Category: Startups

  • AI driven Survey Insights

    AI driven Survey Insights

    Surveys are the boon (or bane) of modern society to collect information quickly. Millions of surveys are run daily across a range of domains. I personally had participated in 1000s of surveys and constructed 100s of surveys as well. As a survey creator, I often face a few problems In the past decade, survey tools…

  • Book: New Product Development  – A FMCG Perspective

    Book: New Product Development – A FMCG Perspective

    As a consumer, every week, we discover new products. At Microsoft and RapL, I had worked with companies specializing in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). At Starbucks, I observed closely the efforts from across the company to create and release new products. There is intense art and science involved in creating, launching, succeeding, and learning…

  • Opportunities Aplenty

    Opportunities Aplenty

    Last week I had a very interesting conversation with a young and upcoming engineer who I worked with in the past decade. His first input was that there are insufficient opportunities for him. And hence he wanted to go look for a new opportunity. At the surface what he indicated seemed convincing. As I dug…

  • Disruptor 2020: GoodRx

    GoodRx is #16 in the CNBC Disruptor List for June 2020 Purpose: a marketplace for affordable and convenient health care, in particular with pharmacy refills.  Recently, they also added HeyDoctor by GoodRx – for telemedicine, which adds another product line to their business. Through this platform, GoodRx offers $20 family care physician checkups online. The company…

  • Top 50 Disruptors – from CNBC

    Often, news media has been filled with discussions about disruptors. Disruptors embark on a pioneering journey to bring novel solutions to problems. Or at least they find ways to do an existing thing significantly better or cheaper than before. CNBC publishes a list of top 50 disruptors based on the recent performance from private (often…

  • Product Hunt – June 15, 2020

    Product Hunt provides an excellent resource to learn about some of the up and coming ideas. There are 10s of ideas posted and ranked daily. I will periodically read and take some notes about some of the ideas posted here. MainStreet claims to simplify the organization and submission of request for various government grants. The…

  • COVID19 Founder and VC Sentiment

    After economic upsets like the one caused by COVID19, often one looks to Startups as a way to power forward with new ideas and growth. NFX (a VC firm) is conducting regular surveys with startup founders and VCs. Their second survey provides updated sentiment. See https://www.nfx.com/post/vc-founder-sentiment-survey-part-2/ for the details A few things stand out Funding…

  • Smoothies for a Healthy Me!

    Smoothies for a Healthy Me!

    For nearly a decade we have been smoothie fans. On a rainy Saturday morning we were at the usual Costco Store in Kirkland, WA. There was salesperson hawking some fresh colored and textured drinks to us. It tasted delicious, especially when were hungry from long minutes of shopping that morning. He claimed that there was…

  • Considerations for a Coronavirus Testing Website

    Considerations for a Coronavirus Testing Website

    On March 13th, during the White House Rose Garden address, President Trump informed us that there is a Coronavirus testing site under development. He mentioned that Google is developing such a site. It felt like a good choice. Google has US and Worldwide presence with millions of consumers (aka citizens) on its accounts (thanks to…

  • New Bikes to address Air Pollution

    World over mobility is important for people. With mobility, we have the opportunities to learn, work, live, and enjoy life better. Historically over the past hundred years we have had gasoline and diesel engine driven vehicles. These are great for mobility, but come with a cost for the environment because of the high carbon emissions.…