kivanmaharaj.com

I previously posted that I am currently busy with a startup and hope to get my first product out in beta before the end of June.

I have decided on a very different approach to a startup. Most startups build a product and take it to market with the hope of making it big. I have decided to build multiple projects and take all to market. I have decided to be the incubator of my own startups and see where it takes me.

It seems a bit crazy to take that approach as most would say that having just one product is hard enough to sell, but I think that if you carry only one egg in a basket and you drop it then you start all over again. I prefer the many eggs , many baskets approach. In the short term it may be more to carry but I think that when you reach the destination it will be worth it as there is always the possibility that even if you drop one of the baskets you still reach the end destination with something.

I would like people to comment on this approach as the feedback would be excellent.

Like any good army , the general needs to motivate the troops to battle and currently it seems the general of Yahoo seems like a fallen hero that needs some Red Cross assistance.

Mr Yang, I know you can revitalize Yahoo to former glory but you need  to step up to the plate pickup that helmet and gather the troops into action. There is only one way a war is won and that is through battle whether it be small victories or go for goal. The battle has to be fought either way.

What does Jerry have to loose, as either way at the moment he is between a rock and a hard place.

My strategy would be as follows:

1. Cancel the deal with Google

2. Take a look at where Panama is bleeding and start fixing it immediately

3. Take a fresh salesforce to take to the streets and take no prisoners.

4. Look at new emerging markets and strike will the irons hot. Lock in those customers

with tools and technologies that will help grow their business.

5. Create a reseller tier in your sales arm. That will more then compensate for what

Google looks at offering. Pagebook out of Cisco.

These should stabilize revenues and give the market confidence. Then work on building applications to match Google one for one.

I know most people will say that this is harder said then done but if you don’t try you will never know if you really could succeed.

There has been alot of talk recently with respect to Yahoo and why it did’nt take the money and run as well as why it is doing a deal with Google. Well Yahoo seems to feel that a deal with Google would be beneficial to the immediate bottom line. This is of course true but the long term effect will be the demise of Yahoo as a powerhouse on the internet.

I see the deal as a total score for Google as it has the upper hand in negotiations and can set terms for its benefit. I think that Yahoo should go it alone and restructure its engineering teams into smaller workgroups. Each workgroup should get assigned a product either new or existing to work on with a focus on total integration in mind.

The marketing and sales teams should change their current marketing strategy and focus on developing markets where they can gain ad revenue and push their product to the consumer.

What many don’t realise is that in reality Google is not the interent and most of the world does not use Google. The US market is the largest market for Google both in terms of revenue as well as search. That leaves the rest of the planet open to target.

A good example is Baidu.com which is king in China. Why you may ask ? Well they localise their product designed around consumer in that region. This should form a core part of the sales and marketing strategy. In essence, they should take it back to people. People actually decide who is king on the net. Create brand awareness and encourage developers to build on the Yahoo platform. Incentives are a great way to entice those developers.

In any business money talks and user expierence helps grow that revenue, so do sampling from the developing world and see what they like, what they want to see and how Yahoo can give it to them.

Like a good politician go to the masses and woo them. Take a page out of Obama’s workbook to see how it is done. Perception is 99% the battle won.