Virtual Scientist

Jan 2017 would mark 8 years of me out of college and about 7 years of following the dream full-time - wanting to connect every institution in the world back to their alumni! That's Awesome!! can be the first reaction. But wait! Is it really? People these days are building startups, raising funding and going places within 2-3 years! “What the hell are you doing?” my best friend taunted me. The question put me in deep thought. As I discovered the connecting dots, I thought it would be good to share them: The journey has been tough, some ups and many downs, but I enjoyed all along the way! When I started, I knew it's not gonna be easy and I was prepared for a long haul. Though I had ideas, I did not have a plan. After spending close to 8 months exploring various thoughts, I decided to work full-time on the idea of Vaave. We started Coherendz in the extra passage space at the guest house of BHUMI (an NGO we volunteered for). The trade off was to manage it for being allowed t

My friend Arpita asked me to do a one day workshop on Web Development at B.V. Raju Institute of Technology, I obliged. But then came the challenge, I had to teach building websites in a day! Everything I learnt in last 10 years is to be taught in 5 hours! It was tougher than building an awesome website. I realized that being an expert at something also calls for being able to explain it to a newbie in a concise & succinct manner. I took up the challenge and started listing down the skills required to build websites. Technical know-how was definitely required. But for someone who is just starting, the most important skill she needs to know is a different one - The Ability to Copy Code! Copying is a Skill! This realization was very profound! It was how I learnt building websites. In my early undergrad days, I was amused with Javascript, I used to go to Internet Cafe, download source files of various demos from dynamicdrive.com and used to play around with them for hours! Fro

This is one of most inspiring poems i have come across written by Harivanshrai Bachchan The poems quotes simple examples to tell that those who try they never fail. The Poem लहरों से डर कर नौका पार नहीं होती, कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती। नन्हीं चींटी जब दाना लेकर चलती है, चढ़ती दीवारों पर, सौ बार फिसलती है। मन का विश्वास रगों में साहस भरता है, चढ़कर गिरना, गिरकर चढ़ना न अखरता है। आख़िर उसकी मेहनत बेकार नहीं होती, कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती। डुबकियां सिंधु में गोताखोर लगाता है, जा जा कर खाली हाथ लौटकर आता है। मिलते नहीं सहज ही मोती गहरे पानी में, बढ़ता दुगना उत्साह इसी हैरानी में। मुट्ठी उसकी खाली हर बार नहीं होती, कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती। असफलता एक चुनौती है, इसे स्वीकार करो, क्या कमी रह गई, देखो और सुधार करो। जब तक न सफल हो, नींद चैन को त्यागो तुम, संघर्ष का मैदान छोड़ कर मत भागो तुम। कुछ किये बिना ही जय जय कार नहीं होती, कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती। Lehron se dar kar nauka paar nahi hoti Koshish karne waalon k

My friends know that I always claim to be 23 years old :D.  Ok here I admit today,  I am 23 since last 7 years. I formally started the company when I was 23 and ever since my age refused to grow. Today, not sure why, I feel a little old, a little wise. I look into the mirror and see the white hair shouting at me – “Oh Paresh, you entered the Thirties”. That left me wondering – how fast the last 10 years went by? I sat introspecting about my twenties and I could connect the dots looking backwards. I stumbled upon website building Couple of months before I entered 20’s , I stumbled upon a piece of article meant for school kids in a newspaper that showed some basic html code and grabbed my attention. I was introduced to Internet a little earlier by my brother. Net connection at home wasn’t available  those days and so I  saved almost every Html & Javascript tutorial I found and carried them home in Floppy Drive (yes the 1.44 MB ones) and practiced at home.  My first website

yes the same seagull in the book “ Jonathan Livingston Seagull ” by Richard Bach that inspires all of us It’s been little more than 5 years since I moved out of college to choose entrepreneurship over placement @ NITIE. I came back to Hyderabad in Jan 2009 with the “Guru” style thought “mai biginess karunga”. Though there were many ideas shortlisted to work on and a little prize money from b-plan competitions, I had no plan laid out. Coherendz was started while in campus and had completed more than 15 projects by then. The idea of alumni portals existed back then, but I wasn’t very particular about choosing a sector. I knew, whatever I work on would be a first step that would prepare me for a long haul, so I started! After 6 months of experimenting with various ideas and decided to pursue building our product – vaave, we setup our fulltime office in November 2009. The first 10 months were so good that made me sometimes wonder why people said: “entrepreneurship is tough”, every

Disclaimer: I know my this piece of scribbling will spark a debate about my personal life, i am writing this post as a continuation of the post on yourstory.in a few days ago http://yourstory.in/2013/03/ys-lounge-10-reasons-why-dating-an-entrepreneur-is-a-bad-idea/  Date in the context is looking forward for long term relationship. Everything said in the post was true, however I felt it presented a half picture so here i go... (replace "he" with "she" and vice versa to match your preference, am not a female chauvinist) Knows the value of time, can create time for you : Prioritizes time differently, an entrepreneur values time so much that feels 24 hrs a day is very less, he has so many ideas and so many things to do that family gatherings or parties do not fall into his priority list, however when you need his time, he has the ability to put aside everything for you. He does not worry about losses while making choices. He has the ability to create time for yo