As Bill Gates retires, Joel Spolsky has written a great article about what it was like to work for the world’s most successful entrepreneur. It’s definitely a must read article. If you love real stories, you will love this story too.

In this article, Joel mainly talks about Bill Gates’ detailed oriented approach in running a giant software company and his passion to get involved in small technical decisions while running the business as well.

What did I take from all this? Bill Gates was amazingly technical, and he knew more about the details of his company’s software than most of the people who worked on those details day in and day out. He understood Variants and COM objects and IDispatch and why Automation is different than vtables — and why this might lead to dual interfaces. He worried about date and time functions. He didn’t meddle in software if he trusted the people who were working on it, but you couldn’t bullshit him for a minute because he was a programmer. A real, actual programmer.

Watching nonprogrammers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf. Even if he has great advisers standing on the shore telling him what to do, he still falls off the board again and again. The cult of the M.B.A. likes to believe that you can run organizations that do things that you don’t understand. But often, you can’t.

Though Joel strongly gives Microsoft’s success’ credit to Bill Gates’ technical abilities, I tend to disagree with him to certain extent. I think that apart from Bill Gate’s great technical knowledge and passion, he also has very sharp business acumen. And for example, that’s precisely the reason, he could license DOS to IBM though it was originally programmed by Tim Paterson. I firmly believe that just because you can write the code doesn’t mean that you can also able to sell it. You got to have the strong knack to sell the products and make money.

Also, as a counter example, when Steve Jobs founded Apple, he was a nonprogrammer, but he still runs one of the most innovative and successful companies in the world. He didn’t know how to write the code, but he knew how to configure a team which knows how to develop the code. He didn’t know how to design a product, but he knew what needed to be designed in the product. He is a visionary who has a great taste and powerful salesman aptitude. So being a nonprogrammer he could still run and grow Apple to a highly respectable scale.

I think Joel’s view about nonprogrammers is little extreme. Sure, knowing programming and having technical knowledge can give you an unfair advantage over other MBA people, but similarly understanding business world will also give you an advantage over hackers and programmers.

Finding balance and acquiring knowledge from both worlds is the key!

Have a great week ahead!

I think it’s not young entrepreneurs are in rush, but it’s just that their tremendous passion to build something on their own and their excitement to do it for the first time – get portrayed as their act of urgency.

When I ask this question to myself – if am I in rush or not – I find that I’m neither looking for an overnight flip nor in rush to become a successful celebrity. But at the same time, I know that I’m in rush to start the process of starting a startup.

I think even if we want to start a ‘real’ startup say after one year or so, we should just get started today and should not delay the process at all. If we decide to start a startup after one year or so, we may not have many ingredients available at that point of time like team, skills, market, etc.

My point is – why not start working from today only? How about – we start building a team, we start developing skills, we start developing chemistry, we start brainstorming the problems, we start finding the solutions, we start catching the market waves and one fine day – we unitedly decide – this is it – this is what we want to start.

If today we feel that we are not ready to start, then I think that’s ok. But that should not stop us from working with our team on some problems which may be our future dreams. Whatever time available on daily basis – say 2-3 hrs, if we work patiently towards building something meaningful, I believe we will be in a much better position after one year to start something really compelling.

Our main aim right now should be to build a rock solid team, which in future will build a great company. We don’t need to know what ultimate problem we would solve, but at least we will build a cohesive team, which will be capable enough to solve any problem in the future.

I believe that being in such kind of rush is actually a great problem to have. So we should definitely start the process right now!

I was discussing this painful part with my entrepreneurial friend the other day, who is juggling between building a successful company, managing his married life and coping up with his day job. We discussed how hard it is to balance both personal/married vs startup life, and how we should still try to find some ways to manage the balance and achieve our dreams.

James Currier, founder of Tickle gives following advice to someone who is considering starting a startup in a book Founders at Work -

It [starting a startup] is incredibly painful and it will take over your life. If you care about it and if you have any chance of succeeding, you will stop being present for the softer things in life like you family, friends, or dating life. And when you are there with them, you’re not really there with them; you’re thinking about this thing because you’re creating it, and it take that amount of passion to it work.

This is an incredibly truthful advice which is often neglected. When someone advises you about how to start a startup, they never tell you – how painful it is. I understand they don’t tell you this because they don’t want you to get de-motivated by this advice. Optimism is good, but I think if you know the other side of startup dream as well, then your dreams will be aligned to more of a reality world than the fantasy world.

It’s a very commonly asked question. My answer is "Yes". If you are looking for certain specific things, then state it clearly. Why let recruiter keep guessing about what exactly you are looking for?

1 or 2 lines are enough to grab the attention of a recruiter and convey what exactly you are looking for. More importantly, it’s the first line of your resume, and gives you a chance to impress the recruiter by writing a compelling objective.

That brings us to another most commonly asked question – how to make objective of our resume the most compelling one.

Most of the times, I have seen objectives on the following lines only.

A position as a hardware design/layout/verification engineer, in an organization that fosters skill development and enhances analytical insights.

A full time position that helps me gain experience and expertise in the area of Software Development.

The one concern I have with such objectives is, they don’t convey how hiring you will benefit the company. All it tells about how it will benefit the candidate.

Here is how I would write my objective if I am seeking for a job –

Seeking a full time position as a Software Developer in the fields of Internet & Database applications to learn cutting edge technologies and develop awesome products that are aligned with the company’s business interest.

How would you write Objective for your resume? Let me know if you have different opinions or other suggestions. Your inputs will be very helpful for fellow job seekers.

Related Articles:

• How to write an effective cover letter
• How to write an effective resume for job hunting
• Bulleted approach of writing work experience details in your resume

My sincere apologies to those people whom I didn’t reply with my feedback about their resumes. I strongly request them to visit above links because when I will be reviewing your resumes, I will be looking for those suggestions only.

But recently, I reviewed one resume, and I found one suggestion, which is already mentioned in the above linked articles. The suggestion to write an effective resume is –

Do not write paragraphs under your work experience details.
Try to list down your details in the bulleted points. For a recruiter, bulleted approach is a handy and quick approach to grasp important things from your work experience details than a paragraph approach.

Here is how the resume was written before in a paragraph format –

As a Software Developer and Project Leader, I am leading two applications, which mainly involves understanding the existent systems, identifying enhancement requirements, and performing impact analysis of proposed requirements. I am also responsible for estimating the efforts and assigning it to the development team. I am using VB script, JavaScript technologies with SQL Server 2005 for these applications. I am also responsible for the production support of these applications.

Here is how I suggested changing above paragraph format to a bulleted format –

• Role: Software Developer and Project Leader
• Analyzed client’s existing 2 different applications
• Defined new 2 major and 4 minor enhancement requirements
• Negotiated with client on feature scope, schedule and resources, which resulted in more business to the company
• Managed a development team of 3 members for software development efforts
  • Estimated efforts and defined schedules for different tasks
  • Allocated resources to appropriate tasks
• Developed enhancement requests in VB script and JavaScript with SQL Server 2005
• Supported the time critical production issues

I hope that you will find my bulleted approach effective than the usual paragraph approach.

There are many ways to improve how you write your resume. Things that I have mentioned in above linked articles are not exhaustive ones. If you have suggestions or feedbacks about how to write an effective resume then please write your views in a comment section below. I would highlight those suggestions in future posts for the benefits of readers of this blog.

I already mentioned the power of creating to-do lists in regards to getting things done. But getting things done is not the only thing that we want. We also want to complete the tasks in a timely manner. And that’s why our conventional approach of just listing down the tasks in a to-do list is not enough. Here are two important tricks that you can add to your daily to-do list creation process to increase your efficiency –

1. Assign approximate required time to complete a particular task.
You don’t have to be accurate while assigning the required time. Make a reasonable guess.

2. Assign a failsafe action.
Failsafe action is basically deciding what will be your immediate next action item in case you fail to complete the task in required time period. When you fail to complete the task, first you may want to evaluate your progress. If you think you are closed to the completion, then you might want to continue working on the same task. But if you find that you haven’t done significant progress, then you might want to act on a failsafe action.

Example:
If you want to solve a bug, then you would assign say 2 hrs to find the issue. And the failsafe action you will assign to it would be – discuss the issue with supervisor. So if you fail to debug that issue in 2 hrs, and if you haven’t really made significant progress, then you may want to talk to your supervisor and get some hints to proceed with debugging. You don’t want to just keep trying and not measuring how much time you are investing in debugging just one issue.

I hope these simple tricks will help you to get things done in a timely manner.

Have a super productive week ahead.

Passion is a force – sometimes an uncontrollable force – that infuses life with meaning, joy, and even outrage. In any event, passion fosters commitment and determination.
It creates the energy and drive required to do what others think is impossible. Passion is something which creates fire; and it also provides fuel as well.

I have seen highly talented students getting ‘Grade C’ in their courses because of their lack of hard work. And not being passionate enough is one of the main reasons of not working hard. 

Please note that I am not worrying about failures. As long as the passion is there, it doesn’t matter if an individual fails or how many times he fails. I would still work with a person who is passionate enough to learn but failed few times in the past than a successful person who is not passionate enough to learn more. It doesn’t matter for passionate but failed students what other people are saying about them. They will keep going forward, and will eventually achieve the success.

We are aware of the intellectual capital or the potential talent of an individual who is also studying the same course that you are also studying. So we don’t have to talk about that aspect any more. Now it’s the actual passion and energy that someone is putting into his studies that matter the most. Passion is one way which will differentiate you from the rest of the students. 

The bottom line is, passionate students keep moving forward, and keep climbing to the top and make the most of whatever intelligence they possess.

Note: For more articles from this series, please visit – Beyond Intelligence

As I do every year, I had decided some resolutions last year. I couldn’t complete all. I failed in some. I am doing progress in some. And I achieved success on some fronts more than I expected. In all, I think it was a great year. I am satisfied with my activities and progress when I look back at year 2007.

As I said, I couldn’t meet some goals in last year, and this is a perfect time to redefine those goals, and try to achieve again in this year. I am approaching this year with high hopes for a better and more fulfilling life. I am setting some resolutions again in this year.

I think resolutions are a powerful tool to focus and achieve some positive change in our life. If done well and consistently with the right mindset, our resolutions can help us to have a great year compared to last one. It’s okay if we don’t achieve 100% positive change as defined, but as long as it’s a positive change, I’m happy with it.

Here is a list of tips that I learned from Lisa Haneberg on how to create resolutions from her eBook Resolutions –

How to Create New Year’s Resolutions

If you are going to take the time and energy to create a New Year’s Resolution, make it something meaningful, worthwhile, and exciting. This is a perfect time of year to reflect on life and set or recommit to goals that can make a positive difference. This is not a time to beat yourself up over prior unmet goals. Previous failures do not predict future ones, especially when you are focused like a laser beam and unstoppable!

Characteristics of a good resolution

1. Resolutions should be big and inspiring! This is not the time to wimp out or get conservative. Making a resolution come true takes a lot of work so it should be something you can get excited about and will make a big difference in your life.
2. Your resolution should apply to YOU. A resolution should state a personal goal for development or accomplishment.
3. Your resolution should be something you are seriously interested in creating, even if the work will be hard, uncomfortable, or require life changes.
4. Your resolution should be challenging, but doable.
5. The best resolutions will provide your life with greater meaning while allowing you to contribute to others more fully.
6. Good resolutions can be easily explained in a sentence or two.
7. Your resolution needs to be measurable. You should be able to define success.

Once again, have an exciting and challenging year ahead!

I’m not talking about learning skills from one project and applying it to another project. Irrespective of the nature of two project domains, if we work diligently and responsibly on one project, I think we tend to achieve better results on another project as well.

I’m talking about the passion to achieve best performance, the confidence we gain by accomplishing small tasks or milestones, the discipline and sense of time management we develop by executing multiple projects efficiently, the vision we develop to foresee what’s coming to us and plan accordingly, and the sense of loyalty and feel of satisfaction that we are executing our job responsibly.

I’m talking about the cascade effect. They are of two types – the positive and the negative cascade effect.

If I slog well during my day time job, I tend to produce more code when I go home for my part time project. If I produce more code in the evening, I tend to help my wife happily in cooking and doing dishes. If I help my wife in daily household stuff, I become more satisfied and tend to think more positive. When I think positive, I tend to generate more ideas for my projects, for my blog and also for my book. And the positive cascade effect continues…

Same is the case with negative effect. If I screw up in early phase of my day, I continue to be less productive for all future tasks in a day.

The conclusion is obvious. Whatever project or task we are starting our day with, let’s start it with bang! Let’s give our best shot to whatever task we are doing. The positive cascade effect will help us to achieve more by the end of the day.

Have a positive cascading effect!

This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing how few oil people really understand that you only find oil if you drill wells. You may think you’re finding it when you’re drawing maps and studying logs, but you have to drill. — John Masters

That’s why I said, if you have some idea that you want to start, just drill it. Don’t worry about not having related prior experience or competency. Don’t worry about the domain knowledge. Don’t worry about what’s your day time job and what’s your part time startup require. There are tons of ways to acquire that knowledge and get started.

If you are a biz-dev types of a person, then don’t fear to make your hands dirty and crank out some code. If you are a hacker types of a person, then don’t hesitate to attend few networking events and talk to few people about your idea and getting guidance from them.

Believe me, it’s not just some "theory" advice. I’m doing it. And it’s not a big deal. It’s possible. Just start drilling it, and then just keep doing it. Don’t give up, until you find oil!