum. But I have an idea about how to monetize sites once the cooling period is over.

6. Marketing:

A word most individuals hate, yet know its importance in getting your products sold. If you are anything like me, you cannot even sell an underwear for free to an naked man! What you need to work on is get rid of your fear of rejection and build your confidence of talking to people.

There you go, some keywords for the budding entrepreneur in you. What else do you think we entrepreneurs should concentrate on?

With post marriage woes all around us, its ever difficult to make that choice and say “I do”. For us, we need everything perfect and in todays world and with ever increasing graphs of divorces and cheating, it sure is kind of scary!

I am sure very few married people would like to recreate the entire scene again with the same person! So just before you say those two very important words, here are a few pointers:

1. Compromise: To compromise is not really accept defeat. Its about understanding the rationale behind the other persons argument and remove what you cannot totally accept and decide on a issue. India and Pakistan compromised on a ceasefire, why can’t you!
2. Money: Don’t we all need it? But what happens when we do get it? Who takes care of the spending and who wants to manage finance? Deciding on this early makes things a lot easy when you get your credit card bills!
3. The Plan: Much like the interviewer asks you, ask yourself and each other where you would like to see each other after 3 years, 9 years down the life lane. This lets you set common goals and a kid at the wrong time makes both of unprepared.
4. Discipline: How will the kids learn discipline? How do you plan to punish them? With a kitchen broom stick or planning to use a AK-47?!?
5. Communication: One thing I usually tell my girlfriend is whenever we get mad at each other, we are not to ignore each others calls. This is important since it can solve a lot tensions with an outburst than have it all inside your mind building up a silent volcano to burst after 7 years of marriage!!!

Do you have any other tips in mind to share with our readers? Do chime in.

A lot of studies these days are confirming the fact that breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day, unless you are training to be a sumo wrestler!!! According to studies held by several centres, it seems that a breakfast will help you in your quest to be slim and slender.

Food experts suggest starting the day with a lot of grains and to avoid foods like white-bread and pastries which tend to release a lot of insulin and make you more hungry and hence overeat. And as per the researchers who studied a group of people who lost weight for more than 6 years, it was noticed that those who ate breakfast in the morning were able to be mentally more alert and be able to complete tasks like analysis and mathematics.

So it looks like your mom was indeed right in saying those words when you dashed out for school, college and now to work!

Son, EAT THAT BREAKFAST!!!

Initially I wanted to write about what an Entrepreneur should ask himself before getting into any kind of business, regardless of the nature of it. But then as I typed the post on, the post gradually evolved into a keywords list.

The Questions:

What?

What are the product you are going to create? Will it help curing AIDS? Or maybe it will help crude prices come down? Or will it simply help friends keep in touch? To know What, you need a problem that can be solved, something that you came across was broken, or can be improved, or can simply be recreated?

How?

How can you create a solution to the problem domain? Will you use sophisticated rented equipment from NASA? Or maybe it simply requires a homely hack of your juicer?

Why?

Why would anyone want to use your solution? Will it make their life any easier or more crazy? Is it worth the trouble for you and for your users to use your solution? I now remember a emergency light which works on electricity only!!

There you go budding entrepreneurs, the three questions you need ask yourself before getting into any business.

We humans are a lazy lot by every sense of word. We always think if there was a way of sitting by the beach all day and watch the waves. This need for permanent vacation got us thinking to create the washing machine, the dishwasher and other inventions which let us sit idle!

But entrepreneurs ourselves, we have no choice but to work to our early retirement. Here are a few tips which you can use to concentrate on getting some work done.

Get Offline: Emails, Instant Messengers, the mobile phone and everything else has to be silent. You are not going to get an email from NASA saying that the world is going to blow up in an hour. Even if you get the email. What are you going to do? GO OFFILINE!

Loneliness: Shut yourself in a room, be alone and enjoy that silence around you. Take a deep breath and start off your work.

Greed is Good: Tell yourself that if you complete this particular project, you get paid. Think of what money can help you get. This actually helps to a point.

Rise Early: This actually helps a lot. With the whole world sleeping, by rising up early you get fewer interruptions.

Bribing Self: By bribing yourself with little treats like a cool drink, a cig.(not recommended) or even a meal, you tend to achieve your small milestones in your project.

Snooze: All alarms have the snooze thing, set up an alarm and work till it rings. Hit the snooze and take a break and when it rings again restart the cycle again.

Change your den: If sitting on the potty helps you work, do it!

Our attitude is something that will make or break our life, relationships and a whole lot more. Fortunately it is possible to change your attitude and make your self open to new possibilities that life can offer. When I used to work in a Telecom company, I almost had my first promotion within 6 months of joining in. Most of my friends who were the part of the company since its launch were aghast. I wanted to pin down a few things that really helped me earn that promotion as a team leader.

1. I will work, think and act as a team leader in everyday office life. This is what I want my colleagues to see in me as I interact in meetings, conferences and even when near the coffee stand in leisure.
2. I will be the one who will air the most ideas in a brainstorm session even if its completely absurd. I will not be left out of the line, ever.
3. I will not talk if I am not 110% sure about what I talk about. This will save me a lot of trouble while facing situations of embarrassments.
4. I will strive to end what I started and in time. I do not want to be seen as a person of great ideas and poor implementation.
5. I will keep myself updated of the various positions and roles in the company. I will note what qualities got my colleague promoted.
6. On a office party, I will limit my drinks to one less than the non-drinkers in the party.
7. On a friday, I wil dress myself more professionally casual than everyone else.
8. I will be in office before my boss 90% of the time and leave after he does 100% of the time.
9. I will keep track of vital stats of the company ready for everyone to know. I know the trends and hence know more ideas than everyone else.
10. I will be in touch with every department of the company and shall not indulge in gossips or contribute to the grapevine. Amen!

Life is a lot of things and we all have different interpretations of life as a whole. While some take life to be an ice-cream and want to enjoy it before all of it melts, the others take life as a joy ride and want to enjoy every moment it has to offer.

Once a Guruji spoke of life as a pencil and some of it seem to provoke many a thought out of life. Have a look at the pencil, what do you see?

Pencil writes with the lead inside it: It is very important to note that the lead inside the pencil is very much useful than the wood outside it. Likewise we all must be able to make our inner self sharp and useful to the world than be a hypocrite and show off our polished exterior to the people around us. The wood outside is only an insulation, not the real thing!

Pencil can make a point: We must strive to make a mark everyone’s heart with our character and attitude. A mark on every heart we come across. We came to this planet with joy on everyone’s faces, why leave the same joy when we leave? Be a better person and make everyone miss you!

Erase your mistakes: We all make mistakes don’t we? But we need to accept them and work on erasing those mistakes with humbleness. Otherwise, your life will be full of obvious glaring mistakes. Clean up the slate, write beautifully

You need a sharpener: Life cannot go on the same, at times you need to change your gears, sharpen up your armor with your experience and work on creating more marks. Sharpener makes life smooth.

Finally it needs a hand to hold it: Life has no meaning without ideals, and those ideals are taken up by you the individual. A terrorist is a human being, so is the pope. And the hand that holds the pencil decides what it will write, a romantic letter or a hate letter? So, what will you write with your pencil?

This is the first post of the thinker, here on T.hink.in. This will be my second home on the internet. I am a blogger, a student, an entrepruneur and a lot of other things and stuff.

I was never happy to be living a life of existance and always strive to live life than exist. I have dreams, aspirations and aims like the rest of some million people on the planet. I want to be rich, independent and rocking. I attack life head on and usually have a stroke of luck to go with it to succeed. I am sure everyone one of you out there want to be rich, more productive and basically live a life of satisfaction.

Here at T.hink.in, I aim to bring you some tips for saving a few cents, get more productive and be safe from the new media who makes you think the worlds ending tommorow! So, make sure you do not miss any of our tips and satire jokes by subscribing to our email feed alerts, or RSS feeds or even bookmarks!

Cheers,

The Thinker.