Disqus - Latest Comments for gsharma

Re: Mobile App Notifications Are Horrible. Is There a Better Way?

Gaurav — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 21:36:57 -0000

While trying to find a good solution for smarter Push Notifications we looked into a few companies like Urban Airship & Parse (Push). Recently Mixpanel also launched ability to Push through their product.

The main issue with using these services is that they need to be tightly integrated with the user analytics as well as other internal data. Sending the actual push is easy, but building the logic to send it just right is the core of a smart push notification. IMO, services like intercom.io are better equipped to send better push notifications than stand alone services that just send push notifications. This lead us to working on our own framework highly customized to us to send notifications.

Re: "Never Heard of It, Must Not Be Big" Has Never Been More Wrong

Gaurav — Sun, 02 Feb 2014 18:07:44 -0000

I think the growth acceleration plays a huge role in this. Back in 2000 growing from "never heard of it" to "everyone knows about it" took a long time which gave people to rethink about the product/company. Now, that jump takes a lot lesser time making it hard to discard a product/company.

Re: Andrew Berls | Reducing bad signup emails with mailcheck.js

Gaurav — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:44:32 -0000

This is a great find and write up. However, IMO UX on the hint div is a bit confusing. I was afraid to click on 'gmail.com' thinking it is a link to gmail.com. I wonder if adding the link to whole email address and making domain part bold/underlined will remove that confusion.

Also, depending on how accurate the underline plugin is email can be "auto-corrected" with a revert link next to the input box.

Re: Don’t Try to “Pull an Instagram.” Here’s Why …

Gaurav — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:20:47 -0000

Summary: Don't bet big hoping other person will fold. Make sure you have the right cards to keep playing and the fold is just a bonus.

Re: How To Recruit A-Players – with Jeff Hyman

Gaurav — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:58:50 -0000

Just like Deven, the interview was very well timed for me. Apart from all the great things, a couple of things came out of the interview that I was able to apply and see results:

1. Defining the job very well - Earlier I was not putting much effort into the job description and defining the requirements. There were lot of buzz words (for candidates to search) and wasn't focused. The job description I wrote after listening to Jeff was longer, had very specific requirements and addressed that we are a technical team and like to work with other good developers. With these changes, I can clearly see the difference in quality of developers applying for the position. Some of them took time to address each of the things I mentioned in the description and what their skill level is. This is lot better than getting canned cover letters and resumes.

2. Another thing I noticed that Jeff mentioned several times in the interview is A players like to show off. They talk specifics rather than generic, they will tell you what exactly was their role in a project instead of saying "we built XYZ app". This has been helpful in screening candidates.

It is a must watch for anyone who hires (or will hire) people.

Re: Stop Looking for a Co-founder

Gaurav — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:06:18 -0000

I agree that the product and company must keep going ahead, no matter if you are a solo founder or have co-founders. However, I don't agree that you should pay people to find a co-founder. To me a co-founder is someone who stands by you in good or bad times. You are better off as a solo founder than having a co-founder who will leave the company if you can't make a payroll or can't give raise to the team or if a giant company starts competing with you.

Paid/salaried freelancers can certainly be good founding team members or even co-founders only if they show enough commitment (it has to be both ways.)

Re: Fab Mobile - Even More Data - And, BTW, iOS is Just Creaming Android

Gaurav — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:46:00 -0000

Jason - I am curious if the comparison is between users or visitors (as GigaOm article suggests).

Re: http://www.designstaff.org/articles/how-to-interview-a-designer-2011-12-29.html

Gaurav — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 02:57:34 -0000

Thanks Braden. This is great for someone like me.

Re: Startup Idea: User Retention as a Service

Gaurav — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:33:34 -0000

Michael - Don't remember getting an email from pipewise when I signed up a few days ago.

Re: Never Ask a Busy Person to Lunch. Here’s Why:

Gaurav — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:19:09 -0000

Mark, FYI - "A got an email" -> "I got an email"

Re: Citi NRI Vs ICICI NRI Bank Account

Gaurav — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:05:22 -0000

Manoj,

This post has been up for more than 5 years now and it is indeed surprising that no one from ICICI contacted me.

When I opened my account the minimum amount was waived off for 20 years (I think). There is no need for me to visit Citi branch after the initial form that I filled. I could have avoided visiting the Citi branch altogether the first time as well, but I guess I was too afraid to go the mailing route back then.

Recently, I got a packet from Citi India and when I opened I realized it was a replacement card because my original card was about to expire. There was no need to visit a branch or call anyone or send them signed documents to get that.

Re: How to put a VC in the hot seat

Gaurav — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:39:09 -0000

I think these are great questions that every founder should know the answers to, but I don't think a founder should ask basic questions about their background, fund size, portfolio companies, etc. because they can be easily researched online.

I think asking about their investment thesis and analyzing the size and market of their previous investments can tell a lot about what they are looking for from a company they invest in.

I think it is a great point to talk to CEOs of their portfolio companies. Especially the ones that failed/didn't do well.

Re: How Good Bosses Can Help Smart People Become Smarter

Gaurav — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:38:35 -0000

“I think you can do it and besides, it takes more than eight hours to fly to Paris. All the books and manuals are available…”

I think if a boss shows confidence in the employee more than himself/herself, it speaks a lot. The employee makes sure that they don't let their boss' confidence in them down.

Re: Early thoughts on bo.lt

Gaurav — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:47:04 -0000

I thought about it for a second, but then looked at how much money they have raised and killed that thought :)

Re: http://estromberg.com/post/4778188872

Gaurav — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:52:34 -0000

One thing I'd add is - don't spit out buzz words just for the heck of saying "cloud, nosql, etc". It is OK to say that you don't know about certain technology or term as long as you are open to learn.

Re: How Startups Can Use Metrics to Drive Success

Gaurav — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 02:53:11 -0000

I think that is a great question. A startup in a closed alpha, public beta or growth stages are different and need different metrics and tools. When a startup is trying hard to launch that alpha, it is hard to focus on building custom A/B testing tools for those 20 alpha users. I think it is waste of time.

Here is what I do - throwing in that GA code on the pages barely takes any time. I put it the very first day and start collecting some data. It usually covers most of the use cases that an early stage product needs to measure. As I look at the aggregated data (say once a week) it starts showing patterns. Where the traffic is coming from, what people are doing, where do they stay longer and where they don't. My next step is to create goals/funnel setup in GA based on the patterns and other actions I'd like the users to take. If you are an e-commerce play, it is pretty simple to track all the transactions in GA.

The reason there are not too many people who answer "how to actually go about it" is because the answer is "it depends". Once you have outgrown Google Analytics, it is all about what you are doing and where you need to go. There are several ways of acquiring users for a startup, but you won't know which one works best for you until you try at least most of them. Same goes with metrics and measuring tools when you have tons of data to go through, till then GA is just fine.

Re: Spotify Announces US Launch; Closing European Service To Fund It

Gaurav — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:10:01 -0000

Disqus is back! //My lame comment

Re: Starting Up

Gaurav — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:43:25 -0000

Thanks Rohit and Smita.

Re: Gmail accidentally resetting accounts, years of correspondence vanish into the cloud? (update)

Gaurav — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 21:42:23 -0000

POP

Re: Take An Online Crash Course in Entrepreneurship from The Founder Institute [INVITES]

Gaurav — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:05:02 -0000

Aaron Patzer's talk about how to hire initial team has some great tactics and numbers for salaries and equity!

Re: Getting into the grocery store with Aislefinder

Gaurav — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 19:05:24 -0000

The biggest problem I see with supermarkets is very low signal strength. This is why ShopKick uses custom hardware in-store to interact with the app.

Re: Motorola Xoom price official: $799 unsubsidized on Verizon, $600 for WiFi-only

Gaurav — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:38:18 -0000

I don't think these prices will be sufficient to go against iPad 2. Even though Xoom has more features than iPad at this time, the soon to be launched iPad 2 will be at par if not exceed with the feature set.

Re: +1 Incoming? Google’s New Toolbar Is Rolling Out

Gaurav — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:37:37 -0000

Google is also working on the multiple sign-ons and the new Google apps use regular Google accounts. Can this toolbar be related to that? An easier way to login to all your Google accounts?

Re: How We Raised $1.3 Million as First-Time Founders

Gaurav — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 13:17:07 -0000

Vinicius - I have been reading your blog and must say that you are doing a fantastic job. I would love to know more about "Pivoted to focus on aggregating just daily deals". I am curious to know what made you pivot? Why not keep going with the existing plan and try even harder? Did you hear same thing over and over from customers/investors that "there are too many deal sites and it is hard to keep a tab on each of those"? Or was this pivot one of several things you tried (or wanted to try)?

Once again thanks for adding value!

Re: How To Get Your First 1,000 Users

Gaurav — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:31:05 -0000

I would add measuring how and where users came from to identify what is working and what not. If 400 out of your first 500 users came from Twitter, you know where to put more effort to get the next set of users. Using free, basic tools like Google Analytics should do the job. Perhaps Unbounce takes care of that. You should also use A/B split testing on headlines/titles. I have seen huge increase/decrease of signups just by changing a couple of words in the headlines.