I’m sharing some useful tips that I did not mention in that article.

• Dairy does not mix well with most other foods so plan accordingly. I usually have my major portion of dairy in the morning, an hour after eating fruits, or as a separate meal.
• Fruits take at most an hour to get digested, other foods like grains and pulses take over 2 hours, and some processed food or meat can take 3 hours. Your stomach will feel full or feel empty based on the speed of digestion.
• Classify food as acidic or alkaline (charts are available on various health sites), and eat a higher share of alkaline foods whenever possible. The stomach loves alkaline food so it can break it down easily with less acid. When you eat more acidic food, the stomach has to generate even stronger acids internally to break down the acidic food and maintain the right pH.
• The stomach muscles need space to churn well (no different than a washing machine). Eating 80% of your capacity, and leaving 20% room for churning always helps digestion.
• Avoid drinking too much water just before/during/after meals. Water will dilute the gastric juices. Wait for an hour or so before drinking lots of water.
• SOS – If the situation demands that you break all rules and suspect you may get acidity or heartburn, drink a lot of alkaline water – squeeze a lemon into a glass of water to make it alkaline.

I’ll outline meal options and other helpful ideas as I experiment more on myself. I’ll update this page for those interested. Drop a comment or an email if you have a specific question and I’ll do my best to share my experience around it.

I wrote a piece on the future of education which was published on YourStory.in:

If you set out to reinvent education, what would you do? Would you disrupt the current model of  learning, or would you integrate with the current ecosystem of teachers, schools, and degrees? …  Click here to read the entire article.

When Microsoft was founded, its DNA was built around a simple rule – software solves problems. Software, in the hands of millions through PCs allows everyone to improve productivity. If you draw a connection graph, the first degree connection is to “software”. Hence building and distributing more applications of software is the natural path of progress.

With Google, the DNA was coded in the founding algorithm – make information useful, relevant and accessible. Although Google has always talked about the user being supremely important in this paradigm, I would still argue that ‘information’ is a first degree connection at Google, and user is still a second degree. Searching through  new and never-indexed sources of information, and solving for the “right” answer in the form of ‘related pages, or related advertisements, or related queries’ is the core DNA.  The technically as-right-as-possible answer is more important at Google than anywhere else.

The new breed of consumer Web companies that have challenged the older giants have been founded on the premise that the user is a flexible, distracted, irrational and emotional creature, and befriending him/her will bring out new ways to do everyday things. The user is the first degree connection, and serving that connection is all one must care about, so the product feels right and may not be technically or legally or politically right. (Examples of ‘first-degree’ companies: Facebook, AirBnb, Flipboard, Instagram, Evernote, Twitter.)

When a second-degree company encounters a first-degree competitor, they usually resort to head-on competition as Google did with Google Buzz/Currents/Keep. The problem is that users only cares about visible disruption hence I’m not in favor of head-on competition, which makes one product look like an imitation. I’d be happier to see large companies take a startup-approach where the competitor’s idea is reinvented for a new segment with a refreshing approach (as was done by SnapChat or Tumblr).

This mapping is a useful way to understand opportunities and threats. Ultimately, success is not about being a first or a second degree company. One can argue that Microsoft was multiple degrees away from the user as compared to alternatives today. The important learning is that every new entrant moved one degree closer. Good execution is about being who you are – embracing your DNA and pursuing it for a long time. After all, it’s that original DNA that made a small company into an Apple or a Microsoft or a Google.

An unintended outcome of spending many years at tough problems is an internal bias for bigger and bolder ideas. When selecting a problem to work on or invest in, one may still goof up on many fronts – early traction, trend spotting, consumer behavior, launch timing, funding, and so on.  Yet there’s one trend that I’ll bet on, and it will serve me better than all others. I call it FYF – Five Year Founder.

Preparing the major stake holders (founders, early angels, supporters) for a five-year horizon will benefit everyone more than any other business move. It is not simple to do this, hence it’s not common, and neither is it tactical. It is however supremely effective, survival-driven, and somewhat spiritual. No different from marathon training.

If you’re like me, where you get excited by consumer nirvana, or by disruptive ideas that promise change then you need to consider the FYF paradigm. The statistics will never change on success rates – most of us will merely get to use or talk about products such as iPod, Google, or Wikipedia; very few will get the opportunity to attempt parallels, and only countable few worldwide will create such products. Those countable few will be FYFs. Those who keep at it with a beginner’s mind and a design thinker’s mind.

Whether I invest time or money or belief in something, I want to find the FYF. That’s going to be the big trend that survives all other “big” trends.

All this intellectual talk about angel investing is getting me worried about where we’re headed. For instance questions such as, does angel investing give better returns than other instruments? How do you beat the average ROI? What’s the best way to select or optimize the angel portfolio? 

Are the new angels going to be all smart with no heart? I may be the wrong person to comment on this subject given that I’m spent most of my life on the founder-side of things and been biased by the heart not head, but anyone who has ever created something or ever been part of a meaningful relationship would know that some areas in Life start and end with a different purpose, and are measured differently. I believe angel investing is one such area, and should not be intrinsically driven by economic returns. It’s like tying the decision to have children to economics, or measuring the worth of your marriage, or even more simply calculating return on your vacations. (Did I not mention that people spend more on vacations than an angel or startup accelerator spends on a single startup.)

The best advice I have imbibed on angel investing is on Venture Hacks and is captured in one sentence – don’t do it for the money. I’d rephrase it in a more actionable way – do it to have the children you could not have. Think about the ideas you could not marry but would have loved to if only they had come sooner. Think about the people you did not meet earlier but want to work with, or just start with the thought of bringing something into existence where you’re certain to have fun along the way. These are simple reasons but they’ll help you choose, and they’ll make sure you are the right angel for that idea.

I’m betting that your bucket list is driven by your heart not head. Why should your Angel List be any different?

Why do we visit Facebook as often as we do? Are we really thinking ‘let us keep in touch with friends’ or are we just looking for something interesting to see? I would argue that the verb we’re seeking out is ‘see’ and not ‘read’. Almost as soon as we land on Facebook, we’ll find a photo that will make us laugh, or frown, or even jealous – something to break the monotony of the day. It’s no surprise that the world is flocking to similar services such as Instagram or Pinterest that provide interesting visuals in a social context.

Now where would you go if you don’t want to see pictures of your friend’s baby shower or your uncle’s vacation? What about the rest of the action that you’re not connected to – action that happens right in the middle of your neighborhood, or as far away as in another continent. Visually interesting things happen everywhere, be it in sports, politics, markets, events, or simply everyday life. What is the destination that comes to mind to ‘see’ this action?

A few startups are making attempts to create such a destination but their focus is limited to niche verticals (e.g. handmade items) or certain devices (e.g. iPad). However, no Web giant has made ‘visual’ its primary value proposition to the user. This spot is still available, and if I had a vote in Marissa Mayer’s boardroom I would take that spot for Yahoo.

We’ve all been waiting for Yahoo to do something spectacular, with Flickr, and even with News and Sports and every other segment where Yahoo has a say. There is no doubt that the Visual Web is here and will dominate. The mind blowing photograph is now the preferred mode of starting a dialogue on the Web. If history is anything to go by, then those who start dialogues win BIG (Google with search, or Amazon with Earth’s largest selection).

In my opinion, Yahoo was too late to signal its mobile focus by giving every employee a smart phone, or too late to ‘bring a Web ordered for you’ as Mayer mentioned in her recent interviews. Mobile is an access point and Personalization by itself is not visibly quantifiable. Instead, Yahoo could focus on visual discovery, on visual search, and on photo-creators.

Image search today is far from relevant – if you search for a person’s name, it throws mug shots at you. Yahoo has the technical resources to launch a powerful service for visual discovery and visual search and make that the default choice of users. Moreover, publishers are fed up of SEO overriding their creative decisions. I doubt Pinterest or Airbnb are worrying about SEO. They’re worrying about the awesomeness factor in their photos, and how to create or identify more of them.

Photo creators hold the keys to the Visual Web. A person with a smartphone witnessing something remarkable creates news. Flickr could become the workstation of photographers worldwide. Providing them with beautiful tools for searching, beautifying, publishing, organizing, personalizing, and promoting their work is fundamental to signaling a new Yahoo.

Armed with a focus, Yahoo could acquire products that are visual from day one – e.g. Flipboard or its smaller competitors – thereby reinforcing a simpler vision that users can identify with and applaud.

Gadget, Search, Shopping, Social are taken by the famous four – Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook. The next company to enter the league or to dethrone one of these guys could be ‘Visual’. The world has been unforgivingly asking – ‘What does Yahoo do’? The world needs a simpler answer. As simple as WYSIWYG – Web You ‘See’ Is the Web Yahoo Gets.

I wish for this new picture of Yahoo; it’s not just better, it’s also prettier. And pretty always sells.

Let us look at some proposals – We want to educate kids who have poor access to teachers. We offer technologies that allow self paced learning and individual attention. The product launches and fails to create any impact. Consider another domain such as health – a flute like device which when played will instantly decongest the lungs and help lung patients recover. No pills, no side effects, and based on scientific principles of sound frequencies and lung mechanics. All this wonderful science, and yet the adoption is dismal.

Which begs the question – Why are problems and solutions by themselves not good enough? Because, solutions don’t solve problems. People solve or dissolve problems. And, people don’t change because we offer a solution. In reality, some TBD% of any solution involves changing people’s behavior, even a teeny tiny bit. And making that change happen is a problem by itself, and may often have nothing to do with the original problem.

I have a new framework for presenting and evaluating problems and their solutions. For recall purposes, I have named it VIBBHA.

VISION, INSTINCT, BELIEF, BEHAVIOR, HABIT, ACTION.

We describe the VIBBHA world of our customer. The Problem is not a separate piece, but embedded in our description and has multiple facets which now become evident. What does the customer’s instinct tell him to do? Why is the underlying belief so strong? What are the cues in the environment that trigger a behavior, and how do users feel afterwards? Is the action planned or automatic? The problem could be arising due to a habitual action (or inaction) even though alternative solutions have existed.

Similarly, for the Solution piece, describe the new VIBBHA that we enable. Compare the two VIBBHA descriptions and analyze how different they need to be. Inspect where the change is most dramatic. If beliefs or habits need to change, we must gear up for a tougher ride.

Next assume that people will not change. Can our solution be camouflaged in the environment so that it gets picked up, and brings different outcome even though people are doing the same routines?  We can wrap it in something familiar, or create a new incentive, or possibly change the source of belief by appealing to role models (celebrities or local heroes). At least we now have a plan that accounts for behavioral problems.

If we cannot crack the VIBBHA piece of any problem-solution pair, we should tell ourselves that we don’t have a solution. I struggled with changing user instincts when I was working with technologies for regional languages. I now use this framework when evaluating consumer facing ideas.

This does not mean that one should reject ideas that require people to change behavior. Ask yourself if the problem is worth solving. If yes, then don’t worry worry about failure. Instead, aim to change people, and take inspiration from the many examples of ‘Yes We Can!”.

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This is the follow-up to an earlier post about the function and activities of a Product Visionary.

When an experience ceases to be a novelty offline, it begins to thrive online.
Often, this offline experience has become mundane, unreliable, or just expensive for the consumer.

The early wave of popular B2C (2004-2006) was sparked by job (Naukri) and ticket (IRCTC, MakeMyTrip) companies adding transparency and reliability to agent-dominated businesses of the previous era.

Malls and multiplexes were launched in the same time period. For the first time, masses experienced a new way of shopping, with 100+ brands in one giant space, filled with fast food and entertainment options. The thrill of owning a credit card, or getting instant cash from an ATM, or spending your weekend in a mall had plenty of new takers. The few brave entrepreneurs who launched e-commerce portals during this period were early to market. They were trying to simplify something that was still a novelty offline. No matter how expensive or time-consuming, people still wanted to shop in a mall. Replacing the mall with a brown box and a delivery boy was not palatable.

Come 2008, these novelties had worn off. Consumers were tired of braving traffic, parking, and long lines only to find out that their brand of pajamas was out of stock in the big mall. Some were tired of the branded food chains, and websites offering reviews and local information on niche restaurants now had a wider audience. This resulted in the e-commerce (Flipkart, Jabong, BigBasket) and online banking era we see today.

What will the next wave bring? The Aadhar, mobile payments and BoP revolution is yet to happen. Moreover, the recent flurry of cloud services may signal a new trend. However, there is reason to believe that the underlying pattern will repeat itself – the Web will continue to give new meaning to old things, often providing much-needed relief from the politically motivated inefficiencies in the offline world.
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A note to startups: Launching in the sweet spot of ‘novelty becomes routine’ needs some foresight. Luck has a role to play, but beyond luck, we need to stay in sync with the product’s relative position in the adoption cycle. If you represent a startup that’s ushering the new wave, do write to me so I can feature you in a follow-up post on game-changers.

In a few years from now this title will exist officially. And not because it sounds cool.

What is this function? PV is person or team who understands the consumer better than the consumer himself. Imagine the CEO could go to a shrink for advice on his customer’s mind!

What is the primary activity? Build a strong case supported with experiments to help the leadership decide what to do and what not to do, even if it means saying yes to something that may seem uncomfortable, and saying no to something that’s outwardly practical. The politically correct way of wording this activity – Capturing bits of vision from disconnected sources and taking those through a structured and unstructured process of creation and destruction to uncover opportunities for growth.

Why is this hot or cool? This activity will increase the lifespan of consumer facing (B2C, B2B2C, social sector) companies, preventing premature casualties.

Consider this: An entire space can recreate its existence in a matter of weeks. Last year, the world created more photos that those created across all previous decades. Yet the people who took all these pictures did not change in any noticeable way, and their adoption of this new wave seemed perfectly natural. Psychologists will ascertain that our basic patterns of decision-making or defaulting to old habits have not changed for centuries. Yet there’s change all around us. When evaluating a disruptive startup plan or just a novel growth plan, I constantly remind myself to check if this plan accounts for the fact that billions of socially connected individuals are both changing and not changing at the same time.

One needs to develop what some experts call the opposable mind, one which can simultaneously hold two opposing ideas with equal passion, and develop a superior third idea that opposes neither.

The PV and his team are the opposable mind of an organisation. The rules they live by are different from the rest of the executing team. In a following post, I will talk about a framework I am building to help me structure some aspects of this activity, for example, how should I decide which ideas to champion.

Stay tuned.

If you asked me why I succeeded, I could give you an answer but my answer lacked a framework, so not everyone could apply it to their situation. Now I have a better answer. Thanks to Charles Duhigg and his revolutionary book on the power of habits. This is my answer:

I was good at making plans, and more importantly sticking to them. Once the teacher declared the syllabus and the scope of each topic (my cue), I was good at the following routine,

• making a detailed list of everything that needed to be done to prepare well for this exam
• converting that list into a detailed but easily doable plan that allowed for my capabilities – stamina, memory, speed of reading, note-taking, and distractions
• sticking to that plan or revising it, but always finishing it

The key point is the word ‘doable’, and once good results started coming in, the habit stuck. Sticking to the plan was more important than whether my plan was the best among my peers, or whether my plan had the right stuff in it. In fact, there were times when I discovered reference books or problem sets on the day of the test. Missing some material mattered once in a while, but across all courses it was a statistically insignificant. With every exam (and its results), I got better at making plans. For example, my plan accommodated the fact that I hated Physics – so study when willpower tank is full.

Now imagine if I had shared my plan, or posted it on Facebook (did not exist in the 90s). It would have made no difference. I remember sitting at the back of the school bus and making plans for senior students who requested I put my skill to use for them. Although I personalized the plans for others, they never stuck to them. As Charles Duhigg explains – meticulously making a plan yourself doubles your commitment to it and my experience showed that even a 5% lower commitment results in poorer grades.

For kids looking for academic success, I’d recommend starting with a self-aware plan. But don’t get carried away; the real world needs different habits so be humble and take risks to build real learning.
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Notes: There is a small set of habits that help students do well in school, planning is one of them. For example, some of my classmates were good at making notes, and some were good at studying on a daily basis, while others used group studying to enforce discipline. Typically during the ages of 10-14, one of these behaviors must turn into a habit. Parents need to be attentive and supportive to make it happen. Once the child’s behavior produces good grades, he/she automatically craves this ‘reward’ each time, thus creating the habit loop.