Aditya Kothadiya's Blog

Recently I made a mistake while scheduling a meeting with my mentor. I was heavily bogged down in the work (as you can see from less posting in the last few weeks) and almost every day always some important issues or meetings were getting popped up on the eleventh hour. Due to my uncertainty of commitment at a particular time, I notified my mentor that I might have to cancel our potential meeting in case there is some other high priority task pops up.

I knew it was unjustifiable, but I just failed in communicating it in a justifiable way. As an obvious outcome, my mentor did not miss this incidence to give me a positive feedback. He replied to me –

In general, canceling a meeting in the last minute means you introduce an "opportunity cost" in the life of other person. Remember that the other person could have met with someone else at that time. Even thinking about canceling a meeting is something that should not be in your mind. As you meet more powerful people, you will realize that this approach can be costly.

I want the very best for you and hence the $.02 above.

I couldn’t argue with this feedback anymore, and I didn’t even consider giving justification for my mistake.

It was a great feedback, so I am sharing with you all so that you also ponder upon respecting other people’s opportunity cost. 

Note: To read more lessons from my mentors, please visit Lessons from Mentor.

I recently wrote a post on the latest processor architecture innovation – The 64-Core Processor under Innovations category of my blog. When I wrote that post, it made enough sense to me because I am a VLSI Design Engineer and I could relate most of the concepts very easily. But for a lay man reader, it would have been a non relevant post. 

My mentor, Rajesh Setty observed this fact immediately. He suggested me that it was an article that many of my readers can’t identify with -
unless I clearly lead them to see an underlying concept (innovation)
in a lay man’s terms.  I updated that post again to explain the technical background and explain the innovative aspect. I hope that post makes sense to you guys.

What is the lesson learned?
The main focus of this blog is to share my experiences and knowledge with would be entrepreneurs,  recent graduates, students and all others who are interested in understanding day-to-day philosophies. And most of the readers of this blog are from these communities only. Few of them are from engineering background, but many are from non-engineering background as well. Even in engineering community, very few are from VLSI background.

So either I shouldn’t have written much about VLSI Innovations or should have explained it in lay man’s terms. I shouldn’t write something, which my readers aren’t interested in reading, and which they aren’t grasping very clearly if they are interested in reading.

In short, the lesson learned from my mentor is – NEVER lose focus on the blog unless you want to lose your readers.

To read more lessons from my mentors, please visit Lessons from Mentor.

Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs

We have heard that startup means – remarkable product, breakthrough technology, 14/7 work week, less salary, higher risk, etc. When we talk about startups, all we talk about is innovations in product development. But we haven’t heard a lot about startup innovating work culture. The myth is only big corporations care about the “work culture” aspect. The reality is entrepreneurs also do innovate in work culture with their small team, with very busy routine, and with very less money. 

Startup is more than just a career destination. It is a process through, which you cater your passion. You make the rules, create your own hours, select whom you want to work with, and pick what interests you the most in the world. Most likely, if you are passionate about the work, if you are creative in your product, then you will think innovations in your daily work routine as well. 

Nickhil Jakatdar, Founder of Timbre Technologies when started his first company, introduced a revolutionary practice in his company to empower his employees. He believes that organizational hierarchy is a necessity evil, so he had to have a hierarchical organization structure in his company. But that did not provide him an opportunity to create more leaders in his company. So he applied “60-40% Cross Team Responsibility” practice in his startup. The practice requires person A to play 60% a team member role in Project-I and 40% managerial role in Project-II. At the same time, person B requires to play 40% a managerial role in Project-I and 60% team member role in Project-II. This practice allowed each member to give his or her best under other manager’s supervision and at the same time being a manager that person needed to supervise other team members. As Nickhil says, “Initially it took us some time to get accustomed to this practice, but eventually it became our habit and overall environment became more productive and at the end, everybody was a leader!”

This is the best platform to wear multiple hats to learn and grow faster. And that’s the beauty of startup. We are also aware of the work culture practiced by Google — free food for lunch and dinner, free laundry, pets allowed inside your cube, etc. Its amazing to see that they are still continuing all those practices even after they are growing. That’s something very unusual in big corporations. But these innovations were thought of when they were small. 

“Startup companies started a new fad of creating cooler, nontraditional work environments that focus on employee happiness and retention. Various work places I have been at have had perquisites such as game rooms with pool, Football, and video games. They catered meals for a reduced fee; free drinks; massages; weekly beer bashes; and fun company events, from graffiti art day to snowboarding to cruising on the SF Bay to a company-wide Mexican feast with a mariachi band”, says Andrea Jenkins, digital design director in San Francisco.

The point is that we need to think beyond product innovations. Innovations and improvements in work culture are not done yet. There is still some scope for it, and we have to keep a watch on it.

To read more lessons from my mentors, please visit Lessons from Mentor.

Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs, and Recent Graduates.

The common challenges for every young professional, who wants to be an entrepreneur at one fine day, are –   

• How do I start while working for some other company? 
• How long shall I wait for “the idea”?
• How do I get that “the idea”?
• Now I have an idea, but don’t have money. How do I implement it?

I assume that you are working full time with some big corporation for your primary day job. The biggest advantage that you have while working with these big companies is access to more time. And another biggest plus point is, you don’t have to worry too much about paying your bills. 

Yes, any entrepreneur’s dream is to start something which is truly remarkable and innovative and which will change the world. But how long we should wait for that “the remarkable” and “the innovative” idea? 

My mentor, Rajesh Setty advised me that -   

It’s not the coolest idea that you should wait for, it is the coolest execution that you should focus on!

I strongly believe that we being young professionals, can stretch ourselves after our day time job. We should leverage these “more time and more energy” aspects to its fullest. We should get started with implementing some not-so-remarkable idea in our available part time and start getting our hands dirty. It can be a very common idea or a trivial problem or some small project. 

If you have time, if someone is paying your bills, and if you have a passion to start, then I don’t understand what it is which is stopping you from getting started? Ideas are very easy to imagine and talk, but are equally challenging to implement and build. The crux is that we need to get started with something ASAP, if not in full time, but at least in part-time.   

The most important part of work is the beginning. — Plato

The purpose behind this part-time activity is to learn the execution process, understand the team spirit and bonding with our co-founders and feel the heat of implementation challenges. The cool ideas will evolve along the execution phase once we are in the battle ground. Once we start working on some details, contact more customers, learn from advisors, and discuss with industry veterans, the ideas will evolve.

Part time activity is nothing but a reality check to understand that whether can we really implement something and make it working in the real world. Once we can develop this one product or project successfully, we can confidently count on us for solving that next big thing and critical problem. 

Now you might still question that where do I get that common idea or a trivial problem. Or how do I even start in the part time. We can always do some free lancing work, or do some consulting work. Or we can develop some contacts with startup founders who generally have some small projects that they want someone to implement for them in low cost. So finding a problem may not be challenge, but implementing it, surely is. So let’s start executing it ASAP, coolly!

To read more lessons from my mentors, please visit Lessons from Mentor.