Sroys

What’s in a brand name? A name that means ONLY YOU - that is what your goal should be when you try to build a brand name for your business or website. While there is a MASSIVE market for generic domain name reselling where people buy generic names in hope that someone will want it one day and they’ll earn million but I fail to understand why people don’t realize that while some generic names can help you build a successful business around it - not all generic names work. Search.com is not the biggest search engine - books.com is not selling the most number of books online.

What matters is your ability to understand the pschology associated with every generic name - generic names I believe only work when there is a little bit of desperation involved in what the user is looking for and then it depends on the website owner’s ability to cater to that need. One fine example is NAUKRI.com - the word means JOB in Hindi - the primary language of India. NAUKRI.com quickly became the number one job site in India cause the name associate to a desperate need and the website caters to that need well.

So while I would love to use generic terms - I would only use it depending on what I am trying to offer to the users. One of the main reasons I believe this huge domain reseller market exists is for companies to want an edge over other websites in any industry - while this method has an advantage it will only work with a world class product if you are trying to make your website or business synonymous to something generic - this often is a major expectation from users. If the users gets that world class product - it’s a HIT - if it’s mediocere - it fails miserably - as it would not get the kind of response it’s meant to get comparing it to the amount of investment that would go into building the product - so although it may be used it may not become the world leader for that industry.

My opinion about this is that you should always try to mix things when you are a small developer and you are trying to build a brand - mixing the generic and the brandability often makes it easier. The name needs to be catchy and should have a natural flow to the name. So a mix of a generic word - something very important in your industry plus something to make it catchy. Or if you are extremely sure that your product is world class you could name it higibib and it would work. What I am trying to say is while having a keyword in your domain name is a good move it’s not the most important by any chance. Brands are built by products and not the other way around - that’s all you need to remember.

I really enjoyed reading the Recession survival guide written by Glenn Kelman from redfin. I think it beautifully prepares new CEO’s about how to think of their job or their role in the company. I can imagine a new CEO going around trying to please everyone and being defensive about his every decision - wondering if he is doing the right thing and what the board members will think. It’s tremendous pressure and I think this post addresses most of the issues new CEO’s face.

Just to add a little bit to that I think New CEO’s also need to build relationships with their team members. People will think you are a good leader only if you are consistent and straight forward. Having a friendly way about yourself without being overtly sweet with your colleagues help in the long run. People don’t like over-friendly people and they don’t like aloof people either. Find something in between where you are not questioning your employees about their work but discussing it.

I also believe CEO’s should splurge on their employees and be a miser when it comes to business expenses. Getting and keeping employees is a big deal these days - and people don’t leave companies - they leave bosses - so it’s extremely important to spoil your employees a little bit. The CEO is the father figure of the company and everyone needs a cool friendly dad - that is when kids will prosper.

Great words of wisdom Glenn! You seem like you are a fun dad!

Two of the giant social networks of the world but each popular in certain countries. While Facebook is the leading social network in the US and Europe. Orkut used to define social networking here in India. Why does this happen and is there any particular reason why some websites do better than others in geographical areas.

Some days back I was watching an interview of Prof. Kishore Mahbubani and he gave an example which literally blew my mind. He was talking about the emerging Asia - and was talking about how the Japan occupied Singapore they made sure to retain the culture, gardens and treasures of Singapore and didn’t destroy them - where as in the American occupation of Afghanistan they literally destroyed everything. The difference of strategy is in the fact that the Japanese didn’t attack the culture but rather wanted to preserve it to eventually contain the citizens of the country.

You can watch the interview here.

This is a a major factor - to understand the culture of a geographical area before you launch your campaign in that area. Facebook was not very popular in India initially because the name doesn’t quite fit very well into our psychology. It feels like a book where you put your face - something which is open for all too see. Indians have never quite been very happy about attracting attention to themselves - cause here attention still means possibility of trouble.

On the other hand Orkut doesn’t really mean anything - it vaguely reminds me of “orko” the friendly ghost like character everyone likes from the popular series of “He Man“.
This adding to the fact that it was discovered within Google which almost every Internet user in India uses made Orkut the number 1 social network in India initially.

I heard about Face Book from my friends abroad a long time back but never really used it - the name just didn’t go down well with me - why would I want my face in your book? Orkut was something which was just there in my Google account and I used it some times to read up on what my friends are saying.

But things are changing today and literally because of the great work put in by Face Book - you know someone is doing great when others state to ape them. Orkut is now aping and trying to replicate everything FaceBook is doing and this is very visible in Google Trends - we see a downward trend for orkut search queries and an upward trend on Facebook search queries.

The point of this article is that when we plan a business we must find out what will and what will not go well with people in a geographical area - do this before you even decide the name so that you can build something which will work globally. Of course nothing can replace quality of your work but being aware of what works will help you grow your business quickly.

Being an Entrepreneur is fun - and you can learn how to do it very easily if you are open to people and their problems. I’ll start by telling you about what should motivate you and how. For most people some of the key motivations for working as an Entrepreneur are:

1) You get to work for yourself and you set your own work hours.
2) The money is much better than if I work a job.
3) You will only get rich if I start a business.

While all of these are the right reasons for trying to get into the Entrepreneur mode. The way we look at these reasons are skewed because of the way things are in this age of show-offs.

1) Yes, you get to work for yourself - and that means you have no one to tell you how much to work and what to work on - this means the motivation to work has to come from within. The only way this can happen is if the work you have chosen excites you. If you don’t like what you are working on there is little chance that you will succeed as an entrepreneur. So when you want to start as an entrepreneur you should first be sure about what you want to create - which industry you are going to cater to. Once you find something that interests you - there will be many things you can do.
Once you start enjoying your work - the hours don’t matter anymore. Well it doesn’t feel like work anymore and that can sometimes be dangerous with you working or thinking about work almost through the day - every minute - every hour.

2) Like I said before the meaning of money is skewed in today’s world. It has just become something we want - the more the better. But you delve a little deeper you will see that what money means is the amount of service you are giving to your fellow human beings in this community. The more valuable the service the more money you get for it. This is the seed of entrepreneurship - learn to locate service requirements and learn to develop things to cater to them - be it a software or a website or a gadget. When you focus on the “Service Requirement” you focus on the honey pots of money - and anyone will tell you there are almost infinite such requirements - you just need to find what is required.
An important aspect of entrepreneurship is talking to people - once you have located a service requirement - talk to the people you will be catering to and learn from them the challenges they face and what they need. Then develop a business plan - chalk it out - first the requirement - then the research on what is required - then develop the plan of action you will take to develop a solution.
Something else that may help is reading up on the industry you want to work in - you will find numerous problems people are facing in those news stories - there lies the keys to entrepreneurship.

3) This is unfortunately true - society rewards the leaders and we need as many of them as we can - so if you want to reap the rewards - learn to look at money the way it should be looked at and not just a greed in your mind - and learn the methods to become an entrepreneur.

It’s not something out of reach - it’s just something you need to work on patiently and with confidence. More on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs later.