Entrepreneurship

Money, banking & economy

~ premsagark ~ Leave a comment

Of late, I have been reading quite a bit on economics, inflation, banking, etc. Am listing out a few that I found useful.

1. The mystery of banking

A good resource I recently found also happens to be free (which makes us value it lesser – I have read only 1 book and few other, I just scraped through).  Those are the ones from the Ludwig Von Mises institute – which is a strong proponent of the Austrian school of economics.

Amongst a pile of free books there, I enjoyed reading Murray N Rothbald’s book – The mystery of banking. And I recommend it highly.

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Thick skin

~ premsagark ~ 1 Comment

People will say nice things about you (your startup).

People will say bad things about you.

At times, no one will ever say anything about you.

You will make mistakes.

Things will be up. Things will be down. (Actually, that’s better than things being average).

Just have a thick skin through your journey!

Dude, whats your vision?

~ premsagark ~ 2 Comments

In 2010, I developed an itch.

To do something on my own!

When it grew strong, I simply quit from my job. I had no clue in life as to what I would do next.

There were a few sleepless days – driven by fear of going nowhere. However, the itch was bigger and helped me stay put.

Over the next few months,

  • Tapprs happened.
  • fear of not having a salary disappeared.
  • fear of not being able to do something in life went away.

Things looked bright.

  • Tapprs looked like the light at the end of the tunnel.
  • We crossed 7 figure revenue in reasonably quick time.
  • We resolved a fraud that had almost no information.
  • We turned bolder.

The itch was different now. We were gung-ho about an all-India reach-out plan.

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Books I’ve liked: Personal finance, investing & entrepreneurship

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Every now and then, a friend asks me for a book recommendation, especially on personal finance, entrepreneurship and investing. Not because am an investing guru (which I am not), but because I read a ton of them!

I thought I will note it down here as well.

All these are books that I have read and liked a lot.

Few like One up on Wall street gave me the confidence that I too can be an investor in the stock market, which until then was crocodile infested space to me. Few like Intelligent Investor have been a huge huge help on almost everything finance. Few like Where are the customers yachts? changed my opinion on the stock market quite abruptly and changed my style of investing drastically.

And yet, few like Richest man in Babylon made me realize that simplicity and a principled method matters. A few like Extraordinary popular delusions helped me stay away from making costly mistakes.

Perhaps, there have been a few that have led me astray as well. Rich dad poor dad? Could be!

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Life plan before your business plan

~ premsagark ~ 5 Comments

“Entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on their business plan before they’ve focused on their life plan”.

– Norm Brodsky

I don’t know if I am an entrepreneur yet. But I am glad I read this, because I was on the same path. Focusing too much on the business plan and ignoring the much more important life plan.

Life’s a roller coaster these days!

On days when I have many enquiries, I feel on top of the world. On days when there’s hardly an email or two, things look doubtful. Will I be able to cross last months revenue? What the heck am I doing here? Should I go back to a job? Questions plague me.

My way of overcoming those questions is usually by hitting the gym. Running does wonders to my mood.

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Small steps

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“Think big”, an oft used phrase.

Think big, one should definitely do provided the thinking isn’t beyond means and methods.

And for small ventures, “think big, act small” is more ideal. This part, you and I know already. Many books and articles have been written.

“Think big, act small!”.

We read. We listen. We nod in consent.

Yet, when it comes to doing, we forget!

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Value chain

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Many of us first time entrepreneurs get it wrong.

When we conceive an idea and execute it… most often we get excited and blinded by the greatness of the idea that we fail to study something vital. (Or like in my case, after wanting to start something exciting and not getting any great idea, start something without actually studying vital information.)

That vital thing is value chain. (I don’t know if there’s a better phrase for it.)

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